Our good friends Phil and Jonathan have spent a year across the pond and we couldn’t pass the opportunity to visit them (we’ve really missed them in DC) and of course take advantage of a free place to stay.

Going into London we naïvely had no worries or concerns. They speak English, we knew things would be expensive and they do tea in the afternoon – what more did we need to Google-search before we went? We also knew our priorities for the visit would be simple: spend time with friends, ride a double-decker bus and drink tea with small sandwiches as a snack. OH and enjoy traditional pub fare. Live like the locals, right?

We were also pretty confident in our word-traveling-chops. Having flown across the ocean before, we knew not to make the same mistakes and arrive either exhausted (as we did in Italy, 2013) or hungover (as we did in Copenhagen, 2014). This plane ride we limited ourselves to exactly one movie and one glass of wine. It was sadly uneventful but we did arrive somewhat ready for a day of touristing.

Thank god, too. The Tube line we needed to take to get to Wimbledon was down when we arrived so we quickly needed to figure out the bus system. The bus we needed was a double decker (!!) – check that one off the list! We were also on a time-crunch as Phil told us we were doing tea on a yacht and needed to meet Jonathan on the boat by a very specific time.

I was NOT going to miss this yacht-tea-event. Unfortunately the bus took for-freaking-ever to get around town. After about 30 minutes of weaving around narrow London streets I had had about enough of my double-decker experience and was ready to move on to the next item on my list. A few Dramamine pills later we were walking the streets of Wimbledon (note: it’s a neighborhood AND a tennis facility) on our way to the apartment.

Heading to the yacht, Kyle and I were panicked. We were definitely running about 10 minutes late and the assumption was that Jonathan was about to sail off for tea-time without us.

And you know what they say about assumptions … it turns out the yacht doesn’t actually sail.

Also, as you can tell from the photos, tea time in London is properly amazing. A perfect way to start this #ZellerTrip!