London feels like it was three years ago already. I got in on Sunday morning and waited a long time to be able to leave my things in my hotel room. Then I spent the afternoon shopping, including a delightful hour or so at the Muji store on Oxford St. With the dollar so weak (so, so weak) I did limit myself, so not much exciting new stuff came home with me.

As the rain started to pick up I went to Fortnum & Mason to wander around in a daze, examining the gorgeous tins of tea (I couldn’t resist a luscious turquoise tin of Earl Grey for myself) and the many amazing things on offer downstairs in the food hall.

Not a clear photo but this a vacuum sealed package of quail eggs–Apériquail–with a packet of celery salt, ready to serve on your most elegant occasions!

Since I’m a self-sacrificing type, I also experimented with some of the famously-better British candy bars:

Mars

Toffee Crisp

The milk chocolate in the UK is indeed leagues better than the waxy stuff in the US, but I still don’t like it much. Dark chocolate for me!

I ate a take away pizza from a place that….only serves delivery, my first night. I walked over in the rain hoping to sit down and read somewhere besides my tiny hotel room, but no luck. In fact, I couldn’t find the place (it was unmarked, in a basement, since it’s only delivery!) and knocked on the locked door of a closed restaurant where two women were sanding down some church pews. Seriously:

They let me wait inside while the boys downstairs made my little pizza. After I left, balancing the pizza in one hand and my umbrella in the other I saw a dog outside a little shop, staring intently down the street. I followed its gaze and there was a fox, standing stock still on the sidewalk. It stood there long enough for me to get the dog’s owner to confirm that I wasn’t losing my mind, then trotted off down an alley. Weird night.

The next night I had extremely tasty dim sum with two co-workers. For lunch one day I had amazing Lebanese, also with co-workers. And my last night I went for Indian (had to!) and ate the word’s largest dosa, though I still don’t know quite what was in it. Whatever it was, it was spicy. Potatoes and lots of other stuff.

I also spent some happy between-work minutes wandering around Selfridge’s, which was two blocks from our office. Do you think the staff posed that wooden hand, or a customer?