The Weekend

Weekend! So I, of course, spent a good bit of it trying to do schoolwork. With the occasional escape. Saturday evening I decided to visit a restaurant called Brasserie Zedel, a French style restaurant buried underground in Piccadilly with reasonably priced meals for all its fanciness. It certainly lived up to its hype! You walk into what looks like a little cafe... but a trip through a poster decorated corridor down a flight of stairs... 

Takes you to something much more impressive. This is the dining room, but there is also a bar and some sort of space set up for the occasional shows they host.

And the food was most delicious.

And omg this dessert. It's a poof of meringue drizzled with sugar all atop a puddle of custardy stuff that tasted like the bottom of creme brulee. With pink sugar coated nut bits to make it extra special. 

Suffice to say I've deemed it worth many repeat visits so that I can try the rest of the menu, too. Sunday I had a wander around Camden with a visiting fellow Tallahasseean. We peeked in to see Cyberdog, which is tucked in the sprawling Camden Lock Market, and it was a pretty awesome store.

With Some fantastic decor. Not to mention the lights and music made it like a tiny indoor rave.

We wandered up towards Chalk Farm (as the Camden Town tube was closed for the afternoon) and there was this pretty building! The exterior was all these painted screens, but it looked like lovely aged copper from a distance.

And the ever-present beautiful little church tucked away on a corner.

Sunday night my roommates and I had a Chinese New Year's feast, which was most delicious! Happy Year of the Monkey!

And then the inevitable return to classes on Monday, whoo! Hope all is well wherever you may be!

Flowers 'n Such

So it's apparently been a very mild winter, which I certainly can't complain about! Enough so, though, that the flowers have decided it's high time to bloom. Daffodils...

I'm going to call these crocuses...

So many lovely colors!

Even inside!

Today I also took a brief wander down towards the water. I ran into Caesar on the way.

Who seems to be talking about this lovely chunk of the original London wall behind him. I think this is the largest bit of it remaining in one piece.

The Tower of London et al was looking quite lovely, as usual.

And today I discovered the St. Katherine Docks! Its a lovely little tangle of waterways tucked back a bit from the Thames. With mostly big giant luxury type boats.

But there's also this intriguingly large stone bench... and a whole bunch of lovely little restaurants scattered about.

Plus this fancy footbridge, which looks to be a fun little drawbridge.

It was hard to get a good picture of the bits of bridge themselves (there was a lovely, if inconvenient tree in the way), but they also have a different type of bridge from the early 1800's that rolled in and out of the stone walls to either side to connect in the middle without lifting up and down like a draw bridge.

There's a cute little coffee shop, called White Mulberries, right near the water, too. It would have been lovely too sit outside if it had been juuuust a little warmer.

But they obviously have amazing taste.

So far all is well, though! Lucky me the winter has been so mild this year!

So the sunshine...

Despite it's stereotypical grey and/or drizzly days, there's a plenty of sunshine to be found in London, too, and oodles of little parks and squares to enjoy it in. This weekend I wandered down to Finsbury Park to enjoy the weather. It was a bit chilly, but mostly sunny which made it worth it!

There were lots of lovely open spaces and some splendid trees. 

And a cafe with some delicious hot chocolate.

There's even a historical garden that they've recreated... though somehow I came away without a picture of it.

Skyyyyy and greeeeen.

Later that evening I visited Southbank, which is always lovely at night.

And we stopped in to a boat bar! With a lovely view of the Thames through the giant windows.

Sunday was birthday brunch day! And a most delicious one it was!

We went to a little place called Dirty Bones, which was tucked up in the Kingsly Shopping center, which had these unique something or others which made up the roof of the inner square.

It was quite the lovely weekend, but now it's back to classes again!