work, life, and travel
Fluer de chevre – a light mild and creamy goats cheese from France.
A new cheese and a new cheese shop. La Fromagerie just off Marlybone High Street. Their cheese room is climate controlled and only allows 6 customers at a time inside (lest our body heat bother the cheese!).
These people are serious about cheese!
After a morning swim at Oasis, a dimsum with a friend at Hakkasan (the greatest dimsum ever!), I stopped by the British museum on the walk home to catch their latest temporary exhibit:
British museum. Sent from my BlackBerry� wireless device
That’s a bold claim! Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
I’ve realized that I have a bad habit of coming back from holiday with the best of intentions to write up the trip, only to get busy and weeks later realise that not only is that holiday so last week, I couldn’t be arsed to do a write up. So this time, I seized the free wifi and drafted this up while still there.
And even with that, here I am, a week back for the trip and I’ve slipped. Oops! just the same, here it is:
Santorini.
After an overnight flight from Heathrow through Athens we arrived to cold foggy 7am Santorini. The manager of the Mill Houses was extremely accommodating for our early arrival. He made us a fresh pot of tea and brought us a few slices of citrus birthday cake, while he hurried around to see if our room could be readied. We sat on the terrace munching on cake bundled up in a multitude of layers. The view was non existent through the fog. The fog did help make everything horribly damp though, and I wasn’t feeling too good about this latest bank holiday choice. It is the low season still. A flash back of last years late May bank holiday comes to mind when we went hiking in the off season of Switzerland and hit a snow storm. The things I make us endure for off season prices!
After only half an hour the manager came by and informed us that our room was ready. 7:30 am and our room is ready? Unbelievable. less then 10 minutes later we were sound asleep.
5 hours later we awoke to what seriously was a new day. The fog had burned off, the sky was brilliant blue and the view was every bit the brochure promised. Firastefani made for the perfect first day overnight recovery spot. It’s picturesque and quiet. Something you really appreciate when you walk the mere 15 minutes to the capital Fira to find 2 cruise ships of tourists swarming about the narrow streets asking joyous things like: ‘Do you take american dollars?’ Loved the response by the way: ‘no! euro only.’ My thoughts: listen lady, this isn’t 1997, leave your American peso on the cruise ship. You’re in the EU now. It’s called a bank machine, use it.
By day 2 we switched hotels to one in Thira thinking we’d be closer to the action. Action, not really, but we were definitely closer to the tourist hive. So we rented a Smart car and explored the island. The part of Santorini that’s not postcarded to death includes flatter ground, sea level accommodation and lots of black sand beaches. If you care to mimic being a sausage on a teflon pan, this is the place for you. The average age of the tourist drops by about 25 years too. the old folks don’t make it this far from the cruise ship, the stick to the well beaten tourist circuit, and the high concentration of jewellery stores. And the ones that do make it to this side, are very laid back people who ditch the tick list of sites to see, and instead grab a nice cocktail in the very comfy beach bars.
Day 3: Oia. (pronounced EE-a!)
Truly amateur photographer’s paradise. Any snap happy monkey puppet named Bobo could take a decent picture in this town. Point, click and it’s photo after photo of postcard perfect shots. With my snap happy Bobo in tow, we wandered the town. As much as I thought the houses were perched on cliffs in Fira, Oia takes the dare just that extra step further.
The town is essentially one long pedestrianized street that hugs the edge of the cliff.
Everything was just that much more picturesque in Oia. the hotels, restaurants, shops even the walk ways. We got lucky with our hotel choice (booked online less than 24 hours before departure). Armeni Village is perched on a cliff like the others, but it’s on prime real estate jutting out away from the others.
On Day 4 we took the classic volcano tour. Since the island is the site of the biggest volcanic eruption the planet has ever seen we thought we should get up close with the crater. Basically 3600 years ago the volcano erupted and blew the island into chunks, and now what’s left is a well manufactured tour that is incredibly efficient at draining your tourist euro. It was Memorial Day weekend in the States, which resulted in an abnormally disproportionate amount of Americans.
