Sunday, April 11, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Lena, London, Summer
Hi Sweeties,
another month has passed since I last updated you on what's going on, this time not due to laziness but quite the opposite. The past 2.5 weeks have been exciting and lovely and dreamy (except for the 4 days that I had to work inbetween).
First of all my dearest Lena was here in Galway for 3 days and what a great time we had (at least that's what I think, I hope - and think - so does she). We spent the time eating and drinking and talking until the early mornings and oh how I miss(ed) that! There was no "sightseeing" involved as we had done that on her last visit (5! years ago) and except for a shopping/pub tour on Friday and a long walk (which - surprise - ended in a pub) we spent the time at home, cooking together, watching music videos on TV ("Telephone" by Lady GaGa and Beyonce will be my Lena-song from now on) and listening to music while talking about everything and anything. I thoroughly enjoyed every single minute of it and wish we could have this much more often!
From the minute Lena left it all felt like a dream, so surreal and at the same time as if it was possible for us to do this all the time. Unfortunately it is not, but I am sure one day it will be again...
Then the next weekend we were off to London where we met Marion & Philippe. I found every minute there simply perfect! We arrived later than expected because our flight was delayed (the good thing was that we flew from Galway to London Luton, so not much travelling was involved) and met Marion & Philippe at the hotel. Should you ever plan on going to London this is the one place I can recommend: The Hoxton Hotel! Everything about it is great (it was our second stay there). The rooms are small but modern and nice, the hall/bar is super comfy and you can spend hours there just watching people while having a coffee or beer. The people in general are very trendy (as is the whole area of Shoreditch, where the hotel is located). They are playing chill music all the time, everyone is friendly without being arrogant and it seems to be a meeting point for the fashionable lot of the area. You have fresh milk and water in a fridge in your room and in the morning you get a little breakfast bag from "Pret a Manger", which is a chain of eating places (I cannot really find the right word here to do them justice, they are not restaurants nor cafes, something inbetween) with a banana, a yoghurt with fruit and granola and a fresh orange juice. They have great food in general, everything is made in the shops from fresh and natural ingredients, nothing nasty and artificial!
So we arrived on Friday and went to a lovely Italian restaurant in the evening. Reception at the Hoxton recommended it and it was really nice, modern atmosphere, good food and just around the corner from the hotel. The next day was spent shopping (the four of us went to Harrods together on the tube but separated there because there's no point in 4 people trying to shop together). After about 2 hours in Harrods Stephan and I walked through Kensington to Picadilly, then to Carnaby Street, back to Picadilly, then to Waterstones which (as far as I recall) is Europe's biggest book store. Afterwards we were quite exhausted and after having a coffee we went back to the hotel where we rested in the bar for a while. In the evening the four of us went out for dinner to "Fifteen". Some of you might have heard about it, if not, here is a very short explanation: It is a restaurant that was set up by Jamie Oliver (now I am sure you know who he is) under the Jamie Oliver Foundation. Young disadvantaged people (these are my words now again, if you want to read more/more properly check out http://www.fifteen.net/) are given a chance to train as chefs and so given a chance to learn a proper job. Stephan an I had been there before last year and we loved it. Sometimes it is true hat "it's never as good as the first time", but fortunately this didn't apply on our second visit. The service is fabulous (very attentive without being stiff or annoying) and the food is to die for! One little thing I have to mention which is that in the beginning, the waiter asked us if any of us had any dietary requirements. Because the menue offers lots of vegetarian dishes I didn't bother to say that I am a vegetarian, but Stephan mentioned it, and so the amuse gueule I got was vegetarian, while the carnivors had meat. Now this should be standard, but 95% of restaurants would simply ignore it...as you don't pay for it (it's like a greeting from the kitchen) you have to eat what you get - but not at Fifteen!
The entire meal was fabulous, the ingredients used are simple but of best quality and that's what makes a good meal for me. And we all agreed - Fifteen rocks!
