The boots.

We just got back from London late Sunday. Technically, early Monday, because no surprise, RyanAir was delayed again, and the Stockholm subway closes by 1am, so we walked home. We are only 15 minutes from the city terminal, but after walking for 2 days straight in London, we were exhausted and transitioning to Stockholm's icy streets was hard.

But what a great city! We got so many fantastic recommendations, and we couldn't fit them all in to the long weekend. So we have to go back soon. As in really soon, because I loved being there. Aside from the obvious fact that we understood the language, and London is both charming and hip and jam-packed with stuff to see & do, it was cheap to eat out. Yes, that is correct, London is CHEAPER than Stockholm when it comes to food & drink. Not grocery stores (I wouldn't know about London, but food at Stockholm grocery stores is super cheap) but definitely going out to a restaurant! Oh, and the beer! Except that it was served lukewarm. Stu can handle that, I prefer my ale cold.

So we saw the British Museum. Wow! I want to work there! And we did the Piccadilly Circus, Thames south bank and Westminster walks. And the Sunday markets in Greenwich! And walked past the Tate Modern, and the Tower, and the Globe theater, and, and...

And thanks to a wad of birthday cash from my wonderful mother in law, we did some shopping! In particular, at my favorite store Anthropologie, as the Regent Street store is the only one in Europe, and I needed a major cuteness fix. I spent too much money, but spent a really happy hour or so in that store!

But we didn't find the boots.

To back up, when we were in capital-of-fashion Milan just a week or so ago, I fell in love with a particular pair of tall gray boots at a Camper store. They were about $180, and we had our bags packed to the point of bursting, so I didn't buy them. But I thought about them a lot. Especially when I got home. They were on sale on the Camper website, so they only had sizes for teeny, tiny feet left to order online. So when we went to London, I looked up the Camper store addresses. There are SIX Camper stores in London! We couldn't go to all of them, but we managed to get to two of them. A little more expensive in GBP, but I had thought about them so much that I was definitely going to buy them when I saw them. But they didn't have my size!

In fact, the Swedish girl running the register (London was crawling with Swedes...we heard Swedish everywhere) was certain that there was not a single pair of those particular gray boots in my size anywhere in the UK. She did ask if we were going to Copenhagen anytime soon, because there were 2 pairs in my size not far in Aarhus, Denmark (coincidentally, where my grandfather was born.) I won't lie, we thought about making a quick train trip down this coming weekend. Stu is an enabler, and really good about cheering on my irrational desires, especially when it comes to shopping or eating cake. But come on, we can't shell out the travel dollars to go on a ridiculous quest for these (elusive) boots!

We are already planning on going to Berlin in February, and that fine German city has at least 2 official Camper stores downtown. So the quest continues.