My England Adventure: Part Five

I was feeling a bit nervous about getting to the airport on Sunday.  We didn’t have any idea how transportation was going outside of the few blocks we had walked for sledding.  Scott and I thought we should do a “dry run” by going into the city on Saturday and going to Burrough Market, like had been our original plans before the snowfall.  Cori took a little convincing.  I also had bought only half of the prizes for people at home that I needed to buy so I did a little begging, and we talked her into it.

We drove the car to the train stop, and drove around for about 20 minutes looking for a spot that we thought we could easily get out of.  But the roads on the way there were actually bare pavement, and aside from a few randomly parked and abandoned cars, they didn’t seem too treacherous.  (Side note:  Scott and Cori are experts at driving on the wrong side of the road.  It gives me a heart attack just to RIDE in the car that’s on the other side, I can’t imagine trying to drive over there.  YIKES!)

This was at the train station.  Notice the sign behind us.

Trains were running, we made it into the city, and decided to hit Portobello Road before Burrough Market to do a little shopping.  This is the street that’s in Notting Hill, the movie with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant.  There’s all kinds of cute little shops and vendors set up along the street and it’s just such fun.  I got to get the prizes that I needed to get, and even bought a fabulous new bag for myself.  Yay!

When we finished there and were headed back to the tube (that’s British for subway) we stopped at a Starbucks to take a break and let Cori sit down to feed the baby.  I had a hilarious cross-cultural experience in there.  I ordered a Grande-non-fat-no-whip-vanilla-latte, because that’s how I would do it in the states, and the ladies that worked there just laughed!  They were like, “OMG, you’re such an American.”  They corrected me to order it the British way, which I can’t even remember, I was like “Yes, please, I’ll have one of those, if it’s the same thing,” and paid for my drink.  It was cute.

Next stop was Burrough Market.  This is one of Cori’s favorite places in London and so it was somewhere that I definitely wanted to go.  Plus, I had heard about their grilled cheese for months.  It’s a foodie market, where you can buy all kinds of artisan foods (gourmet sausages, fabulous wines, amazing cheeses, yummy looking olives, it was a feast for the eyes, as well!).  In addition to food for you to take home and cook with, they have an area of stands that have food for you to eat right there, and that’s where the grilled cheese was.

Cori and I at Burrough Market

Now, let me say this:  Sawan always laughed because he was an amazing cook, who had gone to culinary school and could cook just about anything to perfection, and the thing that I loved the most that he made for me was a grilled cheese.  He would always use multiple kinds of cheese, this yummy bread that had a little crunch to it, a slice of tomato, and his secret ingredient (which he told me but I’m not going to post on here…sorry).  So to say that Burrough Market’s grilled cheese was the best in the world would be inaccurate.  But it did run a close second.  It was delicious.  I watched them make it in a Panini type machine, it started out with about 2 inches of grated white cheese (I’m not sure what kind but I think it was a blend and there was some gruyere in there) that melts and oozes down into the bread and gets thin and crispy.  There were also some leaks and onions sprinkled in.  It. Was. Yummy.

We left there and I had one of the best cups of coffee ever, as well, at Monmouth, and once again had a cross cultural experience when I tried to buy a “pound” of beans to take home with me.  Stupid Noel.  A pound is money in England.  It literally hadn’t occurred to me.  So in the end I have no idea how many grams I ended up with, it took us four tries before I realized why she couldn’t get what I was asking for.

I was super relieved that we had such an easy time getting in and out of the city, and that the next day would be a-okay for getting to the airport. 

Stay tuned for one more England Adventure post, just to fill in some gaps and show a few more photos!