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Lady-next-the-sea
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
When I first fell in love with traveling a friend told me that I should always be careful when choosing travel companions. I was told of messy roommates, warned of constant complainers and scared by tales of people who had very unnerving ideas of fun. In spite of the dire warnings, however, I've always managed to find good travel companions, be they close friends, family members or significant others.
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Lady of Autumn
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
The other morning I awoke to a beautiful autumn day with bright blue skies and crisp fall air. In other words, it was the perfect morning for a walk in Hampstead Heath.
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Lady y La Comida
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
Every good Californian knows the cardinal rule of Mexican food: never eat it outside of Mexico and the states that border it. Even if one has been away from home for a long, long time and is lonely and desperate and craving a good helping of carne asada or tacos al pastor, one must be strong and not give in to temptation.
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Lady Fawkes
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
On November 5, 1605, a man named Guy Fawkes was arrested in London. His crime? He was about to set off explosives in an attempt to kill King James I and the Protestant aristocracy. The incident quickly became known as the Gunpowder Plot.
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Lady and the Roast
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
With Thanksgiving rapidly approaching and the U.S. election taking place today, my mind has been preoccupied with the land across the pond lately. But it hasn't always been that way. Ever since I moved to London last year I've been trying to experience as many unique English traditions as I can. From the bizarre Shrove Tuesday Pancake Races to the upcoming Bonfire Night celebrations, I've tried to take part as best a foreigner can.
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Lady Ramsay
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
Every Tuesday night since I moved to London I've had a dinner date. It's okay, you can tell my boyfriend. He knows about it. In fact, he goes with me. One of my friends from San Francisco who moved to London just before I did arranges a Tuesday dinner at a different restaurant each week. Every Tuesday any number of people attends, and I have gotten to know some of them very well over the last 50-odd weeks.Last night was not just any Tuesday dinner night. It was the one-year anniversary of the beginning of what we now call TGIT. It called for celebration.
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Lady Goes to the Dogs
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
I want a dog. Preferably a puppy. I'm not terribly picky about the breed, but I do like large dogs. And playful ones. A large, playful puppy would be ideal.
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Lady in Madrid in London
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
With the credit crunch in full swing and corporate bigwigs getting in trouble for overly-lavish vacations, this week I decided to bring my foreign holiday to me. How did I do it? I went to Madrid without leaving central London.A business contact of mine invited me to an event at the Victoria & Albert Museum called "Now Madrid: The Christmas City". The event was sponsored by the City Council of Madrid and Madrid's fashion industry, and was intended to showcase Spain's capital and the spring and summer 2009 collections from Spain's top fashion designers.
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Ladylebone
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
Since I moved to London last year I've made a point of getting around to lots of different neighborhoods. I have explored the city from Notting Hill to Muswell Hill, Regent's Park to Richmond. I have meandered through Barnes Common and Clapham Common and I have dined on Hampstead High Street and Islington High Street.
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Lady and Lord's
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
As part of my duties as the Face of Ascot, last night I attended the Pride of Racing Awards at Lord's Cricket Ground. The event consisted of a champagne reception, a dinner, an awards ceremony for the unsung heroes of the horse racing industry, and a charity auction in aid of Racing Welfare.Having never been to Lord's before, I was surprised to find that it was only ten minutes from where I live. I probably could have walked there had I not been wearing an evening gown and 5-inch heels. I took a taxi instead.
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Lady at the Party
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
When I first moved to Hampstead I spent awhile working my way through all of the local bakeries, tea houses, and coffee shops trying to find the best one. The quality and atmosphere varied widely; there was the old-but-well-loved Coffee Cup; the uber-pink, cupcake-filled Tea Cup, (yes, the names are very creative); the hyper-corporate Starbucks and its English counterpart, Cafe Nero; and the seemingly-never-open Chaiwalla, among others.
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Lady at the Show
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
The other night I went with a group of friends to see a play at Shakespeare's Globe Theater on the Thames. Liberty, a three-hour marathon set against the backdrop of the post-French Revolution Reign of Terror, could only be described as...well...long.
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Lady in the Forest
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
When I was a child my favorite musical was Into the Woods. The plot borrowed elements from a number of Brothers Grimm fairy tales, while the cast was plucked from stories like Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel. Stir it all together, add an enchanted forest, and you have yourself several hours of entertainment.
