Scrub-a-dub-dub!

Bath and Bristol, we took off for these on Monday while my Mom was here. we had been to Bristol but not too Bath. We took the coach to Bristol and then got an 11 minute train to Bath. Once in Bath we noticed how sleepy and small of a town it was, but beautiful, nonetheless.


Trying to peer into the baths, unsuccessfully before paying.

All of Bath was kind of the same color, strangely. As Lauren described it in her blog, it does sort of resemble an overdue library book and looks genuinely old. We had a really nice lunch of a veggie club sandwich and chips before we began proper sightseeing.
We started at the Bath Abbey which had been built hundreds of years ago.



Stained Glass that is supposedly the 26 scenes of Jesus's life. I think there were 26 or something anwyays. Regardless, there is a panel for each scene.

After the Abbey, we went to the Roman Baths. This is the main attraction of Bath as you may have guessed. The Romans probably occupied Aquae Sulis(or Bath) shortly after their invasion of Britain in AD 43, attracted by the large natural hot spring which had been a shrine of the Celtic Brythons, dedicated to their goddess, Sulis. This spring was a natural mineral spring found in the valley of the Avon River in Southwest England. The name is Latin for "the waters of Sulis."

So basically the spring is still there today, although untouchable and undrinkable as it is not treated. You learn a lot of history about it throughout the museum but the Bath itself is really amazing to imagine that people so long ago stood exactly as it was when we were there and bathed.

Here are our photos:






Inside by the spring that bubbles from the earth.


At the end, we could go inside this dining room on site and taste the Bath water, which has been treated. It is hot and tastes like metal and is relatively gross. None of us finished are glasses. Afterwards, we left the Baths and went to Bristol for a few hours where we tried to go to the Arnolfini museum but it was closed so we settled on getting a much deserved beer and then catching the train back to London.

Edinburgh x2!

While my mom was visiting we also made our way to Edinburgh, Scotland and to Bath, England and Bristol/England. I kept her very busy in case you can;t tell. I had, as you recall, been to Edinburgh for New Years Eve with Ellie and Lauren but loved it so much that I knew I had to take my mom there. She ended up loving it so much that she wanted to move there. She enjoyed the people who were so friendly and the buildings which were so big. Upon first arriving, I ate some vegetarian haggis and my mom had a a nice panini and then we ended up getting distracted by some shopping on Princes Street. Afterwards we walked around and to our hostel which was on the base of the castle.

The view from our hostel. If you see the construction, it is because they are already getting ready for their big Augsut fesitval season.
We ended up eating at David Bann's which is one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants ever and we enjoyed ourselves so much. We turned in early to get ready for our walking tour the next day. We walked around a lot, taking in all the sights the next day and we went to the Scottish Museum where we saw Dolly the first cloned sheep ever. After the tour and the cloned sheep and a veggie burger, we had to catch the long train ride back to London with my Mom wishing hugely to stay.

Mom in front of the castle


Dolly the cloned sheep!

Picture Perfect Edinburgh!

Mom in London and Brighton

After Venice with my mom, we came back to London and took a very excellent walking tour of central London which gave me really interesting insight about the things i generally consider tourist traps like Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square. We attemtped to watch the changing of the guards but it was so intensely overpopulated that we couldn't see anything, but I wasn't that fussed about the situation and neither seemed my Mom. Below are some of our photos from the walking tour:


In front of Buckingham Palace. My mom was so cold the entire time!


Spring time finally



Trying to make the guard smile to no success, even though my Mom threatened to pinch his cute little butt.


The parade that accompanies the changing of the guards. Each one of these hats is made from one Canadian black bear and costs close to 60,000 dollars. Probably not the best idea to have expensive hat in a country that has a constant drizzle.




The next day we took a day trip to Brighton that was a lot of fun and we walked around the lanes for shopping, the beach and pier and of course, the royal pavillion. We had a really yummy English breakfast.





Finally another elusive Banksy conquered!

The weekend was for sightseeing where we took my mom to the borough market and saw Big Ben and the London Eye and Houses of Parliament and St. Paul's Cathedral which I had yet to visit myself.


