Kew Gardens

My friend Daniella and I escaped the city life for an afternoon and went to Kew Gardens, the Royal Botanical Gardens in west London.You do have to stay on the District Line for quite a while to get there, and there is an entry fee, but it was worth it. We brought a picnic with us, but we stopped and looked through the "Palm House" a huge green house devoted to plants from near the equator. On the lower level of the Palm House there was also a small aquarium where we saw seahorses and jelly fish as well as other different fish species. 

We then went on to have our picnic on the grass beneath a tree. It was great because it was a sunny day, and the park had a lot of people walking around but no one really disturbed each other because we were all trying to take in the nature and the experience. We stopped in an area of the park to then take photos of us in a huge bush of hydrangeas. And then went on to a wooden structure they built to see the view from the trees, which was pretty nice, I enjoyed seeing how far the park could stretch on, and we did get a little bit of sun. 

Of course when glancing through the flyers they gave us at the entrance we saw that there was an ice-cream shop which sold orchid flavoured ice-cream. So that's where we headed next. We walked through the Queen's Garden and back around to the Café with the ice-cream. But they didn't have orchid ice-cream that day so we ended up choosing apricot, honey and yogurt flavour, which was incredible. 

We then went to look at the green house filled with cacti and succulents which is names the Princess of Wales green house. And then we went on to the Rock Garden. After that we walked through some shops and sat down in front of a chapel like house, to relax before going home.

Going to Kew Gardens was a perfect afternoon, and I'd probably go again, because we were unable to see the whole park in one day. Here's their website: http://www.kew.org/

Amathus

On the 5th of May before going to Islington we stopped in Soho for a tequila tasting at Amathus. Amathus is a wine shop with several small stores around London, at their Soho store they have enough space to set up a bunch of tables in the middle/back of the shop. On the biggest table at the rear of the shop there were a few employees making margheritas in tiny little shot glasses. They later handed out these glasses to everyone in the store, if you weren't holding anything they gave you one. 

There was also a woman that makes her own queso, which in her case is a specific type of cheese, a younger version of queso manchego. It was really refreshing and taste-y, a really good contrast to the alcohol. She also had a chili spread if you wanted to add more flavour to the cheese. 

The smallest table, closest to the entrance was serving tequila. There are 3 main different types of tequila. White tequila, which is the youngest just taken from the plant, reposado tequila which is slightly aged tequila (reposado means rested) and anejo tequila which is the most aged and darkest tequila. Out of all these tequilas I liked the white one the best because its got the freshest and lightest taste where as the darkest tequila is very similar to whiskey. 

Overall, I really like the musical atmosphere because they had a mariachi band playing and everyone was incredibly happy and friendly. I was really tempted to buy one of their t-shirts that said "tequila is never enough" but they didn't have any left in my size. Maybe I'll have better luck next year. 

Here's their website: http://www.amathusdrinks.com/