The Big Smoke

Image taken from here

Firstly I’d like to apologise for not posting in a while. I’ve been sort of busy. Yeah, I’m sorry. This ‘busy’ excuse is getting repetitive and I’ll try not to use it too much, out in the Sunshine State.

So last week I went to London for my visa appointment (I’ll do a separate post on the whole procedure etc, after this one). I stayed for two nights in a Travelodge in Covent Garden. Okay, so it was pretty basic (as to be expected from a Travelodge – not a snobby remark) but I really could not complain about the location. I would stay there again, just for it’s convenient location.

We went down on Tuesday. Had a bit of a walkabout around Covent Garden, Soho area and China Town. I’ve always wanted to visit there.  We then proceeded to seek out a place to eat.  Earlier on in the day, my dad had asked me to search for a Mexican place called Wahaca, but I had no luck. Cut a long story short; on our walk back to the hotel, I spotted this Wahaca, so we tried there. I’m so glad we did. It was excellent food and service. The price was pretty reasonable too. I had chorizo and potato quesadillas (I’ve since made these at home, from Thomasina Mier’s cook book; Mexican Food Made Simple, who coincidentally is the founder of Wahaca) and black bean tostadas (From the tapas style section) and I washed it down with a classic margarita. If I happen to find myself in that area again, I’ll certainly be going back.

The following day, we had nothing arranged. We had been sick the previous week so didn’t really have the chance to arrange any outings. Instead, we wandered down to Trafalgar Square and then checked out the National Gallery. The rest of that day is a bit of a blur, I’m afraid. However, in the evening I met up with Siobhan (Who I’ll by flying with). After wandering around looking for a place to eat, that wasn’t packed, we ended up in Cafe Rouge.

Thursday, the final day, was visa day. I was awake at 5:45am. I won’t go into too much detail here, but we go to the embassy around 7:20am and out at around 9:15am. Siobhan and I also met Amanda at the embassy who’ll be starting the same day as us.  It’s nice to know that we’re all feeling the same nerves and excitement.

After the Visa business was out the way, we headed back to the hotel and I went to meet my parents. I really wanted to check out the Primrose Bakery which was somewhere in Covent Garden, so we made a dash for it before having to check out. Turns out it wasn’t really that far from my hotel. I bought a few cupcakes to sample. I really liked the cookies and cream cupcake. Well mainly the sticky meringue style frosting with crumbled up oreos.

Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery. Coconut, Chocolate & Cookies and Cream.

That’s about it for my London adventure. I really love London, from what I’ve seen of it. I definitely want to go there more often when I’m back in the UK.

In other news, I’ve finished one of my jobs and there’s One month left until I depart. I’m feeling a mixture of nerves and excitement. I’m more excited at the moment, but I’m sure a bout of nervous will smack me before long.

I’ll be posting on the actual visa process tomorrow. Until then, good night.