Reentry.

It's such a strange concept.  Just had my last night out in London (very good, thanks for asking =D) and am sleeping in my Bloomsbury flat for the last time, broken bedsprings and all.
And there are so many things to look forward to!  For instance, in the good ol' US of A, I can find:

Certain specific very important people!

Suburbia.

Mexican food.

Buffalo wings.

Supermarkets.

Preservatives.

Non-alcoholic cider.

Sunshine.

Gas stoves.

Homemade pasta sauce.

Marshmallow fluff.

And, lastly, SNOW! (although to be fair, London decided to mess with my mind this morning and snow.  I walked around sticking my tongue out to catch snowflakes on my way to visit some UK friends and provided amusement to several uni students)

But, there are so many things I'm leaving behind, such that I'm now considering London for grad school (sorry Mom):

Real, functional, on-time public transportation

Free newspapers that aren't entirely crap

Parks.

Free museums.

Globetrotting.

Pub food...especially Wetherspoon's cheap n' cheerful menu

Bollocks, rubbish, dodgy, and other wonderful words.

Strongbow on tap.  So much better than bottled.

Markets. Especially Borough Market...where I have now been 5 times.  They know me at the "drunken cheese" stand--cheese aged in Prosecco is possibly the greatest thing ever.  For real.

People saying what they mean.

Open culture.

Prof. Tames's walking tours.

Bridges.

“Walking distance.” (anything under 3 miles, of course!)

Keyless entry.

Golden syrup.

Tesco clubcard points!

The theatre.

Parliament.

Debaters who sound way smarter than they are just 'cus they're English.

Children with English accents.

People not being afraid...of anything.

“Way Out →”

The Tube.

Bicycle bells.

TimeOut telling me what to do every night.

Cream tea at Bea's.

Fryer's delight.

Curry feast special on Thursday's at Wetherspoon's.

My tastelondon card.

So many people...

Yes, the London list is longer than the USA list...although that's because I went more specific.  Still, I can't help but wonder what another term here would bring, or even another few years (grad school again)...London's an amazing city with so much to offer (yes, beyond the London Eye and all the tourist stuff...notice that none of that is on here!) and I know I'm going to return within 10 years, if not sooner (Olympics, anyone?).

So, USA, UK, I bid you both good night....and tomorrow, "you say hello, and i say goodbye."

Eating Your Words: A History of Anglo-Franco Culinary Competition in London

...aka why I haven't been posting. Between my drama reviews, drama essay, history paper, and finance paper, I haven't wanted to write much else! Because the history paper is (imho) rather interesting, I thought I'd leave you with a few amusing snippets, so without further ado, the product of 17 hours at the British Library and 8 at the Holborn library. Apologies in advance for the poor formatting; GoogleBlogger is evidently not a fan of me copy-pasting bits of my essay that have footnotes in them...


First and most prominently, The Sublime Society of Beefsteaks was founded in 1735. It was not the first of such societies, as its history notes, but probably the longest-running and arguably the most prestigious...

The club had few rules other than for administrative purposes, but one rule is quite explicit, the fourth rule of the club's charter. “That Beef Steaks shall be the only meat for dinner, and the broiling begin at two of the clock on each day of the meeting, and the table cloth be removed at half an hour after three.” This truly was a society devoted to the English tradition of eating red meat, as seen in the motto “Beef and Liberty.” (SSBS personal history)


“'I have heard of a cook that used six pounds of butter to fry twelve eggs, when, everybody knows that understands cooking, that half a pound is full enough. But then it would not be the French. So much is the blind Folly of this Age, that they would rather be imposed on by a French booby than give encouragement to a good English cook.” (Intro to Hannah Glasse's "The Art of Cookery made plain and easy by a Lady")




Soyer came to London as a refugee from the French Revolution, and became chef of London's Reform Club. While Soyer was much of a character—“not unlike the beret-coiffed, baguette-toting American exchange student in Paris, straining to be more French than the French, Soyer came to London and strove to out-Byron Byron”—he also made great contributions to his contemporaries. (University of Maryland)


