Still not sure about what to do this Bank Holiday weekend? If you’re coming to or staying in London you might want to head towards the West End and and enjoy a weekend of Caribbean fun at the Notting Hill Carnival.

The Carnival is a tradition that dates back to the Mid-60s, taking place over 2 days (Sunday and Monday) on the August Bank Holiday weekend. It is often (incorrectly) referred to as the Jamaican Carnival, but its roots are in fact to be found in the “Trini” community, which have been populating the area since the 50s.

What to expect

Music and food

Music and food are the two things I’m looking forward to the most. I am hugely into Caribbean sounds, mostly Ska and Rocksteady. There’s going to be plenty of that, as well as Calypso, Soca and some Samba too. There’s going to be plenty of soundsystems around the area, so make sure you “shop around” and find the best one for you.

The food is amazing: you will find plenty of stalls around, with Jerk Chicken being probably the most traditional option. Curried Goat and Rice and Peas are also to be tried, so make sure you taste a bit of everything. Remember, it’s always best to share with friends, you get to try more stuff!

Safety

Yes, there have been a few incidents in the past. No one can guarantee there’s nothing happening this year, so make sure you use some common sense while going to the Carnival. Avoid bringing a lot of cash with you, and do not show off cameras, phones and the usual 2.0 gadgeteria: pickpockets are going to be around, despite the police presence.

Getting there

Make sure you get to Notting Hill by public transport, and take your time because the area is going to be very crowded. Some tube stations immediately surrounding the Carnival are going to be either closed (such as Ladbroke Grove) or will have a reduced service (for example there is not going to be the any changing between the Circle and the Central lines at Notting Hill Gate). Buses serving the area will most likely be diverted. The obvious suggestion is to check the TFL website for the dedicated page. They should know better than me.

If you’re coming from outside London, it’s probably worth staying for the whole weekend, possibly getting to London on the Saturday before the Carnival. Obviously it’s great if you have friends around (and maybe crash at theirs), but if you don’t then check VoucherCodes, they have a discount on Travelodge hotels (Notting Hill Gate tube is about mid-way between 2 of their hotels, so you might give it a go).

Alternatives

On the same weekend, if you’re further North in England, you could go to the Leeds West Indian Carnival, which has also been running for a similar amount of time. Also, there’s the Summer Madness festival at the Isle of Whight: there’s a great lineup and I happen to have two tickets I’m selling.

(edit: check also out my friend Kat’s post over at WeekendNotes)

As a tourist visiting the East London may not be your first choice…unless you are more of an explorer and love to go a bit off the beaten track!

East London is anything but the white polished area you may find around Sloan Square, Chelsea or Mayfair, but is getting more and more attention for its vintage markets around Brick Lane, quite popular for its trendy young residents, artists and vibrant night-life. Matteo’s mum came to visit us last week for a couple of days and after her day tour around the city she suggested us where it would be great for us to live: Belgravia ahahah a bit over our budget for the moment but yes, totally different from the Mile End-Stepney Green area where we are now.

Last Saturday I met a friend for lunch and then decided to take a walk from Bishopsgate to Broadway Market and then back walking randomly to find something cool by serendipity on our way home.

Our “tour” started at Pizza Express: although the Pizza is not amazing, it is nice enough for a quick meal, the service is quick and the prices are quite competitive, especially when you subscribe to their newsletter and get a notification every time there is an offer, such as 2 for 1 meal deals or, as for this time, the second main for 45p. Hurrah!

So check out what’s going on each week…

We walked to Hackney Farm, through Spietalfields market, Hanbury Street (where we visited a vintage market) and Columbia Road, to find out what animals and products we could find at the farm.

Hackney City Farm is not huge, but to be in such a central location it is surprising to find so many animals, such as cows, goats, pigs, a donkey and numerous chickens and ducks. You can also have a tea and cake in their nice restaurant “Frizzante Café”, meet the animals at around 4pm for their feeding time, and I guess you can even buy some fresh eggs if you’d like to.

My friend and I have been impressed by Henrietta the pig, who responded to her owner’s grunts and finally got up for the kids and our pleasure!