My mom loved the double decker buses!

St. Paul's Cathedral where Princess Diana was married.



We also went on a Camden canal cruise and got to ride in a canal boat which I had wanted to do from first moving here as they fascinate me.

Mom waiting for the trip to start.

The Jenny Wren! our canal boat for 90 minutes to Little Venice


Authentic Chinese boat on Regents Canal that is a restaurant and the sole reason why Steven Spielberg didn't purchase a 20million pound home as it was blocking his view of Regents Park.
That Saturday we also did Pret-a-portea, an proper and expensive afternoon tea service that is inspired directly by fashion lines. So for example, when we went all of the cookies and cakes were designed to imitate winter fashion lines, such as a red hermes bag, the silver Jimmy Choo boot, etc. Everyone got a choice of their own special pot of tea in fine china. My mom got vanilla, I got berries and blossoms and ellie got some chocolate mint kind. They bring you unlimited finger sandwiches and cookies. The service was amazing and the minute you have only one cookie left they whisk it away and bring more. It was at the Berkeley hotel.


Getting Ready for Tea

Waiting for our treats





The next stop was Harrod's to look for a gift for Joe and to keep up the air of luxury surrounding our day.



After that we went to see Wicked at the Victoria Theatre. I have only ever been to Phantom of the Opera in NYC so this was both El's and I's second show, but our first West End one. My mom had never seem a big show like that. Wicked was amazing! It was smart and funny and very well-written. Everything was covered and surprising. It would love to read the book now. We had so much fun.


Having my mom around London with me was so much fun and we did so many wonderful things, including going to a Gordon Ramsay restaurant where he was unfortunately not in for the time being as he is opening his new restaurant in Paris. I think my mom could have been here for weeks and I still could not have showed her everything.

Venezia, Ciao.

While my mom was visiting, we decided to visit Venice, Italy upon her saying that that is one place she really wanted to see in her lifetime. Ellie, of course, wanted to come too so after picking my mom up at the airport on Sunday afternoon and making a huge crying spectacle with me almost inside the security gates and eating a pub roast in Primrose Hill with live jazz that afternoon, we woke up extremely early to get on our night bus to take us to the train station which would then take us the airport.

My mom's first vacation photo in my flat!

It was obviously a long process. The flight was easy on easyjet and when we arrived, we were confused about how to get to Venice and Ellie and I argued with the ladies behind the counter for awhile until we got our student 72 hour water bus passes and my mom got her regular one. We then boarded a bus which drove us to where the water buses take off. Thinking we were getting the right boat to Ospedale, near where we were staying, we actually ended up on another island Murano, which we end up revisiting later.

First things first though, we had to have pizza and gelato so we ate outside, enjoying the sunshine which is so hard to come by in London and shared two pizzas and tiramisu gelato, one of 304850438 gelatos which I ended up buying while visiting.


Our first Italian lunch in the sunshine!




Our water bus which is similar to a regular bus or subway.

After lunch, we were anxious to get to our hotel called Ca' Bauta. We took a water bus up the Grand Canal, the most impressive canal in the whole world, i would bargain to say.


We found Ca' Bauta no problem despite everyone saying how confusing Venice's winding streets are. We were instantly amazed at the beauty of both Venice and our hotel. We loved the little streets with laundry hanging out of the colorful houses and porches and the amounts of kids playing in the campos(italian for squares).


Getting off the boat for first time in Venice.




A little love for America as we stepped off our boat. It is interesting how much our politics piss off other places and how much they know about our government and our wars...



When we arrived at the hotel, we were taken aback at how lovely Ca' Bauta was. It was in this tiny courtyard along with other Venetian apartments and where there was a dancing school with little girls in tutu's.


We had a beautiful view and could hear the church bells every hour, on the hour.


Our dining room where we ate breakfast every morning.


The courtyard.

After dropping off our luggage, we spent the day exploring the squares and side streets and taking everything in and adjusting to hearing Prego and Ciao at every corner. The little bridges to get across the canals are so cute as well and since Venice is 110 islands, there are, needless to say, tons of them.







