London Bridge Is(n't) Falling Down

Previously: I went on a walking tour of London and saw some weird art at the National Portrait Gallery.

My second day in London commenced at 4.25am when my brain decided that four hours of sleep was more than enough. At 5.30am, I gave up on trying to sleep and started reading. At 5.40am, I got hungry but the kitchen was down four flights of stairs, so I ate a packet of gummi fruit salad and got sugar all over the bedclothes (whoops). At 6am, I tried to sleep again and failed monumentally. At 7.30am, I started to play a fun game called "At what time will my brother and all his housemates be gone so that I can wander around in my pyjamas like a zombie?".

I eventually dragged myself out of bed at about 8.30am, and did all kinds of fun things like adding huge wings to my eyeliner and twelve layers of mascara to make myself feel more awake. I also phoned the hotel where my parents were to stay that night (they were due to arrive in London at 5.30am, but their plane was delayed by fourteen hours) to say that they'd be late, and the guy on reception could not have been less interested if I'd tried to explain the Australian taxation system to him.

I finally left the house at about 11am and headed in the general direction of my brother's office, as we were meeting for lunch. I got there horribly early, so wandered across London Bridge to see this through the haze:

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I wandered a little further, and stumbled across The Monument to the Great Fire of London, which was rather unexpected, then headed back across London Bridge to meet C at Borough Market. After perusing all the lunch options on offer, I settled for fresh spinach and ricotta ravioli with napoli sauce, and we sat in the grounds of Southwark Cathedral to eat. Because, you know, it's totally no big deal eating lunch in the grounds of a church that's been around four times longer than your country!

After we'd finished our pasta, I decided that seeing as how brownies are kind of my thing and C had been rambling since I arrived about how good the brownies were at this one store next to the market that I should check it out. Which is how I came to order a salted caramel and vanilla fudge brownie ("The Fudgepacker Brownie", which made C laugh hysterically) from Konditor and Cook. And holy Jeebus, it was amazing. Ugly, especially after being squashed in a paper bag, but utterly delicious:

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After lunch, I'd been planning on going down to Greenwich but I decided that Greenwich probably warranted more time than I had left that day, so instead I walked back across London Bridge and down the river to the Tower of London. I thought that it would be a pretty quick visit, given that I'd been there several times as a kid. But I ended up spending all afternoon there. The World War I memorial installation is absolutely breathtaking, especially when you consider that what's currently in place is only about half the poppies that will ultimately be installed. Every night at sunset, a bugler (not a burglar) plays The Last Post, and approximately one hundred names are read out. I didn't get a chance to see it, but I imagine it's pretty special. The poppies alone are staggering.

I arrived with a little time to spare before the next guided tour, which meant I was lucky enough to see an American woman looking at the "Next tour leaves at" clock, and asking the other members of her party if time worked the same way in the UK as it does in America, a question I'm still giving a confused dog head tilt about. Luckily, the other members of her group seemed equally confused (I wonder if it's the fact that it was an analogue clock and she was used to digital??) and quickly explained to her that yes, clocks work the same way in England.

The tour was interesting, although sadly we didn't get to go into the chapel, which was closed for repairs that day. But I *did* get to see a teenage girl being made to delete the photos she took of the Crown Jewels from her phone, so that was fun.

I took a much needed hot chocolate break in the cafe, and seriously considered taking a nap on the table because I'd hit a fairly dramatic patch of oh-God-I-woke-up-at-4am-and-need-to-sleep-immediately. Luckily, it wore off after a while and I was able to drag myself up again and head into the exhibits in the White Tower. And I'm glad I did, because they were pretty damned fabulous. There was the stuff I remembered - namely, the armour of various kings throughout history - but there was also some fascinating newer stuff about the Tower's role as a mint, as a centre for training soldiers over the centuries, and as an armoury. It included this rather spectacular dragon made out of all sorts of weapons from a bunch of different time periods:

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I left the White Tower just in time to see Tower Bridge being opened to let a ship pass through, which was excellent timing because apparently that now only happens once or twice a week. Well done, Kirsti. Good job.

By the time I'd finished at the Tower, it was 5pm, so I texted C to ask when he was going to be done with work. He said he'd be another half hour or so, so I decided that I'd walk back to his office across Tower Bridge and down the other side of the river. If I'd had more time, I would have gone to the Tower Bridge Museum, but unfortunately there was only time to walk across the bridge, stopping for a couple of photos along the way, because obviously:

Zombie Kirsti is a zombie. And may also be sunburnt.