We eventually left the farm walking to Broadway Market. The market is similar to Borough Market in terms of food quality and variety, but much smaller in terms of stalls number. If you are looking for fresh vegetables, cheese, bread and cakes this is a nice place to go on a Saturday, close to the canal, combined with a nice mix of vintage clothes and accessories stalls.

We’ve tried a bit of everything within the stalls, including cheese, olives and olive oil products from Italy

We walked back following the canal and came out on Kingsland road, stopping at a Chinese supermarket to take some pictures of colourful noodles packages and find products I’ve never ever heard of in my entire life. Exploring other’s culture’s supermarkets is a trip itself and I strongly recommend it to anyone. Buying it and cooking it is another story… but we’ve seen several people with books and magazines with Chinese recipes looking for ingredients impossible to find anywhere else.

We finished our nice day out hours later with an Italian style aperitivo at the Boundary Rooftop. I’ve heard of this place before but I thought it was too posh or to expensive to try, but since we where in the mood for anything different we gave it a go. I found the Boundary is a very special place and spot in London, nice good quality people and nice décor, although the view I could get sitting on the benches was not as cool as I expected.

I decided to start with an Italian white wine that was served in a normal water glass, and not in a nice wine glass as I was expecting, but I was in good company and sitting in the sunshine at that point sounded just as the perfect place to be. The service was ok, and the prices where more or less the same as any other central bar, 4.50£ for a glass of wine and 3.50£ for a Peroni.

That’s all for me now and I can’t wait to try something new again and tell you more about it.

Hey guys, we’re back from Sardinia. That’s not big news cause some of you have already met us in the meanwhile (and yes, we’ve been back a while).

AperiTWeat 3.0

Most likely at AperiTWeat 3.0. We’ve had our third London twitter aperitivo at the fantastic Viva Verdi, by TATE modern. It was a very pleasant and enjoyable night, and we are very proud and thankful to all of you who attended (and Lovebox, of course) for having helped us raising funds for Endometriosis UK. £150 were raised on the night, and will generously be matched by the FT, adding up to £300 for the charity.

A big thank you to our friend Niamh, and a goodbye too. She’ll be flying to New York in some days, and we wish her a big good luck for this new adventure! We’ll come and visit you just to make sure you don’t mess things up!

Blitz are 8-0 and at the playoffs

In the meanwhile, the BAFL Premier League regular season is now over, and the London Blitz won all their home games too to make it 8-0! We conceded only 36 points in the whole of the season so far, recording 4 shutouts too! We will now head into the playoffs, with the semifinal at home on Sunday, the 6th of September, at Finsbury Park, where we will be facing the Farham Knights.

And, holidays

[flickr-gallery mode="photoset" photoset="72157622152053814"]
Yes, we were on holidays. We took a much much needed break, and now it looks like we almost never did. Uff… We enjoyed a week of hot sunshine (it peaked 40 degrees, we pictured it), not-too-crowded beaches and transparent sea. I personally quite liked the mojitos, too. We missed that a lot and actually I realised I had not taken a proper swim in the sea for the whole of this summer and the previous one too. I did some bodyboarding in Bilbao in December (of course…) but that’s a different thing. For someone having been born on the seaside that’s a lot of time. And, we miss it again already, so we made sure we’ll take some days off as soon as Gioia will submit her dissertation. But that’s a secret. Unless you’re connected to us on Dopplr.

On a side note, I’m very pleased we went on holiday without any laptop. Yes, we did have our iPhones, but still… But of course we got ourselves a little busy anyway. Ready?

Gioia e il papa' Sergio

This is a picture we took of Gioia and her dad Sergio at the market where he works as a butcher. We had an idea and some brainstorming and the result is we created a blog for his butcher shop! You can check it out: Macelleria Sergio Serra. He’ll be posting some traditional recipes based on bovine meat, which is what he’s specialised in, alongside some comments about the Serie A and the Cagliari games. Make sure you visit them at the Mercato di San Benedetto, in Cagliari, he’s upstairs, at the stand 29!

What’s up with you guys?

