Crazy Man

As most of you know, whether to leave London or not has been a very difficult decision for me. I love this city, its vibrancy and beauty. I think that it is the single greatest city in the world and that I will never be as constantly stimulated by a place as I have been here. Every day, I go back and forth with myself as to whether i'm actually ready to leave.

A few nights ago, I was having one such argument with myself as I was walking some trash to the dumpster around 9:30 pm. As I was returning to our flat, a man on the street walked right up to me and spat in my face for no apparent reason. I stood there, stunned, before yelling a profanity. The man then started yelling even louder and more vulgar profanities, which made me realize that he could do a lot worse to me than spit in my face. I ran back to the flat and locked myself inside, shaken from the experience.

So, I would like to thank you, crazy Bangladeshi man on the street, for confirming that leaving London is the right decision. I now think that I am ready to leave. When i'm sitting on the beach in St. Thomas, my heart yearning for the hum of London, I will remember how much higher my risk of getting Tuberculosis from crazy people with a habit of spitting in unsuspecting victims mouths is in London and be happy I left.

Things I Love About London, Part X: The Sunday Roast

A second blog about food I like in the UK? Well, yes, but I don’t think any of the food that is involved in a Sunday Roast (other than Yorkshire Pudding) is specifically British, so I’m not giving them credit for this one.

One of our favourite Sunday traditions while living in London has become sleeping in on a Sunday morning, only rousing ourselves around 2 or so that we can wander over to the pub and get a Sunday Roast. What is a Sunday Roast? Imagine a mini-Thanksgiving dinner once a week and you’ll be on the right track.

Traditionally, Sunday Roasts are served at pubs, but you can also get them at most restaurants and cafes. They’re generally served from about 12-5 on a Sunday afternoon and are perhaps the greatest hangover cure of all time.

A Sunday Roast usually consists of:

· Some sort of roasted hunk of meat (usually beef, chicken or lamb although we have found pork and vegetarian options in some places)
· Veggies (roasted or steamed carrots, broccoli, cabbage….)
· Yorkshire Pudding (*drool* see previous post)
· Gravy (enough said)
· Potatoes (mashed or “mash” as the Brits say or sometimes roasted)
· Pint of Beer (optional, but strongly encouraged)

After spending an hour or so at the pub eating your roast and watching a football (aka soccer) game, you’re just full enough to go home and go back to sleep- making your Sunday completely unproductive and incredibly perfect.

Things I Love About London, Part IX: Yorkshire Pudding

Since my time in London is rapidly coming to an end (less than a month now), I figured I should do a few final frantic blog posts on things I love about London. I often feel that there are too many to count, but these are a few I have been meaning to blog about for awhile.

Things I Love About London, Part IX : Yorkshire Pudding

You may have noticed that quite a few of my Things I Miss About America blogs revolve around food, but very few of my Things I Love About London blogs do the same. That’s because, quite simply, I find British food horrible. Everything is rather flavourless, deep fried, and overcooked. Yesterday, I saw a sign outside a restaurant advertising boiled bacon. Only the British could manage to ruin something as amazingly delicious as bacon.

There is one huge exception to my dislike of British food. That is the little bit of heaven that is known as Yorkshire Pudding. Now, let me start off by explaining that in England, pudding can refer to either a sweet or savoury bread-based product. Also, in England, all desserts are referred to by the general term “pudding.” So, it can be a bit confusing. What we (the Americans) know as pudding (aka- the custard-like deliciousness that is always associated with Bill Cosby in my mind) doesn’t really exist here- much to my disdain.

In the case of Yorkshire Pudding, “pudding” refers to a savoury bread-like product that is served with the main part of a meal. It originated in the Yorshire region of England (hence the name) in the 1700s because cooks wanted to make use of the leftover meat-droppings at the bottom of the pan after cooking a roast. They combined these droppings with batter, and Yorshire Pudding was born.

As these cooks found out, and I now know, batter + animal fat/juices = AMAZING. Today, Yorkshire Pudding is most often served with a Sunday Roast (see future blog post). If you’re lucky, it will come in little bowl shapes and be filled with gravy (*drool*). I should have let bobby blog on this topic, because he has actually made Yorkshire Pudding for me from scratch on a number of occasions. How something can taste so amazingly delicious and buttery without actually using any butter is beyond me.

Yorkshire Pudding may be the only culinary import I bring back to America.

Things I Miss About America, Part X: No Butter on Sandwiches

I first encountered butter on sandwiches when I was living in East Africa. The housegirl of the family I lived with in Nairobi would never let me do any of my own cooking, even if it was something as simple as a sandwich. So, when I asked her to make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (more accurately, when she kicked me out of the kitchen after attempting to make my own), it would be delivered to me as a peanut butter and jelly and regular butter sandwich. I thought this was a weird East African custom because, when I moved to Uganda, I found butter on sandwiches there as well. Upon my arrival in the UK, however, I learned that East Africa had actually adopted this odd habit from its colonizers.

