London: Day 1

Bich -- after a 75-minute delay, leading to some dinner and wine near Brooke's office in Union Square -- made it to JFK for a late-night flight Dec. 23 and (of course) wasted time with a little flight-jitter drinks ... where (about five minutes after this pic was taken) Rich realized he'd lost his passport.

Fortunately, it was at security, where he'd left it. Lord.

But after the world's most uncomfortable flight -- seriously, Virgin Atlantic, you make Continental/United economy feel like first class -- we arrived in London for Christmas Eve.

Here's where we stayed, in the Bloomsbury section. Radisson Edwardian Kenilworth, you rock!

Our first stop was to get Rich an old-fashioned shave: hot towel, cream, straight razor, the whole nine. He was a hairy dude when he stopped by an iconic phone booth ...

(On our way to Pall Mall Barbers)

Rich, getting pampered

Brooke likey.

With the hair gone, it was time for the

CHRISTMAS EVE PUB CRAWL!

French House, in SoHo. House rule: no cellphones, no music, no TV ... but the conversation was plenty loud. Quite a few famous writers have made this pub home over the past 100 years or so.

Next stop: The Dog and Duck, most famous for serving a certain George Orwell.

  

Convenience store stop, with a curiosity: Budweiser in the United Kingdom.

And, of course, no city would be complete without a Chinatown.

 

Christmas carols in Chinese.

A quick snack of pork buns (for Brooke) and chicken buns (for Rich).

Next up: the Porcupine. Another Nicholson pub, as we discovered; it was sort of the McDonald's of pubs, but every pub's atmosphere was different and maintained its old, friendly feel.

Rich, finishing Brooke's cider while she takes pics outside

We only briefly stopped near Covent Garden, long enough to catch people around the tree and doing some very-last-minute shopping.

  

After walking, walking, walking -- we felt a lot of pressure every night on our trip to find the "perfect" place to eat or drink -- we stopped at the Angel & Crown.

Rich found this little gem of a beer, while I had a glass of sparkling.

And then we had this amazing meal. With sides of creamed Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, turnips and chervil, and yummy bread, Rich tucked into braised rabbit with grain mustard, faggots (oh, grow up), bacon and peas, while Brooke had pheasant and partridge pie with roast bone marrow.

Holy cow, was this good.

Time for our walk back home, where we discovered Seven Dials, the convergence of, um, six streets. This became a bit of a mental landmark for us as we walked London, and it was beautifully decorated for the holidays.

A few blocks from our hotel, we looked around at the old streets, Victorian architecture mixed with modern restaurants and shops and cafes, and decided to take a picture.

Yeah, we're pretty lucky.