Back on Track

Hey guys. It's been a while! I've tried to go back and remember all the stuff I've done since my last post, a month is a long time though so I've just done my best! I'm at what you'd call a lull in the trip. Not boring, not at all, just sort of "in between". Christmas and New Years is gone, and I've got heaps of things planned for the next four months but the last 6 weeks or so have been mainly working, uni work and not having much money! Just like a normal student!

So, probably the most exciting thing since my last blog was Marthe's 21st Birthday! It's a big deal in the Netherlands too, and we celebrated it with aplomb. Look at my Instagram photos of cake (Ellie is truly a kitchen witch, in the Hermione way), the birthday girl herself, and some great pictures of the night- Sarah the genius got Marthe a disposable camera to document it! Such a great idea. Please admire the pics of me in a large oversized clown bow-tie. Just because.

21!

We've booked almost all of our Scotland trip now, leaving on Easter Friday, working on the accents etc etc. Very excited.

Also, Sarah and I bought a blender! More on that later.

So, to bring it to the present.

On Thursday I had to go the Australian Embassy to vote, as WA was having an election. It wasn't that exciting, but here is a snap of what I looked like (the lift took ages):

And I found the fact there is a whole floor dedicated to wine in the Australian embassy really funny.

I had high hopes for adventures on Sunday (yesterday), after skyping my parents (was Mum's birthday) I got myself ready and went to Pimlico, on the Victoria line. (Just a side note, the Victoria line goes SO fast! Honestly don't even worry about finding a theme park for an adrenaline rush.) So Pimlico for the Tate Britain, a really good art museum full of both old and contemporary art works. My favourite was a haunting painting of Lady MacBeth and her daggers,

...and a humorous set of photographs by Keith Arnatt of dogs and their owners from the 1970s.

Well worth a browse. My plan was to the walk along the Thames and visit the mixed-reviewed Tate Modern (supposed to be phenomenal, my Dad hated it), but due to an extremely stupid wardrobe choice for the day, a dress, tights and a light jacket, I was freezing!! Instead I went to Oxford Street and had a coffee at Flat White, delicious. Then Sunday was ruined beyond all repair when, after ONE use, the new blender stopped working. I just sulked for the rest of the day, which is what anyone would have done.

And then today started off terribly! I woke at 6:30 not really knowing what day it was, and I should have been on the 5:27 tube to work.... I had the worlds fastest shower, got to work by 7:30, but due to my haggard appearance and obvious tiredness, boss just let me go home. I felt really bad, but then I realised.... adventure round 2. This time wearing sensible clothes. After going back to bed until 1pm (for those that dont know me [hello readers from Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Latvia], that is very out of character, so I must have been tired), I went into the freezing, snowing London air for a mosey. After a slight hiccup when an ATM short changed me, I had lunch at Honest Burgers. Best ever. I got the chicken, so delicious, and the gluten-free buns are much appreciated. I walked up Tottenham Court Road and explored Bloomsbury! So nice! The lovely Russel Square beckoned, I appeased it's call,

and I walked past a super rad building:

I then went to all the parts in Bloomsbury from my London Style guide, it's a very peaceful and serene area, quite close to the madness that is Oxford Street. If anyone is in London (come and visit), I'd recommend taking an afternoon to stroll to Bloomsbury, it's only 10 minutes away! Bloody love London. I got another map from Ben Pentreaths (oh hello book yes I would like to own you), visited the School of Life,

who Phillipa Perry has a collaboration with, and went to, on my mothers suggestion, the People's Supermarket.

It's an unusual place, it's run "for the people, by the people", all very hippie and socialist, but is basically a fight against the Asda's and Tesco's (Woolworths and Coles). It's an independent store that stocks organic and independent produce, and if you work there got four hours a month you get 25% off! Good deal I think. So that was cool, I had to rush off to get to netball training:

Yes I know what you're thinking. Annie, why didn't you go to any of the London Coffee Guide Shops? You have 100 to get to shouldn't you have made the most of the free day?

Don't worry, I went to three. Store Street Espresso, Reynolds and Lantana. Yum! I got a soy mocha from SSE and Lantana, both Australian cafes, and a biscuit from Reynolds. This is the best task I've ever assigned myself.
[Also never fear, I'm not going to come back looking like a biscuit as I had this for dinner].

Soy Mocha- Store Street Espresso

So my plan for the week: Skype with the beautiful Jacinta tomorrow, netball, uni, a few cafes, work, Sunday is St. Patricks day and I'm going to suggest the quiz at the uni pub on Wednesday night. Liz, Marthe, Sarah if you're reading this, are you in?

Much love, sorry this was so text heavy, and one last Happy B's to my mum. She's 28, for anyone wondering.

