When in [London]

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately working on my dissertation (or at least psyching myself up to write my dissertation) and not much time out in the city. I’ve made it out to a few places though, and in an effort to catch up on what I’ve been doing, I’ve decided to compile a list of some of my favorite typically British things to do in London.

Eating Lebanese food – My first experience at a Lebanese restaurant was a night that Kelsey and I decided to venture out to Edgeware Road, a street so packed with Lebanese restaurants that it’s known as “Little Beirut.” We wandered around to a few restaurants before picking one with reasonable prices and pretty authentic Middle Eastern décor. I had the best hummus I’ve ever eaten, tried baba ganoush for the first time (delicious!) and picked a random potato and lamb concoction off the menu that turned out to be incredible. Kelsey and I have also gone to a nearby restaurant called Safadi Express on High Holburn, where I keep ordering hummus topped with shwarma chicken or lamb. It’s absolutely amazing. I don’t know why I’ve never tried Lebanese food before, it may very well be my new favorite.

Seeing musicals – A few weeks ago Kelsey, Bhumi, Rebecca and I got cheap day-of tickets to see Avenue Q. I’d seen the show before in New York, so it was interesting to see the small changes they made to the show to better reflect British culture and humor. I don’t think the Brits found the show as funny as us Americans, but that’s their loss. On Wednesday, the Hansard program took all of us to see Billy Elliot, which I’ve wanted to see in New York forever. It did not disappoint. The kids in the show were mind blowing actors and dancers, I can’t believe any person on the planet could have the stamina to perform that show, especially the 13-year-old playing Billy. The funny thing is that my guy flatmates loved the show even more than the girls, despite its focus on ballet and dance, but I know they were mostly jealous of Billy’s abs.

Cider – I liked cider before I came to London, even though all of my friends at home make fun of me because it’s “wimpy” compared to beer. I never particularly cared, but in London drinking cider is totally acceptable, they love it here. There are different brands of cider at every bar, so I’ve had fun trying as many as are available. I really like pear Magners, and also Sam Smith’s cider. It’s just so much tastier than beer, it will be sad to go back to the US and have so many fewer cider options.

Florence + the Machine – I spent a significant part of last weekend watching the top 40 British video countdown, where I discovered Florence + the Machine, my new favorite singer. I haven’t downloaded her full album yet, but “Kiss With a Fist” and “You’ve Got the Love” are my two favorite songs right now. Download them immediately.

Pie – Alright, so I only had a traditional British pie once, but it was really good, and it’s really British, so it makes the list. I had a steak and ale pie awhile ago at a trendy restaurant called The Buck’s Head in Camden, and it was delicious. It probably tasted better because there was a special allowing me to get a pint of Strongbow cider for a pound with the meal.

Oxford

A week ago the whole Hansard Scholars program took a trip to Oxford for a day of lectures instead of having class. It was perfect weather for a day trip, the sun was shining over the nearly 900 year old college town by the time we got off the train.

Oxford University is actually made up of 36 small colleges, each with their own specialty. We headed straight for pretty Nuffield College, with a beautiful enclosed courtyard for our first lecture with the legendary professor who started seriously doing election polls in Britain.

We got lunch on the high street at an Indian restaurant, I didn’t know what I was eating, but it was some sort of delicious spicy lamb and pea concoction, and nan, because you always need nan.

After lunch we met at Carfax Tower to walk over to Queens College for the second lecture. Queens College was much bigger than Nuffield, with a quad enclosed by tall ornate buildings. The outdoor hallways around the edge of the quad were arched, I felt like I was at Hogwarts. We had another interesting lecture about the rise of the Conservative party in Britain before splitting up to go on various adventures around the city.

The architecture of Oxford is varied because the city and colleges were built in so many different time periods, but nearly every building you pass is old and gorgeous. Everything looks like Hogwarts, because it is. They shot scenes from the Harry Potter movies all around Oxford. So clearly, my afternoon adventures were a Harry Potter mission.

Our first stop was the Bodlein Library, Oxford’s main library and where they shot some Harry Potter library scenes. We took a tour of the place and learned a ton about the intricate building and library systems that have been in place for hundreds of years. The building is older than our country. We were able to sneak a peek of the Divinity School (closed on Mondays, of course!) where they filmed the hospital scenes and the scene where Professor McGonagall teaches Ron to dance.

After the tour we made our way to Christ Church College, where the Great Hall is as well as a bunch of hallways used in the Harry Potter movies. We were there by 4:45, but the campus closed to visitors at 4:30, which broke our hearts. We ended up wandering around the outskirts of the college while Rebecca devised ways to break in, then decided to meet up with Bhumi and Kelsey near the river.

