London Travel Diary

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Hello my darlings!

I hope all of your week’s have kicked off to a great start! I hope you’ve already seen my travel vlog of our trip to London & Paris from over the holidays (if you haven’t, it’s at the bottom of this post too!), today I finally finished putting together all of our London photos! I’m so happy with how these turned out, it’s such a beautiful, colorful mess to scroll through 🙂 — I put up a video about my entire camera collection that I travel with, so if you’re looking for gear details please check that post first!

We traveled to Europe with another couple – Waseem & I have been to both cities before so our trip was pretty chill. We ate a lot, went out a lot, and just spent wonderful quality time together. Most of this post is from the one day Waseem and I properly went out sightseeing – let’s get to the photos & I’ll chat as we go!

We had a quick day in London before Paris and stayed in South Kensington. I loved the neighborhood, it was super charming, safe to walk around at night, & made for great photo opps during the day!

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I got sooo many questions about these mules! They are by Vince & are so comfy! I wanted them in tan but was so late on the train looking for these. There are a couple size 11s left at Nordstrom Rack but that’s about it :-/ But here are some other great mules I found below..

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One thing we really loved about the UK was seeing how mainstream SouthAsian culture is there! Who freakin knew that chicken tikka masala was invented there and is the national dish?!?! Ok ok.. apparently a lot of people know but we didn’t *mind blown* – hello, they even have a chicken tikka masala sandwich at Subway (& it was delicious!). We headed to a restaurant everyone was recommending to us, Dishoom, in Covent Gardens on a whim and there was a line out the door. I have never in my life seen a line for a Desi restaurant lol! It was so long that they weren’t even allowing more people in line so we headed elsewhere womp wompp. We planned ahead of time later in the week and were able to get a table for lunch! The place was chic and the westernized Indian food was a great experience & so yummy!

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We spent a day of obligatory sight-seeing up and down Westminster Bridge. The weather was absolutely awful and really put a damper on my mood. I was cold, uncomfortable, still a little sick from a cold I caught in Paris, and just generally peeved thinking I wouldn’t be able to take any good photos. But then the lights came on… 🙂

Gloomy London is absolutely gorgeous by night, the cold blue-grey color palette + the warmth of lights over the gothic architecture of parliament is simply magical. It was consistently rainy and dreary during our 2012 trip as well so if you make a trip out and the weather is depressing, wait for the lights! I wish we knew last time, it’s worth the cold night.

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Palace of Westminster commonly known as the Houses of Parliament

“Hey look kids, there’s Big Ben & there’s Parliament.. again!” – name the movie 🙂

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A view of the London Eye while crossing the bridge

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For New Years Eve dinner we got in our fix of Fish & Chips at The Mayfair Chippy with our friends we were traveling with and some old-new friends! Fahmida (girly in the middle!) & I have been e-friends since highschool when we had Xanga blogs 🙂 it was amazing to finally meet and ring in 2016 together over a decade later! Check out her blog: www.londonlife.me/

We had the best Fish & Chips ever at dinner!!! I don’t know if it was the fish or the sauces but oh my gosh I’m still dreaming about them!

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xoxo