London, Day Six: Windsor

Today, we started the day with delicious chocolate croissants. I am curious how many of them I have had now on this trip. I have lost count. After breakfast, we headed to Paddington Train Station to catch a train out to Windsor Castle. Windsor Castle is the Queen's residence whenever she is not at Buckingham palace. It was about a 30 minute train ride out of the city to get there. 

We arrived just in time to watch the changing of the guard processional leave the castle gates. There was a nasty policeman who was screaming at people to stay out of the roads before the little parade started. He seemed very bitter about life and took his job a little too seriously. I didn't dare step into the street until the processional had passed and was way down the road.

We poked around in some shops for a little while until it was lunchtime. Mom had been raving about Wagamama since the plane ride over, so we decided to give it a go. I had some delicious fried rice with chicken and prawns (shrimp).

My meal. It's sideways, sorry.

Me and my (waga)mama.

I have noticed that there are a lot of really great food chains over here that really need to expand to America. Here is a list of my top three, along with a short description:

1) Patisserie Valerie - A bakery/place for other delicious treats. I have a hard time believing this is a chain because the pastries taste so homemade and fresh. We have made many trips here.
2) Nando's - A Portuguese restaurant that is famous for their "Peri Peri" sauce. It is delicious over chicken. See my post from yesterday to learn more about it.
3) Wagamama - A Japanese restaurant that serves everything from rice dishes to yakisoba. Everything is huge though so don't go crazy with the appetizers or anything.

I have also noticed a lack in the better food chains of America. No wonder the Brits are rumored to hate us. The majority of American restaurants they have are McDonalds, KFC, and Subway! I will say, I did see a Five Guys, which is a step in the right direction. However, for any British readers I may have, here are suggestions for some better American chains.

1) Olive Garden - A delicious Italian restaurant. The salad and breadsticks are the best part and they come with every meal!
2) Jimmy John's - WAY better than subway. The bread has a way better flavor and they have freaky fast delivery.
3) Raising Cane's Chicken - No words can do this justice. As long as you don't mind the feeling of your arteries clogging as you eat, this place is like chicken heaven. Some of my Indiana readers may not know what this is, since we sadly don't have them there. Next time you are in Kentucky, venture down and try it. And get extra Cane's sauce! You will need it.

Back to England and what I was doing today, after lunch at Wagamama, we wandered down to the River Thames, where we found a pack of swans. Apparently they just chill by the docks all the time because the gift shop next to it sold swan food. Naturally, we bought some and had a good time feeding them. They were quite friendly. One of them seemed to be following me a little too closely. I ran away like the scaredy cat that I am.

"Feed the birds...

... tuppence a bag...

... tuppence... tuppence...

... tuppence a bag."

I couldn't help but throw in a little Mary Poppins tune into those captions. It was stuck in my head the whole time. Although the bags were actually two for a pound, so we should maybe change the lyrics to "feed the birds, fiftypence a bag"After we fed the birds, we purchased yet another snack. We had heard that there is a delicious ice cream treat from Rick Steve's called 99p, which is a vanilla cone with a flake bar in it. We came across this delicacy today at an ice cream shop at Windsor Castle by the docks, and let me tell you, it is not all its cracked up to be. I am a serious lover of flake bars and I have got to say that I was not impressed. We each had our own cone anyways and ate the whole thing, despite our lack of impression.

We finished up our ice cream just in time for a two hour long river boat tour up the Thames and back. I've got to tell you though, I wasn't impressed with this either. It was rather cold and most of the scenery consisted of trees that lined the river. The highlight of this excursion was purchasing hot chocolate from the bar inside and drinking it slowly in a completely closed in room, away from the wind. We did get a few photos though.

 After our boat ride, we hopped on the train back to London (with a delicious snack thanks to Cafe Nero and Patisserie Valerie)...

This is the best eclair I've ever had!

 ... and headed to dinner at an Italian restaurant called Zonzo. Strangely enough, this was not our first time eating at this restaurant. We were in our flat and collectively decided that Italian food sounded good for dinner. So we started searching Italian restaurants in the area on our phone maps. A restaurant named Zonzo comes up and it sounds pretty good and has positive reviews, so we walk there since it is only about a five minute walk from our flat. As soon as we get there, we immediately realize that we had picked this place out to eat the first time we came to London two years ago. Imagine that. There are over 16,000 restaurants in London and we randomly pick one that we had already been to before. Same location and everything. In fact, it was even the same table. How weird is that?

We scarfed down some salad and lasagna and called it an early night. We headed back to the flat for another episode of Game of Thrones (we are officially caught up now, so there are no more episodes to watch) and are now heading to bed. Dad is leaving early tomorrow morning (sadly, although I think he is ready to be home) and we have to be at a pickup station at 8 in the morning for our day trip, so an early bed time it is.