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!

The Things I Do for Architecture

For my architecture class, I sometimes go on group visits to sites, and I also have to write a descriptive paper about a building/structure. For our first visit, we went and looked at the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) which is home to Big Ben (name of the bell inside, not the actual tower but most people still call the tower itself Big Ben).

FUN FACTS:

-In 1834, most of the building burned down. Charles Barry was the architect chosen to create the new section, but his assistant Augustus Pugin did a lot of the work. Pugin was a close-minded proponent of Gothic architecture and made a lot of the details in that style. He did not receive a lot of credit for his work, partially because he was Catholic.

-The style of the newer sections is in Tudor Gothic, which was a style much earlier than the construction. They made it this way to make this important government building seem historic and thus stronger. The part of the building that survived the 1834 fire is much simpler than the ornate and newer Tudor Gothic parts.

-In the original design, the Big Ben tower was higher than the Victoria tower (on the opposite side of the building), but they changed it because they believed that the sovereign's tower should be the highest. It was Victoria tower that was meant to be the most important landmark and not Big Ben, but in history, the opposite has proved true.

The tower on the right is the Victoria tower and is taller than Big Ben.

The day we had our tour, there were student protests at Trafalgar Square so there were a ton of police present in case the protests escalated into violence. Buildings down by the square had boards over some of the windows where students had thrown rocks during prior protests. We didn't see the protests because they started later in the day, but our professor kept telling us, "If I say the word, you all have to get away from here." Luckily, it ended up not being an issue.

It was sunny but cold, so I got some hot chocolate.

For my descriptive essay, I'm planning on writing about the Albert Memorial, which is located in Kensington Gardens, so on a rather chilly day, I went to go look at it and to wander around a little.

The Albert Memorial. It's really huge, but the picture doesn't convey its scale very well.

I walked along Kensington until I found it, and it's really very impressive. There are tons of figures sculpted all around, and the actual Prince Albert statue is enormous. I took a bunch of pictures for reference for when I write the paper. The memorial was commissioned by Queen Victoria, who was very devoted to her late husband. It underwent a thorough renovation in 2009 so it is presently in very good condition.

Princess Diana memorial fountain.

After looking at the memorial, I crossed to the Hyde Park side to see the Princess Diana memorial fountain. It's like a giant loop with water running from the high point in both directions until it meets at the bottom. It's right next to the river which runs through part of Kensington Gardens also. I followed it back to the Kensington Gardens side. 

A lady feeding the swans.

I walked along the river a little bit. There were a bunch of runners, but not too many people out strolling because it was so cold. I really love seeing all of these swans because they're not very common back home, but I guess here it really isn't a big deal. On a similar yet dissimilar note, I read an article in the Evening Standard about a raccoon in someone's garden, which was a notable occurrence since raccoons are only native to North America. I still thought it was funny that it was in the newspaper though.

Peter Pan statue.

This statue was donated by J. M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan. It's very pretty all around, with figures of woodland creatures and fairies. This is one of 7 identical statues that are located around the world, but this is the original (I believe) because Barrie set a Peter Pan adventure in Kensington Gardens and apparently frequented the spot. I wanted someone to take my picture with it, but no one was walking by at the time, which just means I'll have to go back when someone visits (Beth or Macy).

This is a drinking fountain with two bears hugging, which I thought was super cute.

Upcoming blog posts: Royal Opera House and Football game.

Queen Mary Living

Again, I'm horrible at updating, which is weird considering how much time I have. I don't have a lot of actual class time which is nice but I think it's making me somewhat lazy in all aspects of my life. Oh well.

To give you an idea of my room situation, here are pictures of my room!

My room when it was actually clean (by my standards).

So as you can see, I have a closet (the door does close, but there's a mirror on the inside of the door so I leave it open) and a few drawers where I keep my clothing. The shelves I use for food and cleaning/paper products. I keep shoes under the desk and a whole lot of stuff on my desk. I have hung some things up on my board as you can see, showing that there is life in this room. My walls are all pretty bare, but I don't want to waste money on posters or anything. I also have my little fridge there in the corner under the desk. I have freezer space in our flat's kitchen, but this fridge is pretty adequate for my cold food needs.

You can also see that my suitcase is just sitting against the wall. There is storage under my bed (the part with the mattress lifts up), but my suitcase, being as enormous as it is, is too difficult to wedge into the opening. It's cool though: I use it as a sort of unique end table, and it doesn't really get in the way at all.

I made the bed so I could take pictures of it.

As you can see, I'm still repping DePauw. I keep my books and knick knacks on these shelves. It's nice because I have switches and outlets on the long shelf that runs from my desk to my bed so I can turn the lights on and off without getting up and I can charge my phone right beside me while I sleep.

My glamorous bathroom.

Stephanie called it my "astronaut" bathroom. I have a toilet to the right of what this picture shows, but I thought, "Do I really need to take a picture of my toilet to put on the internet? Probably not." It's very no-frills, but it's pretty nice for my needs, and I don't have to share with anyone. There's a shelf to the right of the sink where I keep all of my toiletries and such. Also, the maids come and clean it biweekly so I am truly spoiled.

