Blenheim Palace

Well... First of all I'm terribly sorry that I haven't posted anything for a couple of days now... I realize this is supposed to be a daily thing, but I guess I've fallen quite behind, haha. So here is a mad attempt to catch you up on my visit to Blenheim palace. After our train ride into the city, we took a double decker bus to the Palace, (that was kind of exciting :) )

The palace was beautiful and gianormous!

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside during our tour, so my pictures of this trip consist basically of the gardens around the palace (which are breath taking in and of themselves!) but no harm done :)

Another cafe' adventure. I'm not really sure what the dish is on the left, but it was okay, nothing to brag about. I got some potato salad which was pretty good, and then my little pizza in front was rather different as well! It was actually sweet instead of salty which is what I was imagining it would be when I purchased it. It has like this apple sauce glaze underneath the basil and other mystery topping, but honestly I enjoyed it, so no complaints there, haha. Most importantly, it filled me up, so I was a happy camper. I've noticed that the portion sizes in Europe are much smaller than portions in America....or I guess I mean to say... In Europe they actually give you the right portion size whereas in the USA we have overloaded portions, therefore I'm used to eating more and seeing more food on my plate. My stomach has been trying to shrink, because it doesn't get much food during the day while we're out and about going from place to place. We do stop for lunch always, and its usually on our own for what we'd like to do for that; I usually hit up a restaurant or a cafe' like the one shown here... But I make up for my small (and delicious) portions during the day by whipping up some pasta or making a huge mozzarella, tomato, balsamic sandwich or something to that sort. Hopefully I'll learn to eat less throughout the whole day for good... I know I could use a few less lbs, hah :)

Just some garden pictures... the place was huuuuge! So we walked alll over and took many pictures, I have only posted but a tiny itty bitty few of the hundreds of pictures I took. These probably aren't even the best ones either, but you get the idea.

After our long day, some friends convinced me to go to Hard Rock Cafe with them in London (the first of all HRC's...yes I made up that abbreviation) It was pretty pricey, especially since the Pound is around a $1.60 in bills, it adds up quickly lets just say. I did get some awesome nachos though and I was a happy camper.

That picture doesn't really do them justice...

I went with Steph, Dani, Madi, and Elyse. It turned out to be a great day, I had a blast!

Burghley House

This morning we had to be up pretty early ready to head out to catch the train. I didn't have time to eat any breakfast, but luckily I was able to grab a delicious panini before we left for Burghley. I purchased it at the train station from a French pastry/coffee shop. It was on a thin long baugette with tomato and hard boiled egg with some mayo I belive, it was simple, but it did the trick to fill my stomach and get me going!

Burghley House was beautiful inside and out! Unfortunately it's so gorgeous on the inside that they don't allow photography, but I assure you it was definitely something worth seeing!

All of these little houses that we visit have cafe's in them to get some good grub. I was warned that I MUST have a scone (basically a large tasty flakey biscut in England) smothered with cream and jam, so that is exactly what I got, as well as a few other treats on the side to snack on.

Laurs, Madi, Steph, and I having our tea and scones :)

The gardens here were beautiful! Unfortunately I wasn't able to see everything, but here a few pictures that I was able to snag before we bolted out of there in the rain.

Cool mirror garden thing, haha

Lost and Found

This turned out to be a pretty long day, but very fun, so totally worth it! And we may or may not have been lost for a good amount of the day as well, haha. We started off at the V&A Museum (Victoria Albert Museum), that was pretty cool. There were so many cool greek sculptures, and old furniture and paintings, and the list goes on! I took like a million pictures, however I decided that it wasn't really necessary to post them all, since most people aren't into all that jazz hah.

Although, this Chihuly piece was pretty remarkable hanging in the entry way of the museum. I love that they mixed this uber modern piece with this ancient buildling. The juxtaposition is just wonderful :)

After the V&A, we went back to our flats for lunch on our own, and then we headed over to the Tate Modern Museum and passed some great sites on the way! The picture below is myself cheesin it up on the London bridge with the Tower Bridge in the backround. Pretty cool place!

After the Tate Modern Museum, we hit up Nandos for lunch! None of us had ever been there before so we weren't really sure what we were getting ourselves into... but I was pretty excited when my food came out!

Steph, Me, Madi

Molly, Laurs, Elyse

Fun Menus!

Yummm! I ended up splitting a huge entree meal with Stephanie. It consisted of a whole chiken cooked with their Medium Hot sauce. French Fries with a peppery spicy seasoning on top, delicious "velvety" mashed potatoes, two slices of garlic toast ( I forgot what kind of bread it was, but it was most excellent) some seasoned rice, a couple waters, and more sauces to dip our chicken in! :) It was quite tasty, and our whole experience there was inspiring! I'm telling you, restaurants in London really know what they're doing! Everyone I've been too so far has produced mouth watering dishes, and has had over-the-top designs! Two thumbs up for that!