In London, you’ll be hard pressed to find a sandwich without butter on it. Ham and Cheese? Nope. Ham and cheese and butter. Turkey? Nope. Turkey and butter. I guess I could understand butter on its own in sandwiches, but they’ll often start with butter and then add mayonnaise or mustard on top of it. I just don’t get it. To me, butter doesn’t have much of a taste, so what are you getting out of it (other than the obvious extra calories)?

I’m looking forward to moving back to the states where I can order a ham sandwich without having to say “no butter please”.

Things I Love About London, Part VIII: American Holidays

This title may sound like a bit of a contradiction, but one of my absolute favourite things about London is celebrating American holidays here. I found that expats fall into basically two categories: 1- Those who have left the states, grow to feel more disillusioned by it, and plan on (or atleast say they plan on) never going back and 2- Those who have left the states, grow to feel more longing and love towards it, and definitely plan on going back (“once this whole European/African/Asian adventure is over”). I definitely fall into the ladder category. I have become a more proud and more defensive American than I ever thought possible while living in America.

One of the best ways I have found to express this new-found nationalism is to go all out on American holidays! This is great because, as it turns out, almost all the holidays we celebrate in America (save Christmas and New Years) are American Holidays. St. Patrick’s day- American holiday. Valentie’s day- American Holiday. 4th of July- well that one’s obvious. If the Brits don’t celebrate it, that means that the American expat community celebrates 10 times as hard.

Halloween is a great example of this (definitely an American holiday, as it turns out). The Brits have started to celebrate it a bit, but it’s still seen as a mostly American thing. So, this year we decided to go all out! Some friends and I went as the entire cast of the Wizard of Oz. I was the Wicked Witch (although I was trying to channel more of an Elphaba feel) and we had the Good Witch, a Cowardly Lion, a Tin Woodman, Dorothy, and a Scarecrow (bobby). We had a great time partying with other Americans and Brits who appreciate our festive sprit. We even won best group costume!!


I definitely see myself moving back to the states and becoming disillusioned by it again (Where’s the free healthcare??). But for now, it’s great to be patriotic.

Oktoberfest

Did I forget to mention that we went to Oktoberfest? Oh yeah, we went to Oktoberfest (at the end of September, which is when Oktoberfest takes place- don't let the name fool you).

We flew into Munich on Friday Morning and left on Sunday afternoon.

I wish I could tell you all about it, but to be perfectly honest, I don't remember much of Friday and I was so miserably hungover on Saturday that I didn't have that much fun. Those beers are MASSIVE. I woke up Saturday morning having realized that I lost my cell phone and had a HUGE bump on my head that turned into a nice bruise later. I did, however, gain a much-coveted stolen beer stein (if they find you stealing one at Oktoberfest, you can get a fine and kicked out!) so I guess it wasn't all a loss.

From what I remember, Oktoberfest consists of sitting in large tents with lots of very friendly Germans, eating surprisingly delicious food (Ox meat, pickles, pretzels, chicken...), and drinking the LARGEST BEERS YOU HAVE EVER SEEN. You also sing Germans songs, the words to which we never actually learned- even after having our new german friends say them over and over again to us very slowly. We went all out and bought lederhosen and dirndls- everyone thought we were locals!

Enjoy the following pictures and help me try to piece together the weekend......

Us in our dirndls and lederhosen

To be a waitress at Oktoberfest, you have to be able to hold A LOT of those HUGE beers at once.

Inside and outside at Hofbrau Haus- one of the main tents at Oktoberfest.

We're Moving to the Virgin Islands!!!

That’s right people, we’re abandoning Europe for the beautiful beaches of St. Thomas!! We plan on leaving London in mid-December, spending Christmas at home and being in the Virgin Islands for new years.

If you’ve every hung out with bobby, you’ve heard him talk about his best-friend/life partner, Jacob. Well, a few years ago Jacob started a computer company which he recently re-located to St. Thomas (for tax reasons). Jacob’s been trying to get Bobby to work with him for ages, but it took moving to a tropical paradise to entice us to leave London. Right now, the plan is to be in St. Thomas for 2-3 years. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing down there yet, any suggestions in that area are welcome.

Obviously, we’re super excited about living on St. Thomas. I’m looking forward to a much more laidback and healthier lifestyle. However, part of me is really sad to be leaving London. I adore this city and everything it has to offer. Hopefully we’ll be back some day.

We plan on getting a place big enough to have a guest room, so visitors welcome!!

The fate of the blog is, as of yet, unknown. Now that I’ll have a US telephone number again, I feel like it will be easier to keep in touch with people without it, but we’ll see how things go.

Laura Update

I'm not sure how many people actually read this blog (you all are not great about commenting), but I've had a lot of people asking about how i'm doing so I thought I would give a little update.

