Hold the Bus.

(First of all, I'm sorry if this appears twice anywhere. Blogger has clearly been having some issues.)

The above expression was something my high school geometry teacher used to say. I always thought it was weird, and I still do actually. But it works sometimes. Like today.

Something happened today that I never expected. And in my last post I said nothing interesting would be happening in the next month - ha!

Anyway, I'm sure you are on the edge of your seat in anticipation. Allow me to set the stage. I dragged myself back to my room at 1 this afternoon after an hour of Arabic and two hours on the Sunni Revival of the 10th century. Hungry, braindrained already and dreading the two hours of anthropology ahead of me in the afternoon, I made myself a cup of coffee. One of my exam term presents to myself was a lovely little French Press coffee thingy, so I can caffeinate myself in style. Anyway, I have a designated tea mug and a designated coffee mug (the cafetiere doesn't make enough coffee to fill my giant Starbucks mug I use for tea). Today, however, the coffee mug was in the sink to be washed so I made do with another coffee cup. I filled it up and realised the mug was too small to fit my usual generous portion of milk.  I figured I would just man up and sip it down and then could top it up with milk. I took a sip. And. It wasn't awful. Actually (and this is where things get life changing) I enjoyed it! I'll say it again - I drank black coffee and it was good! What has happened to me?!

To top off this incredible experience, I did something even more radical. I put a marshmallow into my coffee. Why? I have no idea what possessed me. But it was a good decision. Yum. And on that note, back to the pious Shi'i women of Beirut. Joy of joys.

Easter

My Easter weekend has been..diverse, but wonderful in its own way! For Maundy Thursday I went to the Russian Orthodox church in Cambridge for vespers with the reading of the 12 Gospels. This service is looong. And involves standing the whole time. But, it is quite beautiful in the dark candlelit chapel. There were probably about 30 people there in total, about a third of which were either clergy or chanters.

This church shares the chapel of Westcott House, which is one of the theological colleges affiliated to the university. The main thing this means is that the church itself is very different from most Orthodox churches. It is completely plain, with white and undecorated walls. The contrast between this and nearly every other Orthodox church, richly decorated with icons and goldleaf, is dramatic, but the effect is really lovely. In addition, the chapel is local in this mysterious courtyard, that reminds me of the Secret Garden. It really is an oasis.

When I came home, I found that Trinity's Great Gate was floodlit - and beautiful! So I had to snap a shot! 

 On Good Friday I started out by going to Choral Evensong at King's College Chapel. Sadly I have no photos, as they aren't permitted. I admit I was tempted to play the ignorant tourist and take photos anyway, but wasn't brave enough. Anyway, the music was Tallis's 'The Lamentations of Jeremiah' and it was melancholy and dramatic, perfect for Good Friday. Plus, the choir is absolutely heavenly. This particular service was only the choral scholars - in the other words, the students at the college who are in the choir only, not the boys, so the voices were more mature and serious, which made the effect that much more serious.

Later in the evening I went to the Greek Orthodox church for the service of the Epitaphios, where we processed with the Epitaphios around the church, through the streets of Cambridge. This service started small, but I think most of the Greeks in Cambridge showed up for the procession. The looks on the passer-bys faces were hilarious. :)

A blurry photo of the Epitaphios

 The crowd.

 We are now in the middle of a street, and the Epitaphios can be seen in the distance.

 A bus attempting to navigate the crowd. Poor bus driver didn't realise he was dealing with Greeks here, who were certainly not jumping to get out of his way.

 Continuing along, still in the middle of a street! At this point, we passed a pub and a friendly neighbourhood drunk joined in and 'chanted' along with the priest for a bit. The congregation handled it with good humour though, and he drifted away soon after.

My candle

 Back inside the church, another cheeky photo. This church building is shared between the Greek Church of Sts Anastatios and Clement, and the Anglican church of St Clement. The building is 13th century I believe, and beautiful. It is a little bit dilapidated, but that adds to its charm. In this church, however, there are icons everywhere (although not visible here!) and these two churches seem to coexist quite well.

On Saturday, I embarked upon my last (maybe) baking adventure of this term before exams. Tsoureki - Greek easter bread. I also wanted to dye eggs - both the traditional Greek red, and the American way with fake bright colours!

In order to get the deep red I was hoping for, I used onion skins to make a dye. This should have worked well, except at the same time I started hard boiling other eggs for American dye. Partway through, I realised I hadn't counted how many to leave for the Tsoureki. I had just enough, but that meant I didn't have any left over for boiling in the red dye..  I ended up just putting the already-boiled eggs in the dye and hoping it would work. It didn't really..

 The tsoureki operation began with a few issues. First of all, I was missing several key spices - mastiha and mahlepi, both of which my Yiayia used in her recipe. I found a recipe online that used anise seed, which I also didn't have, so I went with just orange zest. Second issue was the yeast I bought from Sainsbury's (the only type they sold) was 'fast-action' and I wasn't sure how this would translate to my recipe. Seems to have worked though. Third mishap - no mixing bowls. In this photo, that is my dough... in a wok. It did the job!

 Rising, rising...

Meanwhile, preparing the egg dye. I bought a pack of PAAS dye in Atlanta and brought it back for egg adventures. During this process, I learned the English don't dye eggs. I was explaining what I was doing, and no one understood! I had no idea this wasn't done here..

