Hmmm...Hair & Cadiz = sand everywhere!

So, what have I been doing for the past week might you be wondering? Well, Monday night, Heidi and I went to see Hair and before we did that we ate at Food for Thought, one of London's oldest vegetarian restaurants.

Here was my main dish, a lovely sweet potato stew - it was so delicious that it made me want to eat baby corn, which I usually despise. You can also see my yummy organic apple juice in the background. Food for Thought was a very cute place, situated partially in a basement on Neal St. near Covent Garden.

Here was the plum-pear crisp that I had for dessert. Notice how it came in a dish that was nearly the same size as my entree. What a novel idea. It was delicious by the way, just what I needed for dessert!







After we were finished at the cafe, we headed over to a pub for a pint, and then over to the Gielgud Theatre to see Hair. We got student price tickets for £25, but ended up getting front row seats. This equated to me getting my head rubbed by one of the actors, holding someone's jeans for about fifteen minutes, and Heidi and I getting to go dance on stage at the end. It was absolutely phenomenal and so worth going to see!

On Thursday, Heidi, Lindsey, and I went to Cadiz, Spain for a nice, warm holiday. Cadiz is in the south of Spain and had extremely warm, sunny weather the entire time we were there. We spent the whole of Friday and most of Saturday on the beach. We would have stayed longer on Saturday, but it was just too windy and we kept getting covered in sand. We just went back to the hostel for a long siesta instead! Here is a photo of me in front of the beach area.

Another nice photo of the ocean/coastal area.

This was also near the coast - isn't it gorgeous?

For dinner on Saturday night we went to a Mexican restaurant. I know, Mexican food in Spain, but it was actually alright. Here is a photo of our 'Mexican Sangria,' which I think was sangria frozen like a margarita. It was delicious, but super strong!

This is the appetizer that I ordered - tortilla chips with a spicy red sauce, guacamole, and chopped tomatoes and onions - simple yet delicious!

And finally a photo of the strangest burrito you will ever see. First of all it was a vegetable burrito with a strange sauce that I don't really care to taste again. Then, look at the fluorescent rice! How do they do that? It tastes like normal rice, but has those weird colours - how strange!






Anyways, that's my life for now. I hope you're all having a wonderful summer, and enjoying the rain if you're in Wisconsin.

Sorry for the Delay...London (and Amsterdam!) is just so lovely!!!

So, what have I been doing lately? Not updating my blog obviously! Well, this past weekend I was in Amsterdam with Heidi and Lindsey. The weekend before that was fun as well. On Saturday I worked at the Secret Society of Vegans shop as a volunteer and was fed way too many sweets! It was lovely though - I got to hang out with other vegans and enjoy lovely soya shakes while I worked and chatted. Then on Sunday, Heidi, Lindsey, and I went to Greenwich to finish an assignment for our international studies class. Before we went there we went to Zilli Green for lunch. Here's what I had:

This is the 'Italian Platter' with broccoli and pesto orchiette, tomato salad, and roasted vegetables. I also had a pomegranate-orange juice. It was absolutely delicious and the entire dining experience was just lovely!

 These two pictures are of my dessert at Zilli Green - a dairy-free tiramisu. It wasn't what I was expecting when I ordered tiramisu, but it was absolutely delicious! I enjoyed eating it so much - it was incredibly creamy and flavourful and the fruit on the side was perfectly ripe!

Here is my lunch from the Hare Krishna man on Monday (the day after Zilli Green). It was delicious as usual.

So, here's the first of the Amsterdam photos. We visited a clog-making exhibit and I got my photo taken in a giant clog. Dorky I know, but I felt compelled to do it. So, there it is.

This is the trippy artwork that was posted in our room at the youth hostel that we stayed at. Yes, that is ears coming out of a pair of knees. And yes, I have no idea why.

For lunch on Saturday, we went to Bagels & Beans in Amsterdam. Stupidly, I thought that that meant bagels and baked beans. It actually meant bagels and COFFEE beans. What was I thinking? I have been eating way too many jacket potatoes with beans in England and drinking so much tea that I have forgotten all about coffee beans! This soya latte was delicious nonetheless.

On our tour of the 'Red Light District' on Friday night in Amsterdam, we stopped at 'The Condomerie', which specialises in all sorts of strange condoms. Look closely and you'll probably recognise some of the shapes and designs!

For dinner Friday and Saturday night, we had Maoz Falafel, which is also present in London so I don't have a photo (I will sometime) and some chips in a cone. Here are the chips - so tasty with ketchup and deadly Coca-Cola light. There's just something so lovely about chips, ketchup that is slightly sweeter than you're used to, and a cone!

On Saturday, we went to the sex museum. Here's the only appropriate photo that I took. Marilyn Monroe, obviously. I just think she's so classy!

On Sunday, we left Amsterdam for Bruges. It was a very cute, medieval town and we had lunch at an Italian cafe. I got a vegetarian pizza without cheese. It was very pretty, but only tasted ok. The crust kind of sucked and that is really what makes a pizza for me. It had artichokes and I'm pretty sure that's what saved it. Good thing we went to a chocolate factory afterwards!