I feel AMAZING!! The surgery went better than I could ever have hoped. I had a little bump in the road about a week after returning home from the hospital which landed me back there for a few days, but that was my own fault. I got a little excited and introduced new foods into my diet too quickly. I now have that back in control and am feeling great!! I'm already months ahead of where to doctors said I would be at this point. So yay!! If British people weren't so stand-offish and afraid to show emotion, I would give my surgeon and big hug and kiss next time I saw him.

Also, thanks to nationalized healthcare, it was all FREE!!

Bodies in Urban Spaces

This weekend a performance came to London that was simply fantastic. A photography group I've joined alerted me to Bodies in Urban Spaces, a group of dancers that cavort around the city and form crazy sculptures with their bodies. There were probably 200-300 spectators that trailed behind the performers for about an hour as we walked along the south bank of the Thames.

I'll let the pictures below speak for themselves. I've uploaded a bunch to Flickr, so you can check the full list out if you want to see more.

Phantom of the Opera

We finally got around to seeing Phantom of the Opera in London. I have little to say about it other than that it was FANTASTIC!!!! I mean, SPECTACULAR!! I'm listening to the soundtract as we speak and haven't stopped singing it for the last week. If you've never seen it, you must go!

I was really keen on seeing Phantom after seeing Wicked and being somewhat disappointed by it. Everyone said that Wicked was the best musical ever "next to Phantom of the Opera" so I thought that it may pull through for me where Wicked failed- and it did! We saw it performed at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End and it was the perfect experience. The theatre is actually quite small, which means that every seat gets the full spectacular experience. The cast was beyond words- their performance was truly perfection.

A big thanks to Kim for buying us the tickets! I would go back and see it again tonight if it weren't so darn expensive!!

I'm still a huge fan of Avenue Q, and it might actually remain my favourite musical, but if you want the true West-End experience, nothing beats Phantom!

Stonehenge

Now that I’m home from the hospital and recuperating nicely, time to catch up on what we were doing for the few weeks leading up to my operation.

My friend Sarah (who I met in Kenya and subsequently worked with in DC) came out for a visit, so I was able to explore some new parts of England with her. She wanted to go to Stonehenge, a place I had yet to visit, so I was happy to join her for this day-trip from London.

We woke up early and took the train from London’s Waterloo station to Salisbury, about a 2 hour ride. Once we arrived in Salisbury, we paid to take have one of the touristy buses take us out to Stonehenge itself. The mystical monument is only about 25 minutes from the town of Salisbury, but a taxi will charge you £35 for the round-trip ride and doesn’t include the informative and mood-setting dialogue that the £17 tourist bus gave us, so I would definitely recommend the bus choice.

On the way to Stonehenge (“The most impressive stone circle in the world” according to the tour), we learned important information like the fact that it is super old, nobody knows why the hell it exists or who built it, and that its probably not as mystical as all the rumors and folk lore make it out to be. There is little information on Stonehenge not because of its mystical nature, but because its just too old for us to hazard a guess as to its use. I have to say, I was a little disappointed in this aspect of Stonehenge. I would have been much more impressed if they would have just played up to the fantastical rumors. Instead of “early people of England built this stone circle a long ass time ago probably for some boring purpose like a calendar,” I would have liked to have heard “we don’t know why this stone circle is here- it was probably aliens or some kind of druid human-sacrifice altar.” It may be historically inaccurate, but it would have been much more worth the £6 entry fee I paid.

I was also a little disappointed by the scale of Stonehenge. I mean, sure, those rocks are big. I mean, I couldn’t move them and according to our tour the biggest one weights as much as 25 elephants, but they didn’t actually look all that impressive in person. Maybe its because you can’t get that close to them (the circle is fenced off), but pictures I had seen of Stonehenge made them seem much bigger.

The thing I WAS impressed with from Stonehenge is the fact that the stones from the inner circle came from the mountains of Wales- 250 miles away. They managed to move stone pillars weighing nearly 6 tons 250 miles without the use of modern machinery. Historians are still not sure how they did it.

After we finished our tour of Stonehenge, we headed back to Salisbury to explore the town a bit. I would call it a fairly typical British town. One item of note is that the Salisbury Cathedral houses one of the few original copies of the Magna Carta.

So, would I go back to Stonehenge? No, probably not. In the end, it was just kind of underwhelming. I’m glad I saw it once, but that’s definitely all you need. If you have an extra day in London or if you’re driving by Salisbury anyways, it might be worth your trip, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it. There are much better day trips from London that I would recommend first.

LAURA IS HOME!

Hooray!!!!

Recovery Update

Hooray! Laura is feeling quite well and starting the road to recovery (and is even eating some food now).

She will be coming out of hospial on Wednesday, less than a week after going under the knife. I will be very happy to have her back at home and resting.

