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May 22, 2015 - 11:53 a.m.
"it's just a potato darling"

5/21/15 7:49pm BST

Hey Journal!

This morning we got up at about 8:00 and headed to find some breakfast. We had to clean up around the flat a little because our AirBNB host messaged me to let me know he needed to come by and get some things out of his closet at some point during the day.

We took the tube from Knightsbridge to Oxford Circus and then walked to the BBC Broadcasting House to find the meeting spot for our tour. We were really early but once we had located where we had to go, we went in search of a place for food. We looked at a couple of places on foursquare and then settled on this little cafe down the road.

This is where one of the most amazing coincidences happened. We looked at the menu before going inside and decided they seemed like they had a good Full English Breakfast! It actually turned out to be great. The food was amazing.

Anyway, the woman there was nice but very busy serving all of the tables in the place. She took our orders and then was walking around talking to people at other tables. We heard everything she was saying and, as she was talking, my head was all confused! Her voice sounded sooooo familiar! I told Dan that she sounded like the woman who says, "It's a potato, darling!" in an old phone call on the Scott Mills show. I was almost certain that she sounded the same but equally as certain that there was no way it could be her. There have to be tons of women with that kind of accent!

Then, although I hadn't heard her say it before, she started calling everyone in the restaurant "darling!" I was like..."Dan, this can't be a coincidence!" I quickly looked up the old podcast in an archive online and listened for the part with her call. It DID sound like her a lot. Luckily, when they called this restaurant, they were talking about a menu item. Dan pulled the lunch menu up on his phone and then I listened to the rest of the call. It was the "Bosco Real!"

Sure enough, there it was on the menu...and we were now certain that SHE was the famous "it's a potato, darling!" Woman! How amazing! It was literally the highlight of our day!

The next time she passed by, Dan and I explained what we had just realized. We told her that we were from New York, had heard that show in February, and realized right away... she said "for the Scott Mills!" In her great accent. Turns out, she's from Poland and Dan told her his last name and that got us off to a great start with her.

I really wish I had gotten a picture with her...or even better...a video!

Anyway, we finished eating and headed out! We had to get to our tour which was at 10:30.

We arrived, got checked in, and then waited for the tour to begin. I was a little disappointed in this tour because it showed absolutely nothing of interest. It was so lame. We had taken this exact tour before, before the new section of the building opened. I was hoping that the new tour would show off the new building, but it did not at all! In fact, it showed even less of the old building, too!

We were in a tour group with a bunch of Scottish students who all had their names on the shirts....like Dixie, and Niall, Reece, and Hutchie. Some of them were pretty funny, especially when we did the mock radio show at the end of the tour!

It was really quick. Literally the only part of the tour that I found interesting was the part where we looked into the BBC Newsroom. That could have been done without even taking the tour, though. The guides were really nice, and the guy was super funny. It wasn't their fault the tour sucked... they just don't take you anywhere good!

After the tour we walked down to Oxford Street to see this Selfridges department store that my grandma is all excited about. She apparently watches a TV show that has this store in it, and she wanted me to go there and see if I could get something with the name on it. Unfortunately, it was kinda like a really over the top Macy's and they didn't really have anything that was a souvenir from the store itself!

We walked to Marble Arch and then took the tube to Queensway. We went to McDonald's and I got a frozen lemonade drink. Then we went to a Sainsbury's and Dan got a sandwich meal deal.

We walked back to Kensington Gardens and we hung out on a bench for a while and just enjoyed the beautiful weather. It was such a nice day out.... Today I wore long pants and a short sleeve shirt.

They opened part of the palace for tour and stuff but the tickets were really expensive and we weren't super interested in going inside anyway. We did go into the lobby area and also used the bathroom there, though.

We spent some more time walking around the park and then took the Underground to Embankment and took some pictures over by the London Eye, Big Ben, and the houses of Parliament.

After that we were pretty tired and wanted to head back for a nap. We took a bus to the stop near Gloucester Road and went to the Sainsbury's again. We picked up some more waters, a couple of boxed ham sandwiches, and also got some alcohol for tonight.

It's amazing... here, they sell cranberry & vodka premixed in these convenient little cans. I really wish we had these back at home!

I was starting to feel kinda rundown since we hadn't eaten and had been walking around all day. It was so beautiful today, though.

We got back to the flat around 5:00 and we took a nap until 7. When we woke up, we showered up and had plans to meet Julio around 9:00.

5/22/15 11:53am BST

We took the tube to Leicester Square and met Julio at a bar. He invited a bunch of his friends out and we had a fun time. Richard, who we had met just a little over a year ago at Julio's going away party in NY was there, and we met some new people like Tom and Loren.

We had a couple of drinks there and then moved to another bar. Here, we hung out at a table and sat down for a bit. It wasn't as loud and crazy as the other bar. We talked to everyone and had a chance to get to know everyone. Richard took over buying everyone drinks so that was cool. It would have gotten pretty expensive pretty quickly!

Our final stop for the night was Heaven. We have been there before on our other trips to London but this was a totally different experience because of everyone we were with. It was so funny watching everyone do their thing and be all crazy there. The bathroom attendant was ridiculous he was basically instructing me to tip him after I washed my hands and I had to tell him No! Such ridiculousness! I hate bathroom attendants but usually they only make you feel uncomfortable subtly, this time he was outright demanding a tip!

I just don't get it! I can kinda see why they would want to have attendants here because they want to make sure that people don't do anything inappropriate in the bathrooms, but I can't understand why some catering places at home have them!

Here's the weird story of the night.... When we got to Heaven there was this guy in our group and I was talking to him a lot. He was really friendly and nice, and like everyone else that was hanging out with us, I thought he was a friend of Julio's or a friend of someone else in the group! After talking with him for a long time, he left to go to the bathroom and when he came back from he said something (not sure what it was) that prompted me to ask him how he knew the people we were with. He said he didn't! He said he had followed us from the other bar! He was still pretty nice so I tried to keep talking to him a little so he didn't feel awkward with our group. Then, all of a sudden, he started to get really demanding and told everyone he wanted to go into the other room. Tom told him he didn't want to go because all of our friends were here. Then, he tried to pull me and Tom to go with him, and we were all like "NO? We're with a group of people and they're all in here!" After that he disappeared, I think he got pissed that we wouldn't leave, and I have no idea who he is or what his name was! So strange!

Anyway, we had a really fun night. We drank a lot but I didn't feel very drunk. I think it was spread out nicely throughout the evening! All of a sudden at about 3:00, people started disappearing. Julio went off with somebody and Richard did, too...I think! It was just Tom and Loren and us left. We hung out for about another 30 mins at then at 3:15 we called it a night!

We walked to Trafalgar Square and caught the night bus to our flat. We had JUST missed the first one and had to wait about 15 minutes for another. It wasn't terrible, though.

When we arrived back, we got ready for bed and had some cereal and then we got right to sleep! It was about 4am!

I'll be back later with another update! Now we're planning to just do a little more sightseeing!

Adios for now. :)