That aside, and the fact that I felt like an ant marching two by two, the tour was interesting. As far as volcanoes go, I’ve seen better. But getting out to the actual volcano really gave you perspective as to how far away the main island is, and that pre-explosion it was all connected.
Back in Oia the tour boat dropped us off at the peer and rather than fight the tourists for the limited number of shuttle vans, we scrambled up the cliff to the town high above. As the donkeys breezes past you, it’s a humbling experience. They are in wicked shape.
Our long weekend ended the same way every night in Santorini ends. Yet another sunset to admire as you fade into relaxation.
With a few dinrahms to kill in the Marakesh airport we opt for the café and order to lattes, only to get this sorry display. As a former french colony I’m appaled at moroco’s opinion of a latte. I say this with a burnt tongue and notice that the cheap plastic cup is melting. Maybe this is the morocon way of insulting the french? Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
if the Daily Show covered it, then it must be news.
this was an interesting read on the FT
More cultural learnings today from the Aussie coworkers – Anzac Day!
Here’s a quote, to give you a flavour:
It’s essentially like Canada’s remembrance Day, except there is a significant drinking with veterans component. Or at least that’s what my Aussie coworkers tell me. Wikipedia sure doesn’t make much mention of it. But either way, it brought my Aussie coworkers to the pub a bit earlier today (is 11am too early?)
Interesting concept for a restaurant. Similar in look to Wagamama’s (or Salad King, the Toronto equivalent), but seriously the main dishes are just hummus with a variety of stuff on it (like guac, or chicken) and a side order of pita. Strange? yes. Tasty? yes. Will it last? probably not. 4 pounds for a bowl of hummus seems kind of crazy. Nice placemat though.
A million miles away….
Canada tourism sure does love to push the ‘middle of nowhere wilderness’ angle. In winter lake Louise was selling itself as this undiscoverd empty ski resort. I even think they said something about the lack of crowds.
Slight lie.
This one is more honest. Quebec has loads of wilderness.
I’m sure this guy has his poutine hidden in his kayak.
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Today it was hate. Victoria line suspended, picadilly line gets massively backed up ….. 45 minutes later i’m in the loo at work wiping off my back sweat with a paper towel.
Definetely hate.
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Are you kidding me?!? This my view this morning!! Snow covered cars, snow covered roof tops!
… What the ..?
… Sigh, and I just planted some fresh cillantro in the garden! Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device
Danny actually passed through town last year in spring with his wife Leah on his way to Russia for a holiday. This time it was just him and it was a layover during a business trip to Norway. This is Friday night, Danny, an empty bucket of champagne (because that’s how he rolls), a snipit of Jason on the right, and Danny’s violinist friend Julia on the left. This is shortly before we went for dinner to the Afghan Kitchen, down the road. Amazing food by the way. Like a cross between middle eastern mezze dishes and Indian curries.
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Excuse me, but i thought Bond Street was for ladies of leisure not ladies with lovely lady lumps. Check it out.
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Was watching the BBC show: How Do They Do It? today. I almost fell off the couch listening to the intro of todays episode:
Imagine you’ve had enough. You decide to get away from civilization.
You go to Canada
(I’m not kidding)
There you are in your log cabin … but you still need supplies from the outside world. Tartan jackets, Davie Crockett hats – that sort of thing. But the problem is most trade comes by ship across sea and rivers. But because Canada is so perishingly cold (note, this is word for word) … most of the seas and rivers are frozen solid for 3 months of the year. The question is how do you secure a regular supply of fur lined boots and lumber axes when the rivers are frozen stiff. How do they do it?
Canada.
It’s the middle of winter and the balls have frozen off every brass monkey within a hundred kilometers. In a nutshell, it’s absolutely freezing! This wind swept plane is actually the mighty St. Lawrence river one of the most vital trade routes in north america. Except in winter …
Crickey! I do miss my lumber jack axe.
We arrived in Istanbul late thursday to the surprise that we needed to purchase ‘visas’ upon entry. A quick reference check in our lonely planet and we see it’s a 10 pound charge. Ok, no worries, luckily we have about 20 quid on us. We join the massive line for the visa (I think everyone on our flight had to get the visa, and was just as surprised as us) when we get to the front we see a list of countries and prices. UK 10 pounds, a selection of European countries 20 euros, USA … 20 dollars.
