Afternoon Tea, Brighton and Fulham Football

My week was pretty average, with a few random activities thrown in so here we go!

Monday we went with my History of London class to the National Portrait Gallery because it's semi-educational but mostly my professor is just incredibly lazy.  Anything he can do so that he doesn't have to do actual work!  Anyway, we saw portraits from the Tudor period and uhh the Stuarts. I didn't really pay attention to that. They literally all look the same. I joked that the artist just painted one face and put the face on everyone else in the portrait.  There is a really great one of Prince William and Harry, it almost looks like a photograph.  The most...interesting portrait was of David Beckham.  It's not a painting or a photo though, it's a video of him sleeping.  It's really odd, but it's David Beckham with his shirt off so I'm not complaining.  And now to the portrait that really matters- Kate Middleton.  If you haven't seen the portrait yet, quick! Google it!  Now let's discuss theories as to how/why the artist botched it so horribly.  Perhaps, the artist was thought to be a decent one but I assume they wouldn't hire just anybody for this.  So that leaves us with either a) the artist hates Kate and/or the Royal Family/Monarchy OR b) someone paid a lot of money for someone to make her look like an old woman with saggy cheeks, eye wrinkles, etc.  I will say her hair looks great!  But that's the only good thing about it. It's truly a disgrace. 

This was the week before midterms, so I decided to get a head start on all the papers I had due.  The majority of my week was spent writing about the Viking Age and the Great Fire.  I thought the whole "study" in study abroad wasn't real!

Thursday my program organized afternoon tea at the Gore Hotel (no apparent relation to Al Gore).  It was awesome!  I was kind of expecting a boring, stuffy afternoon but was pleasantly surprised.  We all got dressed up, which was fun because I don't usually get out of leggings during the week.  We had tea, which turns out-is delicious with sugar and milk, french press coffee (much better than my instant stuff), and cucumber infused water (they are really into that here, although I prefer my water plain).  The best part, of course, was the food!  First they brought out small triangle sandwiches filled with salmon, egg salad, ham and something I couldn't identify with ham.  Then they brought out brownie bites with chocolate on top-so good!  Plain and raisin scones with cream (sweet butter) and jam followed.  Multicolored macaroons came next, I opted for a chocolate one.  And the best part came last- mini eclairs.  I could eat eclairs every single day, so amazing!  This was definitely one of my favorite British experiences and I can't wait to share it with my mom and dad when they visit!

Friday we went to Brighton, which is a coastal town 2 hours directly south of London.  It was very pretty!  We toured the Royal Pavilion, which is a very tacky palace built by George III.  It's pretty neat from the outside, but the inside is covered in oriental decorations and just very overdone.  I was also getting sick of touring royal palaces, so this wasn't really my cup of tea that day.  As usual we were not allowed to take pictures.  After the guided tour, a few of us escaped and went to find lunch.  We had been given a list of restaurants around the pier and I was really looking forward to going to this Mexican restaurant, but as fate would have it it was closed!  So we settled for Thai food.  I had veggie spring rolls with sweet chili sauce and pad thai.  I really enjoyed it!  After lunch we headed over to Brighton beach/pier.  I was most excited to touch the British Channel, bragging rights!  I also picked up a rock for my mom.  It's a family tradition that has been engrained in me since I was little.  The beach is gorgeous!  I'm sure it's better in the summer, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

 
















Saturday we attended a Fulham football match, but first we prepared (or pregamed, rather) like we were in Madison.  We are badgers, no matter what country we are in!  Everyone attending the game went up to flat 5 and we all hung out before leaving for the game.  It was really fun to all hang out, something we don't get to do a whole lot.  I had never been to a football (or soccer) match before and it was a lot of fun!  I mean, I had no idea what was going on in the game and for most of the match I didn't even know which Fulham was!  Luckily, the man next to me knew his stuff so he explained lots of things to me.














The rest of the weekend I slaved away at my midterms...actually I spent a lot of time watching Harry Potter!  Spring break starts Thursday and I'm headed to Italy until March 10!  I will be in Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre and Venice!  So on that note...ciao!

