london calling

so after a long hiatus, it is time for an update. on a bit more than a whim, i decided to jetset to london last weekend for a laonnoise reunion/girly weekend with mack and ions, two lovely ladies i spent the better part of a year with in france.

i got in pretty late on friday night, or at least late for london. pubs close by midnight, so we had to beg for a beer after last call. after a beer, it was back to mack's for a laidback night with several cupcakes, a bag of candy, and some chips. could you tell i didn't really eat dinner? talk about destroying my diet. haha. as my blog editor says, if it's in another country, it doesn't count ;)

saturday started off with a hilarious attempt at shake and pour pancakes (why did i NOT get a photo of this??) anyway, i think more pancake batter wound up on mack's apron than in the pan. needless to say, brunch was delicious, despite the weird shape of our pancakes :)

then it was off to a pub for some pints and rugby (italy v. wales). no pub visit is the same without fried food so we got a round of fries and onion rings to accompany our beers.

ladies who "scoop"

after rugby, it was time to freshen up for a night out on the town. so with some good music, some wine, and some more cupcakes, we dolled ourselves up and headed to dinner at yo! sushi. running sushi is obviously the hot trend these days, and it only reminds me of this hole in the wall place in chapel hill that i used to go to in college. i guess the trend really caught on. anyway, dinner was great, like sushi always is, and then we headed to a club at 21.30. definitely an early start, which i think is strange, but i guess londoners really like to start early. we were supposed to meet up with one of mack's friends, but he was clearly a jerk, and we headed off to a pub, which was definitely more our scene. the choice was brilliant though, because it led to an epic night that otherwise wouldn't have happened.

you can find us in the pub...

i will save you the blurry details of the night, the bottom line is that it was a blast and had all of my favorite elements: good company, random strangers, dancing, falafels, and cab rides.

sunday was a late start and we finally ate around 15.00 at this cute little place in covent garden called bill's produce. i really should have taken a photo of it, or at least have bought one of their net bags. anyway, it was delish -- fish finger sandwich and fries w/ mayo. yum. the rest of the day was pretty chill as we were all still struggling from the night before.

on a side note, check out this pretty view out mack's window. it's may be the only sun i have seen in weeks...

monday we headed off to get our feet done... by fish! another new trend out there is these fish that eat the dead skin off your feet, leaving them soft and smooth. think of it as an alternative pedicure... it was a bit creepy and weird in the beginning, but after some channeling of my thoughts and trying to compare the feeling to jacuzzi jets, i had gotten over the weird sensation. and it's true. my feet are softer. thank you groupon!

nom nom nom...

so after fish pedicures, we had a nice french lunch and headed back to mack's to pick up my stuff and head to victoria station to catch the train to the airport. a nice little surprise inside the station was a krispy kreme doughnut stand! go figure! based on all the jamie oliver specials i watch in denmark, it really isn't very shocking to find this here. anyway, the choices were different from home, and i really couldn't choose so i got two. (yeah, yeah, back on the diet train i go again). i chose a regular glazed cruller (delish!) and a special brit doughnut... the GLAM blackcurrant doughnut, shown here...

um yeah... that is glitter on my doughnut...

weird, huh? well, that is exactly what it was. pretty strange. i mean, it really felt like putting my estee lauder colored lip gloss on top of my doughnut. the texture and consistency was the same, but it definitely tasted like blackcurrant. i really don't know how i feel about eating glitter... but damn that cruller was good!