I am surprised to find that it was already a month ago when I was in Belgium and I'm only just getting up to the fourth day, Sunday. Already I'm looking forward to our trip to Wales and then Morocco next month, which are definite. After that, I'd really like to do a short trip over to Ireland on my Birthday. But anyhow, I'd best get my log of Belgium out of the way first.
After our travelling about on the previous days, we decided we'd best hang around in Brussels and see more of the place. We started by going to the Sunday market which springs up all around the plaza beside the railway tracks. It's actually a very common place to find a market in Europe where space is at a premium and there's this land that no one wants to live on beside the raised rail lines. Temporary market stalls just seem to appear to sell all manner of products from junk to fresh produce to flowers to bedding.
After hanging about here and marvelling at the 'wall of meat' we started a long walk across town, headed for a famous friterie named Maison Antoine that we had heard was the best. And that would mean the best fries in the best country to get them, so therefore, the best fries in the world. Of course, the way was long and arduous and fraught with many dangers. Dangers such as: Palaces and Museums!
No kidding, we accidentally walked by the royal palace and some other amazing looking buildings that we otherwise would not have seen. So that was good. We also saw one particularly incredible building in art nouveau style, that on closer inspection turned out to be the Musical Instrument Museum. Having no great inclination to go there, but having been recommended it by Marine's friend, we went in.
Everything about this museum adds together to make it one of the best I've been to. It has musical instruments from all over the world, from all periods of history. There's even an area for modern electronic sequencers which takes you all the way back to the earliest programmable pianos and trumpets all the way back. Even better; headphones are handed out on entry which allow you to listen in on what each instrument sounds like just by standing in front of it.
We did finally reach the EU parliament building and went down behind it to find the little frite stand in the square surrounded by people. We waited in line for about 30 minutes to get our fries and when we got them finally, we went over to one of the pubs in the square to enjoy them. It's not even bad manners to do so! They have signs up saying that frites are welcome at their tables, though I imagine it would be rude to not then buy a drink. That was not a problem for me as it had been a long walk over and I needed a drink.
When we were done, we walked back into town via a different route and after about half an hour of walking we ended up back at the old shopping mall where we stopped for a coffee in a rather touristy area and watched the local beggars. We had a bit of shopping to do and so dispensed with that and then settled down in another one of those well hidden pubs down a short alley. This one had one middle aged woman at the bar and a couple of regular looking customers and allowed for smoking indoors.
As we sat there and enjoyed our drinks in that most incredible and ancient of settings, we watched several sets of obvious tourists peer in curiously and then scamper away. Probably off to Starbucks. I can see why most locals would come up to us speaking French; we just don't do those things which make us stand out immediately as tourists. I write this knowing that there will be no way to avoid looking like an outside when we arrive in Morocco, however.
Anyway, it was now getting around to evening time so we decided to find some food. Our search around St Catherine's square didn't turn up anything to our fancy, so we headed back towards the Marolles where there was a place called Birdie Nam Nam. It was a bit of a 'fusion' restaurant that offered traditional Belgian cuisine with a bit of a twist. I had the duck with Sichuan pepper and cherry and Kristen had a carbonnade with potato mash and crumbled speculoos biscuits. Although the food was rather good, it was a bit more expensive and the atmosphere wasn't as amazing as the amazing bier restaurant down the road.
However, stuffed full, we headed back to the hotel to sleep.
[gallery link="file" orderby="ID"]
Showing posts with label Museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Museum. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
June
I begin this post on the 3rd of June, a Friday in which after work, I met up with Kristen on Oxford St to go in search of some shopping and possibly some food in Soho. If memory serves, we went to Hummous Brothers again for a healthy hummous meal. I remember being a little apprehensive about that place when we first arrived in London, but I was hooked the minute I first tried it.
The Next day we caught the tube down to St Pauls to visit the Borough Market again. It was a beautiful day and the market was packed with people, as it always is. The market specialises in really good food, with an area set aside for various street food stalls. It's always hard to choose what to pick there as it all looks so good and the queues are often quite long. But always worth the wait and always difficult to know when to stop going back for more. I had a delicious green curry cooked in a large, open paella pan nearly 2 metres across.
After we had our fill, we got on the tube to Earl's Court and walked from there to the Brompton Cemetery. This was our first time visiting an old cemetery, so I wasn't sure what to expect. The thought and planning that went into the old Victorian cemetery differentiates it from any that I've seen before and there is obvious wealth in some of the monuments and tombs around the grave sites. The place also was quite overgrown in areas, but is maintained as a park for the locals. A small number of people were taking the opportunity to sunbathe there, as it was actually quite a bit quieter than the other real parks would have been that day.