Budapest: Day 3

Saturday, February 16

So turns out Budapest is humungous and trying to walk around to all the places on our list was impossible, so we scored a deal on a Big Bus Tour.  Basically this bus takes you all over the city and you can hop on/off whenever you want.  There was also commentary for places we went passed, which was very helpful because we never had any idea what we were looking at!  We started a joke that the theme of the trip was "What's that?!".  Some of the places we went on the tour were the Shoes on the Danube Promenade (memorial for Jewish victims of WWII), the Citadel (in Buda-on a hill with the Liberty Statue and what I'm assuming was a fortress because weapons are displayed outside it), the Castle district (in Buda-very neat building that I can't identify and the Royal Palace-much better view from down below near the river) and the Jewish Quarter (there is a fee to enter it, so we saw it from the outside while enjoying a Bailey's coffee).  My favorite part of the tour was the magnificent views of Pest and seeing the old buildings in Buda.  For lunch we ate at a buffet-style cafe in the Castle district.  I could only identify a few things in the line, so I chose what I thought was a fried veggie balls (told you, they fry everything) and rice with veggies.  The balls ended up to be meat, what kind of meat I cannot say.  I said chicken, another girl said fish-maybe tuna and another thought it might be lamb.  It was pretty tasty so I moved on from the mystery.

Shoes on the Danube Promenade

 

Chain Bridge

Operating large weapons at the Citadel

Citadel- Liberty Statue

Fisherman's Bastion

Matthias Church

After the tour we stopped back at the weekend market for dessert.  I got hot wine (tasted like cider!) and a cheese strudel-pastry type thing.  Both were delicious!  I tried a poppy-seed strudel, but had to spit it out.  It honestly tasted like dirt.  The market was super crowded and it was getting cold, so we headed back for a relaxing night in the hostel.  Two girls went to the Turkish Baths, but two of us didn't bring our swimsuits so we stayed back and had a few Hungarian beers.  We had dinner at a gyro place up the street from our hostel. The pita included meat, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, some veggie I couldn't identify, tzatziki sauce and chili sauce.  It was probably the best gyro pita ever. 

We had to be up at 3 to catch our 6 am flight so we called it a night after dinner.  When we left at 3:30 people were still raging hard down in the hostel bar!  We experienced sketchy cab ride number two on the way back to the airport.  The cab driver took a lot of alley roads and I was convinced at some points that we were going to be kidnapped.  He also drove just like the first one, passing cars even when cars were coming at us head on!  I was very relieved to get to the airport in one piece.  My morning quickly took a turn for the worse when I realized I had booked my flight back to London for March 17, not February.  Ugh!! 61,000 forints (Hungarian currency) later, I had a flight home on the correct date.

Budapest: Day 2

Friday, February 15:
 
We were all pretty tired from the night before, so Friday was a pretty chill day.  We started out by continuing our world tour of McDonald's.  I never eat McDonald's at home, but for some reason I crave it in Europe.  And most McDonald's here have different menus than at home so why not!  The Budapest McDonald's had curly fries, mozzarella sticks, gyro wraps and specialized Hungarian burgers that I could not read the name of (language barrier strikes again!). 

Liberty Bridge-Buda in the background

After breakfast we decided to check out the Great Hall Market.  We bought tickets for the tram to get us there and were not very pleased to find out that they don't even check for tickets on the tram!  Anyway, we were dropped off in front of the Market and Liberty Bridge.  There are lots of bridges connecting Buda and Pest, I can only remember two of them.  The market was huge! There were produce and meat stands, jewelery and souvenir stands and food stands everywhere.  There were also a lot of stands with doilies, traditional dress and the dolls that have a gazillion dolls inside.  It reminded me of something my mom and grandma would go crazy for (but you guys don't need anymore doilies!!).  One stand specialized in a type of pastry called a 'lango'.  Traditionally it looks like a pizza with meats and cheeses on top, but we shared one that had vanilla pudding and hazelnut spread on it.  I wish I would have gotten one for myself!  It was so delicious.  I bought a Hungarian beer mug as a gift and a ring for myself.  Everything is very cheap in Hungry, its a nice change from the high expenses in London.

Great Hall Market

Langos

On the way home we stumbled upon a special market that was only set up for the weekend, so we walked through that.  It was a lot of Hungarian food-fried things, meat, cheese, pretzels and hot wine.  The Hungarians really love their fried food!

Paprika Chicken with buttered noodles

For dinner we went to a really cute little restaurant called Cantine.  There were, of course, lots of things on the menu that I didn't recognize but I decided to try the goulash soup, paprika chicken with buttered noodles and for dessert chocolate cake.  (Lots of restaurants in Europe do a 3-course meal deal-can't say no to that!)  The goulash was sooo good!  There was some kind of red meat in it with potatoes, carrots and other veggies.  The paprika chicken was amazing.  I had never had paprika anything so I was kind of nervous but was pleasantly surprised.  The buttered noodles were nothing like you would see in the states.  They were almost like little dumplings, but weirder.  I really enjoyed this meal and it was fun to try traditional Hungarian food!

