A Really Cool Layover...

Blogging Location: Good ol' flat... next to my watercolour set and while waiting for an episode of Modern Family to fully load (hilarious show, by the way... my new fave.)


It's a GORGEOUS day in Leeds, sitting at about the low 70's in temp; it's actually warmer here than in some parts of CA. Who'dve thunk? Oh, and the sun sets at 9:30pm. WILD.
Anyways, I'm sorry for not blogging as much as I thought I would this week; I've been just relaxing before the exam-week to come. Here goes...

So from where we left off in Amsterdam, my friends and I had to get to the airport for a morning flight; this involved leaving the hostel at 5am to get to the train station and eventually the airport. Kind of a pain in the butt since we had no clue of our way around Amsterdam! The city centre is enormous and we'd only been there for a day and a half. In addition, it was there that I learned that if I want to know my way around a place, I've gotta be the one doing the navigating. (Yes, I learn the hard way.) After quite a stressful time, we got to the train station and the airport and took off for a day in Geneva, Switzerland.


So when we booked the trip, my friend Tatiana and I realized that we could either a) spend the night in the Liverpool airport or b) spend a day in Geneva; both options were the same price! Neither of us had been to Geneva, so why not? When we arrived in Geneva, we got off the plane and just on the tarmac we could see gorgeous mountains capped with snow! A massive Swiss flag nearby helped the ambiance as well. In the city centre, a short train ride away, we walked around with the help of city maps planted every few corners.
As we walked out of the train station, I saw a small blond guy with a beard waiting for a cable car that looked oddly familiar. "Hey Jesse," I said incredibly casually as if I'd seen him every day of my life. He turned around rather surprised. Ha! So it WAS my Social Communications TA! He's been a TA at Leeds, and while not British, but Canadian, he's put up with my professor (who constantly takes jabs at North Americans-- both Americans and "fake Americans"/Canadians) for quite some time. Anyways, it turns out he was just touring Switzerland for Easter Break. Cool. For those of you that know me pretty well, it's not unusual for me to run into a teacher/TA/professor in another country.
The highlight of the city for me was Lake Geneva, a lake in the centre that had a massive fountain called Jet d'Eau. Not only was that amazing (spouting at about 450 feet in the air, but the water was beautifully turquoise and clean! If you got close enough and the wind changed direction suddenly, you could end up in the splash zone and look as if you just got off the Log Ride at Six Flags.




It wouldn't really be fair to give you a summation of Geneva based off of what I saw, but it seemed a nice little city. There was a University and a lot of the public transport consisted of cable car and buses. Intercity transport is all trains. The city is a mix of modern buildings and some older-looking buildings. It didn't have a lot of sites, but was a nice place to be.
So apart from feeding the swans, getting ice cream, and just going for a mooch (walk), seeing a clock made out of flowers, we also went to check out St. Pierre's Cathedral and indulged in some Swiss hot chocolate! :)




Next, we took a lovely ride on a train to a trainyard by accident in our attempt to get back to the airport, but luckily we had enough time to get shunted back to the station, catch another train and make our connecting flight. Praise the Lord! And now off to Barcelona!

Fun fact: Switzerland has 4 spoken languages: Swiss-German, German, Italian and French. In Geneva, we got to practice a little French. Lots of 'merci beaucoup's and 'sil vous plait's.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Blogging location: Ruminating on memories in the good ol' flat... and ignoring my coursework... a little. Also sporting spectacles... There's a story to this for Lisbon. But that's later.


The canals in this city are gorgeous. The Dutch houses are also really quaint and the staircases are rather treacherous because of how small and tall they are (imagine only being able to fit half your foot on each step). The Dutch are supposedly some of the tallest people in the world, so houses have high ceilings, making the staircases even longer, steeper and more scary to climb.
Unfortunately, Amsterdam does have it's reputation (I will get to this soon). The city centre seems to lack even the tacky traditional culture. Everywhere I looked, the restaurants and stores all were themed with some other culture (for Australia, I guess they couldn't think of anything or couldn't sell vegemite to the local community, so they just have ice cream shops called "Australia"). I rarely saw anything Dutch! It was so different from the other places I'd been before. We had to rummage through the city to find local markets that sold cheese to get our Dutch on. Anyways, enough of globalisation...


