Christmas Market in Hyde Park

Today I met up with my friends Danielle, Kate, and Scott at the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland. There were so many people! They were only letting people enter in phases and once we were in it was difficult to walk through because of the crowd. 

We all agreed that the Winter Wonderland felt like a mix between a Christmas Market and a State Fair. Most of the booths and food felt like it was right out of Germany...

...but then there were also roller coasters and a ferris wheel, which is more like a state fair. 

Danielle and I split Langos (Hungarian fried bread) with sour cream and cheese. It was crazy hot and super fresh!

As much as I love British cheddar cheese, it would have been nice if they offered some sweet toppings in addition to the savoury ones. 

We also split raclette on bread. I love raclette and was pleasantly surprised to find it at this market. They take a giant half-wheel of the cheese and place it under a broiler until it gets bubbly and melty. Then they spread it on either a piece of heavy bread (ours tonight had sunflower seeds in it) or boiled potatoes. 

My sister left me the rest of her unlimited travel pass when she left yesterday so I tried to hit up some of my favourite places that are a little far for me to walk. I got macarons at my favourite stand in Marylebone at the Cabbages and Frocks market. I also went to my new favourite specialty grocery store, Daylesford. What I saved in transportation costs I made up for with my purchases!

The macaron flavours I got (in order from top down) were cucumber and mint, apple and elderflower, fig and honey, lemon curd, apple cranberry, and another cucumber and mint. I can't wait to crack open the tomato and chilli jam from Daylesford and eat it with some mature British cheddar cheese! It tastes way better than it sounds.

Lincoln's Inn

Last Friday my friend, Kate, and I went on a guided tour of Lincoln's Inn near Chancery Lane. Lincoln's Inn is a society for lawyers that has been around since the 1400s. 

The meeting place for the tour is the chapel undercroft. I had no idea what a chapel undercroft was! We had to ask the porter where the tour met and almost missed it. This next photo is of the chapel undercroft for future reference. 

The buildings are in regular use by members of the Inn and as a rental for large gatherings. 

The next two photos are from the Old Hall. It was magnificent! 

These next photos are from the Chapel. Services on Sundays are open to the public and our guide told us that a professional choir sings each Sunday. 

There was a catered event in the Great Hall scheduled in the evening on the day of our tour so people were busy setting up. 

The painting below is in the great hall. 

Inside one of the rooms at Lincoln's Inn. 

Lincoln's Inn is often used for TV and movie filmings, especially for period pieces. I did some research and found that the following shows had scenes filmed at Lincoln's Inn: Downton Abbey (season 4), About Time, Sherlock Holmes (the ones with Robert Downey Jr), Foyle's War, Miss Potter, Amazing Grace, National Treasure, and Finding Neverland. 

An American Thanksgiving in London

Today Jackie, Zach, and I attended the Thanksgiving Day service at St Paul's Cathedral. We met up with my friend Kate and her husband, Scott. Below is a photo of the program from today's service. 

The service featured the American Ambassador to the UK, students from local American schools, British clergy from the Anglican church, and American clergy from non-denominational churches. In addition, we were all really excited to see the inside of St Paul's Cathedral without having to pay the typical entry fee! 

St Paul's was behind a barricade and security wasn't letting people in when we first arrived so I was able to take this awesome photo of St Paul's with the statue of Queen Anne with no people in the photo! This is a very rare accomplishment. 

Typically photography is not allowed inside St Paul's Cathedral but for this event, they turned a blind eye. I went crazy taking photographs so happy Thanksgiving! Hopefully you all will benefit from the amazing opportunity I had. 

These next two photos are from the American Chapel inside St Paul's. This area is not always open to the public but they opened it special today. The stained glass (not pictured) depicts a scene for each state. 

Here is a photo of Jackie and me as we were leaving the American Chapel. 

Now for our Thanksgiving feast! Jackie, Zach, Kate, Scott, and I met up with Warren at Leather Lane Market for a cornucopia of street food. We started with a Baby Got Mac sandwich at Grill My Cheese (I've had this before but it was new to everyone else). It has cheese, macaroni and cheese, pulled pork, and barbecue sauce. Everyone thought it was really good. 

We also tried a sweet potato burrito which was a great concept but was poorly executed. We all wished there was more sweet potato in the burrito. 

We also tried a chicken kofte and halloumi wrap at Victus & Bibo.

Inside the wrap was chicken, fried halloumi cheese, salad, hummus, and yogurt. It was really good. We all said we would get it again and would recommend it to others. 

We also tried these Weirdoughs that were turkey and stuffing flavoured. Not the same as Thanksgiving dinner but they were the best Weirdoughs we've tried so far (which isn't saying much).

Clearly not a typical Thanksgiving meal, but it was still delightful and we all felt stuffed afterwards. It was really nice to celebrate the holiday with family and friends even though we are far from home. 

Borough Market

My sister and her husband are visiting this week. Yesterday my brother-in-law, Zach, and I went to the Borough Market near London Bridge.

We tried a cheesy pretzel from this German-style bakery stand. It was super good!

I have expressed my fondness for scotch eggs in previous posts and there is a scotch egg stand in Borough Market! I didn't try one because I couldn't bring myself to pay 4.50 for one. But they did look really good. Maybe next time.

  

This pie place also looked really good. And in the back right corner were more scotch eggs! 

For lunch we went to the Spanish stand, but we don't think our lunch was traditional food from Spain. 

This tortilla was filled with spicy chorizo; squid; roasted green, yellow, and red peppers; hard boiled egg; lettuce; cabbage; apple; black olives; and tomatoes. Below is a photo of the filling for our burrito being warmed on the grill. Even though I don't like spicy food, this was really good. I'm glad Zach encouraged me to try it because typically I wouldn't have done it on my own. But I would definitely get this again!

At this stand with Turkish food Zach and I tried borek, which is a flaky pastry filled with feta cheese. It was also delicious. 

 More options at the Turkish food stand. 

This next photo was from a German sausage stand.

And more things we didn't actually try but that had really cool displays. This store had cheeses from Switzerland. 

This fruit and veg stand was so vibrant and beautiful!