Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Proper Steeping Techniques and Other Helpful Tidbits

Morning: bus tour of London including ...well, nearly everything. Rather chilly but sunny walk through St. James Park and onto Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard then a picnic lunch. Simply delightful.

Afternoon: Harrod's of Knightsbridge and surrounding shops, Covent Garden, Jubilee Market, more shops. Tea tasting at the Tea Palace (smooth caramel black tea was the favorite). Beautiful weather!

Evening: Dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe --evidently this is the FIRST Hard Rock Cafe so it's important...unfortunately that doesn't make it much different in ambiance from the one we have at the MOA, but the food was pretty good and it was easy to find. Both good things. One of our students requested some tea with dinner. This surprised the waitress only until another student requested only hot water. He was shortly afterwards complimented on his ingenuity of bringing his own tea. The discussed the proper way to steep a bag of tea (we think not by roughly dunking it up and down in the cup) and what the locals refer to as "the s-word": soccer. We were instructed never to use it in their presence because it it FOOTBALL. Right, very good, will do.

Some of us chose to spend the remaining daylight hours walking around to see what we could see. This included the Marble Arch (which we discovered was the original entrance to Buckingham Palace) Notting Hill Gate, and Kensington Gardens. Nice additions to a full day of touring, I must say!

Tomorrow morning: Tower of London

1 comment:

  1. If, after you've enjoyed most of the first cup of tea, you'd like a bit more hot water, then try asking the waitress to "drown the mouse." This past year, a friend and I went to Brit's Pub for post-symphony dessert, and heard tell of British ex-pats requesting this of the waitresses there. Whether its a randomly or commonly used phrase, I know not. But, by golly, it's fun to say! :-)

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