Wanderings Lately :: February 2016

February always whizzes past in the blink of an eye, but it's an important month for me as it's my birthday! Woo! It's also Valentine's Day, but as I don't seem to be able to find any man who I can't find some kind of fault with (Am I picky?) I prefer to treat the 14th as I would any other day. This year that meant studying in the library! I am so rock and roll!

This year the weather has begun to grace us with some sunshine in February; there have been enough sunny (but cold) days this past month to justify proclaiming 'Spring is on the way!' to everyone I speak to at work! It's also started to get lighter in the evenings, when I get out of work on time at 4.30 I can cycle home without using my lights. That really is exciting!

This month I've been watching the BBC series on 'The Story of China', which is really interesting and mentioned Suzhou in the last one I watched. Whilst I am about to criticise it, I must say that I absolutely love China and watching this has re-ignited a desire to go back soon and see all the places I didn't visit before. However, throughout the hour the show is on, I can't help thinking how much like Chinese propaganda it is! Although I know that China invented so many important things throughout history, items that have greatly changed our lives as we know it this show has been downplaying anything the West might have done better... I haven't made it to Mao and the cultural revolution yet, which I'll be surprised if they can sugar coat! I probably just want to defend Europe, like you would a family member when someone else criticises them, but they do seem to be hamming up how wonderful China is without offered any negative aspects of life during the many dynasties. 

Anyway, here was February...

My Birthday

I had a great birthday,  and since on the actual day I was travelling down to London from Oxford with a group of students, I got the rest of the day off once we arrived! I went for lunch with my Mum and brother and then went back to Hawker House with friends, both brothers and my Sister-in-law. It was a great night, nothing crazy mad but with enough wine and laughter to brighten an already fun day!

This weekend I also celebrated, this time with my Mum and Dad at Fortnum & Mason's Afternoon Tea. I'm going to write about this at another time, but just to say that it was lovely, and I'm still making my way through scones and jam now!

Studying

I've spent every weekend (where I didn't already have plans) in the library trying to work on my dissertation. The current deadline is at the end of March, I'm unlikely to make that, but I'm going to give it a good go! Thankfully I now actually have more of a clue what I'm doing, as I've had a look at previous students' dissertations in the library and they really showed me the direction I need to head in! Now it's all about focus and writing the words!

Green Fingers

This month my first flowers started to pop up in the garden! I bought some daffodil bulbs at the end of last year, and then took ages before I actually planted them. But look! They have started to give our garden a bit of colour! I've now cut a few and put them in the house, along with a bunch my housemate bought from sainsburys. Who knew gardening could be so easy!

Healthy Cooking

I've stepped up my healthy cooking game this month. After going vegetarian for lent - it was going to be vegan but that is just so darn hard! I'm mostly being vegetarian - and a couple of times pescatarian when out with friends - with as much dairy cut out as I can. I've swapped out cow's milk for either soya or hazelnut/almond milk. I actually quite like soya milk in my tea - nut milk not so much. I was pushed in the vegan direction from watching the documentary 'Cowspiracy' on Netflix. I wouldn't be vegetarian/vegan due to animals rights - which probably makes me sound like a monster - but to know what a massive effect it has on our environment was more of a reason for me.

As I was embarking on this vegetarian month and a half; and this has also come up when looking into being zero waste, I ordered the Deliciously Ella cookbook from the library - I didn't want to buy it as it has some fairly bad reviews. Chatting about this at work, one of the girls lent me another vegan cookbook. The 'Oh she glows' cookbook. Although I've never actually met a Vegan and I was blown away by their 'glow' I have been enjoying making some of the dishes in each of these books.

Above have been some highlights - homemade granola, spicy almonds, frozen banana bites and cashew nut butter! Despite what everyone seems to say about switching to this kind of lifestyle, it IS expensive, and it's definitely NOT easier or simpler for life. These recipes take much longer than just buying a packet at the supermarket, and for me I'm just not going to buy a small packet of £8 coconut sugar when I can use some caster sugar from my cupboard! However, you do feel a little sense of achievement when it turns out ok and you get to munch on things you've made that you usually just mindlessly grab out of the cupboard. Also; I can't believe how easy it is to make cashew butter!

Tube Rage

This month I have noticed myself getting less and less tolerant of people on the tube. Mondays seem to be the worst! Why don't people move along inside the car, or take their bloody backpacks off?! And those people who try to get up out of their seat ages before the trains even pulled into the station when the carriage is packed.... this is particularly annoying when we're at a big transfer stop like London Bridge or Waterloo because you just know that half the people on the train are also going to be getting off. You've had a seat, and now you want to be the first one off too?! Ahhhhh! I definitely need to cycle more often to lessen my tube rage!