The 9th of June we had went down to the road after work and had our favourite Thai for dinner, followed by the creme caramel dessert from Wahaca at Westfield mall. A bit indulgent, but one must do these things. I worked again that weekend, which seems to be too often recently, as we have been a bit short staffed at work. As it is I worked last weekend and I'm working this one too.
Anyway, enough wallowing. On the 14th of June, a Tuesday, I had the day off so I capitalised on this by going down to the UCL in Holborn to check out the Grant Museum of Zoology. It's a remarkably different experience that can hardly be described. Jars and cabinets of hundred of different specimens line the walls of the room, each showing off some weird and wonderful creature either pickled, stuffed or skeletal. I have some pictures around here somewhere.
After that, I skipped on over the road to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, which is also free and very unassuming. It just holds a few rooms full of Egyptian artefacts. Ancient Egyptian artefacts. Five thousand year old pieces of pottery. Wow. It's not placed there for spectacle like one can see in the British Museum. It's just sitting there waiting to be contemplated at a slow pace and studied by the students at the University.
And then on the 16th, I fled the country.
[gallery link="file" orderby="ID"]
The Next day we caught the tube down to St Pauls to visit the Borough Market again. It was a beautiful day and the market was packed with people, as it always is. The market specialises in really good food, with an area set aside for various street food stalls. It's always hard to choose what to pick there as it all looks so good and the queues are often quite long. But always worth the wait and always difficult to know when to stop going back for more. I had a delicious green curry cooked in a large, open paella pan nearly 2 metres across.
After we had our fill, we got on the tube to Earl's Court and walked from there to the Brompton Cemetery. This was our first time visiting an old cemetery, so I wasn't sure what to expect. The thought and planning that went into the old Victorian cemetery differentiates it from any that I've seen before and there is obvious wealth in some of the monuments and tombs around the grave sites. The place also was quite overgrown in areas, but is maintained as a park for the locals. A small number of people were taking the opportunity to sunbathe there, as it was actually quite a bit quieter than the other real parks would have been that day.
The 9th of June we had went down to the road after work and had our favourite Thai for dinner, followed by the creme caramel dessert from Wahaca at Westfield mall. A bit indulgent, but one must do these things. I worked again that weekend, which seems to be too often recently, as we have been a bit short staffed at work. As it is I worked last weekend and I'm working this one too.
Anyway, enough wallowing. On the 14th of June, a Tuesday, I had the day off so I capitalised on this by going down to the UCL in Holborn to check out the Grant Museum of Zoology. It's a remarkably different experience that can hardly be described. Jars and cabinets of hundred of different specimens line the walls of the room, each showing off some weird and wonderful creature either pickled, stuffed or skeletal. I have some pictures around here somewhere.
After that, I skipped on over the road to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, which is also free and very unassuming. It just holds a few rooms full of Egyptian artefacts. Ancient Egyptian artefacts. Five thousand year old pieces of pottery. Wow. It's not placed there for spectacle like one can see in the British Museum. It's just sitting there waiting to be contemplated at a slow pace and studied by the students at the University.
And then on the 16th, I fled the country.
[gallery link="file" orderby="ID"]
Saturday, July 9, 2011
The Month of May
Here I am, at work on a Saturday, munching into my first ever Cornish pasty (from Sainsbury's no less) and reflecting on the past few months. I'm also engaging in a little bit of detective work to figure out the exact dates that I went various places. I do this by a) Google Latitude, which uploaded my phone's location wherever I am and b) the date stamps placed on all the photos that have been taken from Kristen's camera. Perhaps it is entirely fair to say that I rely far too heavily on the trappings of modern technology to cover up for the frailties of my flesh and blood. After all, the main reason for this blog is for me to keep a record of my travels so I don't forget them. The secondary and no less important reason being to share my activities with anyone who cares to read, which if I am to be abjectly frank is probably only Kristen's mum and my mum. Holla.
Anyway, my Sherlock style powers of deductions (I'm reading Sherlock at the moment on my kindle. It's great!) have lead me to the events of the 6th of May, in which Kristen and I headed up to Kilburn to attend a local foodie event in a back yard. The lady who organised it put on a really nice event and converted her house and garden into a food show for the evening, with attractions such as live cooking demonstrations and street food vendors.
The next day, the 7th of May, we made an ill advised trip down towards Greenwich, with the intention of taking the Docklands Light Rail over the Canary Wharf district. Of course, we forgot to check the planned engineering works which cripple the London transport network every weekend, which cause inconvenience to multitudes of tourists, I'm sure. We found Greenwich to be effectively cut off from us just as if an impassible chasm had opened between us and it. Still, we did have a chance to explore the very modern area around Canary Wharf which is home to the new financial heart of the city.
