Markets

I'm a little bit obsessed with the markets here in London.  I've been to a few farmer's markets in Houston, so when I set out for a market near my flat here in London, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into.  Did I have another thing coming!!

Borough Market is a food lover's heaven.  There's no other way to put it.  The problem is, there are a lot of people who know this already.  Once I found my way into the most wonderful place on earth (has someone already used that one?) I had to do three full laps in one of the sections of the market before I had the courage to jump out of the flow of traffic to check anything out.  That was ok, because I was still in a bit of shock over everything I was seeing.

Here are a few pics:

Borough Market has three sections: Middle Market, Jubilee Market, and Green Market.  I spend most of my time in the Middle and Jubilee markets.  That is where the majority of the food vendors are for eating on the spot.

Every kind of food you can imagine is available here.  You can find seafood, butchers, bakeries, flowers, spices, fruits, mushrooms, wine, salami, cheeses, coffee, desserts, and on and on and on...

There are a ton of stalls that line the markets which are selling food that is meant to be eaten on the spot.  So while looking at all of this great food to buy for your groceries, you are walking past giant vats of paella, spanish hams being carved in front of you to go on sandwiches, british roast beef for more sandwiches and most importantly, this sweet contraption below:

This machine burns a layer of cheese from the cheese wheel.  Once that cheese is burned, it's going to be scrapped onto boiled potatoes with pickles and pearl onions.  It is delicious.

See...It just oozes off of the wheel.  It was so good.  I made several circles past this place during my many visits to the market, but I only had the courage to stop when I was there with the Hammers!  They loved the dish as well.  We ended up sharing 3 different dishes (although I didn't forfeit too many bites of mine) while they were here.  Jenn got a chicken pot pie thing, which is a common British dish.  They have potatoes in their savory pies here and it's a complete full meal.  Dave fell victim to the roast beef sandwich.  You watched them shred the beef right in front of you and then build a massive sandwich.  All of our dishes were really good.


As much as I love Borough Market, I have to admit it is a bit of a mad house.  For that reason, I'm so glad Sylvie told me about Maltby St. Market.  This market is truly just across the major street near my flat and it is a lot of vendors from Borough who have decided to pop up in a different location that is less crazy.  Since finding this market, there hasn't been a Saturday that's gone by without me making my weekly run (well, Saturdays that I'm in town).

I usually end up with a fresh loaf of brown sourdough bread from St. Johns, one type of salami, at least one cheese option, fresh butter, eggs, and whatever fruits/veg I need to pull off whatever I'm about to march back home and make for lunch!  I love my Saturday morning routine.

There is also a stall that sells Gin and I tried their gin bloody mary the first time I went (when Bub arrived for the first time after I had moved).  The bloody mary mix was really, really good.

Here are a few pics from Maltby St.:

I've also been to Columbia Street Flower Market, which is also a mad house...but the flowers are gorgeous and are priced really, really low!  There are a lot of cool shops that line the street, I need to go back when it is not a market day to be able to move around in the shops.

I'm also a fan of Spitalfields Market which is a market structure with changing themes each day for what type of market it is: Antiques, Vintage, food, etc.  This was the first market I ever visited in London, when it was set up as a vintage resale market.  I actually wanted to find a flat to live in near the market here, as it is a really cool area, yet still close to work.  They also have a lot of good restaurants in permanent structures within the market here.

I also got a good tip from friends/coworkers to go check out Greenwich Market.  While the market is cool with a lot of handmade crafts, it's the town of Greenwich that I like the most.  It's a great maritime town that is really self-contained.  The Observatory is there as well as the Naval Academy and Maritime Museum.  It's a nice place to spend a weekend day.

Finally, I ventured out to Camden Market and found myself in a whole different type of market. This is actually a series of different markets and they are all a bit more edgy than the others I have visited so far.  If you want to find punk shirts or have your feet sucked by fish in tanks, this is the place to be!  The building structures that house the different markets are really interesting.  Like the other markets, there are a ton of great food options here and a lot of very inexpensive clothing available.

All of this talk about markets has made me hungry!  Time for dinner.  I'll post more after I've made it to some of the other markets...next up is Portobello Market and then I'll use Time Out London's Guide to London Markets to plot my next stops!

Jubilee Weekend - Friday

A collection of photos I took while walking around my neighborhood on the Friday before the Jubilee flotilla parade.

