Author Archives: Grace

Bar Ciao Caffe

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There seemed to be no more appropriate a place to say our goodbyes to Rita than to have a final visit for ice cream at Bar Ciao Caffe They were full inside so we had to sit outside. However the chill of the temps outside didn’t stop us from indulging.

It was so very good.

But what was not so very good was saying goodbye to Rita 🙁 We will miss her so much. I know that she doesn’t want to back to Oz either but with her visa running out, the current climate for jobless-ness and pressure from her family it was never going to be on the cards for her to be staying.

Still, we can hold out hope that she will return … one day.

Inamo

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Rita is soon to be leaving my London family so she planned a night out doing one my favourite activities … I bet you can’t guess what I’m talking about … did you guess it? Eating. Yes, eating. Our first stop was dinner at Inamo.

Inamo opened about a year ago during a period when it seemed that the hottest cuisine on the market was Pan-Asian or Modern Asian Fusion and as a result Inamo really had to come out into the market with a unique selling point to grab any of the market share – and they did. Its selling point is their interactive tables (because you can get the quality food and dominating black lacquer design in any of the other restaurants.) I first read about it in the Metro that you could play space invaders at your table whilst waiting for our dinner. Or even during dinner if you felt unsociable. Heh heh. This actually makes it a pretty good place for a first date as the table works as a kind of ice-breaker and conversation filler if you need one.

The table, however, can prove very distracting!

The four of us who made it to dinner, Rita, Rache, Marianna and I, probably spent the first half hour playing with the table, playing the memory game, watching the chef of the life kitchen cam, changing the wallpaper on the table and of course taking photos. We didn’t probably even look at the menu. Ordering, calling your waiter, asking for your bill is also performed via the table so in fact you don’t have to interact with your waiter at all except to get the food to your table and give you your bill.

Its great choosing your dinner and drinks as each item on the menu (as you scroll through it) comes up with a giant projected image on to your table. Although it takes a while to get through all the options at least you get an idea of what you’ll be receiving. It’s pretty cool technology. Tech geeks who want to know how the programmer went about setting up the system can read about his journey here (http://www.berniecode.com/writing/inamo-mouse-story/.)

Note that there is a 2 hour turn around on tables so don’t get carried away with playing!

If there is one draw-back to this style of dining is that, tonight at least, the service in the restaurant was not fantastic. Sure our food and drinks came out okay but then the waitresses kept trying to pick up our dishes even though we were clearly nowhere near finished. This got quite annoying after it happened a couple of times.

Food-wise we decided to share our dishes and that’s what is encouraged at Inamo anyway and actually how you should eat asian food. We started with duck pancake (of course – for the price it was the tiniest duck I’ve ever seen), pork rib (tasty), pork neck (best dish of the night) followed by mans of cinnamon chicken (surprisingly good and my second favourite of the night), crispy prawn and jungle curry (fairly average.) With a cocktail each our bill came to a hefty £27 each which was fairly expensive I thought considering we shared three starters and three mains between four people so it was effectively less than two courses each.

But overall its an interesting concept and fun for a one-off event or to show your London visitors something different. The food is actually quite good, if pricey, so at least its not gimmick only restaurant.

After dinner it was onwards to our dessert venue …

Phoenix Palace

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As if I wasn’t full enough from my cream team at Warwick with the girls when I got back to London I met my brother for an early dinner at Phoenix Palace! He’d remembered how much he liked the kangaroo from the last time so we went for that again. Other additional dishes were the Crispy King Prawn Stuffed with Prawn Meat in Crab Meat Sauce (don’t be armed by the googly eyes!) and as a stomach filler (you gotta have one when you eat Chinese) King Prawn Fried Noodle. We also tried a banana toffee for dessert.

Mmm mmm it was delicious even though I could barely get it down. Service was very good tonight. For some reason one of the managers was paying particular attention to us even right down to telling us a couple of personal stories including something about his wife’s specialty in the kitchen being the prawn stuffed with prawn covered in prawn sauce. Heh he.

Oh, I also couldn’t resist taking a photo of the restroom which was particularly attractive but also had a double toilet paper dispenser (one for left-handers one for right) in my stall.