And here's just a photo of a canal in the Red Light District of Amsterdam. It's so beautiful, isn't it? Besides London, Amsterdam is my number 2 place that I could live!







Again, I'm sorry it took me so long to update. I've been pretty busy with everything including my internship three days a week, class on Mondays, and other class work the rest of the time. When I try to fit in travelling it just gets too crazy! This weekend, Heidi, Lindsey, and I are heading to Cadiz, Spain for a weekend on the beach...literally. There is pretty much only beaches there, but that's what we want. Hello skin cancer!

Apparently I Like Food...

So, what have I been up to in London? Lots of things, and they are usually accompanied by foods! So, first of all here's a photo of me with my horse Roody in Wales! We had a lovely time together, even though he was rowdy at times.

 So, last week for lunch, Heidi came and visited me and we ate at the Rootmaster bus in a market area off of Brick Lane. We both got a delicious veggie burger with chips and some lovely tomato sauce or homemade ketchup type thing. Heidi also got olives, which I also enjoyed - strange since I usually hate olives.

Later on in the week, we went to Le Pain Quotidien for dinner. I got a Meze Platter, which stated that it came with hummus, baba ganoush, and aubergine something or other with bread. It didn't say that it came with six slices of bread! I forgot to take a photo, so this is what it looked like when I was extremely full. Good thing that they had run out of vegan blueberry muffins!

This past weekend was 'Pride Weekend 2010' in London and there was a parade on Saturday. I went, along with two of the other interns and it was quite the party. I got my picture with this lovely lady and I will have to say that she was not even the craziest costume that I had seen all day!

'Queen Elizabeth' was there as well!

Thanks to my roommate, Lindsey, I attended Perez Hilton's 'One Night in London' party at the Indig0_{2. There were several different acts, including the Hoosiers, Diana Vickers, Peaches (pictured to the left), Kelis, and a really awesome girl's choir that I can't recall the name of. It was super fun, and I even got a photo with Peaches, but it wasn't on my camera so it will be in a future blog post!}

_{So, to the left and above to the right are the cupcakes that Heidi and I got form Ms. Cupcake at the Brick Lane Tea Rooms on Sunday. Ms. Cupcake makes delicious, all vegan cupcakes in about 75 different flavours that she rotates all the time. They are probably the most amazing things ever! The top box is mine and has (from left to right, top row first), chocolate peanut butter, lemon drop, mango blueberry, and ferro rocher. The other box is Heidi's and has bananaoffee, strawberry cream, chocolate raspberry, and ferro rocher. We will definitely be going back there very soon!}

_{So, yesterday Heidi and I went to breakfast at Tibits. This is my plate, minus the soya latte that I had with it. It doesn't look particularly like a breakfast, does it? I had an apple turnover, which was delicious, but then a bunch of cold salads and fruit. After I sat down, Heidi informed me that the clerk mentioned to her that 'I must be hungry', due to the amount of food that was on my plate. I don't really want to go back and hear that I'm eating too much again, so that will probably be the last time I visit Tibits...}

_{Again, on Monday, we had class and a lunch break. Here is the meal I got from the Hare Krishna man. It was mashed potatoes, with some mashed orange veg on top with some sort of flat bread. It was very delicious and I ate most of it. Apparently it was a very hungry day - at least the Hare Krishna man didn't judge my hunger!}

_{On Monday night, Lindsey, Heidi, Elizabeth, and I all went to the Ellie Goulding concert at the} Indig0_{2. The concert was sponsored by BestBuy UK so Lindsey had to go for work, but the rest of us won tickets on facebook. If you're wondering who Ellie Goulding is, just youtube her name. She was fabulous! The picture to the right is Elizabeth and I.}

<sub>Here's a photo of Ellie Goulding. She was phenomenal - she played guitar as well as drums while she was singing. I'm really glad we were able to win tickets and see the concert - even though some clumsy little boy spilled beer on our feet! 


























On Sunday I went to the Secret Society of Vegans (which is a shop/place for vegans to hang out) for a cake swap. It was really fun and tasty even though there were only about seven of us there. I had a lovely gluten-free brownie and a chocolate tart shell filled with a berry flavoured tofu filling. I'm really glad I went and I even get to volunteer in the shop next week Saturday! It should be really lovely, considering I am allowed to have as many free soya shakes as I want while I'm volunteering!</sub>

Wales & The Westfield

So, on Friday Heidi & I visited the Westfield Shopping Centre in Shepherd's Bush. It is basically an extremely large mall with a movie theatre, grocery stores, and a ton of restaurants...not to mention tons of clothing stores. We shopped quite a bit and definitely need to go back because we have not even seen half of it! While we were there we ate at a Vietnamese restaurant called Pho. They mostly serve the traditional Vietnamese soup, Pho (hence the name), but also had other things. I got a tofu and button mushroom pho and some vegetable summer rolls. Here's a photo of them:

The pho is a broth based soup with lots of rice noodles, tofu and mushrooms in this case, and fresh bean sprouts, chillis, and coriander (cilantro in American English). The summer rolls are on the side with a spicy, sweet chilli sauce.

