Shopaholics meet the slumdog

Thursday evening Kerstin, Peter and Lini arrived for a weekend in London and the three got out exploring the city on their own on Friday while Markus was at work meeting clients and helping them cope with the turbulent market environment. The British pound is still at very low levels and thus shopping in London is not only affordable currently but really cheap. With UK interest rates at meagre 0,50% this might not change very fast, but one never knows. So hurry up! The three shopping tourists have been lucky at Mamas and Papas (the girls) and COS (Peter) on Friday.

A french bakery in London - our lifeline for a day of shopping

After a decent breakfast at french boulangerie Paul the four of us tackled Portobello Road market on Saturday morning. We reached there a little bit too late and so it was already extremely busy and crowded, but the perfect weather with sunshine and blue sky made up for the masses. We even found a very nice mirror for our flat and thus the trip to Notting Hill was worthwhile. Apart from Converse Chucks – sneakers we have worn last time as teenagers – we did not find too much more on Saturday but several pairs of shoes on Sunday, a new driver for Markus (will it help his golf game?) and also some nice accessoires for the baby room rounded our appearance as “Shopaholics” up. While we did not find anything at Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store, Peter joined the 30m queue for the till in order to buy a shirt and some perfumes.

Given we made several pitstops at Pret-a-manger stores, Starbucks and Caffe Neros throughout the days, had a very nice dinner at Gaucho Grill – excellent steaks from Argentina – and lunches at Wagamama and Busaba Eathai our budget also have literally been eaten into.

A sharp contrast to our daytime activities was our visit to the cinema on Saturday evening. We watched oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire” a very moving movie about a Indian boy who grew up in the slums of Mumbai and is being accused of cheating in “Who wants to be a Millionaire” as he is about to win the top price. In a very direct way this movie shows the problems, dangers and brutality of life in the slums and how difficult it is to get out of there. The movie is not “easy viewing” but highly recommendable and absolutely worth the money. It has not hit Austria’s cinemas as of yet, but once it does, go for it!

Having had almost perfect weather on during the three days (only Sunday afternoon Peter and Lini got wet in between shops) our journey home was delayed by more than one hour due to the weather situation. But this could not at all spoil the very nice weekend the four of us have spent together. More pictures you can also find here.

Kerstin & Markus