Warwick Castle

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The day after I got back from Tunisia I went on another trip – this time to the more nearby Warwick Castle. As the name suggests Warrick Castle is located in Warwick, a 2 hour and 15 min train ride out of Marylebone and therefore a fairly easy day trip out of London. The four of us, Rache, Rita, Phelon and I, set off at a fairly reasonable hour and arrived in Warwick just a bit early for a Sunday roast. We wandered the high street for a bit before settling down at a cute little pub. We got a nice hunky army guy to take a photo of us.

A history lesson on Warrick Castle can easily be obtained from the internet so I’m not going to bore you with any of the details. Hints on visiting the castle are to look out for deals on websites such as lastminute or days out because tickets cost over £15 at the door (with a 20% saving if booked online.)

Attractions at Warwick Castle include the trebuchet, the largest catapult in the world. You don’t quite grasp how gigantic this 22 ton baby is until you see the little men running around operating it during the demonstration. For non-static attractions there are also live shows on during the including a live falconer exhibition.

Otherwise we entertained ourselves but climbing towers (one tower being 530 steps high), visiting the garden, exploring the interior of the castle, climbing into dungeons, donning costumes, playing with exhibitions and trying, but not succeeding, in entering the Princess Tower. Apparently, all adults must enter with at least one child! Hilariously one of the other billboards read: “All Boys, Dads, Grandpas, Uncles, Nephews and Brothers. You may find the content of the Princess Tower offensive. You have been warned.”

And because we worked so hard and burned so much energy making our way around the castle we stopped at the Thomas Oken Tea Room for an afternoon cream tea. Mmmm ….

Tunisia

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For months now Pauline and I have been desperate to visit Tunisia. We started looking into planning a late summer holiday months and months ago. Tunisia was one of the very first countries we thought might still have a chance of being decently warm at this time of year. The fact that there were adverts everywhere we looked
didn’t hurt either – I even saw the adverts when I was in Italy and Spain!

Tunisia is found at the northern most tip of Africa bordered by Algeria and Libya and the Mediterranean Sea. The fact that Tunisia has both coastal waters and access to the Sahara made it an almost ideal destination for our holiday.

Our planning was not without hiccups.

When we first started researching a trip to Tunisia flights were relatively reasonably priced but because we left it a month or two and because perhaps the advertising campaign was starting to have some effect flights suddenly skyrocketed and our holiday to Tunisia was suddenly in grave danger. Luckily we managed to find a packaged holiday (7 nights bed and breakfast in a supposed 5 star hotel plus flights) for about £375 and our holiday was back on.

Except it was very nearly off again when I managed to enter our names in backwards! Oops.

At any rate the past week in Tunisia has been pure bliss and the following is our tale.

Photos photos photos.

When? First week of October 2009
Why Go? Sun, Sand (Beach and Desert) and History
Why Not Go? As a woman, if you can’t handle the “attention” that the men give you. I have to give it to the men of Tunisia they are a confident bunch and they don’t care whether or not you shoot down their offers – whether its to buy their wares or to go to a disco with them! We had offers from all the men, they like to call you gazelle, including, rather uncomfortably since we saw them at night at dinner and in the morning at breakfast, some of the boys/men who worked out our hotel. On our last night one barman, admittedly a sweet guy, kissed me! Men will also call out random compliments though I’m not sure if asking me if my breasts were natural or silicon was a comment I should consider to be a compliment. Heh heh.
Additionally, aside for random tourists, you will not see many women out in public. Practically everyone who worked at the hotel was a male and it was rare that we saw women walking out on the streets.
Weather Absolute Bliss. Hot and Sunny and Blue Skies every day!!
Surprising Find Practically every Tunisian we came across (admittedly all of them in the service industry) spoke at least five languages: Arabic, French, English, German and Italian. A few even appeared to speak Dutch!
Additionally, aside for random tourists, you will not see many women out in public. Practically everyone who worked at the hotel was a male and it was rare that we saw women walking out on the streets.
Tips/Comments Ironically my first tip is about tipping. Most of the people who you come across during your trip, whether it’s the guy who puts your luggage on to the bus, or the porter, or the waiter, or the toilet attendant, will expect a tip of some sort. If you don’t want to squander away your spending money in tips, especially when you first get off the plane and get on to your transfer bus without having yet swapped any money, then make sure you have plenty of small loose change to pass over.
Second tip is transfers4u was excellent for our bus transfer from the airport to Hammamet. £6 each return which compared with the £25 some people seemed to be paying was an absolute bargain.