We’ve been a bit busy with work/freelancing/dissertation/things to go to (events, Oasis gigs…) and of course the blog suffered a bit. Sorry about that. But we come with bells and colours as we announce that we finally managed to meet and plan for the next AperiTweat!
AperiTweat 3.0 will take place at Viva Verdi, on the 18th of August 2009.

Viva Verdi is a very lovely wine bar just behind TATE Modern, between London Bridge and Southwark tube stations. It’s also easy to get to from Blackfriars (bear in mind the tube station is closed till God knows when, but rail station is open!) by crossing the bridge and turning left in Southwark Street. For the digital geo-junkies in you, the full postcode is SE1 9AN. Type it, get there. As simple as that. You can also see it on OpenStreetMap when you search for the postcode.

As usual, expect quality drinks (the Prosecco is awesome, ’nuff said) and free food to accompany your drinks and chats. Cause we’re there to chat, right? Of course, the atmosphere is perfect for your networking needs, and if we’re lucky with the weather, there’s also some room outside. The room outside is there anyway, even with bad weather, it just might be not as interesting!

What I personally love about the place is the ham slicer, aka “affettatrice”. It sits at the centre of the bar, and it’s surely the most scenic one I’ve ever seen in my life of ham aficionado. And it’s not just the slicer, the ham, or “prosciutto crudo” is amazing too. What’s the point in having the coolest slicer if the prosciutto is not good? The guys at Viva Verdi thought the same.

We will have some surprises in the next days and weeks, but in the meanwhile please have a look at the official Aperitweat blog and also please join us and RSVP here.

We hope to see you there!

]]> http://www.twoexpats.com/aperitweat-30-coming/feed/ 0 http://www.twoexpats.com/busy-times/ http://www.twoexpats.com/busy-times/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:04:19 +0000 Matteo http://www.twoexpats.com/?p=296

thanks to our mansikka on flickr

We left you with AperiTWeat 2.0 yet to take place, and, well, it did. We had over 120 people enjoying the drinks, the chatter and the Italian food that the guys at Al Volo kept bringing out until the final Pasta surprised everyone! We were very happy not only because of the numbers, but especially because of the qualit of the people attending, a truly lovely bunch indeed! Main attraction of the night was probably the Gumtree Goo (which I’d really like to show you in pictures but trust me, it’s better if I don’t…), and there’s a Lasagna preparation contest still pending…We also played our part in the organisation of High Street Art & Food, a warm-up event for the new Blur’d series of events taking place in Kensington and organised by Blur Marketing. The atmosphere was lovely at Cafe’ Phillies (just off Kensington High Street) and prosecco, champagne and food were enjoyed by the guests.

Blitz are 4-0

The Blitz won two other away games, at Sussex Thunder and Coventry Jets. Two shut-outs that lead to the Blitz terminating the first half of the regular season with 4 win and no losses, 146 points scored and only 22 conceded. Now we head into the second half facing 4 home games at the Finsbury Park stadium (inside the Athletics track) on June 21st, July 12th, August 2nd and 16th.

Short trips to Italy

We also had to spend a few days in Trieste, Milan and Verona, where we were very lucky with the weather (we had 37 degrees in Verona…) and found two very nice little restaurants, especially in Milan, where we once again realised how nice Italian food really is in Italy, we just need it every now and then I think.

Summer music frenzy

But Summer is the music season in the UK, and we made sure we’re not left behind: we went to see Ska Cubano at the 100 Club in Oxford Street, which was great, and have a few things lined up for the months ahead. We start this Thursday, with a gig by Sardinian artist Filomena Campus in Hammersmith, as part of the “Tunes in June” program at Riverside Studios, which we highly recommend. Then we will go and see Ray Davies and the Gipsy Kings (not together, of course) at Kenwood House, Hampstead, as part of the English Heritage Picnic concerts, on June 27th and July 11th respectively. July the 12th is surely the highlight of the Summer though, with The Enemy and Kasabian opening for Oasis at Wembley Stadium, which we booked with something like 9 or 11 months in advance, I can’t even remember. We’re so looking forward to it… August and September should see us going to Jools Holland (again at Kenwood House) and Prince Buster (at Camden Centre), but that’s still TBC on our end.

