I just discoved that next week is going to be awesome. It’s Chocolate Week here in London.

I’ve heard of restaurant week, a pretty common week in cities around the world. All the good restaurants in town have a fixed menu for deal of a price. Chocolate week is a similar deal except there are it’s also loaded up tastings and samplings. Excellent.

When you’re scoping out a big city, make see if there are any weeks like chocolate weeks or restaurant week so that you can get in on the action. I’m sure that you can be somewhere and not know that something was going on, I suppose I even missed Chocolate Week last year. But it’s well worth a little research, as these quiet special events really make a trip that much more special.

London was brought to its knees yesterday by the most snow that it’s seen in 18 years. It was a fun and funny time. My flat mates and I rushed out at 1:30 in the morning and had a snowball fight and made a snowman. With no hills readily available we missed out on sledding.

After the night’s fun came the funny part, heading into work. All the bus services were suspended, and I’ve heard speculation that one of the reasons is some buses may not have had anti-freeze in their radiators. As you can see below though, the roads were terrible. Nothing was plowed, so snow, slush, and ice was the rule of the road.

But the most fun was seeing the town playing around in the snow. People were stopping everywhere to take pictures, people skated down sidewalks, and snowballs we always in the air. A group of us gathered in a nearby park for a snowball fight and people walking down the street joined in, instantly doubling the size of the melee. I reminded me of that first day of spring when it’s nice enough to sunbathe or kick a ball around. Everyone was a friend, if only so they didn’t feel guilty pelting you with snowballs.

Brick Lane in East London is a street of non-stop fun. It has played home to waves of immigration, most recently Bangladeshis. But while the south end of the street is crowded with delicious curry shops, hipsters and other 21st century young urban natives dominate the north end.

In the summer, the street is packed with people soaking up the sun and lager in spacious outdoor patios, like Vibe Bar, where several people painted this mural. If you’re in London and the weather is reasonably nice, make sure to swing by Brick Lane for a late afternoon drink and curry. I promise you’ll have a good time.

If you have a picture that you think would make a good background, send it to me at weldon [at] questingforadventure.com with the story and I’ll put it in rotation.