The Experience

The adventure that was Tunisia started with our visas. As an Australian tourist arriving in Tunisia we had read beforehand that you only needed to buy your visa when you arrived at the airport. Because we were so excited about arriving in Tunisia we totally missed the stall where you buy your visas and headed straight to passport control. I went first – thanks Pauline! Ha ha! However, the passport guy was pretty friendly about it but told us we had to go back and buy our visa first. Well, wouldn’t you know it, they only accepted Tunisia dollars! But there was nowhere we could see to swap our pounds for TD. We were giving a “pass” to give to the guards standing near passport control so they would let us out into the airport to swap some money. Other than the startling find that the dude manning the foreign exchange booth was happily puffing away on his cigarette in his booth and inside the airport (I keep forgetting coming from England where smoking is virtually banned everywhere) it was straightforward enough to swap our money and go back through passport control to get our visas. We just couldn’t believe how relaxed they were about letting people in and out at passport control. You know what would never happen at any London airport.

Once our visas had been pasted into our passports another aspect of the whole process further emphasized just how relaxed Tunisia border control is: our visas expired as follows – mine on the 8 October, Pauline’s on the 9 October but we were actually leaving the country on the 10 October! And finally on Pauline’s visa they’d used her middle name instead of her first!

This was when we first heard the soon to be often to be repeated phrase “No Problems” apparently used to calm excitable tourists. Though worried that we would have problems on leaving the country with expired visas we could really do nothing about it as they practically pushed us out of the airport once they’d given us our visas. All in good humour of course.

So, how did we occupy ourselves for our six days in Tunisia (eight days if you include the day we flew in and the day we flew out)? We wanted to balance it between relaxing (spending time on the beach) and exploring the country that is Tunisia. In the end we split it about down the middle with three days beach-side and three days on tour. The three days on tour was, whilst amazing to experience, absolutely exhausting so the beach-side time was very much appreciated.

The Beach

With a large coastal line and a few islands to choose from we were almost overwhelmed with choice about where to stay. In the end we found a package at the Sindbad Hotel in Hammamet. It is rated as a 5 star hotel (though ratings like this are dubious when there is no international standard for rating a hotel and most often it refers to the facilities available rather than quality ) and #7 out of 118 hotels in Hammamet we were expecting something pretty nice. I’ve read both good and bad reviews of this hotel and I think in fairness it was actually a pretty decent hotel especially for the price we paid and considering it is located in a country which cannot as yet, development-wise at least, be compared with the likes of nearby cities such as Dubai.

We expected a fairly simple room but ended up with a gorgeous room with separate lounge, two giant flat screen tvs (including one in our bedroom), a bathroom which had both a stand up shower and a bath tub/shower, and an outdoor patio area.

Most hotels or resorts in Hammamet or the nearby Yasmine-Hammamet and presumably across many other tourist regions in Tunisia try to be self-contained offering, as our hotel did, a choice of several restaurants, bars, pools, a spa treatment centre, and a private beach.

Apparently due to the timing of our visit our fellow tourists mainly consisted of big tour groups of the, shall we say, older generation German or French citizens. To presume that most of them were already retired wouldn’t be too a far flung assumption! According to one of our taxi drivers if we’d arrived just a few weeks earlier the tourists would have consisted of people at the opposite end of the spectrum, namely Ibiza-clubbing age party goers and the place would have been heaving. In fact he commented that it isn’t the best time to visit as its almost too busy! I think in the end it was good timing for us because the beaches were not unreasonably busy. The main difficulty with not having many people around is that aside from eating at your own hotel (most people take advantage of half board options) is picking the good restaurants to go to as restaurants were practically desserted with seemingly low turnover. Our hotel actually had a couple of restaurants to eat at including the lovely beach side bar where in fact you could order off the menus from the other restaurants so we ate at our hotel a couple of nights and ventured out for a couple of other nights. The most successful non-hotel venue was Chez Achour. Its not number 1 on the tripadvisor listing for no reason.