Cheese
Cheese, glorious cheese.
My favourite souvenir from this entire trip has actually been from Amsterdam and it is the spade-shaped tool you see in the photo above... a cheese slicer! It says "Holland" on it, so that justified me buying it. That and we needed it for lunch because we went downtown on one of those cheese booths at a street market and we had nothing to eat it with. We bought two types of cheese, one spiced with cumin and another with various herbs such as parsley and oregano (hey, we're in Amsterdam, so that might not have been all the "herbs" put into the cheese... but I didn't feel funny afterwards, which is a good sign).
How was the cheese, you ask? Delicious! Europe in general has amazing cheese, and I'm a huge fan, so I figured I'd try cheese everywhere I could. The cumin cheese was half way in between a cheddar and brie texture, so more difficult to slice, but just as delicious as the herb-cheese.


The Redlight District
It was what I thought it would be. The street was just like the others with street lamps, but the rest of the night was illuminated by fluorescent glows of a seeping red, neon green, tacky purple and electric blue. We popped over on a Sunday night, which was relatively empty, but we did see the prostitutes sitting in the windows (I had seen an art exhibit earlier this year in London where a couple remade the Redlight District out of mannequins). Most of them were texting on their Blackberries. A few were gyrating and doing their thing, but for the most part, Sunday night wasn't a busy one for anybody. What hit me was actually looking into the eyes of these women: they're real people. I know this is obvious, but remove yourself from the computer monitor and go there yourself to get a grasp of the reality. Are eyes not the window to the soul?
These women selling themselves are just like me and just like you. They have families-- they didn't just pop out of the ground. They have friends-- they weren't made in a factory. They're people-- they go grocery shopping and pay bills just like everybody else. If you saw one of these girls in a convenience store, having no idea of her job, and she asked you for the time, you would tell her it was a quarter-to and not think anything else. These women have histories before and after you've spotted them in their windows, regardless of how quickly you look away. What separates us from them is how they see themselves and their bodies.
I actually had the opportunity-- whether this is a good or bad one is your decision-- to see a man stop at a window to watch the lady in the window beckon him forward, contemplate for a while, and then march straight into one of those buildings. My stomach twisted itself and jerked a bit. Something about the way he strode through that door seemed very inhuman. If you had seen him walk into a library that way, it would have made you wonder what sort of books he had in mind. A lot about this wasn't right and I didn't just feel that way because of my conscious. The aura was all wrong. Somewhere along the line something went wrong in the way we humans have decided the acceptable level of respect with which to treat each other and ourselves.

On another note, more sites!
We went and saw the Van Gogh Museum the morning after our evening peruse around the town and it was fantastic even though there wasn't a student discount... Highly recommend it.
"... to paint 'what I am not yet able to, in order to learn how to do it'" - Van Gogh


We also ventured to the Anne Frank House (not her actual house, but the house that she and her family hid in during the Holocaust). While the house has been preserved extremely well, Otto Frank, Anne's father requested that the rooms be left empty of any original furniture. Some of the photos that Anne pasted to her bedroom walls are still there and the height markings that her mother made of her and her sister are there as well. Unfortunately, photos could not be taken inside the museum.


Well, anyways, that's about all I have time for at the moment. I'm leaving for Poland early tomorrow, so I have to catch some shut eye. I will probably add more to this entry, but I just wanted to post something for you to read. ;)
Thanks for the continued prayers!
Toodles!
RxW

Stranded

Blogging Location: A hostel in Lisbon, Portugal, using the free computers and internet. God bless them.

Stuck!
If you read the papers or watch the news, you'll know that there's been a massive air disruption in Europe caused by the Icelandic volcano Effyjavybooboo: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/04/18/iceland.volcano.europe.flights/index.html?hpt=T1
So my flight to Liverpool was canceled today and I rescheduled for a week from today, but there's a problem: class starts tomorrow. SO my friend and I are launching our own escapade to get back to Leeds within about a week (at least that's our goal). We'll be taking mostly buses as they are far less pricey than trains and staying in hostels along the way. The plan at the moment is to get to Paris and take the chunnel back to jolly old England and finally the train to Leeds. The first step is a bus to Seville... from then on, there's nothing planned. This is probably the least planned I've ever had my life, so as exciting as this sounds, it's pretty scary for someone as semi-type-A as me. Nonetheless, I have faith in Jesus to get us back safely and on His watch with plenty of stories to tell.
If I could ask for you guys to pray for safety and a speedy return for us, that would be amazing!

You never know what temporal days may bring
Laugh, love, live free and sing
When life is in discord
Praise ye the Lord*

Yours Truly.

*"Paperthin Hymn," Anberlin

A Quick Hello!

