belgium

the thing with spending just shy of five hours in a country is that your tolerance for embarrassment is a bit on the high side. as in, who cares if you fancy eating an eccles cake in the style of a monster? you're leaving the country soon! which is exactly what i did at the brussels train station in waiting for my train to amsterdam. i covered myself in eccles cake crumbs before practicing bench top food styling, took a lot of pictures of my new shoes, made friends with the male nurse who was returning home to rotterdam from a weekend spent swimming in salt water pools with his girlfriend who studies science in brussels... also at one point i gazed into the eyes of one liege waffle that sat in the vending machine wanting so badly for me to eat it. molly, you must eat a belgian waffle in belgium, you must. alas, homegirl only had pounds and no euros.

-yeh!

lewes

the english countryside, as it turns out, is exactly what the pictures in my pediatrician's office, never let me go, and my imagination cracked it up to be. perhaps my predetermined love for the place is much like how some obsess over paris or their cats. 
when the possibility of visiting sam's home in the english countryside arose, i begged begged begggged him to make it happen. so part way through my london stay, we armed ourselves with cornish pasties and lion bars and then took a choo choo an hour south of london to lewes, sussex. 
it really was more than i imagined: a perfect little high street with perfect little shops. a cozy pub with local beer and quirky games. a river. a castle. windy roads and steep hills. colorful doors. a former house of thomas paine. a bookshop from the 15th century. 
it was a storybook. {really all it needed was heath ledger as william thatcher riding through on a horse.}
-yeh!

london

london, my london, was not ryan lochtes and-- i don't know, insert some other olympic reference here-- i got in and out far before that. my london was also not changing of the guards and big bens. it was a much more, how shall we say, nutso. what i can say about my london included the following:

 my first plum, marmite, and pigeon.

a sprint down brick lane and a mental note to come back very soon and spend many hours on brick lane with my eating pants on.

 a brass band that plays madonna. overdue visits with very good friends.

lentil soup at the portobello market with one of my most favorite photographers in the universe.

bakewell tarts, eton messes, eccles cakes: a world of new desserts i barely knew existed.

 a new swan friend in hyde park.

 harmonielehre in a parking garage with these silly boys.

huevos con rajas on a little date with myself at morito.

 an embarrassing amount of time spent in the harrods food hall.

 late night fish and chips with sammy.

likely one of the best bagels i've ever had in my life. with hot salted beef and yellow mustard at beigel bake.

a little morning stroll down exmouth market.

after just five days in england, i felt the need to catch my breath. so much sprinting. so much anticipating the next cool thing. so much so much. and even though it was so much, i feel like in the grand scheme, it was just an itsy bit. what miraculous energy that place has. i think i could live there. i totally think i could.

-yeh

st. john bread and wine

it's much less about fireworks and much more about a deep, soothing thrum of the place. {n}

st. john bread and wine: honest, good food, food i'd never had before, long, timeless conversation with old dear friends, in a room that doesn't impose a thing, interrupted only by a surprise mustard delivery from cornwall, and not without decapitating a fish: horrifying like handling porcelain good.

-yeh