Tuesday 25 November 2014

London and the Poppies

Last weekend we decided to take a trip to London to see the poppies that have been placed there for the 100 year anniversary of the First World War, in memory of all the soldiers who lost their lives.
Unfortunately, they had started taking the poppies down the day before, so when we got there a lot of them were already gone, but it still looked amazing and gave us a good idea of what it looked like when they were all still up.
It was also amazing seeing the Tower Bridge, as I haven't seen it for about 10 years I think, and it's such an iconic landmark it's just beautiful, so safe to say I took ALOT of photos!

                           

                                        

                           

                           

                           

I actually really enjoyed just being a tourist in London for once, as whenever I'm there it's usually for a specific reason and I don't get to do any sightseeing, so I decided to take advantage of it and take a trip to Harrods! I was actually planning on going to the big pets department to get some christmas pressies for my gorgeous pup, so I was really disappointed to find they've actually gotten rid of the pets department completely! Apparently there was a big uproar about them having live animals in there, which I totally understand, but I don't see why they had to get rid of all the accessories too! :(
Anyway, it was still a great trip, lusting over the designer bags, the gorgeous shoes and the huge make up and perfume section, and of course they had all their christmas stuff out, so that was like a winter wonderland, I was in heaven! We also went for tea in their cute little teashop, which was lovely with the china teacups and delicious desserts.

                                       

                                       

                                       

After shopping we hopped back on the tube and went to a little Mexican place in Covent Garden called Cafe Pacifico on Langley Street, we had to wait a little while for a table, but since it was a Saturday night that was hardly surprising, and they had a bar serving amazing cocktails to keep us occupied so we weren't bored! The menu was pretty pricey but the portion sizes were HUGE, you could easily share a plate between two people, unless you have a particularly large appetite of course!

We originally planned to go there and back in one day, but decided against it and booked a hotel so we could just relax instead. We stayed in a staycity apart hotel next to Deptford Bridge DLR station and it was lovely. It was clean and modern, not a particularly big room but big enough, and had self catering facilities should you want them, plus the shower gel and shampoo they provided smelt amazing, it was literally like a bottle of honey! The only downfall was that they don't do breakfast on site, you have to go to Cafe Rouge in Greenwich with a voucher from them, so we decided to just go to this little place in Canary Wharf that my mum knew about instead, which was lovely so it didn't really matter, but if you booked it expecting breakfast, you would've been disappointed!

                                       

Anyway, I could go on and on but that's the main stuff I did in London, I even bought my very first oyster card as a vow that I will go back more regularly as a tourist instead of just when I need to! Hope you enjoyed this post, please leave me a comment if you've been to London recently or letting me know what you think, thanks for reading! xxx

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Birmingham's German Christmas Market

If you've ever lived in the West Midlands, chances are you'll have heard of the German market that's on every year in Birmingham, in the lead up to Christmas. For those of you who have never been, it's basically a load of wooden chalet type stalls, some selling gifts and christmas decorations, but mostly there are a lot of stalls selling all kinds of delicious things, sweets, baked goods, german sausages (which are huuuge!) and burgers, and lots of tasty drinks such as german beer, mulled wine, winter pimms and hot chocolate.

We decided to take an impromptu trip last night since I only live a 15 minute train journey away from Birmingham, and I wanted to nip to selfridges to get some personalised nutella, seriously everyone I know is getting a jar of nutella for Christmas this year! Hehe!
Whilst walking round at first I must admit I was slightly disappointed, all the stalls were exactly the same as last year, so I'd seen it all before, and there's not a huge amount of items for sale, so you aren't likely to get your christmas shopping done. However, we realised after ordering hot dogs and working our way through a pint each of yummy German beer (see pictures below) that people obviously go for the amazing food and drink! So it's certainly worth a visit, especially if you've never been before.

it looks huge as it is, but notice the sausage is broken in half, it was even bigger than that before!

some proper German beer!


christmas lights selfie!

christmas in Birmingham :)

Thanks for reading! xxx