London on a budget - food

I guess almost everyone of us has lived through those days, when at the end of the money there were still many days of the month left. Being in that situation in London is a lot worse, as food in general is more expensive than in most other places.

Here a few tipps and tricks how to survive on a tight food/eat out budget in London, let´s say about 100-150 pounds per month for a couple.

Let´s say you spend about 25 pounds per week, then try to sort your shopping the following way: 6 pounds for veggies, 5 pounds for fruits, 4 pounds for grains, 4-5 pounds for proteins, 4 pounds for dairy and 1-2 pounds for oils and other foods:


Cook at home

My Top 5 favourite places in London

Those are my current Top 5 favourite places in London

1. Hampstead Heath 

My favourite London Park (Tube: Hampstead) and the area where I wish to have a small garden flat in the future. It is the place where I´ve dreamed alone, had picknicks with friends and where I can renew myself after a tiring day – whether working or when coming back from the busy centre

2. The British Library 

(Tube: Kings Cross) 
Researching, browsing or just enjoying free time over free classics of British literature and the whole atmosphere of reading people surrounding you, also offer free internet, lovely to meet other fellow literature/book fans. I also love tiny side street book shops, often just stumble over them during a shopping or sight seeing trip. Oh and the (under) Waterloo Bridge Second Hand book market is fantastic as well!

3. Whereever my beloved Zouk-Lambada, Samba and Kizomba classes take place

Carniv... errr, I meant elections in Brazil

Carniv... errr, I meant elections in Brazil are quite different from what I am used to, so I thought I'd give you an insight in the colourful, quite noisy election preparations....

Here another video with a view on Itagimirim, a small town in the countryside of Bahia.

How much does it cost to pick up your own birthday present at a Brazilian post office?

My dear parents and sister prepared a special surprise for my 26th birthday... 

My lovelies have collected my favourite EU products and other items (have not opened the box yet, birthday is still approaching!), put them into a huge box and sent them from Germany to Brazil to (punctually) arrive on my birthday. Must have spent a good amount of money to buy the products and another good amount for the parcel itself.

Now one might not think !Picking up! a birthday present is very expensive. I even thought well, I might have to pay a bit of border tax.

We arrived at the post office.

"São 255,04 reais" (about 100 euros)

:-O

Right. This really is the most expensive price I have ever had to pay to RECEIVE a birthday present.

An ordinary sleeping pattern during a weekend in Porto Seguro, Brazil

An ordinary sleeping pattern during a weekend in Porto Seguro, Brazil:

11pm-4am: Local Street Event (=you get free Party Music at xtreme volume in your house even with closed doors and windows)

4am-6am: drunk ppl walking home, screaming and throwing glass bottles on the street, cars getting damaged due to glass on street, fights...

6am-9am: Catholic Youth Centre (neighbour building) start their drum and capoeira training

o_O

Result of this weekend's sleeping pattern: non-existence ;)

Native Brazilian hair secrets - Dica da Índia: tutano do boi

Warning: The vegetarians and vegans amongst you might not want to read the next lines ;)

  

This Native Brazilian hair secret combines ox marrow (tutano do boi) with other natural or cosmetic ingredients:

First, the

A typical Brazilian lunch...

I thought I'd share a typical lunch with you. =)

Dish: Mild Saffron Rice with beans and chicken aromatised with green pepper, garlic, soja oil and red-corante pulver.

Drink: Fresh Pink Guava juice

Pastel - one of the delicious Brazilian fast foods

Pastel de carne... Pastel de queijo e presunto... Pastel pizza... Pastel frango catupiry... Pastel Banana Real...

One of the delicious Brazilian fast foods is the famous PASTEL. It is a deep-fried thin pastry envelope wrapped around the most delicious fillings (cream chicken, pie&meat, sweet banana...) one can imagine.

Combined with Coke (the one in the glass bottle) and mayonnaise it is one of the mouth-watering sins Brazil has to offer.

Just remember:

Elections and Publicity in Porto Seguro - Politics the North-Brazilian way

Since my first day in Porto Seguro, I have been interested in the way North Brazilians - or well, Baianos - do their publicity and politics.

One thing that's quite unfamiliar for me and other Germans and Londoners at least, are cars (or motorbikes) that drive around with annoyingly loud speakers strapped to their roof called "carro de som" and public radio stations on the streets that are playing the latest supermarket advertisements or politics propaganda songs. You cannot escape them, even with all windows and doors closed and it starts at 8:30am, even on Sundays...

Most politicians decided to choose a popular song (best are those that you can scream and rhyme, especially the number to vote for should be repeatable...), well known party songs from the Toa Toa e Axe moi beaches are the favourites. Then they change the lyrics into something like "vote for better education, good infrastructure, safety" or "the people from Porto Seguro don t want to return to the past, a new time has started now, vote now for xyz and remember 44"

I'll try to upload a few examples that I recorded with my phone:

London ABC - airport-to-city transfer - Stansted Airport & Heathrow Airport

STANSTED

Terravision airport and city bus stop locations

99 % of my flights to London are cheap Ryanair flights to Stansted, so I thought I'd tell you about my choice of airport transfer. In general, I choose a return ticket from Terravision Coach, £ 14.00 to the city centre or even £ 11.00  to Stratford! So when your destination is North or East, your best options are Liverpool Street Station and Stratford and when heading to South or West London, it might be best to choose Victoria Station. Airport transfer alternatives are the Stansted Express (train) and cab, both no option for me as they are not really faster but much more expensive. The only real advantage with the latter is that you have your suitcase with you at all times. When using the Terravision Express, you have to put your luggage in storage boxes in the "lower belly" of the bus and can only take small backpacks upstairs with you.

Here a few tipps to avoid luggage theft: