To begin, I'm not sure this photo even fits, unless a metal rooster could be considered fauna... I just like the photo :-)
THE FLORA
One day, Django and I ventured out (on the tube again) to an end-of-the-line place called Cockfosters. Well, we DID see some roosters...
A short walk from the tube station is a rather lovely country park called Trent Park. It's quite large and has some woods, and vast open fields bordered by farmland. There's an animal sanctuary there with many varieties of birds, some ruminants, pigs, ponies, ducks, geese, chickens, deer, and one super smelly buck goat.
Django was delighted of course, and was especially fond of the rooster and the geese.
Here's Django wandering through the vast openness, camera shy. It was fun to let him lead the way and go aimlessly through the park.
The woods in Trent Park.
A bit of dramatic English sky.
I found this wall on a walk on Muswell Hill. The wall style was not uncommon, but I liked the plants growing out of this one.
A greenhouse in the gardens at Freightliners city farm (see animals below)
THE FAUNA
A bird in the woods at Trent Park. Apparently this is a Magpie. They are absolutely everywhere in England and Denmark (and probably much of Europe...) I think they are so pretty (even for a simple common bird!)
The biggest damn bunny I ever saw. (at the city farm)
Django meeting a cow, though in all honesty he was much more interested in the truck you can see behind him. He is fast becoming an officionado of all things vehicular.
He did rather like the rooster. It was crowing and doing its roostery thing. Not to mention looking very charming perched in front of that colorful house. What's not to like?
more roosters!
This was a ceramic mural, apparently made by kids, out front at Freightliners city farm. I had heard about some city farms and found the one that was closest to us. It's a small functioning farm right in the city. There were loads of moms and babies there getting a taste of country life. They had a nice little cafe where we enjoyed some minestrone soup and bread.
I really love the little tiles with cows and pigs right next to tiles of bacon and eggs! Hey, the kids are making the connection. Better than thinking a hamburger originates in a styrofoam and cellophane package.
Simon had a couple days off, back from touring several cities, and of course I wanted to get out in the city and see something. We ventured to the Natural History Museum in central London. It was actually a ludicrously bad idea, considering it was a Saturday at the end of a school holiday and we were going to a museum with free entry. It was a total zoo (haha..) and pretty difficult to see most things. Disappointing as it was, we didn't even attempt to see the dinosaur exhibit as there was a very long queue to get in. Django enjoyed it nonetheless, and at his age, things like doors and light fixtures are sometimes just as interesting, or more so, than a polar bear, or a whale skeleton. He did like the dinosaur skeleton in the main hall, seen below, and enthusiastically pulled up the leg of his outer pants, and pointed to his jammy pants that have little dinosaurs on them.
Ah, the hippo. That's a part of the life size blue whale model in the background.
Here we are at Hyde Park, trying to feed the ducks and geese again. Once again, Django feeds himself. That goose looks kind of pissed I think.
Which leads to our next segment:
THE FOOD
We ended up at a french cafe for lunch after the museum. It was lovely and actually not too expensive. The crawfish sandwich is quite popular in London it seems. I think the only place you see crawfish on the menu in the States is in the south.
So, food in London. I asked someone what traditional food I should try. He replied, this Indian food is good. That sounds funny, but there is a really large East Indian population here, and many many restaurants. We had really tasty Indian food a few times.
There is an English traditional food that I am an absolute sucker for: Fish and chips! This restaurant pictured below is known as one of the best for fish and chips and actually is located on Muswell Hill, my favorite stomping ground.
I'm sorry to report that I did not try such offerings as Bangers and mash, Steak and Kidney pie, or the ever humorous dessert, spotted dick.
I'm also afraid I don't have lots of food complaints that I can turn into a funny blog post. London is a huge city, and as such, you can get pretty much whatever you want. We bought mostly organic though which is really expensive.
O.k. Some food oddities for a person from the States:
Eggs are not refrigerated in the store. They sit out on the shelf. I suppose an unbroken egg is quite a sterile thing, so then it makes you wonder why we use all that power to keep ours cold...
Apples. Apparently there are 6000 varieties of apples in the UK, the most in any one area of the world. You can only buy 9 of them in the store. We got some at the organic store and the pickings were pretty slim, the quality so-so.
Some food joys:
You can easily get really good dark roast coffee! We got ours from this shop, seen below, on Muswell Hill, called W.Martyn, est. 1897. It's very nice how they have the inside. It probably looks quite as it did back then.
We got really good organic heavy cream for the coffee. Mmmmm...
food faux pas
Our friends that we stayed with have a kosher kitchen. There are separate plates and pans etc. for use with milk products and meat. We just used the 'milky' ones which you can also have fish on. Well, I was obviously not clear on the whole concept and came home with some organic, but non-kosher, chicken. Well, luckily Gabrielle was there and I didn't go ruining their pans cooking it. What I was thinking was that they ate kosher, but that somehow I could cook it there. Oops. I ended up having to cook it at the neighbors house. Luckily they were very nice about it.
Other points previously lamented in Denmark:
Beer. The only beer I had in London was at a really cool pub a few blocks away. We got the best one on tap, Sierra Nevada from Chico, California! This really is one of my favorite beers, and Chico is a really cool little town with a great vibe by the way.
Icecream. Good ice cream can be found. It tends to be pretty expensive. I didn't go on an extensive search for local ice creams, so what I saw was mostly Green & Blacks, and Ben & Jerry's, which I got two-for-one at the supermarket.
Well, ciao for now, or chow for now, depending.
peace,
Janna
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