One of the greatest things in London (so far) is Borough Market. A cornucopia of gourmet and organic foods. Cheeses, fresh breads, juices, salts, butters, olives, beers and gourmet food vendors, all  under one, well two really, roof. There’s also a “world beers” stall that sells everything, even coopers sparkling ale. An Australian walked in while I was there, looked at all the European ales and ciders and bought a six pack of coopers!!

Seeing as Kahlia is away, I decided to indulge myself. It’s the start of mushroom season and the market is full of our yummy fungi friends… I thought I would start at the top (of my price range anyway, no truffles) with morels, at £120/kg I didn’t get many (shhh don’t tell Kahlia). I also got some fancy sausages and duck fat to roast potatoes.

The morels were delicious, however not worth the money, the real highlight was the duck fat potatoes, sooooo good.

This weekend I did my first UK trip, to Manchester, to visit Nick & Alicia (newly engaged). They have a modern two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Manchester.

On Saturday they took me into the Peak District (Snake Pass pictured) a beautiful countryside quite similar to Australia’s Alpine region. The pass was full of small and large Caverns that make for good exploring. (Beware the Wyverns of olde!) After that we ambled through the streets of a perfectly iconic English town and ate lunch in the epitome of an English coach house; beside an  open fire place.

The night was passed trying the local real ales and a few foreign ones. Nick put me onto ratebeer.com as we tasted number 10 on the list. A Trappist ale, weighing in at 11.3% I dubbed it Bine, or weer. Whilst a remarkable introduction into Belgium beer, it is a beer only for very special occasions. So special in fact that I doubt there will be another.

Sunday was spent hiking the moors and watching sheep dog trials. These were really, really interesting. The dog was herding sheep through gates 500 metres away from the shepherd who could barely see the dog. I could have watched this all day.

 

Good work Nick & Alicia, although they didn’t show me a hedge-hog.

Well, I have had to rejoin the real world and find work. After a month of searching I finally accepted a role with a company that is not in central London. But at least we have an income again. Kahlia was most please and has gone to visit Sarah in New York to celebrate. Something doesn’t seem right with this situation…. 

 

We have posted a travel todo page for Europe here, please feel free to send us your favourite places or ideas. We are heading to Sicily, Italy at Easter and then Rome the next long weekend after that.

Alan and Amy organised our second cultural experience, a hip-hop dance interpretation of the Pied Piper. It sounds wacky I know, but it was really, really good. Hip-Hop battles, dancing fight sequence, caberet, break dancing children… what more could you fit in a musical!! And the composers/writers didn’t hang out with Aristotle when he was a boy.

 

Pied Piper, 4.5/5 Adam Musical Points

We have kicked off out the cultural side of our experience with Kahlia’s “most wanted” musical, Les Miserables, for our Valentines Day. It was much better than I thought a musical would be (I even new a number of songs!) The theatre and stage was a lot smaller than I had imagined. If America is the land of upsizing, the UK is definitely the opposite. I am constantly amazed at how small things are made here due to lack of space.

I can still hear the people sing!!

Les Miserables, 4/5 Adam Musical Points

Thanks to Nathan we went and did the New London free walking tour (tips not included ). We highly recommend it. We got to see the touristy parts of London; Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament House. The great thing about guided tours is the little stories they know about the place.

For instance; pigeons in Trafalgar Square were a huge problem. They tried banning feeding, falcons and other nefarious means. In the end they started feeding them contraceptive laced feeding. Or take the Lions in Trafalgar Square, the sculptor at the time had no access to real lions to base his artwork on. He had plenty of photos and so could judge the aspects of the face well. However the bodies are based on his cocker spaniel, so really they aren’t lions they are Spanions?

The best bit of information however has set me a new goal for our time in London, a fine. It turns out, fair enough really, that urinating in public is not acceptable. If your caught, you will be written an on the spot fine of £50… wait for it…. for….. Wild Pissing!! Now if that is not an awesome souvenir I don’t know what is.

The view from our back window over the snow and the front of our building.

Now that we are so far from home it can cost a little bit to call us. But if you have Skype installed on your computer or iPhone , you can call us for free!

On the side of our blog is our Skype status (like below). If we are online, call us!

 

Edit: Our username is “chambills”

Well we have arrived! Greeted with sunshine and a balmy 4 degrees London so far has been fantastic.

Things I Like So Far

This list is full of surprises for instance; the weather. It’s great, sunny, cold and crisp like the snow towns at home.

Opening a bank account. Due to the credit crunch they basically have people attacking you and dragging you in. I literally didn’t have enough Id on me and the guy fudged his way through to sign me up! (Unfortunately my credit check failed due to the people previously living at my address, it’s being cleared up at the moment)

The city looks and feels old and metropolitan, the public transport so far as been seamless and efficient (thanks in part to our oyster cards)

I haven’t come across any dislikes so far… so loving it.

We leave for the airport in 1 hour! This marks the official end of our extended honeymoon. As the little map below shows we have been to a mere 9% of the worlds countries, and it still took a year! So much more to do. We had an amazing time; I was going to give out awards for things like “Best Animal Experience” but time doesn’t currently permit it. Thanks to everyone to hosted us and hung out with us over the year. The entire set of albums are over at Picassa. 

The map won’t load in WordPress, so click here to see where we have been.

See you in London.