Texas Heart, London Eye

This weekend Michael and I went to a proper English wedding in Beaulieu. It was a really beautiful wedding with lots of pretty hats and the backdrop of the beautiful English countryside. Michael was an usher in the wedding (groomsman) so he was decked out with a "morning suit" and top hat. I prepared myself by getting a fascinator.

The car the bride and groom arrived in.

In our fancy dress.

The bride and groom with their parents. Look at the hats!

The entire wedding party.

Looking dashing in his top hat.

Wedding guests with their fancy fascinators.

The marquee (tent) where the reception was.

Overall a good night!

This weekend I also got my patio furniture, where I am really enjoying in the 60 degree weather in August. I made full use of the patio furniture eating every meal.

I have also reluctantly succumbed to the traditional English breakfast. I made my first proper English breakfast this weekend and enjoyed it outside on the patio.

English breakfast involves a fried egg, tomato, mushrooms (seriously, I don't get it either!), fried bread, sausage, and English bacon (which is more like American ham).

I also have a cute cat that has been visiting me! It's very curious and always comes up to my door!

Also, apologies for the photos being cut off on my last couple of posts....I am working on fixing this! Until then, cheers!

Monday, August 15, 2011

Beat the Heat

This has been a cold summer. For much of July it rained cold rain and on top of that I haven't seen a day's worth of sunlight in weeks...and I certainly haven't tanned....in a year or so! So naturally, I thought it would make sense to venture even further north, to ICELAND!

Yes, we went to the land of Vikings,

Glaciers,

Cool money,

And strange meats.

Oh, and the Blue Lagoon of course.

The Blue Lagoon is actually amazing. It's a large natural hot springs. I couldn't get over how blue the water was.

The Blue Lagoon was definitely relaxing, however, it really only takes 2-3 hours to enjoy it in it's entirety. Had we known this, we would have rearranged our excursions because we had way too much free time in the city of Reykjavik (population of 110k).

We ended up having lots of time to explore the nightlife that Reykjavik had to offer. On our bar hopping excursion, we some how ended up in a gay bar.

This was one clue that gave it away.

We also found a really great Mexican restaurant where we had nachos and fajitas. It was actually a lot closer to TexMex than anything I had experienced in London!

Look at this attitude.

Much happier looking after a nice meal of Mexican!

Icelandic culture is definitely edgy and modern.

The big excursion that we did during our trip was called the Golden Circle where it took you around some of the most popular Iceland sights.

Here is a massive waterfall (Gulfoss waterfall).

Pretty scary getting up close!

Same with the famous Geysir.

Pretty crazy!

And the divide between the Americas and EuroAsia.

Overall the trip was quite relaxing, and we had tons of free time. We had plenty of time to practice our photography skills (fried ice cream above).

We also have proof that the sun does set in Iceland in the summer. Reykjavik does not get the extreme 24 hours of daylight and darkness in summer and winter that some of the more northern parts of Iceland get. We witnessed beautiful sunsets at around 11pm. However, it never gets completely dark during the night. Even at 3 or 4am the sky was still a dark blue colour, and the sun did rise quite early.

We ended the trip enjoying a nice massive breakfast at a nearby cafe. Where this odd looking creature overlooked us!

I would definitely recommend Iceland for once in your lifetime. Just be sure to plan your excursions right and remember that you don't need too much time in Reykjavik! One of my biggest regrets of the trip is not seeing the glacier lagoon, but unfortunately that was a 14 hour excursion. It looks amazing though! To save time you can easily do the Blue Lagoon on the way to the airport and there are plenty of packages that let you do it.

Coming up, I'll update you on my lovely English weekend complete with a proper English wedding!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Trying New Things

This weekend was actually a rain free, sunny, and beautiful weekend. We don't get much of those here! It's been incredibly cold...I'm shivering every night and wearing a trench coat, boots, and scarf still!

On this beautiful day, I had to take advantage of the rare appearance of the sun, and I also have been meaning to practice using my new SLR camera I have bought. I've kept it on autofocus for now as the world of photography is completely new to me. I'm hoping that my blog posts can improve with better photography though! I also hope to take quality pictures during my impending Iceland trip!

So I headed to St. James's park for a chance to get acquainted with my camera. I'm not going to guarantee that my pictures are of the highest quality, but hopefully they will get there!

After a hard's day work of photography, I headed to a Mexican restaurant that I have been dying to go to, Wahaca. I have to say, it's still not quite TexMex (sigh). We got a sampler plate that included several "unique" dishes. I think I'm still on Team Cantina Laredo if I have to have my pick in London! They've got the best margaritas and salsa hands down. And I think they're the closest I'm going to get to TexMex. Michael was a good enough sport to help me in my quest to fulfil in my perpetual TexMex cravings...

Spicy chicken tacos of some sort that had a sort of Indian flare to it

New potato taquitos

Broad bean quesadillas

Pork tacos (similar to the ones I had tried at the Jamie Oliver Food Festival)

Some kind of veggie taco

Overall, I have to say that the pork tacos were the best. I honestly wasn't too much of a fan of any of the others. I'm glad I tried it though.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Work Trip

....to ROME!!

Alright, well 20 min cab ride from Rome! I was pleasantly surprised by my hotel room though. Our company basically took up almost the entire hotel, so I was stuck with this room....

Presidential Suite (well not quite) with a huge balcony where you could barely (and I really mean just barely) see the Vatican!

yeah, just barely....

After our three days of training we took an extra day to see things up close.

Colosseum! Always a crowd pleaser... (hope you get that pun).

Quick stop by the Trevi fountain. We had about 24 hours to see the whole city, so pictures helped provide some proof!

Pantheon.

Square outside the Pantheon.

Dinner. I think he's really expressing the fact that he doesn't really like wine!

We did have a pretty nice dinner that night. The waiter brought us free bruschetta that was super delicious and two rounds of lemoncello and biscotti. By the second round I was like, "no no" because I thought he was going to charge us for it (everyone there was asking for money....I think about 12 people came up to our table begging or trying to sell us stuff!). Turns out he didn't charge us for any of it!! He was actually nice. He even told Michael to relax when Michael tried to get the bill for fear of more discretionary charges.