Like any beach resort its important to grab your spot on the sun beds as early as possible in the morning – a lesson we didn’t really learn until our last day! However, it wasn’t made easy at our beach to be self-sufficient as quite often there were no towels available without asking and sun beds often had to be dragged to your chosen spot for you. There were a few guys working the beach but they were hardly in a rush to help though they were friendly enough. Perhaps a big tip at the beginning of our stay rather than a little bit everyday might have helped.

We had no complaints about the beach area. The beach itself was beautiful and gorgeous fine white sand and water so clear you could see all the way to the bottom for as deep as we went (we didn’t go that deep but it was deep enough for us!) Up the coast you could see clear to the Hammamet Medina and to the pirate boats blaring their party music out on the horizon. Everyday on the beach we also enjoyed partaking in the light pizzas that they serve as part of the lunch menu. It felt awfully decadent! I love the fact we didn’t even want to leave the beach to eat!

I’ve mentioned that we had a few dinners at beach bar. This has clearly recently been remodeled as it had a very new feel to it. It faces out onto a lovely pool with a clear wall on the side facing the beach. It was fabulous to take a tip. Not very popular either so I often had it to myself! Even in the evening the bar itself wasn’t exactly popular – I think something to do with the type of holiday-makers present during our stay. We weren’t complaining though as it was nice to have the space to relax in the evening. I can imagine it would be pretty popular in the height of summer.

The three days on the beach was absolute bliss. Working on my tan and only waking from snoozing to eat my pizza lunch!

The Exploring

As I mentioned earlier our three days of touring was exhausting. For three days in a row we woke up at what felt like the crack of dawn: 4.45am (!), 3.45am (!) and 5.45am (!) and it wasn’t like we were going to bed any earlier than normal either!

Our first tour was a 2-day tour to the Sahara Dessert and the second tour was a day trip to the capital of Tunisia Tunis and the architectural ruins of Carthage.

Sahara Dessert Tour

Researching from London for tours in Tunisia was surprisingly difficult. Even once we got to their hotels we weren’t sure how to book the tours – sure the hotel offers its own selection but its better and cheaper to go with the local tour guides. We ended up booking with a tour group we found online anyway (luckily our Tunisian hotel had free internet in the lobby) with Visit Tunisia but I get the feeling they all the tour operators end up merging in one way or another.

Our first stop on Day 1 of our tour was El Djem Ampitheatre. This is the third largest roman ampitheatre in the world after the Rome Colosseum and Capua ampitheatre though I suspect it’s the one that is the most intact. We hit the ampitheatre at just about 8am (thanks to the early start) but even at that time busloads of tourists were disembarking from their buses. Though during our visit there (about a 40 min stop) it didn’t get anywhere as busy and full as did the Rome Colosseum.

After a brief stop at a palm tree oasis in Gabes we continued on to visit a Berber community in Matmata and their troglodyte homes. This area is famous for where part of the first Stars Wars film was shot. The homes of the Berbers are dug into the ground rather than being built up so it does look unusually spacey when you see it. Unfortunately it felt a little bit pathetic and invasive of us tourists to be traipsing through the homes of these Berbers even though clearly they welcomed the small change that everyone offered to get a photo of the “genuine” locals. I don’t honestly think we were brought to the actual location where the Stars Wars film was shot. For future reference I believe it is the Hotel Sidi Driss that you should seek.

After lunch at a local hotel (pretty simple Tunisian fair from a buffet) and from where we actually got some decent vistas we continued our drive south to Douz, which is considered the gateway to the Sahara. Just shy of sunset we mounted some camels for a nearly hour ride in the Sahara. Poor Pauline didn’t actually want to ride the camels and I think some of her tension transferred to the camel because it got a little freaked out and kept kicking out. Additionally our guide didn’t really put Pauline correctly on the camel and she ended up with some fairly huge bruises on her thigh. Still its pretty cool to be able to say we rode through the Sahara and it was very pretty especially as the sun started to set and despite the hordes of tourists we could see everywhere. To Pauline’s credit she stayed on until the end of the ride. We had to don a traditional outfit to take the ride. It was both a blessing (kept the sun off our skin) and a curse (we were so hot under it!)

After the camel ride it was on tour our Douz hotel (Mehari Douz) for dinner and an overnight stay. It was pretty simple hotel and though we couldn’t take advantage of it the hotel had two swimming pools including one which was a thermal swimming pool with naturally hot sulfurous water.