I made it to C's office at about 5.35pm, and of course he didn't turn up for another 25 minutes. Until I sent him a text message that said "Come the fuck on, Bridget!" (because obviously), after which he decided to grace me with his presence. We headed back to his place, grabbed all of my stuff, and headed back to the station, stopping off at Chipotle to shove burritos in our faces (obviously I texted Gina to tell her all the ways in which it wasn't *quite* right). Then we headed to Earl's Court to meet the parentals.

Except that we needn't have eaten quite so fast, because they got there approximately forty five minutes later than we'd anticipated. Womp womp. Still, once they arrived we made it to the Hotel-of-the-Disinterested-Reception-Staff with no problems, dumped all the luggage, and headed out to the pub for a much needed drink. Then C headed for home because he had to work and was catching a much later flight the following day, and I got to spend the night on a surprisingly comfortable camp stretcher.

Next up, I continue to try and fit more than one day into a post (and I will probably continue to fail), but more importantly, we head to Portugal!

K xx

Ancient History, Volume II

When I finished writing about my trip to the US back in November, I had every intention of going on to write about my other trips overseas. (Or at least the ones that occurred before I started blogging. If you REALLY want to read about the trip Ness, Kat and I took to Phuket in 2009, it's here. But I'd been blogging for about a month when I wrote it. Enter at your own risk...)

Anyway, in my typical vague fashion, I promptly got distracted by the internet Doctor Who stuff and forgot all about it. UNTIL NOW.

I went on my first overseas trip sans the parentals in 1998. I was a whopping fifteen years old, and it was the school French study tour. Because taking 40 teenage girls half way around the world seems like a WONDERFUL idea, yes? I can't remember exactly how many teachers were with us, but I *DO* remember that we had to wear our school spray jackets half the time so they could keep track of us. Or maybe it was just that 15 year old Kirsti had such horrific fashion sense than they made me wear the jacket to cover up the crimes beneath it...

Anyway, I remember being excited about the 24 hour flight to Paris, because we were flying on Singapore Airlines, and they'd JUST introduced in-seat entertainment. Which was probably the reason why the school chose Singapore - anything to keep 40 teenage girls entertained!! Being the bright young thing that I was, I figured two books would be plenty to keep me occupied for three weeks. Yeah...not so much. I finished both of them on the plane on the way over, and I think I read Pride & Prejudice about a hundred times on that trip.

We started out with several days in Paris. During which time I took many photos that turned out like this:

Yeah. That's the Bastille Monument taken from the far side of the bus, in case you were curious.

I also took this spectacular shot of a château in the Loire Valley a few days later:

Clearly, 15 year old Kirsti was a photography genius.

While in Paris, we saw all the important sights, like Notre Dame, the Louvre, Montmartre, the Rodin Museum, and Jacques Chirac. That's right. We saw the president of France. See?

Also while in Paris, our French teacher's parents joined us. She was actually French, so it wasn't like they flew over for the occasion or anything. Anyway, on one very entertaining occasion, her somewhat elderly but incredibly chic mother forgot to lock the door of the bus toilet and fell out into the aisle when the bus turned a corner. Oh, and we saw a naked dude standing on his balcony. So...yeah.

We left Paris, and stopped at Versailles on our way out of town. Wheeeeeee, shiny pretty historic things! Apparently I thought my memory would be sufficient, because I took about three photos of Versailles. And then we had a picnic and a frog jumped up the leg of my jeans. I'm still a little traumatised about it.

There's a frog in there. I promise. I circled it for you and everything.

After the picnic of trauma, we headed to Orleans, where we did homestay-y stuff and went to French high school. Mostly, I remember that my host family insisted on speaking French to me at ALL times even though they were fluent in English, and if I didn't understand a word, they'd just point at the ENORMOUS French to English dictionary that was in the study and wait for me to find out what it meant. And so it came to pass that I will ALWAYS know that the French word for wheat is "blé". Other than that, most of what I remember about Orleans is watching dubbed American television. I discovered that Melrose Place made FAR more sense to me in French than in English, and that dubbed Mulder sounds like a sleaze bag. I tried to find you a clip of it, but apparently people don't put French dubbed clips of 90s TV shows on Youtube. SAD FACE.

From Orleans, we went to La Rochelle on the Bay of Biscay. We looked at all kinds of ruin-y things and went to an oyster farm. And one night while we were there, we had to fend for ourselves in terms of dinner. We were staying in apartments, so we had a kitchen at our disposal. So we went to the supermarket and bought a bag of pasta and a block of cheese. And we were ENORMOUSLY proud of ourselves. See?

