Balancing Tourist and Local: Friends in Londontown

When we have visitors in town, we try to show them a good balance of the touristy stuff while also doing things that we actually do living in London. A great example of this is last week, when my college friend's, Molly and Jared, came to visit us. They live in Denver and had planned a two week European trip, so they made stop in London for five days before heading back home.

During the days, Molly and Jared would hit the big sites - see Buckingham Palace, visit Westminster, walk the city, get lost in Harrods, etc. But at night we would do something fun together after work.

On Tuesday evening, Aaron had a football (soccer) tournament through Russell at the Arsenal stadium. Arsenal is a Premier League team with a huge stadium. We were able to watch the tournament comfortable while enjoying drinks and food from the VIP box. Even though they didn't win, we had a blast watching him play. And afterwards, we got to meet a retired player from Arsenal, Martin Keown, who (accidentally) signed a few programs for us.

Wednesday night we had Italian food and saw 'Let it Be' which is the Beatles Musical. It's basically like watching a Beatles cover band in a theater - all the hits sung by people who actually look like the Beatles. It was good, but didn't give much of the history of the Beatles, so I found myself reading John Lennon's Wikipedia page for a good portion of the night.


Thursday night we had a local night and hung out around Fulham : ) We went to one of our favorite pubs that has a beer wall - pour your own beer tastings! After, we headed to our local Thai BYO restaurant (bring your own alcohol... makes dinner much cheaper!) Finally, we ended that night at our local pub, The Captain Cook.

Friday night they met me in Canary Wharf and we took the river boat back into the city. We headed to Gordon's Wine Bar for a quick drink, explored a local London 'pop up' city market and then went out to an amazing Indian dinner with a few other friends who were in town. 

It was so good to see friendly faces and be able to show them not only London but our life here too!