I did two things last week to “reset” and get me out of the rut I was in.

1. I baked cookies. Peanut butter blossoms to be exact. My mom used to make these cookies when I was a kid, and I think I hadn’t had them in about 10 years.

2. Went to London.

The much more dramatic of the two came about when Erin and I were discussing what to do for MLK weekend. I decided to take Friday off of work, and so we were planning to take a road trip somewhere – some of the option discussed included Savannah, Georgia and various coastal cities in South Carolina. Then we got to discussing how you can sometimes find last-minute deals on Expedia, so just for fun we took a look – and there we found it – a deal to London for 3 days including airfare and hotel. So, on Tuesday night we booked it, and on Thursday night we left. I have to admit – I feel like a new person like I hit a reset button and the New Year has started again, only I have a much more positive outlook.

Friday

We took a red-eye flight from Dulles to Heathrow Thursday night, getting into London about 6 am Friday morning. By 9 am Friday morning, we were at the National Gallery of Art.

Admittedly very tired – we spent a few hours in the morning strolling through the National Gallery then walked around Trafalgar Square and Chinatown.

We found we were less tired walking around outside, so we just enjoyed the different neighborhoods – and of course stopped by Scotland Yard for Erin.

We decided to take a nap in the afternoon and then headed out for Indian food for dinner. After having a nightcap at the hotel bar we headed to bed early to beat jet lag.

Saturday

As we only had 2 full days, we planned a full agenda for both Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday morning we first stopped off at the British Library, which has an amazing (free!) exhibit with old manuscripts of works by Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and others. A wonderful way to pass a morning!

We then hopped on a Thames River Cruise in Westminster and took it out to Greenwich. We got lucky with beautiful mostly sunny, mild weather – which made a cruise along the river much more enjoyable. We saw and learned lots along the way, including the point of departure of the Mayflower.

We hopped off the boat in Greenwich, walked around a bit, and grabbed some lunch at a pub before catching the boat back to Westminster. We had visited the observatory and the Cuttysark on our last trip, so we passed those up this time around.

We spent some time walking along the piers at Westminster and enjoyed the evening lights before heading to Selfridges for a look around and a drink.

Sunday

We began our last full day in London checking out the exhibits at the Tate Modern before grabbing a tour of the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe theater. Interestingly, it was an American who started the construction of the Globe back in the late 1940’s when, during a trip to London, he was disappointed to find that it was only memorialized by a small plaque.

Once the tour ended, we strolled across the Millennium Bridge to the other side of the river to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Since it was a Sunday the exhibits weren’t open, but you could still go in and walk around the main area.

After taking a sunset stroll through Hyde Park we made our way over to the Museum Tavern so I could have a Ploughman’s Platter for our Last Supper. A Ploughman’s platter consists of meat, cheese, crackers and bread, pickle, chutney and some fruit and veg. It’s an English staple – but proved very very difficult to find this time around. I had had one previously at the Museum Tavern, so we thought it was a sure thing – I was so disappointed to find that it had vanished from the menu. When I asked the waitress about it, she told me she had noticed they were hard to find now too, and asked the chef if he could pull one together for me – and he did! And it was twice the size of a regular one! This was the perfect ending to a wonderful, wonderful long weekend!

We headed back to the hotel to pack, and laugh about how we went to London “right quick!” We made it home yesterday late afternoon and were greeted by a snow storm this morning – complete with a snow day for Erin!