Aah, auto-timer. Such a wonderful invention. Eventually we ended up back in Paris, in what was quite possibly the crappiest hotel I've ever stayed in. It was apparently three star rated, but one of the stars had been drawn on by hand with gold paint. The lift could only hold one person and one suitcase at a time, which meant we had to drag our luggage up these stairs:

The rooms - when we eventually reached them - smelled like someone had been chain smoking in them for three weeks straight. There were cigarette burns on the bed linen. And the toilet was so close to the wall that you had to sit on it sideways. Fun times! Oh, and the lobby was filled with random fat men who didn't appear to be staying at the hotel, which was just creepy. Thankfully, we were only staying there for one night.

And from there, I went to England for a week, during which time I discovered the Harry Potter books. And then I found $20. I didn't really. But it's the only way to make the end of this story interesting!

Needless to say, I need to go back to France and a) eat more pasta and cheese because that's a genius plan, and b) take some half way reasonable photos!!

Did anyone else go on a study tour during high school?
K xx

Lasagne time!

I don't make lasagne very often, because the way I make it uses my usual bolognaise sauce recipe cooked down for a couple of hours, so it's pretty time consuming, and this is accordingly going to be kind of a long post. But if you've got a Sunday at home with nothing to do, make this for dinner - it's pretty awesome, even if I do say so myself!! And even if you don't want to make lasagne, you can use the sauce recipe for spaghetti or penne or macaroni or whatever the hell you want! Here's what you'll need for the sauce (including the lasagne sheets):

Start by chopping the veggies roughly. I put them all through the food processor (it's the way Mum's always done it - an easy way to get a ton of veggies into fussy small children!), but if you don't have one/don't want to do that, just chop them smaller!

Stick the onion through the food processor:

Then brown it in a pan, and add the lean beef mince and a couple of spoonfuls of garlic:

Once all of that has cooked through, add some tomato paste:

And some ketchup (technically, you don't have to add ketchup. I just like it):

Then put the chopped carrot through the food processor and add it in:

Do the same with the zucchini:

And the capsicum:

Mix all the veggies through, then add in a tin of diced tomatoes:

Then add in a jar of ready-made spaghetti sauce - you know, the stuff that's just tomato and some herbs:

Add some water - I usually just put some water in the tin and the jar, swirl it around, and add it in, then add some salt and a ton of pepper:

Some Italian herbs:

And some cinnamon:

Then reduce the heat and let the whole thing simmer away on low for a couple of hours. You can see how much it's reduced. At this point, feel free to just cook some spaghetti or whatever, and cover it with sauce and cheese:

When you're ready to assemble the lasagne, whip up a batch of cheese sauce. Here's what you'll need:

Start by melting a chunk of butter (God, I'm so awesome with my measurements, aren't I!):

Once it's melted, add in some plain flour:

Mix it through, and add in some mustard powder:

Let it cook for a couple of minutes to allow the starch grains to burst, then add in some milk:

Eyeball the amount of milk so that it makes enough sauce to spread over the size of the baking dish you're planning on using. Stir it slowly until the milk is absorbed and the sauce is smooth.

Bring it to a boil and then add a handful of grated cheese (technically, you can leave the cheese out and just use white sauce. But I don't really like white sauce, so I add cheese into the mix!):

Mix it through until the cheese has melted. Once the sauce is done, you can start assembling the lasagne! Start with a layer of lasagne sheets (I use the ones that don't require precooking. Screw THAT for a joke!):

Then add a layer of bolognaise sauce:

And another layer of lasagne sheets:

And a second layer of bolognaise, along with a sprinkling of grated cheese:

Keep going until you run out of room in the dish - I had room for three layers of bolognaise and four layers of lasagne sheets. Then add the cheese sauce to the top:

Spread it across the top, and then cover the top in grated cheese:

Bake it for about an hour at 180 degrees. If it starts to get too brown, cover it with tin foil. I always test it with a skewer before I turn the oven off, just to make sure the noodles have cooked all the way through. Here's the finished product:

Sorry it's kind of a rubbish photo. I was on the phone to my mum and was wielding my SLR with one hand... And here it is ready for me to eat it:

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM. And because it's full of veggies, you don't have to bother with having salad on the side! It's pretty damned filling, so I don't usually have garlic bread with it, but feel free to go crazy. Similarly, you can put cheese between every layer if you want. And you can probably put cheese sauce between every layer if you want, too.

It's pretty versatile and pretty delicious, even if it does take a while to prepare!

Enjoy :)

K xx