We did a pretty good job of polishing everything off. It looks like there still might be some chicken on the plate, however there was not, we cleaned the bones dry (there were a lot of bones! Well a whole chickens worth right? hah)

After we filled out stomachs we went for a walk around town, and ending up taking a short trip to St. Pauls cathedral. The entry was closed, but it was awesome to see this magnificent building up close and get a feel of the scale of the building, and how detailed the stone work is. Very cool cathedral!

SO! After we've been looking that the Cathedral, in the distance we see the Gherkin building, and we decide that we HAVE to go there! Not knowing exactly where it is... and after asking a few people who were obviously clueless as to its whereabouts, we hopped on the tube and rode one stop, (where some man told us he thought it was) we get off, and we're not even able to see the building anymore... but alas, we start walking in hopes that we are close! We walked... and walked....and walked....and walked...and saw some sweet buildings, and walked some more. We asked probably 5 or 6 different people if they knew where the building was, and of course all of them pointed in different locations, haha. It was beginning to become rather annoying, but we all had some great laughs along the way, and we were VERY happy when we finally made it!!

I love the contrast of the old and new. You see this everywhere in London, its awesome. :) After we paparazzi'ed the Gherkin with hundreds of photos, we made our way to the tube and headed to Covent Square Garden. Most things close in London around 6-8pm, which is way weird, especially for the weekend, hah, but anyway, since shopping wasn't an option, we ended up watching a couple of street shows. One of which consisted of a guy in his underwear on a 12' unicycle juggling, and later juggling a ball with a huge knife, and a running chainsaw (pretty impressive). There were a couple of other musicians playing on the street, so Laura and Elyse grabbed some "Icreamists" ice cream ( a punk rock ghetto but well designed ice cream parlor) and we sat and watched this older black man play guitar and sing. He had an awesome voice! I was amazed! And we watched him until he finished playing for the night, he hit the tube again, and headed back to our flat.

It was a loooong day! But definitely had some great experiences and memories to hold on to! :)

Hampton Court & Zizzi's

Today we had the opportunity to visit Hampton Court, where I believe King Henry the VI and Queen Mary lived. It was a pretty good time :) I woke up randomly at 6:00am this morning, pretty well rested. I didn't need to be up until 7:00 because we weren't meeting to leave to Hampton Court until 8:30. So I stayed in bed for awhile, which was nice. We took the tube to Waterloo Station, where we jumped on a 30min train that took us to Hampton Court. I didn't really know what to expect once we got there, and it ended up being a pretty cool place. The gardens were beautiful and the history and architecture of the building/castle were awe inspiring. Here a few shots from the visit:

This is the large courtyard after entering through the main gates. Pretty impressive!!

I love these old bricks that most of the structure is made up of. You can tell they're hundreds of years old, and the differing coloration of them is pretty neat.

This is the backside of Hampton Court where the gardens begin.

Just taking some cool pics.

These chimneys were really cool! Each one of them has been carved a different way. I thought it was interesting that someone took time to carve such an intricate detail into something that couldn't be fully appreciated (especially in that time period) because they're so far away from the natural eye. Check out the close up below, pretty cool!

Just a little photo shoot on one of the garden paths.

So many cool doors in London! Each one has its own unique characteristics :)

Just playing a little at the antique store after we left H.C. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to take some sweet pictures with our stylish grandma hats. ;)

Okay, so we were able to go to this restaurant for lunch called Zizzi's. As a recommendation of Susie's (one of my professors) and this place was to DIE for! From design of the restaurant, to the delicious food and great presentation, this place nailed it! We ordered a couple of pizzas to share, and I couldn't pass up the calamari appetizer so we shared one of those as well, and I'm so glad I did!

So we got two large pizzas, I think the spicy chicken ( chicken, pepperoni, sausage, jalapenos, some goat and mozzarella cheese, and the thin crust of course) and the margarita (mozzarella cheese, fresh tomatoes, and basil with thin crust) SOO good :)

The deliciously breaded calamari and balsamic mixed greens salad, I'm hooked!!

The gang of the day :) (way to keep your eyes open Steph! ;) )

"Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity" - Frank Lloyd Wright

Zizzi's sure did a great job living up to that quote. They took advantage of every opportunity to make their dining experience "artistic" from the sleek sliverware and tall narrow stainless steel water pitcher, to the thoughtful presentation of their meals and fun and quirky designs throughout the restaurant. What a cool experience!