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Lady at the Lanesborough
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
My Glaswegian grandmother drank tea by the bucketful. Actually, she drank it by the cupful. But she drank buckets of it. While it never struck me as particularly odd that my mother drank five cups of coffee every morning, my grandmother's afternoon tea habit seemed bizarrely unnatural. I remember watching her sip cup after cup of the stuff as I sat with eyes wide as the saucer she placed her English Breakfast-filled teacup on, wondering how on earth anyone could drink so much tea.
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Ladybird
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
Most people visit Leeds Castle to see the historic buildings, the aviary, and the beautiful gardens. But on Saturday my family headed to Leeds with a very different agenda. We went to Leeds for the birds.
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Lady Tastes Christmas
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
Back in June my boyfriend and I had tickets for Gordon Ramsay's Taste of London. Set in Regent's Park, the event featured top London restaurants offering small samples of their best dishes. We looked forward to the event for quite some time, but unfortunately had to cancel last-minute when I randomly won a modeling competition at a certain racecourse in Berkshire. I live such a predictable life.
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Lady in the Lounge
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
I spent a lot of time in London airports in 2008. From Stansted's old, cramped Ryan Air terminal to Heathrow's debacle-turned-flagship Terminal 5, I saw the best and worst that BAA has to offer.My favorite experience at the airports in London is the lounges. Most people don't know that there are various tiers when it comes to lounges in London. But this is the UK, after all. They have class distinctions to reinforce.
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Lady-upon-Avon
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
Last week I took the train to Stratford-upon-Avon with two of my friends from London. The purpose of my journey was to see a performance of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of the old favorite, Romeo and Juliet. But it wasn’t just any performance. And it wasn’t just any cast. It was an understudy performance in which the cast featured a friend of mine from Hampstead. He was playing Romeo.
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Lady on the Red Carpet
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
Ever since I moved to London I have heard about the movie premieres that take place regularly in Leicester Square. All the daily papers have pictures of celebrities from the prior evening's premieres, whether from Mamma Mia, the latest Keira Knightley film (there are too many to keep track of these days), or Harry Potter. Never did I think I would be on the other side of the firm-but-fair guard rail that keeps the commoners from overrunning the smart set on the red carpet.
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Lady in White
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
Snow! Lots and lots of snow! More snow than London has seen in 18 years!The entire city has shut down. The tube is not running. The airport runways are frozen. Every adult and child in London is enjoying a snow day.
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Lady Looks at Art
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
One of my favorite things about living in a city that is a cultural center is that great art comes to me as opposed to the other way around. Having been on travel hiatus for two straight weekends, I've had some time to catch up on the various art exhibitions around London. That's to say nothing of my December addiction to the Natural History Museum, which I visited no less than four times in two weeks, and January's V&A obsession, which has seen me there three weekends in four.
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Lady in Highgate
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
I don't usually spend my free time in cemeteries. It's not that I have anything in particular against gravestones or funerary urns. It's just...well...it's just that they creep me out a little bit.On Sunday, however, I made an exception. Braving the frigid London cold, my boyfriend and I took a post-lunch stroll across Hampstead Heath into Highgate.
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Lady in the Neighborhood
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
After spending half of January, half of February, and half of March outside of London, I wanted to spend some good quality time with my home city this weekend.In order to reacquaint myself with my amazing neighborhood and give myself something more exciting to write than "woke up, sat around the house all day, went to dinner, slept" (sounds like a bad Twitter post!), I spent this weekend strolling around Hampstead's narrow cobbled streets and gorgeous green spaces.
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Lady Goes to Ascot
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
My year as the Face of Ascot is quickly approaching its end. Last Saturday I made one final trip out to the racecourse before Royal Ascot in June.I arrived at Ascot just before noon with my boyfriend and two of our friends. The PR team was kind enough to invite us to lunch in the Ascot Authority Box, so my friends headed up the escalators while I met up with a press team from the BBC at the wine tasting room on the ground level.
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Lady Goes Punting
Blog: A Lady in London - 7 November 2009
It's graduation season. A few weeks ago I went back to Brown for my five year reunion, which took place on the same weekend as graduation. The following day my cousin graduated from Yale with a master's degree. This weekend it was my good friend's turn to graduate. She invited me and my mother, who is visiting from San Francisco, to attend the ceremony at Oxford.
