My sister emailed me a list of some things to do in London before we left for our trip. When I took a look at it, I stopped midway through when I read "Brass Rubbing." Brass Rubbing? What the heck was Brass Rubbing? A flash of possibilities went through my mind and I giggled at them all. I finally googled it to end the debates going on in my head.

So what is Brass Rubbing? It's a form of replication of brass portraits in the Medieval times and were usually placed in burial vaults; some of the brass also depict church events. The brass was mounted on granite or marble (tombs). Paper is then stretched over the brass and rubbing on it vigorously using wax cake that feels and looks like crayon. It was an interesting simple art that we all wanted to try so we headed to St Martin-in-the-Fields.

There are no classes offered but was simply a drop in. We just walked in and went through their little hallway full of brass mounted on granite chunks on both sides of the wall. The price range was based on the how big the brass was (from 4.50 GBP). You would find small ones about 5" in width to large ones as long as a table and prompted on the walls. It took us a while to choose what we wanted but we eventually chose our brass. We then chose the paper - either black or white. Seeing some of the examples on the walls, I chose white as it would especially work for the detailed brass that I have chosen. Michelle also did the same while Jenn decided to do it on black.

The first thing that needs to be done was to tape the paper onto the brass. After, the guy helping us used a piece of cloth to rub the paper on the brass so that we can see a bit of the impression and know what we are working on. As he demonstrated to us, the one thing we found out was that when you do brass rubbing on black paper, it gives some room to erase any errors you may have by putting a price of cardboard between that brass and the paper and using an eraser to erase. On the white paper, you pretty much have to live with any mistakes you've made or try to cover them up the best way you can. He provided us with pieces of cardboard to use to pull the paper while rubbing and chose our wax cakes. There were blue, gold, bronze, silver, red, and black waxing cakes to choose from. Then we went at it.

We were taught to use the straight end of the cake to do some light rubbing and then using the tip and rubbing it hard in one direction to bring out the brass artwork onto the paper. Who knew we would be sweating while doing brass rubbing?! Time flew by fast and I admit that it was quite zenful. It was neat to see the results as you work along. Overall, we were all pretty proud of what we did and enjoyed it very much.

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While staying in London for about 2.5 weeks, we decided early on to head on to another country for a few days for a bit of variety. Like Canadians who head down to Las Vegas for a few days to get away with great package deals or cheap flights, Europeans head on to sunny places like Majorca, Spain for some sun and relaxation.

Majorca is an island known also for it's resorts. We didn't fancy the all-inclusives and opted to head out with a cheap flight via EasyJet for about 50 GBP RT instead and book a place. Michelle found a fabulous place (a full flat) in the city of Palma for about 63 GBP a night. It's located within walking distance to all the sights and amenities in town including the port.

The city is just beautiful if you really enjoy old architecture including a few by Gaudi. We didn't even notice those ones if we hadn't looked up and admired some of the buildings around the Cathedral and old town. Many of the sights are in and around old town. The cathedral is massive. You can see it from afar especially around the port and bike path area. There was a beer festival at the time we went and you can hear the many different languages as you walk around. There are many tapa bars and restaurants, pharmacies and shopping. It's really a easy going, laid back kind of city.

Unfortunately, we were there at a time where May 1st was Labour Day and not many places were open. We didn't know what was going on when we saw a bunch of what seems like protesters as we wanted to check out this 9-story shopping centre called El Corte Inglés. Was it a stike? A holiday? We weren't sure until Michelle recognized some words in Spanish on the banners they were carrying. She mentioned it may be Independence Day or something similar. She asked on the police escorts posted on the street we were at and he told her that yes all the stores were closed so no shopping - a typical tourist question! Great, what should we do? We were thinking of taking the train to Sóller the night before but even that seems to be out as we didn't want to get stuck there the day before we left so it was overall a good 3 days of walking, shopping, sitting and relaxing.

The surprise from day 1 was how it was easy to get fresh fruits, vegetables and meats at a nearby indoor market. It's rare to find something like this available daily in Edmonton (except for the Strathcona and Downtown market) and we took advantage of filling ourselves with good food since we had a kitchen to make things. For lettuces, lemons, strawberries, avocado,  mushrooms, etc., it only cost €13! We found out that on the 2nd floor of the building of the indoor market was a supermarket so when we weren't able to make it to the fresh market (I believe it closes at around 14:30), we headed to the supermarket including fresh seafood. We were so happy to find the fresh seafood as we have been just craving for it and ate calamari/squid for the days we were there. The breads like Baguettes were also just as good but not as good as the ones in France (of course).

Majorca is a great place to relax but if you can stay longer and rent a car to go around the rest of the island, it would definitely be more beneficial as it seems like the mountains would be a nice place to check out as well.

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Archery has always fascinated and interested me for as long as I can remember. It's the old movies and stories of heroes like Robin Hood and reading historical accounts of people living in the medieval era. There are so many influences that draws each of us to archery and what better way to learn this beautiful art than in England itself.

I went looking on the internet to see if there are any one day classes or even an archery lane where I can learn even just the basics of archery and perfect it later on down the road. I thought since England and Europe in general has so much history with archery that there must be more options to choose from and I found the perfect class in London called "Have-A-Go At Archery" at the 2020 Archery. It was only £20 (very reasonable) and the class was for an hour and a half (plenty of time to learn the techniques). It was even better that I can book this class in advance online which is highly recommended as they sell out fast and early. The great thing was that my 2 sisters were also up for it despite thinking how geeky I am and can be!

The place was easy to find and the way there was nice as we passed the Tower of London on the way and crossed the London Bridge. The area itself was in construction but the detour gave us an opportunity to check out the other streets we may have never have gone to. When we arrived, we signed in at the front desk and a lovely gal helped guide us up to the rooftop area.

Our instructors John and Dickson were very nice. We shared the archery area with some advanced shooters who pretty looked pro to us with their shiny recurve bows and their accessories. We watched them shoot the targets as we waited for the rest of the class to show up. We were in awe on how great their technique was and hoped we wouldn't make a fool of ourselves when it was our turn to go.

When all us were accounted for, John and Dickson gave us the important safety rules we needed to know and a bit about archery. We then put on our arm guards on and finger tabs for protection. I automatically felt pro just having them on! We were paired up based on our heights as we need  to share the same bows and our arms measured for the height of arrows we would use. They taught us how to put in the arrow, pull and release. We each took a turn and had 3 arrows each though I did wish we had more! It was quite fun and all of us did really well. My sisters and I even had a bulls eye each at one point! But the fun took another turn when the instructors announced that we would have a competition of 3 rounds Dun-dun-DUN!

Jenn, Michelle and I looked at one another - GAME ON! We decided to have a side bet - winner gets a shirt or whatever we find at the Chelsea Sample Sale we were going to the next day. Well one round after another, Michelle and Jenn were doing very well almost to the point where I started to wonder if they have done it before. I did well on the practice rounds but they must have saved their best for the competition. This was when I thought to myself that I would suck at the Olympics if I had to compete! But it was wonderful to see my sisters doing well and actually enjoying it more than  they thought. In the end, Michelle was on top at 2nd overall but really should be first considering the guy at first place has been there a couple of times ;) And Jenn said she would be game to do more shooting once we get back home - Awesome! I can see myself adding archery to my hobby list thanks to John, Dickson and 2020 Archery.

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