It has been a busy, busy June and things aren't going to slow down until mid July. I have at least 2 and a half blogs worth of stuff to write about, so I better just get down to it.
A couple of weekends ago we went to London for 3 nights. Fabri had a conference at the world's first hospice, St. Christopher's in London. So his work was paying for him and a nurse to go and I said "I get to go too!" We arrived Thursday evening at Gatwick and our friendly Scottish cab driver took us to our B&B in Sydenham, a neighborhood in southern London. It was a no frills accommodation, but it was walking distance to the hospice and only cost 20 pounds a person. Thursday night we found a lovely Indian restaurant on the main road and had a delicious 5 course meal! That was the foodie highlight of the trip, from there the meals went downhill.
Friday morning Fabri & the nurse (Annalisa) went to their conference. I packed up and headed into London to find our hotel for the weekend. I really enjoyed the train ride and the Underground. It was fun just being in a city again! I found the hotel without a problem and dropped my bag off. Then I went and had a yummy sandwich in a pub before going shopping. I just got a couple of things from chain stores (nothing exciting) and after 4 or 5 hours of that I was bored and tired. Fabri & Annalisa were supposed to be done at about 5:30 and it took me 45 minutes or so to get to the hotel, so I headed back to that neighborhood and had a pint of ale in a pub. The ales were the best part of London. They are all cask condition and every pub seems to have something different.
I FINALLY found Fabri at 7 or so and we went to the hotel. We were actually staying in an apartment off site from the hotel, so the hotel people took us over. At first look, the apartment was really nice looking and we were excited, but then we come to find out there were some big problems. The main one being that the shower was horrible and came out either freezing or scalding, but only a trickle of water at a time. Also there was no maid service while we were there, but they didn't have some basic cleaning supplies in the apartment (namely a broom). None the less we survived.
Friday night we went to a pub to watch all the Brits watching the England World Cup game. There was a lot of yelling involved with that. We had some beers and some appetizers and then went to another pub for some more extensive food. I realized walking around that London smells like a food court. Most of the "restaurants" we saw were take away joints for street food from all over the world. A lot of Indian food, but also Portuguese, Spanish, Mexican and Middle Eastern.
Saturday Fabri and I went on a long walk around London and saw a little of everything. We also bought tickets to Chicago the musical for Saturday night. It was fun and tiring, but we saw all there was to see!!
Saturday evening we met up with Annalisa and the 3 of us went to the theatre. Did I mention our seats were in the front row!? We really enjoyed the show, especially Fabri who is very motivated to see more musicals now. Broadway, here we come! After the show we wandered around looking for a restaurant for dinner. We eventually found an Indian restaurant that was just so-so.
Then Sunday we took the train back to Gatwick and had one of the best meals in the airport (and of course some final pints) before leaving London for Italy, the land of no bad meals.
4 comments:
I am so jealous of your Indian food!! Mmmmmmmmm.
these are really cute photos. i had a similar experience with eating in london, and it made the ales all the more delicious and intoxicating. and how about all the carpet they have in those pubs! very mesmerising for someone who's had a lot of ale and not a lot of dinner. next time you're in london you should hook up with our parents' friends the botsfords and they will give you a nice home cooked meal in a very fancy part of town (they live in madonna's neighborhood!!)
The botsfords live in madonna's hood?? let's go there!!
I went to 3 plays when I went to London in high school. One was excellent (amadeus), one was bizarre (a modern interpretation of midsummer nights dream), and one was just dumb (grease. Guess who didn't go all the way to England just to see grease??). We also visited the globe theatre, which was in the middle of being re-built. Lots of cool theatre stuff in England, but definitely not much in the way of good food!!
Great pics Jess. Nice looking pints.
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