London - Day 29 and 30

My last bit of time in London was spent at Museums. The British Museum had the Olympic medals on display, and the Victoria & Albert museum had the Royal portraits by Cecil Beaton. Excellent stuff!

After a goodbye lunch with friends, just some general wandering around browsing in shops. I tried not to buy too much, as I already had 3 bags to bring to the airport XD.

Oh, and remember the bag I tried to haggle for at the store that was closing, well, I ended up going to the same shop in another location and buying it. Seriously, I couldn't stop thinking about it! It has little cute cupcakes and birds on it and stuff and it's nice and big! Anyways, I love my bag, so there! :P

I'm so glad to be home! I feel like I have a lot of practicing to do, but first, I'm going to take a week off to get settled!

London - Day 26

Today went pretty well, considering some major mess-ups at the beginning which I can't fix now. Hopefully I'll pass at the end O___o

I finished what I needed to a bit early, so after class our teacher pointed me to a local baking supply store, called Jane Asher. It's a cute little shop packed full of fun baking stuff!

They normally close at 5:30, but when I told them I was from Canada and studying with Peggy Porschen, they let me stay a bit longer ^_^

Afterwards I wandered the neighbourhoods a bit.

Then I found this crepe restaurant (among many other tempting places).

One of the menu items, was called "Crepe Quebec"! Of course I had to try that one!

It was a crepe with bananas and walnuts, with maple syrup. I don't know what bananas and walnuts have to do with Quebec... but it tasted good!

ON TO DAY 27

London - Day 20

Today and tomorrow are business classes at the academy! First, we had a talk with an editor from Brides magazine, on getting our foot into the publicity door, then we worked on our designs and got some advice from Peggy.

The afternoon was spent at the Parlour tasting room, with coffee, tea, cake samples, and cake business Q&A. It was great!

Class ended early today, so I took a walk around town - London bridge at sunset! Did I mention it was 16 degrees today? It was so warm compared to home right now. I didn't even need my jacket! Beautiful day!

Big Ben is so photogenic!

ON TO DAY 21

London - Day 19

Today was field trip day! We visited the flower market.

A giant warehouse!

Full of flowers!

Every color and shape you could want! I took a zillion reference photos!
After that we made our way to the Covent Garden Flower Academy.

People here learn to make stuff out of flowers. All kinds of plants actually! Just as we're learning to make flowers out of cake ingredients!

Hey look, it's Camilla!

Our teacher, and principal of the school, Gillian gave us a demonstration of how to arrange real flowers on a cake, which is a cheaper alternative to sugar flowers!

Then we had our own turn at making a little arrangement! I wore mine on my lapel for the rest of the day :)
Afterwards, we all went for Mexican food for lunch - mmmm yummy! I love how diverse the food is in London!

ON TO DAY 20

London - Day 18

We *finally* finished our flowers today! And let me tell ya, what a difference some steam makes!
Yes, you actually steam the flowers at the end to give them a fresh look. I learned a lot, and I now appreciate how much work really goes into flowers on a cake.

Later that evening, my London buddies Fehed and Faye took me to see Les Miserables, at the Queen's Theatre! I didn't think I would like it, but I thought it was amazing! Amazing singing, and story!

ON TO DAY 19

London Day 17

On Monday we worked more on flowers. So much work! Omg...

Then, as per the demand of Noell, Paulette and Diane, I finally had some London fish and chips.
Seashell of Lisson Grove is supposed to be one of the best. And it was pretty tasty, for deep fried stuff. Good thing is, they do a bunch of different types of fish. And that's pretty much all they serve. Simple!

Good eatin!

ON TO DAY 18

London - Day 16

Nothing really to talk about today. I did cake homework - which involves coming up with our final design for the exam. But I can't show you that just yet ;)

Nothing really to talk about today. I did cake homework - which involves coming up with our final design for the exam. But I can't show you that just yet ;)

So I thought I'd take this time to talk about where I'm staying!

Uhh, not too impressive is it. Wait, there's more!

The place is Palmers Lodge Swiss Cottage, a restored Victorian era building. It took me a while to get used to living in a hostel, but the staff here are really cool and welcoming (even before I started giving them cake) and it's been a nice little home base. Recommended if you need to stay long term on a budget!

ON TO DAY 17

London - Day 4

So we've been outlawed from taking pictures during class! Only before or after classes, which is understandable I guess... space is limited, everyone is really busy bustling around trying to get their cakes done, and then there's that thing about hygiene... :P

But I can tell you that Peggy showed us some amazing demonstrations of icing cakes, and I learned a lot of technical things that will make me amazing in the future. I was pretty floored watching her smooth chocolate ganache to perfection, and I mean, it was perfect! A solid cylinder of chocolate cake. All it takes is a palette knife and practice.

So after making Victoria Sponge cakes we iced yesterday's cakes with our ganache and various buttercreams. Oh, and of course, we learned some leveling tips, which resulted in lots of leftover cake, which we were free to eat for lunch... or not...

See those covered bowls? That's all cake! Oh yeah, and something called fruit in the middle...

After class I decided to be a tourist and wander a bit.

I know it says look right, but I still automatically want to look the other way...

So I hopped on a bus, which, isn't really a good decision without sort of having an idea of where it goes. The bus I took went sort of back to where I came from then off to some neighbourhood by the Thames, but not a recognizable part of the Thames. It was Pimlico.

So after snapping this pic of boys playing soccer football I found my way to a tube station and went to somewhere recognizable:

They don't call it a circus for nothing... (I would've had the perfect pic for this, cause there was actually a guy dressed as a clown standing outside, but I didn't take the pic - arg!)

I found a lovely little Indian restaurant, called Indian Brasserie, the people there were so wonderful!

And the food was really great, could've been a bit spicier, but still tasted awesome! Really, can you go wrong with butter chicken and naan bread? Probably not.

I know my peeps at RocketOwl are jealous riiiight now. ;)

After find a novelty shop which turned into this arcade mall...

I went to one of those big lame tourist shops and looked at lame tourist stuff:

And there were hats! Tons of hats!

And with that, I'm off to bed, another full day tomorrow ~

ON TO DAY 5