Untouristic in London

A few weeks ago, I turned 31.  I've been lucky the last couple of years as my birthday has fallen on or around Whit Sunday & Whit Monday which are public holidays in Norway resulting in long weekends perfect for a birthday getaway.  We tossed around a few ideas as to what to do and where to go but left booking anything until mid-May.  When we finally got around to seriously planning, the prices of flights had doubled on our original itinerary so I jumped on Skyscanner, put in our dates and chose 'anywhere' as the destination.  London was the cheapest so London it was.

We had visited London last year in early Spring and were pleasantly surprised by the city but our stay was short and there was certainly a lot of the city we didn't experience.  Despite an abundance of sites and museums to visit, we did practically nothing a typical tourist might do in the city.  We didn't catch a glimpse of Big Ben.  We didn't saunter by Buckingham or peruse the V & A.  The only time I saw the Thames was from the airplane.  In fact, I left my camera in the hotel room for two of the four days we had in the city.

However, we did love exploring Marylebone, the neighbourhood we stayed in.  We spent some time in Regent Park and trekked up Primrose Hill for views of the city (pictured above.)  We took in The Book of Mormon in the West End and laughed so hard and picked our jaws off our chests at the highly inappropriate jokes.  We shared a lovely breakfast with Jess at Le Pain Quotidien; we got completely overwhelmed by Harrods and we took the tube out to suburbia for a little shopping, North American style (i.e., in a mall.)  We made our way through the market in Camden and bought fudge and frozen lemonade.  We wandered through Covent Garden and we traveled by train to Bath for a day.

While we might have been terrible tourists, it was nice to just be in the city without thinking about checking things off a list.  It felt less like travel and more like regular life.

Regular life as a 31 year old.

The Details
-For the second time, we flew direct with Norwegian to Gatwick.
-We stayed at Dorset Square Hotel.  It was lovely.  Designed by famous English designer Kit Kemp, each room was unique.  We liked the location - close to 2 tube stops, an easy walk to Oxford Street & Regent Park yet quiet and residential feeling.