Friday night our hostel organized a boat ride down the Danube River with a bottle of cheap champagne to go along with it (...okay, it was a booze cruise).  The boat was 3 stories! Top deck was not enclosed but provided a great view, the middle was enclosed but had an outside deck and the bottom was a sit-down area that no one used.  Since it was at night the city was all lit up and absolutely stunning!  We saw parliament and the royal palace illuminated as well as 7 bridges!  We had a blast on the boat, it was definitely a highlight of the trip.

Parliament

On the cruise- reppin' Wisconsin!

Budapest: Day 1

This weekend after a spur of the moment decision three girls from my program and I visited Budapest, Hungary and had the time of our lives!  I'm splitting this up into 3 posts so as to not overwhelm you and also so I don't completely lose my train of thought.

Thursday, February 14: A Shell Shocking Experience

We arrived in Budapest around noon and took a terrifying cab ride from the airport to our hostel.  The cab driver drove like a maniac! He was passing cars with cars coming at us from the other direction and going very fast.  We were all a little stressed out over this!  As we pulled up to our hostel, Retox Party Hostel (highly recommended by a friend of a girl on the trip), I was a little...okay, very apprehensive.  All I could think was "what the hell did I get myself into?!".  It was a little run down on the outside and only advertised for the Retox bar.  After check-in I felt a little better.  The employees are all native English speakers and were incredibly friendly.  The funny thing about most (or all) of the employees are that they were tourists who came to Budapest for a few nights and ended up staying for months.  Literally all the stories I heard from them started out "well I came here for 3 nights, but I've been here for 3 months".  They were all very fun and relaxed, but still helpful! 

Hungarian Pizza

When we decided we were famished and needed food we quickly realized that the language barrier in Hungary is very real.  We walked passed many restaurants, but couldn't read the menu so we had to keep searching.  We finally found a place that had an English menu and I ordered "Hungarian style" pizza.  It had onions, mushrooms, salami and hot peppers.  It was delicious, but I didn't realize I was getting a pizza meant for more than one person! 






After we ate, we headed over to the Terror House on the main street in Pest.  The Terror House is the

former headquarters for the secret police of both the Nazi and Communist governments.  Today, it is a museum that exhibits the fascist and communist regimes in 20th century Hungary and is also a memorial to the victims of these regimes, including those detained, interrogated, tortured or killed in the building.  The museum is very well done and very powerful.  There are artifacts, pictures and videos from the era that reveal things about Hungary I've never learned about.  The most moving part of the experience was entering the basement where the horrors of the regimes were carried out.  The elevator ride to the basement is very slow so that you can watch an interview with a man who was in

Terror House

charge of cleaning up the gallows after executions.  He explained the process from beginning to end, and it was exactly how you would expect it to be.  As a person who doesn't like elevators to begin with, this 3 minute ride got to be a bit much and toward the end I started having trouble breathing.  In the basement (more like a dungeon) there are many stone cells, some the size of a small room others smaller than a closet.  The smallest ones used as psychological torture.  In the larger cells pictures hung on the walls of the victims imprisoned in them.  There were men and women, old and young.  The feeling that came over me when I was in that basement was something I've never felt before and is hard to describe.  I could feel the heaviness and horror.  I felt sick to my stomach and shaky.  The energy from the time of these regimes could absolutely still be felt.  As you exit the building small pictures of the victimizers covered the walls, which countered the larger pictures of the victims covering 4 stories in the main room.  I'm very glad I went to this museum because there is such a deep history that doesn't get told in the States.

After the museum we were all feeling very gloomy so we decided to wander down the main avenue to Heroes Square.  We ended up stumbling upon a ceremony, one which we still have no idea what is was for.  There was a group of Hungarian soldiers lined up next to a red carpet in front of a tomb for an unknown soldier.  All of a sudden a squad car and 2 black BMWs pull up and a man in traditional Indian (I think?) dress got out.  He walked behind two soldiers carrying a wreath, the wreath was placed on the tomb and then it was over.  We were very confused, but again the language barrier prevented us from finding out what had just happened!  Heroes Square at night is very gorgeous and is a quick site to see.

Heroes Square

Heroes Square

Heroes Square

That night our hostel had an all-you-can-drink event at the bar where the two sister hostels come and everyone can hang out.  We hadn't explored the bar area of the hostel yet, but were very shocked at some of the decorations...there was a stripper pole.  Odd, to say the least.  But it was a very fun night!

