Weekend in London

For my office’s 15th Anniversary, they flew all of us over to London for night. We stayed in Soho in the heart of the posh district of London. We had enough time on Saturday to catch a nap to sleep off Friday’s hangover and do a bit of shopping before dinner. They paid for all 83 of us to stay in a 5-star hotel, have a fantastic meal, and an open bar until midnight. The speeches were kept to a minimum, and the drinking to the maximum. Tullia, my little Italian friend, just loves taking photos, and somehow she ends up in a lot of them like the one of her, Karen and I.

My team sort of sticks together so of course we all ate together, laughed together and moved on to the dance club together. Sean is always taking the piss out of me at work, and Ruth, Tullia and Edell are on my team as well. When we headed out for the night we got lucky that the club was only a few streets over. Since there is nothing quite like walking on cobblestones in 6” spike heals, but I looked fabulous. We dance and partied the night away, but by 3am I was partied out and help escort a coworker back to the hotel. The club closed at 4 and everyone came back to party in the lobby until 6 with the red wine still flowing. I am glad that I stayed clear of that, since I wanted to be functional on Sunday. England goes smoke free July 1st and I am really looking forward to that. I have been spoiled in Irish pubs with the no smoking ban. I felt like I smoke 2 packs myself the next day.

Sunday morning after a huge breakfast, Claire, Catherine, Karen and I headed out into the tourist world. Catherine knew London very well, so we just followed her, I love having a built-in tour guide. We had enough time to do one thing, so we headed towards Buckingham Palace and St James Gardens. Now that is a palace! Lizzy was not out to wave at us though. It was about 80 degrees out, no clouds, slight breeze. There were no guards with the fuzzy hats since it was so hot out, which made me sad since I wanted to see them. We could start to feel our sunburns kick in, so we grabbed a cab and headed back to the hotel to get back on the bus, to head to the airport. All in all, it was a great little weekend getaway, great chance to get to know my coworkers and see a bit of England. I left wanting to see more, I cannot wait to go back in a month!