As for the beer, this was the first time I was able to try cask-conditioned beer. Sure enough, it was poured from a beer engine, and I finally got to try this classic English style. The beer was slightly orange in color, bright, and poured a thin head that held up very well. It also had phenomenal lacing around the glass, all the way to the last sip. It had a yeasty smell, but overall was not very strong. The first sip was very strange having come from high carbonated, cold beers. It was very smooth and creamy, similar to any beers poured on nitro. It also was not ice cold, but rather slightly cool. It had a fairly even flavor, and nothing really stood out about it. It had a thin body, and had a nice drying bitterness on the back end. It was a great opportunity to try real ale, but this beer left me a little unimpressed. There was not much flavor or aroma, and really was just an easy drinking pint where it wouldn't matter if it were your 1st or 4th pint of it.
We arrived in London Thursday night, and our flight was delayed about an hour. Additionally, my ears have the bad tendency of not popping on descent, leaving me with ears that felt like they were filled with water, which after a few hours gets pretty uncomfortable. Finally we made it to the hostel though, but that didn't excite us much either. In our 15 bed dorm room style, the bunks were stacked 3 high, leaving only about a foot of headspace before the next bunk. We were cold, tired, and hungry, so from this point things could pretty much only get better, and by Friday they were.
Our plan for Friday was to walk along the South Bank of the Thames, zigzagging across bridges to see sights on both sides. Given our location we were across from the House of Parliament in 10 minutes, which gave us stunning views and energy for the day ahead. Our first planned stop was to be at the Globe Theatre, but the price of admission was too high to justify it. So we walked along the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral.
St. Paul's was absolutely amazing and worth every penny. The view from the top was breathtaking and albeit a little frightening. The inside too was incredible. The intricate artwork on the inside was beautiful making it hard to move on from this here.
After St. Paul's we walked along London Bridge to go to the Borough Market, which is basically a big farmer's market running Thursday to Sunday each week. There were so many food options that we decided to split up and get something different so we could sample the other person's food. I got a grilled cheese like no other. It was insanely buttery and just melted in your mouth. Becky got an Ethiopian medley, and it was also pretty tasty even though that isn't really my favorite kind of food. For dessert we had an even harder choice. We decided on getting fudge because we were able to get a few varieties to sample. The ones we chose were salted caramel, latte, white chocolate, and toffee. They were all amazing, but our favorite was the toffee one.
We next walked to the Tower Bridge and Tower of London. Both were amazing sites to see, and it was crazy to walk on such an iconic bridge. After that we made our way to Lloyd's of London. Now while this insurance exchange isn't on most tourists' lists, Becky is an insurance major, so we had to check it out. Unfortunately, the building is closed to public access, so the best we could do was a couple pictures of the outside. Nearby is another market called the Leadenhall Market, and this one had lots of fun little shops, but being close to some wealthy businesses made most of the stores a little out of our price range.
At this point we were cold and tired, but still miles away from the hostel. Even so, we carried on walking along the North Bank of the Thames. We stopped briefly at Big Ben to take some pictures at dusk before heading back towards Trafalgar Square. For dinner that night we had Egyptian street food called Koshari, a mix of lentils, rice, a spicy tomato based sauce, and ample herbs and spices. It was so good, and after a long day of walking it warmed us up nicely. The hard part then was venturing out into the cold again to head back to the hostel.
No comments:
Post a Comment