Published by Camille on 29th October 2009 in social
Dick Penn/ / CC BY 2.0
The Elephant House in Edinburgh is one of those places that you instantly like. My first visit there was actually when I had just moved to study in Edinburgh and was looking for a flat. I was supposed to meet with two girls that had rented an apartment right opposite the uni and were looking for 3 more people. As soon as I entered I loved the warm and inviting atmosphere, the staff consisted of young, friendly students and the food was great and pretty cheap too. But the best thing was the old fashioned back room overlooking the Edinburgh castle, which by the way is supposed to have inspired JK Rowling for Hogwarts. She started writing the first book here and since then the lovely place filled with elephant figures and drawings has quickly become a darling among both tourists as well as locals.
By the way doesn’t it look nice from outside?
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Published by Melina on 6th October 2009 in social
Pixelthing / CC BY-SA 2.0
As you probably know I was in Sweden for my Holidays a couple of weeks ago. One of my favourite things to do when there is to “fika”. That basically means hanging out in a cafe with one or several friends for ages, having a coffee or tea and drinking it insanely slowly whilst nibbling on something sweet. I love that, I love “fika” and I’m a bit sad that this concept doesn’t seem to exist here in the UK the same way it does in Sweden. Naturally I spent my holidays doing “fika” in different cafes and at different friend’s houses.
In Stockholm I have a few favourite cafés that I got to regularly. There’s thousands of cafés in each and every corner of Stockholm and I’ve tried quite a few but for different reasons I have some regulars.
One of them is Café tubby which I already written a post about, then there’s Bönor och Bakat (’Beans and Baked’) which has the best tasting blueberry pie a girl (or a guy) can wish for. It’s also very cheap for being a café in Stockholm. The atmosphere is okay and on the walls you can find graffiti inspired art work for sale. You can see a lot of young people here and if you’re lucky you can catch the sofa to hang out on.
One of my oldest and favourite cafés is Choklad koppen (’Cup of chocolate’). It’s a gay friendly cafe in beautiful Old town which is the oldest part of Stockholm. It’s quite small so it’s best to go there when it’s warm enough to sit on their terrace. Luckily you can borrow a blanket from them so you can sit outside for quite a long time during the year. I love the historic view, the great chocolate cake and their yummy sandwiches. Also, the staff are usually really sweet.
My newest addition is Cafe Mineur which is hidden in a cellar in Old town (as the previous one). What I like the most about this place is the interior which is odd bits and bobs from different decades. They match huge sofas with 50’s armchairs and narrow sewing tables. Nothing is the same, but it matches just perfect. It looks like a vintage furniture store…
Do you know of any good coffee places around London, please let me know and I’ll teach all my English friends how to do “fika” 
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Elephant House
