A trip to London

I traveled to London for work this week. I've been to London before, always for work, and this time was no different. However this time around I left home Sunday night and got in decently early Monday morning. I also didn't absolutely need to work until Wednesday morning. This meant that I had a couple of days to adjust and sightsee prior to the real work commitments. After making it to my hotel I found one of my favorite colleagues and forced him to go on a walking tour of London with me. Well I didn't really force him, and what I thought was going to be a quick walk and then lunch turned into 3+ hours of walking.

The Tower of London

Tower Bridge

The Shard

Tower of London from across the Thames

The Tower of London

St. Paul's Cathedral

It was a great tour of parts of London I hadn't seen before. After we made it back to our hotel we caught up with 2 other colleagues who had flown in a little later than I did. We then went on another 2-3 hour walking tour of London. I was unprepared for the length of that journey, and my boots with 3 inch heels started to make my feet long for a pair of running shoes. We walked a third time that day as we looked for a place to eat. I finally changed into some flat boots for that walk though, and my feet thanked me tremendously.

Tuesday was an office day. I caught up on email, and tried to finish a business case that had become urgent over the course of the week. I even had a sad desk lunch in the office - although if you notice the sad desk lunch I often eat when I'm working from home you can see that the London version of a sad desk lunch is a huge improvement over what I come up with myself (I'll let you guess which is which).

Tuesday afternoon my UK based colleague took us to The Savoy for Afternoon Tea. This was a nice surprise, and an experience I'm sure I wouldn't have ever thought to have on my own. We had lots of tea, towers of finger sandwiches and scones, fancy pastries, and cakes. My lesson learned from the experience was that the scones were the best part of the whole tea, and I shouldn't have saved room for the pastries or cakes.

I felt badly at the conclusion of the tea for forcing my colleagues to go back to the London office with me so I could work on my business case more. I managed to get enough done after an hour or so though that I finally gave up on it and we all headed out of the office and back to the hotel. The next couple of days in London revolved around the purpose for my trip - a client forum. The forum was good overall. I think my presentation was well received, and I know I got a lot of great feedback from individual clients over the course of the two days. Then it was time to go home. While this isn't how I would structure a vacation to London, it was nice to fit in a few fun things in between the work.