The Best Pizza in London

After touring the Museum of Brands earlier today, I was in the mood for a traditional and fresh pizza. I had remembered that a friend of mine told me earlier that I had to go to a pizza place in London called Pizza East whilst I was abroad, so I quickly looked it up to see if there was one near by. Luckily for my stomach there happened to be one located just down the street a few blocks! I grabbed a few friends and headed down the street. The restaurant was beautiful, and just my style. It was a nice mix of rustic decor and traditional pizzeria checkered flooring. I enjoyed not only the food, but the location as well, I highly recommend you take a visit if your in the area. Thanks for reading, talk again soon!

(Photos taken by myself)

Pizza East - Portobello Rd, Notting Hill
Quick look at the menu.

Pizza East - Portobello Rd, Notting Hill
Preparing our pizzas.

Pizza East - Portobello Rd, Notting Hill
Pizzas coming out of the oven.

Pizza East - Portobello Rd, Notting Hill
Time to eat!

Pizza East - Portobello Rd, Notting Hill
If you're a small eater like myself, you can take the rest for the road.

Pizza East - Portobello Rd, Notting Hill
View of the restaurant downstairs.

Columbia Road Flower Market

A beautiful Sunday to go to the Flower Market, or so we thought... as soon as we arrived in Shoreditch it started raining. Unprepared and Californian as we were, we ran through the aisles snapping pictures of the beautiful flowers while also trying to find awning coverage. As you can tell below I am in love with peonies at the moment! After we got our flower fix we headed into town to look around at some of the markets and grab a few espressos, an overall good day! 

Columbia Road Flower Market

Columbia Road Flower Market

Columbia Road Flower Market

Columbia Road Flower Market

Instagram

For a more day to day update, follow my Instagram account (@lindseypfeiffer). I will be trying to post a photo a day during my time abroad! 

instagram.com/lindseypfeiffer

Houses of Parliament

On our third day in London we took a tour through the houses of parliament. It was a rather foggy and rainy day, perfect for an inside tour. I was pleasantly surprised to see how ornamental the inside was, decorated with painted murals, statues, and chandeliers between every room. I would highly recommend this tour, I did the guided audio tour and found it to be very informative and interesting. I particularly enjoyed seeing and hearing about each of the Chamber rooms for both the House of Lords and House of Commons. One thing that I noticed often throughout the tour, was their use of color to separate the different houses and their jobs in Parliament. For example the House of Lords was covered with the color red, I'm assuming this has to do with the fact that the color red is associated with royalty here. The House of Commons was covered in an equally as beautiful emerald green, and after researching, I found out this was because green represents the color of service here in England. I enjoyed seeing all of the color psychology used throughout the palace, it is cool to see how universally and continuously we continue to associate color with various ideas and purposes. 

Photos are taken by myself, thanks for reading! 

Big Ben & the London Eye

Tours were shut down early this day due to protesting outside, allowing me snap a picture of this beautiful entry way without a bunch of people in it!

London Architecture: South Kensington & Chelsea

Upon arrival into my new neighborhood (or should I say royal borough), I couldn't help my self from looking in awe at all of the beautiful architecture. I had to keeping asking those around me, "are you positive these are homes?" In the next few days I made sure to make some time to explore this unique area, and found there is an interesting mix of architecture styles just outside of my doorstep. The first style I noticed was absolutely beautiful, I would describe it as Victorian-esque. These tall buildings line the main roads of South Kensington & Chelsea. I love this style of home because of the monotone colors; the buildings give off a simplistic and clean look which (in my opinion) suggests sophistication and upper-class. Mixed in between those streets are secret smaller streets, know here as "Mews". On these cobble-stone streets you will find colorful cottage-style homes. Mews are distinct and noticeable because of their brightly painted walls, as well as their abundance of florals and shrubs lining the ally way. Have a look at the photos I've taken below for a better idea of what I'm talking about. I'm sure I will continue to explore more architecture around London, and will keep you updated with what I find. Until then, thanks for reading, talk to you soon!

Queens Gate Terrace

Queens Gate Terrace

Queens Gate Terrace

Road to Christ Church - Mews

Road to Christ Church - Mews

Road to Christ Church - Mews

Pre-London Creativity

Prior to packing my bags and heading across the pond, I decided to use my design skills to create some handmade greeting cards! I started out by drawing up a few designs using black ink on paper; at the time I was really into drawing animals and decided I would create an animal themed set of 6 (well 5 animals and then 1 random hand, because why not). From there I scanned in the designs and brought them into Illustrator. In Illustrator I used the "live trace" tool to create silhouettes of the drawings and added beautiful watercolor backgrounds behind the designs. After that, I printed them up and sold them to friends and family to help raise money towards my travels whilst I am abroad. This was the first time iv'e ever sold any of my artwork, I am really proud of the outcome! Below I've attached some images of the cards (photos are all taken by myself), I may be printing some more in the future so let me know if you are at all interested in purchasing! (sneaky little business promotion) Thanks for reading, talk to you soon!

Getting my greeting cards ready to sell!

owl, bird, & giraffe

turtle, sea horse, & hand