Surgery Complete

Laura is out of surgery and recovering nicely. She's already been up walking around, but is (obviously) very tired after the ordeal.

Thanks for all of the warm wishes, I'll keep updating the blog as we progress.

Surgery Tomorrow!!

So, this second surgery kinda snuck up on me. It's tomorrow!! I just had my pre-op appointment, and it looks like everything's a go. I should be under the knife around 11, so positive thoughts welcome at that time. As per last time, Bobby will be updating the blog with any post-surgery announcements. If everything goes according to plan, I hope to be home from the hospital on Monday!

Wish me luck!!

The Wizard of Oz

Watching the original version of The Wizard of Oz, in all of it's Technicolor© glory, is quite a strange experience in your mid-twenties. Sure, I remember the story (wicked witch, crazy chick in a tornado, lots of little munchkins), but the details are both fascinating and kind of disturbing.

Last weekend, one of our first stay-in-London weekends in quite some time, we went to the Prince Charles' Cinema with some friends. In the "Upstairs" part of the theatre, they have new releases, while "Downstairs" they show lots of movies that aren't running elsewhere for super cheap.

There were a few general things that struck me while watching The Wizard of Oz. First, for a movie release in 1939, this film has some fantastic production value and staying power. Second, after having seen Wicked (but not read the book yet), my whole world view of The Wizard of Oz is completely skewed. And finally, a whole lot of this movie is quite campy - the theatre cracked up during the munchkins scene, and just about every time the Cowardly Lion opened his jaws.

The details that I had forgotten, or never saw in the first place, were what really stuck out watching on the big screen.

• After the wizard demands that the group bring back the broomstick of the wicked witch, the scarecrow somehow comes up with a gun. A gun?!? What kind of message is that in a land 'over the rainbow'?
• The Scarecrow - immediately after being granted his Diploma - states "The sum of the square of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square of the remaining side." WRONG! C'mon, we all know that the Pythagorean Theorem only applies to right triangles, not isosceles.
• The cables holding up the Lion's tail, or carrying the flying monkeys, are something you really only see on the big screen. I'm sure the 'digitally remastered' version has photoshopped those out, but it carries a certain spark of realism and grounds the movie into the era in which it was made.
  

In any case, it was a lovely day out and a fun way to spend time on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

The Lake District

For the final phase of our whirlwind UK tour with Kim and Ed, we headed to the English Lake District. A popular retreat for hikers and campers, it is famous for its lakes and its mountains (or fells), and its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth and the Lake Poets.

We decided to stay in a little town called Ambleside, which is just near the largest of the Lakes, Windermere. We lucked out and had fabulous weather the entire time we were in the Lake District, so we spent our time hiking around the mountains and even took a nice little boat ride out on lake Windermere. There are many pre-planned and well marked hiking paths, so we opted for one that was supposed to take about 4 hours and looped around to lake Windermere, a little town called Troutbeck, and back. The hike actually ended up taking us about 6 hours (maybe we’re slow walkers?) but it was some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve ever seen in the UK.

We stayed at a fabulous little B&B in Ambleside called 3 Cambridge Villas. We were treated to a full English breakfast every day (toast, eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes, roasted tomatoes, tea, coffee) and the owner Sue was simply fabulous.

After our jaunt in the Lake District, we headed back to London.

Scotland, Part II: Edinburgh and Stirling

We arrived in Edinburgh to find that there were cops everywhere and that many of the streets were shut down (much to the chagrin of our driver, Bobby, and to the confusion of our TomTom navigation system that we named Sean). It turns out that there were so many street closures because we happened to arrive on the last day of the Edinburgh International Festival. I was kind of bummed that I hadn’t found this out beforehand because we might have attended a day or two of the festival if I had planned for it. We did, however get to catch the closing fireworks which were fantastic as a background for Edinburgh very gothic-feeling skyline.

The next day, we took one of the free walking tours that I’m always pimping out on this website. As per the usual, our guide was young and quirky and took us on a fun and informative tour of the city. We learned about the history of Edinburgh castle, the Stone of Destiny, some stuff about Harry Potter that I wasn’t especially interested in (I guess it was written in Edinburgh?).

I was, however, highly entertained by the history of witch trials in Edinburgh. I guess Scotland was at the forefront of witch-hunting in the middle ages. I don’t find this especially surprising; I just found it humorous that, according to our guide, witches were accused based on three characteristics - red hair, freckles, and a third nipple. If they had all three of these characteristics they were thrown into the Nor Loch (a lake that used to exist adjacent to Edinburgh but has since been drained) to see if they floated. If they did float, they were a witch. If they didn’t float, well, then they were just a dead regular human. I guess Monty Python is surprising historically accurate after all.



