If the Colonists were Brits, why don't you guys celebrate Thanksgiving?

It was a Thanksgiving miracle, really. Up until Monday of this week, I was convinced that Thanksgiving was going to be a huge bust. It was impossible to organize anybody in time to make reservations for an American pub dinner, and I had absolutely no idea how to cook an entire meal myself. Panic set in as I started realizing that this might be the first time in twenty years that I would miss Thanksgiving. But finally, Lauren gave me a great little pep talk and we decided WE WERE GOING TO DO THANKSGIVING RIGHT. Luckily, our Thanksgiving miracle came in the form of Stephen - ironically, he’s British. But he’s a good cook! And he was even more determined than we were to do Thanksgiving all the way. This is Stephen:

Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I eagerly made an event and invited as many people as possible. Within a few days we had 20 people RSVPd to attend! Stephen and Judith went to get loads of groceries early Wednesday morning to prepare:

See that on the left? That’s a twenty-pound turkey.
My contribution was a green bean casserole! Normally, I’m a lazy American and I use 3 types of cans: Cream of Mushroom Can, Green Bean Can, French’s Fried Onions!

BUT since we’re in the UK and all, you can’t find this anywhere. So Thursday night Sarah and I cut up a bunch of onions, battered them, and then fried them ourselves! The completed masterpiece ended up looking and tasting great if I do say so myself:

Aside from Sebastien’s Paula-Deen-style mac and cheese (“more cheese y’all!”) and some other side dishes, Flat 20 pretty much handled the rest. I can’t believe the turkey actually cooked!
Before:

After:

The whole feast. We had the turkey, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, green bean casserole, baked sweet potato, gravy, mulled wine, cider, cranberry sauce, smoked vegetables, and stuffing. Before:

After:

As you can see, we pretty much demolished the meal. I think about 25 people showed up! It was so crowded that we had to set up chairs in the hallway since the kitchen is so tiny.

And don’t forget the dessert! Pumpkin pie, apple pie, chocolate pecan pie!
Oh, and we had pilgrim and native american hats - how awesome is that?

Overall, everything was a grand success! It still blows my mind that we were all able to pull this off in a couple of days. Not to mention, I was essentially eating with the true colonists, the Brits :)

Turns out the bathwater in Bath is pretty gross

Last Saturday, Max and I spontaneously decided to go to Bath! In retrospect, the trip itself was a fantastic idea, but the spontaneous part pretty much stabbed my wallet, twisted the knife, and then threw salt into the wound (ok, not that bad, but still it was expensive!). The city of Bath is most famous for it’s Roman Baths and luckily it was only about an hour’s train ride away from London - So off we went!

In the morning, we first walked to the Bath Abbey. The structure itself towers over the entire town and is an impressive sight. Max, the ever informative Brit, informed me that a city can only be a city when it has a Cathedral in it, otherwise its a town. We couldn’t figure out Bath, though, since the Abbey is a church and not an official cathedral, but it was still considered a city. Maybe down the line they switched the rules? Either way, the abbey was as large as all the other cathedrals I saw and still beautiful in its own right:

I thought the chandelier at the top was the coolest part. A little touch of modernity:

Remembrance Day crosses:

During our walk around town we saw some beautiful scenery and the Pulteney Bridge which is I think one of four bridges in the entire world that has shops on both sides of the bridge. It’s really bizarre, because if you were just walking down the road, you might not even realize you’re on a bridge - it’s just a continuation of more shops!
This is the bridge from the side:
And this is what it looks like on the bridge!:

Next up, the famous Roman Baths. I’ve got to say - this made the entire ticket price worth it. I was really amazed at how visitors could actually be in the Roman Bath itself. Nowadays, we’re so often limited to seeing artifacts in these glass cages, being separated from artwork because we’re too dangerous and we’ll surely destroy it with accidental sneezes or trips. But here, we could literally touch the thousand year old stones, sit on the steps by the bath, and sneakily touch the water to test out the temperature. I was amazed that they trusted visitors so much. But then again, I suppose with the Bath itself being open-aired, the weather will probably do more damage than humans will.

For educational purposes, an explanation of the hot spring!:


We saw this about 3 minutes after sticking our fingers in the water:

By far the best picture of the trip:

This one didn’t come out too well, but I thought the technology was pretty cool. The Romans would use these stacks of bricks to support the original “floor” above it. In the space below, they would place their furnaces. The heat would rise through the floor and create a spa!

We got to try some purified Bath water! It was…bizarre. It was really warm (naturally) and had a sulfuric after taste.

The Pump Room (used to be the cultural/hang out hotspot (haha!) back in the day):

Around lunch time we met up with Max’s friend from back home, George, who’s going to the Uni in Bath. This is him trying the weird Bath water (don’t make any jokes about taking baths in Bath, he’s heard them all):

Nice enough to give us a personal tour, George showed us to see the two other major attractions in Bath. The Circle:

Subjecting the boys to my non-stop photo taking. Max looks infinitely pleased:

The gigantic Crescent- It’s so much bigger than the pictures, I swear!
Hahah the height difference makes us look really awkward…

And with that, we pretty much ended our attraction-seeing trip of Bath! It was a lovely trip indeed. Many thanks to Max for indulging my spontaneous desire to go on a day trip and to George for taking time out of his day to show us around!

Up next: A British Thanksgiving Feast!

Macarons, Wine in Baby Bottles, and living the life in Paris

Ah Paris…dare I say, one of the most amazing cities in the world? I went this past weekend to meet up with Madeline and her two fantastic friends from the Penn Lyon program, Zach & Theresa. After a harrowing 7 hour journey which included the tube, a train, a shuttle bus, a plane, another bus, and then ending up lost in France by myself (“I see two giant monuments. I think they’re famous. I have no idea where I am. Please come find me!”) I finally made it to Paris…which is only two hours away from London. I’m not surprised that would happen to me. I got in Thursday night and we rested up for a smashing weekend.

