Adventures in Montpellier: London: The Lesser Known Food Capital of the World

So as you know from my previous blog post, I went to London a few weeks ago with my Dad and saw most of the touristy things but this past weekend I went back to London to visit one of my best friends from school over Villanova's fall break. I got an amazing but completely different view of London but visiting Tom and hearing all about my friends at school and what everyone has been up to did make me a little homesick. On Thursday morning I arrived in London and we drove around Richmond, went to a park that had some views of downtown London although admittedly Tom couldn't find the exact place he wanted to show me. Then we went to the pub where he used to work and I had my first of many amazing food experiences over the weekend. I had some traditional fish and chips and beer of course. Then we took the tube into London, we walked around Trafalgar Square, where they now have a clock counting down the days until the Olympics. We walked through Covent Garden which had a few street performers, some were a lot better than others, and a bunch of cute shops. To end the day we went to Abbey Road! And of course for dinner we had to hit up Nando's since there are over 200 or so in London and in my opinion it is amazing!

Abbey Road

Olympic countdown Clock 288 days!!!

Tom: clearly enjoying Nando's...or just not very happy that I'm making him take a picture

Saturday we woke up early and headed into London, we walked along the river from Waterloo station to Borough Market which was a lot further than anticipated but well worth the walk in the end. Along the walk we stumbled upon The Millennium Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral and The Globe Theatre. Then we finally found the most amazing part of the trip and awesome food experience #3: Borough Market. For those of you from Philadelphia it is similar to Reading Terminal Market but just 10x bigger and better. We walked around for close to an hour just looking at all the choices of what we could eat. They had kiosks with beer from around the world, fresh cheese, Indian food, desserts, any kind of meat you could possibly want literally everything. In the end we decided to start with chorizo sandwiches with fresh red peppers and "rocket" which I later learned is the British word for arugula. Then I had some Vietnamese Curry chicken which was also amazing and spicy, spicy food is so lacking in France so it was nice for a change and then we got some freshly squeezed juice to top it off! On the way back from Borough Market we went to Harrod's which is literally the fanciest, biggest, craziest store ever. It has at least 5 floors and they have gourmet food and wine, and clothes that you could never afford and then at the top they had a pet store with the cutest puppies in the window and a pet spa I mean this place if ridiculous. Then we headed back to the bar that Tom used to bartend at, we only intended to stop in and say hi but 3 shots, 3 beers and 3 hours later we were still there just talking to all the people it was awesome! After that we got some pizza and these doughball appetizers (amazing food experience #4) and hit up some other pubs in the Richmond area!

Globe Theater

Borough Market: this picture doesn't do justice to how awesome it is

candy shop, one of millions of amazing rooms in Harrod's

Saturday, it was finally time for me to be educated in the ways of British sports. We woke up at 8 am, if you know Tom at all you'll know that is shocking, to watch the France vs. Whales rugby game. I learned, for the most part, the rules of rugby, how everything is scored and the goal of the game although apparently game scores end at around 30 points and the result of this game was 8-9 which is rare but France is on to the finals so I'll have to continue my knowledge of Rugby and get up early to watch next Sunday. Then we had lunch at like a baby Borough market in Richmond and we had these delicious Moroccan chicken sandwiches (amazing food #5) and then we headed into London because Tom bought us tickets to an actual British football game. We saw Blackburn play QPR, and even though those are like the 2 worst teams it was awesome to see all the crazy intense fans, it was a completely different atmosphere than any other sporting event I've ever been to. Although we had to keep it on the DL that Tom is a hardcore Fulham fan since in QPR's last game they lost to Fulham 6-0. The game ended in a 1-1 draw with a little questionable refereeing and then we went back to have a chill night since we were exhausted from the last 3 days. We picked up some Indian food (a must in England) and again amazing and then relaxed and watched tv all night, something I miss so much at home since I pretty much have no time to just sit and relax here.

QPR Stadium

Sunday we got up early and headed off for our flights back but it was an amazing weekend and it really made me miss all my friends at home, although of course once I arrived back in Montpellier and it was warm it reminded me of all the amazing things about here! I'll leave you with some pictures that sum up the rest of my trip! On another note the exact halfway point of my program is coming up on October 19th which just happens to be my birthday :)