leon 1, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

leon 2, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

leon 3, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

After our tasty lunch, we went for a walk along the Thames. It was such a beautiful day for walking around and we had a lot of fun seeing all of the touristy, but beautiful, sites along the river. Pictures below!

thames 1, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

thames 2, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

thames 3, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

thames 4, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

bus and phone, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Tomorrow we are heading up north for a day in the country! We’re going to walk around Windsor during the day, and then have dinner at a Heston Blumenthal restaurant (very exciting!) We’re going to spend the night in Windsor, and then head back to London early Sunday morning. Will try to post from Windsor if we can!

We started out our day at Borough Market, where we got some tasty lunch (roast meat sandwiches and grilled cheese, onions and pickles) and picked up some provisions for dinner tonight. Borough Market is one of our favorite places in London, and it was a ton of fun to stock up for New Year’s Eve there.

Buying some bread.

borough 1, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Me and my favorite “salt beef and horseradish sauce” sandwich – yumm!

borough 2, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Cheese lady.

borough 3, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Grilled cheese with onions and pickles.

borough 4, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

After we got back to Whitney and Michael’s, we began cooking for dinner! We made a tasty rib roast, yorkshire pudding, brussels sprouts, and Michael’s famous roast potatoes and root vegetables. Yum!!!

Tasty Borough Market meat before we cooked it.

dinner 1, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

It’s dinner time!

dinner 2, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

After dinner, we enjoyed some post-dinner drinks – champagne, London Pride Lager, and lovely Winter Pimms (a British tradition?)!

champagne, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

pimms, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

london pride, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

We also managed to observe a bunch of our respective traditions.

Singing Auld Lange Syne.

trad 1, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Eating herring at midnight (my family’s tradition).

herring, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

The Scottish Hogmanay tradition of “first footing” — allowing in a dark haired person, a tall person, and a person bearing a gift (that’s me with coal).

scot trad 1, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

scot trad 2, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

scot trad 3, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

And the Mauritian tradition of opening the doors to allow out with the bad, and in with the good for the New Year.

open door, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

open windows, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Happy 2010 from London!!!!!

sausage and mash, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Me and my former co-counselor

dana and kate 2, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Group shot

group shot, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

After lunch, we walked up Portobello Road, which has a bunch of cute little shops, and antique stores. Then we walked through Notting Hill, and then to Kensington and South Kensington (home of fancy houses).

Portobello Road

portabello road 2, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

We also randomly walked past George Orwell’s house!

orwell house, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

A pretty blue house on Portobello Road

blue house, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

The coolest looking pub ever – it had all kinds of crazy things hanging from the ceiling!

churchill arms, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

A little wet, we made our way back to Whitney and Michael’s flat (we navigated the buses and Tube all by ourselves!) We decided to take it easy tonight to recover from Vinopolis and prepare for some New Year’s Eve festivities tomorrow night. We got a fantastic “curry” close to Whitney and Michael’s place, and then had a relaxing night of watching tv.

All in all, it was a wet but fun day in London!

We also discovered that we unwittingly documented a graffiti rivalry in progress on our first day here! Check out the photo below, and then read this article: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6970440.ece (Make sure you click on the arrows under the picture in the article so you can see the evolution of this painting.)

banksy, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

vino 1, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

vino 2, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

vino 3 tay, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

vino 4 wm, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

vino 5 all, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

pub 1, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

And afterward we got some tasty, fancy pizza to cap off the night (and may, or may not, have had a pasti on the way home!) That’s it from here!

pizza 1, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

After a good night’s sleep, Michael cooked a delicious breakfast, and then Taylor and I headed off for a walk. We left Whitney and Michael’s “flat” and then headed to Spittalfield’s Market and Brick Lane Road. Most of the stores at Spittalfield’s were closed, but a bunch of the Indian restaurants and supermarkets on Brick Lane were open (and so were the vintage shops). It was a lot of fun to do some more walking and exploring! See pictures below.

this market, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

church, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

duke of wellington, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

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brick lane 1, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

truman, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

taylor yard, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Afterward, we went to meet Whit and Michael at The Lanesborough for a wonderful tea. The tea was excellent, and we really liked the goat cheese quiches and the cucumber sandwiches. Good times!

underground, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

tea, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

tea tree, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Afterward, we walked down to the Thames and looked at all of the pretty sights which were lit up at night. Not surprisingly, we grabbed a couple(+) pints at a cute pub right off of Saint Katharine’s Dock on the Thames.

boat and eye, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

dickens w m, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

tower bridge, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

dickens outside, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

dickens d t, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Before heading home, we grabbed some scharma / falafel along the way(as if we hadn’t eaten enough already!). All in all, another wonderful London day!

falafel, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

After waking up around 9:30 (a brutal 4:30 NY time…) we headed out to have lunch (a Sunday roast) at The Albion very cute little Georgian-era pub about a 20 minute walk from Whitney and Michael’s flat. The place was absolutely perfect – it had a great brick exterior, a wonderful fire going on the inside, and excellent mulled wine. Whit and I had the roast beef, and Taylor and Michael had roast pork belly. We finished off with sticky toffee pudding, and a chocolate plate.

