Wow, it is already the beginning of week 2. It is a beautiful sunny Sunday morning here in the UK. The weather channel says it is 43 degrees outside and I should expect rain and sleet. I will prepare for a day of indoor adventures. I am eating runny scrambled eggs and pure black coffee. You would think I am slumming it or something. I ran out of milk and haven’t found sugar in the grocery store yet. As for the runny eggs, I don’t have a skillet so my scrambled eggs had to be made in a sauce pan. I am not sure what I did but I couldn’t get them to cook all the way through to be extra dry, my mom would die.
I am currently going through a love/hate relationship with the internet. I love that I am sitting here jamming to Willie and listening to the Wolf in Dallas. You can’t get any country music on the radio. On the not so loving side, I am having issues not keeping up with any of my favorite programs. I figured I would be able to get up early in the morning and stream the previous night’s programs online. As I have since found out, if you are signed in through a UK IP address, you get blocked. I tried signing on to my work VPN but that requires additional programs which I don’t have access. Oh well, more time spent learning about London.
Now on to the stories of the past weekend. A few of my coworkers took me out to a micro-brewery in Covent Garden on Thursday night. It was a fun night and I was able to meet some great people. We started early enough that I was actually home by nine which was also nice. I spoke with mom and dad on the way home and they were getting ready to head back to Houston after their wonderful week of skiing in Veil. Such kids…
Olivia Chu/Berger is a friend from Atlanta who works for Yahoo and transferred over here earlier last year. We met at her office and headed out to a local hot spot called the Phoenix. It is a private pub for actors waiting to be discovered, but if you get their early enough you get in free. We had a few drinks and where met by a bunch of her Yahoo coworkers. At one point in the night, a famous British comedian came in but the celebrity moment was lost on me. I need to work a little harder to get up to date on the celeb gossip here.
After a good night at the pub, I headed for the tube to catch my nightly train home. Little did I know this is where my adventure would begin. On an average day, it takes two trains to get to my neighborhood. On this night, I made it to the train change over and found that my second train was closed because of someone falling/jumping in front of a train. As I stood around in confusion, I met another patron who informed me that this is a common occurrence and I should just find another train route. What??? While I did feel adventurous in my tube experience over the first week, I am still a creature of habit and didn’t know where to begin fining a new route home. My new friend was nice enough to point me in the right direction which got me home about 45 minutes later. I was definitely ready to sleep that night off.
Saturday was also an adventure but in a much more positive way. I met up with Olivia and her husband Greg at the London Bridge with the plan of spending the day at the Boroughs market. It was such an amazing place with sections for any food you could ever want, and I mean any. There was a cheese section with some beautiful French men… Then there was the meat area which was a little odd as they had fresh game hanging from the signs. I could go on with more things I saw there but I want to keep this post PG. Then there was the fresh veggie area which was so incredible. I had no idea that brussel sprouts grew on a stick. I guess I have always pictured them looking like little heads of lettuce growing in a field. There were also little nooks for beer, wine and fresh made food from all over the world. It was almost like a fair. We did a little shopping then headed over to a local pub for a drink. I had my first room temperature beer which was ok. The weather was cold enough that sitting outside made the glass cool it down. We then headed over to do a little sight seeing at the river Thames, ending up at a dock called St. Mary Overies. Yes, that really is the name of the place. Greg informed me of the tale behind the church ground next to the dock: Supposedly, a rich man faked his death to see how people would react. When they began to cheer, he jumped up and one of his staff thought he was the devil coming to life and beat him to death. The mans daughter was distraught over his death. Her fiancé heard of the death and while heading into town was also killed in a freak accident. The girl spent her inheritance building a church and then became a nun.
From here, we headed back to the market to grab some sandwiches before it closed. I had a good falafel wrap with all kinds of olives. Olivia went for a lamb burger and Greg was the adventurous one with the salt beef sandwich. While walking the streets, we found an older pub called the Old Kings Head where most of the patrons where 60+. We figured this would be a good place to hang out for the afternoon and planted ourselves at the bar. While we where there, we decided to be adventurous and test the variety of chips which included thanksgiving dinner, prawn and onion, salt and vinegar, cheese and onion and some beef flavor. The thanksgiving dinner flavor was true to its name, almost like eating a bag of Stove Top mix.
From there, we headed up to the Covent Garden area and hit the sushi bar with the conveyer belt. Then I came home and crashed as my feet were killing me from all the walking. Chris and Kim called and Syd was cheering on the Saints in the background. Sounds like New Orleans is getting ready for a big game this afternoon. I will see if I can find a place that will be playing American football. I am sure TGIFridays would be.
Wow, so much for promising shorter posts. Here are a few pictures of the market and our outings. Hope you enjoy. Miss you all, BS
The Market
Dead Animals
St. Mary’s Overies
Brandi and Olivia on the Thames
Brandi Olivia and Greg at the Old King
Oliva and Greg on the Tube
He informed me of all the places in the neighborhood that I should visit which helped so much. I was beginning to think everything closed at 7 pm around here. 
