Spendthrift Shoestring

London: Windhoek Lager, Canada Water

It took me the longest time to get the show on the road yesterday. When I finally did, it was already around 3 p.m. I wracked my head to try to figure out what to do with my afternoon and decided to head out in search of Namibian beer. I've read about the high quality of Namibian beer for a while but haven't come across any examples of it. Clearly, it was time to track the substance down and perform my own evaluation. I set off for St. Marcus Fine Foods, a South African—I suppose I should say southern African—market in Roehampton.

I returned with a shrink-wrapped six-pack of Windhoek Lager, which turns out to be a very competent and tasty beer, more solid than interesting. At £1.50 a pop, the beer wasn't cheap. Still, in the name of cultural exploration, it was worth the outlay.

Today I headed out early for Rotherhithe. From the Canada Water Tube station I walked up to Rotherhithe Road all the way to the Greenland Dock. It was a nice loop of a walk. The streets were almost deserted and the pathways along the Thames were beautiful. At a certain point the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf popped up dramatically on the horizon. Aside from the occasional planes flying into and out of London City Airport nearby, it was almost eerily quiet.

London: Whirlwind

The last several days have been a whirlwind. On Friday I met up with Egle, an old friend from high school now living in London with her beautiful baby and husband. We met in Bethnal Green and had coffee at the V&A Museum of Childhood and had such a lovely time. After that I took the Tube to Hampstead to see Rachel. She gave me a quick—and, it must be said, relatively fast-paced—tour of Hampstead Heath, which included a look at the men's swimming pond. Nice to sweat a bit. Then Matt joined us for dinner at the Lord Palmerston, a fantastic gastropub, where we sat in the increasingly cold back garden for hours. I drank ciders and ate loads of fish.

The weekend was full though gently paced. On Saturday we had lunch at nearby Kipferl, an Austrian delicatessen. It was very tasty and very nostalgic for me, especially the Gürkensalat. Our sausage and salad lunch ran £6 per person. Not dirt cheap, but good for the 'hood. Then we took the Tube to Camden Market and walked over to Primrose Hill and back, and from Camden Market we walked along the canal to King's Cross. There we parted and I walked up Pentonville Road to Goswell Road and along Goswell to Old Street. Dinner was at The Well, another fantastic gastropub. Afterwards, I headed out to Leytonstone where I met Gwyn. He gave me a tour of his beautiful house and then we drove out to Stansted to pick Marisa up.

(Say what you will about Stansted, but there is something triumphant about the place. It's not pretty but it does the high-volume trick. I laughed out loud thinking about the Stansted misadventure Vivien and I had back in August 2005.)

Sunday was a gently perfect day, which centered around an extravagant lunch at Roast. The meal reminded me a little bit of New York's Craft.

Yesterday I took the Eurostar to Brussels, where I spent a really great day with the Porcupine crew. I found Brussels much more captivating than I ever have previously, and will write something about the city later today or tomorrow.

London: Falkland House, V&A, De Hems

Yesterday it rained, though lightly. I walked huge distances, first from Clerkenwell to Soho. I bought coffee at Monmouth Coffee Company and returned to Nordic Bakery for some open-faced sandwiches and a cinnamon bun. Then I made my way over to Falkland House, the islands' government and information center in London. Such a friendly place! I left with a few kilos of materials and a newly enthusiastic desire to find a way to visit.

Then I took the Tube to the V&A and wandered around before meeting Ann. We walked through the rain all the way to the Dutch pub De Hems, which is on the edge of Chinatown. There we drank beer and nibbled on a kaasplank and caught up.

It feels as though I should have started this post with a "Dear Diary."

In any case, I'm off to Bethnal Green now, and will shoot up to Hampstead Heath afterwards. Updates to follow.

London: Cafes and Bakeries

Monday wasn't an incredibly ambitious day. After taking care of some work-related things at home I met Gwyn and we took the bus to Soho. We had lunch and coffee at Milk Bar (3 Bateman Street; no site yet), the newish off-shoot of Flat White (see yesterday's post). He treated me, which was completely unnecessary but nice, and he provided something of a Soho primer. Later we walked to Monmouth Coffee Company on Monmouth Street. It was far too crowded, though, so we went elsewhere for our afternoon coffee.

After saying goodbye to Gwyn, I ventured over to Nordic Bakery, where I bought steaming hot Finnish cinnamon buns (at £2 apiece) and took them to go. They were still hot when I arrived back at our apartment in Clerkenwell a good 45 minutes later. Had I been hungrier, I would have gone for some of the beautiful open-faced sandwiches on offer. Obviously, the space is starkly gorgeous. I'm happy to have found my first Nordic outpost in London.

Dinner was at St. John Restaurant, which was thrilling. I won't write about it now, as it's just down the road and I know I'll return for some deeper impressions.

London: First Weekend

After all sorts of delays, we touched down at Heathrow Saturday midday. "Two months is a long time," said the unsmiling immigration agent in a monotone. "Could I see your return ticket please?"

Two months!

Saturday was spent napping and then walking to Borough Market, where we had a surprisingly mediocre meal. Yesterday was altogether more exciting. We walked first down to the Barbican and wandered through its Brutalist plazas. Not for everyone, clearly, but I find the entire complex very compelling. From there we made our way to Spitalfields Market, where we had brunch at Giraffe. (I recognized Canteen next door from its copious media coverage but its turnover seemed much slower and we were very hungry. Next time, though.) Giraffe's full brunch plate hit the spot remarkably well. After eating we strolled over to Brick Lane, which was absolutely packed and buzzing. I'll need to return on a weekday.

