Oh the adventures continue to roll in. This week was a blast! For starters I had my roommate from university visiting, so I had the grand delight of playing tourist. It was a good thing that I did not have to act, as I am still a tourist (am allowed to play tourist for my first 6 mos, then I need to accept that I am a resident). On Monday we rode the London Eye which was pretty flipping cool. The views of London that you get to see are quite out of this world. Shame I could only recognise Big Ben and as such have a million photos of it from every foot incline and decline - hahaha. It was really nice to have my first visitor, especially someone I used to live with (she is not shocked to discover how OCD I am). In addition to touring London, we watched movies, cooked dinner, made breakfast in the mornings...I forgot how lovely it was to live with someone. It made me wonder if I should have opted to do a flatshare...always next time - may even trade rings with the person before hand ;-)On Friday, I went to Gordon's for wine and cheese - honestly this place is heaven. How can you resist a restaurant that only serves wine, port, cheese and bread?! A bunch of the American went there to "celebrate" one of us leaving MindShare. She was the first to move over here, but has decided to move onto other things. Thankfully she is staying in London, so we will still be able to see her and watch College Football :-) After Gordon's we went into Chinatown for dinner. Man that place is insane. Think that is just a given for any city that you go into - random shop signs, people heckling you to come to their place, etc. We dined at a fairly nice one (the one without the hanging meat) and ate some of the tastiest and spiciest Chinese food I've had in a long time. The soup dumplings were nothing like Joe Shanghai's, but I was told that this was the batch to judge on. Will be sure to go back and give them another chance.
Saturday I went to my favorite place in London - Borough market for Raclette (It is a Swiss dish of potatoes, melted Raclette cheese, pearl onions, and gherkins), oysters, coffee, and cheese. I honestly think I could live in this market - good thing that it is only open on Saturdays and only until 4pm. After our over indulgence at the market, my friend and I went shopping at a local Scotch market (yes a whole store for fine Scotch and Whiskies - they had a 1943 bottle of Glenleviet!!!). We decided that we needed to have a James Bond and scotch tasting night so we bought a bunch of mini-bottles ranging from Japanese whiskey to a 21yr Chivas. Should be a fun night :-) We decided to walk from London Bridge up to Islington to tour some of the sights. We walked through the city of London which is pretty desolate on the weekends. Reminded me of the Wall St area after the market has closed - not much to do down there and many of the restaurant and shops are closed. Pretty nonetheless. We reach Islington for our friend's housewarming party just in time to escape the down pour, which did not end until Sunday night ;-(
I cannot believe that it has taken me 4 paragraphs to mention this!! I finally signed up for cable and broadband today!!! How exciting is that. Should have it installed within the next 7-10days :-) Then you can look forward to more photos of the places that I reference in these updates. Xavier and Mini I have capture some lovely moments in the past 2 1/2 months here. For those of you who are not aware, I name my cameras (yes cameraS - have 2 digital SLRs, 2 digital point and shoots, 1 underwater film, and 1 regular point and shoot film). Xavier is the Nikon D40x that my Mom, brother and sister bought me for the holidays last year, and Mini is the Kodak point and shoot camera named after the first time I used it (the Mini 10K).
Well I think that about covers it. Looking forward to another week here. Training for the 2009 NYC marathon is going slowly. Am trying to be patient and not injure myself. Good thing that I have started to far out in advance - at the point where running 40minutes on the treadmill is rather painful. Not from an actually running perspective, but that running that long on a treadmill is simply dull. Am getting used to it though. I have taken spinning off the training mix, so I need to re-map my training schedule. Need to find something else that is just as satisfying, but "low-impact" on the knees, and ankles. You probably don't want to read about my running schedule do you....
So on that note, oidhche mhath (good night in Gaelic)
Miss you all! Please continue to write. As much as I love writing these updates, I enjoy reading about your adventures and time in the States, Canada, India, Jersey...(hahaha).
xoxo
T
The photo of the week is of St. Paul's catherdal on Saturday. should have probably had a picture from the Eye or the scotch market, but those are at home on a computer that is not attached to the internet :-(
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