Day 2 started off early with our 3.45am wake up call. A quick breakfast and then a ride on the bus saw us delivered to Chott El Jerid Salt Lake to watch the sun rise. The salt lake is the largest in Tunisia and boy was it a sight to see as we drove up to our stopping point. Its actually dry during the warmer seasons and though you imagine seeing this lake in front of you it is more like you are surrounded by it. The lake has a surface area of 5,000 km² – so pretty huge. Though there are roads/paths to make your way through it mirages have often lead people astray. Watching the sun rise was definitely worth the very early wake-up call.

Leaving the salt lake we drove to our next transport vehicle – a 4×4. I was expecting an exciting 4×4 drive through the dessert reminiscent of the one I’ve done in Dubai and though it was exciting the drive was very short. About 5 minutes! It was a nice day in the dessert though. Ha ha! We were using the vehicles to drive to our next sight-seeing point: Chebika an oasis in the mountains and close to the Algerian border. Some of the more entertaining parts of this drive was seeing camels cross in front of us and also the road signs which warned of camels crossing!

At Chebika it is a decent 45-minute walk up and around the village. Lots of stall selling their wares so it was a strange mix of a tourist trap and genuine Tunisian article. It was actually really pretty and some bits almost looked like you were on the moon or something!

Finally we stopped in at Kairouan mainly to visit the Great Mosque of Sidi-Uqba. It was pretty though because we were not Muslim the closest we could get was to climb to the roof of a store facing opposite and take photos from across the street. Pauline and I were a bit like – why are stopping here for so long!

In all fairness after such an early start to the day most of Day 2 was about traveling all the way back to our hotel in Hammamet.

Our tour was not without incident. The worst incident was when we left this “Russian” guy (true nationality undetermined – just enough to know he didn’t speak great English) on the road after a pit stop. It was an unofficial pit stop because some of the kids on the tour needed to go to potty. What our tour guide didn’t realise was that the “Russian” got off as well and no one who saw him get off said anything until after about 20 minutes after we’d driven off and our tour guide failed to do a body count before we took off. It ended up being a 60 minute detour to turn around and find him! The other incident related to Faiz’s camera battery – he and Narimend had left it at one shop to charge before we went up to Chebika thinking we’d be back to the shop only we actually came down the other side of the mountain! By the miracle of the tour groups working together however they got it back – 50 kms away!

The funniest moment of the tour was when Pauline and I told some of the people we became friends with that we were doing the Tunis Tour, Ian and Basel were co-incidentally already on it and Faiz, Narimend, Jean-Robert and Corinne decided to join us! AND our tour guide was also going to be the same, Borhensa! as we were to find out! Borhensa, like all Tunisian men, was extremely flirtatious even though he was married and had kids. He was a harmless enough guy and funny though sometimes we felt a little creeped out by his flirtations.

Tunis Tour

The Tunis Tour was a simple day tour that took us to a few of the nearby places which included the ruins of Carthage, the National Bardo Museum (a museum in Tunis with a collection of Roman mosaics and other antiquities – great mosaics but otherwise a little boring), the Tunis Medina and, the highlight of the tour, the beautiful village of Sidi Bou Said with its pristine white buildings and brightly coloured blue doors, windows and shades.

Carthage

Sidi Bou Said

Tunis Medina

Food during our tours, by the way, were nothing to write home about. At least it wasn’t disgusting.

The Rest

When in Hammamet, apart from time at the beach and walking around Yasmine Hammamet, we also spent a bit of time in our hotel’s spa. The spa lady, who’d been chasing us since day 1, finally convinced us to buy into one of their packages. It was the Biya Wellness “Welcome-Zen” which for 170 DT got you a Hamman (Turkish Bath), a salt sea gommage, a royal wrap with blue algae, a hydromassage bathand a Cocoon massage. You could do all your treatments in one day or like us spread it out over two days.