::What was your February like? Do you have exciting plans for March?::

Istanbul.... At last!

Just before Christmas, my mum and I set off on a weekend journey to Istanbul. Since it's a 4 hour flight and a 2 hour time difference we only ended up with 1 full day in the city. But we made the most of our time there and managed to see quite a bit. One of the things I like to do in a city where I don't have a lot of time, is one of those hop on/off bus tours. Although they may get on my nerves in London, I can see how useful they are for helping you get a taste of all the main sights and travelling around a city that you probably couldn't do is you were just on foot.

Since we were visiting in low season, the buses weren't too regular, and we only ended up getting off once - since we had to wait a really long time to board the second bus! It worked out in the end though, as we were on the bus for a lovely sunset.

This trip has been 6 years in the making. I was supposed to visit Istanbul on my trip to Eastern Europe before heading to Korea, but I had to cut that short in order for my passport to be in the Korean embassy for a week getting my work permit. Who knows why it takes the Koreans so long to process that visa but despite me contacting the Korean embassy in Istanbul to see if I could get it done there, I was forced to fly back from Split in Croatia over a week before I had planned to. This also meant that I didn't make it to Sarajevo or Belgrade. Those places are also still on my list! I had also talked to Chelsea about heading Turkey with her, but our dates never worked out in the end.

So, finally December 2015, I made it! The weather was lovely, freezing cold but super sunny! I sampled the delights of apple tea, street pretzels, Turkish delight and a huge Turkish bread (kinda like a pitta). 

The city was full of stray cats - I love cats so that was nice. There was only one incident with a stray dog, where I was worried it might follow us. It didn't seem to, but I was cautious none the less! In the city centre, we took a little trip on the traditional tram, which only travels up and down one street but was cool anyway. I bought a flower headband, on a whim and took far too many boxes of Turkish delight back in my suitcase!

I can't believe that in January some crazy person detonated a bomb where I'd been standing a few weeks before. It's really sad, and I was quite surprised that there wasn't nearly as much coverage as there had been during the Paris attacks. The body count might have been lower, and the victims all foreigners but I'm not sure I want to be categorising acts of terror by their body counts alone. Let;'s just all agree we should #prayforpeace 

It was very cold on the top deck of the bus!

One observation from me was how different your experience can be as a woman with or without a head scarf. We visited a market near our hotel whilst we were in Istanbul, where I experienced two different interactions. During most of the trip I wore my scarf over my hair. This was because it was so cold and this was the best way I had of keeping warm with the clothes I had brought with me. I'm no scarf tying expert and quite often it would slide off. So during our trip to the market, on the first walk up the street I had the scarf over my hair, and on the way back it had slipped off. Both times men came up to try and sell me knock-off perfume. I wasn't interested and just ignored them until they left me alone. Whilst wearing the scarf their sales patter was all about how great the perfume was, a good deal, cheap blah blah. Without the head scarf, as I walked away they shouted 'You want this perfume, you look like Rihanna, Christina Aguilera, Britney (other American singers)' at me. It was strange, that once I had my hair showing, it was ok for them to talk about my appearance, but with the headscarf, although they could see I was foreign; they spoke to me in English both times, they were less interested in commenting on my appearance and more about how good their products were. I'm not wholly surprised about this, but it was interesting to me actually experiencing the difference.

Wanderings Lately :: January 2015

It's nice to get January out of the way, it's a bit of a nothing month where you're just missing Christmas and hoping the weather is going to improve. Which it isn't for another few months! At least in England anyway.

For me, this month was fairly uneventful. I was fully back in work mode, getting more familiar with my new job whilst continuing on my learning curve.

I had a couple of outings this month, and ended it with a trip to Berlin for my friend Jasmin's 30th. February has begun with a trip to Oxford for work. I'm a little annoyed that I forgot my camera, so any photos I take are with my phone. But it's nice to be back here (I visited for a day trip a few years ago) and I'm staying in a lovely flat walking distance to the city centre. Added bonus is that I'm travelling back to London on my birthday and I've got a sneaky half day off as I'm free once I've dropped the students off on their walking tour! Woo!

Here's my last month in photos.

Culture 

I went to a late opening at the Royal Academy this month. They had a masquerade ball, which was a lot of fun. Although I didn't get particularly dressed up, it was still great to wander around the place in the evening. My friend and I saw the Jean-Etienne Liotard exhibition, some lovely street food and enjoyed a little bit of music by the band Don Kipper.

I also joined snapchat at the end of last year, and although I haven't quite got the hang of it just yet, I'm having fun messing around with it! (That's where this photo is from!) I really like the geotags (the one above is from my house in Southwark).