The tall ships anchored on the side of the Tower Bridge that I live on.  These ships are too tall to take part in the actual parade.

Flags are popping up everywhere!

This was my favorite tall ship.  A stranger was telling me about the history of this boat (this is a replica of a really old boat and they acted like I should know the name of the person who sailed it).  I said "Oh, the one that looks like it has a crown on it?"  and they said "Um, you mean the crow's nest?"  I'm clearly not in the know with ship lingo...

Nothing to do with the Jubilee...but we have our very own Bansky graffiti right by my flat!  Supposedly Brad & Angelina had a wall with a Banksy painting on it shipped to one of their homes and installed inside the house.

Isn't she lovely...

Hiya from London!

Well, I made it through my first week!  I've been slowly getting used to the new surroundings.  Who couldn't get used to that view?  It's just across the street from my flat.

The buildings on the left are full of great restaurants and shops.  The cobble stone streets are reserved for pedestrians during the times of day that I'm around.

There is a Michelin Star restaurant called le Pont de la Tour where Clinton dined with Tony Blair.  The same owners also have a high-end grocery store, wine cellar, and Italian restaurant all mingled together.

The wine cellar is currently trying to get it's hands on some Crown Royal for me.  I will be ever so appreciative if they pull it off!  That reminds me, I should pop over this evening and see if they were able to get it.  They have a customer in me for even trying!

The appliances in my flat were daunting.  In fact, it's taken me all week to figure them all out.  I had to download some user manuals (for the clothes washing machine that's located in my kitchen, the heaters that are located in each room, and I glanced through the oven & dishwasher manuals just for good measure).

I'm still living out of the suitcases I took on the flight over.  My air shipment should be here in about a week (after a lot of badgering on my part...too bad I didn't start that sooner).  I'll take pictures of the flat once I have some more of my own stuff to warm the place up a bit.

My old friends from SunGard invited me to a BBQ in the Wimbledon area this past weekend.  I had such a great time catching up with them.  There were a lot of major sporting events on that day (Football Finals, Euro Style & a big Rugby game).  I'm definitely planning to convert to a rugby fan, as I do love the rowdy men that play that sport.  That group is looking to do some season tickets it sounds like.

I went to a book reading with the group from Darnley Rd on Thursday of last week.  I got to see a lot of the group while out with them, and I made it home at a decent time on a school night!

My cable was installed on Sunday, however my TV is in my air shipment.  I have a lonely little cable box sitting on the floor waiting for its match.  While tv-less, i've blown through 3 books and I'm currently pacing to knock out the fourth one before my broadband is connected on Friday.  Amazing how much reading you can knock out without distractions.

Work is keeping me on my toes.  I was so distracted with the move there for a good month, that I have a ton to get my arms around.  I'm very much enjoying being back in full swing though!  My flat is only two tube stops from the bottom of my building!

More later!

T

Chicken's Arse

Map of Slovenia - with Chicken Outlined

Ben so accurately pointed out that Slovenia is shaped like a chicken and that holding true, Klavze 28 is in the Chicken's Arse (see yellow star).  So I've taken a map and marked up a few of the highlights of our stay there.  I'll be referring back to this frequently.

Hey, speaking of arses, Day 2 in Slovenia is when all hell broke loose.  Our meticulous schedule was shot to hell as well.  Upon waking up (rather late considering the number of bottles of wine we tossed back the night before) I had an incident in my bedroom that involved what was later to be discovered as a pinched nerve in my back.  It sent me to my knees in incredible pain and I wasn't quite sure 1. how i'd get up off the floor and 2. how i'd make it down both sets of stairs to let Ben and Luey know what was going on.

So i sucked it up and stood up...pain!  Then got down the stairs...more pain.  Downstairs I thought I'd move around a bit and see if the pain would lessen any.  It didn't.  We decided I needed help.  Ben started calling to see if he could find a chiropractor for me to visit.  One that was relatively close couldn't see me until the next day at noon (no good!), then there was an option or two in Gorizia, Italy just across the border.  We decided to head out and try to find someone there.  We found ourselves in a residential area and after talking to some neighbors were able to determine that there was a chiropractor....we called him and he was in another town and could try to get back that evening to see me.  At this point, I was going to have to opt for an emergency room if no one could see me.  I couldn't sit without hurting, laying hurt, everything hurt. 