During our Turkish bath we met some English guys (older men who were about 40+ named) who were entertained as we were by the whole spa experience. Sitting in the Turkish bath wondering what would happen next was an almost bonding experience (in fact we later had dinner with them and their friends and even came back to the hotel for drinks.) Soon enough Pauline and I were called for our salt sea gommage. This turned out to be one of the most vigorous scrubs I’ve ever had delivered by this middle-aged woman – she scrubbed so hard and nearly all over all areas of my body that I thought I’d lost my entire layer of skin. She even did my boobies and my face! Interesting. There was also a lot of bum slapping. Hmmm. I was expecting the wrap to go on next. Consider individually the wrap should have been 70 DT what she ended up putting on me (a big mud mask) was not exactly what I was thinking. I walked out to call Pauline who screamed like she was on a roller coaster when she saw me. She reckons I looked like The Creature From The Black Lagoon. It was so funny.

While Pauline had her turn at the gommage and the “wrap” I went back to the Turkish bath to wait. Before I knew it Pauline was shouting my name so I went back to the room. Apparently it was my turn to get hosed off but then after which I would be hosing Pauline off. Yep – there’s no modesty in Tunisia. After we were finally rinsed off it was kisses and high fives to the lady who scrubbed us and then a wait with mint tea it was time for our hydrobath which actually was pretty special. Imagine a jacuzzi ten-fold. It was divinely relaxing.

The next morning we had our cocoon massage. This was the first massage I’ve ever had which is on the floor and involved my masseuse (a girl) sitting on me and stretching me into random yoga positions. It was good massage if not as erotic as how it was described by one of the guys who had it before us.

Last Words

Unexpectedly a week in Tunisia was just not enough for me. I was very sad to see the end of our holiday.

Fame

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Sometimes on a Friday night you have to chill out and catch a flick at the cinema. With all of us being girls it was inevitable that something slightly chick-oriented was going to get chosen. Irrespective, Fame actually seemed to be the only decent choice on offer tonight anyway.

There’s something about dance movies that I just absolutely love: Save the Last Dance, Save the Last Dance 2, Step Up, Step Up 2 the Streets, Shall We Dance, Honey, How She Move, Rize, Bring It On, Stomp the Yard … you name it I’ve probably seen it! I think its these kids being able to do something that I will never be able to do no matter how much I practise (not that I do!) The music is generally pretty sh!t hot too.

In fairness Fame is not a movie you necessarily need to see on the big screen. Nevertheless I found myself smiling almost all the way through. This remake is not going to win any awards for originality or for any ground-breaking. In fact I don’t know why they felt a remake was required at all. Perhaps to be able to use the talent that is coming out of shows like So You Think You Can Dance or other such talent shows.

I don’t think the movie really spent enough time developing and finishing off the characters. We jump around following the students at the New York performing arts academy without really getting an understanding of who they are, why we should like them and even how they all tie in together. Maybe the simple fact is they don’t. I mean I love the dancer/actress Kherington Payne as I know her from one of the seasons of So You Think You can Dance but I absolutely hated her character in Fame. You never really got to know anyone and other than the usual teenage angst there was no real hard hitting storyline to form the base of the movie.

Not a great movie this one.

Still, for all its flaws and rubbish storyline and editing I did spend most of the movie with a smile on my face if only to appreciate the talent of the cast, and also enjoying my popping candy lollipop that I picked up before coming into the movie …

Ice Cream Boutique

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Convinced by the hype I got Rita and Rache to come with me to the Ice Cream Boutique, run by The Icecreamists, which has opened up in Selfridges’ Ultralounge for a limited time. No one knows who exactly The Icecreamists are however they specialise in staging dramatic high-profile events. Whatever their political agenda we were only interested in their ice cream. Ha ha! We girls decided to mix things up a bit and start with ice cream (dessert) before heading onwards to our dinner (main course.)

However what we didn’t realise was just how rich and filling the ice cream would be.

Don’t be astonished by the prices on the Icecreamist menu because if there is one thing I want to say upfront is that the icecream was very very good quality. I do think they were still over-priced but I guess you were also paying an additional premium for the “drama” and the “entertainment” and the “atmosphere” that accompanies the ice-cream.

It’s a pretty cool joint. If you enter off the side street you are greeted by hot pink curtains black painted walls and a staircase that opens to reveal this:

Pretty different from an ordinary ice-cream parlour huh. Complete even with beach chairs:

So, what can you get? Well, some of the offerings on the menu were almost a little too cool for me and not entirely appropriate, methinks, for an early Tuesday evening. This included the “S*x Pistol” which involves “A classic Fior di Latte or Milk Ice Cream blended with Ginkgo Biloba, Arginine and Guarana for blood flow and energy. Scented with a gentle infusion of citrus zest. Topped with a shot of La Fee Absinthe. .” Not surprisingly I believe they have a limit of one customer on this offering. It also comes complete with a hot nurse and IV stand. You’ll also pa dearly for it – £19.99 a pop!