This is the view from my window. I'm very lucky and I have a nice view of the canal.

My building is set at the very innermost end of the campus so I don't really have any street noise and I can see people out and about in Mile End Park across the canal. There is a train that runs close by but I find the sound pleasant and not annoying. I tend to close the blinds at night so I don't get the lights coming in, but it's nice to have them open during the day (especially on days like the one in the picture when it's not raining).

Wildlife!

Also, there are swans, ducks, geese, and gulls on the canal. When I took this picture, there was a family walking and feeding bread to the birds. It's nice to look out and see these birds, especially since there is often just grungy trash floating. The swans give it more class.

In upcoming posts: Parliament, Kensington and Hyde Parks, Royal Opera House, and Football game.

Friends

First of all, let it be known that I am a horrible blogger. I apologize that I'm bad at updating, but on the bright side the anticipation builds!

After having been here only a short time, I had the fortune of seeing several familiar faces. My friend Stephanie from Delta Gamma back at DePauw came to Canterbury to visit a friend and spent a few days with me in London. We got to do some of the fun touristy things together before she had to head back.

Stephanie and I eating a very exotic meal of pizza, considered an exclusively English dish by many...

 After my class on Friday, we went to the Tower of London, getting caught in rain and hail on the way. Unfortunately, we got there too late in the day for a visit because it was closing in 45 minutes, and it takes longer than that to experience the Tower. We decided we would come back the next day and fit it in.

It looked so warm and welcoming inside the Tower while we were freezing outside.

We ended up heading to the British Museum, which, conveniently, was open into the evening. It's a truly massive building, and we only went through the Egyptian and Greek exhibits.

Me in front of the museum.

The Rosetta stone.

 After the museum, we met up with another DG sister, Amanda Lane, for dinner. Then after that, Steph and I met up with the DePauw winter term group at their hotel, which included more DGs: Rachel Rominger (One of my littles!!!!), Ashley Catillo, and Rachel Lemonds (New House Manager!!!) and one of my good friends, Zaq Keller! We went and got them some food, and Zaq and I downed two pitchers of Sangria because we are awesome.

Sisters and friends. And Sangria.

The next day, Stephanie and I went back to the Tower of London and actually got to go inside! We saw so many cool things, including a 530 carat diamond which we couldn't take pictures of. But seriously: 530 CARATS. The crown jewels were all gorgeous and the armor was quite impressive. We also got to go into the church in which many famous people are interred, including the wives that King Henry VIII had executed.

This is the site where truly important executions took place. The majority took place outside the grounds on Tower Hill, but Queen Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Gray, Jane Boleyn, and Queen Catherine Howard all met their doom here.

In the next post (which will theoretically be soon): pictures of my room and Parliament.

My Start in London

On the day I left for London after a nice lunch with my mom, dad, sister Beth, and cousin Megan, I went to the Indianapolis airport for my flight to Toronto. At my gate, I spotted a familiar face: Roy Leaf, a fellow DePauw student and a member of my first year seminar class. Turns out he was on my flight to Toronto, but instead of continuing on to London like I was, he was going to Chile. (Yes, going north to Canada in order to fly south to Chile). We didn't sit near each other on the plane, but when we got to Toronto, our flights were at side-by-side gates, which was so convenient. Lucky me, I had someone to talk to before my flight and someone to watch my bags while I got food, used the restroom, and all that jazz.

On my flight to London, I sat next to an old British woman, who, while very nice, had a distinct smell and kept putting her feet in my foot space while she was sleeping. Needless to say, I didn't sleep on the plane. Instead, I watched three movies: Going the Distance, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and Never Let Me Go. I found them okay, boring, and good respectively.

When I arrived at Heathrow, I nabbed all of my bags and was conveniently directed to the group for Queen Mary students that would take via bus to the campus. We drove right through downtown London to get to Queen Mary, but I kept dosing at intervals because I was tired. When we got to school, I got my key and found my room, then napped til dinner.

Most of campus wasn't back, so it was bascially international students for the first weekend. I met a lot of people and sampled local restaurants. I also took a bus tour of London, saw some sights, and oriented myself with the city. We got off the bus to see Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, and London Bridge (which, incidentally, is not one of the more interesting bridges as both the Tower and Millenium bridges surpass it in coolness).

M16 building, aka, where James Bond would work if he were real.

St. Paul's Cathedral. It was difficult to get a full shot from so close up but it's really gorgeous.

The City of London area. The torpedo shaped one is called "The Gherkin"

Classes started on Monday, and after initial struggles getting my schedule finalized, I'm now in four really exciting classes. On Mondays from 1-3 I have King Arthur, which is about Arthurian legend, why it remains such a popular topic for authors, and all that jazz. Then I have no class on Tuesday. On Wednesday I have Architecture in London 1837-Present from 12-2, on Thursday, I have Text, Art, and Performance in London from 1-3, then on Friday I have Time, Narrative, and Culture from 10-12. Overall, not a bad schedule if I do say so myself.

In upcoming blogposts: Visits with friends, descriptions of Queen Mary, room, and flatmates. Stay tuned!