For dinner we walked back across Oxford to eat at a great little Italian restaurant Bhumi’s friend recommended, stuffed ourselves with carbs, then headed back to the train station.

I immediately looked up grad school programs at Oxford, because I’m so in love with the place, but they don’t have any media or PR programs. However, the trip has made me seriously consider grad school in another country. I’ve started looking up programs, so we’ll see.

Bostonians in London

The last couple of weeks have been a little crazy, it’s getting down to the wire to get majo work done on my dissertation, and nearly time to start studying for finals. Despite the stress I’ve managed to have some really great days in London.

Last week my friend Laura and I spent Friday together wandering the city. Laura is my friend from Northeastern who is studying outside of London. We spent most of the afternoon at the National Portrait Gallery gawking at paintings and photos of famous Brits, past and present. My favorites were a huge painting of Paul McCartney, Andy Warhol’s prints of the Queen, and the new portrait of Princes William and Harry. It’s a really great museum.

We headed to a Mexican restaurant called Café Pacifico in Covent Garden for a late lunch, and found ourselves full of amazing chips, salsa, fajitas, burritos and lunchtime margaritas by the end of the meal. It was wonderful, and far more delicious than any of us were expecting. We made a stop at Scoop, the great gelato place nearby before wandering around with Laura’s friend Sam (also from Northeastern) in search of a good deal for a play that night. After lots of stops, we got reasonable tickets to Waiting for Godot and then killed some time before the show in a French Café in SoHo.

The show was funny and sweet and sad. Sir Ian McKellan (Gandalf!) played one of the leads, which was really incredible to see. I loved it.

After the show Sam and I met up with Kelsey and Bhumi at The Rocket, one of our favorite bars then made it over to Brick Lane, the London street known for late night Indian food. Brick Lane is crazy because Brits "go for a curry" after a night at a pub instead of getting pizza or Chinese like Americans do. Brick Lane is full of these white-tableclothed late-night restaurants, it was really awesome.

This Friday Laura and I embarked on another adventure, this time having a far less intellectual day. We went to Abbey Road to see the studios and the zebra crossing (Brit-speak for crosswalk) and take in the magic of the Beatles. The whole area in front of the studios is graffitied by visitors, it’s really, really cool. People from all over the world leave messages there, the next time I go back I’m bringing my Sharpie. We spent some time on a bench watching foreign tourists take the famous picture crossing the street. Abbey Road is just a busy residential street, so a lot of the tourists had problems and frequently got honked at by annoyed British motorists. It was hilarious, and I loved just being there. The Beatles music is so universal, there were people of all ages and tons of nationalities just hanging out at Abbey Road. So cool.

We decided to walk from Abbey Road to Camden Market, which looked like a nice and quick walk on my map. The walk was certainly nice, but it took about twice as long as I’d estimated. Oh well, it was a beautiful sunny day, so we didn’t mind. We walked around Camden Market for awhile (actually a long street with tons of markets along it). I wanted tons of jewelry, clothes and posters, but was able to resist and save my money. I did splurge on vegan ice cream (delicious!) and some cheap Chinese food for linner. It was a really nice afternoon.

Real Life

Now that I’m all caught up on my adventures, I thought it might be a good time to do a post about classes and interning, which are (supposedly) the reasons I’m here in the first place.

Classes are about the same as they were in the beginning. I really love my Parliament class, my professor is really charismatic and I’m really interested in the topic. I’m having a harder time being excited about my public policy class, but it’s manageable at least. We have two classes for an hour each on Monday, and no real work to do for them except for the papers we already handed in and the finals at the end of the program. I’m still not used to the system, since nothing is ever due it’s not easy to find the motivation to read textbooks for hours on end. After doing the essays I have a better idea of what the finals will be like, I definitely need to buckle down and start doing more of the class readings, even though none of them are mandatory.

My internship is getting progressively better. I work at the political consulting firm three days a week, and spend most days on the computer all day making spreadsheets, making follow-up calls for events and reading and summarizing political documents. It’s not the most fulfilling work, but I am learning a lot about the British political system. I’ve gotten to go to select committee meetings at Parliament a few times (being in Parliament never gets old) and I’ve been to a couple of events in the last few weeks. Today I went to a lecture at a think tank by David Milliband MP, the current foreign secretary and likely the next leader of the Labour party. It was really interesting, and it was a small audience so being there was a pretty big deal. Plus there were free cookies. :-)

Today I decided to change the topic of my dissertation, which is last minute and super scary, but I think it’s for the best. I was having a really hard time with research for the last topic I chose, and there is much more applicable information available for this new topic. I’m planning on writing about how the British government can engage young voters in the wake of very low young voter turnout in the last few elections. I’m really interested in youth engagement on any level, so hopefully that will be enough drive for me to bang out 40 pages in the next month or so. Eek!