We went back there on Monday for breakfast which was equally good and along with the Hoxton it's a place I can only highly recommend. Good thing is that Fifteen is only 10 minutes walk away from the hotel (actually we found the hotel last year because it's recommended on the Fifteen website).Perfect combination!!!
Last but definitely not least worth mentioning is our (Stephan's and mine) excursion on Monday: We took the bus to HIghgate Village to visit Highgate Cemetery. First of all Highgate itself is really worth a visit. As the name suggests, it used to be a village outside London (but now is part of it) and it still has this village feel about it. All of a sudden you feel like you are in a completely different world, noise levels are low, the houses are small and old (but perfectly kept). From the bus stop it's about a 10 minute walk along a small street downhill to Highgate Cemetery. It was founded in the 1830's and is a monument to the Victorian age. As you can see from the books I have read recently this seems to be my latest "obsession", London, cemeteries, death, the Victorians and all that's connected with it. At this stage I could write an essay about this but you needn't worry, I won't get into these topics now.
So, after leaving London and our friends behind (which was really sad, I wish we could have stayed another week!) I was lucky enough to have another week off. So this is my last weekend of the Easter holidays. Today we drove through Connemara, the nicest landscape I have seen so far in my live, stopped for lunch in a nice little pub in Letterfrack and for me, today is the first day of summer. It was 20C this afternoon, blue skies and lots of sunshine. The weatherforecast is good for another few days and I will enjoy every minute of it as much as I can.
Monday it's back to routine, every day life, the rat race - whatever you want to call it. But that's okay too, because otherwise I couldn't appreciate the good times, the freedom of holidays and the lovely things in life.
In my previous post I just uploaded some photos of our stay in London. As you can see most of them are from Highgate Cemetery, but also one of the hotel (which looks like the inside of a castle, this is my favourite corner of the reception/hall/bar) and one of Marion, Philippe & Stephan. The one of me was taken by Stephan from inside the hotel while I was out smoking.
Take care all of you and as ususal I hope (but won't promise) to update this blog more often!
another month has passed since I last updated you on what's going on, this time not due to laziness but quite the opposite. The past 2.5 weeks have been exciting and lovely and dreamy (except for the 4 days that I had to work inbetween).
First of all my dearest Lena was here in Galway for 3 days and what a great time we had (at least that's what I think, I hope - and think - so does she). We spent the time eating and drinking and talking until the early mornings and oh how I miss(ed) that! There was no "sightseeing" involved as we had done that on her last visit (5! years ago) and except for a shopping/pub tour on Friday and a long walk (which - surprise - ended in a pub) we spent the time at home, cooking together, watching music videos on TV ("Telephone" by Lady GaGa and Beyonce will be my Lena-song from now on) and listening to music while talking about everything and anything. I thoroughly enjoyed every single minute of it and wish we could have this much more often!
From the minute Lena left it all felt like a dream, so surreal and at the same time as if it was possible for us to do this all the time. Unfortunately it is not, but I am sure one day it will be again...
Then the next weekend we were off to London where we met Marion & Philippe. I found every minute there simply perfect! We arrived later than expected because our flight was delayed (the good thing was that we flew from Galway to London Luton, so not much travelling was involved) and met Marion & Philippe at the hotel. Should you ever plan on going to London this is the one place I can recommend: The Hoxton Hotel! Everything about it is great (it was our second stay there). The rooms are small but modern and nice, the hall/bar is super comfy and you can spend hours there just watching people while having a coffee or beer. The people in general are very trendy (as is the whole area of Shoreditch, where the hotel is located). They are playing chill music all the time, everyone is friendly without being arrogant and it seems to be a meeting point for the fashionable lot of the area. You have fresh milk and water in a fridge in your room and in the morning you get a little breakfast bag from "Pret a Manger", which is a chain of eating places (I cannot really find the right word here to do them justice, they are not restaurants nor cafes, something inbetween) with a banana, a yoghurt with fruit and granola and a fresh orange juice. They have great food in general, everything is made in the shops from fresh and natural ingredients, nothing nasty and artificial!
