London 4 months on....and Christmas

So we have now been in London for a little over 4 months and have just had our first Christmas as husband and wife, in a foreign city, in the Winter! Perhaps a time for some reflection....a few things that still puzzle us about London!

Mystery jackets –these are winter jackets that come to the bottom of a girls butt cheeks and we are never too sure if she has anything on under the jacket or not...a mystery!

The highlight of a British Christmas is apparently the TV that is on over the festive season. There are in fact TV ads highlighting the programmes that will be on over Christmas (they are all rubbish). Because it rains a lot here and is so cold, all you are expected to do after you have stuff your tummy on Christmas Day is hit the couch
and tune into some really bad British TV!

Yes the winner of Britain's latest reality TV singing programme (The X Factor) made it to #1 in the Christmas music charts (I think there would have been riots had this not been the case!). I trust that Simon Cowell thinks he has done his job and this will be the last we see of singer Leon!


Still slightly confused over the British past time of tea drinking –in NZ we think that people waste time at work by going outside for a smoke, well here I think you could kill an hour or 2 each day by making tea! Everyone is very friendly and always ask if anyone else wants a cuppa, but 6 times a day?? Mat isn't a tea drinker (he prefers the REALLY bad English coffee), and I am a one cup a day kind of person....the variety of tea commonly known here as "builders" (milk and one!).

Changing of the Guards is a world famous 'ceremony' taking place a Buckingham Palace every second day in the Winter. This supposedly includes lots of pomp and ceremony with marching bands and horses and swords and big black fluffy hats! We decided that the Sunday before Xmas was a good time to do this London must, so we assumed a position in near freezing conditions and strained to see the action through the fog! I was looking forward to the brass band the most, until they broke out a set of Disney classics while the guards stood in the grounds of Buckingham Palace like statues probably freezing their extremities off like us! What kind of Welsh Military band breaks out Disney tunes during the Changing of the Guards? Just one more thing that puzzles me!

On a more serious note, yesterday was Christmas Day –it bought cool temperatures and a lot of rain. We were lucky enough to enjoy a traditional Kiwi lunch at a friend's house with about 13 other orphaned Kiwis. We had a feast of beef, ham, chicken AND lamb! This was followed by fruit salad and ice cream (kiwi fruit included but no Hockey Pokey ice cream unfortunately) as well as my traditional strawberries dipped in chocolate (but this year the strawberries were from Egypt!). Thankfully Mat remembered to send a change of address to Santa so we were also lucky enough to have a pile of presents to open again this year.

Deliveries from Santa and NZ!

Presents in bed!

We are heading off to Switzerland until the New Year tomorrow, so look forward to sharing some pics of the snow with you afterwards. Until then, have fun in the sun if you are in NZ!!

Mat and Sam


When Kiwis go to London they.....
Go and see Crowded House at Wembley!
Eat Pineapple lumps and jet planes sent from home!

The best meal we've had since our last update was.....
Indian on Brick Lane. Not because of the food (which we're not quite sure if we've recovered from yet) but because of the pre-dinner bartering. Four free bottles of wine, beers for the boys, pompadoms and 35% off the bill! Not bad!

Underground countdown
Our total so far is 54/320 and new entries include:
Wembley Park
Southwark
Old Street
Marble Arch
Picadilly Circus
Liverpool Street
Green Park

We made good progress on this recently. Not only did we knock off another 7 stations but the entire East London line has been shut down so our target has been reduced by 4 stations!

Soho

So when we ventured off around the world to see and experience new things, no-one told us that good coffee would be so hard to come by!

Correct me if I'm wrong but if you spend a month or so buying the odd coffee from a cafe you might expect the staff to recognise you. You might even get lucky and they might remember what sort of coffee you drink. When you get your coffee there's a pretty good chance it will be .....well....good.

I'm afraid to report however that this isn't the case in London. Not only can you go the same cafe every day for a week and still not be recognised (there's only three staff) but the chance of them remembering the type of coffee you ordered two minutes ago is slim. The chance of them giving you what you ordered seems even slimmer. No sugar means NO SUGAR!

All of this might be OK if the coffee was any good but it's not. It's enough to make you do what the rest of the population does – revert to tea or beer.

So, just when almost all was lost we acted on a good tip. We visited Flat White, a cafe in Soho established and staffed by similarly desperate Kiwis. Apparently flat whites (the ones we all know and love) are a Kiwi/Aussie thing. You can't buy them here. Not that this really matters because the Flat White is far more than just a place where they serve coffee differently.

First of all, when you walk in, there is a bit of Ponsonby about it. It's one of those little narrow cafes with one too many tables pushed into it. You know, you have to climb over someone's lap to get to the bathroom out the back, past the F+P fridge and through the beaded curtain. OK I might be exaggerating slightly but you get the drift.

Secondly, you walk into the Flat White with your accent on your sleeve and there is an assumption that the people behind the counter know you already. You order, they look up, try to figure out which part of Auckland you come from and then, when they can't place you they get back to making coffees. If you don't know them you'll probably know someone else in the cafe. It's chocker full of kiwis.

Finally the coffee is good. It's real coffee. None of this "single shot of espresso watered down with gallons of milk" stuff. The flat whites are prepared with a silver fern 'drawn' in the froth (you know how it's done). It's a shame to spoil them by drinking them really.

Needless to say, we will be going back.

In a strange way, the best thing about Flat White and its presence here, is that even though we're half a world away and enjoying the adventures that we are being presented with, it's nice to know that there is a touch of home just a few tube stops away.