We three girls were salivating over the items on the menu. The prices were a little heart stopping but we thought since we were there we might as well treat it a like a “dinner” instead of a “dessert” and splash out a bit. Rache decided to split her order into two items: a Frozen Hot Chocolate (a few scoops of chocolate ice cream served with a thick chocolate sauce on the side) and a serving of ice cream: £7.99 and £4.99.

Rache’s Rita’s Mine

Rita arguably went for the most decadent offering out of our three choices. She opted for a “The Chocoholic” (priced at £16.99.) Although the description rabbits on about “one night stands”, “marriage proposals”, “x-rated” in essence it was hot thick Belgian chocolate poured over about five generous scoops of dark chocolate ice-cream. Its now wonder Rita appeared to enter an ice-cream/sugar coma soon after consuming her dish. It was cutely served in a silver top hat which was oh so tempting to sneak into my bag …

Finally I was feeling a bit greedy and wanting to taste several of the ice-creams so I went for the Queen Size Sub Zero Banqueting Menu – £14.99. Most normal diners probably share this between two …

Flavour-wise we found the following on the menu: Vanilla Ice Baby, Obamarama (Chocolate ice cream), Obamarama at the White House (Swiss White Chocolate ice cream), Choland Yard, Nuts about Chocland Yard, Nevermind the Hazelnut, Taking the Pistacchio, Espresso Yourself, Carameltdown, Living in Cinnamon, The Custardy Suite, The Molotofee Cocktail, Glastonberry, Lemony of the State and the ice creams I ended up choosing: Vogue (Licorice), Gingiana Jones, Axl Rose-Water and Born & Bread (English Brown Bread Ice Cream.)

I tell ya – someone sure had fun naming things on the menu.

By the time we were done with our ice-cream we were seriously done in and also seriously on sugar overloads. I was craving something savoury something chronic but at the same time the thought of eating anymore nearly made my physically sick. It was too much! LOL. Even Rita, our ultimate dessert queen, was dying from finishing off her dish.

In all honesty though the ice cream was good I felt that it was seriously over-priced. I think to some extent this was reflected in the number of customers when we first when it – which was not very many at all. In addition I felt that service was kind of a bit half-hearted. One manager was really funny and really friendly but the rest of them were awful. We walked into the place and not really knowing what to do there was no one to either direct us to the counter to put our orders in or direct us to a table for table-service. There was a girl standing around with a clip-board looking all maitre d’ like but she didn’t seem interested in helping us at all. It was very confusing. Even having one of the waitresses get up and sing (pretty decently mind you) didn’t really make up for it.

At least we had some good ice cream.

Boris!

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No not Boris Mayor of London although I have also run into him before but Boris from my university course over ten years ago. In another episode of It’s A Small World I was minding my business waiting for the Jubilee line so I could get into Selfridges to meet Rita and Rache for some ice cream but who should come striding toward me but a ghost from the past – Boris I asked him? Is that you?!

London is really shrinking. I can’t believe how many times I’ve run into people I known in totally random places. I mean – I hardly every catch the jubilee line at this time of day and to see a guy I haven’t seen in over ten years.

Blows my mind.

Tour of Big Ben and The Great Westminster Clock

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Practically everyone in the world knows Big Ben but hardly anyone realises that as a UK resident you can arrange a free guided tour through your local MP. Just to clarify your understanding the tower, which most people refer to as Big Ben, is actually the Great Westminster Clock Tower and Big Ben is the affectionate name for one of the bells housed within the Clock Tower – officially it is the Great Bell.

The guided tours up Big Ben are given four times a day, five days a week and with only a small number of people taken up on the tour (16 according to the website) you can imagine that places on the tour is extremely difficult to come by and you often need to book at least a few months in advance. Tours take about 75 minutes including the 15 minutes you need to get there before the start of the tour. No photography allowed unfortunately.

In 2009 the bookings were also expected to be even more tough as the Clock Tower was celebrating a double-150 anniversary with both Big Ben (remember – the bell) and the Clock Face turning 150 years old with the clock being about six weeks older than Big Ben.

