London Calling

Out and About in London

(Make sure to check out the picture of lovely little Fiona Brooke Avondolio in the post titled "Another one bites the dust...")

So Kirsten has had a week to settle in, we decided to motivate and get out to various places throughout London and start getting acquainted with our new home, what a busy weekend it was...

On Saturday we got up with designs on going to Portobello Market on the west side of the city. We had a long bus ride over so that we could see various neighborhoods and get a better feel for how they're all connected. We passed through Camden, Regent's Park, Oxford St. and ended up at Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. We took a stroll through the park, meandered over to the Princess Di Memorial Fountain (this pic is from the BBC, we don't have our camera USB cord yet), which despite my cynicism was actually very cool.

We strolled along the Serpentine lake and wondered at the size of this park (one of many spread throughout London) in the heart of a major metropolitan city. The best thing about it was all the people out enjoying various activities: football (soccer), walks, running, bird watching, alga gawking, etc. Alga gawking? Ah yes, there is a very interesting exhibit by Tony Haywood in the water calling attention to how alga develops mutant strains to deal with environmental conditions. Kind of neat, kind of bizarre; it felt like the Tate Modern was sticking it to me after we'd spent a couple hours there gazing at what passes for art.

After Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park we walked down and through the Portobello Rd Market. It is actually 3 markets all in a row, with the antique dealers at the top of the street, followed by the fruits, vegetables and food stuffs and finally by the flea market. We had lunch at a pub at the top of the Rd. which thankfully was not very crowded, we were able to find a seat, get a pint and enjoy our Fried Fish sandwich and Cottage Pie in relative peace. After that we waded into the crowds and I do mean waded and perused all the wares. My favorite item that I should have bought was a sign that read "Hippies entrance on the side". Keep an eye out as that may be coming to a wall near you.

Once we were finished with the crush of people and stalls upon stalls of clothing and knick knacks we walked through the very wealthy neighborhoods of Notting Hill. Some streets looked like Easter threw up on the houses, but when you live in an enormous 3-4 story mansion, I guess you can paint your house whatever color you want. We are accepting donations to put towards a downpayment on one of those houses...

We finished up our full Saturday by heading out to Anne and Rob's (anyone recognize their names?) for a lovely dinner and CV writing session for Kirsten. I can honestly say I have never enjoyed Falafel more, nor do I hope to again. The main course lamb was exceptional, the Woodcock's are setting a hard precedent to follow for dinner parties, but Kirsten and I will try our best.

Sunday we had a very lazy day, we went up and explored Finsbury Park. The park was nice, the area is certainly up and coming...We ended up walking back to our flat and stopped in at what is now one of my favorite places in London, one of the greatest cheese shops I have ever been to called La Fromagerie (http://www.lafromagerie.co.uk/index.html). Hill siblings can expect a trip here over Thanksgiving.

We stopped in at a pub just up the road that I would be proud to call my local, if only I could remember what it was called. Kirsten and I had our first proper Sunday roast, we spent about 3 hours lounging in our new favorite pub with no name on leather recliners. We agreed that this is definitely something we could get ourselves into every week. It was a really nice atmosphere, we were in the non-smoking room and surrounded by families and other couples. Truly a nice environment to spend the afternoon in and finish up a very exciting but tiring weekend.

posted by Brian and Kirsten Hennigan @ Tuesday, October 31, 2006