Hey everyone! Gruezi! Guten tag! Hola! Hallo! Bonjour! Bonjourno!
Just wanted to say hello from Lisbon, Portugal. I'm on the last leg of my Easter break travel before I go back to Leeds. It's raining like El Niño here, but it's still nice to be in a place where I don't need my coat. I do need an umbrella though. :P I should go buy one soon.

Anyways, it's been crazy living out of a suitcase for 4 weeks. I feel like George Clooney in Up in the Air (a fantastic film, by the way-- so is Shutter Island, but that's another story). I've been flying 1-3 times a week and have been documenting my meals closely for my food blog (see sidebar for link). For a preview, I've seen the Roman Coliseum, been to a Viennese Opera, stayed in jail for a few nights (don't worry, it's not what you think), strolled past the Red Light District in Amsterdam, slept in an airport, ate street food (not roadkill-- distinct difference), biked lakeside along Luzern, etc... Lots of prayers have been answered as well, big and small. There's much more for me to tell you, but that will have to wait till after! I may abandon some coursework in Leeds to blog completely, but I can't abandon my essays completely, so no promises on my conciseness. Hope every one of you have had amazing spring breaks and what not! Lisboa waits for no one!

See you on the other side,
rXw

P.S. Stoked to eat some pastels. ;)

Hasta La Vista, Baby!

Blogging Location: Flat, packing at the mo'

So let me catch you up a bit...

.:London Fashion Weekend:.

Look at me participating in mass consumerism...

I will admit, so I can get admitting out of the way, that London Fashion Weekend was not what I thought it was going to be on several counts... It was definitely a shopping experience as they claimed it would be. I expected everyone to be extravagantly well-dressed, enough to make me feel bashful, but for the most part, not everyone were fashionistas. I saw a lot of Uggs (thank goodness there were no Crocs) and I do believe I saw a couple girls in sweatpants... /shock
The catwalk wasn't as professional as I expected either. None of the designers were announced with the outfits modeled. Odd. And as much as I love vintage clothes, I didn't pay money to see outfits from 40-odd years ago. Show me something new!
Don't get me started on the gift bag that came with the ticket... Let's just say the contents were similar to an easter-egg hunt in the Costco consisting of samples from the beauty aisle. They did throw in a little bottle of Bailey's, which I can't complain about... It's one of the few drinks that actually taste decent to me...
Now, on the other hand, LFWE was pretty fun for shopping; plenty of labels-- although not as many high end ones as I expected, not that I could afford it-- I noticed that for certain stalls, a lot of the clothes were 'rejects.' I'm kind of a village idiot, but I know the difference between 'style' and 'oopsie.'
I bought a couple pieces, one from Ella Moss and one from Buddhist Punk, both of which I got at ridiculously good discounts, so I can be fairly happy with that.



Some photos at the catwalk:





After the crazy extravaganza, my friends and I went for an asian-food run. A couple of the girls we were with had Chinese food the night before, so we went with Japanese (ironically, the entire staff was Chinese). But the food was good and I got my sushi fix.


All in all, it was worth the trip to London, but I think it's a one-time thing. I'm quite satisfied shopping at thrift-stores, thank you.

.:Birmingham:.
It took about 4 hours by coach to get to Birmingham, but it was definitely day-trip worthy. Why? We went to CADBURY WORLD!
Cadbury is England's main chocolate maker, probably at the same level as Hershey's in the US, but it tastes SO much better, hence our trip to the theme park. (I'd like to say that half my English experience has been Cadbury, but I don't think my program would like to hear that much...)


It was about £10 to get into Cadbury World (with student discount, yes! I LOVE being a student!), but we got about three full-size bars of chocolate, which were considered "samples," like it's NO BIG DEAL. They were delicious. While not a factory, Cadbury World had a lot of demos for how they make their chocolate. No photos were allowed in those parts to keep the secret recipe... I CAN tell you, however, that they did not mix their chocolate by waterfall... and they put a glass and a half of milk in their bars.
The park started off with a history of the discovery of cocoa-- well, more like the theft of it from the Aztecs. Anyways, they had a cool set up with wax Aztecs and Spaniards, fake trees, fake giant snakes, etc... Since it's a one-way self-guided tour of a park, the next bit was chocolate's history as a sweet confectionary. They had little hologram shows and the like to explain things. Corny, but cute.


Finally! An English gentleman!-- oh, wait, you're made of plastic.


