Barcelona

My lovely sister Mel has spent the last couple of months travelling around Europe on busabout... what an excellent opportunity for me to visit....

I was greated in Barcelona by Mel outside the hostel on Thursday night with a glass of sangria. Mel and a Kiwi gal had expended the grand sum of EUR1.50 for a 750ml bottle of sangria...






Probably the most amazing building in Barcelona is this church that has been under construction for a couple of hundred years (OK i can't remember the actual amount of time, but it is really quite a while)



After taking some photos outside the chruch, I noticed this poster....
Looks like I will have to wait another 14 years or so before I can see it finished without the additional cranes... interestingly, even the postcards of the church included the cranes.... guess they've been there for a while

Spanish beer...
Spanish beach...

TAPAS!

More sangria at the hostel... a bargain at EUR4 for a mug....

Along with tapas, Mel and took advantage of a local festival that was on and had some good paella (apologies if I've misspelt that)




There is a feral pigeon place too in Barcelona, Mel and I had to duck and weave our way back to the hostel via this square

Borough Market

Borough Markets.... such a lovely part of London... there is such an unbelievable amount of food there... and it is amazing!!!!

Michelle (Sydney gal who I met at my church in Kirrabilli) and I decided to head to the markets last saturday before we went to a music festival called Fruit Stock. After I got very mixed up between Bond Street and Baker Street (we were meeting at Bond st station, but i waited at baker st station for about 15 mins... mobiles don't work on the underdground) we headed to London Bridge tube station and spent about an hour and a half wandering around and choosing what we should take for our picnic.





Here I am with the required Sainsbury's cool bag, ready to shop.








Michelle and I headed for Regent's park to go to Fruit Stock which is an annual music festival put on by a fresh juice company... unfortunately the juice wasn't free. BUT it was such a lovely sunny day. We just lay in the sun (with 50+ suncream on like good Australians) enjoying the weather and the music (and naturally the food).



Speaking of food, we were so taken by Borough markets we went again this saturday for lunch. I had a Chorizio roll... Schelle had a Venison burger. The delights of burough markets also includes a shop called Konditor and Cook, which is ledgendary in my mind because of my sister Mel.





K&C is close to where she used to work, so she introduced me to the boston brownie last year. It has cranberries in it and no walnuts (afterall they ruin anything they are in, well in my opinion). But today I refrained from the BB, instead I had a cup of hot chocolate, which was effectively melted chocolate infused with vanilla beans and a dash of milk.

Copenhagen

Well here is my first blog... my trip to Copenhagen. Priscilla (Sydney KPMG gal who is on secondment over here too) and I managed to get up bright and early on the saturday morning to get our 6.30am stansted flights....

This is my quintessential photo of Copenhagen .... the lovely little mermaid who was alot smaller than we expected. After waiting for about 20 middle aged tourists in leather soled shoes to traverse the 3 rocks to the statue for their photos, I tried to do it super quick and ended up in the water with a big bruise on my hip (and wet shorts). Unbelievable!!



We also visited the square with the balcony that Princess Mary got to wave to the crowds after her wedding, only thing was there were about 6 balconies looking very similar, so we were unable to pin point the exact balcony.

Tivoli is an amusement park in Copenhagen... we ended up having dinner there on saturday night.

Sunday morning was a traditional scandinavian breakfast. Flitered coffee, cold meat, slab of brie cheese, slices of jarlsberg cheese and rye bread. Just what we needed to get us ready of our flight home... which was delayed by 3 hours.... So annoying!!! Now easy jet has cancelled our flight to Budapest for the long weekend.... I guess you get what you pay for :)