Books

As I mentioned on my last wanderings post, I gave myself a present this year of a 3 month book subscription and the first one arrived at the beginning of January. I got through it pretty quickly, and it was just the sort of book I enjoyed (they chose this from my preferences). I finished the story on the plane to Berlin, and so I left it (as I didn't want to carry it home) in the hostel there. Although I like to keep books, I know that it's generally a bit wasteful as I don't tend to re-read any of them - the only exception for me so far is Memoirs of a Geisha. So I left it in the Generator Berlin for someone else to discover.

My latest book just arrived, and although I'm currently reading something else, I'm excited to start this one too. Obviously based on my enjoyment of Agatha Christie (again preferences) it's a mystery story by Dorothy L Sayers. Hopefully I'll finish this before the final book is delivered at the beginning of March!

Travel

As I said in the intro, I went to Berlin at the end of January. I've visited once before, when I was interrailing after university and I loved the city. Although it rained whilst we were there, I can say that it's still on my list of top places I've been. I also got a photo whilst there posing by the big lego giraffe outside legoland. It's clearly been rebuilt since 2007 though, because there was a lot less room between the front legs this time!

I enjoy going back to places I've been before, especially since I've now got quite a lot of travel experience. On that first trip, way back when, we rocked up in new cities without a guide book, no map or hostel reservation. All we had was an address of a hostel we'd noted down in the city before using an hour's internet at an internet cafe. We picked up maps (and advice) at the train station and winged it. I don't really travel like this anymore, and realise that's not the best way to maximise your time in any place, especially if time is limited to a couple of days. 

It's also interesting to me how different my experiences of places are. Second time around in Berlin, we bought fruit beers at a little shop on a tube station and ended up drinking them in our hostel room and never making it out to any clubs. We ate in a lovely (but not cheap) restaurant which we discovered online and was a short walk from our hostel and explored areas of town where my friend had lived for a few months previously. On my first trip, we went on the organised pub crawl, took a cycling tour (the following day; hungover) and ate on the cheap. I don't really think either way is better than the other necessarily (except for the hangover part) but just different and so much to do with how I live my life at this age. I don't go to clubs at home, so why would I suddenly be compelled to go to one in Berlin? 

Places that I visit now, for the first time, will definitely leave a different impression on my than they would have, had I gone when I was 22 and on my first independent trip. I suppose the important thing I want to remember is that, that is ok. I don't need to drag my tired bum to an underground techno club that I'm not going to enjoy, or have my dinner in a cheapo fast food place, because I want to have a good time in the place I'm visiting. Of course, if that's your thing then that's fine too!

Oxford

and now... I'm in Oxford! I've been here 3 days, and mostly been working as I'm overseeing the arrival of one of our Spring semester groups. It's been fun though, and I've so far visited the Eagle and Child pub (where CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien used to hang out), New College, wandered around the most famous sights (Bridge of Sighs, Radcliffe Camera, Bodleian Library) and also took a quick trip to Narnia (obvs). I'm going to try and check out a few other places in the next week, whilst also working (!) and writing as much as I can of my dissertation! Thankfully I have a work laptop for the week, as my Macbook has died and needs to go into Apple hospital when I get back to London! :-(

::Up next for February, I'm turning 31 (eek), starting lent (giving up meat again?) and studying, studying, studying! What does your February look like? ::

Ghost Signs of London

I recently accompanied a student group at work on a 'Ghost Signs' walking tour. Having initially thought this was a tour of signs of paranormal activity in London, I was quite relieved when my colleague explained that ghost signs are actually the remnants of what's left from painted advertising on the side of buildings. Phew!!

Our tour took place in Stoke Newington, an area of London I'd never visited (why would I?). Our tour guide Sam, met us at the station, and after a little introduction and the health & safety talk - remember to look where you're going not just up at the sides of buildings, keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times... We all failed our first test: to find the sign visible from the spot where we stood. Pointing behind the group (not really fair!) Sam showed what we had failed to see.

As the tour got going, we all started getting better and better at spotting the signs. We stopped by each one, and Sam got us to try and decipher what was written. This was difficult, not just because they had been faded by time and sunlight, but because most of the walls had been used more than once and so there was often two or more different products being advertised.

At one point as we were all staring up at a sign publicising the various uses of a horse and cart, a local man came over to listen to the tour, and was amazed, having live on the street for 15 years that he'd never noticed the sign before! Crazy!

I really enjoyed this tour, Sam was a fantastic guide; knowledgeable, easy to follow and a strong public speaker. I was able to ask him, at the end, about a sign I used to see every time I walked to netball when I lived in Russell Square. Amazingly, he knew exactly the sign I meant and emailed me after with some more information about it. I'd whole-heartedly recommend this tour, and I have added his other tours to my list of things I'd like to do in London!

Info on the tours can be found here. I didn't pay for this tour, because I went with work, but I definitely would spend my own money on this!

