Out & About in London

Due to some pesky little distractions (aka essays ugh) the past few weeks have been a little quieter, but we still managed to squeeze in some sightseeing around the city. Jill came to visit from Lausanne two weekends ago so that was a good excuse to get out and explore. She also managed to arrive for summer's last big push, with temperatures going above 20 degrees on Halloween weekend cha-ching!

On Saturday we headed out to the Portobello Road Market, which ended up being only a 20 min walk from our apartment! It had a very eclectic mix with some more of London's delicious street food.

London's many many markets have a little bit of everything!
 

Portobello Road Market is famous for its antiques - I forced myself to stay very far away from them as our apartment is crowded enough as it is!

Jill dragged us to the delicious Notting Hill Otto Lenghi for dessert Saturday afternoon (I'm sure you can imagine how difficult it was for her to convince us...) I got an AMAZING banana caramel bundt cake that I devoured. And yes it was huge. We enjoyed our desserts in Kensington Gardens - no Kate sightings though :(

Mmmmm

Indian Summer at Kensington Gardens

After our afternoon feast we decided to head up to Primrose Hill to watch the sunset. I had been told it was a great spot for a (free) view of London, so we hopped on the bus and made for Regent's Park. It was a nice little hike up to the top of the hill and then we settled in (with about 1000 other people) to watch the sun set. It's not quite a Mont Royal view, but it was pretty cool to see the Shard, London Eye and a few of the other London landmarks that we are slowly getting to know.

Trying to convince Jill to get Instagram

 

After the sun set and it started to actually get really cold, we headed towards Soho for dinner. Soho has unlimited delicious dining options, so obviously we chose wrong and had a terrible meal. Karma for trying to be cheap in Soho on a Saturday night. We managed to find a few good pubs though and all was well.

On Sunday, Jill and I fit in a little shopping (hello Primark! where have you been all my life.) before the main event: Afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason. I had read a bit about it but wasn't sure what to expect, but considering the price (afternoon tea for $70 per person gahhh) I knew it had better be good.

Fortunately it lived up to our expectations, and we all walked away feeling very ill (in a good way of course) and satisfied and mildly diabetic. Jill - who should get Instagram - coined the hashtag for the experience #deathbyclottedcream. Despite clotted cream equaling butter in my books, it was delicious and I could not get enough of the scones with jams & lemon curd (on top of a heavy layer of clotted cream of course.) I obviously don't have many pictures from this experience as I was a little distracted but managed to capture a few:

Loved their china pattern!!!

The one picture of intact food I managed to get (sandwiches on the bottom, scones in the middle, and desserts on top!!)

Realistically about 30 seconds later.

After tea it was back to reality and school kicked into high gear for a few weeks. We did manage to sneak in one more excursion on a study break last weekend to see the poppy exhibit, 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red,' at the Tower of London on Remembrance Sunday. We need to remember when we go to do things like this that we live in a city with over 8 million people now and one can't just casually go check out an exhibit on arguably its most popular day of the year. The poppies were absolutely amazing and one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and the surrounding area had an impressive display of London Metropolitan Police crowd control at its finest. Here is a Daily Mail article on dismantling the exhibition (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2831388/It-s-Hundreds-volunteers-start-removing-ceramic-poppies-Tower-London-moat-lifetime-installation-caught-nation-s-imagination.html... I love the DM get over it.) - it has some amazing photos of the start of the project as well as an overhead shot of the Tower that give you an idea of the scale. Pat and I probably saw about a quarter of the moat - it's enormous. Here are a few of my phone pics:

There were several tributes to John McCrae posted on the fence around the moat which I thought was really touching.

It was phenomenal and an absolutely beautiful way to pay tribute to those who have lost their lives in the military.

We are off to Lisbon this Friday so I'll be back after the weekend with some pictures from the trip!

Ate a proxima!