Dublin Part One

This weekend Warren and I met up with my sister and her husband in Dublin. It feels similar to London in a lot of ways but there are some striking differences. The people seems friendlier, the buildings and streets seem grittier, and the food seems more Americanized than the food in London.

Here we are outside Christ Church. Not our best photo because it was so bright that morning.

We also went to the historic Marsh Library where we experienced an accent incident. I asked about the white books and the worker thought I asked about the weight of the books. No matter how many times I said white, he heard weight. But I didn't catch on to the fact that our pronunciations were different so it was never resolved and we just had a really weird conversation.

Inside the library...

We ate at this famous fish and chips place called Leo Burdock. The fish and chips were amazing! Probably better than what we've had in London.

 Here is a closer look at our gorgeous lunch.

I will still be in Dublin a few more days, but Warren had to get back to work. So more photos of Dublin to come later this week...

Queen's English as a Second Language

I have been keeping a list of words that Brits use that are different than what I am familiar with. They include:

Parade--a street of shops, as in "Marylebone has a nice parade."

Engaged--occupied, as in "This toilet is currently engaged."

Full Stop--period, as in "my blog site is smith and chips full stop blogspot full stop com" or "I don't like to lose. Full stop."

Pants--underwear, as in "always wear a clean pair of pants" (and don't say that you left something in your other pants)

Trousers--pants, as in "these wool trousers aren't lined"

Waistcoat--vest, as in "Shouldn't Warren buy this awesome jacket and waistcoat?" (he didn't)

Vest--sleeveless undershirt, as in "we don't sell vests here, we are a suit store"

Aubergine--eggplant, as in "We had aubergine and courgette for dinner"

Courgette--zucchini (see above)

Franked Mail--mail where a machine prints the postage without a stamp, see photo

Anti-Social Behaviour--harassing or aggressive behavior, as in "Anti-social behaviour will result in an £80 fine."

Something else I think is interesting is the crosswalks. I was surprised to find that London is not a very pedestrian friendly place, as I had expected. It really encourages jaywalking because there aren't very many crosswalks and if you find one it takes forever for the light to change. I filmed one type of crosswalk called a zebra (pronounced zehbra) crossing by Londoners. Hopefully the video comes through. When the lights are blinking it means that the pedestrian has the right-of-way. But it can be really hard to tell when they are flashing on a bright day.

Another strange phenomenon is the types of American tv shows they play here. I made a list when we were in our temporary housing and had tv. I will say that not all the American shows they play here are outdated but I am still surprised at what I've seen so far.

Melissa and Joey
Fear Factor
Murder She Wrote
Heidi
Frasier
Three Men and a Baby
MASH

And speaking of tv...Downton Abbey started back here Sunday! The first episode  was an hour and a half!

Maida Vale

We live on the outskirts of an area called Maida Vale and today I walked down to the main street in Maida Vale. 

The main street is quite small but has some nice speciality shops. One shop is a fruit and veg store called Clifton Greens. It was a lot bigger than what I was expecting for a store that sells nothing but fruit and veg. They had a great selection and the prices weren't unreasonable. 

There is also an organic butcher shop called Sheepdrove Organic Farm. 

They have a wide range of sausages in addition to their regular meats. Pork cumberland sausages are really popular here. We have been eating them with breakfast almost every day since we moved to our flat. Here is the list of sausages and some cheeses they had posted outside the shop for all the foodies. 

I've noticed how well taken care of most public spaces are here. There are loads of displays of flowers on public streets and roads. I found a couple of examples of this on my walk today. First is a typical hanging pot of flowers you see all around the city. We have these just outside our building on the main road. 

Just to be sure you can tell how big these are, I took a closer picture. I can't tell you how many times I've told Warren I'm sure it is raining and then realize I'm standing under one of these that has recently been watered. 

Another example that I found is this green space in the middle of a roundabout. It has the same flowers repeating three times so it looks the same from each entrance to the roundabout. 

I also went in to the Maida Vale library which may actually be closer to me than the one I have been going to in Paddington.

The Maida Vale library is a really cool looking building and is larger than the one in Paddington. But I realized one feature of the Paddington library that I really like is that the children's library is in a separate building. The Maida Vale library was super loud with loads of kids and strollers. They even had a separate Quiet Room for people to sit and read or use their computers.

Since libraries here charge you to send books to different library locations I think I will be utilizing all the libraries within walking distance to get my books. This one in Maida Vale had a very nice selection of travel books so I'm sure I'll be back soon!

Marylebone High Street

This last week Warren was in Paris for work and brought me macarons! He brought me lemon, raspberry, strawberry, coconut, vanilla, pistachio, and chocolate (which I think he brought for himself because he knows I don't like chocolate and figured I wouldn't share the others. He was right.) I think lemon, pistachio, and vanilla were my favorites but they were all really good. 

Then today we walked to Marylebone High Street for some shopping and dinner. We started at the Cabbages and Frocks Market and found more macarons. They were incredible! We tasted samples of Cucumber and Spiced Roasted Pumpkin and bought Elderflower + Fresh Mint and Apple + Cinnamon. They were really flavorful and I wanted to go back and get one of each kind that was left but Warren reminded me that we still have more at home that he brought back. I guess we'll just have to go again to try some more. Here is a picture of the booth but as you can see it was pretty picked over by the time we got there. 