XX

P.S. I think you'll have noticed these pictures aren't the best quality, my iPhone no longer focuses. So sad. Poor thing has got me through a lot.

P.P.S: got some new pens for my diary. Day 269!

Bananrama

This is my first post that on just food. How that is true I’m not sure! The blog will be getting a bit of a makeover, in a good way. I’m planning on adding lots of details on my travels for reference for future travellers and will be writing more about food. Just so my future career prospects soar you know.

I have recently become very interested in nutrition, weird food like kale and qunioa, and superfoods (spirulina, I’m looking at you). The main reason is thanks to this lady: My New Roots. Really amazing food blog full of recipe ideas, I had this for breakfast, this for dinner, and plan on making this really really soon!

However, before we get all high and mighty and wholegrain, I think we should stop and smell the nigella seeds. A round of applause for Ms Lawson and the very ground she walks on!

As my mum’s cookbook collection is right next to our kitchen table, and considering my inability to eat without reading, I’ve read How to be a Domestic Goddess cover-to-cover countless times. My eyes widen over the gluttony and sugar, and I’ve made quite a few recipes from there! One of them I repeated for Marthe’s 21^st on the weekend, banana bread!

The recipe is available here online for those who don’t have the book (please buy it, even just for the hilarious and well written introductions to the recipes).

I tweaked it a bit, took out the walnuts, rum and sultanas and added chocolate chips. Also mine only took 45 minutes in the oven, rather than an hour and fifteen, but as my mum always says “remember, a recipe is only a guide!”

All that remained the same afternoon I made it!

In closing, here are three tremendous Nigella quotes:

“I am not a chef. I am not even a trained or professional cook. My qualification is as an eater” (How to Eat, pg ix)

“You could probably get through life without knowing how to roast a chicken, but the question is, would you want to?” (How to Eat, pg 8)

(in reference to a recipe for Peanut Butter Squares) “You may think that seeing how the dough is made—just peanut butter, butter, and sugar—might put you off eating them. Sadly not. (How to be a Domestic Goddess, pg 223)

xx

Already?

Mates**. Another short break from blogging, but ONLY because I'm sort of just living life at the moment. My six main activities right now include uni, netball, work, going out, drinking coffee and procrastinating. And thanks to a few recent purchases (including an 8-day tour of Morocco, a trip Porto in Portugal [both in June] and a fur coat) the amount of going out is being drastically reduced! But, I'm still having a whale of time! 

Since my last post it has been Australia Day- very fun. We ended up being quite a large group of Australian / NZ's + 2 Dutch girls who, can I just say, blended in very well! Did some 2pm pre-drinking of chardonnay from a tiny owl decorated hip flask (an amazing Sinterklaas present from Liz!), then went to The Walkabout in Shepherd's Bush which played some seriously Australian tunes.  Nostalgia and homesickness set in for about 10 minutes until the novelty of seeing Southern Cross tattoos wore off, but it was still lots of fun. We then carried on to East London to a place called The Book Club which, while quite tame that night, is featured in my London Style Guide and would be a really cool place to have dinner. It's on the to-do list.

Apart from that I've done lots of coffee drinking, netball season has begun again, really enjoying it despite the cold outdoor games. And, as you can see from these photos, I mainly just drink out of small vessels and hang out in cafes. I know how to have a good time.

Acai and blueberry smoothie from Fix Coffee in Shoreditch.  And some cool street art in the background there.

Salad plate from Look Mum No Hands (a cafe my Dad would like!). That thing that looks like cauliflower cheese (and tasted like cauliflower cheese) didn't have any cheese...

Soy mocha from Shoreditch Grind. Cost me £3.25 because it was in Shoreditch, but I did feel cool even just being in the cafe.

Almond milk mocha from New Row Coffee. Genuinely the nicest coffee I've ever had. Amazing.

Lost this bad boy walking to the tube. Cancelled it, paid £10 for a new one, then found the old one............... hmm.
I gouged my eyes out for the photo, in case you're wondering.

This is in the main square at my uni at the moment, it's to encourage people to do a survey of the university, but I like to think it's for Valetines Day. Yes I'm going out, yes it's to an anti-Valentines party! Not that I'm anti-Valentines, I just couldn't choose between my 16 dinner offers so said no to all. Fairest way to do it really.

ALSO, exciting news. I got some marks back for the host of assignments I had to hand in after New Years, and for this food article and this travel article I got a first! Which is like an A or a High Distinction. Boooooyah.

Have been asked a few times recently whether or not I'm ready to go home, and while the answer is without a doubt no^^, I wouldn't mind some KitchenAid / ice-cream maker action, the kitchen here is just not rocking my world. When I get home I'd like to knock these up.