Antiques, Pastries & Ukuleles

After four days in Scottish paradise, I filled yesterday with adventures in London. Team Bunkbed woke up super early and hopped onto the Tube toward Notting Hill. We found the much-recommended Portobello Market without a problem. We started at the beginning of Portobello Street where the market is held on weekends, browsing antiques, since Kelsey was looking for a vintage map. There were tons of vendors lining the street, with everything from new souvenirs to hundred year old boxing equipment to jewelry and silver teapots and everything in between. I enjoyed picking out things to put in our houses when we’re old enough to have paid off our student loans.

I’m not sure how long the market is, and though there are technically different sections, they all blend together. There were clothes and music and food in addition to antiques. Kelsey got a Nutella crepe, as she can always be counted on to do. A few stalls later we both stopped in our tracks, saying “woah” at the exact same moment. What was the reason for our exclamation you ask? Delicious looking pastries of course! Though moments before I found myself weighing if I was hungry enough to eat a bruschetta, I ended up buying a huge whipped crème-filled, chocolate-iced donut from the stand. It was incredible. There was lots of thrift stalls towards the end, but we were both trying to save our money so we ended up just looking without really shopping.

After an hour or two we headed back to the other end of the market, it was now after 11:00, and we had to fight our way to the crowds that suddenly appeared. Kelsey ended up getting a really cool map of the British Isles from the 1800s, but I left empty handed.

We got lunch at an Indian restaurant near the beginning of the market and spent lunch in awe of the steady stream of people filtering into the market. I’m so glad we went early, we could barely move on our way back out. I had a delicious pumpkin curry (I feel so cultured, I’ve had Indian food TWICE! Haha) and pilau rice, my new favorite.

Kelsey and I split up after lunch, and I went to Tottenham Court Road to buy a ukulele, an idea I got a few days ago when I was missing my guitar and viola. I borrowed the guitar of one of the guys in the program one day, but I really just miss my own instruments and being able to play music whenever I want. This is the longest I’ve gone without playing music since fourth grade, and I’ve hated it. I needed music back in my life, and a ukulele is so portable it seemed like a no-brainer.

Tottenham Court Road has one side street near the tube station that is packed with music stores. I’d never been over there when they were all open, and I loved being surrounded by musicians looking for new music and instruments, I didn’t feel weird geeking out about music like I do in most other situations. After asking questions and wandering in and out of music stores, I finally found what I was looking for, in a color that didn’t make me feel like a four year old (the first store I stopped in had cheap ukuleles, but my color options were pink and green…no thanks).

Now I have an adorable little yellow ukulele. Even just playing for a few hours yesterday (it was really easy to transfer what I know from guitar to the four-stringed instrument) I feel so much better having music back in my life. I was really missing it, and it’s been a music-filled week with all of the concerts in Edinburgh. It sounds sappy and silly, but music makes me happy. That’s all there is to it. Now I’m a Londoner with a uke, and life couldn’t be better.

Kilts, etc.

In an effort not to fall behind on my blog again, I’m going to write here instead of working on my dissertation. Because I make good decisions.

I’ve been awaiting the Hansard-organized “educational” trip to Edinburgh for all students in the program since before I arrived in London. Everyone in the program got off from our internships this week (a much needed break) so we could take the trip during Parliament’s recess.

We set off on a train from Kings Cross station on the beautiful four and a half journey through England and Scotland’s countryside. It’s known for being one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world, and the scenery did not disappoint. After taking cabs to our hotel, a group of seven of us set out to explore Edinburgh for the rest of the afternoon. We walked Princes Street, the main shopping and souvenir street and the park surrounding “the mound” of Edinburgh Castle. The castle is built high up on cliffs and is visible from most parts of the city. Once we trekked up the stairs up towards the castle we realized how brilliant those city planners were, you can see far past the city of Edinburgh from the castle. The castle is located at the top of the Royal Mile, the mile-long stretch of High Street running from Edinburgh Castle down to the Palace of Holyrood, the Queen’s residence in Scotland. We all got crepes to share, in honor of Pancake Day before walking some of the Royal Mile, stopping into lots of gift shops and the Scotch Whiskey Experience.

We got dinner at this great little Nepalese restaurant near our hotel in the west end of the city. None of us had ever had Nepalese food before, but it was very similar to Indian food, with different spices. I had curry, pilau rice and nan, and it was all incredible. Everyone really enjoyed their meals, and now I know I like Nepalese food.