We saw a lot of gondolas that day but didn't take a ride ourselves as they are extortinately priced at 100 euros for 1/2 hour and seem to be a bit of a toursit trap but some of them were cheesy/cute to look at like this one:





After, We decided to walk to St. Mark's Square to see the Basilica and the famous pigeons and clock that strikes the hour in Roman numerals.


St. Mark's square is breathtaking and also pigeon infested with over 100,000 pigeons in the single square. It was fun to chase the pigeons though and then buy stupid pigeon food and feed them. Beware the sequence of pigeon photos as we spent about a whole hour, playing with the dirty creatures.

















Us in front of the Basillica.









Resting in St. Mark's Square

We went to check out the Rialto bridge which is one of the big two landmarks in Venice.




Me and Mom on top of the bridge!


Mom and Ellie on top of the Rialto bridge

The rialto bridge looks over th Grand Canal and has little shops and markets around it. It, along with St. Mark's is one of the most touristy areas so we didn't spend too much time in these areas as things were more expensive and of a lesser quality.

We preferred the smaller streets and ended up eating dinner in the square by our house and we had very modern Italian food. We tried amazing Italian red wine and had a great meal before going to bed exhausted.

The next day, we woke up early, had our Italian pastries for breakfast and our orange juice and headed to the island of Murano which is the next most touristy island after Venice. It is famous for it's glass blowing factories. We went and watched some demonstrations of the men making vases or pencil holders and my mom bought some souvenirs and we walked around a bit. They have a lot of pretty glass sculptures around the island but otherwise it's a little quiet aside from the glass trade.


Man making the glass


Murano






Glass Sculptures



After Murano, we took advantage of the sun coming out and we took the water bus to the cemetery which is on a separate island from Venice and on our way home. Maybe a morbid experience but really interesting. Every single grave had flowers and was well-kept, unlike back home where a lot of times graves go without being taken care of.







After the cemetery and another excellent pizza for lunch in Santa Margarita Square, we decided to keep the tone depressing and head to the Jewish Ghetto.

We found the synagogue right on a square and found the museum.

When we walked in, we had just missed the last tour for the day but we read a little bit in the book store about the Jewish ghetto. Venice has a relatively small Jewish population with only a handful still living in the Jewish ghetto today. The original barbed wire used to keep the Jews in at night from the rest of Venice is still intact and pretty haunting to this day.

We went home, tired from walking around and ended up going to bed incredibly early and sleeping through the night.

The next morning we awoke early to go to the basilica. We had our last breakfast at the hotel and stored our luggage for the day.

On our way to St. Mark's square, I stumbled across this little wine shop. The man inside told me that he and his brother make the wine from scratch and then put it in these barrels.



For only 3 euro, you can get a huge plastic bottle of wine, so we got some red to drink throughout our last day and it was amazing.


The basilica was really beautiful. A little darker than I would have thought but really breathtaking. Afterwards we walked near the bay front to catch a water bus to the island Burano.




We got on a the ferry which was two stories and began our boat ride fine, but then it was 45 minutes and we were still very far from Buran, only docked at the island Lido. It ended up taking close to 1.5 hours to sail to Burano but the journey was fun on the way what with our massive bottle of wine. The only real downfall from all that amazing red wine is having to use the toilet which on this boat was simply a whole in the ground, literally with no handles to hold on to or anything. Needless to say, I stopped drinking any red wine until we got on shore after that experience.






Once we finally got to Burano, we were in for a treat. All of the houses are brightly colored with purples, blues, pinks, any color you can think of. Burano is famous for it's lace so there were really pretty lace handkerchiefs and baby dresses in all of the windows. We found the main street of Burano and all of the cafes had outdoor seating because the weather was so lovely. So we joined the crowd and got a spritz which is the traditional venetian drink of wine, with a spirit and some other thing in it. It was a little bitter. We also got lots of panini's filled with cheese and pesto and tomatoes and just saw outside basking in the sunlight amongst all the beautiful colors.