Once we finished our walking tour, we proceeded to do what is always my favourite activity in any new city/country we visit: test the local food!! In the case of Edinburgh, this consisted of three things:

1- Haggis: a dish containing sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours. This was surprisingly delicious! It ended up tasting like a spicy sausage and was served with mashed turnips and potatoes (“neeps and tatties”). I’ve learned from my Scottish co-worker that M&S sells a nice haggis in London, so I plan on buying more here!
2- Deep-Fried Mars Bar: um, the name kinda says it all. A mars bar is like a milkway bar. They dip it in some kind of batter and then deep-fry it. This was (unsurprisingly) AMAZING!!! It seems that the Scotts deep-fry everything. In the same shop that was selling the deep-fried mars bar, deep-fried haggis, hamburger patties, hot dogs and pizza was also being sold.
3- Irn-Bru: This is a soda produced in Scotland. It is of note that this soda outsells coke and pepsi COMBINED in Scotland- the only country in the world that can say this about one of its home products. It tasted like crème soda.

We spent the rest of the day stuffing ourselves full of local grub and tasting more whisky in bars around Edinburgh. The following morning we headed towards the English lakedistrict, taking a little detour to visit Stirling and its historic castle.

Major battles during the Wars of Scottish Independence took place at the Stirling Bridge in 1297 and at the nearby village of Bannockburn in 1314 involving Scottish freedom fighters William Wallace and Robert the Bruce respectively. Stirling is also home to the William Wallace National Monument. I really enjoyed Stirling. It was much more of a proper castle than Ballandoch and we were led on a wonderful tour that gave us a history of not only the castle itself, but also the fight for Scottish independence.

After Stirling, we headed onto the lakedistrict.

Scotland, Part 1: Inverness and Speyside

Bobby’s mom Kim and step-dad Ed came out to visit us last week. We decided that we didn’t want to do anything too travel-intensive, so we opted to stay in the UK for this trip. We wanted to start the adventure with a train ride to Inverness, Scotland, but, after learning that it takes 8 hours on a train to get to Inverness, decided to fly instead.

Inverness is known as the gateway to the Scottish Highlands. Most people begin their journeys here and go on to explore northern Scotland and the Isle of Sky. It’s also very popular because it’s right next to Loch Ness! We opted to drive south after Inverness, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to drive around Loch Ness and look for its most famous inhabitant: Nessie. The weather didn’t really cooperate with us, but Inverness and Loch Ness were beautiful all the same.

Some pictures around Loch Ness

I found Nessie!

After Loch Ness, we decided to drive down to Edinburgh. We took a little detour along the way to visit Ballandoch Castle and the Speyside Whisky Trail.

As far as castles go, I didn’t find Ballandoch all that impressive. It was rather small and, well, just not very castle-y. It is still privately owned, which seemed awesome to me beforehand because the family still actually lives in the castle! However, once we were inside, the fact that it was still inhabited made it kind of creepy. There were family photographs everywhere and the furniture didn’t seem very historically accurate (because, really, who wants to actually sit on a 14th century sofa?). I felt like I was sneaking around someone’s house instead of exploring a castle- which I guess is exactly what I was doing.

To Ballandoch’s credit, however, it did have some very beautiful gardens!


After raiding the private home of a wealthy family for awhile, we continued on to the Speyside Whisky Trail. Ed wanted to visit Glenlivet, the only Scotch whisky distillery he’d every heard of, and that’s exactly where we ended up! We were led on a nice little free tour around the distillery by and elderly gentleman who obviously had no idea how much Ed, Kim and Bobby already knew about alcohol production. Bobby and I have visited quite a few breweries in our travels and Kim and Ed brew their own beer. I was excited because, while I find brewery tours HORRIBLY boring, this was a distillery, and maybe it was more exciting? Wrong. It turns out that whisky is made exactly the same way as beer (the first step to whisky is infact beer), you just distil it over and over until a lot of the water is gone. Or atleast I think that’s what the guy was saying, I don’t know, I zoned out due to too much standing and boredom.

However, whether it be brewery and distillery, you always put up with the tour because you know at the end there will be the magical prize of free booze. We were presented with 3 different “drams” of Glenlivet whisky at the end of the tour. A 12-year-old (the youngest they sell), an 18-year-old and a 16-year-old cask-strength (aka, not watered down at all). I grabbed my free glass, took a whiff, and realized in a moment of utter disappointment that there was no way I was ever going to be able to convince my body to swallow something that smelled like that. It turns out that Kim is also not a fan of whisky, so Ed and Bobby got to drink all of our free samples.


After Glenlivet, we headed south, leaving the highlands on our way to Edinburgh.

Tips from Part 1 of our trip:

1. Inverness is totally skipable. I guess you should go if you want to see Loch Ness and this is definitely the best jumping-off-point for the highlands, but as a city by itself, it doesn’t have much to offer.
2. If you’re going to try and do whisky distillery tours, don’t choose to do them on a Sunday. Most are either not open at all or close early.
3. I wouldn’t recommend Ballandoch castle- choose to visit a government owned castle or one held in trust instead. It’s the same price and you won’t feel like you’re invading someone’s privacy!

