little miss sandy...

Borough Market

Woohoo for visitor number 2!!

So much fun with Sandy and loved showing her around our pretty little city.

The weekend started off with dinner at a pop-up restaurant.

The Seagrass | Chapel Market

Really good three-course meal for £30 and best part is… BYOB.

Pigeon w/ Mushroom Risotto

Duck w/ Sweet Marmalade (and of course, chips)

Cheese platter and some sort of chocolate delight

And Saturday ended up being a really fun beer-filled day!

First stop: (our fave) Borough Market

UK is an up-and-coming sparkling wine growing region and we had to try a glass.

Meonhill Reserve Brut

Next stop: Greenwich to wander around the park and to see the Royal Observatory. (location of prime meridian)

Onto Greenwich Market and to see the “painted room” at the Naval Academy.

Now, onto the beer –

We had a scheduled Meantime Brewery tour at 7pm,

so stopped into a local pub to get our day started – flights of Meantime!

Girl’s picks – lager, wheat, red and pilsner

Ian’s picks – cali, red, brown and grain

Meantime is one of the largest UK breweries.

Alex (tour guide in love with Sandy) kept the day full of laughs!

For £15 – 2 ½ hour tour and about 5+ ½ pints of beer.

Amazing deal for the money and possibly one of the best tours we've had!

Sunday started out a bit slow, but ended up having the most beautiful weather.

(sunny and almost 70)

We wandered. And wandered. And wandered around the city.

Saw Neal’s Yard (beautiful colorful corner of London) and all of the major sights.

Sandy’s training for a ½ marathon and had to run 10 miles while here.

I ran the first teeny bit with her and then she finished – like a trooper.

Canal running is the best!

quiet, but enough to keep you busy with the people and cyclists  

the seagrass

borough market

royal observatory

greenwich

naval acadamy

meantime brewery

sandy's boyfriend

neal's yard

london eye

regent's canal run

Missing her already, but now she’s in Italy.

(and we’re totally jealous)

xx
the mcgees

oslo

Our first trip together!

We went to Oslo, Norway for 48 hours.

(yes, 48 hours and this is the beauty of living in London)

 

We stayed with Ian’s godmother and her husband in a beautiful home.

Both were in the Foreign Ministry and spent a lot of time in the Middle East 

(and all over the world).

Their home was more than just a home, but a museum.

(pieces dated back to 3000 BC – amazing)

 

They were such gracious hosts.

We had some of the most delish home cooked meals we’ve ever had –

Norwegian salmon (salma = salmon belly) and lamb were on the menu.

 

Fortunately, we had pretty good weather.

No rain, which is always great!

 

Oslo is pretty amazing as it sits on a fjord, 

but only 15 minutes into the mountains for skiing.

It’s the home of so many museums, modern architecture, 

beautiful parks and gorgeous countryside. 

There is one small negative - it's the most expensive city we've ever been too.

woah.

like $15 for a pint.

beautiful oslo

fort

oslo opera house

vigeland park

 

ferry ride on the fjord

folk museum

beautiful stave church

downtown oslo

holmenkollen ski jump

national gallery - munch's the scream (saw the real thing but couldn't take pics)

our gracious hosts - inger & peter

loved our time in oslo and looking forward to our next trip.
still tbd.

xx
the mcgees

markets & pubs

Visiting London's "famous" markets has been part of our weekend exploring.

This weekend - Portobello Market.

This huge market spanned blocks and blocks and blocks...

Full of clothing and jewelry stalls on one end.

Middle included food stalls.

The other end was full of antiques.

A lot of junk mixed in with beautiful and interesting pieces.

Now, I have an interest in learning a bit more about antiques.

My goal - pick up legitimate antique silver w/ the "M" monogram. 

 Next up on our fun Saturday, was exploring a new pub.

Filthy McNasty's was our stop.

Good night to go - last show before it turns into a "gastropub".

Gastropubs have taken over the 'traditional" pubs 

and this crowd didn't seem too happy about it.

The Elasticated Waste Band 

8 piece acoustic band played a fun mix of songs...

Johnny Cash to calypso to Irish music.

Then stopped for a drink at Craft Beer Company.

Ian tried two painfully expensive beers...

(but well worth it)

The Kernel - London Brewery

 

Pale Ale, Nugget

Indian Pale Ale, Double Citra

(IPA was one of the best beers Ian's ever had and I even thought it was delish!) 

 

Hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as we did!

xx

Sarah

first visitor

We had our first visitor in April.

Steve came to London for work, but extended the trip to hang with us.

We had fun seeing the sights and went to the British Museum.

Lucky to have beautiful weather the weekend he got in.

 Found the most amazing BYOB Vietnamese restaurant around. 

Can't wait to go back!

The boys also saw Groove Armada. 

Missing him already but excited for our next visitor!!

british national museum (rosetta stone)

national gallery festival

finally looks like spring

xx

the mcgees

first of many pub crawls

London is the home to thousands of Pubs or Public Houses.

They serve real cask ales.

(cask-conditioned / unfiltered / unpasteurized / served directly from cask / without carbon dioxide)

Served at cellar temperature (54-57F).

Hence the English getting the bad wrap for drinking warm beer.

The ales are very good at this temperature and if drank colder

the subtle flavors would be masked.

(very similar to wine).

If the ales aren't your "cup of tea" they have plenty of tasteless

lagers served at freezing temps,

along with some really good craft beers on daught.

I really enjoy the real cask ales and Sarah is “getting used to them”.

Thankfully, all beer comes in a “half” or a “pint”, which is

20 oz compared to the US where its 16.

Sarah always falls into the “half” category which is the perfect size for her.

Earlier this month, we went on a pub crawl with Marcus, Lucy

and their friends, Laura and Saul.

They are opening a craft brewery in NY and were here doing “research”.

So fun!

Southampton Arms, The Pineapple,

Camden Brewery, Earl of Essex and Old China Hand

Loved Camden Brewery and their Camden Ink Stout and Pale Ale were the favorites.

Enjoy the weekend!

Ian