Ever been on that Bug's Life attraction at Disney CA Adventure? The one that scares the flying crap out of you with the special 4-D, invasive effects? There was something like that at Cadbury World. You get shaken, jolted, mixed, heated up and nearly melted, but they made their point. Next up! There was actually a little ride! Imagine the Alice in Wonderland ride at Disneyland mixed with the Peter Pan ride and the Winnie the Pooh ride. They had these little characters that were meant to be cocoa beans. The drawings of them were adorable, but as models they were... less cute. Look, you can even get your picture with one:

How cool is that guy's jumper?

.:Leeds:.
So I usually only write about traveling because I assume that's what everyone's interested in... but I DO do work... I just turned in an essay and a workbook yesterday before the end of term, and boy did I slave away. I'm enrolled this semester in Social Communications: Processes and Effects, Processes of Performing 2: Text and Image and Technique and Improvisation, Forensic Psychology and Film Music. Unlike last semester, I'm actually enjoying all these modules. Though Forensic psych is a 10am class and they don't take roll, it's cool enough for me to get up for.
In terms of flat life, I'm in a self-catered accommodation, so been doing a lot of cooking on my own. Lots of experimenting... I'm not going to go through all the dishes and desserts I've been creating, but I have to share this photo:

My flat mate Laura buy bananas from the local farmer's market (don't ask me where the bananas come from-- there's AIN'T enough sun in England to grow anything... except mushroom, which grow in the dark...) and for a pound, you can get about 20-30 bananas. Yeah, that's a lot. So we made banana cream pie! And we had leftover egg whites, so I whipped the living daylights out of them and made a meringue topping. Great. :)

.:TTFN:.

So in regards to the title of my blog... I'm leaving Leeds for a month! Just when the weather has started to get warm (when it's above 50*F here, that's warm). Oddly enough, I've gotten so used to the cold that anything above 55*F gets me to break out in a sweat when I'm walking to uni or town. I think my pores have put on their own little eskimo jackets... must ask them to start changing for the next season.
Where am I going, you ask? Look for the select dots:

Anyways, the weather doesn't look so great for where we're heading... It looks like rain and cold every where, but it will be great nonetheless. I'm going to be completely honest though: I'm DREADING being exhausted... One gets little to no sleep in hostels, not to mention walking and sightseeing all day... but I'm going to definitely pray for energy and sustenance! And gonna hope I catch all my flights and trains and such... if I miss one little flight, it's a crazy domino effect of disaster!
Anyways, if anyone could spare any prayer for safety that would be fantastic!
Talk to you in a month!xx

-Raech

Oxford, Harrogate, Chinese New Year and York

Blogging Location: In the flat, excited for the rest of the year, hopeful, and supposed to be doing an essay. I'm obviously not, seeing as I have a guitar in my lap.

Before I get into my travels and experiences, I have an announcement: Easter break is all booked and ready for initiation! I spent a grand total of 17 hours with my friend Tatiana booking trains, planes, automobiles and hostels for the spring holiday! We got it all done in 1 weekend and I can happily say it was decently cheap because of how early in advanced we booked things. Yay for budget airlines and accommodations. Future destinations:


.:Oxford:.
So many moons ago, three friends and I ventured southward to Oxford, the university town. It's very tiny: you can walk from one end to the other in 25 minutes. It's also gorgeous. Luckily, one of my best friends, Katie, studied there for a semester last year and was able to give me a complete to-do list! Fab! Thanks Katie! <3
FUN FACT: Buildings in Oxford demonstrate an example of every British architectural period since the arrival of the Saxons, including the iconic, mid-18th century Radcliffe Camera.


So starting at about middle school, I became a Lord of the Rings and JRR Tolkien fanatic. I'm not sure I even dare to explain how geeky I was about Tolkien's work... Okay, I'll humor you: I own the trilogy in several formats: books, regular edition DVDs, extended editions and boxed sets (with collectibles!); I have two life size cardboard standees of Aragorn and Legolas in my bedroom; my shower door has the door of the Mines of Moria engraved on it; in middle school and high school I could speak and teach elvish, both Sindarin and Quenya. I need to stop there and quit embarrassing myself. Anyways, what this has to do with Oxford is that JRR Tolkien was a professor there! The famous Eagle and Child pub (or the Bird and Baby) where Tolkien and CS Lewis hung out is also located in Oxford. Basically going to Oxford excited the little fangirl in me, almost as if I had a ticket to the Shire. Here's the famous pub:


Another thing we got to see in Oxford... where they filmed part of Harry Potter!