Norway

Monday 31 August was a Bank Holiday in the UK, so that combined with my awesome flex schedule gave us a 4 day holiday! I searched RyanAir’s website for the cheapest flights I could find to anywhere and booked us onto flights to Oslo, Norway for £10 (about $16.50 right now) each way! I really wanted to visit Norway, and wanted to do it before it got too cold, so this seemed like the perfect time.

We flew into Oslo late Thursday evening and, because everyone told me that Oslo itself is completely skippable, only spent the night there before catching a train early the next morning to Flam.

The train ride itself was spectacular and alone would have made the trip to Norway worth it. We took the Bergen Railway as far as Myrdal and then the Flam railway from Myrdal to Flam. It took nearly 4.5 hours, so I brought a book along, but never picked it up since I couldn’t stop looking out the window!!

The Flam Railway was simply amazing. You climb down mountains and around waterfalls. Bobby and I positioned ourselves on either side of the train so that we could take pictures in each direction the entire time and not miss anything!!


We spent only an hour or two in Flam before getting on a ferry and heading to Balestrand, which was recommended to us by a friend. I really loved Balestrand. Just a small Norwegian town situated at the junction of the Sognefjord and Esefjord, there wasn’t much to do other thank soak in the amazing scenery. We visit St. Olaf’s Church, built in the Stave Church Norwegian style, but I think that may have been the town’s soul attraction.

Luckily, while it was by no means sunny on Saturday, it wasn’t really raining either, so we decided to take a hike up the mountain. This was my favourite part of the entire trip. The hike took us nearly 5 hours, but the view was amazing!! The owner of our hotel let us borrow some walking sticks which proved essential as the first 1.5 hours of the hike were nearly completely vertical and the last 2 hours were very muddy and slippery (I have the bruises to prove it).

On Saturday evening, we caught the ferry from Balestrand onto Bergen.

View from the ferry

I don’t have much to say about Bergen. It was nice, much bigger than Balestrand but not as big as Oslo, but I found it much less beautiful than the smaller Norwegian towns we visited and kind of boring. It also rained all day Sunday. I mean, it POURED all day- so that may be affecting my opinion. We did have a wonderful dinner of reindeer and elk though, so that was enjoyable.

Bergen

On Monday, we caught an early train for the 7.5 hour journey back to Oslo to catch our flight back to London.

I really enjoyed Norway. We had miserable weather the entire time and I still liked it, so I think that says a lot about what a fantastic place it is.

If you’re thinking of travelling to Norway, some things to consider:

1. It’s expensive. I mean REALLY expensive. I live in London, one of the priciest cities in the world, and I thought it was expensive. So, just keep that in mind when you’re budgeting for your trip.
2. I think Oslo and Bergen are both totally skippable. The train journey was spectacular and I would definitely recommend that, but I would only visit those cities again as a jumping-off point to explore the smaller towns and fjords of the area.
3. Retrospectively, I would have liked to have spent at least one entire day in Flam. We learned later that you can rent bikes and travel nearly the entire path of the Flam railway on them. I think this would have been so much fun (and given us a better view of the sights!)
4. If I were to go back, which I definitely hope to do one day, I’d go earlier in the summer. I hear that it rains less then and that the weather can actually be quite warm. I think swimming in the fjords would be fantastic.
   

UK Factoid of the Day

Instead of asking if they can "pet" your dog, children in England ask if they can "stroke" it.

I want to get a dog only because of the endless humour I would find in having children run up to me and say "Excuse me, may I please stroke your dog" (insert adorabe british-child accent here). The 13-year-old boy in me thinks that this is very funny.

Things I Love About London, Part VII: Afternoon Tea

My friend Nishant, who I actually met in London but now lives in America, came to visit this past weekend. And, because we needed lots of time to chat and catch up, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to try out one of London’s fabulous Afternoon Tea venues.



We went to The Goring which is a fancy privately-owned hotel near Victoria station, and I LOVED it. Despite my newfound love of tea, I wasn’t sure how I was going to respond to the whole afternoon tea concept. I mean, isn’t it just old ladies sitting around in fancy hats eating finger sandwiches? Well, yes, it is, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun. Nishant, Lynsey and I had a fabulous time despite the fact that we were the youngest people in the room by about 40 years.

The tea was amazing, the service spectacular, and the food, oh the food. Who would have guessed that scones and clotted cream could have been so fabulous! I must learn how to make my own. Perhaps Sarah's blog can help me? We opted, of course, for the Bollinger Afternoon Tea simply because it came with a glass of champagne, but I think even the Traditional Tea would have been superb.

If you get a chance to do an Afternoon Tea in London, I highly recommend it and would be happy to go with you!

