chocolate win and jewish fail...then win

A few recent highlights:

On Monday, Cristine and I went to the London Chocolate Festival - aka the best idea anyone has ever had ever.

Chocolate! Free samples!

There were about 20 booths from different chocolate shops throughout England, all of them showing some seriously impressive displays of chocolate and offering some seriously impressive displays of free samples.

Chocolate shoes!

In addition to the booths, there were also "tutored tastings" or demonstrations every hour - we got to try and learn about a range of South American chocolates, and learn how to make raw chocolate "on the hob." Brilliant!

On what would turn out to be a completely different note, Mitch and I found a chabad house in South Kensington to go to for a passover seder Monday night. Neither of us were particularly jazzed about the evening, but we had to be good jews and better to have an uncomfortable passover than none at all.

False. The evening started out with us showing up at the rabbi's house when the seder was actually elsewhere, the hurried and half-dressed rabbi mistaking us for a married couple, and the evening only got more awkward from there.

The seder was enormous, and held in a college auditorium. The seder plates hardly deserved to be called seder plates - plastic plates with some lettuce and a questionable item as shank bone thrown on entirely unceremoniously. The prayers were mumbled through in typical Jewish fashion (with an odd moment of repeating the four questions twice...for no apparent reason). A mere 45 minutes later, the most poorly organized system for distributing food began, and we realized the telling of the story of passover had been completely neglected. Flipping through our haggadahs, we couldn't find it anywhere. The blatantly nervous rabbi hadn't failed to accompany the eating of the hillel sandwich with the full history of the etymology of the word sandwich, but not once was it explained why we're all being forced to eat matzo in the first place. To top off the bizarre evening, the vegetarian entree of the evening was half an avocado. You could have roasted potatoes, beets, and half an avocado. Really?

But it's okay, because last night Mitch and I decided to set things aright Jew-wise. We took a field trip to a Sainsbury's in a Jewish area, stocked up on kosher food, and got all the fixings for a proper passover feast. The rest of the day was spent in a manner that would make any jewish grandmother proud, making the flat kitchen smell like a jewish home with homemade chicken soup and other various dishes. Also, we encountered a Swede.

No, not that kind

That kind

Apparently, here in Britishland, eggplants = aubergines, cucumbers = courgettes, and rutabagas = swedes. Fun fact for you.

After finding a haggadah online and making this seder plate

This seder plate is, believe it or not, better than the one at chabad

we proceeded to have a damn good seder. The passover story might have gotten a little colloquial, and some prayers may have been said in English rather than Hebrew, but in the end we proved that we are well on our way to becoming some quality jewish grandparents someday.

THERE SHALL BE A SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT

This past weekend I went to Scotland to visit Julie, the ever excellent hostess, at the BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN, and HELLA OLD St. Andrew's University. We were mostly triumphant in our wanderings, with the one notable exception being the cadbury easter egg hunt in some cathedral ruins that we arrived minutes too late to...and ended up empty-handed. Most distressing.

On a more exciting note, we got to enjoy some toys from Scottish children of days of old at the Childhood Museum in Edinburgh, traipsed down the Royal Mile to see the ever so controversial new Scottish Parliament building and Holyrood Palace, the Queen's official residence in Scotland. We also acted all cultured like and viewed some Scottish art at the National Gallery, and went on a slightly involved hunt for a Barclay's atm. All in all, we were pretty Scottish.

Also, Scotland has bunnies! Everywhere! frolicking in fields and footpaths! Magical.

On the train back from Scotland I met some delightful seatmates...one of whom being a bearded sailor named Angus. Nope, not kidding. He was confused about the lack of pubs in America, and informed me that he believes it's much less healthy to drink "in house" because the walk to the pub is good for your constitution. I tried to convince him of the existence of bars, but he just laughed. I still don't know why.

Back in London town, I spent last night reuniting with the second half of Dream Team #2 - Adam came to visit! Although Mitch and I are the ones who've been living in this city for three months now (whoa, strange, I'm practically European), Adam took over as tour guide and guided us through Mayfair and showed us where to peek into Palm Court at the Ritz (where high tea can be yours for a mere 40 pounds a person). As fun as wandering around all that high society was, I had an equally good time knocking back some Old Rosie (you'd be proud, Claire and Brianna) and watching mice run across the floor at a wetherspoon's pub. It was indeed an Arts Win of an evening.

I'm now entering my last week of classes, immediately after which I will be hopping on a easyjet flight to VENEZIA, ITALIA with Julie and Emily! If the capital letters and exclamation mark doesn't express enough my enthusiasm for this trip, maybe my signing off in Italian will.

Ciao!

Highlights from the Tower of London

Beefeater: How many of you here are from the States?

(a lot of general mutterings)

Are you excited to hear all this history?

(more general mutterings)

And to think, it all could have been yours if you'd just paid your taxes.

Also, I need a castle with spiral staircases and a ceremonial sword.

fresh air and factories

My little day trip to Surrey last weekend was absolutely lovely -- Emily's mum was an excellent hostess (and perhaps provided the highlight of the day with "bollocks!! Oops, sorry girls, excuse my language").

Emily, making a guest appearance on my blog. And dude, look how British her village is!! They have a village church!

The Silent Pool in Surrey, where loads of supernatural legends have taken place and super cool authors have contemplated their next great work

Aside from that little excursion to the countryside, I've been doing some more metropolitan explorations as well. Namely, I've been scouting out free galleries and museums within walking distance. This has happily lead me to learn a lot about the East End, as well as engage in some delightful conversations with old cockney men in pageboy caps who actually use the word "guvna" when quoting themselves as boys.

This weekend is more about reading and hibernating, though, because next weekend I'm heading up to SCOTLAND to explore the beauty of St. Andrews with my favorite erstwhile occupant of 230 Miller. So cheerio for now then, lads.

a weekend

I'm never exactly thrilled to leave London at any given time, but this weekend's jaunt to Oxford included all the pleasures of West Wing Drinking Game, dance party to Lady Gaga and On a Boat, tea and scones at tea time in staircase 15, and being bullied by a chocolate shop worker into being a proper lad and ordering the strongest hot chocolate, so I am not complaining.

Tomorrow is pretend-like-one-day-is-enough-to-finish-all-my-reading-for-Wednesday's-seminar time, because on Tuesday I'm accompanying my friend Emily (the British kind) to her hometown in Surrey (where The Holiday was filmed!!) for her birthday. Her mum is taking us both out for tea and then we're hiking around a lake haunted by the ghost of a girl named Emma! Touch what it won't that I don't fall in...

well I met you at the...central line

Those who know me know that I have a thing for hipsters. Not a big thing, but it's just that you'll probably go up in my estimation if you wear plaid.

I found my best friend for ten minutes today. Plaid shirt, skinny jeans, converse, legit '80s-style headphones. I was fortuitously listening to an-obscure-band-you've-probably-never-heard-of on my ipod when I got in the car next to him, so I thought for funsies I'd test the waters and adjusted the volume so that the song name was in plain view. He glanced down and acknowledged the choice. Immediately after I put my ipod back in my pocket, he took his out and adjusted the volume, tilting it so I could see he was listening to Blood Bank by Bon Iver. That's right, the EP, not even the album.

Ten minutes later we parted ways at Holborn, never to see one another again.