Another weekend gone...

It's been too long since my last blog. And there have been too many things that have happened since...like:
1. Halloween: not the same as the US. The majority of trick or treaters I heard here in Chelsea were, you guessed it: Americans.
2. Guy Fawkes Day (Bonfire Night: Remember, remember the 5th of November)
3. Julia and Kerem's visit to London: too much fun and pints consumed. I miss them :(
4. My first ever football game (Chelsea versus Leicester City)
5. Israel (warm, beaches, great food) trip with a stop over in Budapest (cold, gray, still great food)
6. Phone lost, phone returned, phone broken, anger, anger, and a brand new Blackberry (yes!)

This past weekend, we had friends visiting from the States and, like always, we managed to squeeze something into every minute of every day we had.

On Friday, we headed to Borscht and Tears for another debaucherous dinner avec lots of vodka. I won't actually tell you how many bottles of vodka were consumed, but it worked out almost to be a 1:1 ration. How can anything be so good and so bad at the same time? All in all, it was a short night and ended with many blurry eyed goodbyes into the cold London night.

Saturday morning we decided to make the most of our day despite waking up entirely too late. We poked around and met up with our friends at Gaucho Grill, an Argentinian steakhouse, where the noir decoration made it easy for my recovering eyes to handle light. My favorite thing about the restaurant was the fact that most of the walls were covered in pony hair (synthetic, I'd like to think) and they present you with an entire tray of raw steaks to show you the different cuts and sizes. Service like that just doesn't come around too often.

We then poked around to the National Gallery where a friend and I efficiently used the last opening hour to walk through the exhibit about the Renaissance Art of Siena. The exhibit was manageable and came complete with mini-catalogues (sans pictures) that more museums should use to attract the non-museum goer. It was informative and I appreciated the subject because it is not given a lot of attention.

Off to Jin for Korean bbq--yum! I tried their spicy seafood soup with ramen and, of course, it was a great success. The broth was spicy and the seafood plentiful. Just what the doctor ordered.

Finally on Sunday I spent a lazy day meandering New Bond Street (shopaholics beware) and window shopping the likes of Prada, Jimmy Choo, and Valentino. I finally landed at Nails Inc. to receive a much needed pedicure. And, as if luck was on my side, I plopped down in the pedicure chair right in front of the flat screen t.v. playing the 6th season of Sex and the City where Carrie goes with the Russian to Paris. It was bittersweet because it brought back my own fond memories of NY moments that just cannot be had anywhere else.

Last, but not least, we had a big dinner at a cheap Chinese/Japanese resto called "The Tortoise and the Hare" in the backwaters of Bloomsbury with some other friends. I had the Japanese Udon and it was a welcome respite from the cold dark night outside.