We went to a bookstore called Daunt Books which is well known for their amazing travel section that covers the entire top floor. We bought a book on London that includes maps as well as blank sheets to log restaurants and favorite sites. 

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Osteria Ambrosia. I ordered bruschetta for the appetizer and Warren got calamari. For dinner I had risotto with mushrooms and Warren had chicken wrapped in parma ham with zucchini. Typically Warren's food is always better than mine but not this time. My food was really awesome and his was lackluster. Here is a picture of my bruschetta which was by the far the best part of the whole meal. It was really well put together and the balsamic vinegar was delicious. 

We walked to the Baker Street station and took the tube home rather than walking back since we had purchased some groceries and needed to get them in the fridge. I thought the station was really cool with some old details still intact.

 

One feature of London that we didn't have back home in Nebraska is these underground restrooms on the street. We happened across this one on our way back to Baker Street. It costs 50p (80 cents) to use the facilities.

 

Japanese Sweets

I mentioned in an earlier post that there are some Japanese sweets that my sister really likes that are sold here in London at Minamoto Kitchoan (they also have stores in New York, San Francisco, and several other countries). I thought I would expand on them a bit and show some pictures. 

This first one is called Mamedaifuku. 

It is a kind of rice cake filled with sweet beans. Here is what the inside looks like.

Here is Jackie enjoying her Mamedaifuku.

 This next one is called Kusamochi.

It is a soft, chewy Japanese rice cake that is flavored with an herb called Yomogi. It is filled with red bean paste which I tried to capture in the next photo but it is still kind of hard to see. 

 Here is Jackie from an earlier trip after we told her the kusamochi looked like a big green tongue.

These next three photos are of Hakutou Mochi. The wrapping was so nice on this one!

Hakutou Mochi is a sweet white peach bean paste wrapped with soft rice cake. 

Here is what the inside filling looks like. Jackie had me try a bite of this one since she hadn't gotten it before but I still did not care for it. There is something about the texture that I don't like.

This next one is called Sakuramochi and is made of sweet glutinous rice and filled with a sweet red bean paste and is wrapped in an edible pickled sakura leaf. 

This last one is a chocolate crunch mochi. This one also came in nice packaging.

I had a hard time finding a description of this one online (which is what I did for all the others) but Jackie said it was really chocolatey but she wasn't a big fan of the crunchy outside. 

Crisp Taste Test

This weekend my sister, brother-in-law, Warren and I all taste tested five new flavors of chips. Here are our thoughts:

Flavor: Cheesy Beans on Toast

I really like beans on toast, but I did not like these crisps. We thought they were too buttery and smelled pretty bad. Ranked #4 (after a huge drop from 3 to 4)

Flavor: Chip Shop Chicken Curry

Really flavorful, too much flavor to just eat by itself. Tastes like really cheap chicken curry (hence the name: Chip Shop Chicken Curry). Ranked #3 (after a very serious drop from 2 to 3)

Flavor: Pulled Pork in a Sticky BBQ Sauce

This one got mixed reviews. It wasn't as strong tasting as some of the others. More subtle but definitely tasted like pork. Not sure if I want my crisps to taste like pork, though. Ranked #2

Flavor: Hot Dog with Tomato Ketchup

One reviewer said, "I would only eat these again on a dare." That is how bad they were. They had a super bad aftertaste and tasted more like the dirty water used to cook hot dogs instead of an actual hot dog. All the reviewers really like hot dogs and would way rather just eat a real one than these crisps. Ranked #5 (dead last)

Flavor: Sizzling Steak Fajita

These crisps smelled like a sloppy joe but had a distinct green pepper taste. Overall it was pretty good. Would be much better if eaten with a sandwich. Ranked #1

Final verdict: After taste testing all the crisps we decided that they all had issues and we probably wouldn't eat any of them again. But it was interesting to try them!

Buckingham Palace! And Other Awesome Stuff...

My sister and brother-in-law came to visit us in London this weekend. We ate loads of interesting foods (jacket potatoes with beans and cheese on top, hot dog flavored potato chips, and brown sugar mints to name a few), spent time walking around the city and my sister and I even toured the state rooms at Buckingham Palace. 

The tour was great, the rooms were incredible! If you plan to come to London for a visit and want to do the tour, plan your trip for August since that is the only time it is open. This year the queen extended her stay at Balmoral in Scotland so the palace was open for tours both August and September. Here we are at the end of the tour. Sadly, photography is not allowed inside so this is the only photo I have. 

This week is London Fashion Week. We happened upon some models doing a photo shoot in Covent Garden and I snapped this picture from the back of their shoot.

Also in Covent a Garden we walked past Five Guys Burger and Fries! This is just part of the line to get in. I'm sure we will go there sometime when we are feeling homesick. 

I will put up posts later this week with more about our chip taste test and the Japanese sweets my sister likes to eat, but this is what we had for lunch Sunday at the Spitalfield Market. One dish is macaroni and cheese, mushy peas, and sweet potato. The other is a steak and kidney pie with mashed potatoes and gravy. All of it was awesome. 

Due to some issues I am experiencing with the internet right now, that is all I will post. But we hope to have internet at our apartment early next week and maybe some temporary internet before that. More to come...