Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Mom and Dad
Last week my Mom and Dad came to visit! We did TONS of stuff - all the good touristy things and more! I am waiting for Mom to send me all of her pics, but here is a little taster of everything that we did...
- The Original Bus Tour (nothing says TOURIST like a double decker bus tour)
- Borough Market (we've created two more cheese sandwich lovers)
- Afternoon Tea and Harrods (girls only, the boys went to the pub)
- Tower of London
- Pubs, pubs and more pubs!
It was GREAT to see them, and I think I was more exhausted at the end of each day than they were! They also spent a couple of days in Newcastle visiting some friends. All in all I think they enjoyed their first trip to the UK :)
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Countdown
Im sure I will have lots to report - keep posted!
Fifteen
Its a blessing and a curse that the restaurant is in our neighborhood :)
Friday, May 08, 2009
The windy city?
London needs a new nickname and I'm stealing it from Chicago. The wind has been out in full force this week - hair is instantly messy when you walk out the door, you can hear it through the windows and the walls, and its making the spring-temperatures fall! But at least it hasn't brought (that much) rain with it! So I'll take the wind as long as there are sunny skies! Have a happy weekend!
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Weekend Wrap-up
Friday evening - I met up with Brian and a friend at a great spot for drinks. The place was called Shunt, and it is located (for the time being) underneath the London Bridge Tube\Rail station. Literally, underneath it. It is a temporary art gallery\performance space\bar, and is only running for a few months. Along with art displays and pieces, there is a space for bands to perform, live art performances, poetry readings, a speakeasy, a main bar, a billiards room and many random pianos scattered throughout this HUGE underground venue. It was really cool. You are literally under the station in the vaults, its very dark, a little musty and has LOADS of character. If you live in the UK and are reading this - I highly recommend it!
Saturday - Another day of gorgeous weather here in London! In the afternoon we ventured over to Notting Hill to see our friends who recently moved and had a baby! The baby is adorable, our friends are coping with parenthood very well and their new apt is great! Congrats again to Jess and Brian! The weather was so nice that Brian and I decided to walk back to Islington from Notting Hill Gate. That's all the way from south-west London to north-east. We cut through Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Marleybone and tons of other areas that we had never been to before! It took a couple of hours, but well worth it!
Sunday - we started off the day by heading over to the Columbia Road Flower Market, where I bought the biggest single bloom hydrangea I have ever seen (picture to follow). In the evening we went to a dinner party hosted by another American couple that we are friends with over here! It was great company, and nice to not have to cook for once :)
Monday - a group of Brians work buddies got tickets to a Breakdancing Convention held at a dance school in our area. Deciding to get a little culture and do something different, we agreed to tag along. Now, when I think of British dancing, breakdancing is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind. More like second to last. I sort of felt like this was an event I would have attended in Poughkeepsie....until the performance began. The first couple of groups to perform delivered some pretty solid breakdancing (says the girl whose only exposure to breakdancing are the kids that perform for money on the 6 train in NYC). One of the groups even did some breakdancing to classical music, which I personally thought was awesome for its originality. And then it got weird. Less hip-hop, more performance art. Right. The only time I have gone to something truly hip-hop related since Ive been in London and it turned into performance interpretive-weird in less than 90 mins. Go figure. That's how the brits do hip hop. Oh well - at least we tried :)
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Pinch Me
We have had AMAZING weather this month, especially the last week and a half. This weekend was no different, and we saw two days (three if you add friday!) of full sun 65* weather! Granted it wasnt the 88* that NYC saw this weekend, and 65* isnt even that warm (if you ask me) - BUT, I will take it!!
I hit up Hyde Park on Saturday, as did several thousand other Londoners. Brian enjoyed the day playing American Football in this great weather!
We took a walk down to the canal today and enjoyed a nice cold beer (gotta love open container laws!). All in all - a great sunshine filled weekend :)
Friday, April 24, 2009
Failure
The last few times I have tried to make the fantastic, humongous choco-liscious cookies I was once famous for (ok, at least famous amongst my friends for...) - I have fell flat on my face. Actually, my cookies have fallen flat. And crispy. And burnt.
