Spain at Southbank

There's always a ton of stuff going on in London, and J finally had some free time so I convinced him to venture out with me to the Spanish food festival at Southbank. I miscalculated our tube stop, and we got off a bit too early and popped up outside of the National Gallery, where there was some kind of Indian festival going on. This is why I love living in London so much!



There was a concert, which inspired J and I to try to bust out some Bollywood dance moves (fail), and we nabbed some free samples of mango lassi.

It's a fairly short walk to Southbank from the National Gallery, but thanks to a dangerous combination of terrible sense of direction and incurable curiosity about side streets, the walk ended up bieng much longer than J had counted on. Oops.

Thankfully, the weather was more than pleasant and J was in a forgiving mood since he knew we were headed to food. By the time we got there, the place was positively heaving with people!



The stall holders from La Boqueria, the world famous market in Barcelona, were the main draw of the Spanish food festival. We had visited the actual La Boqueria when we were in Barcelona, and I remembered the fabulous array of meats and fruits. Unfortunately, the stalls were a bit of a letdown and much too crowded.

We headed toward the parking lot in the back, where I knew there would be fewer crowds and better food, and we hit pay dirt. J got his favourite at La Raclette, which is a dish of potatoes, onions and cheese with broiled cheese scraped on top, and I scored a risotto ball and stew wrap that was ginormous and crazy good. We finished off our gorge-fest with a salted caramel brownie.



Needless to say, I was completely forgiven by then. We could barely walk with our bellies so full so we decided to head back home. We encountered a women's acapella group performing "California Dreaming" by the Eagles along the way. It was lovely, and we stuck around for a few more songs before hoofing it to the tube stop.



London, thanks for reminding me why I love you.

Bank Holiday at the South Bank

J and I accidentally on purpose forgot to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee, but we definitely wanted to take full advantage of the bank holidays on Monday and Tuesday.

I knew the South Bank was having a World Food Festival, and I didn't have any trouble convincing J to accompany me.



All I needed to say was: Do you want mac 'n cheese or hot dogs for lunch?



Of course, there were tons of other things on offer...





And my favourite - FROYO! Too bad it was too cold for ice cream. Seriously, everyone was bundled up in coats and scarves. Whatever happened to summer and global warming?!



But I consoled myself with some churros dipped in melted chocolate. Yum.

After we finished stuffing our faces, we walked along the river and caught some interesting sights on our way to the Tate Modern.

There was a lovely group playing to the crowd outside the National Theatre...



And a photo shoot going on in the skate park...



It was a pretty long walk, but we finally found ourselves in front of the Tate Modern, London's premiere modern art museum.

Entry is free, so we wandered in to have a look-see at what the fuss is all about. My initial impression was that the space is absolutely huge, and the bottom two floors look pretty much like an airplane hangar. The floors above are smaller but the common areas areas are much more interesting.





The art itself was... hmm. Some of the exhibits were pretty interesting, but some of the other bits were just "huh?!". I took some snaps of the examples of why I find it difficult to like modern "art"...

A plain black canvas...



Air conditioning ducts...



Maybe my eye isn't sophisticated enough to appreciate these pieces, but J and I both had enough after a few hours. I think J's favourite part of the whole museum was the BBQ truck set up right outside the entrance.



We walked across the Millennium Bridge, which J likes to refer to as the "Harry Potter bridge" since it was the one that got attacked by the Death Eaters in the film, and hopped on the Tube to head home. Severe delays on the Central line. Of course.

A German Christmas

If you want to celebrate Christmas, the best place to do it is in London. There's Christmas fairs and festivals galore, and the hardest part is picking which one to go to. I settled on the Cologne Christmas Market at Southbank Centre since the Real Food Festival was also going on at the same locale.

Sausage, onions and potatoes. Yum!

It was dark by the time we arrived there, so we got to fully appreciate all the fairy light canopies that were hung from every roofline. Each of the 60 or so wooden stalls had their own Christmas decor, and J and I had a grand old time perusing the goods offered up for sale along with a ton of other people. There were a variety of things, and all things Christmas, of course, such as roasted chestnuts, mulled wine (J enjoyed a cup), and lots and lots of sweets. And we also got to catch our first glimpse of the London Eye, Westminster, and the Golden Jubilee Bridge in the evening, all lit up. After we were Christmased out, we headed back to the Real Food Festival, where J and I shared a sausage dish with boiled potatoes and onions with toasted cheese. Sooo good.

Old-fashioned carousel for the kiddies

The gingerbread stall - Definitely one of the more popular ones!

The Thames looks a lot nicer at night

Anyway, we decided to walk off some of the food and wine by walking over the bridge and ended up walking over to Trafalgar Square where surprise surprise, the Christmas tree was up! Along with a giant menorah and a nativity display. The tree is a gift from Norway, and it's decorated in the Norwegian style. The tree has been given every year since 1947 in thanks for British assistance during World War II. Isn't that amazing?

 

We finished off the evening with a stop at the nearby Waterstone's to pick up some books for the remainder of the evening, and we're going to order a Thai takeaway and settle in for some X Factor. A great Saturday night.