Sunday Pudding

We had a stupendous weekend thanks to our new friends Dave, Mendy, James, and Jenni.
Mendy turned a year older on Sunday, and invited us to celebrate her birthday on Saturday night.

They have an amazing view from their flat. Let's just say they've no need for clocks because they can clearly see Big Ben from their window. London has inspiring architecture, but not the skyscrapers we Yanks are used to in our big cities. So their view extends for miles. It really is quite spectacular.

They had a small party in their flat where we enjoyed easy conversation, played Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and English game called Pass the Parcel. Mendy introduced the Europeans to a piñata. At the end of the night we were all feeling so jovial that the native Brits felt compelled to introduce us to a traditional Sunday Roast.

So Sunday we went back to James and Jenni's place, and were treated to plates (filled to capacity) of roasted carrots, potatoes, parsnips, chicken, stuffing, and mini Yorkshire puddings.

The puddings are actually buttered rolls shaped like a pie crust. We asked why everything was a "pudding" in Britain.
James (the chef) explained that the name comes from when the rolls were filled with meat and potatoes. Then his fiancé Jenni, who is Finnish, nicely reminded him that his explanation didn't satisfy the question to a non-Brit, because meat and potatoes aren't pudding either.
We laughed but my curiosity was left unsated.

I documented both events, plus some of our sightseeing on Saturday, with some great photos but we don't have an internet connection at home. I guess we won't for a while, too, because London internet people are finicky. His computer has arrived and is in our apartment, but we can't set that up because we need a (really expensive) transformer to convert wattage and accept American plugs. (Note to anyone planning to move overseas: The cost of shipping a desktop computer from Chicago to London is about as much as a new computer when you add up the transformer, taxes, shipping, and shipping insurance.)

Maybe Marty can figure out how to get pictures online from the cafe...