London: Food and Family (The two most important things in life)

Arriving after the quiet of France was hard, the difference between Saint Sulpice, a small village of 7,600 people to London, a city of 8.6 million was almost a shock. People were everywhere, buskers stood on all the street corners, and interesting graffiti covered the walls. London is always a place where I feel I could spend far longer than I ever have time for.
 I was lucky enough to stay with my brother and his partner in their London flat in Bethnal Green which was fantastically close to central London. As I arrived on a Friday evening, we spent the next day relaxing, only going out for excellent tapas at a nearby spanish restaurant (one of my favourite things about London is that every cuisine imaginable is available there). The place felt very authentic, and we were served by a spanish grandmother (does anyone else feel an invariable sense of guilt accompanied by the urge to stand up and help carry things when served by the elderly?) My favourite dish was a slow cooked lentil, chorizo and jamon stew that was to die for.

Sunday was a very busy day. We started off by going to a trampoline park (Oxygen Freejumping, a name that sounded far more daring than what we were actually doing) where we could bounce on big tramps for an hour. We arrived to the chaos of crowds of screaming children and sat ourselves down awkwardly, aware we were the only adults there without small shouting, running bundles of energy. It was however, a pretty cool place. full of different bouncing floors, kids were doing forward and back flips and being altogether rather impressive and far braver than I ever could be. I stuck to jumping up and down.
We soon realised how generous the hour was as after twenty minutes we were all exhausted. Feeling our age, we gave up completely at the half hour mark (where do children get their boundless energy from?) and headed for Pizza Pilgrim where, you guessed it, we ate Italian pizza! One of the best pizzas I have had and definitely somewhere I would recommend. The desserts were a little less appealing, and none of us were brave enough to try the olive oil and salt icecream and instead decided to complete our italian experience by going to the nearby Gelupo for (are you sensing a country theme here?) gelato.  I had the nicest, creamiest coconut gelato i've tried, and an interesting orange sherbet sorbet. Yum.

The day wasn't over yet though! We next went to the museum of London which I have been wanting to go to for a while as it spanned London from Prehistory to modern day. Unfortunately we were all tired so didn't spend as long in there as I would have usually, but I enjoyed it regardless. From aurochs and rhinos found in the centre of london (can you imagine!) to objects from the Roman settlement of Londinium, to the black death and the fire of london, it was a fascinating and surprisingly large museum. Did I also mention that it's free?

Our last destination of the day was a to a place called 'Escape entertainment' where we were given the premise of bank robbers in a vault attempting to steal the crown jewels before the police captured us!
 We were led into a small room which was rather bare: a knocked out guard (a mannequin, never fear) a set of keys, another set locked onto some bars, and a locked door leading to the vaults. I walked in feeling somewhat confident, we could do this!
Halfway through when we had barely worked out anything I was left feeling like a total idiot. We received numerous clues via telephone which allowed us to progress at a snail's pace - once we finally got the first set of doors opened, we then had to work out how to open the lockers to get the clues inside to then open the main vault...by this point we had about ten minutes left and had accomplished basically nothing.
All of us were working feverishly on different things in total chaos (so much so that we managed to unlock the bank vault without any of us actually realising...oops) Somehow with all of that we still ended up managing to complete our mission only twenty seconds overtime.  Look at us, such criminals!
It was certainly a rather different form of entertainment, and rather fun. I would love to do it again sometime and see if I could redeem my intelligence.

After such a busy few days, we took it quietly throughout the week after that, although that certainly didn't stop us seeing some pretty cool things. 

The Camden Lock Market was my next trip of note (not to be confused with the Camden market, a rather shitty clothing and bits and pieces market) where I got some of the best food of my life, including my first try of pulled pork (why did I wait so long to to try it!? My life has been missing this glorious food!)  There were so many stalls and choices it was ridiculous - this is a place I will be returning to many times when next given the chance. 

We saw some strange and wondrous things, including an entire store of cereals...I simply didn't understand this one. Who likes cereal that much?

The all important Venchi store where we bought not only chocolate but ice cream too! For those poor souls who don't yet know what Venchi is (amazing Italian chocolate) go and try it today! Now!

The other days were more relaxed, enjoying the city at my own pace. One thing I was adamant I had to see was an exhibition on at the British museum that I had been eying up for months. 'Sunken cities: Egypt's lost worlds' is one exhibition that I can highly recommend as unmissable if ever given the chance to see it. Unfortunately photos were strictly not allowed, so their magnificence must be imagined. The exhibition was extremely comprehensive and well laid out, detailing the sunken cities of Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus (the former being a trade centre of enormous importance, and the latter a center of worship)  as well as artefacts revealing information about the secretive cult of Osiris - many of the objects having never left Egypt before. I cannot rave about this exibition enough - it was fantastic. 

We met up with Yannick for lunch on his work break multiple times during the week, including Vietnamese food in the park, and my all time favourite - Greek food! Here I tried the best flat breads of my life (smothered in hummus mmmmmm) and discovered that Dolmades (deliciously flavoured rice wrapped in vine leaves with hints of lemon) are one of the most delicious things ever.

My last night came around all too quickly, but we had something brilliant planned for it. Keeping with our camping cooking traditions, we had decided to make burgers, but just to one up it even further, we bought a disposable bbq and decided to make veggie burgers too! We also of course needed Prosecco with this venture,

We had planned on these delicious cupcakes for dinner dessert, but felt so stuffed we had to have them for breakfast instead (what a shame).

 As always, London did not disappoint, leaving me excited to return.