So we arrived on Friday and went to a lovely Italian restaurant in the evening. Reception at the Hoxton recommended it and it was really nice, modern atmosphere, good food and just around the corner from the hotel. The next day was spent shopping (the four of us went to Harrods together on the tube but separated there because there's no point in 4 people trying to shop together). After about 2 hours in Harrods Stephan and I walked through Kensington to Picadilly, then to Carnaby Street, back to Picadilly, then to Waterstones which (as far as I recall) is Europe's biggest book store. Afterwards we were quite exhausted and after having a coffee we went back to the hotel where we rested in the bar for a while. In the evening the four of us went out for dinner to "Fifteen". Some of you might have heard about it, if not, here is a very short explanation: It is a restaurant that was set up by Jamie Oliver (now I am sure you know who he is) under the Jamie Oliver Foundation. Young disadvantaged people (these are my words now again, if you want to read more/more properly check out http://www.fifteen.net/) are given a chance to train as chefs and so given a chance to learn a proper job. Stephan an I had been there before last year and we loved it. Sometimes it is true hat "it's never as good as the first time", but fortunately this didn't apply on our second visit. The service is fabulous (very attentive without being stiff or annoying) and the food is to die for! One little thing I have to mention which is that in the beginning, the waiter asked us if any of us had any dietary requirements. Because the menue offers lots of vegetarian dishes I didn't bother to say that I am a vegetarian, but Stephan mentioned it, and so the amuse gueule I got was vegetarian, while the carnivors had meat. Now this should be standard, but 95% of restaurants would simply ignore it...as you don't pay for it (it's like a greeting from the kitchen) you have to eat what you get - but not at Fifteen!
The entire meal was fabulous, the ingredients used are simple but of best quality and that's what makes a good meal for me. And we all agreed - Fifteen rocks!
We went back there on Monday for breakfast which was equally good and along with the Hoxton it's a place I can only highly recommend. Good thing is that Fifteen is only 10 minutes walk away from the hotel (actually we found the hotel last year because it's recommended on the Fifteen website).Perfect combination!!!
Last but definitely not least worth mentioning is our (Stephan's and mine) excursion on Monday: We took the bus to HIghgate Village to visit Highgate Cemetery. First of all Highgate itself is really worth a visit. As the name suggests, it used to be a village outside London (but now is part of it) and it still has this village feel about it. All of a sudden you feel like you are in a completely different world, noise levels are low, the houses are small and old (but perfectly kept). From the bus stop it's about a 10 minute walk along a small street downhill to Highgate Cemetery. It was founded in the 1830's and is a monument to the Victorian age. As you can see from the books I have read recently this seems to be my latest "obsession", London, cemeteries, death, the Victorians and all that's connected with it. At this stage I could write an essay about this but you needn't worry, I won't get into these topics now.
So, after leaving London and our friends behind (which was really sad, I wish we could have stayed another week!) I was lucky enough to have another week off. So this is my last weekend of the Easter holidays. Today we drove through Connemara, the nicest landscape I have seen so far in my live, stopped for lunch in a nice little pub in Letterfrack and for me, today is the first day of summer. It was 20C this afternoon, blue skies and lots of sunshine. The weatherforecast is good for another few days and I will enjoy every minute of it as much as I can.
Monday it's back to routine, every day life, the rat race - whatever you want to call it. But that's okay too, because otherwise I couldn't appreciate the good times, the freedom of holidays and the lovely things in life.
In my previous post I just uploaded some photos of our stay in London. As you can see most of them are from Highgate Cemetery, but also one of the hotel (which looks like the inside of a castle, this is my favourite corner of the reception/hall/bar) and one of Marion, Philippe & Stephan. The one of me was taken by Stephan from inside the hotel while I was out smoking.
Take care all of you and as ususal I hope (but won't promise) to update this blog more often!
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