Valentine's Weekend in London

We escaped the snow for lots of rain and strong winds to venture to London for Valentine's weekend. Tyler had an all-day summit on Monday so we took the liberty of taking Friday off and flew out miraculously on Thursday night. We were only delayed by one hour (and not due to weather) and couldn't believe it given how much snow and rain we got on Thursday. We arrived Friday morning and were able to check-in early, grab some lunch and explored, took refreshing naps and then went out for a really nice dinner at Franco's. After dinner, we decided to take our chances in the rain/wind and walk by St. James' Palace and Bunckingham Palace, which was really fun!

Saturday, we slept in, grabbed breakfast, and ventured over to Notting Hill to walk through the Portobello Market. Tyler and I love exploring markets and really enjoyed all of the vintage stalls and shops. Because we were on vacation, we headed back to take quick power naps before heading to high tea at the National Portrait Gallery. The gallery not only has great art, but the restaurant has really cool views of the city. We felt very British with our high tea and enjoyed the paintings, including Kate Middleton's portrait. From there, we headed down to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey before heading back to the hotel to get some work done and possibly take a second nap (clearly we were exhausted)! We then headed out for a late dinner at the most amazing Indian restaurant called Chor Bizarre; it was the best Indian food I've had since visiting Delhi!

Sunday, we slept in (shocker!), and grabbed coffee, and headed out to East London to visit my cousin, Amy. She was so sweet and took us to brunch followed by a series of markets including this beautiful flower market. After hours of enjoying the first sun of the weekend, we headed back to our hotel to back up and check into our new hotel for Tyler's meetings. We enjoyed an easy dinner out with one of Tyler's coworkers and called it an early night as Tyler had his big meetings and I had to fly out. It was such a great weekend and we're already trying to figure out how we can take more trips to Europe since we're a lot closer than California!