September 1, 2008 | London

I awoke in time to eat a quick yogurt on the plane before landing in London and heading to the LA Suite Hotel in the Marylebone neighborhood. We walked around a bit, toured the Winston Churchill war museum, then stopped for an early dinner at Zoom, having only had potato chips and cookies at the hotel all day long. We started with the olive bread with chili oil salsa (not realizing there was an additional $10 charge for a bread basket) and small black olives. I followed that teaser with seared tuna on an arugula salad with avocado and tomato, and then we all groaned over the bill. While the prices look comparable to the US for a decent restaurant, once you do the math on the exchange rate you realized it’s twice as expensive, a theme that would follow us throughout the Baltics.

My husband was exhausted so headed back to the hotel early along with our friend John, while my friend Gail & I opted for a 30 minute massage at a Thai massage joint right near the hotel that had openings all evening long – it wasn’t as painful as my reflexology foot massage in Singapore a couple of years ago, but probably a close second!