14 November 2007

Another satisfied customer(s)...well sort of

Hill/Zola - 6, Hennigan - 0

Char and Stuart have just left us after a week stay. That would mean Kirsten's entire family has been to visit us (Jason 2x), my loving family is throwing up the big fat donut. I'm not offended, they love me, really they do, seriously, I don't have any doubts whatsoever, none at all, nope, none...Anyway, I digress.

We filled Char and Stuart's time with the many wonders of this lovely city we now call home. While they didn't get the full Hennigan Walking Tour we did hit several of the high points.

Saturday we hit our favorite market, Borough. We spent several hours sizing up our food options and of course plenty of time enjoying the food on offer. Among our many conquests were cheese on potatoes with gherkins, cheese sandwiches, oysters, brownies, shallots and the list goes on. We of course finished up the day with a pint at the local pub where our friend Stef met us. It's not quite the same on a cold and overcast day but lovely just the same.

We stopped in at the Tate Modern to see the infamous "crack" installation and take in some of the pieces of work decorating the walls. Char is a big modern art fan, while I, well let's just say I don't have quite the same appreciation. When we came out of the Tate we were treated to the annual Lord Mayor's fireworks show over Waterloo bridge, the Brits do seem to love their fireworks. Our takeaway from the fireworks is not to try and get to Waterloo station after the end of the fireworks, surprisingly thousands of people had the same idea and what is normally a 10 minute walk took an interminable 45 minutes...

Sunday we went out to Windsor to tour the castle. Kirsten and I have been out to Windsor a number of times but had not yet visited the castle. On this overcast day we would get our first opportunity and as luck would have it the Queen was in, unfortunately she was otherwise engaged and could not join us for lunch. We spent a couple of hours wandering through the nearly deserted castle, not having to wait in lines made it a much more pleasurable experience. We took in the famous Queen Mary's doll house which is quite impressive, never intended to be a play toy it was a gift to the Queen from her cousin. The state rooms were equally impressive as we were regaled with stories of near and distant history that occurred in the very rooms we were strolling through. Unfortunately St. George's Chapel was closed to tours as it was a Sunday but that's ok, you too can check it out online...We finished our day at Windsor by heading across the street to a pub and having a few pints and a bite to eat. Sure it was in the heart of touristland, but it was warm, the beer was cold and the Sunday roast was decent.



Returning back to Putney we decided to try out a new Thai place...we would come to regret this, some more than others. The place held so much promise, it was just round the corner from our flat, had an associated Thai supermarket next door and smacked of authenticity. We sampled the veggie Pad Thai, Massaman lamb, Chicken cashew and Chicken Suki Yaki. Walking out of the place we all were pretty pleased with the meal and Kirsten and I were looking forward to many more meals there in the months to come. Thoughts like that came to a crashing end the next morning when I got a call at the office from Stuart...who had been experiencing the worst of food poisoning. It would lay him up until Wednesday, the day he and Char were heading home. Initially we thought it was an isolated incident until Char, Kirsten and I went to a South African restaurant that night - and about midway through the meal I had to concentrate all my effort on not bringing dinner back up. It's a shame really because it's one of the best places we've been to eat in Putney, and where else are we going to get such delicacies as kudu steak, springbok, chakalaka and bobotie. So if you're counting at home that's South Africa 1 Thailand 0.
Tuesday we hit the Hill family pub in Parsons Green, the White Horse. If you're in the know you can call it the Sloaney Pony. It is rumoured to have the best fish and chips and so far we haven't been disappointed. Sadly this was the one thing Stuart was looking forward to but he was still laid up at home. Kirsten and Char were happy to report that it was indeed a good fish and chip.

And that brought Char and Stuart's trip to a close. The next morning they flew back home and Kirsten and I began gearing up for someone's birthday...

posted by Brian and Kirsten Hennigan @ Wednesday, November 14, 2007 0 comments

08 November 2007

Random Updates

or "Bringing the blog up to date". Let's take a moment to give the old pat on the back to keeping the blog updated (relatively) for over a year.

I attended the first regular season NFL game held outside of North America on the 28th of October. Now many of the newspapers over here proclaimed this as the first regular season game ever held outside of the US, but as fans of American football can tell you the Cards and 49ers played in Mexico City in 2005. Nevertheless it was an historic event and I was there. After having flown in that morning from Boston (a little something called the World Series was going on), I expected to be exhausted, but thanks to a sleeping pill I arrived UK-side bright eyed and bushy tailed.

We had lunch with some friends and then headed up to Wembley for the game. The stadium re-opened within the past year and is very impressive. Although they need to sort out the turf as it simply got chewed up, it's a good thing there isn't a football match here until the end of November.

Overall the game was dull. The Dolphins suck (like really bad) and the Giants are boring to watch (and the excelled in boredom in this game). The game did have a distinctly American feel to it which was nice, it made it especially interesting to see how the Brits in the crowd responded. Considering the biggest cheers throughout the game were reserved for the cheerleaders I think you can imagine that it was more of a novelty than an actual sporting affair.

What else...

It's official, Kirsten is now recognised as a proficient English writer by the Nursing Association in the UK. We're all very proud of her. Clearly those Ivy's are just interested in graduation rates.

