Month: June 2017

Wow what a long day. Technically started at 1am as I had a conference call back in Sydney I really needed to be a part of. Finally got to bed at 2.30am and was in the office before 9. It was my choice for coffee this morning and I was dead keen to have a coffee from the cafe in the gherkin, even if it wasn’t fantastic. It was ok, part of the “Nero” chain, a little weak but otherwise acceptable. There must be a starbucks close to the office, cause Sharon iStalked me and I came up as in there. Too funny.
I left work early so that I’d have plenty of time to get to the station and get the train to Paris. As I’m only travelling with the one small backpack, I’m in Europe and crossing an international border, you could say I’m *technically* backpacking through Europe!! Anyone who knows me well knows how ridiculous the concept of me roughing it and backpacking is. At least I’m staying in a decent hotel, way to old and grumpy for that hostel shit!

I’m staying directly opposite the Gar Du Nord station. The hotel was originally about €160 for the night, but I checked at the last minute and rooms were down to €100 so I rebooked and cancelled. The hotel is being renovated so was a little hard to find, but the room is pretty comfortable and super convenient.

Whilst waiting for the Eurostar I of course had time to grab an additional coffee at St Pancras station, similar to this mornings coffee, a little weak but not bad.

After not too long I was seated on the train (spare seat next to me) as we rocketed through the southeast of England at around 200kph, then 22 minutes and 19 seconds under the English Channel (yes I timed it. Nerd alert….) we were in France and the train picked up more speed (300 kph) on its way to Paris we we arrived I headed straight to the newsagent on the platform so I could get a copy of Charlie.

A magic evening in Paris, sunset at the 10pm, clear skies and cool breeze. After checking into the hotel first item on the agenda was the Arc De Triomphe. Didn’t go up it last year, so made sure I did this year. View over Paris is spectacular. Glad I went up when I did as the queue later was massive (wanting to see it after sunset I guess). The roundabout / traffic circle is weird as traffic on the circle has to give way to traffic entering the circle. Opposite of roundabouts at home. It’s French so I’d expect nothing less ! There is a pedestrian subway onto to the Arc, and it illegal for pedestrian to cross, but witnessed heaps of people doing it, some with very small kids. 

It’s all stairs for the climb up the Arc, and spiral ones. Well worth the effort though. Entry is €12

I’d planned to go back to our favourite cafe from last year, the one where the chef’s cat tried to adopt Emma, but it had changed hands and become a trendy little bar rather than a family owned cafe. So I picked another one we went to last year. Food was still great. Had a coffee here and they gave me a liqueur to chase it down with on the house. Delicious.

Tomorrow is another massive day of things planned to do. You will need to wait till tomorrow for that one. 

My walk to the office is an amazingly short 500m walk north along Lime St and St Mary Axe after crossing Fenchurch St. Not an immense amount of time to ponder what coffee will be on offer, but whilst walking along in the sea of mostly steel and concrete skyscrapers, there is one very very old looking church which really stands out as “really old” even if its completely overshadowed. Today I stopped for a few minutes to have a closer look at it (as well as google it).

Its the St Andrew Undershaft Church. In the grand scheme of Europe, its “only” 485 years old (it was rebuilt in 1532), but what make its relatively unique for London is that it has managed to survive both the Great Fire and the Blitz. It did have a stained glass window from the 17th century but that was destroyed in the Baltic exchange bombing in 1992.

A few minutes later I was in the office and headed out with Karan to grab another cup of morning goodness. When it comes to coffee, local knowledge is fantastic, as I’ve been enjoying great coffee every day this week. Today we were off to the “Secret Frog” on Houndsditch St. Its a small place, pretty much doing nothing but coffee. Highly recommended !

For lunch I popped up to Old Spitalfields Market to see what was on offer for lunch. Lots of great food carts, I found one selling Mexican. In the walk back I popped into Sainsbury’s for some supplies, and of great ironies the Vegemite was cheaper than the Marmite. Walked back to the apartment though the Leadenhall Market and found a fantastic book shop.

I was in the office with the London team today. Karan took me to one of his favourite coffee haunts near the office “Association Coffee” . A bonus of the location is that its right behind my favourite building, “the Gherkin”. Although, if a building is round, does it really have a font and a back ?. The coffee is great, I’d hazard a guess the its owned or run by Australians or Kiwis given that an order of Vegemite on toast didn’t elicit strange looks and in the cake jar there were a stack of Lamingtons.

After leaving the office tonight, I was determined to find London’s oldest coffee house, the search for which eluded me yesterday. It was starting to sprinkle rain a little but thankfully not like yesterday morning. A few twists and turns down very old and very narrow lanes I eventually found it.

I had fully intended todays coffee post to be all about the oldest coffee house in London, the “Jamaica Wine Bar”. It’s located (so I believe) only a few hundred metres from this apartment. But it was not to be….

I woke very early, so after catching up on email, I got ready and decided to head out and find the coffee house before going down to the conference centre at Westminster. I also had heaps of time so thought I’d find a cafe somewhere for breakfast first. Opening the window and checking, it was raining and a cold 11c. The window is over a small reasonably protected courtyard and didn’t quite prepare me for just how truly horrible to weather was today.

As soon as I headed out, it was blowing a gale and my umbrella turned inside out in seconds and I got drenched. I continued up to Leadenhall Market and cut through that looking for the coffee house. Unfortunately at some point I made a wrong turn and ended up heading north rather than west. By this time I was really wet and cold so gave up on the idea of the old coffee house for today. With the rain and wind, finding the tube station took longer than I expected and I only just made it to the conference centre in time to grab one of the free coffees there and head in. Luckily just like yesterday it was excellent coffee.

The primary reason I’m in the UK at the moment is to attend the DevOps Enterprise Summit with out London team, and the conference started today. The office is only a short stroll away, so I went their first to meet some of the team before walking down to Monument station to catch the tube to Westminster. The Conference is at the QEII centre.

One of the vendors at the conference has hired a coffee cart, and the coffee provided was excellent. I’m hoping the same is supplied tomorrow. Conference is great, lots of interesting presentations. Drinks and finger food were served after the conference. I had thought about doing some sightseeing after the conference but the weather had made a turn for the worse, raining and cold, so just headed straight back to the apartment.