Evening at Strada, London

Hello readers! Last night we went to London for Katharina's birthday dinner at Strada, an Italian restaurant on the Thames. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and proceeded as follows...

We were meant to be there by 8pm, so we "trained it" from Crawley to London Bridge Station, changing at Three Bridges. This was not quite the smooth task I make it sound, as we missed our first train due to our own lateness in getting ready, the next train was delayed by 9 minutes due to congestion, this made us miss our connecting train at Three Bridges, and once we got to London, we had only TomTom and Strada's postcode to point us in the right direction! However, a short walk through very chilly Friday night London, one asking-directions stop, and a phone call to Matt later, we arrived... and we weren't even last!!

The restaurant was lovely - beautifully lit, warm, full of people, and - best of all - with an incredible view of the Tower Bridge all lit up at night! It was magical! We had never seen the Tower Bridge before and it looked like it belonged in a fairytale. My photos can't do it justice, but you might get a rough idea. :)

The meal was delicious (I had char grilled chicken on Caesar salad with parmesan; Ben had something with "funghi" in its title), and so was dessert (warm melting chocolate pudding for me). And the company was great! Most of the people there we had met at Go Ape, so I had been looking forward to a chance to get to know them when I wasn't so preoccupied with fear! Kat's brother Dan was also there; he's over from Austria at the moment. And we had five Aussies down our end of the table, so that was good fun!

We left London just before midnight, and it was amazing how many people were at the train station at that time of night! After an uneventful trip home, we arrived back in Crawley at 1am, tired and cold but one great night and a couple of friends richer. :)

Anyways, it's now school holidays for the next week, and tonight we're flying to Ireland for 4 days! I'm sure we'll have lots of tales when we come back, and we look forward to seeing lots of comments on the blog when we arrive home. :P

PS. A little reminder: it's Ben's birthday tomorrow!