First off the boat


Our cafe for lunch

Ellie and her spritz

Our red wine bottle still going strong!

Mom enjoying her first panino!










Afterwards I got another gelato, my last one in Italy

and then we got the boat back to the hotel so we could collect our luggage and leave on our evening flight back to London.

Venice was our first trip to the continent of Europe and we all loved it. I really enjoyed how there were no cars at all on the entire island. No roads and everything was dependent on the canals, including trash boats, ambulance boats, delivery service boats and mail boats. Italians seemed a lot more relaxed and their kids play outside after school with other kids with simple toys such as balls and jump ropes and scooters. They all seem happy and not cramped inside with cartoons or play stations. It was ultimately so nice to be somewhere foreign with my mom and Ellie with new sights around every corner and in this case, over every bridge.

Familia

our families have both left (well, mine [ellie] will leave early tomorrow morning) and we now both have to go back to work. We have one week left and soooo much to do. Blogging is a high priority, but it also comes after packing, booking hostels, buying train tickets, shipping things home and shopping for some new jeans...
I don't know if you have noticed, but we have had some technical glitches with loading large photos on to our blog, but I just got that sorted out. So don't worry about us. We have been having a great time with our families and will tell you all about it soon.
♥Ellie

We have had a crazy two weeks saying hello to some friends from the states who were visiting and saying good-bye to some dear London friends and then saying hello to our families as they arrived to see us.

More than two weeks ago now, Sara and Shannon came to visit. Shannon had been staying in Bordeaux, France while studying English and Sara was coming here to begin her six week tour of Europe with Shannon. Our weekend included some Thai food in Notting Hill with Sara, a little bar hopping in Soho with Shannon, a couple visits to the South Bank to see the landmarks and observe the protests of the Olympic torch running through as well as a trip to Brick Lane to introduce Sara to real Indian food and of course, hanging around Camden and the markets. Oh yes, and Sara's favorite part which was riding double decker buses. It was nice to see some friends from home. While they were here we all went out one night with Lauren, and our two London friends Eleonore from France and Moon Sook, my co-worker who is originally from South Korea.





Thai food in Notting Hill


Tower Bridge


Exploring the Thames


Group Shot of All of us before we went out to the clubs


Riding the Night Bus home with Shannon


The view from our room as it snowed for the first time since we have been here.


The graffiti and skatepark on the South Bank.


Lauren and Moon Sook on our night out in East London


Sara and Shannon and Moon-Sook's Roommates


Ellie and Sara


Cute Picture of Eleonore.


Grafitti in East London

Last weekend, our first friend that we made here, Gaelle, was having a going away party since she was moving back to France since she received a PR job offer in Lyon. We have had some really amazing times with her and feel very honored that we got the chance to become so close with her while we were here. Her going away party was at Bloomsbury Bowl where she worked as a bartender while in London. Lauren and our university friend Devan who was visiting London met us there as well and we all hung out in the very crowded but cute bowling alley and listened to the live music and drank cocktails with Gaelle.


We will miss Gaelle, but we can't wait to visit her in Lyon and Evian this summer.








Gaelle and Fanny




Lauren, Devan and I






We decided to get on stage and pretend like there was karaoke when there wasn't even a mic.


I love these ladies.

The Saturday before my Mom came we went to Moon Sook's who offered to cook an amazing Korean meal as she had cooked it once before for us and we were completely addicted and obsessed. She is an amazing cook. Ellie, Lauren, Devan and I went to Moon-Sook's flat in East London, ate dinner, drank wine and then went out for a night on the town to show Devan around London.


Moon-Sook, our amazing chef






This is the best dinner in the world. She made spring rolls by hand with plum sauce and this amazing sweet potato curry style dish and these spicy noodles.


Oscar the grouch



Since we only have a few more weeks here we are trying to relish every moment and really spend quality time with the friends we have left here since most of them have left for travel or other jobs. Lauren, our main companion, has recently left to travel for three weeks with Devan and we miss her so much as well, but are very busy with our family's visits.