And the lonely kanada (with a k) … 45 euro!!! Each! Wow. What did Canada do to piss off turkey so much?! Double any other country!
How much for Canada with a c, I thought.
I did happen to have euro on me (I was hoping to pay the hostel in euro) and some how between a selection of british pounds and euro notes we managed to scrape together the 90 euro fee.
At least we had cash. Many people didn’t have any, and the nearest atm happened to be on the other side of passport control. Clever.
Still feeling the sting, we instantly bonded with another Canadian and shared a taxi into town still wondering, why no love for Canada?
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From wikipedia:
[The Northern Line] carries more passengers per year than any other Underground line; 206,734,000 passengers per annum. The Northern line has two routes through Central London and two to the north, making it one of the more complex lines on the system.
I may have been here for just over a year, but I made a rookie mistake this morning. After the precious Victoria Line became suspended I got off at Euston and took the wrong branch of the Northern Line, and ended up going 30 minutes out of my way. The infuriating thing is that at Euston, both lines go south! Come on London underground, did you run out of colours?! Why two black Northern Lines?!! You’ve still got the likes of charteuse and magenta to colour in our little map.
their accents are too hard to understand.
That is all.
March 12th. One year.
In many ways, a year already? And in many other ways, only a year?
1 year
2 different flats
2 different jobs
4 new umbrellas
9 countries
17 visitors
You know it’s been a year when tube names don’t make you giggle anymore and you acknowledge that there is a level of rain that must be achieved before bothering to take out your umbrella. I now like my beer as an ale, medium colour, kind of flat and kind of warm. My skim milk latte is called a skinny latte, my cream is soured, not sour.
Here are some more thoughts, in a list.
Things I can’t beleive I ever lived without:
2. The Tube. Love it, hate it, spend loads and loads of time complaining about it, but at the end of the day I still love the sheer amount of possibilities and the extensivness of the network.
3. Cheap flights to “the continent”. Most flights were on the god awful services of Ryan Air, but i still keep coming back for more because, well, I just can’t resist the travel.
4. Sunday Roast. And Sunday afternoon in the pub for that matter.
5. Pomegranates. Seeds removed from the peel, neatly packaged with a little plastic spoon? If this existed in Canada, I never saw it.
6. Weekends in England (Bath, Cotswalds, Oxford, Brighton, Leeds Castle, Canterbury, Windsor Castle, and that’s only half of the recommended day trips)
Things I miss:
1. Family and friends, obviously.
But in one year our visitors (for work or pleasure) were: my parents, Jason’s parents, Jason’s brother John, Scott, Dave and Kasia (thanks again for crawling on your hands and knees looking for my cats under parked cars, kings cross isn’t the cleanest, that will never be fogotten), Lindsay & Kynan, both Cerniks, all the Oxford ex coworkers: Jaime, Claire, Mike, and Shelly.
Lots of visitors makes it that much easier.
2. Having any sort of pedestrian rights. In London, they are non existent. In fact, I would say vehicles speed up when they see you crossing the street.
3. Closet space
4. Brunch (because I apparently I can’t help it. Everyone’s working for their breakfast
5. A credit rating. 500 pounds credit card limit is a cruel, cruel joke.
6. Owning property
7. Walking to work
What’s coming up for the next year? Lots of travel of course, new things to love and hate, and hopefully more visitors! And maybe some more cheese. It’s been a while…
It didn’t really matter which side of the Atlantic you were on, either way you had a storm.
In Canada it was yet another dump of snow:
(photo from Globe and Mail)
Meanwhile in UK it was gale force winds, flooding and one bad day for my poor umbrella.
(photo from BBC, obviously I didn’t take this in London…)
Anyway, either way you had one bad storm to contend with.
Unless you’re my brother and sister in law, well then you had the joy of both!! A 24 hour delay in Montreal getting off the ground, and another delay in London as you try to make your way to Italy. I still can’t believe you even landed this morning! The wind was insane. I woke at 3am to the sound of my recycling bin doing laps down my block. Hope you enjoyed all that time in the airports, see you next week!