After dinner we headed to a nearby pub, like the good little Brits we are. A bunch of my friends got kicked out because they didn’t have passports to prove their ages, but the few of us that stayed got a taste of the British football culture. On a Tuesday night the pub was packed with men. There were probably two hundred men and about seven women, including Kelsey and I. It was insane. You would think we’d have a good shot at talking to some Scottish guys, but no dice. Everyone was absolutely glued to the TVs watching the Manchester United v. AC Milan game. Even after the game was over, the after game commentary was muted, and the American hip hop music came on, the few women in the place were completely ignored. Eventually we just headed back to the hotel.

Since we stayed at a bed and breakfast, we had breakfast at the hotel on Wednesday before heading to the Law Society of Scotland for some lectures on devolution and the Scottish Economy. We had a three hour break, so the seven of us set off to walk the full Royal Mile. We started at the top of the castle again to get some better pictures in the sunlinght and shopped our way down, stopping for a cheap pub lunch at a place called the Jolly Judge. Our main stop of the afternoon was Fudge Kitchen for free samples and the purchasing of far more fudge than necessary. It was incredible, and the Scottish are known for their fudge, so we had to do it. We stopped at Starbucks before meeting up with the group for an interesting lecture on the European Parliament. Afterwards we finished up the Royal Mile walk to take pictures at Holyrood palace. We ate dinner at a place called McDonners that was connected to a Quiznos, then went to an Ash Wednesday mass at a church off High Street. I’ve never been to an Ash Wednesday mass, and found it really interesting.

We headed back to the hotel for some R&R before going all the way back to High Street (about a 40 minute walk from our hotel) to a bar that my friend Bhumi and I scoped out earlier in the day. The bar, Whistle Binkies, has live bands and no cover every night of the week until 3am. We saw three bands, and I really liked them all, though my favorite was OK Social Club, which you should check out. It was a weird crowd, there were several trashed and obnoxious middle aged men attempting to dance with us all night, but the good music made up for the weird bar patrons.

Thursday morning we all had a bus tour after breakfast, it was one of those hop on hop off tours. It was interesting, but we sat outside on the second level, which probably wasn’t our best plan ever. I was freezing by the end of the tour.

We stopped into St. Giles church after the tour and learned all about the building’s history from a bored tour guide who kept coming over to us and telling us about the place without being asked for information. I feel far more knowledgeable about the beautiful building now, so I didn’t mind.

Next we set off on a Harry Potter adventure. We got a delicious lunch at the Elephant House, the elephant paraphernalia-packed café where J.K. Rowling wrote the first few Harry Potter books. The café overlooks the beautiful scenery of Edinburgh, it’s no wonder she was so inspired to write about a magical world. We tried to get into the cemetery where she got the names for some of her characters from tombstones, but it was closed unfortunately.

After lunch I left the group (who was going off on a four hour hike up the crags) to explore more of the city solo. I walked Grassmarket and wandered through music, book and clothing stores. I also wandered through the National Gallery of Scotland, saw a bagpiper, stopped into a pub for chips (fries) and a wifi connection and walked down Rose St, the pedestrian street parallel to Princes Street. Princes St. and Rose St. are part of Edinburgh’s New Town, which is older than all of America. I stopped into a chain music store called FOPP! advertising 3 pound cds, and nearly did serious damage to my bank account. I settled on two Johnny Cash compilations, which I got way cheaper than I could have on iTunes.

I met up with the other girls for dinner at a Thai restaurant near our hotel. We had another delicious dinner before heading to the hotel to hang out.

We had planned to do an organized pub crawl Thursday night, but after being up until 3am the night before, no one was in the mood. Instead, Bhumi, Rebecca and I headed back to the Royal Mile and checked out a few bars and clubs before deciding to just go back to Whistle Binkies for more live music. We only stayed for a little bit, but we saw another good band that reminded us of Motion City Soundtrack before hopping on a bus back to the hotel.

We had to leave Edinburgh after breakfast on Friday. It was really a great trip, and I’m glad to go back with my mom in April, go into the castle and explore more of the city. The architecture of Edinburgh is absolutely gorgeous, and it’s very interconnected with the natural surroundings of the area. It’s really beautiful, and a must-see if you’re ever in the UK.

A tale of three cities

So I’m about three weeks late in posting this, I hope you’ll forgive me. I’ve had two essays to write, so I’ve been a little preoccupied. Anyway…

Team Bunkbed (my roommate Kelsey and I) took an early morning train to Brussels on Friday morning, then wandered around the station for awhile before grabbing yet another train to Amsterdam. It was a much longer trip than we realized it would be, but we weren’t on a particularly tight schedule, so it worked out fine.