Up and coming events include a visit from Marthe's friend Vincent, a homemade cocktail night, another Move On's gig, organising a trip to Scotland, Marthe's 21st birthday (!!!!) and counting down the days until my next loan comes in....

Also, big thanks to Joni for buying my cake yesterday, and accompanying me to the National Portrait Gallery which I thought was fantastic!

SONG OF THE WEEK / MONTH:

 I haven't got one! I'm so out of touch with the tunes lately, please refer recommendations to my Facebook page or, if you don't know me, the comments section below.

INSTEAD here are some fun websites:

Made In Shoreditch

So, How Was Your Day?

Rap Genius

Enjoy

xx

**Have become super Australian of late thanks to listening to this podcast: The Minutes by Patience Hodgson and Mel Buttle, they just chat about life. Hilarious.

^^Except I do miss M&D a bit.

Finally...

I'm famous! A published author! 

Well sort of, the author and psychotherapist Philippa Perry came to our Creative Non-Fiction class last semester, and myself and Richard, one of my classmates, wrote up a short synopsis on the visit, and it's been put up on the Middlesex Literary Festival website here! Very exciting!

Also Philippa herself tweeted about it.

@josiebarnard I googled myself. Your students are so lovely! mdxfest.com/2012/12/15/phi… !

— Philippa_Perry (@Philippa_Perry) December 29, 2012

I'll just get my pen for those who wants autographs....

Annie xx

Camden Crepe

Creative Food Piece for Creative Non- Fiction

With every step around the market I took, my senses became more overloaded. Trying to squeeze into the smallest of gaps in the crowd to get to the food- liquid, solid, anything- was a struggle. But worth it. The sight of the vibrant juice being squeezed out of a perfectly spherical orange (Victoria’s Secret Model of the citrus world) had created quite a crowd. The sizzle of meat on the blackened, well-used barbecue sounded like a spring day, until I read the sign and learned it was ostrich. The cries of the customers were barely heard by the frantic, harassed stall workers, yet the mood was happy, light, and excited. I had been around the Camden Food Market three times already, yet my hands, and stomach, were empty. Not for lack of choice, but rather because of it. The yellowed strands of rice fighting for space amongst bull-red peppers and seafood had caught my eye, the prawns feelers drawing me in. Unfortunately, my recent trip to Spain had left me all paella-ed out. The traditional English pie, whose pastry I could see being delicately hand-rolled in front of eyes, was certainly a contender. But, no. Not quite what I wanted. I stood for a moment at the end of the markets, or the start (depending on your glass-half-full mentality), to think. Sweet. Savoury. Large. Small. Guilty. Saintly. Pleasurable… Crepe. That was it. The crepe. It could be all of those adjectives- as thin as an angels little black book, but with the ability to be crammed with such delights as nutella, banana or cheese, cheese, cheese. I whipped around, my eyes locked on the large chalkboard sign, proclaiming dozens of different crepe flavours to choose from. This next part would be difficult. Should I go Egg McCrepe style and have ham, cheese and the delicious yellow and white protein? Or develop a new cavity with the glorious, US-meets-Italy flavour of nutella and peanut butter (something I can’t imagine Ms Lawson saying no to)? No, this amount of rumbling in my stomach deserved something special. It had gotten serious, I had to clutch at my abdomen to stifle the sound. It knew what it wanted. The French. The best. The sugar and lemon. I caught the monsieur’s attention with a wave of a hand; he looked at me, I looked at him. I said my order. He nodded. As I watched him create his masterpiece (his sixtieth for the day no doubt) I marveled at how smooth the crepe was. No bumps, no air holes, just batter the shape of a full moon. He was generous with the sugar, and the lemon squeezed and sploshed drops of sourness, a perfectly balanced meal. The monetary transaction over, the crepe was in my hands. Going towards my mouth, the paper was peeled back just enough to get a good, decent bite. Suddenly, a yell. I moved my head, momentarily distracted from the delights that were now mine. A knock to my elbow by the forehead of a small child, though soft, was enough to open my unfocused fingers. Gravity pushed the paper open, and the crepe unfolded as it fell down, down from heaven to the dirty, foot-trodden earth. My eyes widened. A slight, almost vulgar slap of the crepe on my shoe confirmed the worst. The dribble of lemon running down my thumb was all I had left of the great, the beautiful, the crepe.  

La Rambla

Travel piece for Creative Non-Fiction

“LA RAAAMMMMBBBLLAAAAA”.

Hearing our Brazilian dorm-mate singing the name for the third time that morning, we knew we were not alone in our infatuation with the most famous part of Barcelona.