DOERS

We haven't posted anything in a while, and it's not because there has been nothing to post about. We have been very busy! I will soon be sifting through the 600+ photos from the past two weeks. We will be posing a few new entries(including, but not limited to: a visit from Sara and Shannon, Gaelle's going away party, Korean dinners with Moon Sook and art in east London, Kelly's mom's arrival and finally our most recent adventure to Venice, Italy!) Sorry we haven't been updating, but check back within the next few days.

I am also really looking forward to several more busy days over the next week:
Kelly, her mom, and I are going to see Wicked and are taking a day trip to Bristol and Bath together. They also have several other day trips ahead of them in the next few days.
My sister, my mom and her sister, Aunt Sandy, will arrive Monday and I was lucky enough to get the whole week off of work! We have a packed week of exploring London and taking a day trip to Brighton.
By the time they leave, we will have just ONE WEEK left at work and only 10 days left in the UK!

I am so excited about the next leg of our trip. We don't have an exact itinerary yet, but we will soon post our *unofficial* provisional route through Europe.

<3 Ellie

Math

Exactly one month left in London from today! We fly out to Prague on the 7th of May and begin our adventures. Ahh. Time is flying. Only 3 more work weeks left.

Multicultural Monday

Monday was Lauren's actual birthday, so the celebrations continued. One of the gifts we got Lauren was a dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant.

Kelly and I have never tried it before, but it is one of her favourite types of food, and even though London is a huge culturally diverse city, she has yet to indulge in it since she's been here.
We all met up at the station in our party dresses after work and made our way to the restaurant with a vague map and no sense of direction, so we took a luxurious cab ride of less than a mile to Merkato, which has amazing reviews. It is a quiet little store front with authentic interior, but is world famous for it's delicious traditional food. Apparently it even gets celebrities once in a while. (Woody Harrelson has been spotted there)
The food was amazing. Let me try to explain what it is like: You are served a giant round piece of bread. (about 16" diameter) and it is porous and spongy and we called it moon bread because it looks like the surface of the moon and it is big and round. We also thought it felt like skin, but everything was completely vegan, so that was comforting. Anyway, they put what ever you order right on the moon bread. In our case, we chose the sampler, (so everything!)which included things like spicy lentils, sauteed spinach, green beans, potato and cabbage, and more. And then they give you more moon bread to dip in the food. We all share and they don't use any utensils! Kelly got an Ethiopian beer and Lauren and I got glasses of a traditional honey based beverage. We ate all of the food too fast for photos, but here is basically what it looked like:




We almost ordered a second helping, but decided since we were going out for drinks, we better save a little room. We walked to Angel (about 15 minutes away) to go to a cute little independent bar and club that we always tell Lauren about, but when we got there it was closed due to a gas leak. There wasn't much else we wanted to see in the area so we just got on a bus and roamed around, until we decided to go a little further east to Old Street where all the art galleries and cute vintage stores are. We knew there had to be some cute bars too, they are just hidden down alleyways and off the beaten path. The first bar we went to was cute and had a lot of people in it, so we stopped in for a birthday snakebite.

Then we realized why all the people were in the bar, it was a tour and they were having a trivia night. We tried to play along on our own paper, but we didn't know any of the answers. Mostly because they were about old British television and theatre stars. One of the questions was "What does the W stand for in George W. Bush?" Several of the drunken burly men in the group shouted out "WANKER!" So we decided to move on, before anyone realized our nationality.

Some graffiti along the way.

We wondered around the quiet streets of Shoreditch, which is usually full of nightlife. But it was a Monday, so not much was happening. We were about to give up and go our separate ways, slightly defeated, when we saw bright bulbs that said "Electricity Ballroom" we thought we would check it out and make plans to go another night, but when we went in, it was so cute and had such good beers on tap, that we had to stay for a drink or two.






We got a Belgium wheat beer that smelled like bananas.

We also met some guys who were 30 year old skateboarders, but were really into activism and super involved in the community so we talked to them for quite a while. We even convinced workaholic Lauren to stay the night at our house again (on a work night!)