Things I Miss About America, Part IX: Prudishness

I have always considered myself a liberal-minded and forward thinking American. Legalize prostitution? Sure, that way we can regulate it and curb STIs and sex trafficking. Legalize marijuana? Sure, it has proven medical benefits and is only illegal because of movements by American uber powerful tobacco lobby anyways. Legalize same-sex marriage? Oh, don’t even get me started on how much I support that one.

I was recently reading my favourite fashion magazines, Grazia (I love it because they have just off the runway stuff side-by-side with stuff I can actually afford and throw in a bit of celebrity gossip and womens’ rights news to boot) when I happened upon a picture of Sharon Stone on the cover of the French magazine Match. You may have heard that on this cover she is topless. Now, I really wanted to not care. I really wanted to applaud her for being 50-something and looking fabulous. But, I didn’t feel that way- I actually felt uncomfortable and slightly offended. It actually made me think “gee, I wish I were in America where they would have censored out her nipples!” It’s not really that she’s topless; it’s that she’s topless in a pornographic way in a magazine that is no way pornographic. I find it offensive for the same reason I find the Page 3 (topless) girls in the Sun (a newspaper in London) offensive- because why do there need to be naked girls in a newspaper (where just any unsuspecting child or, in some cases, 25-year-old American girl can come by and pick it up)?!?!

So, if living in Europe for two years has taught me anything, it has taught me that, at my core, I’m puritanical and prudish. Believe me, I’ve tried to fight this. I oh so badly want to be European and not care that there are naked pictures of women printed in scandalous positions in even reputable publications. I really want to not care that every beach I go to is packed with completely naked French/Spanish/Greek men. I want to think that nude men standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square really is art. But, in the end, I can’t help it. I’m American. Nudity makes me uncomfortable and I find it inappropriate in most public circumstances. I don’t say anything to Europeans of course (because they would give me that “sad little American” look and toss their hand-rolled cigarette at me), but I still feel that way! I’m not British, I’m American. And even though our two societies are very similar in some ways, my country was still founded by puritans. So, my new outlook is to just embrace it.

Things I Love About London, Part VI: London at Nighttime

Every time I walk around London in the evening, I fall more and more in love with this city. Bobby and I were taking the bus home from Kensington the other night, and passed Parliament, Big Ben, and St. Pauls- all of which were lit up in their full romantic-London-at-nighttime glory. My heart ached at the thought that I would one day leave this city. While London is horribly crowded, stressful and overwhelming during the day, at night all of the hordes of people disappear and you are left seemingly alone in the city- always a magical experience for me.

Tower Bridge at night as seen from Strada

I have gotten in the habit of taking our visitors to the Strada at Tower Bridge on their last evening in London. The food is not amazing, but I don’t go for the food- I go for the view! I love sitting there staring at Tower Bridge at night. I think it’s more beautiful in the nighttime than it is during the day. We often walk from Tower Bridge to St. Pauls after dinner, because those are my two favourite places at night in London. You can frequently make almost the entire walk without seeing another person on foot. I’m not sure why there aren’t more tourists out at night in London- I truly think that it is the best time to see the city- but, for now, I’m happy to think that London-at-nighttime is my little secret and appreciate the one-on-one time with my city.

St. Paul's at Night

Pictures from the Gentiles' Visit

I've posted pictures from my family's visit. You can see them by clicking on the "pictures" link to the left.

Second Surgery

The exciting news of today is that I FINALLY got a date for my second surgery. It will be on 1 October. Those of you I talk to on a regular basis know that this has been quite a frustrating wait for me. I was put on the waiting list on 19 June, which means that I will have been waiting for 3.5 months to have this operation (side note: this is less than the 4.5 months that they told me I would wait to have it! I guess my constant calling and nagging paid off!).

Americans often ask me about my experience with socialized healthcare. Having faced a serious health problem and the subsequent series of surgeries in the UK has only furthered my support of healthcare for all. While this recent wait has been frustrating (in America, I would have had the first surgery, waited 10 weeks, and then had the second- meaning that this whole horrible experience would already be over by now!), I am willing to wait my turn if it means that everyone has access to healthcare. Access to healthcare is a human right, not a privilege. My greatest disappointment in America is that so many people don't see this.

Don't get me wrong, things here are by no means perfect. If you can wait, you will wait. Private rooms would definitely be better than sitting on the ward with 9 other women and little to no privacy. Hospitals seem to be constantly facing funding issues. There is a hierarchy as to which drugs you can use based on their price. However, when I needed my first surgery urgently, I was dealt with right away by some of the best doctors in their field. When I wanted to stay in the hospital for a few extra days following my first operation, there was no insurance company to call for permission and the doctors were happy to let me do this. When I had a severe allergic reaction to one of the drugs I had started taking in the states (a reaction that is many times fatal) because my insurance company wouldn't pay for me to have the allergy test done in Virginia, I was told by my English doctors that the test is performed on everyone who takes that drug in the UK- no questions asked.