Friday morning we headed to the Louvre to try and beat the crowds. I had been there once before, but it was still really nice being able to see other exhibits I hadn’t seen. This was my favorite new piece at the museum:

Theresa, Madeline, and I outside the Louvre:

On our way to the island to see Notre Dame, we walked across a bridge where people leave padlocks with messages on it.

At Notre Dame and actually walked upon the Remembrance Day memorial inside it! I was really surprised they still let the tourists walk around while the service was held. Supposedly Sarkozy was there too, but I’m not sure if that was true.

Making sure we hit up all the good sights, we headed over to Arc de Triomphe and saw some Remembrance Day things there as well
We were absolutely exhausted at this point so we headed back to our super sketchy hotel (but actually. I’m pretty sure we were in the ghetto..), took a power nap, and then headed off to the South End for an exquisite French dinner! Turns out the French really like prix fix menus and for just 17€ we got a 3 course meal! I got mussels, duck confit, and a creme brulee. It was absolutely amazing!

We attempted to get up early the next day to get a good start and beat the crowds again at Musee d’Orsay, but alas, we woke up really really late. Look how great these guys are:

We had to wait in line for the line an incredibly long time, so we played the I’ll-shout-out-a-scenario-and-you-all-act-out-your-responses-while-I-take-a-picture game. Here were some of the best ones:
Musee d’Orsay was amazing!! I actually liked it so much better than the Louvre probably because the way it’s organized inside. In the Louvre you feel like you’re walking through miles and miles of artifacts, whereas Orsay has 3 rooms in each section, allowing it to focus on a specific category or style. They also had all of my favorites like Degas, Seurat, and Monet. I’m a sucker for Impressionism & Pointilism so I was pretty much in heaven. Unfrotuantely there was a strict no-camera policy, so I couldn’t get any pictures, but I think it actually made me enjoy the art more. As Madeline said, “I see absolutely no point in taking picture of art.”

After picking up Macarons at Laudree (more on that later), we headed to Sacre Coeur which is a church at the highest point in Paris. We had no idea how crowded it would be, but there were droves of people bringing up a late lunch to gaze at the city. It was definitely a spectacular sight:
Me and my baguette!
The view of Paris:
As the sun was setting, we decided to break out our macarons. We got them at Laudree which is often considered one of the best macaron shops in Paris! All of those ratings were absolutely right. I had always imagined macarons to be sort of like whoopie pies - cake, cream, cake. But wow was I wrong. The outer layer kind of has a tiny crust that cracks when you bite into it, then you hit the soft cookie part,  then the inside of the cookie is incredibly chewy, and then you make it to the creme.
High on the deliciousness of macarons, we snapped some more sunset photos - the colors were beautiful!

As night hit, we headed to the Eiffel tower! Normally the grassy area behind it is blocked off so you have to keep on the pavement, but one of the fences was broken, and everybody had stormed in for picnics, pictures, and fun. We spent about an hour just goofing off and taking jump photos with the Eiffel tower in the background. I think that these moments are the best part about being abroad - the moments where you aren’t rushed to see every sight possible, but rather have the benefit of being able to relax and take a city in slowly.

Not ready for our night to end, we headed to Le Refuge des Fondues, an absolutely ridiculous fondue restrauant that’s a hot spot for study abroad students. There’s a huge wait no matter when it is, the restaurant is so tiny you have to climb over the tables (They make you do it! It’s an entire process!), there’s graffiti all over the walls, and they serve wine in baby bottles!! The food itself wasn’t fantastic, but the experience was definitely worth it. We were surrounded by Parisians, Spaniards, Americans, and so much more- everybody shouting and cheering at the slightest thing, singing Happy Birthday at the top of their lungs, and having an amazing time.
Madeline getting helped over the tables by our super bizarre waiter hahah:
To end up the night, we walked around the area a little bit more to find Moulin Rouge!! We met up at a bar with Theresa’s friends, went back to our hotel, and passed out!

My last day in Paris was the shortest, yet probably my favorite (except for Theresa and Zach not being there! They went to Versailles). Madeline and I just took the morning to stroll around Le Marais, an area that was quite posh (oh ho! I’m such a Brit) and had cute shops and cafes. I think we both liked it so much because we had no plan except to wander.

We saw a guy leaning against a door oh-so-model-like, and I just had to snap a picture hahah:

We stumbled upon the Bastille! Earlier we thought it would have been I guess the actual Bastille…but it was destroyed so I guess that makes sense:
After stumbling upon a chocolate fair, getting one of the best falafel sandwiches “in the world,” we continued on with our day of relaxation and sat along the Seine. I think if I had to pick a highlight of my entire trip, I would pick this moment. We took goofy pictures, creeper photos, basked in the unusually warm sunlight, and just enjoyed Paris. This is what I call living the life.

What a perfect way to end my trip to Paris! Well, at least in my mind, this is where I make my Paris trip end because I also got lost on the way back to London - trying to figure out that the train you’re on is no longer running and you have to switch to a different line and then take a special bus that isn’t on any map all in French was pretty difficult. But alas, it was all worth it for a wonderful trip in Paris!

Au revoir!

Airports are hot spots for Tedophilia

Found at the Luton Airport this weekend:

Look! He has wellies (rainboots) on!

I even found a Starbucks employee bear!

Not a teddy bear, but the Naked Smoothies here are now being sold with little knit caps as a fundraiser for a non-profit that gives hats to the old during the winter.