We finally found a physical therapist via Ben's iphone.  This guy could meet us at 3:30 or so.  It was about noon, so we decided we would kill time waiting for him.  We had some lunch, of which i was standing up for a lot of since sitting in a chair hurt me.  Then we walked for some Gelato, but walking hurt me (get the idea here).  We got back in the car and drove around.  I decided to lay down at this point.  Luey and Ben found a castle and decided to tour it.  I stayed laying in the car.  It sounded like a lovely castle and a lovely town we were driving through.  The pictures I saw later looked like that too!

3:30 finally rolled around.  So we went to see the Physio (PT).  He was a really cute guy, and his office was very small.  He only spoke Italian, so Ben had to stay to help translate as best he could.  So before long he has explained that it's a pinched nerve because the pain is shooting down into my legs.  I have to lay on the table and drop my pants.  So here I am with my arse in the air and Luey and Ben are sitting in little chairs at arse level.  It was a practice in humility for this modest girl...however i was in so much pain that i was certain i'd get over the humility if this worked.  Cute Physio started doing his electric shock therapy on my back, butt, legs.  He did this for quite a while.  Much longer than my chiropractor at home would have allowed for.

It was magic when he was done.  I hopped right off the table (pulled up my pants) and was able to stand up completely...without much pain at all.  In fact, my back probably felt better than it had in quite a while.  Thank the good Lord!!  It was probably 4:30 or 5 before we finished.  I had officially derailed an entire day of vacation!  I felt so awful. 

Luckily Ben was able to recover some of it by driving us through the Brda wine region - which they liken to a Slovenian Tuscany. They aren't far from the mark there, or I can only imagine they are not. The landscape was breathtaking. Mountainsides of wine vines in their perfectly organized rows!

We stopped at a winery where we were able to taste some wines.  Ben bought a 10 ltr bottle of wine. And we picked him up a new decanter for wine at the house.




We drove a little more and found a lookout point that we could climb for panoramic views of the region.  I can't wait to get home to my photo software and stitch together some panoramic pics.


We listened to good music from Ben's ipod and enjoyed the crisp breezes blowing through the car on our way winding back down the mountains.  It was a great drive.


Kudos (many, many kudos) to Ben for helping me find a dr. and still recovering the day.  He truly is the perfect host!


We headed back to the house with promises of mushroom risotto for dinner and a ton of wine we picked up along the way - both at the Mercato and at the winery we stopped at.  Bottles of wine are so dang cheap there.  The bottle of Prosecco that we drank the most of was only 1.40 Eur/bottle!  I picked up an assortment of red wines as well - none of which were more than 4 Eur per bottle.

The risotto was delicious.  Luey and I took turns "helping" care for the risotto while it was cooking.  Ben used porchini mushrooms he had on hand along with an assortment of other mushrooms as well.  It was really good!

We dined outdoors again and enjoyed the food, drinks, company, and music again!  Another great night at the house.  Ben had a friend to call to set up a canyoning trip for him and Luey the next day.  I boughed out graciously given the back complications.

Drive to Slovenia

We got an early start to Slovenia Monday morning. The drive time between Milan to Slovenia was showing at 4.5 hours and we wanted to stop in Verona along the way. The timing ended up working quite well.

We've now named the GPS Neverlost to Sybil. I've had to break up several fights between her and Luey at this point. Those two do not travel well together at all. We rented a Fiat 500 and it was during this driving day that we realized I have some mad Italian driving skills. If you all are going to straddle two lanes and drive up on everyone's arse, well so am I! A large portion of the street signs were difficult to decipher (if we ever deciphered at all) and the toll booth system was an absolute guessing game on numerous occassions.

We found a parking spot pretty easily in Verona and headed into the center of town. The coliseum was really cool to see and by looking at it from the outside, it's hard to believe they still hold events there today. Noemi and Paolo had talked about seeing an Eagle's concert there. It truly looks like it's crumbling apart...not quite the same experience as seeing a show in the reliant stadium if you ask me!

We saw Juliet's balcony and then went into the town center. We climbed the bell tower and got a nice bird's eye view of the areas surrounding Verona. It was really pretty. We stopped for lunch and Luey made me try to take photos of the cute little waiter...I'm pretty sure he was only 12 years old and told her she's going to have to start taking her own pictures of very young cute boys!


