Weekend update

Hi everyone - first, my condolences to all you snowed-in Portlanders. After seeing what 1-2" of snow does to the city, I cannot imagine the situation with nearly a foot of snow. I hope that you are finding a way to enjoy the winterwonderland - as strange as it may seem. We've been in the midst of really warm weather, relatively speaking, hanging out in the 50s which i am finding to be glorious. chris thinks that appreciating this weather is condoning global warming, but i'm quite happy with it. i've just lost my midwestern thick skin i suppose.over the weekend, we did some more exploring & i'm going to post some pics here. on friday we met up at trafalgar square after chris finished work. i know there is some history about trafalgar square that i should be up on - but our visit was to see carolers. in my mind it was going to be some grand orchestration of caroling, but in reality it was a bunch of mom n pop groups that could barely carry a tune. we stayed for a couple of tunes and then headed off to find warmth.  (see the random drunk guy 'conducting' the carolers)

we did make one detour for some chestnuts roasted on an open fire, which might be my favorite street vendor treat i have ever discovered (except for the egg sandwiches in ghana, of course).we really tried to have dinner in our neighborhood on friday (a feat we have not yet accomplished), but everyone was booked with christmas parties. we'll save it for another night then.
saturday we headed off to borough market for some delicious food 

via london tower. london tower will absolutely get another visit from us - one where we go inside and see the crown jewels. this time we really just read the signage outside (ate some more roasted chestnuts) and headed toward borough market. this market is crazy. 

i think the saturday market folks should come see how they put on a market under a bridge in london. a labyrinth of goodness! after buying way too much cheese and eating way too many sweet treats, we walked from there to elephant and castle to visit a bike shop - i'm on the hunt for a set of wheels.

 along the way, we walked through the most depressed area of london we've seen so far. not that it was a ghetto, but it was very empty and it had lots of mid-rise residential tow

ers that just looked depressing. interesting because we hadn't seen anywhere that looked like this before. i don't mean to sound naive, i knew that london wasn't all bumblegum and candycanes, it was just our first look at it. last week i read that the homelessness problem was still a major issue with almost 500 people sleeping on the streets every night. did they say 500? does that sound low to anyone else? i need to do some more checking on how they define it, but i've def noticed a lack of street sleepers and folks asking for money. is there something to this socialism thing??
sunday sent us exploring our immediate surroundings. i read about a really good second hand bookshop and it was a beautiful day, so we set out on a walk to the next "village" belham. the "town center" wasn't anything special - compared to others we've seen, but they did have a fabulous more localized whole foods type of spot and the bookstore was a treat. as we made our way up the high street, we stumbled upon a french market. not so certain what was french about it, but it did elevate our appreciation for the area ten-fold. again, we ate too many delicious samples. something possessed us to buy a 3 kilo pork roast. could have been the organic, free range thing. maybe it was the holiday feeling. but, now we have to decide between pheasant and lovely, enormous pork roast for christmas...the dilemmas we face here.
okay, out of here for now. hopefully chris blogs soon so you guys have a laugh.