Finally! after 11 months of living in London I’ve finally spotted a celebrity. Although technically I have seen the Queen at Asoct but I paid entrance to that and she’s not really a celeb per say. And again, technically Adrienne and I did see that host of some BBC What Not to Wear type show at a gastropub in Belgravia months ago, but that was a D list celeb at best. No … today I saw tabloid smut worthy celeb:
 Kelly Osborne
In her full red lipstick smeared glory, lunching at Cecconis in Mayfair.Â
It was her ridiculous lipstick that caught my eye, actually.  I work a few buildings down from this corner restaurant and pass it almost every day. It’s all windows the people essentially sit in a fish bowl, so I can’t help but peak in a bit as I walk by. Today, I walked by and noted that all the tables were full of business suits picking (and mostly drinking) their lunches.  Except for one table where 2 girls sat gabbing away.  Females, no business suits … flailing red lips … you can understand why I noticed!
Well, the girls (Jaime, Lindsay I know you’re loving this!) and a few choice boys reading this can understand why I noticed. The rest of you can’t believe the fuss over celebs, if you’ve even managed to read this far.Â
As for me, I can’t believe I care this much. I suppose I just think they are so funny, they are after all the modern day court jester. And I think the amusement comes from the thought: huh .. you actually exist in real life, weird.
 In any case, Jason, i’m sorry!
(and no … I did not sneek a photo. It would have just been too ridiculous!)
The BBC may say 9C, but it’s turned chilly here in London. I’ve had to retire my spring trench coat for a bit, dust off the old winter wool coat and even have soup for lunch! I wasn’t alone on the soup idea, Itsu a Japanesse noodel house in Mayfair (a chain I think) was packed with chilly Londoners. Mind you, some of the girls in line clearly don’t dress for the weather. Skinny jeans and flat shoes with no socks?! No wonder your teeth are chattering. And judging by the fashion jeans, I’d say they work in one the shops on nearby Regent Street not Bond Street. No, Bond Street girls probably wouldn’t be allowed to wear jeans. With rents of $1,504 psf (latest figures!) you’d better believe they’re too posh for jeans!
I’m in green park station waiting for the tube and I can hear the busker musician playing the theme to the Harry Potter movie!
Actually, I think what surprises me more is that I actually recognise the theme music!
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Saw this sign today in the lovely suburbs of zone 3. I guess here potatoes are considered green?
Is this a joke? How can you pretend eating chips (fries) is eating your greens?!
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Welcome to cultural learnings from living in Lodon.
What’s St. Davids Day you say?
Exactly my thoughts.
Explained to me by my friend, the girlfriend of a Welsh man, “it’s like St. Patrick’s day, but Welsh” . So basically a piss up in a Welsh pub where they serve Welsh beer, have daffodils all around (the national flower), play Welsh music and have lots and lots of singing. Boy do the Welsh love to sing. And to the untrained ear it doesn’t even sound like separate words, more like slurred chords. Even the English songs are tough to make out. Have a listen:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3NmBjjjhuw]
Bless their patriotic pride! Especially Paul who belted every song out.
By the way, biggest lesson I learned: Tom Jones is Welsh!
What we lack in trivia intelligence we make up for in luck. Well, by we I mean Adrienne and Jeff, who won a fresh supply of Crown Royal in the post quiz raffle.
As for the pub quiz at the Maple Leaf (worst run pub quiz ever by the way! it was more like a pub exam): it turns out that even when you remove the UK cultural bias and throw out a bunch of Canadian questions about Gordon Lightfoot and Nunavut Jason and I still suck!
PS: Nunavik? What the hell? There’s a new territory in Canada? You leave for ONE year and …
Seems my new job has me travelling to Brussels once a week. This suits me just fine since Brussels is only 2 hours away on the Eurostar and I live within spitting distance of the new eurostar terminal.