My personal favorite, brought to you by Mrs. Beeton, a homemaker writing on "household management":

"It has been all but universally admitted that the beef of France is gratly inferior to that of England, owing to the inferiority of pasturage. M. Curmer, however...tells us that this is a vulgar error, and that French beef is far superior to that of England. A Frenchman was one day blandly remonstrating against the supercilious scorn expressed by Englishmen for the beef of France. 'I have been two times in England,' he remarked, 'but I nevere find the bif so superieur to ours. I find it vary conveenient that they bring it you on leetle pieces of stick, for one penny – but I do not find the bif superieur.' On hearing this the Englishman, red with astonishment, exclaimed: 'Good heavens, sir! You have been eating cat's meat.' No M. Curmer, we are ready to acknowledge the superiority of your cookery, but we have long since made up our minds as to the inferiority of your raw material."


After revolutionizing who ate out in London, Augustus Escoffier next tackled what and how. He introduced the a la carte menu and white-coat waiters. He then tormented his English diners by serving them frogs' legs disguised as Cuisses de Nymphe Aurore, or “Thighs of Dawn Nymphs.” The Prince of Wales was so amused by Escoffier's stunt that he then ordered some Cuisses for himself. “Such was the power that the Prince's whims had on society that the following year more frogs' legs were consumed in London than in Paris." (The Savoy Food and Drink Book).


And yet...after the Larousse Gastronomique (best book ever!) gives a lengthy description of English cookery...


However, although there is no single entry for French cookery, there are 17 different methods listed for preparing frogs' legs, including one called “Frogs' legs a l'anglaise,” with a decisive caveat: “This dish is called a l'anglaise solely because this is the name given to foodstuffs dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and fried. It is well known that frogs' legs are not appreciated in England.”

And if you needed any more proof on the inferiority of France:

Yet not all are embracing the emigration of the French, particularly the French still in France. "'Come back!' Sarkozy cried to a London hall full of expatriates last January. 'You've brought so much intelligence, imagination, passion for work and desire for success with you to London that you have helped give it vitality that Paris needs so much.'" The number of French expats in London has skyrocketed in recent years, with gourmet talents such as Pascal Aussignac seeking refuge in booming London. Aussignac came to London in 1996 after his dreams of opening a restaurant in Paris were not achieved. He now owns 3 restaurants, at which 60 French expatriates are members of the staff. “'We are children of London,' said Aussignac. 'I'm not sure people like us can go back. What would be the point? I'm a Londoner now.'" (NYT article)


hope you enjoyed!  if you want to read the full 4000 words, let me know =D

An American Thanksgiving! Brought to you by YouTube

Thanksgiving.  American Tradition.  London.  Failure.
No stuffing mix, the only turkeys are inordinately expensive free-rangers, and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie filling require trekking to every local grocery store to locate.  Nonetheless, we hardy American expats found that where there's a will, there's a way...

Nate makes some awesome pasta dish for us.

Steph (my sister) works on the gravy.

Part of my contribution!   A beautiful lemon-garlic-rosemary-butter-infused turkey!  The most surprising bit is that I managed to handle cleaning it by myself...although it wasn't my kitchen sink that I used as a bathtub!

Laura's quiche, aka broccoli pie.

YouTube teaches Dave how to carve a turkey...

Success!

Michael approves of our feast.

Part of the gang and our feast.  Food we ate that may or may not be pictured: Turkey, mashed potatoes (40 potatoes' worth for 7 people...), green beans, pasta dish, sweet potatoes with marshmallow, AMERICAN STUFFING (thank you Steph!), quiche, cranberry sauce, and then pumpkin pie and apple crumble for dessert (also my contributions)!

But celebrating Thanksgiving in London was quite a challenge.  Firstly, turkeys, if you can find them, cost the equivalent of $6/pound.  Our prize cost us 30 GBP, which is just shy of $50.  Secondly, American-style stuffing mix must be imported.  They only do chestnut stuffing, and only at Christmas.  Thirdly, cranberry sauce is located with the ketchup.  Yes, the ketchup.  Fourthly, watching The Italian Job as an interlude between dinner and dessert is a most excellent idea.  Fifthly, Michael rocks for choosing to wash ALL the dishes instead of cooking.