Then we took the Tube to Tottenham Court Road, where we bought mobile phones from cheerful Orange staff enthusing over Jay-Z ("Is that my track? It is! Now that is a choooon!")  From there, it was on to Flat White, an Aussie/Kiwi hang-out, for top-notch flat whites. The total came to £5.40 and I handed the woman working the register a £20 bill. She asked me if had 40 cents to make the transaction easier. Not pence. Cents. Ahh, those irresistible Antipodeans.

From Soho we then walked a ridiculous distance, down to Green Park, through the Wellington Arch, alongside Hyde Park, and then through Kensington Gardens to Bayswater. At the end of our hike was Hereford Road, a sleek newish restaurant I recently read about in Condé Nast Traveler. Apparently, lots of of other Americans read the same listing; of the six tables in the downstairs area, four were occupied completely or partially by Americans. My meal was very good: smoked sprats and pickled cucumbers, pork belly with lentils and spring greens, and an unreasonably tasty apple and raspberry crumble for dessert. Matt's meal was also good, though not quite as fantastic as mine. At £27 per person after tip, the meal was by no means a shoestring event, though it also wasn't outrageously expensive.

A little warning is in order. I fear that London will be exploiting my spendthrift side over my shoestring core. I hope my low-budget warrior readers will keep reading over the next many weeks.

London, Soon

Preparing for a longish period away from home, as I pointed out on Monday, really does take an enormous amount of time and energy. I've been truly walloped by everything that's had to get done.

A few days after I arrive in London I'll depart for Belgrade, where I'll be attending this year's Eurovision Song Festival. Starting Wednesday, May 21, I'll be blogging about Eurovision for the New York Post's travel blog. Be sure to click over to read my reports.

More soon, I swear.

Nylon Thoughts: NYC's Rain; London's Cultures

Burgertastrophe! Today's rain has forced a change in dinner plans. Because it's no fun to eat your burger in the rain, Shake Shack is off the table.

Among this past weekend's reading materials, Bob Sherwood's article in the Financial Times on the London mayoral election stood out. It looks at how "London's racial diversity and its attendant tensions" may drive voting patterns on Thursday. Were I closer to the flame—in a few weeks, happily, I will be—I'd be able to submit the article to a finer analysis. As a shameless lover of truly cosmopolitan cities, however, I can say that London's diversity is pretty thrilling to me, and is more or less what's driving my excitement to be spending a few months there. A fascinating note in Sherwood's article: of the possibly 400,000 Poles in London, 65,000 were registered to vote locally by February. How will they vote? Apparently, nobody really knows.

Countdown to London

Everything is coming together. Matt and I got our tickets for London squared away today. We're arriving on May 17 and staying through July 12. I have my essential texts lined up: Lonely Planet's Great Britain; Time Out's Country Walks Volume 1 and 1000 Things to Do in London; and Phaidon's Wallpaper* City Guide London 2008. (I bought the last one mostly because it's physically cute, though the architour suggestions are helpful, as is the back flap map. Plus it's made me drool for Peyton & Byrne's baked goods.) My other essential document is a long list of places to see. It's four pages long now and I've been adding to it every week.

In the interest of getting cheap advance fares, I've gone ahead and planned some excursions from London. In addition to heading to Belgrade for Eurovision and then around the neighborhood with Marisa (Banja Luka? Novi Sad?), I'm going to quench my long-standing Crown Dependencies fixation with a trip to Guernsey and Jersey and another to the Isle of Man. I also booked a quick visit to Toulouse, both to see the city and to check out Andorra. Outside of those jaunts—and barring last-minute weekend trips, should they happen—I'm going to stick mostly to England and exclusively to trains.

Various: A Short List

Today I'm finding myself easily distracted from the work at hand. Nothing new about that, but I thought I'd try to give my associative paralysis a shape by jotting down what is on my mind.

1. London. Matt and I are headed to London in late spring and summer. For months now I've been developing a list of neighborhoods, restaurants, commercial districts, bars, museums, and specialty markets in London, all of which I plan to visit and blog about with the determination that comes from the knowledge that eight weeks is an all-too-short block of time. I probably shouldn't admit this, but Time Out's 1000 Things To Do in London has been wonderfully suggestive. It's full of free (and cheap) activity ideas.

2. Something to write in. Last summer in Barcelona, I bought a set of Astrid Stavro notebooks for La Central. Each notebook in the set is lined with a different form of punctuation. They're beautiful and delicate.

3. Regional travel. I'm trying to fight my instinct to view London as a launching pad to places like Istanbul and Riga and instead focus on the British Isles (Devon, Cornwall, the Channel Islands, Wales) and other near-by places (West Flanders, Brussels, Lille.) In recent years, Europe has been a place I've traversed hurriedly in the interest of time. My second-most recent European adventure involved an Athens-Vienna train/air hopscotch followed by a triangular jaunt from Barcelona to Valencia to Madrid; the most recent one split up nine days between Calabria, Amsterdam, and Friesland. These itineraries were perfect for me, but I'm curious to see what might happen when I can actually rely on a major European city as a base and thus curb the instinct to travel far and wide.

4. EasyJet's new routes. Fares on several of the routes easyJet has taken over from GB Airways are hardly cheap. The London Gatwick-Paphos fares, though in keeping with comparable fares on Thompsonfly and Monarch, are quite pricey. Case in point: a Gatwick-Paphos roundtrip in mid-August, using easyJet's lowest fare finder, comes to £256.98. Perhaps this is just a function of the terrifying exchange rate, but over 250 quid doesn't seem like a low-cost fare to me.

5. LCC reconsolidation. It looks as if Centralwings may be the first low-cost airline casualty of 2008. Thanks to AirScoop for the tip.