Borough Farmer's Market, Tower Bridge, and the Ice Bar

I'm back again, and ready to fill you all in on the rest of the exciting weekend that I had.  We started off in Borough Farmer's Market, which might be one of my absolute favorite places as far as food is concerned!  It is "London's oldest fruit and veg market," dating back before 1755.  There is freshly baked bread of all shapes and sizes, every type of cheese in Europe, traditional English meat pies, olive oil galore, home-grown fruit, and much more!  I completely filled my stomach just on samples.  How can I ever go back to my college student diet of instant mashed potatoes and frozen chicken?  It would be easy to spend a fortune on groceries there.  The crowd seemed to be a mix of taste-testing tourists and local culinary geniuses, both searching out the freshest ingredients and the most authentic tastes.

A bread stand (the focaccia was delicious!) 

The unique architecture that houses the vendors

Pieminister, a seller of traditional English meat pies

Colby, Lesli, Abby, Kaley, and Jackie enjoying their pies and paella

Since I literally have the world's cuisine at my fingertips in a place like London, I have vowed to be adventurous in trying foods from all over the world.  The French and Welsh cheeses have been some of my favorite, but I also enjoyed my first ever Lebanese dish (we don't have a lot of Lebanese in Boerne or College Station...).  It was called fatteh kibbeh, which is minced lamb fried in breadcrumbs and served with grilled onions over a yogurt sauce.  Definitely more exotic than anything I'd ever tried, but it was surprisingly delicious!

Fatteh kibbeh, a Lebanese dish

Next we began to wonder over towards Tower Bridge (not London Bridge, as many mistakenly assume).  It is the most ornate bridge in London, but we could find little explanation as to why it is so elaborate...in 1876, the City of London simply decided that a new bridge was needed to support the growing population in the eastern part of the city.  Over 50 designs were submitted, and this one was chosen.  That's all there is to it.  An essential part of the design is the ability of the lower stretch of the bridge to split in half and raise up either side, allowing river traffic to go on undisrupted.  As you can see, parts of the bridge are painted a bright red, white, and blue.  This was done in 1977 in honor of the Queen's Silver Jubilee (the 25th anniversary of her ascension to the throne).

Our group in front of Tower Bridge

A view from the bridge itself

Being the business nerds that me and Abby are...we were excited when we stumbled upon the PwC headquarters at 1 Embankment Place in London.  For those of you who don't know, PwC stands for PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world's largest multinational professional service firm, and the largest of the "Big Four" accounting firms.  Basically, it's almost every corporate accounting graduate's dream.  That being said, I would like to congratulate Abby Ritchey, one of the girls in our group of Aggies, on securing an internship with PwC's San Francisco office next spring!  So proud of you, Abby!

PricewaterhouseCoopers headquarters

On Sunday night, we were finally able to book a spot at an attraction we'd all been anxious to check out...the Below Zero ice bar on Regent Street!  The entire room - the walls, bar, seating, decor, and even the glasses themselves are made of ice.  The room is maintained at a temperature of 23 degrees Fahrenheit, so there is a 40 minute time limit and insulated cloaks and gloves are provided for the experience.

The insulated cloaks were definitely a necessity

Even our glasses were made of ice!

One of the beautiful ice columns that adorned the middle of the room

It was a fun and adventurous weekend full of incredible sights, tastes, and temperatures.  Coming up in my next post...I was invited to attend a conference organized by BritishAmerican Business on innovation in technology and talent, hosted by the Bloomberg office in London!  Also, my dear friend Mandi Mills (Malibu Club Summer Staff 2012) flies in tonight to stay with me for a few nights!  Two of the "summer slackers" are reunited again :) Have a lovely night sweet friends!

Much love,
Hayley