Notting Hill - CHECK!

I can put check marks next to Paris and London on my Bucket List, and now I can also check off Notting Hill. Our London hosts gave us a free day all of Saturday so we spent it the best way we knew how -- a visit to a little London neighborhood, Notting Hill, filming site of one of our favorite movies, aptly named "Notting Hill."

Saturday was the perfect day for a visit to Notting Hill because it was market day on Portobello Road and all the street vendors were out selling clothes, jewelry, paintings, homemade crepes -- you name it, they were selling it. Kelli bought an oil painting of a red phone booth in front of Big Ben. It's all in black and white, except the red phone booth. It was painted by French students in Paris, so that was kinda cool because we were just in Paris.

For lunch, we stopped at George's Fish Bar in Notting Hill. We had another place in mind, but when we stopped a local passerby to get directions, he recommended George's instead. So we took his advice, and glad we did. It was really good. I ate the fish the way that the English do -- with vinegar. Sounds weird, but it was pretty good. We had chips (fries) on the side, as well as a traditional English side, mushy peas. They were exactly as they sound, mushed up green peas. Not too bad, once I added some salt.

          

Part of the reason we went to Notting Hill was to find the bookstore from the movie. In the movie, it was called the Travel Book Co but we knew that was a fictitious name, but we weren't sure what the real name was. So we ventured into a map store, seeking a friendly local that might let us in on the secret. So we started up a conversation with the map store owner/employee about Texas maps. They didn't have any in stock (we pretended to be disappointed) then we had him just where we wanted him, and broke the question: "So do you know where the book store and the house from Notting Hill are located?" He was kind enough to tell us exactly where, and off we went, with the disappointment of not leaving with an antique Texas map. :(

We found the Notting Hill Bookstore, which is the store that inspired the movie. It wasn't filmed in the actual store, but a replica was created in an empty retail space a few blocks over (which is now a shoe store). Kelli and I had to go in and find a book about Turkey (watch the movie, you'll understand), and of course the Notting Hill book.

Then posed for some quick pictures outside the store front as well. (Such groupies!!!)

 

We also tried to find the house with a blue door. We took pictures in front of several rowhouses that we thought might be it. Turns out later, we were on the right street, but didn't get the right house. It no longer has a blue door. Oh well. We tried. Guess we'll have to go back to Notting Hill some day to get the right house.



After a long day in Notting Hill (and a yummy street crepe, served like my Granny O'Connor used to make them with butter, sugar and lemon), we headed to Big Ben to find the famous red phone booth. And we found it! And so did the rest of London. It's probably one of the most photographed spots in the city. We had to wait in line for our turn to take a picture in the phone booth.

After a couple quick pictures, we got back on the Tube (London's underground subway system) and headed back to the hotel. We had more planned for the day. At 4:30, the wife of one of the guests that also won this trip was putting on a solo cello concert for us. They scheduled it at the same time as "High Tea" so we got to listen to a live cello concert while enjoying tea and snacks. The music was beautiful and the tea, cookies and sandwiches were a delicious afternoon snack before our long night of Paralympic events.

Michelle (famed cellist - she gets hired to do the background music for movies and video games - most recently, "Call of Duty") and her hubby Eric Hopkins

After our special concert, we headed back to the games and watched some more Track & Field. We finallly got to hear our National Anthem played in the stadium. It was the first and only time we got to hear it. It was awesome! We were also there to see a high jump competitor from Poland break the world record -- by ALOT! The record was 2.05 meters and he cleared 2.12 meters. That was really exciting because even after he beat the Silver Medalist (USA Olympian, Jeff Skiba), he kept going, trying to set the record as high as he could. The entire stadium was cheering for him. It was really exciting to hear 80,000 people cheering for one guy.

We got home around midnight, made some quick calls and Skypes to the boys back at home, then went to bed. Another fun-filled day awaited us in the morning.