The start of the tour is at Portcullis House just across the road from the Clock Tower. Entry into Portcullis House involves putting bags and body through a scanner, having your picture taken and a guest pass issued. The guide then takes you under the street across to the bottom of the Clock Tower.

For my tour a big group had apparently cancelled so it was me, three others and a bunch of the apprentices or interns, I would say, who work at the Houses of Parliament. I think the apprentices/interns would also be the ones who, if not give, help with the Houses of Parliament tours.

It is a total of 334 steps to the belfry (which is the peak of your destination – though it is another 59 to the Aryton Light, which is the light located at the top of the Clock Tower which signals when Parliament is sitting.) If this seems like a long climb it isn’t actually too difficult as the guide has plenty of long stops along the way (about four stops on the way up) at reasonable points of the tour. There is also, rather entertainingly, a defribulator on the seventh floor, should the need for one arise.

Your first stop is after about a hundred steps. At this stop you sit in a room with photos and a story board and the guide tells you part of the history of Big Ben and how it came to be developed. This talk lasts for about ten minutes.

The second stop comes about another 80 or so steps after the first where you are given more history.

The third stop is where it gets a bit more interesting. This stop takes you behind the four clock faces and you can walk right around behind all four. You can walk behind all four. The clock faces are lit by loads of bulbs. Each face requires 28 bulbs of giant (energy efficient) lightbulbs costing £150 pounds each but apparently lasting ten years or 60,000 hours. Before the modern era, of course, they used to be lit by gas light.

Some interesting facts: Each hour hand is 2.7m long and weighs 300kg, the minute hands are 4.2m long and weigh 100kg. and finally the hands travel over 190 km a year. The clock hands and clock face I guess are kept pigeon poo free by Hawks!

The final stop is the belfry where the bells are and Big Ben live. Big Ben is supported by four chime bells. The guide makes sure that you are up in time to hear the bells all go off (which will be 10, 12 or 3 o’clock bells depending on when you do the tour) but, considerately, you are given ear plugs for the loudness of the noise.

The walk down is also not without interest. You get to enter the room where they keep the mechanics of the clock. It’s a very hugely complicated looking contraption but the simplest of methods (weights via old pennies) is used to both speed and slow the clock if its getting too far ahead or falling behind. The clock is actually required to be wound every eight days and the bells (whose weights fall to the ground as they chime) have to be wound back up every two days.

The one rule that the clock must comply with is that it cannot lose more than one second every 24 hours. Given that this technology was developed 150 years ago you have to admire the fact it can keep time so well after so long. Most modern watches seem to speed up or slow down at will!

If you live in London its certainly worth getting yourself on to this tour.

Brunch at Spitafields Market and then a bit of Basketball

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I never know with my Sundays whether to fill it completely so that I will forget that Monday is just around the corner or whether to take the slow and easy approach. Today I thought I would kind of go in between starting with brunch with Rita at Spitafields Market. Yes we did end up at a chain restaurant – Giraffe – but I simply can’t resist their English Breakfast. Mmmm … soo very good. I think it’s the potato wedges which have me.

After brunch we took a slow stroll through the market with Rita buying some incredibly cute baby clothes and then we wandered into some sort of posh tea store where I saw these:

Yes – that’s right £17 for a paper cup holder. Yes a true bargain. They are hand-made and everything!

And then a sight that fills me with pleasure – a before and after shot of the roasting pig carcass!

To work off our brunch (though to be honest we’d walked quite a bit around the markets) we headed to Rita’s for a game of tennis and then when we didn’t burn enough energy doing that I decided to see if I could borrow one of the boy’s basketballs, since they weren’t using it, so that we could throw some hoops. I wasn’t even planning on doing any sort of running – my kind of basketball these days consists of playing those arcade games where you sink hoop after hoop of balls! – however the boys had other plans and challenged us to a game of pick-up instead! I was actually flattered they thought we could actually give them a work out of sorts. But we did!

Turns out one of the boys was only just learning to play. I can report, no boast, that we kicked butt! Personally I think they were just a bit too polite to hussle us physically but we had no problems trying to intimidate them ourselves and that meant steal after steal and free rides to the basket. It was quite a work out!