Category: As It Happens

Pitchers of Canadian

Putting the Canadian back in me continues…. We’re in Kitchener/Waterloo at a dive bar drinking cheap pitchers of molson Canadian beer. And we’re celebrating the end of bachelorhood of Craig, one of the last ones of jasons friends to get married. Tomorrow he’ll be a married old man. But that’s tomorrow. Tonight, it’s a sing along to American pie on the juke box and nostalgia.
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For the Love of Cheese (Guest Addition): Paul and linda do the cheese shop

This month, our visitors are Jason’s cousin Paul and Paul’s girlfriend Linda.  They’re incredibly organised tourists, with itineraries planned, concert tickets pre-purchased and guided tours booked; they’ve planned a solid 9 days.  And it leaves me with extremely limited tour guiding duties.  The one thing I can offer though, is a trip to the best cheese shop in London, La Fromagerie in Marylebone.  Linda is a fellow cheese obsessed fanatic.  She spent a very happy 20 minutes in the climate controlled cheese room, overwhelmed by the selection.

For me, a new cheese: Peladron

France, Languedoc

goat

semi soft

Thick medallion shaped soft cheese with natural scraped white crust, which with maturing becomes dotted with blue moulds. A traditional farmhouse cheese with a gentle goaty, nutty tastes and fudgy texture. Best season July and August, with really rich and buttery cheeses appearing in early autumn.

One of these days I’m going to lose it!

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As part of my very long daily commute from London to Cambridge (by the way, Brits LOVE talking about commuting for some reason), I cycle from the Cambridge station into my office. A nice 15 minute ride through the centre of town.

Cycling is really popular in Cambridge. It seem that there are about one – maybe two – billion bicycles at Cambridge station (the photo only shows one lot). It’s quite difficult to find a spot to lock my bike sometimes so in the evenings I put it wherever I can and then run to catch my train back to London. Many times – especially after it’s been a while – I forget where I parked. This makes for a fun game of “find the bike” in the mornings.

In the mornings you’ll often see some sorry souls, dressed up in full bike gear, pacing up and down the rows at Cambridge station trying to find their cycle. Unfortunately bikes sometimes get stolen, so the worst people to watch are the ones who have been there for a while as it slowly sinks in that their bike is no longer there (and that’s why I lock mine with two different locks).

This morning I was one of those sorry people wandering for 5 minutes. I had been travelling for a few days so I couldn’t quite remember where I’d locked up my bike in my hurried rush on Friday night. I did find my nike in the end, but one of these days I know how it’s going to go:

  • after a long business trip I’ll come back to Cambridge and start pacing down the isles.
  • after about 20 minutes of searching and cursing I’ll give up
  • the next weekend I’ll buy a new bicycle
  • and then some day I’ll be pacing the aisles, looking for my new bike, and I’ll see my old bike, parked right where I left it just a few months prior.

Then I’ll really lose it.

Summer days!

Finally! Warm weather, blue skies, sun! Today was like that perfect Toronto may 2-4 weekend. Hello summer.
And hopefully not yet goodbye, you fickle tease. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Drinking ban on the tube

Last month we mentioned that London was electing a new mayor. Well, the guy we didn’t pick came into power. First on the agenda, ban drinking on the tube. The ban kicked in on June 1st. Saturday May 31st, there was one hell of a goodbye cocktail party on the circle line. I went to a bit of it, just to see. Yup, as suspected lots of drunk and rowdy’s what the Brits would call ASB, anti-social behaviour. 17 arrests later the party was a sloppy mess.
How’s that ban working out? I get on the tube just now, 5 days into the ban, to see a fat chav downing a heineken beer can out of a paper bag. Nice. So basically we’ve just hidden it.
Bravo Mayor Boris. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Sticking it to the french

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

Hummus brothers

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.

Bonjour quebec!

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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Olympic torch protest

With the snow on Sunday morning I was in no mood to head out to see the Olympic torch relay first hand.  (I shouldn’t lie, even if the weather was balmy,  the liklihood of me going is slim to none). 
Instead I stayed in most of the day and ventured out once for a coffee at the french cafe in St. Pancras station.  As I was leaving the cafe I saw quite a few protesters milling about, and outside they were in full force marching laps around the train station.

 

It took me a minute to clue in that they were protesting the torch as it was on it’s way to Paris via the Eurostar.
Compared to Paris, the protests in London were quite tame, only 30 some odd arrests. 

Another Visitor!

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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What did Canada do to Turkey?!

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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Pub quiz at the maple leaf

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 …

The Bordeaux Express

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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Sold out?!

The british museum has been open for 11 minutes and the 500 same day tickets are already sold out!
This puts quite the kink in plans!
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Iphone

Our blog looks much better on the Iphone’s web browser! The gesture pad technology is amazing for zooming in on photos and scrolling through webpages. Hmm, it’s 269 pounds for the phone though … It’s a bit hard to justify the expensive just to have a more fun interface.
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And I thought New Yorkers were jaded

I walk into my local pret a manager this morning for my morning soya latte and walk in to find a woman collapsed on the ground and a few staff members hovering over her. I ask a bystander what happened and i’m informed that she just collapsed and they don’t know why.
The first thing that amazes me though is that even though her rather large body has collapsed diagonaly there by blocking 3 of the 5 tills, people have still snaked her around and lined up for coffee!! And they have the nerve to look impatient.
What’s more unbelievable is that when the woman came to and the staff peeled her off the floor 4 skinny blond bitches who were waiting behind me marched past me and went to the till that collapsed woman was blocking! The nerve!
I tried to take a photo but without being completely heartless I couldn’t quite capture the scene.
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Please move down right inside the car

No matter how many times Tube Woman tells you, people just don’t seem to get it. Why cluster around the door?? Here you can see only one passenger moved into the aisle, while 20 or so stayed smashed together. Even for only one stop, why huddle so closely together?? It’s not cold in here (it never is below mild fever temperature)
And the media wonders why winter sicknesses spread so quickly in London!

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Columbia road flower market

Only my second time at this fantastic flower market, but I think that’s due to it’s out of the way location about 20 minutes from Old Street tube station. I remember coming here in September on a mild autumn day wondering how on earth this could possibly be open all year. But sure enough, i’m here in january, I suppose what could be considered the middle of winter, and it’s fully open. I should note it’s mild out and the rain from the early morning has stopped.
The prices are amazing here. 20 tillups for 5 pounds, 3 stems of giant orchids for 6 pounds (those orchids should be be about 19 dollars on the avenue road flower shops in Toronto)
I also stopped into a unfortunetely named coffee shop called The Flea Market before heading over to the spitalfields market to meet up with my friend Adrienne for lunch.
I wish the Columbia flower market was more conveniently located, I’d go more often.
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