12 Hours in London

I apologize for not blogging too much this week.  Haven't necessarily had a lot to write about.  Just been plugging away on assignments and thesis investigation.  It's been quite a challenge actually not needing to go to campus.  Very easy to get I guess claustrophobic would be the word here in my room.  I've gone to the gym every day, which of course helps, but it's hard to find places to do some work that don't involve spending money, eating, drinking, or all of the above.  It also means that I've kind of been working on something most of each day, so even though it wasn't a busy week, it feels that way.  So knowing the weekend would bring more of the same, I decided to buy a cheap train ticket to London for Saturday.  For some unknown reason, the NCSU/UNC game was on ESPN America last night, which meant that this place called The Sports Cafe was showing it.  I'm going back next Sunday with some guys to watch the Super Bowl, and was checking out the Cafe.  It's not the best, and I think we'll wind up at a BBQ joint that is showing it instead.  The Cafe is charging 15 GBP just to get in, at the BBQ place 25 P gets you a buffet of chicken, ribs, etc.

I started off pretty early, because I wanted to get to Borough Market early, before the crowds got too big.  I'm glad I did, I think I was there by about 10am, still plenty busy, but easy to walk around too.  There was tons of fresh meat, fish (including authentic Arbroath Smokies), vegetables, baked goods, etc.  here was one soup stand that was cooking an assortment of curries in big vats:

Not the best picture, but it was very cool in person, and they were giving tastes out, which were delicious.  Nearly every stand had free samples, from cheese, to bread, sausages, olive oil, you name it.  It was basically brunch for me by the time I got around through the whole market.  I even finally tried real foie gras!

This was a little wine stand where you could fill your own wine bottles out of the barrels that you can see to the right of the bottles.  Very cool idea!

The french stand where I tried foie gras was serving mulled wine, and had a big pot of duck that was waiting for lunch time duck confit sandwiches.  By the time I'd finished everywhere it wasn't quite lunch time, so I went to a nearby bar called the Rake for a half-pint of Belgian beer to wait for the duck to be ready.  And boy was it worth it, the sandwich was fantastic.  I know you can't really see the duck in the picture, but there was plenty of it in there!

Then I walked a bit to a very small brewery that has been getting rave reviews over here, Kernel Brewery.  I tried a taste of two of their IPA's and bought a bottle of the Black IPA and the Imperial Stout.  All hand bottled, and I really like the labels too.  The other two beers I picked up at Utobeer.  One is a smoked porter that I'd read about and thought I wouldn't find, and the other is Nogne's 100th barrel beer Barleywine/DIPA.

I then walked back across the Thames to St. Paul's Cathedral which was very impressive and then to the free Museum of London.  The Museum was pretty cool, as it has a wide range of exhibits, from modern art and history, to prehistoric natural history.  Didn't realize the Romans called London Londinium.  Sounds like an element to me.  By now I needed to find some dinner so I could get to the Cafe place in time for the game.  The first couple places I had targeted wound up being a bit on the pricey side.  Not terrible, just more than I was looking to spend.  I wound up at a German restaurant that actually turned out to be very good.  I had a small sausage platter and a hefeweissen.  

The Sports Cafe was packed at first, and slowly thinned out after one of the soccer games ended.  It was nothing special, not good beer, but apparently one of the only places to watch the ESPN America channel unfortunately.  Too bad the game wasn't very god, but I kinda knew that might be the case.  There was some Tarheel apparel, and I saw one NCSU shirt come in the door, but have no idea where he went to!  

By the time I got back to MK, it was 1030, so I a very long day, but good to get away for sure.

If anyone is interested, my full set of pictures is below:

29-1-11 London