How to get to know London?

It's really hard to say you belong somewhere, or that you "know" your city. People often come up to me asking me for directions, but they start with the phrase "Are you from here?" or other things to that effect. I never know what to say. I don't think of myself as a Londoner yet, I live in London, and I have for a while but I definitely don't know the whole city well. I know are few sections of the city. 

So how did I get to know those areas? 

- By exploring

- With the help of Google Maps

- With friends

- By being curious

- By following the groups of people (that's how I know where Columbia Market is)

If I'm walking around I tend to know where I am. Being in London has helped me a lot with my orientation skills. There are still roads I prefer to walk down than others, but I love finding the little path that has that amazing café or shop. I'm very fond of taking the tube. Understanding the buses in London is difficult without Google. (As you can tell I'm a big fan of Google) mostly because not all the stops are mentioned on the timetables so you need to guess the route. I don't know much about North West London, but I'm sure I'll explore that area sooner or later. 

How do you find cute cafés in a big city? Any tips or tricks?

Hackney City Farm

Walking towards Broadway Market one Saturday, my friend and I happened to see a sign for "Hackney City Farm". I was a little shocked, a farm in a city, what? Really? Yes, a farm in a park in east London. We followed the people with children, and the signs and walked into an area which was the farm. There were chickens running around everywhere, a house for the donkeys, a house for the rabbits and guinea pigs and a house for the pigs. 

The chickens were let out to walk around freely, and so were the ducks. The donkeys, sheep and goats were in a larger more open space grazing and enjoying the warm weather. And the cute little guinea pigs were in their homes rolling around in the hay. Children were making animals sounds, or chasing chickens. Couples were looking at the different animals and walking around.

I don't know what it is about farms, but somehow everyone seems to love seeing the animals interact with each other and the big city seems so distant. I'd probably go there again, just to try to pet a sheep, I got so close to a lamb at one point! 

Here's the farm's website: http://hackneycityfarm.co.uk/

Pisa

The closest big city to my Dad's hometown is Pisa, and since that's the only airport nearby too we decided to spend the day there. We took the train there and arrived around lunch time. We stopped at a few stores on the way to lunch. I love going to Zara there because its really big, well organized and I always find something I like.We then stopped at a student bar for lunch, having typical Italian food and enjoying being in the shade. After our insanely cheap meal we followed the tourists to the leaning tower of Pisa and the cathedral that is in the square next to it.

There's a legend that says that if you walk up to the top of the tower before you finish your studies you will not pass your exams, so obviously Charlotte and I didn't visit it inside. Unfortunately Italians are quite focused on making as much money as possible, and therefore they charge you for every little thing. Just to visit the town alone costs 15 euros, and in the square there are three other buildings that everyone should see, but they're all expensive.

At this point Charlotte and I just sat down to read in the shade, and then we spent the late afternoon walking around and getting drinks at a couple of different bars. Because in Italy, everything is called a bar, even if its only a café, they just don't ever use the word café.

I don't really like Pisa, but if you're in Tuscany for more than a week, its worth a visit because after a while you get bored of lying on the beach all day. 

Milan: Museo del Novecento

During my two weeks off in August I also got to go Italy. During this particular pit stop, Charlotte and I spent less that 24 hours in Milan, but we were able to enjoy some food, shop, and even see a museum. We chose to go to the Museum of the 1900's, or the real Italian name "Museo del Novecento". 

The museum has an incredible permanent collection and there was also a temporary collection showing some pieces by Andy Warhol which I hadn't yet see, and I've seen a lot of Warhol. 

The building was really amazing, it was a modern new building attached to a very old Italian building. The combination of the two was incredible. And when you looked out of the modern window you got to see the Duomo, the biggest cathedral of the city. 

The coolest thing about the museum was that they mentioned White Chapel Art Gallery, in one of the posters. Here's their website; http://museodelnovecento.org/

If you're ever in Milan you should go!