We headed back to the car so we could get to Ben's house. We decided to sit still in the car for a bit while Luey fought with Sybil again and I spent 20 minutes trying to get comfortable in the little driver's seat. A car was waiting to pull into our parking spot and he ultimately decided to get out of his car, walk up to the window and proceed to ask us in Italian if we're planning to leave (at least that's what I think he said). When he read the confusion on my face, he repeated the question in English...at which point Luey responded with "Un momento" and I replied with "Ja!" The man then asked us if we were American. How on earth did he get that we were American when we threw out responses in Spanish and German?? He's really good...

We got another hour down the road before we had a good laugh about that one. It took us an hour to get over my new Italian style of driving that included a u-turn on the major road into Verona's town center (lots of stares came with that one) and last minute crazy driver decisions at each fork in the road while trying to understand what Sybil was telling us to do to get back on the highway.

Crossing the border from Italy to Slovenia was very uneventful. We just flew right past the country line. It was raining while we were driving and once we hit Slovenia the roads started getting smaller and smaller (in width)....the inclines started getting more and more steep and the bends in the road were more and more sharp. I could tell the scenery around me was beautiful, but I was more focused on not getting into a head-on collision with a car barreling around a curve on the mountain. I was really appreciating how small our Fiat was in those moments. Sybil was becoming less useful to us and this was a really bad time for her to do this. It turned out that it was partly my fault, as I thought Klavze 28 was the street and house number...but Klavze (pronounced Clause (sounds like house) - Sha) was really the city name we should have put in. We got that straightened out with Sybil but I was still confused with where the house was. Much to my dismay, it was down a steep unpaved road that I was trying to will myself not to have to drive down in the rain. We did have to drive down it in the rain.

I'm not sure that we can call what was done driving...it was more like a Hail Mary down the driveway...I'm pretty certain both mine and Luey's eyes were closed for the full length of this drive (i'm horrible with estimates, so let's go with 2-3 football fields?...someone can correct me later if i'm wrong here). There were a few things in play here that are very difficult to capture in words...mud holes due to the rain (so fear of getting the little car stuck); narrow driveway that looks straight down a cliff to the portion of river that runs through Ben's property (so fear of driving off a cliff, especially with closed eyes); and sharp steep bumps/hills in the driveway which caused the little car to bottom out. So. We creep down the driveway apprehensively for a short little bit, but start encountering the mud puddles pretty quickly. At this point, we still have room on both sides of the car (no cliff drops just yet). I didn't think we'd get so lucky as to stumble upon a lil'mule to help us get out of the mud if we were to get stuck, so I start coming up with the brilliant plan of gunning it.

What happened next is a bit difficult to remember because it was as if we were filming an episode of the Dukes of Hazzard. Instead of Bo and Duke Luke, you had Toby and Luey; and instead of the General Lee you had, well a Fiat 500.

We slid, we flew, we stared down a cliff wondering if we were going over, we probably lost the exhuast system due to dragging bottom so badly toward the end of the driveway. We pretty much just turned the car off and peeled ourselves out when we saw the house. I'm sure Ben would have appreciated us pulling up a little closer to the house at any point over the next two days...but we just had to walk away from the car at that point.

We immediately fell in love with everything we were looking at. The clouds and rain across the landscape just made it that much more stunning! I loved every bit of it. We also met the cats - Harvey and Vester. Ben cracked open the wine immediately and he fixed us up with meats/cheeses (YUM). We spent the evening outside drinking, talking, listening to good music. Ben cooked Garlic Pesto stuffed trout (the trout is a specialty of the area fresh from the river and the garlic pesto is made fresh from the property). Below are some pics of everything! It was a fantastic evening and everything tasted great. I think we polished off 6 bottles of wine as well.

Rain, Rain...go away - Milan Day 2

We woke to a spread of cookies, cakes, nutella and other sweets for breakfast. Your kids would all have loved it! I wasn't displeased myself.

It was still raining when we woke up. We headed out to see what we could fit in despite the rain. We started out with a trip to the grocery. Of course, I was in heaven with this. It was truly a super market, about the size of a nicer HEB (like the one in West Houston on Westheimer/Kirkwood).


They have to pay money to get shopping carts and then if you return the carts to where they belong, you receive your 2 EUR back.