Sixthly, we totally played Born in the USA as our cooking music.  Rock on, America.

It's the Most Wonderful Time...

...of the year.  London goes green!  And red!  And all lit up!
About a week ago, celebrities started lighting the annual holiday displays on major public thoroughfares, and alas, my drama class prevented me from seeing Jim Carey light up Oxford Street (in so many ways...).  But I can't fault that class too much, as it provided the basis for the following set.

Sicilian Avenue!  Which is neither an avenue nor Sicilian.  It's a diagonal pedestrian path that makes my walk to the tube station shorter.  And it now has garlands and Christmas lights.

What the English lack in enthusiasm for Thanksgiving, they make up for in Christmas spirit.  Bonus points if you can actually find any "jewellery" (love the Queen's English!) in this display...

The drama-related portion of the night!  This is the National Theatre, one of the single greatest buildings in London, in my humble opinion.  Not only because it's responsible for bringing both WarHorse and The Cat in the Hat to West End threatre, but also because it shows a cultural commitment to the arts.  The only reason London can put on the insane shows that it does is because they have a nationally-funded "testing ground" for new ideas.  Read: the National need not make a profit.  I think I'm becoming a socialist... Anyway, we had a backstage tour at the 3 theatres that make up the National complex...it was quite cool

One of my favorite London bridges (small b).  This is the millennium bridge, or golden jubilee bridge, which I may have mentioned before?  It opened for one day in the new millennium, started swinging from the massive number of people on it, and was closed again for 2 years while it was stabilized.  It is also featured in a dementor scene in one of the Harry Potter movies.

If I need to tell you what any of these structures are, I will go bang my head into a wall.  But I liked the sky.  =D

Panoramic vista at night!  On the left bank you have the financial side of the City--St. Paul's, which is adjacent to the stock exchange (incidentally where I went today), the glass gherkin (pickle-shaped one, of course!), and several of London's tallest structures.  On the right bank you have the OXO tower restaurant, Harvey Nichols, and other commercial bits of London.  And Blackfriars Bridge is the one in the middle. London has always been about making money--the Romans founded it not as a military camp (Leicester, Rochester, and anything ending vaguely in castre), but as a city for trading, Londinium.

Belgium post two!

I suppose this post should contain some warning about statue nudity, but never ye mind...it's only a little boy.

For your viewing pleasure, the Manneken Pis.  Say it out loud.  Yes, that's actually the correct way of saying it.  This little guy is iconic in Brussels tourism, featured on corkscrews, paperweights, and other trinkets.  Evidently local university students come and leave a part of their uniform for him at certain points of the year--note his lovely cap.

The Grand Place at night--essentially the town square of Brussels.  Around this area are side streets full of waffle houses, hot chocolate stands, lace shops, and of courses, chocolate stores!  This is also where we found a place called the Beer Temple, which we ironically visited on a Sunday morning.

A bridge we crossed whilst in Brugge.  The entire city is cut up by a network of canals, and it once had a very important role in the international shipping industry.  However, monastic activity up on a hill ended up forcing silt into the waters, causing them to become too shallow for major transport vehicles.

However, it wasn't too shallow for all vehicles!  We took a small powerboat down the waterways, getting a sense of the size of the city...I swear a good third of it is water!

 

A cathedral in Brugge.  The tower was completed over a period of 3 centuries, showing the dedication of each generation to continue such a financial and laborious burden.

Moules!  We ate our mussels in "natural" sauce--essentially a light fish stock--along with frites with mayonnaise.  Before you cringe, mayo in Europe is thinner than in the U.S. and a lot more flavorful--this one had dill in it and tasted like tartar sauce!

The reason why handmade (bobbin) lace is so expensive.  Belgian lace is internationally renowned,  but if you can't afford the top-notch stuff, this lady recommended getting the Belgian lace that comes out of India.  It's still handmade on quality lace but because it isn't made specifically in Belgium, it's generally about 20% cheaper.  Tape lace is machine-made, and is used in most commercial lace applications we see today.

