I spent a few days over New Year in the U.K., visiting my sister in Swansea (on the Gower, with beautiful moorlands, stormy cliffs and surfer beaches), friends in Oxford (much prettier than expected), and shops and friends in London.
Things we brought back from the UK:
- Bagels from the Brick Lane Beigel Bake (various online pictures: 1, 2, 3). About £2 for a dozen, wonderfully simple and chewy. You could actually make a profit by flying these to Munich and competing against the boring 3-euros-or-so-each bagels that a few cafes, such as Coffee Fellows, all seem to get from one bakery. Or someone who knows how could just make proper bagels in Munich.
- “Alpen” breakfast müsli. Named after the alps, but not to be found in Europe. Actually, they started selling small German-language packets of the non-sugar version in upmarket supermarkets, but not the regular version, and not in big enough packets.
- Garibaldi biscuits
- Murray Mints, not my idea.
- A furniture brochure from Unto This Last. They now box stuff up for sending outside of London, so we should be able to place a large order and have UPS collect it and ship it over to Germany, though that’s not really compatible with their ethics.
“… friends in Oxford (much prettier than expected) …”
How ugly did you expect your Oxford friends? Steve Buscemi ugly? Quasimodo ugly?
Both my friends and Oxford are very pretty, I’ll have you know.
“not to be found in Europe” -> The UK is still in Europe… just about.
Oh dear, I have eaten those Bricklane bagels at almost any of the 24h of the clock. Salmon & cream cheese, mostly.
Next time you’ll have to visit your other friends in Oxford (Oxforshire) we’re only 21 miles north of Oxford