Then on the 12th I note that after work, Kristen and I went into town to do some shopping, but we ended up getting the tube to North London to have dinner at one of our favourite restaurants, Anteplilar. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but they really never fail to impress with their amazing selection of Turkish food. It's on par with a Thai place just down the road from our place that serves up the best and most authentic Thai food I've ever had.
The following night, I see that after work I stayed around for a couple of drinks with colleagues at the office, which ended up with about 5 or 6 of us sitting out on the lawn in front of the office drinking beers from the local Sainsbury (mentioned earlier). Good times, thanks to the liberal drinking laws in this country.
On the 16th, we had tickets to see Okkervil River at Heaven bar that evening. It was an incredible gig that was full of amazing energy. You could feel the happiness of the band as they played an electric set that just didn't want to end. Unforunately they were forced to cut their encore short as the venue threatened to switch them off, which was a bit of a bitter way to end a set. They're still one of my favourite bands and one of the best live acts I've seen to date.
I lose track of where I was up until the 25th as I think my phone ran out of credit and stopped reporting my location, so I'll have to investigate what I got up to in that missing weekend. I seem to have seen Tallest Man on Earth at Shepherd's Bush Empire on the 20th, which Kristen was sick to attend. That means that weekend we made another attempt to visit Greenwich, but had to return home after seeing the Maritime Museum briefly as Kristen was feeling too weak to go on. The 25th was the night of the Mountain Goats gig in Camden at a really amazing bar called KOKO. The place is basically an old music hall with a three tiered seating arrangement facing the stage, all painted red and exquisitely detailed.
That brings me to the final day of May, the 31st, on which we went to see the Fleet Foxes play at the Hammersmith Apollo. It was a truly exceptional show and the way their voices blended together was incredible. I was most pleasantly surprised at how such a mellow seeming band could absolutely captivate the audience.
And that completes the month of May. Next up, June and a return to the continent.
[gallery link="file" orderby="ID"]
Bonus Okkervil River video:
Anyway, my Sherlock style powers of deductions (I'm reading Sherlock at the moment on my kindle. It's great!) have lead me to the events of the 6th of May, in which Kristen and I headed up to Kilburn to attend a local foodie event in a back yard. The lady who organised it put on a really nice event and converted her house and garden into a food show for the evening, with attractions such as live cooking demonstrations and street food vendors.
The next day, the 7th of May, we made an ill advised trip down towards Greenwich, with the intention of taking the Docklands Light Rail over the Canary Wharf district. Of course, we forgot to check the planned engineering works which cripple the London transport network every weekend, which cause inconvenience to multitudes of tourists, I'm sure. We found Greenwich to be effectively cut off from us just as if an impassible chasm had opened between us and it. Still, we did have a chance to explore the very modern area around Canary Wharf which is home to the new financial heart of the city.
Then on the 12th I note that after work, Kristen and I went into town to do some shopping, but we ended up getting the tube to North London to have dinner at one of our favourite restaurants, Anteplilar. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but they really never fail to impress with their amazing selection of Turkish food. It's on par with a Thai place just down the road from our place that serves up the best and most authentic Thai food I've ever had.
The following night, I see that after work I stayed around for a couple of drinks with colleagues at the office, which ended up with about 5 or 6 of us sitting out on the lawn in front of the office drinking beers from the local Sainsbury (mentioned earlier). Good times, thanks to the liberal drinking laws in this country.
On the 16th, we had tickets to see Okkervil River at Heaven bar that evening. It was an incredible gig that was full of amazing energy. You could feel the happiness of the band as they played an electric set that just didn't want to end. Unforunately they were forced to cut their encore short as the venue threatened to switch them off, which was a bit of a bitter way to end a set. They're still one of my favourite bands and one of the best live acts I've seen to date.
I lose track of where I was up until the 25th as I think my phone ran out of credit and stopped reporting my location, so I'll have to investigate what I got up to in that missing weekend. I seem to have seen Tallest Man on Earth at Shepherd's Bush Empire on the 20th, which Kristen was sick to attend. That means that weekend we made another attempt to visit Greenwich, but had to return home after seeing the Maritime Museum briefly as Kristen was feeling too weak to go on. The 25th was the night of the Mountain Goats gig in Camden at a really amazing bar called KOKO. The place is basically an old music hall with a three tiered seating arrangement facing the stage, all painted red and exquisitely detailed.
That brings me to the final day of May, the 31st, on which we went to see the Fleet Foxes play at the Hammersmith Apollo. It was a truly exceptional show and the way their voices blended together was incredible. I was most pleasantly surprised at how such a mellow seeming band could absolutely captivate the audience.
And that completes the month of May. Next up, June and a return to the continent.
[gallery link="file" orderby="ID"]
Bonus Okkervil River video:
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