








London Eye // mango margaritas and churros // at the Reebok Bar for BBloggersXmas // strawberry milkshake at The Diner // jellyfish tank at Chaophraya // Birmingham Christmas Market // sweeties stall // mulled apple wine // Pimm's o'clock
This time last week I got the train down south for a mini-holiday to eat lots, drink lots and spend some time with a couple of my favourite people. I had never been to London before (I KNOW, right) or Birmingham, for that matter, so I was really excited to have a little break and be able to celebrate being finished with coursework for this semester. I'm pretty much the worst blogger ever though, and only took about 10 photos during the whole trip. Oops! Obviously I was too busy stuffing my face to remember to take photos of everything around me.
On Friday evening I arrived in London and managed to navigate the tube system all by myself to go and meet up with my babestation of a host for the weekend,
Lauren. We then met up with Lauren's friend Jara and sister Megan (who has a
blog too!) and after a bit of wandering around trying to find somewhere that wasn't ridiculously busy, we ended up at
Chipotle for some burritos and a Corona or two. After dinner we headed to a bar in Soho called Garlic & Shots for a few drinks, although we ended up leaving there early as they wouldn't accept my Scottish money :( -
it's legal tender, you know!! Not to fear, as we walked over to
Chiquito in Leicester Square and had a pitcher of cocktails (or three) and some churros before getting the train home.
On Saturday afternoon Lauren and I headed to the
Reebok Bar in Canary Wharf for the
BBloggers Xmas event. It was nice to say hi to a few London-based bloggers and find out about some beauty brands I'd never heard of before. And the goody bags were insane, so much stuff! Sadly, as I was getting the plane home, I couldn't manage to take all the goodies home with me, but I tried to fit as many of the products into my bag as possible! After the event, I tasked Lauren with taking me to one of the ~popular~ restaurants I always see bloggers instagramming, and so we went to
The Diner for some amazing burgers and milkshakes. So full afterwards, but we still managed to fit in a wee cup of mulled wine as we wandered through the South Bank Christmas Market before heading home to watch Crossroads snuggled up in bed with a cup of tea (or in my case, a cup of hot chocolate as I, shocking though it is, don't like tea!).
On Sunday I hopped on yet another train and headed up to Birmingham to visit my old flatmate who is now doing a PhD there. After a late lunch at
Ed's Easy Diner in Selfridges and a wander round the shops in the Bullring, we stopped in past Tesco to get some essential supplies (Kopparberg and croissants, natch) and headed back to my hotel room for a couple of drinks and a much needed rest. Later on, we went back out for dinner at
Chaophraya. I was particularly enjoying the giant tank of jellyfish right next to our table! I had the spicy beef salad which was really nice, although I don't think it quite beats my all time favourite Thai beef salad from my all time favourite Thai restaurant,
Passorn.
After an early night watching Die Hard in bed and a lie-in the next morning, on Monday afternoon we went for a wander round the Birmingham Christmas Market and once again just spent the day eating and drinking. I don't really want to think about how much money I spent on sausages and mulled drinks, but it was all worth it. As we were up early to get the plane back to Edinburgh the next day we didn't want to stay out too late, so in the evening we went to the pub for a quick drink before going to see The Hobbit at the cinema, which was really good.
So, all in all, I've had a very busy but great few days and really enjoyed exploring London and Birmingham. Although, I'm not sure "adventures" is an accurate title for this post as I failed to do anything remotely touristy, I think it would be better off as "places I have been eating and drinking this week" haha.
Gillian x