FOOD!!!

For those who may not be aware, the food in London can be quite different from at home, and since I've been here, I've experienced many new dishes for the first time. I'd never had Indian before coming here, and now I can confidently order the least spicy items on the menu. A street called Brick Lane is very close to my university, and it is renowned for its curry. When I tell Londoners that I'm from the states, rather than ask me if I've seen Big Ben or been to Buckingham Palace, they ask me if I've had curry on Brick Lane yet. Masala has become about as popular as fish and chips. I haven't had any fish and chips of course because I am opposed to 1) all potato products and 2) deep fried meat. I'll probably have to have it before I leave though, just so that I can say I did it.

There's a wonderful Mediterranean place close to Queen Mary called "R Bar," which has delicious food. One of the most impressive things about it, however, is its presentation. They served food in small wooden boxes and from metal hooks. They also have cocktails made with liquid nitrogen that freeze the drinks and billow smoke.

My "Icy Blue Lagoon" drink.

I think R Bar is super proud of their liquid nitrogen and try to use it whenever possible, including in the center of their calamari trees.

As I said, they're all about the presentation.

Another dish that I tried for the first time is mussels. I met with my friend Amanda Lane, DG alumnae and current London grad student, at a restaurant called Belgo. They had a great deal where you could pay the price of the time you ordered certain meals: we ordered at 5:50 so our mussels cost 5:50. I actually really loved them! I also got to try some Belgian coconut beer and chocolate beer, and though I love chocolate, I liked the coconut version much better.

The lovely Amanda Lane and a delicious bowl of mussels. Her beer choices were less fruity and much stronger than my "chick beers."

As I've been trying new food here in London, I've also exposed my English friends to a few American foods. My friends Emily and Eleanor had the great misfortune of never having had s'mores. You know what they make over campfires? Toast. Boring. So, some American friends and I had to introduce them to the art of roasting marshmallows and mixing them with chocolate and graham crackery goodness. Unfortunately, graham crackers aren't really available here, so we had to make do with cookies instead.

This is one of my s'mores, and it was one that I didn't accidentally catch on fire on the stove. I had to document its perfection.

Needless to say, the girls loved s'mores--who doesn't? Emily even tried making them at home with her family, but she said they didn't turn out as well as they did during our s'mores night.

My friend Emily enjoying her first s'more. Her life will never be the same.

We were trying to think of other "American dishes" to share with our English friends, so I decided to make Scotcheroos for them. I had a few setbacks in the process. From all that I could gather via Google, they don't actually sell corn syrup in the UK, so I had to find an alternate for that and used honey instead. Also, their version of butterscotch chips is not the same as ours. It's more like toffee. When I tried to stir the chocolate mixture for the topping, the butterscotch made it sort of whipped like a mousse. I figured it might calm down if I got it off the heat, but when I tried to spread it on the rice krispie part, it got into a big clumpy mess. I had to scrap that attempt, and I remade the topping with chocolate only.

My failed topping. The yellow bits are Rice Krispie pieces that came off when I scraped the mixture off.

I also don't have any measuring cups, in addition to not having an understanding of the conversion between grams, ounces, and cups anyway. I just had to eyeball my measurements to see if it looked about right. I didn't know how it tasted before I brought it my friends to share, but they all liked it, and it didn't taste too off from how it tastes back home.

The finished product! No measurements, no corn syrup, no butterscotch, but it still looked like it is supposed to look.

We also brought one other American food into the lives of my English friends, though I didn't help with making it. Some of my fellow Americans made French toast for my friend Emily's birthday breakfast. They do have French toast here, but apparently they don't use cinnamon or eggs on it. Emily described their French toast as "bread and oil." We made her American French toast, which she agreed was tasty. There was also quite a spread of other breakfast foods, all of which were delicious.

My friends Annette (American) and Emily for Emily's 19th Birthday breakfast.

Also for Emily's birthday, we watched Little Miss Sunshine and had cake! Alex also played "Happy birthday" on the violen while we all sang along off-key.

Happy birthday to Emily!

One more food-related anecdote: Every Thursday, Queen Mary hosts a Farmer's Market in the center of campus, and I enjoy buying a sandwich and drink there before class. At the apple-juice stand, I was buying a bottle of really delicious fresh apple juice, and I only had a 10 pound note for the 1 pound 50p bottle. I asked the man at the booth, "Can you make change?" and he exclaimed, "I love the way you talk!" I was confused, so he continued, "Can I make change? Like what, pull it out of the air with magic? That's hilarious!" Turns out that's not really an expression they have here, but at least I haven't complimented anyone on their "pants" yet. (Here, pants=underwear, as my friend Jean Rebarchak learned the hard way)

I'll try to make a blog post soon about my trip to Brighton, and my friend Macy arrives tomorrow morning so I'll be sure to document our adventures!

Drapers and Projects

They had a Superbowl party for the Americans (and the higher-number-than-expected British students that cared) at the campus bar Drapers, and a free box of nachos and a drink came with the cover. I, of course, was cheering for the Packers because 1) I hate the Pittsburgh Penguins, another Pittsburgh sports franchise and 2) Ben Roethlisberger is an accused rapist, and I'm not okay with that. If only the Colts were in it! I would have been so happy... I only ended up staying for half of the game and the half time show because I still had reading to finish for the next day, but it was a lot of fun. Lots of people showed up and we had really good seats. The biggest bummer, however, was there were none of the Superbowl commercials because it was airing through a British network. I had to watch them all online the next day. Instead, we had to watch a British guy who obviously knew nothing about the sport interview the same two former NFL players every time the game was supposed to cut to commercial. It was torture.

