London: G Stops In

G went through London in late July on her way to Vienna. Two nights. She'd been wanting to try Mama Shelter in Shoreditch, one of those hotels that markets itself as a lifestyle brand but actually backs it up with a good room and a lively ground floor. The Mama Shelter chain started in Paris and the London location sits in the middle of Shoreditch, which is East London's version of what Williamsburg was ten years ago: creative, a little gritty, full of people who work in industries you've never heard of and bars that don't have signs.

The rooms at Mama Shelter are playful. Bright colors, comic book art on the walls, iMacs in every room, and beds that are better than the price suggests. It's not a luxury hotel. It's a fun hotel. There's a difference, and Mama Shelter understands which one it is. The rooftop has a bar with a view over the Shoreditch rooftops and a pizza oven that runs in the evenings. G spent her first night up there with a glass of wine and a margherita pizza that she said was surprisingly good for a hotel rooftop, watching the sun set late (London in July doesn't get dark until nearly 10 PM), texting me photos of a skyline that looked nothing like the London I picture in my head. Shoreditch London is a different city from Westminster London. The cranes and glass towers of the City are in the distance, but the immediate view is low brick buildings, chimneys, and rooftop gardens that people have pieced together out of planters and fairy lights. She stayed up there until the staff started closing down, which she said was around midnight. London in summer is a city that doesn't want to go inside.

This was a family trip at its core. G's mom Iris and her sister Nora are both in London, and any time G passes through, the schedule fills itself. Lunch with Iris. Dinner with Nora. A walk somewhere that turns into three hours of talking. The hotel is almost beside the point. It's a place to sleep between the people she came to see.

The first night she had dinner with Nora somewhere in Hackney. Nora's been in London long enough to have a running list of restaurants she's working through, and she treats each visit from G as an excuse to try the next one. This time it was a small plates place with a natural wine list and a menu that changed weekly. G said the food was good but the conversation was better. They hadn't seen each other since Nora came to Florida earlier that year, and there was a lot to catch up on. Nora's life in London, G's life in Miami, the way sisters talk when they've been apart long enough that the small updates accumulate into real news. They closed the restaurant down and walked home through Hackney at midnight, which G said felt completely safe and also completely alive, people still out, bars still open, a city energy that London does differently than any American city.

Lunch the next day was with Iris at a Turkish restaurant in Dalston that Nora had recommended. G said the lamb kebabs were "the best kebab situation I've ever been in," which is a phrase that doesn't need further explanation if you've ever had good Turkish food in London. London's Turkish food scene, concentrated in Dalston and Stoke Newington, is one of the most underrated in the city. The grilled meats, the bread from clay ovens, the cold meze spreads. G and Iris ate until they couldn't move and then ordered tea and kept sitting there. That's how meals with Iris go too. The apple doesn't fall far.

G also walked through Columbia Road Flower Market on Sunday morning, which runs in Bethnal Green. The street fills with flower vendors and the entire block smells like a greenhouse. It's one of those London things that sounds like a tourist attraction but is actually just a neighborhood market that's been running since the Victorian era. G bought flowers for Iris, which Iris said she shouldn't have done, and then put them in three separate vases and arranged them around her kitchen. Moms. G also picked up sourdough from a bakery stall near the end of the street and some kind of honey that the vendor talked her into for ten minutes. She brought the honey home to Florida. It was very good honey.

Shoreditch itself earned a full evening of wandering. Brick Lane is a ten-minute walk from the hotel and the Sunday market is one of the best in London for vintage, street food, and random finds. G came back with a vintage silk scarf from a stall near the end of the lane, five pounds. Boxpark Shoreditch is a street food complex made from shipping containers that's better than it sounds. And the street art in the alleys around Shoreditch High Street is constantly changing and worth walking slowly through. G spent her last evening in one of the bars on Kingsland Road, a cocktail place that Nora had texted her the name of, sitting alone at the bar reading and drinking something with mezcal in it. She said it was one of her favorite hours of the whole trip. Sometimes the best part of visiting family is the hour after you've seen everyone and you're alone in a city you like with nowhere to be.

Two nights. Family, flowers, Turkish food, a rooftop in Shoreditch at sunset. Then Vienna.