torisnewroost-blog

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I stayed at the bunkhouse on Ollerbrook Farm. Awesome, quiet, friendly, very cheap. Worth the trek.

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All of these are on the Kinder Scout Loop. My camera died on the first night and I forgot my adaptor

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oh yeah, I got my camera too.

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I promise I didn't just take micro shots

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I started off in Edale, which has a train station (easy access for kids without cars)

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I went hiking for a tiny part of Spring Break... so here are some pictures

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This weekend Boy and I took a short trip to the Isle of Wight, an attempt to get away from the city for a day and have mutual time off. Frankly, the Isle of Wight doesn’t have a whole lot. It’s a breezy island, and I’m sure there are gorgeous natural landscapes but the farthest I got was to Ryde. But the beach had sand and wind and mini golf, the town had sweets and an itsy-bitsy farmer’s market, and the foot traffic was reminiscent of the small town I grew up in.

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Weekends Last pt 3

Monday and Tuesday

Kelsey and I had breakfast at Naturalis again, 'cause there’s no such thing as too many awesome vegetables. We also went to see a movie at the Prince Charles, cause like, why not. Then, the best of all things, we went to this restaurant called Indian Veg. It looks pretty sketch, and the food does too sometimes, but its literally exactly what the name says: an Indian restaurant with only vegetarian options. The buffet isn’t enormous, but has more than enough variety, and is 5.95 for an all-you-can-eat thing. That’s an unbeatable price in London, and the quality far surpassed the price point. The best part, though, is the atmosphere. The walls are literally covered in advertisements and endorsements for a vegetarian lifestyle, health tips and random facts. Everything is printed in primary colors on white plastic. We were so engrossed in reading the walls that we barely spoke for most of the meal except for to point out particular sections, so I suppose this isn’t the best place to go if you have a short attention span and want to talk to your company.

Kelsey took off Tuesday afternoon towards Amsterdam to stay with Gen, and as glad as I was to get my bed to myself again it was hard to see her go. Her and Paige both prodded parts of me that were falling asleep since being here, and it felt good to try out my old parts in my new city. Now I just need to figure out how to make all of it fit together again.

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Weekend Last pt 2

Saturday and Sunday

Paige spent Saturday exploring all the tourist spots and Kelsey and I grabbed breakfast at my new favorite café. Naturalis is on Chapel Market, and serves mostly vegan and vegetarian food. They recently expanded into free range and organic meat products, so even the carnivores have something to go for. The food is fresh, yummy, and doesn’t sit as heavy as most British food, and at under 8 pounds a dish I didn’t feel like I had to skip lunch! We wandered through the antique market on Upper Street, and then went home for some down time before I went to work.

I woke up the next morning in an empty bed. Paige had to take a super early morning bus to the airport. Her stay was short and I only really got to see her for a little while, but it was really nice to have someone from Oregon around. Kelsey and I walked along the canal toward Camden and met Boy at another new favorite, Leyas. This coffee shop has a pretty large and varied breakfast menu, salads and sandwiches to go that are fresh and (gasp) have more than one vegetable. Even better, their mochas are the best I’ve had in London so far. No Hershey syrup here, y’all, it’s straight up dark chocolate. Yum.

After breakfast we went to Portobello Road. There wasn’t much of a market, so we might have gone on the wrong day, but I’m also increasingly convinced that most of West London is pleasant, but missable. East and South are where my heart lies. We spent the night at The Queen’s Head (because why would I ever go anywhere else) playing battleship and pretending we were just any customers. We abandoned the charade after closing and had an after-work beer or two with Boy and Sergio.