The second I left the Amsterdam train station I knew I was in love with the city. The station is on one of the canals, the buildings in the area are beautiful, and there was a three story bicycle parking structure filled with thousands of bikes right outside. So cool.

After lunch at an Italian restaurant on a really touristy street near the station, we walked around a little bit past all of the stores selling souvenirs, bongs, pipes, and tie dyed apparel. It was definitely a good introduction to Amsterdam. We made it onto a canal cruise, and spent about an hour learning about the history of Amsterdam and all about the architecture of the beautiful gabled canal houses.

Next we headed to the Anne Frank house, which was just as inspiring and shocking as I expected. The craziest part was walking up the staircase behind the bookshelf. There were a few of Anne’s personal belongings around the house, but her father insisted the house not be furnished when it was turned into a museum, so there are only replicas of the original layout. I’m really glad I was able to experience that, though I couldn’t really say that it was fun.

We wandered through Amsterdam to our hostel in the red light district, and got our first taste of the prostitutes in the windows. I should mention that we stayed in a Christian hostel called Shelter City, and it was literally on an alleyway lined with lingerie clad women. The red light district was mind-blowing. There are live sex shows, tons of bars, and lots of alleys lined with prostitutes. They each have their own little window with a door, and people just walk up and down these narrow streets looking at them. It was super awkward walking past men trying to bargain the price of these women’s “services” down, and even stranger when I passed one ordering a sandwich from her window to a worker of the café across the street. Until that happened I had almost forgotten that these girls (not all of them very attractive) have lives outside of their dimly lit windows. That stuff just doesn’t happen in America, and I’m really glad. It was all a little unnerving.

We ended up with yet another leisurely Italian dinner, then headed to Neumarkt Square near our hostel for a stop at The Jolly Joker coffee shop. Make of it what you will.

Saturday morning we woke up to a city beautifully covered in snow. We got breakfast at the hostel before walking to Amsterdam’s floating flower market. There were some gorgeous flower shops full of bulbs of more tulip varieties than I knew existed. It was really pretty and I was able to pick up some souvenirs. After a stop at a shwarma place and picking up our bags at the hostel we hopped on a train back to Brussels.

I wasn’t feeling well after the train ride, so we got dinner at a café near the train station before taking a cab to our hotel. Kelsey and I took it easy at night, and watched a Flemish TV show called “My Name is Michael” for nearly three hours, even though we couldn’t figure out what was going on. There were a bunch of men pretending to be Michael Jackson, and they seemed to talk in both Flemish and English, with Flemish subtitles regardless of the language. It was strange.

On Sunday I consumed the best breakfast of my life at the original location of Le Pain Quotidien. It wasn’t far from our hotel, and was packed with gorgeous breads and pastries. There was a huge assortment of jams and chocolate spreads on every table that were shared between all of the diners. Everything I ate was the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. I had eggs, bread and lots of dark chocolate spread and strawberry jam. I still have dreams about that breakfast. Amazing.

Next up was a stop at Brussels’s major square, Grand Place. And it was grand indeed. The square is lined with huge buildings with individual elaborate architecture. It was overwhelming and beautiful.

Our last stop in Brussels was the Musical Instruments Museum, four floors of old and new instruments from all over the world. The plaques were in Flemish and French, so I couldn’t read anything about the instruments I was looking at, but we were given headsets that play music typical of the instruments. It was a really great concept, my music geekdom was at an all time high. We looked at accordions, bagpipes, ornate pianos, trombones, cellos, guitars and everything in between. I think I bored Kelsey with my explanations of the old violin, viola and guitar structures, but she humored me anyway. Being at the museum proved that my middle school music teacher was right, music really is the universal language. The people at the museum spoke all different languages, but we were all listening to the same smile and dance provoking music. It was really cool.

Our last city of the weekend was Bruges, a mere hour long train away from Brussels. We only spent the afternoon there, but I think we got a feel for the canal city. I’m pretty sure a quarter of the retail space is Bruges is occupied with chocolate shops, and I ended up purchasing some Belgian chocolate for my friends and family. Bruges caters to wealthy tourists, meaning restaurants there were incredibly expensive. We got the cheapest meal we could find before wandering to the canals, then into one of the main squares. It was beautiful, and made me really miss Venice.

We got home after three train rides (Bruges to Brussels to London to Farringdon Station) and made the short walk home happy with our productive weekend of adventures. I never thought that I’d get a chance to go to the Netherlands, and I definitely never imagined myself seeing two cities in Belgium. I feel so lucky to be doing all of this. Pinch me.