London

Well, we've had a busy couple of weeks, waking up early Saturday mornings, boarding a bus or train, and traveling to see the sights.  This weekend we decided to take a break and see more of the sights in our own backyard.  So this post will be a London post, the adventures we've had this weekend and the funny things about London that we've experienced so far.

First, our top 10 "notable" things about London, compliments of DJ and Michelle:

1. London is a surprisingly clean city, especially given the number of people who come and go here everyday.  The really do an impressive job at keeping the city beautiful - from the architecture to the parks, there's always a pleasant walk waiting.
2. There are people everywhere!  Holy cow, there are crowds everywhere.  More so than New York or Paris, it feels like anywhere we go we are running in to crowds.
3. The sun rises sooo early!  Current sunrise time is 4:49 am.  By 6 am the sun is well above the horizon.  Unless you have some serious light blocking window shades, there is no hope for sleeping in.
4. The weather has not got the memo that summer has started.  We've seen all the facebook photos of our family and friends in the states wearing shorts and sandals, their kids playing in the pool or sprinklers. It's like you're in a different universe.  We're still wearing sweaters and jackets!
5. It's popular here to smoke some sort of substance that smells like cupcakes and frosting.  There are these smoking lounges here where people smoke from these long, decorative pipes - I think they might be hookah pipes?  The strange thing is, and I'm totally serious, the smoke smells like cupcakes and frosting.  I don't know what they're smoking, but it makes we want to head straight for the nearest pastry shop.
6. Speaking of smoking, everyone smokes here!
7. Whereas in the US we'd have several aisles of a grocery store dedicated to soft drinks, here, there are several aisles dedicated to wine.  Everything else in the store gets about 2 feet shelf-space max.  But not the wine, it gets its own mini-store within a store.
8. They change their street names every two blocks.  It makes it really hard to navigate, especially when you are too cheap to get a smart phone with a data plan.  (Yes, that's right, due to our overly frugal natures, we've decided to go mobile-less while we are here.  Most people think we are crazy)
9. Restaurants only tip 12.5%, if at all.  We're used to the states, where we feel cheap if we don't tip 20%.  Here, at lot of restaurants will pre-populate the tip for you at 12.5%, and some don't even give you the chance to leave a tip at all.
10.  The food here, really, is not all that bad.

In general, things are going well for us.  Michelle is learning her new role and learning a ton about the labor market here in  Europe.  It's quite different here.  There are so many regulations.  The scales are quite definitely tipped in favor of the employee.  DJ has submitted another draft of his research for publication and now is just waiting. In the mean time he is brushing up his web-development skills, working on a few web-sites, and preparing applications for his PhD.

Friday night Michelle was in the mood for Mexican food.  Her boss recommended a place in Covent Garden and so we ventured there to give it a try.  We were not disappointed.  Carnitas de puerco for DJ and Chicken enchiladas in tomatillo sauce for Michelle.  Pretty delicious!

And for dessert? Warm chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.  Yummy!

 One of the reasons we decided to go to the Mexican restaurant in Covent Garden was because it was right on Shelton Street!  We had to explore the area.

Mr. Shelton on Shelton Street.

This is the opera house in Covent Garden. In the musical, My Fair Lady, this is sight of the opening scene, where Eliza's flowers are knocked from her basket by Freddy, Colonel Pickering and Henry Higgins first meet each other while waiting in the rain for a taxi after the opera, and where the first ideas for Prof. Higgins' grand scheme to turn Eliza into a lady by teaching her to speak properly first begins. 

Covent Gardens has lots of fun shops and places to eat.

This may be the best news of our entire trip so far.  Shake Shack is coming to London.  The best burgers we've ever had.  DJ was beside himself with joy!  Summer 2013, coming any day now!

 Saturday we walked to Borough Market via Tower Bridge.  

Tower Bridge

 I can seriously count on one had the number of times DJ and I have gone to get hamburgers together (poor DJ is so hamburger deprived!).  Something strange was in the air Saturday, because that was all that sounded good to me.  A big, fat juicy burger hot off the grill at Borough Market.  Delicious!

DJ, on the other hand, went for the sausage in a baguette, with all the toppings - lime guacamole, some type of cabbage stuff, a white sauce - he didn't even know what it all was, but it was good!

 Food vendor at Borough market.  If you go, go hungry!  The food is delicious and there is so much to choose from.

We almost stopped at this place, but we resisted.  Those big, yellow blocks are cheese.  They heat it under a   broiler until the cheese gets melty and bubbly.  It smells incredible.  We kept getting drawn to the booth like lemmings, just because the smell was so good!  Once the top layer is good and melted they scrape it into a bowl of boiled potatoes and pickles (they call them gherkins).  The cheese to potato ratio is a little ridiculous, but I can only imagine that it was quite good.  And we did leave it to our imaginations, because after a hamburger and a sausage, a bowl full of cheese was a little too much for our stomachs.  Maybe next time we'll stop there first, before the sausage!

Chez Michele, that's me!

A bike bar.  People sit at the bar and drink and pedal at the same time.  There is a driver (sober - hopefully) and a bartender who run the thing, the rest are paying patrons.