Flowers galore in London

For the past two weekends we have just been hanging out around London, taking it easy (not really). On Saturday, February 21, 2009, we went to the National History Museum to take in the Wildlife Photography Exhibit and some of the rest of the museum. The photographs were amazing, especially those of the underwater wildlife. One of my favorite pictures was of 2 fish under water, a larger fish and a smaller fish in it's mouth. The truth to the story is that these large fish line up in front of the smaller fish, who then cleans the inside of their mouth. So, the big fish is not eating the smaller fish, but allowing the smaller fish to eat. Too funny.

There were lots of other pictures of birds, fish, leopards, mushrooms, and more, it was all very amazing. We then walked around the museum a bit, but got tired of all of the kids running around so we headed out to meet up with Lisa, Lilli, and Dean for lunch. We enjoyed a loooooong lunch at the Latin Corner, but were definitely ready to head out of there. After hanging out a bit Greg and I headed off towards Oxford Circus for some shoe and book shopping.

On Sunday, February 22, 2009, we decided to spend the day at Kew Gardens. We had heard a lot about Kew and knew they were having an orchid festival and we really wanted to go. We didn't know how massive Kew Gardens was, and spent all day there, when we thought we would just be there for 2 or so hours. We walked around all of the temperate houses, orchid displays, and many other buildings. We had lunch at one of the cafes and even walked up to the top of the trees to take a peek around. We headed towards the pagoda and stopped in for a spot of tea and souvenir before leaving the gardens a little before 6 pm. We were flat exhausted after all of that walking.

peek a boo


flowers at Kew

This one made us think "feed me Seymour"


Tami next to some pink flowers (of course)


Kew also had birds


Greg made a friend


We loved the Chinese Pagoda also

The following weekend proved to be just as eventful. On Friday we went to Diana & George's new place for some cocktails. I'd had a headache all day so we didn't stay too long but had a good time hanging out with them and their friends. On Saturday it was errand day, I got my hair done and Greg picked out new glasses (since his old ones are beyond broke) and did a bit of shopping at the mall.

Sunday, March 1, 2009, was market day for us. We have a list of things we want to do before heading back to the states and we try to mark a couple off each weekend. We started out earlier, 8:30 am, and went to the Columbia Road Flower Market where we took in all of the amazing flowers and plants. It is mainly for people who are planting in the gardens, but had a massive selection of fresh cut flowers as well. I walked out with bright blue roses, tulips for Lisa, and an amazing tropical flower mixture. There were also some small bakeries at the Flower Market where we bought some bread and cheeses.

the end of the flower market


the flowers Tami got


fairly scary car we saw down at the market

Our next stop took us to Petticoat Market, this one was not really our scene. Petticoat started out as a lace market but is now mainly cheap clothes and linens, we just breezed through before getting to Spitafields Market. This market was much nicer, we didn't buy anything but really enjoyed looking around. We stopped in at Market Coffee House for a bite to eat and some warm drinks. We then walked over to Brick Lane. It was packed. The market there was more like a very low end flea market, again we did not buy anything. Once you got through the flea markety area you get to the area that we were headed to. There are a couple of bagel shops there which we have always heard good things about. Here they are beigels and they were only 20 cents each, what a deal. We picked up half a dozen from the Beigel Bake and were on our way, they were delicious.

bagels!

Afterwards we headed to Camden to meet Lisa for a coffee and then headed back home. We are trying to take every minute here and do something wonderful and memorable.

In a couple of days we are off to Athens, Greece, stay tuned for that.