On Saturday, Heidi & I went to Wales for a two day sightseeing and horseback riding tour. Our first day we visited a town called Chepstow, which is famous for Chepstow castle. Here is a view of what I believe is the Wye River outside of the castle.

These flowers were growing out of the wall of the castle, hanging over the river. I thought they were really gorgeous, so I took a photo of them!

Here is a photo of me sitting in a chair in a restored portion of the castle. I look rather royal, right?

There was some sort of festival/parade thing going on in Chepstow while we were there. Here is one of the floats from the parade. I thought it was strange because the darker skinned people in the back were actually painted white people. I'm not sure whether this should be considered offensive or not... Anyways, there was a festival and the marching band was playing Lady Gaga...hmmm, strange festival!

The next town we visited was the town of Tintern, which housed Tintern Abbey, Wales's first Cistercian Abbey. I didn't go inside, but it was plenty beautiful from the outside!

The last town we visited was Hay on Wye, which was where our hotel/hostel was located. It was basically a town of book stores and nothing else. We could hardly find a grocery shop! Two of the people on our trip didn't like that and saw it fit to look through the windows. They were a married couple and he was wearing her hat...this was only one of the strange things that they did.

After we arrived at our hotel, the Baskerville Hall Hotel (named after the Sherlock Holmes story, the Hounds of the Baskervilles), we quickly got some dinner. Beans, chips, ketchup, brown sauce (fake HP sauce but still tasty), and a Strongbow! What a delicious dinner while we waited for the US vs Ghana World Cup match to begin. Unfortunately for the US, we lost...

The next day we went horseback riding in the Brecon Beacon national park in Wales. Here is a photo of my horse, Roody. He was wonderful, although a bit naughty! At the end of the ride he even managed to squish me between two other horses, which resulted in losing a stirrup. At least we were close to the end, but riding with one stirrup is never very fun! The horseback riding was amazing, but my bum really hurts now!

Here is one of the views from the Brecon Beacon national park that I got on my camera while horseback riding. The Welsh countryside seemed to go on forever and ever!

After horseback riding we headed over to a local pub, called the Three Horse Shoes, for the Sunday roast. I was a little concerned about what the vegetarian option would be, but our trip leader managed to get me a lovely vegan risotto! It was so delicious along with the steamed vegetables that accompany the usual Sunday roasts and the Strongbow cider. Unfortunately we had to leave the pub just as the England vs. Germany match was starting up...England lost anyways (4:1).

On our way back to London, our group made a brief stop in Oxford, rather than a service station. I got to see Christchurch college, which is what this photo is of. Even though we only stayed for an hour and all the toilets were locked, I really enjoyed seeing the campus! I hope to be able to return to Oxford someday so that I can see a little bit more.

So, this photo has absolutely nothing to do with Wales, but during lunch break from class I got some tasty veg Indian food from the Hare Krishna man near the SOAS campus in London. It was super tasty and free! Doesn't it look delicious?

Meet at the Lion's Testicles?

Apparently this is a legitimate place to meet for class. For class on Monday, we walked down the South Bank of the Thames River. This is where we met for the walking portion of class:

Classy, right? Apparently there is a story that medical students at St. Thomas' hospital (that's Florence Nightingale's hospital) in London come and steal the lion's testicles after their exams every year. If this is actually true, they are readily replaced. As we walked down the South Bank, we came to a grassy area, and there were so many strange people sleeping outside. Here are photos of some of them:

I think he was my favourite - I mean, look at that classy belt and funky socks!

Now, I'm really not sure what this guy's problem was. Is he drunk? Did he just get really tired, really fast? Was he ill? I'm not sure, but it looked pretty unusual. The funny part was that nobody else seemed concerned.

Here's a few more. What are these people thinking? Do they sleep at night? If not, they chose an odd place to be nocturnal.

Moving on to a new topic, here is one of my typical breakfasts when I eat in my room. It's cheerios, chopped apple, almonds, and vegan rice pudding from Whole Foods. Yum!

On Tuesday night, Heidi and I went to a Lebanese restaurant called Levant on Wigmore St. It was super classy - there were rose petals on the table! I had a tabouleh salad (on the left), and hummus (creamy tan stuff on the right). We also got fresh, puffy pitta bread, which was soooo good! The rose wine wasn't bad either.





Other than all of that stuff, I have been pretty busy with my internship. I attended a nutrition seminar yesterday at City University in London. I felt like such a professional! It was great to go to and I think that I got some great ideas to incorporate into my work with FoodCycle. Oh, and by the way if you haven't voted for us yet online, check my twitter for the link and vote. We could win $25,000! This weekend I'm off to Wales on Saturday through Sunday - I will be sure to post photos from that as soon as I am able to!