I only took a few photos, and those only with my phone as I forgot to take my camera along!

Wanderings Lately :: December 2015

Well, the last two weeks of December were full! It was fabulous. I spent time with family and friends in Essex, celebrated the new year with friends in London and led a couple of student trips with work. It's not the middle of January, and I'm still behind on my fortnightly updates. So, as I predicted, this needs to become a monthly thing. I still want to commit to writing it, but its quite clear that I can't keep to 2 weeks. So here's my last couple of weeks of 2015 and the first week of 2016!

Baking

I was in charge of desserts on Christmas day, and made my own Christmas pudding again this year, as I did a couple of year ago. Thankfully it turned out ok again which was a relief! I also challenged myself by making this recipe. I wasn't sure how easy it would be, what it was going to turn out like and then how I was going to transport it. I needn't have worried though because it all came together on the day! I used two of my mum's glass pyrex bowls to make the cylindrical sponge and took it on the train in a bigger glass bowl covered with foil.

I amended the recipe slightly, and I couldn't find dried cranberries - very strange during the Christmas period! So I used cherries instead. Everyone seemed happy with it on the day so I don't think that was too big of a change!

Here are some photos of the whole thing coming together!

Christmas

Christmas was full of food - as I thought it would be. Everything was so good! After missing my train on Christmas Eve - by about 2 minutes! I made it for the evening and spent the next 3 days in Oxford with my family. On Boxing Day we had an immense Seafood Paella, with the biggest prawns I've seen since Korea. The days following Christmas I spend relaxing in Essex and seeing more family and friends.

New Year's Eve

I was up early on NYE because it was a workday for me and I was meeting a group of students arriving at Heathrow. The day eneded up pretty busy as we were constantly on the move; checking in to the hostel, introducing the local area, giving an orientation and ending the afternoon in the British Museum for Afternoon Tea. Although it was busy, that's not a bad way to spend your day at work! After I finished, and despite a whatsapp meltdown on New Year's Eve - which yes, I did google to find was affecting most of Western Europe, North American and Asia - my friends all managed to make it to my house and we spent the evening together. We had good food, good wine and good times playing games! We watched the London fireworks at midnight and generally had a low-key but lovely night together seeing in 2016.

The season of giving

As with every year, I was completely spoilt with presents from my family. The majority of which were books - I've made my way through 2 od these already and have promised not to buy ANY new books until I have read all of the ones already on my 'to read' pile. 

I actually gave myself a gift this Christmas - taking a leaf of out my friends Claire and Nicola's books! I signed up for a book club (more books! >.<). The first one arrive a couple of days into January and I can't wait to get started on it. I signed up to the Willoughby Bookclub, and after giving them an idea of previous books I've read, general genres I enjoy and my favourite authors they will send me a bespoke book each month (for 3 months). The first one, arriving wrapped all nicely and with a bookmark and little 'this belongs to' notelet, was Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. 

I am also now in possession of a rather large wine collection, after being given a couple of bottles as Christmas presents from work, and then having a coupon for the Naked wine club from my train ticket this Christmas. I've had one bottle so far, and feel quite grown up having a cupboard full at home!

Onwards 2016

What's happened this year so far...

I've continued baking, and having invested in a small stand mixer (not one of those massive £600 ones) I used it to make some cupcakes for a leaving do at work. It was fun using it for the first time and I'm really happy with how it's worked out. It's a Kenwood; which is the same make as my Mum's mixer which is older than me! I'm pretty sure this will stand the test of time.

I booked myself into the West London Donor Centre to give blood; which they finally took. I've given blood a couple of times before, but every time I've tried to give since they always turn me away. Such are the downsides to travelling so often. Finally I was able to give again, and I've booked in for a couple of months time so I'm hoping to continue to add this little good deed to my routine!

I started to buy things again this year, and have so far invested in some decent leggings, a couple of checked shirts and have replaced my work out converse. These were all things I had realised I needed to buy or replace and have so far used all of them quite a lot. After my no spending challenge, I'm obviously not going to never buy anything again but I'm definitely glad that I now consider what I actually need or will use more that just buying things for the sake of it!

Lastly, I have become completely obsessed with my keepcup, which I mentioned back in October. My Mum bought it for Christmas and I think I've actually started drinking more coffee because of it! I had thought that it would be embarrassing and awkward asking to get my drink in a reusable cup, I envisages baristas saying no, or looking at me like I was a crazy person. None of this has happened at all. Every place that I've taken the cup have accepted it no problem and only a couple of times have people been surprised. In these instances I just explain that I don't want a paper cup and no one has any argument! The only thing for me now, I to actually use it less! Otherwise I'm going to end up wasting far too much money on coffee!!