1. fire in our backyard!
2. shopping for a tea set at the vintage market 3. flowers 4. black velvet with local cider and Guiness 5. homemade granola with fresh figs 6. scones+jam+clotted cream 7. my weekly treat; buy different type of flowers every week... Cabbage flowers... why not? 8.colourful houses of Wivenhoe 9. fall in Cambridge
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Castle-like colleges, vintage bikes and perfect fluo-green grass... welcome to Cambridge!10/31/2014 Go and check out my Cambridge Pinterest board for the must-see and dos of this beautiful city! We went to visit some friends in Cambridge last weekend and I can seriously say that I could live there. It is 50 minutes from London, 30 minutes with a direct train to Stanstead airport and it has that proper british WOW factor! It is definitely a photogenic city and I will definitely have to go back on a bright sunny day (yes, these does exists in the UK) to capture more of this beautiful town. So the first thing you realize when you come out of the station is that even if you you knew that Cambridge is a bike-friendly city, you now know what they mean by that! Everybody owns a vintage bike here and the challenge is not to find a parking spot, but a biking spot! I was quite happy to check something off my UK to-do list (I will share it with you all very soon... still a work in progress). Punting in Cambrige!!!!! A punt is a flat-bottomed boat used in small rivers, not to confuse with a gondola of course! The art of punting can be quite tricky and you definitely don't want to take a plunge in the River Cam! Etienne and I mastered it like pros! After all this hard work :) , we went to eat in a proper english pub. The legendary pub where Crick and Watson came up with their proposal for the structure of DNA It was so cosy and warm! After a great Sunday roast, we headed to Kings college chapel. King's College Chapel was started in 1446 by Henry VI and took over a century to build. It has the largest fan vault in the world and some of the finest medieval stained glass. I have to say that the mix of dramatic gothic architecture and the never ending green field was kind of amazing! We ended the day by wandering around the beautiful streets of Cambridge filled with students (aren't they suppose to be studying all the time?) There are some cute shops and a market in the middle of the town. Thank you Neeltje and Jeremy for being such great hosts and VIP tour guides ;).
First experience in the famous London tube! Gens de Montréal, vous pensez que vous êtes squeeze à l'heure de pointe dans le métro? When coming out of the tube, the beautiful light pastel row town houses were waiting for us... I felt like Hugh Grant could come out of one of these any time! Fall in Notting Hill... The famous Portobello road!!! Portobello market is great because you can find everything from jewellery, fruits and vegetables, vintage clothes, street performers, drinks out of coco and pineapple, flowers... but it is mostly known for its (overpriced) antiques. Here's a glimpse of some of the things we found... The little shops and restaurants... So many things to see on Portobello road, but oh so crowded! We decided to head for some quieter streets to find the most gorgeous row of rainbow coloured houses on Lancaster road. Big iconic roads are great, but I love going off the beaten tracks and find some hidden treasures. We stumbled into a beautiful mews! Mews is a british term for a paved alley behind large city houses and most of them were built during the 17th and 18th centuries. They used to be carriage houses and horse stables. We found a great one just around the corner. It is called St Lukes Mews. My weird addiction for door photography again... A little tea break on Regent street before my Apple store appointment and heading to the bar to meet some new friends! Notting Hill was great! We will definitely be back since we didn't get to do half of the things we wanted. We are off to Cambridge this weekend to go punting on the canal that goes along the King's college! rien de moins... I will keep you posted!
After re-watching the movie Notting Hill last week, I had to go see the victorian colourful townhouses for myself. We strolled around crowded Portobello market and peeked into the 1.5 million pounds apartments.
Blog post to come this week... So one of our favorite things to do in Essex is to hop on our bike and go where the wind takes us! Since the area where we live is still new to us, we are always guaranteed to live fun adventures... or get lost... It will probably get old one day, so we are enjoying every little bits of it while it lasts! Our initial plan was to go fruit picking and labour all afternoon to make a big Canadian Thanksgiving feast, but that didn't happened... We got lost in the tiniest roads with the cutest little english houses. At one point, we stumbled into a sign on which "vineyard" was written with a little arrow pointing to the left. We couldn't think of any better idea to spend the Sunday afternoon than to take a bike break in the middle of nowhere and drink english wine! The woman who did the wine tasting was in love with Quebec and she goes every year to visit her aunt. We made the craziest connections. I feel that travelling makes you realize a lot more how the world can be such a small place! Bonne action de grâce à tous! J'espère que vous avez eu un beau long congé rempli de soleil et de belles couleurs d'automne! On a pas ça nous ici :( Here is the link for the vineyard! http://www.dedhamvalevineyard.com Yey our first afternoon tea!!! After 2 months in England, it was about time!
We found the cutest tea room in a little back alley of Colchester. It was a crisp autumn day (17 degrees) and the 4 o'cklock sun was perfectly align with our table. It was heavenly! (you shall read that past sentence with the english accent...) We each took the cream tea! A little bit of education for those who don't know what it is... A cream tea (also known as a Devonshire tea, Devon cream tea or Cornish cream tea) is a form of afternoon tea light meal, consisting of tea taken with a combination of scones (pronounced scâââns), clotted cream and jam. Since afternoon tea is a pretty big tradition here, Etienne and I thought we would educate ourselves on the subject. Thought I would share a couple of the do's and dont's for those who are thinking of paying us a visit in tea land... You shall never wear sportswear or trainers (sneakers) when going for an afternoon tea. Other than that, it is pretty casual. It is a very good excuse for women to dress up! The special way to stir your tea should be to place your spoon in a 6 o'clock position in the cup and fold the tea towards the 12 o'clock position whilst making sure not to 'clink' the spoon against the sides of the cup. You must also remember not to leave the spoon in the cup, instead placing it on the saucer to the side of the cup. You shall leave the tea three to six minutes of brewing time and no longer, to avoid damaging the flavour of the tea. Pinkies Up is a big NO NO. It is pointless and silly! You can break small pieces off your scone and top each section with the desired amount of butter, cream or jam eating them individually to avoid any social mishaps. You could also choose to slice the scone in half and top each section with the desired preserves and cream. For more information visit... http://www.afternoontea.co.uk/blog/the-afternoonteacouk-team/afternoon-tea-etiquette-top-10-do's-don'ts/ Just thought I would share a little bit of sunshine with you on this Saturday morning! I am really enjoying taking pictures of all the beautiful flowers around our neighbourhood as you can see! Enjoy! xx
Another amazing thing about Colchester is that there are 3 beach towns within a 30 minutes drive. Of course, if you know us well enough, you know that we visited the 3 of them in the first month after of our arrival. Yesterday, we spend the day in Clacton-on-sea. We thought fall was coming, but it looks like the summer lasts longer here... Some people were even swimming in the ocean. Clacton can be very touristy and tacky but the ocean boardwalk, the sea breeze and the powder white sand made us forget about all of that! Plus, we got to use our first month free Tastecard and got a 2-4-1 feast on a beautiful terrace with sea view! Etienne and I went on a complete day dream and started a business plan for opening our future B and B in Clacton. Who's in to help us found our project? :) |
About meHello!
I am a 30 year old woman full of life and addicted to any new experiences life can bring. I moved to the UK in 2014 with my husband for his work and I will try my best to describe my journey in my new home as an expat!
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