Carnaby Street, London

Along Regents Street is a tiny side alley, which leads you into Carmaby Street. It feels like a little village street, although it is smack in the middle of all the hubbub of central London. Along Carnaby you'll find all your favourite shops, such as Office and Benefit. They also take decorating very seriously for almost every occasion, so visiting around the holidays is especially fun. When you're around the Piccadilly/Regents area you should definitely check it out. 

Showing someone the sights: London in a day

Whenever anyone is visiting me for a short amount of time I always take them on this tour of the city. It hits a lot of the more famous sites, and can be done in a matter of hours if you're really busy. I always come into the city through Waterloo train station, so that's where the walk starts.

1) Walk from Waterloo Train Station to the London Eye, there are signs everywhere so its a pretty easy walk.
2) Walk down the London Eye to Westminster Bridge. All along here are wonderful places to capture Big Ben and The Houses of Parliament.

3) After passing Big Ben, turn left down Abingdom Street to Westminster Abbey. its pretty expensive to go inside the Abbey, and most of the time we just look at it from the outside. However, if you do want to go inside I would highly recommend it. Its absolutely beautiful and very interesting.

4) From Westminster Abbey, walk towards then along St. James Park. Along this pathway to the left you'll see beautiful homes and to the right the beautiful green park. A little bit of serenity for the hectic day.
5) At the end of the walk you'll reach Buckingham Palace. If you time it right you'll be able to see the changing of the guards which is always fun!
6) After seeing the palace, walk through Green Park towards Piccadilly St, towards Green Park Tube Station. When you hit the road, turn right. On the way to Piccadilly Circus you'll see the famous Ritz Hotel.

7) After about 10 minutes you'll hit Piccadilly Circus, where Piccadilly, Regents and Strand Street all meet in a hubbub of tourists, shops, and the famous giant video screens. (If you're looking for some shopping, head down Regents Street!)

8) After taking pictures to your heart's desire, head down Strand. Down this street you'll hit and MnM's store (!) and Leicester Square. Walk diagonally though Leicester Square, and you'll pretty much run into the National Portrait Gallery and on to Trafalgar Square.
9) Museums in London are all free, so definitely take advantage of the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.
10) From the square, walk down Northumberland Ave to the river. From here you can walk down Embankment towards Big Ben, with great views of the London Eye.

Although this seems long, its very easy to get done in an afternoon and feels like you saw so much of of the city!

Windlesham Pram Race

Boxing Day (December 26th) is a big deal in the UK. Apart from the traditional walk in the park and stop at the pub, this year my family discovered a new tradition. When my parents became empty nesters this year, they moved into a smaller house in Windlesham (a small town about an hour outside of London). Every year they have a "Pram" race boxing day. The pray is essentially any pushed "thing", and teams dress up in themes and decorate their prams along with this theme.

The goal is to race between the 6 pubs that are in the town, while stopping and having a pint at each one. We also saw that each pram had cases of beer to bring along too, because clearly the 7 pints weren't quite enough. Along with getting sloshed, the entire thing is for charity so people are all running around with donation buckets for their separate prams. I've honestly never seen anything so British and fun.

Best Moment: Witnessing an entire team take a a shot of crappy tequila. The faces that followed were absolutely hilarious. We gave them a couple extra pounds for their struggle