So, now, the only real question is, when will it happen in America?

Croatia with the Gentiles

Last week, my family (well, everyone except for Chris) came out to visit. This trip was a belated graduation present for my sister, who requested that we go somewhere where she could “sit on the beach.” I had heard fabulous things about Croatia from my British friends and co-workers, so, after a few days in London, we headed over to Dubrovnik.

Let me start off by saying that Croatia is definitely in the top 3 (if not number 1) on my list of favourite places visited since moving to Europe. We had perfect weather the entire time (85 degrees and not a cloud in the sky), the water was the clearest of any I have ever seen (I dare you to go there and not automatically jump into the ocean- it beacons you) and I think that Croatia is still under the radar for most Americans (which appeals to my off-the-beaten-path spirit).

We rented an apartment very near Old Town Dubrovnik. I loved Old Town. Even though it was heavily bombed during the Croatian War for Independence against Yugoslavia in the early 90s, it has been completely restored and definitely retained its old-world feel.

Our apartment was just above Banje beach, which had a beautiful view of the Old Town and which is where we spent most of our time.

We took a day trip out to the island of Mljet- about an hour and a half up the coast form Dubrovnik. Mljet is famous for its two inland lakes and because a majority of the island is preserved as a national park. We hiked over to the lakes and took a ferry out to the centre of the larger one. Located in the centre of this lake was a small island which held an old monastery and little else. We spent the day lounging on the shores of the small island and swimming in the lakes crystal-clear and wonderfully warm waters.



We also took a day trip to Montenegro. I selfishly wanted to do this so that I could add another location to my “countries I have visited” list, but it turned out to be a really great experience. Picturing war-torn-former-Yugoslavia in my head, I packed a roll of toilet paper for the trip in preparation for squat toilets. The cities we visited, Kotor and Budva, were quite the opposite.

Settled between the towering mountains of the Montenegrin countryside and the tranquil bay of Kotor, the town of Kotor itself proved to be perhaps the most dramatic of our trip. It took us only 15 minutes to tour this small city (which consisted mostly of Serbian Orthodox churches and great homes of former wealthy families), but you were left with the impression that it was much grander. This is caused, perhaps, by the fact that the city walls contain not only the town itself, but a large section of the adjacent mountain. Our guide told us that it would take only 2 hours to climb the city walls, but, as your eyes strained to see the top-most tower and followed the 250 meters of zigzagged vertical climb, it seemed that it would take much longer. We could have spent the whole day in Kotor, and indeed I would have enjoyed atleast attempting to climb its intimidating city walls, but our tour guide hurried us on so that we could visit the city of Budva.

I have little to say on Budva other than the fact that it was unimpressive. The old town was nothing compared to Kotor or Dubrovnik and the beaches were horribly overcrowded. We did have some delicious lunch there (my octopus salad was perhaps the best food I had on our trip), but our culinary experience did not make up for the other downfalls of the city.

After Budva, we got back on the bus and headed back to Dubrovnik, enjoying the beautiful Croatian countryside on the way.

I would definitely go back to Croatia (I hear that its northern regions are beautiful as well) and would highly recommend it to any of you who might have the opportunity to go.

UK Factoid of the Day

In the UK, what Americans call Fanny Packs are called Bum Packs/Bum Bags.

Now, you may be asking, why the hell did Laura just give me the British word for Fanny Pack? Who wears a Fanny Pack anymore? Well, first of all, you need to start following your fashion news, because then you would know that the Fanny Pack has been making a slow but steady comeback over the last few years.

But, the REAL reason I listed this little British-American language discrepancy is because, in the UK, the word fanny refers to a *cough* certain part of the *cough* female anatomy. You can thank me on your next trip to the UK when you want to complement someone on their ultra hip, just-off-the-runway Bum Bag without getting slapped in the face for yelling out "Nice Fanny!".

UK Factoid of the Day

This post is in honour of Sarah, cupcake queen of HamptonRoads:

In the UK, what Americans call Cupcakes are called Fairy cakes.

Now, there is some debate here, amongst both my American ex-pat friends and the British themselves, as to whether cupcakes and fairy cakes are indeed the same thing. At most grocery stores, they sell desserts labeled both "cupcakes" and "fairy cakes" that appear to be nearly identical.

At first, we thought that "fairy cakes" were simply petite-sized cupcakes. But, this proved to be wrong.

British people have told me that fairy cakes are lighter in texture than cupcakes and that they are topped with "British icing" (aka, a light glaze of sugar or chocolate) instead of "American icing" (aka, a big wallop of butter cream). However, I have seen desserts labeled "fairy cakes" that look exactly like American cupcakes!

So, I'm going to go ahead and make it official (as official as this little blog can be) and say that Cupcakes and Fairy cakes are the same thing.