Luckily our hostel was situated right at the start of the 1.2km-long street, and life was all the much better for it. La Rambla is a drawcard for tourists from all over the world, who, like us, came because the guidebook said to, and thanked the heavens we did. Over the course of our week-long visit we walked the length of it several times a day - not only to experience its delights, but because you can get practically everywhere you want to go via La Rambla. It is no surprise then that a rumoured 150,000 people walk down it every single day, which did not make a misguided attempt at cycling down it very successful!

La Rambla is your gateway to everything Barcelona has to offer, no matter where your interests lie. If you are after seafood so fresh its still moving and exotic fruits from around the globe, then La Boqueria markets are about half way down on your right. If seeing street performers with huge, intricate and sometimes scary costumes and more your thing, they are dotted up and down the strip; you can’t miss then. If you fancy buying some nougat and a baby duck, there’s a stall for both. There are dozen of men selling lukewarm €1 beers, which, unfortunately for anyone foolish enough to purchase, are kept in the street bins! Postcards to send home, various Gaudi-style figurines for souvenirs (I chose an elephant one), hotels, clubs, and even a sex museum can all be found. The Spanish spirit is out for everyone to see on this magical strip, it has enough paella, sangria and tapas to feed an army, and you’ll hear men making kissing noises to young women as they walk past in their hot-weather shorts. Beware if on the receiving end, this noise will make the hairs on your neck stand up, and not in a good way. If you’re around once the sun has gone down, you will certainly see the ladies of the night, and some other questionable characters. By the time you’ve walked to the end and reached the Christopher Columbus statue overlooking the harbour, you’ll have had your eyes opened (literally and figuratively) in a way that is so unique to Barcelona. The street may be a tourist haven, but it is also the heart and soul of the Catalan capital.

Hello 2013

Oh sorry My Dear Reader Chums (see here if you'd like to know where I got that saying from), it's been quite a while.

A lot has happened in the past months absence from blogging, and all of it fun! I could write about 15 paragraphs on what I've done, but I'll just do some pictures and captions and elaborations and then I think you'll get the gist!

My New Years Eve outfit. We went to a warehouse party on Brick Lane which was a hoot! Before this was Christmas, (obviously as that's how the Gregorian calendar works) which I spent in Manchester with my Grandparents, Aunty, Uncle and Cuz Lucy. Had a lovely time relaxing up there, although not a single snow flake fell unfortunately.

Hallo, mijn naam is Annie en ik kom uit Australië**, and I'm ready for the airport! I went to the Netherlands for 3 nights to see Marthe! I went to her hometown Deventer, Amsterdam, and Utrecht, where she lives and studies. 

Traditional Dutch meal called Boerenkool at her parents house in Deventer! Cabbage and potatoes, a sausage, and some extremely spicy mustard. Marthe's parents were so lovely and kind, and her mum bought me every dairy and gluten free item you could imagine! Plus I got to sleep on Harry Potter sheets. Dreamy indeed.

Times this amount of bikes by a million and that is how many is in Amsterdam alone...

Utrecht summed up: doves; the Dome church; and a quirky shop

Found a shop in Amsterdam that sells nothing but elephant statues. Didn't find gluten-free hash brownies, so upsetting

A lovely flower market at dusk in Utrecht

Chocolate sprinkles on bread is a Dutch specialty

The most delicious tea ever! I bought a pack back with me, then Marthe bought me one, and Marthe's friend Clara who visited last weekend bought me two packs as well! So stocked up

A new purchase for some Easter-time travelling

Gloves / Scarf match! New favourite photo of gangster Marty and I

The beautiful Sarah, on our way to a car boot sale today!

It's been snowing hard all weekend!!! Sarah and I made a HUGE snowman, I had two killer snowball fights (one at work, whilst working...), and I wore my boots today which have a wooden sole, so spent the whole day slipping! Big ups to Marthe and Sarah for holding me up, literally!

New obesession. I have the book, season 1 and 2 of Miranda on DVD and have been watching season 3 on iPlayer. Get involved. Such fun!

Right, hope you enjoyed that!
As for the future, uni starts again for me this week, however I have dropped a unit so now only go Tuesdays and Thursdays! And only have 4 assignments due for the rest of the year, reeeeeeee-laxed! Am going to use my time wisely (explore every inch of London and drink lots of coffee).
Next weekend is Australia Day, I have both Saturday and Sunday off work and am ridiculously excited! Sarah is of course involved, being Australian, but we've roped the Dutch Marthe and Liz in as well! They've been working on their accents.
Urgh, have just remembered I washed my bed sheets so now have to make my bed. How devastating. It's funny how long you can go without washing your sheets when your mum isn't around #gross #toomuchinformation. Think I'll have a caramelised pear tea first. If you have a cup of tea and need something else to read now this is over, go to the Writings page, where I added two of my uni assignments! Such fun!
xxx


**Dutch for: Hello my name is Annie and I'm from Australia.