Hostel Bar

The past week has been pretty uneventful.  I'm finally starting to feel at home here, which is exciting.  I have also been here for a month, which means I only have 2 and a half left here. Time is absolutely flying by!

Tuesday night a friend and I wandered around Trafalgar Square and unexpectedly ended up in front of Parliament/Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.  London is prettiest at night when everything is lit up.  The London Eye was glowing blue and Big Ben is stunning.  We were also excited to realize when we got to a pub after our walk that we were outside Parliament while they passed a bill for gay marriage! (Yay England!!)

Thursday our program organized a Fish and Chips lunch.  I am not the biggest fan of fish, unless its sushi, but I figured I'm in London and what kind of London-er would I be if I didn't try it!  The fish was huge and delicious.  I was a little grossed out to find that they cooked it with the skin on! Of course, my favorite part was the fries and Fosters beer.  I tried malt vinegar on my 'chips' and was surprised at how good it tastes.  Might have to start requesting it in the States. 

Friday we took a trip to Oxford, which was very pretty.  I took lots of pictures of buildings I can't

Harry Potter Hospital Wing

identify but I paid special attention to the buildings where scenes from Harry Potter were filmed! (Will there ever be a post without a HP reference? Probably not)  The Great Hall was modeled after Oxford's hall and outside on the staircase Professor McGonagall lead the first years to the Hall to be sorted!  Another building was the site for the hospital wing and another the set for the scenes in the Restricted Section of the library.  Unfortunately we were not allowed in those buildings.  For lunch we went to the Turf Tavern where Bill Clinton "didn't inhale" (haha).

Waiting to be sorted!

The Great Hall

 Friday night a few of us went to Piccadilly Institute, an insane asylum themed club.  It was really crazy.  There are 6 rooms all with different themes.  One had baby dolls in the bar, another had hospital beds and wheelchairs as seating, and on certain floors drinks were served in pill bottles.  We had a lot of fun!

Saturday I decided to skip out on the Camden and Little Venice trip.  It was cold and rainy, per usual.  I spent the afternoon being lazy and watching, you guessed it, Harry Potter.  The best part of the day was taking the bus to get Chipotle with a couple friends.  It didn't taste the same as at home, but it was still amazing and I really enjoyed indulging in American food.  That night I went with a friend to her cousin's going away party.  She is moving back to the States after working in London for the past few years.  The party was at Zenna Bar in Soho.  It was a trendy place with delicious (but expensive) drinks.  I ordered the House Nectar, which is orange with a mysterious fruit in it.  I have no idea what was in it but I really liked it.

Sunday was the Chinese New Year (it is now the year of the snake), so a few of us went to Trafalgar Square for the parade.  Again, it was rainy and cold.  Better than snow though, right?  The parade was really neat.  They had really ornate dragons and costumes, and the drummers from the Olympics performed!  After the parade, which was shorter than the Tobacco Days parade if you can believe it :) , we went to Chinatown.  They had decked out the streets in lanterns and decorations, and there were people everywhere!  I got hit in the head with lots of umbrellas.  We stopped at Canton, a Chinese restaurant, for lunch.  Like most things I order here, I have no idea what it was that I ate.  My dish was fried noodles with veggies and I'm assuming there was a sauce involved.  It was very good and I ate it with only chopsticks! (A great feat for me)  I spent the rest of my day procrastinating and Skyping with Adam, my mom and my dad. 

Olympic Drummers

 

Scotland

View from Calton Hill, Edinburgh

I spent last weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland with 5 friends from my program.  We did so much, hopefully I will be able to remember everything and organize it in a coherent blog post! Here we go:

We left Wednesday night for Scotland on a 10-hour bus ride.  It was exceptionally awful because MegaBus felt the need to have the A/C on all night and I, of course, ended up under the fan.  We arrived in Edinburgh at 7:30 Thursday morning.  I haven't been up that early here yet and was surprised to realize that the sun doesn't rise here until 8:15, makes me appreciate daylight savings.  We walked to our hostel, Edinburgh Backpackers, to drop off our bags and begin our day.  We had breakfast at The Elephant House, which is the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter novel.  Basically, I was on cloud 9!  We could see Edinburgh Castle and Greyfriar's Cemetary from the window.  I ordered a sausage breakfast roll, which was simply sausage on a bun, not my favorite meal.  In the bathroom people had graffiti-ed everywhere.  It was so awesome! So many Harry Potter quotes! I contributed with "Expecto Patronum" (a protective spell and my favorite spell) and my initials next to it. After breakfast we explored Edinburgh. 