At first, I thought it was my oven (its always the ovens fault, never mine!). Its a mini oven, so surely the internal temperature must be off. I bought an internal oven thermometer to get it to a perfect 375* F. Wrong. Still didn't help.
Then I thought it was the measurements. Baking is a science. Unlike cooking where you can throw in a little of this and a little of that, you cant do that when baking otherwise it can throw the whole thing off. Maybe I had gotten a little too cocky, so I went back to measuring every ingredient exactly...including buying a food scale so that I can properly measure the butter (damn brits and their metric system!).
Wrong. Again. Still flat, still crunchy...and yet completely unbaked in the middle.
Boo. Next time I'm in the US I'm definitely bringing back some Crisco butter sticks. If I fail using those I know that it is not my destiny to be a baker. Cross your fingers...
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Fortnum and Mason
Ayaka showed me a japanese tour book of London that she had brought and told me she wanted to go to a shop she had read about, and pointed to the famous\iconic department store. Leaving the men to go visit a war museum (or something of that boring nature), us ladies took off to find one of the greatest department stores in London.
Next to Harrods, Fortnum and Mason is a must-see for all things lovely and British. Their tea selection is outstanding, amazing china (that I would most certainly break if left alone in that department for longer than 30 seconds) and an adorable way-too-expensive childrens department.
And it was there that I had the pleasure of meeting this lovely little thing. Its name is Toffeecino, and I think I'm in love.
and yes, that is a baby ice cream cone that you see on the right hand side. *swoon*
Oh - and I tried on this cool hat. I think im destined to become a chef. Some day.
Neglect
I just realized that it has been almost a MONTH since I posted something on this blog.
Im ashamed.
I've been neglecting you.
Please forgive me.
Soo, heres a little recap as to what we've been up to this lovely month of April...
Our friends Dan and Ayaka came to visit us from New York. They came over Easter weekend to attend a British friends wedding and, of course, to see us. It ws so great having them here, and they definitely saw a lot of London.
On Good Friday Dan, Ayaka and Brian went to Leeds Castle for the day (which is not in Leeds, go figure, but only an hour or so away in near by Kent). Their pictures are amazing - they had a great time exploring the grounds, having afternoon tea (well, Ayaka did at least) and getting lost in a hedge maze
.We went to a local pub for Easter dinner with a couple of other American friends that have recently moved to London. I think that Sunday roast has now replaced Brunch as my favorite weekend meal. Afternoon lunch quickly became beers-and-monopoly and another local pub, and before we knew it Easter was over. I have to say, I missed not having any peeps this year. Brits dont believe in marshmallow Easter treats...only chocolate eggs.
Other than that our April has been pretty boring. The weather has been AMAZING (for the most part), and yes it shocks me to write that in all caps. But really, its been quite warm (60s aint to shabby) and there have been more sunny days than rainy. Im actually quite nervous that all of May, June and July will be rain soaked because of all of the nice weather we have been having.
Cross your fingers that isnt the case.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
St. Anton recap
We had a blast skiing all weekend, taking in the amazing views of the alps, enjoying the local food and beer - I highly recommend this place to anyone!!
pictures - warning there are a lot of them! but well worth looking at
We spent Saturday hitting the slopes. Considering it was the first time Brian and I had been skiing in a year I think we did fairly well! We started off a little easy and then decided to take the gondola to the highest peak in St. Anton (2800 meters!) and ski down as our last run of the day. Definitely was a challenge for me, but SO worth it!! Luckily there was an intermediate trail at the top for us to ski down - and we were stopping every 5 minutes to enjoy the scenery!
Sunday we decided to rent toboggans and take those down the mountain. Let me tell you - SO much fun!! Those things can really pick up speed!! I wish we had gotten more pics of us actually using the sleds, but we were having so much fun zipping down the trail, we forgot to take pics!
The hotel we stayed at was amazing, and our hostess Brigitte was wonderful. We met a lot of really nice people and had some amazing food. We cant wait to go back next winter!!
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