Today I took a little trip to LaDuree Bakery in London. This French stalwart purportedly has the best macaroons.

Patient patrons:

Gateaux Galore

More fun in small boxes

The brave Bree had me FedEx these delicacies to her in Annapolis. Let’s cross our fingers that they made it!!

For the past few days, I have been setting my alarm to wake up and go to the Billingsgate Fish market. Both Thursday and Friday, the alarm failed to go off causing me to oversleep. Since it only happens from 5:30am to 8:30am, it is for the early risers.

Today, I got my alarm right (the clock time was set to PM instead of AM) and Andrea and I went off.
Going to the market:

Main Sign (under construction wraps)

Sea Snake (repeatedly told this is not an eel)

Live Crayfish

Local Brown Crab

Display of fish with price by box!

Cute hatted man selling fish

3 kilo salmon for Andrea, Fraser and I

Andrea making salmon steaks:

Fish head stock

Tonight we should eat well after scouring the Jamie Oliver cook-book and the web. The market was filled with all the people in London who know how to cut and clean and cook fish. Every fish seller had no idea what to do with the fish (excepting the guy who we bought our salmon from who told us how to cut it).

Grilling the fish heads was the most insane use I found:

Tuesday, I was so excited to get ballet tickets to see Swan Lake. The performance was sold out but thanks to the handy “day of” ticket, I was able to squeeze a place into Stalls Circle Left. There was a chatty guy on my right from San Sebastian, Spain who kept speaking in rapid english but making lots of little noises like gesticulations. It was pretty amusing. At the first interval, the girl on my left from Argentina studying set design and theatre suggested we move closer to the front where three seats were available. We did. It was fabulous.

This production of Swan Lake was much different than the last I saw at the Royal Opera House. It had almost a Spanish feel to it with some strange little creatures, much like the winged beasts in Wizard of Oz, that ran around the stage during Act III. It was pretty engaging but I think Manon might be my new favorite ballet.

This week has largely been an exercise in flat viewing. While I have seen a great many things, each one had some small flaw (or flaw with the price) that caused it not to work out. From this exercise, I have learned much about the psyche of the letting agent.

Act 1.
They begin with a twenty minute conversation to your mobile asking a wide range of questions that make little sense at all. Where to you live now? Do you like it? What do you like about it? and then on to more nonsense such as, well why did you choose this area? What does your ideal flat look like? What type of building should it be in? and on and on til your not quite sure what you have said.

Act 2.
The meeting. Most all of the agents try to get you to come to their office and meet rather than to the property. This may be so they don’t have to move unless you really show up but more than likely so they can whisk you through the streets of London in a flash car. However, all of the ones I have met are in a constant search for the flat keys (who has them..colleague, building manager, other letting agent, and so on). Half of your time is spent chasing around the keys rather than viewing the flats. The other half is looking for a place to park the said flash car and/or procuring a parking permit ticket. So the actual time in the flat is maybe five to seven minutes for you to decide your fate.

Act 3.
The calls. Once they have shown you around and spent about 45 minutes to an hour with you, the barrage of calls comes in over the next several days. “Oh this has just come on the market, but we have no pictures. You must see because it will be gone quickly”. This and my other pet peeve, (ie knowing nothing about the flat in terms of council tax, utility usage, other fees) makes me curious why we are paying an administration fee to these guys!! Other than the calls, there is oddly not any pressure to make a decision other than the “other person” out there who may be placing an offer.

The search continues….

Sunday saw a huge celebration in Trafalgar Square for Diwali. The atmosphere was charged with thousands of people standing everywhere in the square. While I couldn’t see the lamps being lit, the large screen jumbotron helped show the rest of the square what was happening on the stage. The night was perfect, cool and dry.

The Masses of People

Diwali in the Square:

Dusk with Dancing

The walk had two components a water and land side. Walking back to the DLR and around Cable Road, here are a few more images from Shadwell.

Battle of Cable Street Mural (showing the Jewish community and the East End dockworkers uniting to fight Fascism)

Restored Georgian Terraced Houses:

St. George in the East, designed by Nicolas Hawksmore, bombed during 1942 and reconstructed.

Wilton’s Music Hall, Grace Alley,
The only surviving music hall in the world from the 1840s. Originally located behind a pub.

Ending up at the Tower of London

Upon arrival last week, Andrea foisted a Walking East London guidebook into my hands and suggested getting to know the area. Taking her up on the idea, I set out for Shadwell yesterday. In London, you can pass a tube stop so many times, it feels familiar without really knowing what is there.

The walk started with a jaunt around the Shadwell basin. The streets are tiny, one way tracks. Here is a walk through the small park leading to the basin.

Several of the features of the old docks, that used to engulf the area, are incorporated into the park.

