By Saturday, we had walked about 10 miles, seen the majority of the sights in London, and were perpetually full. It was a pretty crappy day again so we thought we would leave central London for a few hours. After sleeping in, we headed out to Hackney for a weekly farmer’s market.
The Broadway Market is one of the bigger (though not the biggest) market in the area. The market itself consists of back to back stalls surrounded on either side by shops. This all takes place on a fairly narrow block and goes on for about half a mile.
When we got there, we started eating. The first lap was just samples, but we eventually graduated to snacks, breads and full on meals. I didn’t know you could spend four hours walking in a circle and eating but we certainly 
managed. We had authentic German pretzels, savory crepes from two Frenchmen, and tried bread that was voted the best in the UK by the Economist (the noted bread authority).
Despite enjoying ourselves tremendously, it was very cold, so we ducked into a cafe for some tea. The cafe that the girls chose was decorated like a little girl’s doll house. Fortunately, maintaining your feeling of masculinity as an American in Europe is often very easy.
Before leaving, we bought homemade chorizo and gourmet cheese to make breakfast with the next morning, which would prove to be the Greatest Scrambled Eggs Ever.
We got home and were completely stuffed. Fortunately, it was dinner time. We headed to Barrafina, which was my favorite meal of the whole trip. It’s a tapas place with no tables – just around 15 stools around a counter. The line was out the door and we were headed to a show, so by the time we were seated we only had 30 minutes to eat. In those 30 minutes, we had 12 dishes and two bottles of wine. Nothing says class like shoveling tuna tartare and quail down your throat.
I wish we could have stayed longer but it was terrific, even in a rush. The show we saw was a comedy called Clybourne Park. It was about a black family trying to move into a white neighborhood in the 50′s, and then selling the house to a white family several decades later. It was pretty funny, and when they got into some of the more offensive jokes, everyone laughing sounded like they were saying “harumph”. Very British.
After the show we got gelato at a place called Gelupo. Delicious food, run by the most flamboyant Italian of all time. We then grabbed one more drink for good luck at a nearby pub before heading home.