.:The Saints Come Marching In:.
Did I mention that I had a nasty cold while in Oxford? Well, that properly tuckered me out so apart from going to Betty's (a famous and bougie Yorkshire teahouse) I slept pretty the rest of the day. Here's a couple pics from Betty's:




In the evening, I originally planned to make like a fetus and head out (rimshot!) to a sports bar to watch the Superbowl, but nautrally it was raining cats and dogs. I'd been talking about staying up and watching it for a couple weeks, but my illness and the weather got the better of me. Quite disappointed, I trudged around in the kitchen and made myself a midnight snack instead (kick off was at around 11:30pm my time). My flat mate James lugged his TV out into the living room and plugged it in (fun fact: you need a TV license in England :P). Half hopeful and half assuming there was some rugby cup match type thing going on, I asked what was going on. Matter-of-factly, stated: "The Superbowl." Yeah, imagine how stoked I was. Didn't even have to leave the flat! Score!
And Reggie Bush was in the game this year, San Diegan & USC alum, what what?! A bunch of us stayed up PRETTY late, but it was a great time in the flat and totally worth it.
Slight disappointment: BBC didn't air the commercials. Which are half of the Superbowl's enjoyment. Fail.
Just to share, I don't know if this was actually aired during the Superbowl, but this is one of my favourite recent commercials:

Forgive my favor towards non-sequitur humour.

.:Valentin-- Chinese New Year:.
For Spring Festival, or Chinese New Years Eve, my friend Grace from China, invited me to celebrate with her and her friends; we made pork dumplings from scratch!




I blatantly didn't celebrate Valentine's Day because the foodstuffs that are associated with that holiday are no where near up to par with that of Chinese New Year and they fell on the same day this year. As a very last minute party, I threw together some red and gold paper lanterns and one of those silly Happy New Year banners to put above the stove to chase that backseat-driver-of-a-kitchen-god away. Just kidding. Foods included fried rice, noodles, prawn toasties, lychee, and kau yuk.



A good time was had by all! I definitely ate too much though.

.:Vikings!:.
The Viking Festival in York!

Seeing as there are only a few months left for me in Europe, I've been trying to pack something in at least every weekend. One weekend trip consisted of a day trip to York for the Jorvik Viking Festival!

To be honest, we spent most of our time eating at the food fair which consisted mostly of international foods, not really anything Scandinavian, but it was delicious anyways. We also got to pop a few cool pics of the beard competition which I was pretty stoked about:

That's one of my favourite pictures. :)

Now, apart from the Viking museum and festival, York is a very historic city, one of the most visited in all of England. Here's a photo of the Yorkminster.

There's also ancient Roman wall from which apparently you can still shoot a Scotsman with a crossbow (random fact supplied by flat mate, please check accuracy and your own sanity before acting upon your newfound trivia). In addition, there are incredibly narrow streets also called The Shambles. Here's a pic!

Andddd... Guy Fawkes was born in York. :D


As always, see the Facebook albums for more photos! :)

That's about all I've got time for now. I promise I'll get to more food blog entries as well as some more culture shock. I'm now going to tease you with a photo from London Fashion Weekend, which I went to... There will be a blog for this coming soon!


Now I'm off to do what I supposedly came to Leeds for... studying!
Cheers for reading!
-Your local village idiot

P.S. Praise the Lord for the recent streak of gorgeous weather! :) Keep it comin'!

Food Networking

Blogging Location: Flat, with too much sugar waiting to be eaten.

Hey folks! I just got back from Oxford a few hours ago. Oxford is great! Looked wonderful, felt safe! Can't say the same for Leeds tonight, but hey, it's Leeds! Walking back to the train station was... interesting. Almost had to do a fencing number with my giant umbrella on a tosser* yelling at random people in the streets. Twat. On a brighter note, the plan is to go to Betty's (famous tea room) for afternoon tea! Anyways, I will save the Oxford trip and Betty's for an upcoming blog... in the meanwhile, I have a new development communication-wise...

So I thought an entry dedicated to food would be enough. It's not. Here, I'm including my blog-- yes, a FULL BLOG-- dedicated to food:

Foods From Around the World

Because it's that important. Thanks for reading. :)

-Raechel

P.S. I swear that there's a fat child living inside of me.

*English insult; in short, without the actual, rather obscene definition, means useless, pathetic individual, incapable of doing anything right (Urbandictionary.com)