In front of the Albion:

DSC_6789, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

DSC_6795, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Roast Beef, Carrot Mash and potatoes!

roast meat, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Slow Roast Pork Belly!

DSC_6793, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

Sticky Toffee Pudding for Dessert (diet starts when we get back…)

DSC_6802, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

After lunch, we took a nearly 4 mile walk around the Regent’s Canal from Caledonian Road to Camden Lock and finally to Little Venice. There are these really narrow and super cute canal boats that go up and down the canal, and navigate their way through several locks. It’s a really beautiful walk, and there are great things to look at along the way, including Banksy graffiti, the Blow Up Bridge (which blew up after a boat carrying gun powder hit against the top of it) and the beautiful homes in Regent Park. It was great to walk around and do some exploring (see pictures below).

DSC_6814, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

DSC_6845, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

boat and chinese resto, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

canal boats, originally uploaded by TaylorDane.

And then we made it back to Whitney and Michael’s flat to eat some pastis and play some Wii! More tomorrow!

Oh yes, it’s real. And (not surprisingly), it hails from England. I knew I loved that country for a reason.

Hilary became the first ever roving reporter for T&D.com a few weeks ago when she forwarded this photo, which is exactly what it appears to be: sausage, mashed potatoes, peas and gravy in a cone. Apparently Aunt Bessie’s Creamy Mash Truck (which I think is British for an ice cream truck…) has launched this new product (which seems to vaguely be in response to chillier winters, so maybe it’s ultimately a commentary on human impacts on the climate – who knows?)

Apparently Bangers & Mash in a Cone unleashed quite a controversy when Metro.co.uk labeled it “The World’s Most Disgusting Ice Cream” only to receive a visit from Aunt Bessie’s Mash Van which showered them (figuratively) with Mash Cones. The reporter who originally described the mash cone with the caption “disgusting disgusting disgusting disgusting” revised his previous column and described the mash cone as “actually, quite nice.”

That all said, clearly Aunt Bessie’s is bumping up to the top of my list of things to hit up the next time we’re across the pond!

It’s hard to know where to start the list of things-that-are-awesome about our great neighbor across the pond (not the least of which is that it’s the current residence of Whit & the Brit!) First of all, you’ve got to love any place where “grabbing a pint” with someone is roughly the equivalent of “getting coffee” (read: a totally acceptable thing to propose on a Saturday afternoon – or even Sunday morning, for that matter). Clearly, the cheeses and chocolates stand on their own (god bless Cadbury). And I could start a whole second blog about my deep-and-real love for ESBs, HP sauce, and the way that some form of a fried potato seems to be consumed at every meal.

But I’d like to add a new reason to the list: Sunday roasts. We were naturally curious about why every other pub and restaurant seemed to advertise their “Sunday roasts” – and, of course, we had to check it out. Our roast came at a local boozer in Islington, the Old Queen’s Head. It certainly met (and exceeded) our expectations. Essentially a roast consists of roast meet, roast potatoes, roast vegetables, yorkshire pudding, and lots of juices (which appear when you roast meet for a very long time). We had one lamb and one beef roast – which came with crushed mint leaves and horseradish sauce (respectively) – and perfectly accented the rest of the flavors.

In summation: I heart Sunday roasts.

We had so many great meals on our trip, that it’s hard to know where to start!

One of our favorite places in London was Borough Market an amazing green market that had every kind of food you could possibly imagine (more on Borough Market in a later post). Right across from the market, we found this great little place that had the sign above out front. We were intrigued. What makes a banger posh? What kind of a roll do they come in? Are they really cheaper than chips?

Further investigation brought us closer to the shop – where we found posh bangers roasting over rosemary.

We were sold. We needed these posh bangers, in a roll. So we returned a few days later for lunch. We were not disappointed — especially when we received not three but FOUR posh bangers. The bread in London was overall amazing – and this roll was no exception: crusty, coated with sesame seeds, and chewy on the inside. Inside the roll were four completely different sausages – one chorizo, one hot Italian sausage…I can’t remember what the other two were, but they were all delicious. And very posh, indeed.