Terraced water way leading to the Basin

The Shadwell Basin

The oldest riverfront pub in London, Prospect of Whitney (from 1570)

The elusive Pelican Stairs

The view across the Thames

Metropolitan Wharfs with original iron rigging on the outside (converted into flats)

In my quest for flat hunting, I haven’t spent enough time exploring the little area of Isle of Dogs where I am staying. Here are a few shots of my short adventure walk.

O2 Centre at Dusk:

Cold Harbour:

The tiniest Boston Terrior ever seen:

Cute flat with bike and lavender out front:

Sunset from the Blue Bridge:

View from the lock:

Very strange to walk home from the Waitrose and see the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior tying up at the docks. The original Rainbow Warrior was blown up in Auckland on July 10, 1985.

This time the ship is back to try and encourage the UK to use cleaner sources of energy than coal.

This past Thursday, a large parade through town ended up in Trafalger Square with all of the British Olympic team. It was a beautiful day and attracted a huge crowd.

The little Olympians

After the cheering, I popped into St. Martin’s in the Field and noticed a radical new interior from when I was last there. A string quartet was practicing for the Thursday night recital which was fun. The new apse window and the removal of most of the interior alter pieces was a bit of a shock! The ceiling detail, highlighted with new lights and gold leaf, looked good.

New Fun House Window:

Interior:

Last night, after a day of flat hunting, I went to the Royal Opera House, in Covent Garden, to see the ballet, Manon. Originally created by the Danish, based on the French opera, it has revived for this ballet season. Tamara Rojo, one of my favorite principal dancers, was Manon. The other dancer whom I used to enjoy watching, Darcey Bussell has moved on from the company.

It was a thrilling performance and very enjoyable to see! I am already planning my next trips to see Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker and Swan Lake.

The last week has been a swirl of flat hunting. There have been the good:
Covent Garden

Canary Wharf

From Langdon Close-1st floor

Parsons Green

the bad, and the downright dodgy!

The good side to all of this is the experience of getting to know new areas (for me it has primarily been Canary Wharf, Parsons Green/ Fulham and little Venice) as well as the definition of what we really need in a flat.

The upside to the recession is that flats are opening up all over the City making the market very soft and prices drop (along with the drop in the pound to better rates against the dollar).

Within the past week, the internet went missing in the flat due to technical difficulties, making me have to surf in the rough (libraries, pubs, McDonalds)
Also learned that a McDonalds burger put on ciabatta bread equals the M burger

Spa Creek Sunset

Originally uploaded by snoosh.

I can’t let Emily have all the fun posting photos.

The New Forest is one of England’s AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). Rick and I left from London on the Southwest train in the morning and met up with Simon on the train in Southhampton. We then journeyed down to New Milton, just on the outskirts of the New Forest.

We started off and quickly realised we needed a cab to make it to the Rising Sun pub and the outskirst of the Forest. Luckily one happened to be driving past. Our driver, Binghamton, lived in Chicago for 13 years of his life and loved it the best out of anywhere (including many lovely beach towns along the atlantic coast in spain and france). He dropped us off and pointed the vague way into the forest.

We fortified ourselves with a large lunch of steak & ale pies for Ricklet and Simon and then a Lamb’s Purse for me; all of us had lots of veggies and potatoes.

We then hiked on into the Forest and found a suitable path (without being too boggy in mud since Rick and I didn’t have the best hiking attire). The forest is a huge area where many people still retain grazing rights. As such, cows, horses and even sows are just wandering through the forest rather wild.

We ended up at Wooten Bridge and played in the small brook. Thenwe hired another taxi to take us to the sea side at Barton on Sea.

Our driver, another American, had lived in this area for more than 20 years raising his children enjoying life. The pace is very simple here. We hung out down on the rocks for a while, as Simon and Ricklet went paddling (wading). Simon caught a big wave and was a bit wet for a while.

The sea was very rough like California with huge cliffs. There were several sailboats out on the horizon, likely sailing from Lymington or the Isle of Wight–just six miles west. We hiked up the hill and had a cream tea with Simon & Rick trying the Dorset Apple Cake.

It was a fun adventure and we climbed on the train tired and ready to go home with promises to come back very soon.

Here are few shots:

Friday night, Spim & Clara,

Rick & Paul

From Drinks with Tongs

and I all met up for lovely drinks at the Star on Great Chapel Street just off Oxford Street. The drinks were amazing. I tried a Tallulah Bankhead, made with garlic infused vodka and lemon which tasted just of lemon curd. Then I tried a Orange & Cardamom infused rum daquri which was stunning too.

We ate some small tapas plates of meat and cheese. Jet lag hit me early so I had to call it a night at 10pm.