The important stuff:

1. waffles are fantastic. surprisingly, the beer ain't bad either.

2. no one speaks english.  brussels they do french, but in brugge, i actually did the best with spanish!

3. NATO stands for Not Allowing Threatening Objects, where such objects include ipods, cell phones, and the like.  Once stripped of such dangerous goods (and sadly, our cameras), we got to see a conference room and the dining hall...which had quite excellent, very cheap food!

4. GO TO BRUGGE!  Brussels is neat, but not as culturally interesting. Brugge is still stuck about 300 years in the past and I love it much for it...for instance, only residents are allowed to drive a vehicle within the city limits...hence the large number of pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages.  Yeah.  You read that right.

Belgian Waffles=Best Thing Ever

No, seriously.  I thought they were just a joke, and that the whole world liked eating "Belgian-style waffles."  I'll admit it--I was much mistaken.  Crunchy and sweet on the outside, warm and doughy on the inside, they may be one of the greatest things I have ever eaten.
So, I'm still editing my massive number of landscape-y photos, but Facebook kicked me in the butt and made me work on people pics first, so you're about to get a rare sight: pictures with me IN them.

Me and my friend Chad on a boat tour of Brugge.  Pretty sweet city with lots of canals and basically no English! Photo credit to Michael.

Me and Chad again in a pub in Brussels, just outside the Grand Place.  Note: I am drinking beer in this picture!  It was my first beer in about 12 years, so even though it was a girly raspberry beer, it was an accomplishment.  The peach beer (Lindeman's, if you're interested) was even more delicious. Photo credit to Michael, I think?

Me at the EU parliament.  Photo credit to Chad.

Laura, me, and Karen (these are the 2 girls I went to Rome with).  We're in front of the cube that was part of the World's Fair display.  It was pouring but we braved the rain for this pic.  Photo credit to Amelia, I think.

Anyway, landscape pics will show up eventually...hope you enjoyed!

Falling in Love with London

First off, apologies for the awful title.  But it's true.  The very first week, I wasn't such a fan of the noise and the smoke and the bustle and the impersonal nature of London.  Then I got used to it and had more of a "this is nice, but spring semester will be good" philosophy.  Then, shortly before fall break, I switched to a "heh, this is nice" mentality...which may explain the decrease in blog posts. =D

I wish this photo were timestamped so that you could be impressed with my scholarly dedication.  I'm a bad photo student because I had taken a mere 6 photos this week (and all of a loaf of my rosemary bread), and resolved to get up to shoot the sunrise at our neighborhood park.

Except Britain doesn't have a sunrise.  Or a sun, for that matter.

I crawled out of bed at 6:45 am in order to catch the blessed event at 7:15.  I got to the park at 7, enjoyed the leafy scenery, set up my tripod, and faced east.

But the only sunrise I saw was a bit of reddishness in the sky...it's not even worth posting a photo.

So I continued wandering around the park, settling for photos of pigeons and squirrels (yeahhhh), but still no sunrise.  Blast and damn.  So I resigned myself to my fate and picked out a few urban shots (read: buses in front of apartment buildings) along with these autumnal views, but seriously...no sunrise?

To add insult to injury, someone in the flat below us caused a fuse or something to blow at quarter to 2 in the morning, setting off the electrical alarm in the whole building.  Needless to say, I won't be getting up to photograph tomorrow's sunrise...or lack thereof!

From Pizza to Piazza

 Someone didn't want us to go to Rome.  First I heard about a train strike which was going to affect Dwi's journey, and we were worried.  But trenitalia assured her it would be fine.  Then, thursday night, we get an email from British Airways telling us that our flight has been canceled because Air Traffic Control is on strike and we've been rebooked on one 5 hours later from a different airport.  Well, at least we don't have to get up early?  So we get to the airport, go through security, chill at the Harrod's in the airport for a bit, and then wait to board.  And wait.  And wait.  It was never "officially" delayed, but we boarded 45 minutes late.  Then we sat on the runway for another hour while waiting to take off.  All very frustrating when you're meeting someone on the other end of your journey and aren't allowed to use a cell phone!

