First Visitor!

We hosted our first London visitor Andy Stites, a friend of ours from St. Louis.

The primary purpose of Andy’s visit was to attend a Liverpool football (soccer) match in Liverpool. The match was on Sunday and Andy arrived on Thursday giving him plenty of time to explore London prior to the match. Unfortunately, Shane and I were unable to take off work so Andy was on his own during the day but we were able to make up for it during the nights.

On Thursday, Shane and Andy saw Mumford & Sons at the O2 arena.  This arena is huge and it was sold out with over 20,000 people.  A little different from when Shane and I saw Mumford in St. Louis 4 years ago at a venue which had a 2,000-person capacity.  However, the band is from London so the crowd was very lively and sounds like it was a great show.

On Friday, we went to dinner in Covent Garden. Covent Garden is in central London and has a ton of pubs, restaurants, shops and theaters. Our dinner reservation wasn’t until 20:45, so we grabbed a pint before. We went to The Lamb and the Flag which is a pub rumoured to be where Charles Dickens frequented. The pub is located off a side street/alley and is very quaint. It was packed when we arrived, with the overflow outside in the street in front of the pub.

We had dinner at Belgo Centraal and ordered from the Christmas Menu. A Christmas Menu is a pre-fixed, three course, slightly discounted menu that a good number of restaurants in London have during the month of December. We sat in the Bier Hall part of the restaurant which is an old cellar that the restaurant remodelled. There was also a huge Christmas party going on that night which made things very lively.

On Saturday afternoon, we paid another visit to the Winter Wunderland. We had to share the craziness with Andy. Needless to say, after back-to-back visits to Winter Wunderland, we’ve experienced it more than enough.

We had dinner in Chinatown Saturday night. The restaurant we ate at was extremely tiny; tiny space, tiny tables, tiny chairs.  Only 20 people or so can be seated in the restaurant at a time and people line up outside to wait for a table. The food was traditional Northern Chinese. It was very different from the ‘American Chinese’ of the crab rangoons, eggrolls, etc. and it was very delicious.  

After dinner, we grabbed a pint and then headed south of the river to celebrate our friend Ben’s birthday. Ben moved to London from the U.S. after he graduated and has no plans to move back. We met Ben through multiple friends during one of his visits home and he has been extremely helpful in getting us acclimated to London.

Sunday was the highlight of the trip for Andy, the Liverpool match at Anfield. Liverpool is a three-hour train ride from London so Andy and Shane were up early to catch their train and arrived in Liverpool a few hours before the match. The boys went to a local pub before the match which was packed with supporters.

The boys sat in the “Kop", which is where the rowdy fans sit and sing chants throughout the match.  Given that Andy lost his voice the next day, I think they had a good time!  Liverpool was able to draw West Brom with a final score of 2-2. Liverpool needed a late goal in the 5^th minute of extra/stoppage time to tie it up.  Below is a video Shane took of the famous song they sing before the match starts.

Andy’s last night was on Monday and we had a relaxing dinner at an Italian restaurant in Camden Town. He flew out Tuesday morning and arrived back safely in St. Louis that night.  Thanks again for visiting, Andy – we miss you mate!