East London with Erica

Autumn 2018 brought four lovely people to visit: Colin, Erica, Danielle and Caitlin.

I’ve known Erica for almost my whole life. Her cousin is my childhood best friend Kristin and we’ve all been pal-ing around for quite awhile! Erica and I have a lot of the same interests; true crime, beer, cheese.. ha! So I was very excited for her to visit.

We headed to Camden Market for some food and people watching. She got the pasta cooked in a cheese wheel. Yes – you heard that right! It’s a literal wheel of cheese that has been melted and turned into a pot which they then put pasta in. (The Cheese Wheel) I got some tacos which were – to my delight, pretty close to actual Mexican food. We also got scoops of cookie dough which may be my favourite thing ever. (Naked Dough)

We decided to do the Jack the Ripper walking tour in Whitechapel / Brick Lane. I really didn’t know what to expect before going. I thought it was just going to be really interesting and a bit theatrical. Our tour guide was incredible. She was a bit dramatic, but she really stressed how horrible the conditions were for people in the mid-late 19th century in East London; in particular how bad it was for single poor women. She didn’t marginalise their lives, and reminded us this wasn’t fiction. It really happened and it was heinous. I won’t be walking around that area without sparing a thought for those unlucky women and what they went through in their last moments.

We then went to my favourite Brick Lane haunt – Beigel Bake where we got some salt beef bagels *biegels*. Of course we hit a few pubs along the way.

I love taking people to Greenwich so I took Erica that way for some true Original London. We stopped at the usual places, Gipsy Moth and Trafalgar Tavern (for Sunday Roast!) Bonus: they were filming Poldark! Then made our way back through the Bermondsey Beer Mile – though it being a Sunday many were closed.

It was a great diversion from my usual routine and it was so nice to catch up with her!