 

 My first view of Rome!  These are mountains of some sort but I'm not sure which ones.  Any geography experts should feel free to chime in.

Our cute hotel, from the outside.  It's called Rome Hotel Pinewood, and is a great B&B out by the Cornelia metro station, which is nigh at the end of one of the metro lines (but there are only 2).  Definitely not taken on the day we arrived as it was pitch black by then.  Love navigating in the dark!

Lobby shot!

Another lobby shot!

 

Having arrived at the hotel so late, there wasn't much we could do the first day.  So we caught a bus to Piazza Cavour, walked to Piazza Navona, and then found our way to the Pantheon from there.  Unfortunately it was closed by then, so we just marveled at the outside and ate crepes.  Boo yah.

The view from the bridge (of another bridge!) that connects Piazza Navona and Piazza Cavour.  That's the Tiber river there.

The next day, after our Roman ruins outing, we went on a free tour sponsored by, ironically enough, Rome Free Tours.  The guides are all local college students who work on a tips-only basis, and our guide, Simone, was both informative and, well, nice to look at. Rome is full of basilisks (read: solitary tall columns) and here are three that we passed on our walk.

We also went to the Trevi Fountain for the first time while on the tour...it was a magnificent display of white marble and jets of water.  We vowed to revisit during the daytime, though.

A Rome metro car.  This is why I liked the Paris metro more than most people: the metro in Rome has two lines that overlap at just ONE POINT and it's rather dirty (though cheap).  Paris's metro is slightly cleaner and far more extensive, which I greatly appreciated.  London's metro is head and shoulders above the rest of the world, but is so darn expensive!

Dwi and I spent the better part of one afternoon wandering along the Tiber, because that's what we like to do.

More from our wanderings.  I loved that the green still came through in the reflection!

Loved this painter.  I kind of wanted to buy what he was working on right there--a shot of St. Peter's with the bridge and Tiber in the foreground...it was rather magnificent.

Entirety of the Trevi fountain at night...

And a portion of it during the day!  I threw in one coin just to return because I wasn't sure if the three for marrying an Italian meant one originally from there...I have my Italian already! (Legend goes: 1 coin--will return to Rome; 2 coins--will fall in love with an Italian; 3 coins--will marry an Italian).

Piazza Navona's central fountain.  We met up with a friend who lived on our freshman year floor here...out of the 27 of us, there were 4 who made it here on the same night!

The "ugly boat" of Piazza Spagna.  Simone told us that when the Tiber flooded, an ugly boat ended up in the centre of the piazza, and so they built a fountain to commemorate it.  Go figure.

Random arch in the Villa Borghese park.  We wandered around in this huge park for about an hour and a half, enjoying the fresh air (you think Londoners smoke?  go to Rome!) and meeting all the dogs in the park!

Also in Villa Borghese park.  No sign, though, so no idea what these columns represented...

It's time to play..."what's wrong with this picture?"  If you're wondering why I have a picture of the Globe in the Rome post, check out the flag...we were wandering through, saw this, and were very confused, as we've all been to the semi-real Globe (the original was destroyed by fire) in London.  Evidently the Romans love Shakespeare so much they wanted one of their own.

Really cool (well, warm) sunlight we saw on our way out of the park.  We danced in its magical beams.

We attempted to go to the Boca but we got there just as it was closing, alas, and even when we pleaded in Italian we were turned away.  Supposedly if you put your hand in and tell a lie, the mouth bites you!  See Roman Holiday for details...or just watch it, 'cause Audrey's my girl.

Thus concludes our adventure in Rome! Our last day, Dwi and I had a late flight so we slept in, got breakfast, went to the Vatican markets, went to a grocery store, and then headed back to the hotel to get our luggage and then begin the trek to the airport (walk to metro, take metro to train station, take train to airport, take plane to London).  But Paris is still my favorite! =p