Char (K's mom) and Stuart are coming to town for a week (actually I am writing this from home as I expect them any minute). So there will be more updates to follow and hopefully some more satisfied customers of the Hennigan tour of London.

I think that about covers it. Until the next post...

posted by Brian and Kirsten Hennigan @ Thursday, November 08, 2007 1 comments

06 November 2007

In Prague, in 1968, there lived a young doctor named Tomas...

The anticipation in the run up to Brian's birthday was unbearable. The only thing that made it tolerable was knowing that we would be spending 3 days in Prague. We've heard great things about it from everyone who's been, now it was our time, up there it was their time, down here it was our time, our time.

We'll spare you the travel details, but it bore a remarkable likeness to our experiences getting to and from other European destinations. However once we got to Prague it was all we had hoped and been lead to believe.

It being a birthday trip Kirsten booked us into a very nice hotel in the Jewish Quarter a short walk away from all the sights that we would take in over the next couple of days. We started by enjoying a nice French meal next to the hotel as we planned our next stop.

When you visit Prague the most dominating feature and most touristed is Prague Castle. We made sure to spend some time over two days walking around the grounds of the Castle. Unfortunately, we missed the inside of St. Vitus Cathedral which dominates the skyline of Prague, somehow spending 2-3 hours of our holiday time waiting in line just didn't seem worth it. Regardless of missing the Cathedral we enjoyed the other aspects such as Golden Lane, St. George's Basilica and the dungeon. One of the other "recommendations" for Prague Castle is the changing of the guard. Similar to in London these guys stand completely still for hours at a time while crowds of tourists flow by them, many of them trying to get these guys to laugh. Clearly we are a more high brow sort and therefore would never lower ourselves to take such pictures...

Some of our other highlights during our three days:

Meeting up with Brian's work colleagues Richard and Von out for drinks. Unfortunately this caused us to miss the Rugby World Cup final, but since England didn't win we weren't subjected to a bunch of Brits moaning in the Czech Republic. Richard is Dutch and couldn't care less about sport and Von is American and doesn't realise there is a sport beyond Dallas Cowboys football. Oh well.

We spent a lot of time criss-crossing St. Charles Bridge, the most famous and romantic of all the bridges over the Vltava River, flanked by its two prominent tower gates. Who would have figured that as the happy couple (us) would get caught in the middle of the bridge during a sleet/hail storm. All the more reason to hurry back to the hotel for a hot shower and then a nice meal out. We managed to find a "pizzeria" that served some traditional Czech fare; duck breast with potato dumplings and goulash.
One of the hotel highlights was the Zen City Spa. As an extra surprise Kirsten booked sessions. For a full hour we had a couple of Thai women bordering on assault as they worked our muscles, bones and flesh. Massage, Thai women, Czech Republic, ummmm, it was an experience. We came out of it still married and having not violated any vows, and feeling very refreshed. By the way, "disposable underwear"? who knew.

We also hit the faux Eiffel Tower (it was a long hike up the hillside), Hall of Mirrors, the Old Town City Hall including its very antique clock, and the very German beer hall called U Fleku

Overall, a wonderful place and can't wait until we get the chance to go back. Anyone fancy a trip to London and then a pop-over to the Czech Republic? We're always here.

posted by Brian and Kirsten Hennigan @ Tuesday, November 06, 2007 0 comments

2 Brians, 1 London

The weekend of 13/14 October we had our first visitor at our new flat in Putney. Former colleague and constant friend Brian stopped in on London during the Krick European Tour 2007.


This would Brian's first trip to Europe and in an effort to make it as enjoyable as possible the airlines obliged by losing his luggage. By the time he made it to London from Scotland he'd been wearing the same clothes for 4 days, lucky him.


After a shower and a change of clothes on Saturday he was feeling refreshed and looked like a new man, as a matter of fact he looked like me, clearly the clothes make the man.


Kirsten and I had a colleague (or two's) wedding Saturday night so we left Brian to his own devices. While he was sampling the wonders of the pubs in Putney we spent the evening dancing to rock music with a bunch of Scotsmen in kilts (remember this line for future posts). It must be said that the reception really didn't start until 9PM, this may have had something to do with the fact that England was playing France in the semifinals of the Rugby World Cup. The entire male population at the wedding and the majority of the women sat in the back of the hall watching the match projected onto a wall. Thankfully England won, there was much rejoicing followed by a wedding fireworks spectacular (nice touch Rob!) and then plenty of drinks, dancing and late night bacon sandwiches...mmmmm, bacon sandwiches.


Sunday saw Brian giving Brian the 2nd instance (could be 3rd or 4th) of the Hennigan London Walking Tour. It was slightly expanded this time to include Piccadilly Circus (and an Indian lunch) but unfortunately missed out on Borough Market as it was Sunday. That being said, it was a nice day and can count another satisfied customer. The service has evolved as well as it now includes a photographer to prove "you were here".
Thankfully Brian's clothes finally caught up with him in Amsterdam, just in time to get searched on the way out...
People, with so many satisfied customers you are really running out of excuses to stop on in.

posted by Brian and Kirsten Hennigan @ Tuesday, November 06, 2007 0 comments