Days 13 and 14

I realized before nodding off to sleep last night that I hadn't blogged for two days...shame on me...I'm so fired!

Anyways, after a very lazy Sunday recovering from the 'Our House' event the night before, I had a slow time getting up on Monday.  Mondays are also a day off for me so Dave, my host for the week, took me for some errands and a drive around North London.  All I can say, is that North London is beautiful.  There are a lot more parks in this area since it's not so densely packed like is as you get closer to Central London.  It's very easy to see how at one time all of the boroughs and neighborhoods were once small villages that came together as the population grew to what is now London.

Dave lives in Muswell Hill which is close to Crouch End (very popular in the 70s with musicians like Haight St. was in San Francisco) and Highgate.  Muswell Hill and Crouch End are very nice neighborhoods which lead into the High Gate area which becomes very posh.  We're talking where houses go for upwards of 10m pounds.  Sting and other musicians of his popularity live in this area.  The big houses were insane.  I believe one of the houses that we saw was on of the Princes of Saudi Arabia.  The statues outside were gold plated.  It was like driving around in Beverly Hills.

We had two main stops in the Highgate area on Monday...Kenwood House and the Spaniards Inn.  The Kenwood House was set upon a beautiful estate grounds which have since become public gardens and such.  It's similar to Golden Gate Park in a way.  The views from the house and surrounding grounds are amazing.  I seriously felt like I had been taken back into the Victorian era.  I've got some great pics up on FaceBook if you'd like to see the pics I took from there.

After walking around the Kenwood House grounds for a little bit, we headed over to the Spaniards Inn for lunch.  The Inn dates back to 1585 and is famous for its ghosts as well as Dickens and Bram Stoker mentioning the place in their novels (I can't remember which Dickens novel but "Dracula" for Stoker).  I had a ceasar salad that was just okay.  I'm very picky about my ceasars and this was not one of the better ones.  Problem was...I wanted a salad and this was the only one on the menu.

For dinner, Dave and I met his girlfriend Jill for dinner at one of the best fish and chips places in town...Toff's in Muswell Hill.  I decided to try the haddock and I was not disappointed.  My goodness I don't know that I want to have fish and chips again while I'm here for fear that it won't even come close to being that good.  Toff's had spotted dick on it's menu and I wanted to try some so badly but didn't realize it was a hot dish.  There was no way I could eat it at the restaurant and Dave said it probably wouldn't be as good to take away.  So we stopped at the local mart and got some custard, biscuits and bread and butter pudding to make our own desert.  Warm custard over crumbled shortbread biscuits with fresh raspberries was mighty tastey.

Yesterday, Tuesday...I was on the move again and back down to Hackney.  But before moving locations, I got up and had a wonderful four mile walk.  I left Dave's house and walked up to Alexander Palace Park.  What a beautiful place in such a short distance.  The view of London is spectacular as is the park itself.  The Palace is not a real palace but kind of like an events center.  It's where the BBC has its first transmission tower and some of their offices.  There's a history behind the location that I'll have to further look up.  For my move back to Hackney though...I'm staying with Rod and Vivi (Eden's folks) in a communal house.  There are six rooms and a lounge to this flat.  I find it quite interesting how common communal houses are here.  What a fabulous idea.  I mean I don't really know if we have many in the U.S., let alone S.F. but I love them.  The rooms come furnished and you pay 10 pounds into groceries for each week.  The room I'm staying in has its own shower and sink.  But not all rooms have this, so there is also the shared shower and tow toilets.  Every night at 7:30 p.m. they have communal tea and on Sundays communal prayer.  I'm definitely going to look into getting a temporary assignment abroad and live in a place like this.

I knew I was going to love it out here.  LOL.  Only problem is that there are so many jobs in the International Development field that they are not paid very well here.  I would do much better pay wise in the States.  I mean I know that I am not in a field where I'm going to make a lot of money...and that's not why I'm getting this degree.  But I at least need to be able to cover expenses and having my own place is a nice thing.

So there it is...days 13 and 14.