We have also been invited to a premiere of “Up”, the new Disney Pixar movie, at the Disney Studios in Hammersmith, which we’re so excited about you have no idea…

What have you guys been up to? What are your plans for the Summer? Fancy dropping us a line?

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Living away from home surely has its positive sides. One of these is the fact that if you like music, and you DO like music, and you move to London chances are you will go and see some gigs. The truth is that you will have lots of choices, lots of bands to see, lots of places to go and so little time.

Obviously music taste is different for each and every one of us, and different venues host different gigs, but these are the ones that, historically speaking, you can’t afford to miss

1 – 100 Club

100 Oxford Street, W1

Maximo Park @ 100 Club - Courtesy of aguichard on Flickr

Originally a restaurant, it has been a venue for live jazz music since 1942. In 1964 it changed its name into 100 Club, and hosted the best Blues, R&B and Beat acts around. If The Who and The Kinks don’t ring any bells to you, well, I’m sorry.

The 100 Club hosted the first punk festival. 1976, 20th and 21st of September. Monday and Tuesday, of course. Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, Siouxie and the Banshees and others. It all began here.

Since May 1980 the 100 Club has hosted Northern Soul allnighters, still running nowadays.

And then the buzz of Indie in the mid 90′s. Oasis, Kula Shaker, Cornershop, Muse, OceanColourScene…

Need any more?

Who we went to see

The Trojans, gaelic ska band lead by the great Gaz Mayall

2 – Brixton Academy

211 Stockwell Road, SW9

Paul Weller sold out at the academy last winter

It used to be a cinema and a theatre, and you clearly recognise that from the leaning towards the stage of the floor and from the layout of the seats in the upper area. The arch and the interior are still like they were originally in the late 1920′s. Scenographically speaking, it’s probably the best live venue in the UK.

Bob Dylan and The Clash both played 5 consecutive nights at the Academy. The Specials are set to play 5 nights for their reunion (but without Jimmy Dammers is a bit like The Jam reuniting without Paul Weller) in May this year.

Who we went to see

In 2005 we saw Shout Out Louds and The Magic Numbers, in 2008 Paul Weller

3 – Hope and Anchor

207 Upper Street, N1

Basement at the Hope and Anchor - courtesy of _maracuja on Flickr

Difficult to imagine late 70′s music without the Hope and Anchor. This pub in Islington, main spot of the pub rock London scene, hosted gigs from Madness, The Damned, Joy Division, U2, The Stranglers, just to name a few.

Given the size of the basement, it’s crazy to think about it full of people seeing The Specials…

Who we went to see

A band of friends of friends of ours called The Words. They were opening act fore some other random Killers-sound-alike bands

4 – Royal Albert Hall

Kensington Gore, SW7

Noel Gallagher Live 2 the RAH - Courtesy of mattandsally on Flickr

Opened by Queen Victoria in 1871, for the hole history I’ll leave it to Wikipedia. The Royal Albert Hall has been hosting the Proms since 1941, and an impressive line up of superstars played here. Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, ABBA, Ocean Colour Scene + Paul Weller + Oasis, Morrissey, The Who.

It’s simply breathtaking.

Who we went to see

Madness as part of the Teenage Cancer Trust concerts in 2008

5 – Roundhouse

Chalk Farm Road, NW1

The interiors of the Roundhouse - Courtesy of etcher on Flickr

The building was originally built in 1846 to repair steam engines, but its uses changed often in its history. It started to be used as a live venue in 1964, and hosted shows by Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd, among others.

What I personally like about it is the round (of course) shape and the feeling that yes, one could be using that space for all sorts of different things but it keeps on giving you the idea that no, you really can’t do anything else than playing music.

Who we went to see

Los Van Van this year. It was fine at the beginning, then it got boring and we left…

How about you?

What are your favourite venues for live music in London? I know we are missing many, the Jazz Cafe and the Hammersmith Apollo among others, but we haven’t had the chance to visit them yet.

In our last post we disclosed the formerly secret project we are working on. The first Twitter Aperitivo will be officially held at Al Volo on the 15th of April 2009.