Before we knew it, it was 12:15 and we had to run to catch the last train home. On the tube we met a french couple who were all dressed up: the woman with a purple bob and the man with a red afro (think Annie) they sang "Happy Birthday" to Lauren in French and wanted us to get off the tube and continue drinking with them, but by then we were tired and hungry again so we passed. We also met a friendly architecture student who said happy birthday in German. All in all, I'd say Lauren had a very multicultural birthday experience.

Perfect Equations

The last weekend was Lauren’s birthday weekend since her birthday falls on March 31st, we decided to celebrate over the weekend. On Friday, I was rewarded with a day off from work as we had a flood because a water pipe broke in my department and all of the electricity was turned off. So I lounged around making plans for our European trek and for my mom’s visit. After a nice long nap, I met Ellie and we headed off to Baron’s Court where Lauren lives. The three of us shared two pints of Leffe and Hoegarden and then headed off to Richmond by bus to meet Lauren’s coworkers for Thai dinner. The thai food at HillTribe was ok, not half as good as garden and grille in Notting Hill, but it was fun meeting all of her co-workers that she always tells us stories about. After that we took the tube home and it was nearly midnight as we had a very long dinner.

Lauren spent the night on our newly borrowed air mattress and we had a birthday beer with George upon our arrival home. Lauren went to bed quickly and Ellie and I chatted with George for awhile.

The next day we woke up slowly and went through the process of attempting to get the fixings for a picnic lunch to take with us to Kew Gardens for the day to see the Henry Moore sculptures as it was the last weekend they would be there. We went to Fresh and Wild and tasted all the samples and finally decided on some cous cous and hummus and pita from Sainsbury and sandwiches and salads from Pret. We got on the tube for the long ride to Richmond. Richmond is a little town-like place that feels separate from London. Kew gardens is located between the town of Kew and Richmond. Kew Gardens is a leading centre of botanical research, a training ground for professional gardeners and a visitor attraction. In 2005 Kew received 1.48 million visitors, which was the most since 1949 and is the largest number for any paid entry garden in the United Kingdom.[3] The gardens are mostly informal, with a few formal areas. There are conservatories, a herbarium, a library and eating places. In the winter months there is an ice rink. Henry Moore’s work was chosen to be exhibited in Kew Gardens and is the 3rd open air exhibit Moore has ever done. We joined the Henry Moore tour when we arrived but then the rain began to come down on us heavily. We walked with the tour to two different statues but then realized that we should just go indoors and eat our lunch to get out of the rain. We spread out our picnic lunch and ate it for awhile until an employee told us we had to leave since we were not paying customers. So Lauren got up and bought an orange and then we continued on eating, smugly. After our picnic the rain has slowed/stopped and we went to the most impressive glasshouse that had plants from every region. It was warm like a Florida day and we loved it. Afterwards, we mostly tumbled in and around other glass houses, snapping shots of the Moore’s along the way. Moore apparently works with three themes: mother/child, the leaning figure and one about external vs. internal or something like that. These themes were pretty evident as you can tell in the photos. Here are a bunch of shots we took throughout the day:

Our favorite one!





Inside the glasshouse!

















After the gardens, the three of us took the overground train right back to Camden where we laid around and finally decided to head over to Brick Lane to Curry Mile and get some Indian. We took a couple of buses and weird routes and ended up in brick Lane where the first restaurant offered us a bottle of red wine and 25 percent off our meal so we took that offer and were pleasantly surprised how good the food and chutneys were.

We ate a huge meal with red wine for only 20 pounds total. That is unheard of in London. Afterwards, we wandered around looking for something fun to do and explored Shoreditch some before we decided we were exhausted and wanted to call it a night.
The next day we all awoke to absolutely beautiful and fairly warm weather so we decided to take advantage of it and head to the Camden market and see what was going on since the fire and do some shopping.


