Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Last week I got a frantic note from Kaila which said 'YOU MUST GO EAT HERE!" It was attached to this link to the The Londoner blog with a write-up on bunch place in Brixton.

We are both fans of the Londoner's blog. It is like looking into a beautiful world of wonderful food, great style and enviable vacations. So no dodging or hiding or pretending this is anything else; I copied her trip round to Brixton.

First of all, if you are going to try and get a seat at a popular brunch place on a weekend in London, may I recommend going after a late night football match where England was playing. We didn't go for brunch until 11am, but the phrase 'I've never seen Brixton this quiet' was repeated several times by my London savvy brunch-mate. With the football loving crowd still recovery from their late night shenanigans, we got into the Wild Caper right away.

The most important question regarding any Brunch meal is, of course, what did you order. Despite being very tempted by the various forms of eggs Benedict, I went for the Full English Breakfast. I always find that a) if a brunch place doesn't do a good full breakfast well, nothing else will be any good and b) I always end up wishing I'd chosen full english anyways.

It was so good! While some might quibble over the portion (one egg, one sausage, one slice of toast) I loved it because I could actually finish everything without feeling close to death by food. And as you can see by the photo sequence, I finished it all and the dinosaurs were left circling the plate wishing for scraps (dinos supplied by the young boy eating breakfast next to me). And the bread was so good, I had to buy a loaf to take home.

Post-brunch we wandered around the market. There were so many interesting store, food places, restaurants, it would take ages to list them all. But I have three stand outs for you.

The Keep Boutique
I saw a People Tree t-shirt in the window and I had to go in. A quick look around showed I'd hit a sustainable fashion jackpot. They have a beautiful selection of some of the best, most stylish pieces from a range of ethical designers. Also they carry Matt and Nat (Canada represent!). I managed to resist the temptation to pick-up anything that day but there are some pieces that are still pulling at me. A great sustainable fashion shop in walking distance.... so dangerous.

Circus
Do you like vintage? What about unique art pieces? Unusual jewelry? Well this tiny little shop has it all. Wonderful cushions, unusual prints and jewelry. If I had £125 to drop, I would have done so on their amazing art. I was also tempted by a snap-front denim shirt, but I reminded myself I did already have one and I probably didn't need two denim shirts.

Book Mongers
My friend took me to this second-hand bookstore, which is in the wonderful tradition of over stuffed shelves and tettering stacks. Not a place if you are hunting for a particular title. but if you're in a mood to take your time and find something unexpected this is your place. Cover most typical section, for reason we couldn't figure out it also included a fiction section organised by gender. Anyone suggestions on why this is a good way to sort thing?

So I just want to say thanks to the Londoner for her post, which pushed me to get out an explore this area. Its so convenient for me, such a great vibe and I foresee many a future visit to browse more shops and restaurants.

So Kaila we are definitely adding this to the list of places to see when you managed to visit. In the meantime I plan to make many a cheese toastie with my sourdough bread!
I'm so glad I found this! Digging around in the London edition of Time Out I saw this promotion for a murder mystery at the University College of London  (UCL) Museums and there were costumes involved. Sold! Lucky for me, my friends are as crazy as I am and also were all on board for dressing up for an evening of crime solving.

The costume portion required much debate, mainly caused by me getting overexcited with multiple costume ideas. The final decision was the characters of Clue (or Cluedo for the British Audience). I went with Mrs. Peacock and since the event was free so I was able to put the five pounds to my thrift store costume.

The event itself was really well done. The mystery was spread out across all the different museum within the UCL. After collecting clue from the different museum, you scrambled them to form a phone number and whoever called in the answer first won. Pretty clever. In fact, more clever than us since we didn't figure it out.

But we did win best costume! In fact, I don't think I've ever been so popular as when I was walking around with a whole group of people dressed like Clue.

And what was our prize? A preserved head of a coypu head adopted in our teams name. We have future plans to go visit it and see what our hard-work has earned it.
One thing London is good for is cheap theatre. There are all of the Broadway style shows but there are also a lot of really good smaller theatre productions as well. After seeing a write-up in the Guardian I talked my co-worker into venturing into Dalston Junction for a 'pay what you can' theatre night.

Play: My name is...
Arcola Theatre, Dalston Junction

Venue:
It was a very cool vibe. The cafe attached to the theatre has tea, coffee, wine, beer, and food. We sampled things in a variety of those categories. The consensus was good and cheap. We also found this cool garden cafe around the corner from the theatre which is worth hanging out in.

The play itself was in the basement of the theatre it was a very cosy set up and worked well with the intimacy of the play itself.

Play:
I'm not familiar with the story, but its based on a true story about a mixed background family in Scotland.  