My friend Joyce and I watching the game. We sat with a big group cheering for the Packers.

I went to Drapers again the next night because we had a lot of fun there. I went with my friend Emily, with whom I have 3 of my 4 classes. We had a lot of fun, but there were some creepers so we went back to her room to hang out away from them.

Ah! Creepers!

For my architecture class I had to write a paper about a building or structure, and as I put in a previous post, I wrote about the Albert Memorial. My friend Joyce decided to write about the Natural History Museum, and I wanted to tag along because it seemed like both a cool building and a fun place to go touristing. 

An view of one end of the entrance hall. The building was awesome and innovative for its time.

At the museum, they were having an exhibit entitled "Sexual Nature" about the reproductive habits of various animal species, and we went through it because who could pass that up? It was actually very interesting, and a lot of it was similar to stuff I'd learned in my HoScho biology class last year. Most of it wasn't awkward at all... except for the animal porn. It wasn't like animals doing their reproductive processes (those videos were fine), it was a video of this woman dressing up as different animals and describing/demonstrating their reproductive practices. It was the weirdest thing ever and we couldn't watch the videos without laughing. It was tempting, at the end, to purchase our own DVD copies of that magical program in the gift shop, but somehow we managed to resist.

They also played "mood music" throughout the exhibit. Bowchickawowwow.

For a different class, (Text, Art, and Performance in London) I had to make a portfolio analyzing four different "experiences" I'd undergone. One of these, which was required for class, was an audio tour that guided us around part of East London. I went with my friend Emily (see above) since we had the same class. The tour was called "The Missing Voice" and it told a story about a woman walking the streets of London and guided us along the path she walked. It was a bizarre experience, but also very interesting. There were sound effects like cars passing and people talking, which were sometimes hard to distinguish from the noises outside of the recording. Both Emily and I were worried would accidentally get hit by a car or something as we walked around with our headphones in, so it was good we went together. 

The walk began at Whitechapel Library and ended here, Liverpool St. Station. I changed the picture to faded coloring for my portfolio because it felt appropriate for the story told in the recording

Another experience I did for the class was going to an Art Gallery called the White Cube. I chose it because it was free and seemed easily accessible, but I was rather surprised when I walked into the huge gallery space and saw giant paintings of celebrities on the walls. I was expecting high art, and I found myself looking at Taylor Swift and Leo DiCaprio. The exhibit was titled "Most Wanted," and the artist was an American. The purpose, apparently, was to address the commercialization of celebrity as well as to bring low culture into the realm of high culture through formal portraiture.

Though for the most part, I just felt bemused.

In another architectural excursion, we had to meet in Trafalgar Square for a walking tour with the professor, and while we were waiting for him to show up, we were entertained by a large group of FC Barcelona fans cheering and chanting. There was apparently a big game between an English team and Barcelona that day, and they were all rather drunk and very entertaining to watch.

Barcelona fans playing a steel drum and yelling in Spanish.

Sorry if this post seemed kind of random. I'm basically going through my pictures and picking out what I've done in order. I have more that I can add soon, so look for another update in the near future!

Still alive: Soccer and Chinese New Year

Hey everyone. I'm sorry I haven't updated this blog in forever, so I will make a couple posts to make up for it. Also, the powers that be have decided to make blogging from my school account impossible, so I had to create a new email account for this blog. It shouldn't change anything, but it's a pain.

I went to a soccer game at the Fulham Football club with a group of international students from Queen Mary. Since Fulham is a local team and one of their top players is an American player named Clint Dempsey, I decided to cheer for them. They wore black and white and their opponents Newcastle wore blue. 

Clint Dempsey, number 23, was the only player whose name I knew.

So, I was cheering for Fulham at the Fulham stadium, but we were sitting in the middle of the Newcastle fan section. Consequently, I didn't cheer a lot. The fans cheered and sang the entire time, and unlike when I saw a game in Greece, I could actually understand what they were saying, and a lot of it was obscenities. It was still really fun and had great energy. Like most soccer games, they didn't score a lot, but Fulham did manage to get 2 goals in the second half while Newcastle remained goal-less. I actually thought it was surprising that Fulham won because it seemed like Newcastle was setting the pace for most of the game, and they were very controlled. So though I was happy the team I was cheering for won, I still sympathized with the Newcastle fans.

Also, the Fulham mascot was a Badger, which seems like a lame animal to lose to.

The weekend after the game, London celebrated the Chinese New Year. Apparently, the London celebration is the largest outside of China for this holiday. And I can believe because it was amazingly crowded. We went to Trafalgar Square and spent about 30 minutes just lost in the crowd. Then we walked to Chinatown where it was equally crowded, but we did get some food and saw the big dancing dragon thing.

As you can see, the person in front of me had a less obstructed picture.

Some of my friends, and it's pure coincidence they are Asian. Haili and Joyce, both from USC in California.

A guy dressed as the panda from Kung Fu Panda 2 outside of a McDonalds. Nothing like an authentic Chinese holiday.

 Okay, I promise to do a few more posts in the next few days!