Secrets, hot chocolate, and the Prime Meridian

Back in London on Monday after an awesome trip to St. Andrews. Hansoo and I checked out a couple crumbling castles/churches and then spent way too long collecting rocks on the beach. So fun.

Afterwards we warmed up with hot chocolate in a shop that has hot chocolate happy hour with hot chocolate for a pound! So much happiness in my belly.

Needless to say I did not try haggis.

Mike and I on the Prime Meridian!

This week's walking tour took us to Greenwich on a boat down the Thames, where we checked out the Queen's House, the Royal Observatory, and of course, the Prime Meridian. It was very cool to stand on both sides, but I actually especially loved seeing the actual meridian being projected as a green laser... so cool! I had no idea that they actually projected it.

The Royal Observatory is situated at the top of a hill from which you can look out on London. It was a beautiful view, and we got one of the rare sunny and clear days in London.

Now, excitement... tomorrow Hansoo is coming to London, and Friday morning we embark on the much anticipated SECRET TRIP!! I've been planning it since October, and I won't reveal the location here until we get back because it's a surprise to Hansoo. Although anyone else reading this probably knows where we're going... anyway, I'm so excited. More later!

Bagpipes, ho!

Tomorrow I depart to visit my lovely boyfriend in Scotland! Here is a list of things I will be doing:

1. Freezing
2. Walking along the north sea
3. Having lots of fun

Here is a list of things I will NOT be doing:

1. Eating haggis
2. Eating black pudding
3. (therefore) throwing up

This may well be a lie. If a certain asian coerces me into trying these dishes I will keep you all posted. Although considering how well done I cook my beef, I doubt blood and innards will be on my menu.

Now onto more delicious things!

Day 6: Mars Bar

Three Musketeers meets Milky Way. Three Musketeers likes Milky Way. Three Musketeers and Milky Way get married and have a baby named Mars Bar.




Day 7: Double Decker

Soft nougat on crispy rice inside a shell of Cadbury chocolate. So good. The texture is really fun. Imagine a charleston chew where the inside is soft instead of super chewy, but then on top of a Rice Krispie treat.  Oh, and the chocolate is Cadbury, so multiply the deliciousness by a million.

Teatime!

Had a lovely tea today at Tea and Tattle with the lovely Rachel who I haven't seen in ages. Utter amazingness-- I had chamomile tea with a scone that had raspberry vanilla jam and clotted cream on it. Pretty sure I could feel my aorta clogging as I ate. Don't care. Worth it. Rachel had a tea for one and was kind enough to let me try her lemon drizzle cake which was also fantastic. Gotta love England.

She was telling me about the potential healthcare reform as well as the rising cost of education, which I've overheard students protesting against in the square near where I live. She's a med student so it was really interesting to hear about it from her.

A great day...looking forward to more of this with the rest of the UK Waukeela girls!!

Day 6 of chocolateering: Crunchie
"Milk chocolate with a golden honeycombed centre"
It's kind of weird, but in a good way. It's definitely fun to eat... the texture is really interesting. It is very crunchy but with lots of little air bubbles. It tastes like honey but not super sweet. Definitely try it!

Dear chocolate... What?

Day 5: Wispa and Flake

Okay, now I am just confused.

Two things:
1) A Wispa bar is Cadbury chocolate... with lots of tiny air bubbles in it.
2) If you remember my description of a Twirl, it's this awesome layered cadbury dipped in another layer of chocolate on the outside to keep it all in place.

Flake is the same thing... just messier.  There's no outside chocolate, so all the crumbly layers just... crumble!

So I am so confused. ..... They make different candy bars based on texture? Whaaaaat?


Intriguing.

High heels + cobblestones = surprisingly, not that fun

WELL.

It's been too long since I posted. It wouldn't matter because no one reads this except my mom, if it weren't for the fact that I have done EIGHT MILLION AWESOME THINGS!


Let's see... for starters, I went to Westminster Abbey with Mike. Amazing-- especially because Jeremy Irons is the recorded voice that explains everything on a little headset as you go through. It was really interesting. I was surprised by how many very cool, very dead people there are in the abbey! I saw the graves of Shelley, Handel, Jane Austen, Chaucer, and so many more. Poet's corner was a highlight.

I stood at the head of Chaucer's tomb and recited the only bit of Chaucer I know: an excerpt from the millers tale:

The miller, that for dronken was all pale,
So that uneths upon his hors he sat,
He n'old avalen neither hood ne hat,
Ne abiden no man for his courtesie,
But in Pilates vois he gan to crie,
And swore by armes, and by blood, and bones
"I can a noble tale for the nones,
With which I wol now quite the knightes tale."

So my beautiful homage was a passage about a slobbering drunken man.

I also visited the British Museum which was fantastic. I went crazy. As soon as I walked through the door towards where I was going... "oh hey there, Rosetta stone!"

It's really incredible to have heard so much about this artifact that had such a huge effect on our understanding of history and hieroglyphics and language in general and then suddenly have it in front of you with no warning. Just amazing.

I also loved all of the greek architectural items, particularly the Elgin Marbles. For those of you who haven't heard of them, it's a series of metopes from the Acropolis that were taken back to Britain by the Earl of Elgin, who claimed that they were going to be taken down and destroyed. The Greeks, on the other hand, don't quite agree with this version of the story, and are demanding the return of the marbles along with many other allegedly stolen artifacts. The museum staff (understandably) avoids this issue, and if you ask them to point you in the direction of the "Elgin" Marbles, they will seem puzzled and tell you they have never heard of them. The Parthenon Friezes, on the other hand...






I went on my first walking tour on Monday, and we got to see the Pageantmaster Court where London theater first cropped up, the site of Blackfriar's Theatre, walked down Fleet Street (no thank you, meat pie place next to the barber shop), and ended at the Temple Church, built for the Knights of Templar. Seeing the site of the theatre was incredible, because I didn't realize that that was where we were for the 15 minutes we were there... there are so many little courtyards that you might walk past and have no idea that they were, oh I don't know, a theater that Shakespeare worked with. There is literally too much history to keep track of here. There are just random gravestones from the 1300's around the edges of the courtyards sometimes. So crazy.






Finally, we ended at a candy store we passed called "Mr. Simm's sweet shop" that looked like honeydukes from Harry Potter. Amazement. Please see this photo for a comprehensive explanation of my emotions at the time.



Then tragedy struck: I LOST MY THEATER TICKET ON THE WALKING TOUR

I was devastated on so many levels... especially because this was literally the first impression my professor was going to have of me. Ack!! Very luckily, the people at the box office were incredibly helpful and someone had found and returned my ticket to them.

We saw The Woman in Black... a very scary play, which I won't tell you about in case you see it! Totally awesome, though, kind of a meta-theatrical experience.

Anyway, I just got back from an open evening at Christie's Education, and I'm thinking about taking a class about the art market. We'll see if I can afford it. But I am pooped... signing off for now! Goodnight!




::edit::

I forgot to mention that I went on a CANDLELIT MUSEUM VISIT! We waited in line for 2.5 hours to get into the Sir John Soane's Museum, and it was completely worth it.

Sir John was an architect, and his house is a ridiculous hodgepodge of architectural stylistic examples (a colonnade through his main hallway, a huge collection of urns representing different cornices, etc.) as well as tons of cool Wunderkammer-type items and an original Egyptian sarcophagus.

You look up and in every direction the building looks different, and you're very aware of the way the windows within the house work in the candlelight. If you ever get the chance, GO! Just make sure you get there by 5:30 (every Tuesday night) if you want to be sure you get in and have enough time to look around.