The Aussie colleagues I travel with enjoy the ride back to London by dipping (quite heavily) into the complimentary wine in business class. Hence the cute little nickname they have: Bordeaux express. Actually the Aussies love nicknames like the British like their tea (sigh, I miss tea time at work…). Everyone has a ridiculous nick name. My one colleauge is nick named “mammal” which at some point became “mam” , which combined with an Aussie accent sounds far too much like Cartman from South Park saying: “but, mo…om!” in any case, after i’m doing giggling to myself, all those nicknames make for a brutal first few weeks on the job. How the hell am I supposed to remember people if they’re introduced to me as: Aaron, james, Richard and Michael, but called: az, mam, tricks, mos…. Bloody hell people!
I’ll be curious to see what they come up for me. With a last name like slaughter, they’ve got lots to work with.
And no doubt it will be thought up on this lovely Bordeaux express!
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Trip 11 out of my little book.
Going to Windsor was trivialy easy. Train from Paddington, change at Slough, and a 6 minute train ride to Windsor. Easy. but wait .. SLOUGH! I’ll get to the castle in a minute.
As a fan of the UK version of The Office, a stop in Slough is exciting. It’s like being on the set, my eyes peeled for Wernham-Hogg Paper Company. To anyone else, it’s a place to go to work in one of the many business parks or it’s a place to change trains as you make your way to somewhere better
.
Anyway, fun for me, but off to Windsor Castle. I can see how in the peak summer season you’d need a full day. Here we are in the absolute low season, cold dreary day in February and there’s still a substantial queue to get tickets, queue to go to the doll house, queue to the states rooms, queue to the loo … God the British just love to make you queue!
As for the Castle, well, it’s just a castle:
Well, a really old castle. Going on 900 years actually. And the Queen does live here (one look at the flag and we noted she was indeed in today). The Doll House was completely ridiculous. Built in the 1920’s it’s the size of our old Smart Car, and includes such ridiculous things like running water. Inside the castle proper, an extremely long audio tour takes you through the States Rooms which is a series of drawing, sitting, dining, dressing, and sleeping rooms. The art collection is impressive, the royals seem to have a fondness for Rembrandt. As do they have a fondness for self portraits. But I guess, back in the day, an oil painting was their version of a family photo album.
The most impressive room inside hands down goes to the one with all the weapons. This houses a massive collection of swords, riffles and daggers. Many of them are excessively decorated, and many are the spoils of the empire’s conquests.
In all, it takes a few hours to get through the castle and finally to the chapel. I found this picture on wikipedia:
From the air, you can really see how massive this place is!
Outside the castle, a kitchy town thrives on the hoards of tourists. We stopped for tea and noted that aside from the staff we were the only ones speaking English.
Across the river we popped into the town of Eton to have a look. It’s a famous private school (oddly called public by the brits. At &;pound24,000 a year tution, tell me HOW is that public!) . Through out most of the year the campus is open to visitors, but during the winter months it’s closed. Probably something about needing to study ..
That’s ok. Judging by the college chapel I’m not too sad:
I’m beginning to see a theme in the architecture of these buildings …
… a bit late, we were in Canterbury last week. But it’s been a busy week, and I’ve procrastinated…
Canterbury.
Our 10th of trip from Frommer’s: Best Day Trips from London book, 25 trips in all. I’ll be honest, I can see why this is pushed as a day trip. Although very pretty, the town is limited on things to do. There’s the Cathedral of course:
which is absolutely stunning, and there are Roman walls and other such historic fragments of buildings:
… after that there is some hype on those Canterbury Tales displayed in a very forced looking ‘museum’. Oh there’s a large student population too. That’s about it. Did I mention the cathedral?
But I’m being too harsh. In Canterbury we had some excellent meals, enjoyed cream tea (tea, scones jam etc) at at least half the price of doing it in London, and we just plain relaxed.
Surprisingly there were no protesters to be seen in front of the Cathedral. I thought given all the flack the archbishop has been getting about his opinions there would at least be one angry Brit. Sadly no.
But there was our tea, and the excellent weather, and another ‘to-see’ crossed off our list.
Westminster put these up earlier this week, and at night they look quite nice. I’m not expecting much fuss over the new year here, judging by the medicore china town here, I think the Chinese population is too small. Or maybe they’re more English-sized.
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