"When 12-year-old Gaby disappeared from her home in Scotland, the media announced that her Pakistani father, Farhan, had kidnapped her. The spiralling headlines were only momentarily silenced when it emerged that Gaby may have fled of her own accord, choosing to spend her life in Pakistan. To her Scottish mother Suzy’s great distress, Gaby declared, “my name is Ghazala” and turned her back on ‘Gaby’ and, seemingly, the West…"

The play-write worked with the family to true and capture the complexity of their story. I'm not a theatre critic but I think captured beautifully the clash of culture, religion, belief and the family ties and love in the story.

If you're in London, its on until May 24th and even on regular days tickets are only £12-14 which you can purchase on their website HERE. Try and see it if you can!

Today is my one month anniversary in England. I'm wouldn't say I have the swing of things yet but here are some of my personal truisms. I managed to get 10 in all and I think its only appropriate that 3 of these involve weather.

  1. I always need an umbrella (or rain-jacket) even if its perfectly sunny when I leave my house.
  2. The tube map is not nearly as complicated as the underground pathways between tube lines.
  3. The crazy bureaucracy in Southern Africa? Yeah they learned if from the British.
  4. My co-workers want tea as much as I do (which is always)
  5. I will always find it cold, especially inside
  6. Cross walk lights are really only 'suggested' times its probably safe to cross
  7. I don't have enough battery on my phone to spend an entire day trying to navigate London
  8. I know where my British Grandfather's love of puns come from
  9. The British have perfected the sandwich and the charity shop (which are also good when enjoyed together)
  10. Leather footwear is a must in a rainy climate
Now that I'm settled in London I hope to do some more exploring so stay tuned.


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I have discovered that living in London is expensive...

(Shock! Horror! You don't say!? Why doesn't anyone tell you this!)

However, there are also a lot of entertaining things to do for pretty cheap. I've given myself about 5 pounds a week to do something entertaining/cultural.

This week's activity was a coffee tasting at Milk in Balham.

Despite coming late to the coffee drinking game (I managed university without it, but regular work was my downfall), I actually know a bit about coffee due to my father's coffee obsession. A few years ago my father decided that grinding his own coffee wasn't enough and moved to roasting his own coffee so I've witnessed a fair bit of the process. So when I was a brunch last weekend and saw a coffee tasting organized I figured hey why not.

How a Coffee Tasting Works (based on my limited experience)
  1. Coffee grounds are put in glass cups for you to smell
  2. Hot water is poured over the grounds and you smell it again
  3. At a very precisely timed moment the staff skim off the coffee
  4. You slurp a spoonful of coffee, swish it around in you mouth and (no joke) spit it out into a paper cup
  5. Repeat slurping at various intervals as the coffee cools
In conclusion, coffee tasting, interesting thing but perhaps requires an interpreter for the less coffee knowledge. What I have taken away from this experience is:
  1. I know very very very little about coffee growing, processing and buying
  2. Coffee for tasting is not remotely brewed like you would for drinking which I find confusing
  3. Picked the 'most unusual' coffee as my favourite, but not the 'best one'... meaning I better at finding unique than quality? (a bit hipster of me?)
Long Distance Neighbour has moved from the downtown Dar Es Salaam craziness to the new craziness of the English countryside! I thought I'd give a bit of context to where and what I'm up to.

My internship in Tanzania has officially come to an end and I've started my new position working with Africa Educational Trust (AET) in London. On top of the fact, its my first official "job"in international development (five years of volunteering and internships have paid off!!), I'm also really proud to be working and fundraising for them. As you might have guessed by their name, they provide education (both formal and informal) in Africa. But their focus is specifically on conflict-affected zones, communities that have been written off as too dangerous and too unstable to do development work. Areas like South Sudan, Somalia and Northern Uganda. But because of the level of local community involvement, AET is able to continue providing education despite how unstable the countries can be. No foreigners, no big camps, no big presence. Just local staff, in the communities, getting work done.  
I was able to land straight into my new job and I'm currently camped out with some friends just outside of London while I set up my new UK-based life. In amongst trying to navigate the bureaucracy of establishing myself as a real UK resident, I've also managed to squeeze in a good number of recreational events during my first week including going to an improve comedy night, bar-tending/go-go dancing at a village wedding and surviving a true English pub-night. It has been a whirl-wind of a time!

Moving countries is always a shock to the system. But in many ways moving to England is not so very different from moving to Tanzania, in any new place what you really need is good cultural tour guides. I had a great initial support system in Tanzania and here, I've been able to rely on some good friends and co-workers who are helping me navigate everything from British slang to the tube system to banking. I'm trusting them to more or less point me in the right direction as I go through this the whole "up feels like down" period of cultural adjustment.