Better late than never...

Hello! We're still getting the hang of this blogging thing (as I'm sure you can tell) so sorry for the lack of posts. My goal is to try to post once a week, we'll see how that goes. So let's see, what's been going on...

|* My Bloody Valentine *|

The band sounded great, and the Roundhouse is a cool venue as well. They were LOUD (if you're going to see them grab some ear plugs) and had some psychedelic visuals as well, projected on a screen behind the band while they played. Many people have posted reviews of the opening run of shows (their first since the early 90s) and have done a much better job than I could so I'll link to a few for your perusal:

http://tinyurl.com/5swwpc
http://tinyurl.com/6n5pa7
http://tinyurl.com/635k4x

It's difficult to describe the finale, "You Made Me Realise" (which is called "the holocaust section" for a reason): the song just stops and the band goes into 30 minutes of roaring white noise. The kind of noise that you can lose yourself in if you allow the waves to wash over you. It's a visceral experience, and you start to hear micro-tones within the noise after awhile (or maybe that's just the damage to your ear drums). Just fantastic....



|* Barcelona *|

Ah, Barcelona, what a lovely city. This was actually our second time there (we went a few years back in the spring), we were there for a long weekend with our friends Heather and Pierre-Henry and had a great time. The pace there is nice: languid and relaxed, no one seems to be in a hurry to get where they're going. We spent some time at the beach (massage on the beach for 10 euros: priceless) and had a lovely evening wandering from restaurant to restaurant, eating and drinking and soaking up the city. We saw the sights the last time we were there, so this trip was about relaxing and unwinding. We stayed at a hostel that was pretty centrally located if a bit basic. The one thing that annoys me about hotels here in Europe is the preponderance of separate single beds. There is nothing more annoying than pushing 2 of them together but then having to deal with the crack between the two. Argghh...
We'll post some pictures from the trip when we get our act together. :-)

|* Taste of London *|

Checked out the Tast of London in Regents Park on a lovely summer day. Very classy event, this is a big step up from the Taste of Chicago, that's for sure. Lots of great restaurants plying their fare, with booths from various makers of spirits, and just about any foodstuffs you can think of. We tried a dish with "vodka jelly" which was quite interesting and generally ate and drank quite well (good spirts + free samples + sunshine = drunk).

|* Borough Market *|

On a Saturday we hopped on our bikes and headed down to the Borough Market, one of the largest in London. Just a mind-numbing variety of meat and veg, all of it extremely fresh. I had a venison burger which was pretty tasty and we spent a few hours wandering through the market looking for inspiration for dinner (in case you're curious: pesto salmon fillet w/ a caprese salad and roasted sage potatoes was the outcome). Words can't really do the market justice, so here's a flickr search for "boroughmarket" that should give you an idea:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/boroughmarket/clusters/

There was a stall selling American micro-brews, the first I'd seen here in London. I need to go back with a cart (or a "trolley" as they call it here) and stock up!