My beautiful neighbourhood!
We were very pleasantly surprised to learn that the part of the market that burned was the Hot Topic part that we hated anyway. Our vintage stores and beloved food carts were still intact! And thriving even! We walked throughout the market, checking out the vintage boots and hats and purses. Lauren and Ellie both got vintage purses.

New purses!


The Loch!
Everybody was out and eating noodles and curry and donuts on the sidewalk next to the loch. We had made vegan pancakes for breakfast that morning, but were hungry anyways so we decided to try 3 beers, one from Japan, one from Wales and one from somewhere else

and we shared a plate of fries/chips with lots of vinegar and English mustard and ketchup. We sat on the ground outside as all of the good tables were taken.


Afterwards we walked up the loch some more and then headed back to Camden High Street to check out The Stables markets.

Camden High Street gets crazy on a Saturday! I love it.
We stumbled across the restaurant Spiral on the way which is this organic café on the loch and we decided to share a light lunch there so we got a small sampler of the hot foods they served, something amazing with beetroot and some other noodle like thing and it was unbelievably good. Lauren then purchased a piece of vegan cake that took the chef 15 hour to make and was raw. There was nothing cooked in the entire cake and it was made out of vegetables and tasted like Bavarian chocolate. 15 hours is a really long time to make a cake where nothing is cooked.


The infamous cake
It was supposed to give you energy and it worked!

Afterwards we went to the stables.


We walked around some more where I found a vintage dress on sale for 12 pounds and purchased it. Lauren knocked a model off a wall and tried her first donut ever, the kind in the bag with powdered sugar and she was amazed at how it melted in your mouth. Afterwards, we went to Soho and walked around and deciding on dinner at Maoz, our favorite place.


Unlimited salad bar to shove in your pita and your faces, a perfect ending to a perfect weekend.

I'm a lonely petunia...

Over Easter weekend, we decided that we wanted to retreat to Norwich to spend a long weekend with Gena and Merlin. That Thursday, I had a work meeting that was really code for a 5 minute actual meeting and a 2 hour party including wine, cookies, samosas and all the fixings. A couple of co-workers and I drank the wine and decided since we got off of work early to head to the pub across the street for another celebratory long weekend beer. Needless to say, finding the station in time was a little rough for me after all of that celebrating but I get there with a minute to spare. We soon realized that we were not the only people who left straight from work on Thursday to begin their long weekend.


The sun setting on the buildings near Ellie’s work


We had to stand on the train pretty much the entire 2 hour ride. Once we got there and caught a cab to Gen and Merl’s favorite Indian restaurant, our hellish ride was soon forgotten. It was so nice to spread out in their huge house since all of their roommates were gone and we pretty much had a routine of waking late, eating out lunch, cooking in dinner, watching six feet under episodes, and drinking the entire weekend.
We took Merlin out for a late birthday lunch to Pizza Express and brought him some of his favorite Stilton from our local cheese shop. We also had usual lunch of Mackintosh’s macaroni and cheese with a bottle of coke which was amazing as per usual.
On the way to Lunch we were faced with a strange phenomenon; a sudden snow storm. Snow was pelting us from all angles for about 15 minutes, then the sun came back out.



The night before Easter we decided to have a Mexican fiesta at our house with vegetarian chilli and tacos and guacamole and salsa. We decided to sweeten the deal by turning it into a Mexican mustache party, which then morphed into a Mexican mustache dance party as we danced into the night in their living room with music blaring from the Ipod. Beware, as some beer games turn us into photo fiends.

He could easily fit in in downtown Orlando with that mustache. His, needless to say looks the most natural.








It snowed a ton that weekend and actually settled so that was my first true snow experience in England aside from the Manchester sprinkle. It was crazy to have a snowy Easter morning.



(Ellie in her easter dress)

Snowcone!

Ellie hid candy around their house and we had a hunt which Merlin won, sliding just past Gena in the end. We went to a pub lunch where Merlin engaged in the exciting world of football watching and we ate our nut roasts and drank beer. It was a really nice relaxing weekend which was also a little bittersweet since we knew it would probably be our last time lazing around 56 York St. before we embarked on our journeys.