At the museum, obviously learning lots

We went to the National Museum of Scotland, which was very nice but I am getting rather sick of museums so we spent most of the time there dressing up in the costumes...for children.  We also went to the University of Edinburgh and saw the oldest student union in Scotland (or maybe its the whole UK).  While half of the group went to the Museum of Childhood, two girls and I went to The Jolly Judge for a drink.  I ordered Tennent's Lager, an authentic Scottish beer. It was very good! That afternoon four of us went to Portabello Beach on the North Sea.  It was gorgeous and so fun.  For dinner we went to a place across from our hostel.  I ordered steak and ale pie, which is essentially a bowl of meat and ale.  It was good, but I'm not much of a meat eater. 

Portabello Beach

Steak and Ale Pie

The Scotsman's Lounge

Friday we spent the day in Glasgow, which is about an hour bus ride from Edinburgh.  If you ever go to Scotland, don't go to Glasgow.  There is really nothing worthwhile there.  We saw Glasgow Tower- basically a pole with an antenna that is completely unidentifiable.  The Glasgow Necropolis was

Glasgow Necropolis

probably the coolest thing we saw.  It's an old cemetery on a hill.  Near the Necropolis is the oldest house in Scotland! It was built in 1471!  It was very interesting.  Lunch was the best part of the day.  We went to an Italian restaurant and I had Caesar salad, spicy penne pasta and ice cream.  After Glasgow we went to a pub up the street from the hostel called the Scotsman's Lounge.  They had a
man singing and playing guitar.  He played everything from U2 to Van Morrison and Mumford and Sons.  We had a lot of fun at the pub!

Saturday was probably the best day we had in Scotland because we finally saw the sun!  We had breakfast at the cutest cafe next to our hostel.  I had eggs Benedict and black coffee, both were amazing!  We spent most of our day on an excellent (and free!) walking tour.  Our tour guide, Fiona,

Edinburgh Castle

was very funny and knew so much about Edinburgh's history!  We saw so many parts of Edinburgh and heard lots of fun stories.  Some of my favorites are:  the origin of the phrase "shitface wasted" comes from the days in Edinburgh when they would have to throw their feces out the window, which happened at 10 pm, the same time that bars closed.  So the drunks would be walking home, hear people yelling above them, look up and get hit in the face with...shit.  We also learned that the phrase the "graveyard shift" comes from when people would sit on their loved ones grave so that the body

Calton Hill, Edinburgh

would not be stolen and sold on the black market!  Another story was about a woman named Maggie Dickson who was sentenced to hang for adultery/hiding a pregnancy.  Somehow, she survived the hanging so they nicknamed her Half-Hanged Maggie, which is where J.K. Rowling got the idea for Nearly Headless Nick (seriously, if you're lost by all these Harry Potter references then watch the movies!!!).  We saw the Edinburgh Castle and got an amazing view.  But the best view was from Calton Hill (a MUST if you visit Edinburgh).  I will just post pictures because words cannot describe it! 



A few words on the great people of Scotland.  Kilts and bagpipes are not just a stereotype.  We heard bagpipes being played all the time, everywhere.  We also saw many people in kilts!  You cannot go one block without seeing a combination of the following: pub/whiskey bar, kilt shop and chocolate shop.  They also drink at all hours of the day, it's a serious hobby (quote from the museum).  They also do not like the British.  Actually, no one really does.  I met lots of Scots who like to get digs in at the Brits and even the Bulgarian cashier at a store had negative opinions of them!  We got called "lassie" a lot, which was great.  And the Scottish are just so nice in general, especially after living in London.  I had a great time and I can definitely say that Edinburgh is one of my favorite cities.

Last night I watched the Superbowl at the Imperial College Union, which started at 11:30 pm here.  I don't really care about the Ravens or 49ers, I was there to see Beyonce perform!  I have to say that B absolutely killed it! She was so amazing!  I left promptly after her performance because it was 1:30 am and I have morning class.

After class today 6 of us went to My Old Dutch, a pancake house, near our flat.  On Mondays certain crepes are only 5 pounds so we obviously had to take advantage of it!  I got a banana, nut and chocolate crepe with ice cream because I was really craving some sweets.  However, about half way through it I decided I had made a mistake.  As I write about it I can feel my stomach turning!  It was so delicious but soooo sweet.  I've decided that next time I will have to go with a "savory" crepe.

Upcoming events: my first 'Fish and Chips' meal on Thursday, Oxford on Friday and Camden/Little Venice on Saturday.  I should also mention that last week I booked a flight to Budapest for February 14-17!  It was a random and spur of the moment decision but I really wanted to take a completely random trip and I think I've made a good choice!