From London and Lisbon ,With Love

Yes, I wish it was me who went to Lisbon and London, but sadly, my husband was traveling by himself.  He was actually traveling for work, which is of course a benefit when you live overseas.  I was busy at home taking a statistics course while he was away, so I definitely was occupied.  The good news too is that I just finished my paper, which was a research proposal.  So, I will keep this post brief and head to the living room for some relaxation and celebration.  Now all I have left are comps and then GRADUATION!

Since Ryan is super wonderful he brought back some gifts from his time on the mainland (Europe that is…we are closer there than we are to the US).

This is a prime example of why he is super wonderful.  Ginger (the fur ball formerly known as a dog) desperately needed a new collar, and we could not find one around here.  He happened to wander into Harrod’s and found a dog collar.  Now, if you know anything about Harrod’s you will know to just expect things to be pricey.  As a result, it didn’t even seem that unusual to him that a collar there would be expensive (under $75 so do not get carried away with your thoughts) because this is what he had already anticipated.  Our dog is a real princess for a medium sized dog.  She hears a noise and hides behind us.  She would rather walk around the puddles.  Therefore Ryan saw this bling-alicious collar and thought it was perfect for the dog.

 

It is quite nice.  Only later after a closer look did he realize he had just purchased our dog a lovely collar encrusted with Swarovski crystals.  Too funny!  It matches her personality and fur perfectly.  Now she really has an attitude problem!

When I told my grandmother the story (because it was really funny that he bought her this collar, which she did need a collar, but still funny it has nice crystals), her first question was “What did he get you?”, so here is what he brought back for me, plus a Harrod’s T-shirt and a few other little goodies.

You seriously can’t go wrong with Cadbury’s.  Actually, this is what I asked for.  I didn’t specify which kind, just Cadbury.

He also brought us an assortment of Cadbury candy bars.

I love the look British food label.  If you are not familiar with their label concept, they use GDA, or Guideline Daily Amounts.  Here is a sample from the Food and Drink Federation website:

This is their version of a tool to help consumers understand what is in their food.  When it lists per portion and then you do not see what is listed as a serving size, you do have to look past this highlighted part and read what a serving size is actually.  The other difference too is that food labels in Europe list nutrition facts per 100 grams, which for us used to the US system, can be confusing, so most food labels also list the per common serving.  For example, the big candy bar above has this little label placed next to what would be familiar to us as a food label, and then lists all the nutrient information in the first column per 100 grams and then in the second column as per chunk (AKA square from the candy bar).  I do find the salt part confusing as I will assume they mean sodium, not just any salt, although I could be wrong.  It could be sodium chloride or potassium chloride or any of those salts.  I'll just assume sodium chloride as their designation for a sodium marker.  I am thinking that I need to look into this one a little more closely to see what they are educating people on and their specific guidelines.

Moving along, this was my special treat.  While in Paris over the summer we discovered how delicious macarons were, so when we found them in London, he had to stop in.

He brought us back a few of these little guys.  So good!

Since the only way off this island and in to Europe is through Lisbon, he had some time to shop for goodies there too.  These are cookies I found over the summer at the airport.  They do not always have this kind, but we always check, so I was extremely surprised to see that he found them on this last trip through.

 

He also picked up this amazingly crazy fig cheese.  Now, it says fig cheese, but there is no dairy in here.  It comes from the Algarve region, which is the southern portion of Portugal with amazing beaches.

This is just like fig newton filling, but better, and it is filled with almonds too.  What a nice find!

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever been to London/England?  Have you ever had a Cadbury candy bar?  Do you like figs?  Have you ever heard of GDAs?