1. Fuller's Brewery Tour
The only large scale brewery left within London, Fuller's are a huge commercial enterprise most famous for London Pride beer. Funnily enough the largest market for exports is....Sweden! Tours of the brewery run every day, and include a tasting at the end. I've been on tours of smaller breweries before, and still this tour taught me a lot. Check it out here.
2. Colombia Road Flower Market
I took my mum out for the day and while we were having a coffee we noticed EVERYONE was walking past with bunches of flowers. Eventually we asked an American sitting beside us about the source of the flowers and it was Colombia Road market. Every Sunday officially until 2pm this busy market is bursting with sights and smells of thousands of flowers and plants. Although we were late, at about 3:30pm, it worked in our favour as all the stalls were closing and offering cut prices on everything!
3. The Farm
There are several farms to be found even in the deepest recesses of the concrete jungle. Usually nestled on unwanted land beside railway tracks, gems such as the Kentish Town City Farm and the Spitalfields City Farm offer quiet oases and an opportunity to see week-old lambs and kids just a few steps from the mad, bustling tourist hotspots. This time I even managed to meet Britain's rarest goat, the Bagot. There are fewer than 100 of them and they rarely venture out of Staffordshire!
4. Covent Garden
With throngs of mindless tourists, endless repetition of high end chain stores and a really bloody old tube station that can't cope with 10 people let alone 10,000, Covent Garden is not one of my, or any Londoner's, favourite haunts. It is, however, very convenient for friends who want to meet despite living an hour away in opposite directions. If you end up there on a weekday, charmless chain Dirty Martini have happy hour all day and Flavour-of-the-Month restaurant Dishoom have a branch nearby if you like waiting outside in a storm for an hour for a table. Keep your eyes peeled at the tube station for free bus pass holders!
5. Late Night Movies on Sky
We just had to pay for our TV license here in Sweden, even though I never watch TV. It's time for me to seek out something similar to any of the myriad TV services in England, which you can pause, rewind, record and manually control. Absolutely great for randomly watching old movies you'd forgotten even existed (I watched the Fifth Element and the Jungle Book just because. And yes I have Netflix, but sometimes you want fate to decide your movie choice!)
6. Pancake Day
Shrove Tuesday. Mardi Gras, Fettisdagen...whatever you want to call it, don't forget to eat something very indulgent on this important day! I only managed 4 pancakes this year but they were really good ones! I made pancakes with my family and friends for maximum effect, but if I was a tourist I would definitely go to My Old Dutch, a fantastic pancake house!
7. London Fields Lido
Since I've unwittingly taken on some Swedish culture, I felt compelled by all those pancakes to do something physical. Somehow I managed to find the motivation to swim outside on a stormy, blustery night which whipped the steam rising from the warm water into an ethereal mist and made it feel like I was swimming in some weird pancake day Limboland. The only other people crazy enough to shower outside in the cold and dark were speaking in Swedish so that says everything really. Care to try?
8. BBC Radio Audience
If you apply in advance and get lucky, you can be in the audience for a BBC production totally free, nada, zilch, zero dollah. I went with my dad to sit in the audience for a BBC Radio 4 comedy called "Newsjack" recorded at BBC Broadcasting house in central London.
9. Board Game Bar, Haggerston
Draughts was a new place I wanted to try, but unfortunately it was completely packed out with hipsters playing Jenga and ignoring the hundreds of other board games on the shelves. You have to book a table well in advance if you want to try this place! We ended up in a nice pub around the corner called the Glory. When I sent the address to a friend she discovered from Google that this is a "Super-Gay" pub which explained the Shirley Bassey on the speakers, the glitter hanging from the ceiling and the flowers climbing up the walls. Oh, and all the single sex couples of course. It was much more welcoming than the board game place at any rate!
10. Deptford Sushi and Job Centre
From Haggerston to Deptford, I did a real pilgrimage to gentrification central on this trip . And I'm glad I did, because Deptford has some of the cheapest, tastiest Japanese food ever, and you can bring your own booze to M&D Sushi. Just down the road is an old Job Centre, turned into a pub imaginatively called The Job Centre. This was an insult to some people...
11. Troxy Music Venue
Friday night's entertainment came in the form of the Gentleman's Dub Club, funnily enough a dub band also throwing out a bit of reggae, ska, dubstep and beyond. The venue is fitted out in art deco style both inside and out, again a place I never even knew existed.
12. Crystal Maze
The Crystal Maze was a popular 90's TV show in which contestants in a team faced puzzles in little rooms found in four distinctly different "zones". If they solved the puzzles they received crystals to redeem for time in the Dome where they collected shiny tickets to exchange for real prizes. Some clever moneyspinners made a real life version of the Crystal Maze and it is so popular my friends and I had to book a spot a year in advance. It was worth it though, as we ran about and quested our way through brilliantly designed sets, revelling in our nostalgia.
13. Curry
There are a lot of Thai people in Sweden and they make a good curry, but I was raised in a country with the best Indian curries this side of the continent so I always get my fill when I go home. This time I managed to get to Angel Curry Buffet on Chapel Market with its tasty cheap eats. The Hare Krishna centre, Govindas, is conveniently central and close to Oxford Street and served us dinner before our radio show. I usually try to cram in a weekend buffet at the best of the best, Chutneys on Drummond street, but that didn't happen this time so I look forward to the next...
14. Camden Lock
My last night in London was unplanned as it usually is, and saw me ending up in Camden's Electric Ballroom again. It is in no way a good club, your feet stick to the floor, the bouncers are arseholes, the queue for the toilet is permanent and at any age beyond 18 you feel too old to be there. But nevertheless it is an old friend, always playing the shit you know and always just a short walk from home.
15. Fancy Brunch
An old friend came into town at Paddington, not my usual haunt, and we accidentally found a very fancy, very reasonably priced brunch in Michelin recommended Salt and Honey. We continued our fancy day by taking a walk through Hyde Park and Speaker's Corner over to Burlington Arcade, a very posh shopping street where some of London's ever-expanding homeless population camp outside overpriced macaroon peddlar Laduree. If anything else, London is definitely a city of contrasts.
16. Normal Brunch
17. Cheap Haircut
I know I just massively insulted Covent Garden but actually there is a good, cheap hairdresser there called Hair By Fairy. You don't even need an appointment, you just show up and an experienced hairdresser will cut, style, dye, shampoo or whatever-you-want your hair. A cut that would have cost at least £60 in Sweden cost me just £20 in Central London.
Whew - how did I manage all that while also watching two seasons of Merlin on British Netflix?
Wow that was an exhausting week but I'm sure well worth it.
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