Other interesting facts during the Mercato visit:
1. Don't throw away your receipt when you buy coffee at the coffee bar, you need it to get your order. I dug in the trash to try and find ours, but instead they just decided to trust us after I pulled out three receipts that were not ours.

2. Italians do not trust each other (see point 1 above). This was the first day I was catching wind of this notion. We couldn't figure out where to get out of the actual grocery section to get back to a bathroom because they force you to go through the checkout lines to leave for security reasons. We finally convinced someone to let us out another way.

3. They make you wear gloves to pick out your produce. See pic of Luey for this. I accidentally grabbed my sticker for the produce with the glove...that is not advisible.

4. You can load your credit card onto a wand and then scan all of your items as you put them in the cart. However, they still check all of the contents of your cart at the end to make sure you're not stealing anything...so i'm not quite sure where the efficiencies are here. We had scanned one item twice and forgot one item...so i guess it was a wash?

5. They have an entire row dedicated to pasta. Both sides are filled with every sort of pasta you can imagine. It was maybe like our chip aisle or cereal aisle....but both sides filled.

6. They had great options for freshly prepared food items - pastas, cheeses, meats, dough, etc.

After the visit to the market, we went to a castle. It was pouring outside so we toured the inside. The rooms had great frescos on the ceilings, including my favorite one by DaVinci that looked like a forest inside the room. Very pretty.



We headed back to the house because the rain was too much to have the kids out in. Once we got back, Noemi prepared Spaghetti Carbonara for us at the house. It was cool to see how easily she threw something like that together. We had the huge spread of meats and cheeses again along with the lunch. While we were eating, the sun came out and the weather turned gorgeous.



Noemi's mom came over to keep the kids so we could go back out for more site seeing. We finally made it to the top of the Duomo. It was so pretty because it was later in the day with the pretty colors coming through in the sky. It was really an awesome site of architecture with the gothic spires and engravings on the doors. You could see forever from up there. I'm pretty sure I disgraced the church by doing a few little shimmies for some photo ops up there, but hey...we're friends like that, right?



That might have been why I stepped backwards while on the roof and nearly fell...only to disrupt my back more when I did catch myself. The back had been giving me some problems since the hydro-planing the night before on the wet sidewalks.

We had to get back to the house after that so her mom could head off to church that evening. Luey and I stayed up a little later than the others and knocked back a 6 pack of Italian beer while uploading pictures.

Off to Slovenia tomorrow!

Weekend in Milan - Day 1

Luey and I made it to Milan! We also found our way to Noemi and Paolo's house without too many problems. Once we got the GPS to work in our car and gained an understanding of the toll booths and street signs, we were on our way.

We arrived to a beautiful meal of trofia pasta with pesto, a spread of meats and cheeses with bread. It was perfect.

We went out for an evening walk around Milan. We saw the Duomo at night (in the rain) but it quickly became a downpour! We hadn't taken any umbrellas with us so we were soaked. To top it off, I found out that it is next to impossible to walk on wet marble sidewalks with flip flops on! I was hydro-planing all over the place and almost dragged Luey down to her knees to save myself from falling. I am still sorry about that!

Before the rains came we had what Noemi and Paolo said was the best gelato in Milan. We ordered Baci flavored Gelato with this fantastic whip cream on top (Luey had a bit too much if you ask me...you decide for yourself).



After we survived the rain storm, we headed to a pizza place (L'Universo) and met some of Noemi and Paolo's friends out. The pizza was fantastic! Thin sliced, wood fired pizza. They tasted so great because the cheese was so freaking good. The Buffa Mozzarella had such a good taste...nothing like the tasteless mozarella I'm used to picking up in the grocery at home.



Their friends were so great! Alberto, his wife Alline (she's from Brazil originally but has been in Milan for about 4 years now), their daughter (4 mos old) Nora and then N&P's other friend Martina. She's a trapeze artist who lives in Barcelona, but she and Noemi grew up together here in Milan. I believe Martina also visited Texas for a while when Noemi knew Luey as an exchange student.

Luey and I had not slept on the flights over, so we were working on about 36 hours of being awake straight after pizza. We were pretty beat. That's one way to make yourself adjust to their clock! We crashed and slept like babies the first night.

I'll post about Day 2 shortly.

Ciao!