But, apart from loving Twitter, our little bunch of Italians in London (and Niamh, who’ll soon be Italian too!) love to have things planned nicely to avoid not pleasing our guests (100 at the time of writing). This is the reason why we had a “private beta” on Wednesday. 30+ friends came for this little warm-up, which proved to be very successful.

Drinks were very nice, with Spritz being the favorite for most, in full Italian Aperitivo tradition. And we surely put the Eat in the Twit: food, in fact, was very good as expected, and you can rest assured that you will not be disappointed by the free pizza, panzerotti, spiedini and so on.

Spritz. The One and Only

We are really looking forward to AperiTweat 1.0. Make sure you RSVP here to join us on April 15th. You’ll kick yourselves if you don’t.

We told you we went to ShoreditchTwit a couple of weeks ago, suggesting you stayed tuned for some exciting news coming up. Well, it’s now gone official so we can tell you that Gioia and I, together with our friends Carmen, Julius, Niamh and Laura, are organising AperiTweat, on April 15.

But your question is, WTF is this AperiTweat?

AperiTweat is enjoing ourselves, first of all. Enjoying some drinks with a bunch of friends. So, what’s new I hear you asking. The new twist is given by the Aperitivo concept behind it. Aperitivo (ethimologically speaking, it’s something that “opens”, “starts”) is the Italian tradition of having some drinks after work, before going out/home for dinner. Mostly popular in the North of Italy, Aperitivo consists of drinks, often had outside bars, standing and chatting, accompained by free food. Yes, you read it right. Free food.

We are now bringing this to you, fellow Tweeps. The date is the 15th of April, the venue is Al Volo, in Ely’s Yard, just off Brick Lane.

View Larger Map

It’s in here, on the left. Shame on Streetview for not going in there.

In the very spirit of the Aperitivo, the event will start at 6.30, after work. This will also allow people willing to attend ShoreditchTwit (same day, roughly next door) to do so.

So, want to join us? Well you should be on Twitter, first of all. You can RSVP here, and see what’s going on at our website.

Oh, also don’t forget to check out @aperitweat, #aptw and #aperitweat on Twitter!

See you there!

The other day we headed round the corner from our place to Shoreditchtwit.

It was the first time we went to a Twitter-related event. We’re no new to socials, but this was a bit different. First of all, we didn’t know we were going until about late morning of the same day. I saw a twit by @tojulius, asking what was going on that night. 30 minutes later, I recruited Gioia and we knew we were meeting him and other fellow twitterers at the Austin Gallery, at the top of Brick Lane.

The bar was packed, people were enjoying themselves. It took us some time to find @carmenhere and him but we managed to, and got to know them and @niamhhughes, who joined us later, and have a nice evening sharing our views on mixed flavored topics. We also took some steps forward on a little project we’ll let you know about in due time.

Keep reading us (and them, from the blogroll on the right sidebar, it’s worth it), we’ll keep you posted.

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, we’re @gioias and @palmamod.

I found out about the match by chance, less then one month before the kick off. A couple of minutes later the tickets were booked, the Facebook status updated and the countdown started…

Tuesday the 10th Feb finally came. After work Matteo and I met for dinner. He took me to the popular pizza place closed to his work, the one he loves. With my surprise there was nothing exciting about it but the pizza itself, that for the reasonable price was worth the ‘trip’. We sat down at the back of the place, that looked like someone’s living room where a South-American guy was having his break from work, the Turkish cook was making the pizzas and the Polish waiter was taking care of us.

Finally we managed to take the tube to the stadium. Once in the train we kind of enjoyed the vibrant international atmosphere of a friendly match, squeezed between Brazilians and Italians of any age. From that time on we never left our fellow fans flowing in a crowd of 60.000 people until the Emirates doors.

Amazing…breathtaking…I had never seen something similar in my life…

Listening to the music played and watching at the big screens I felt like one of the supporters in the PS… The enthusiasm stood with me until my attention moved from the players to the attractive banners on the sidelines of the pitch, where salami and other Italian delicatessen where advertised…yummy

Matteo and Gioia at the end of the match

I gave up with the Italian players who should have better had a coffee before starting… but I still enjoyed the Brazilians and their samba movements while playing football.

Thanks for the excitement I can’t wait to the next one!