  The dough rose!! Yes that is in a sauce pan. I won't get into the nitty gritty of the recipe because I really didn't follow it very well. I am kind of sad about this because I was envisioning a beautiful food-blog style post with a recipe and lovely pictures of tasty food. Sadly, I really don't have the facilities. This kitchen is great, but dragging all my stuff there is a whole day affair. Plus, there are no mixing bowls. Ah well, my food/cooking blog dream will have a chance at life over the summer when I am finally back in our beautiful and fully equipped kitchen at home!

I am quite proud of this lovely braid. This is first rising, getting ready for another round. Again, in the meantime I had to do something so I attempted to make cheese. I know how random this sounds, but I had come across directions somewhere that basically said - heat milk, add yoghurt, add vinegar and salt, drain. This is what I did, and it worked! I ended up with a soft, sort of feta-like cheese, that I think is probably closer to ricotta. It's not very salty, but mild and not bad at all.

Tsoureki post second rising, and ready for the oven. They are being cooked in roasting trays because there weren't any baking trays.. Poor guys.

And....success!!

The second loaf smushed into his tray. They really should have had a bit more space.. Oh well!

It turned out to be delicious. Probably not as flavourful as tsoureki should be, but still sweet (but not too sweet) buttery/eggy delicious. I shared some slices with my friends who had come by to watch the drama.

This entire cooking adventure took me until about 4pm. By that point, I was in desperate need of a shower, so headed back to my room.  Soon after I received a call from Sainsbury's delivery, passing along a message from a mysterious Easter Bunny who communicates to me via my father. In any case, a delivery was on its way! So I met the Sainsbury's man and unloaded a huge stash of edible goodies. The Easter Bunny knows me well..!

Greek Yoghurts and Cheese

Smoothies, veggies, humous, shrimp (AH!) and smoked salmon (ah!)

Cereal type goodies, granola, flapjacks, oatcakes - yum!

And the Easter basket I made for myself, complete with Peeps that travelled with me all the way from the USA, as well as the basket and glass bunny from the parents.

There were a lot more chocolate goodies than could fit in an artistic easter basket photo. Here is a shot of the spread..

 

 Another version of my easter basket, this time with a Greek red egg. Sadly, this egg was dyed with my American stuff..

Something, however, went wrong in the process. Possibilities: 1) the eggs started off brown. 2) I used white wine vinegar, instead of plain white.

Fail.

 This is the PAAS fake red egg, up close.

 

And the 'naturally' dyed egg. Oops.

 

On Saturday night I headed back to the Greek church for the Pascha service at midnight. I sneakily took this photo after the light was brought out and the Priest announces 'Christ is risen!' Right before this moment, the entire church is darkened, and we wait in silence for a moment. Then the solitary light emerges, and soon everyone has lit their own candle and the light is everywhere! I think this is my favourite moment of Easter.

 I brought my candle home with me, although this was a little scary. It was windy and I hadn't brought anything to protect the flame. But we both made is safely back to my room!

 I set up the candle in my window (in a pint glass - is that bad?) while I had a sneaky 1am chocolate binge and got ready for bed. I was quite worried about the newly-installed smoke alarm, so I had my window open, but had to blow it out before going to sleep.

 

 In the morning, this wreckage greeted me.. I went slightly crazy, I will freely admit..

 

I did, however, have a very civilised Easter breakfast - a tiny salad (with cheese!! oh yum yum), one of my unfortunate red eggs, a slice (or two, or ten) of my tsoureki with homemade cheese, and smoked salmon(!!!!). Plus some smoothie.

The problem with this delicious plate, however, is that there is no chocolate. Never fear, I took care of that too. This, my friends, is banana dipped in melted dark chocolate. Excellent breakfast food.

(had to make this photo extra big to do justice to the chocolate drip. mmmm)

I went back to King's Chapel for the Easter service, which was both a good and bad decision. Bad first.

Yep, that is a giant queue. I ended up only getting a seat the ante-chapel (and I got there twenty minutes early!). The good part was the service was incredible, and a lot of it happened in the ante-chapel so I really didn't miss much. I had a view of the organ screen which was something like this:

(source)

Pretty incredible if I do say so. The service itself was nice, and started off 'Jesus Christ is Risen Today,' a classic Easter hymn that - with a huge congregation, that organ, and the King's Choir was glorious. Sitting where I was, I got to see elements of the service that I don't always - for example, the Gospel reading and the procession into the church. The ceremony is actually very similar to Orthodox tradition - a priest with a censer in the procession, censing the Gospel book before the reading, etc., which I found to be pretty interesting. Sometimes it amazes me how little the Reformation changed some Anglican churches. I managed some sneaky shots - this one I took with my camera in my bag, so sorry about my face in it!

At the end of the service, they opened the huge doors at the back, which I've never seen before. It made everything even more gorgeous, if possible.

Anyway! After church I wandered through town for a little while, enjoying a glorious day and the joy of Easter. Back in my room I headed for chocolate, round two. Chocolate porridge with raspberries, dark chocolate chunks, and bits of dark chocolate chips.

It tasted as good as it looks. Sadly, the stomach was not ready for this. There was no actual illness, but I felt pretty awful.

 

I was also greeted by a lovely surprise sitting outside my door.

Julia's mom left this sweet surprise for me! (REESE'S YUM)

The rest of Easter Sunday I spent... in the library. Which is what I did today as well.. On the upside, I did manage a delicious salad, in between all the chocolate, taking advantage of some of the Easter Bunny's goodies.

A slightly stained egg makes an appearance, along with some little pieces of smoked salmon just peeking through. Delicious Easter remnants. Actually, I think I'm going to be eating Easter remnants for a very long time. There is another full loaf of tsoureki in my room, plus the remainder of the first one, not to mention about 10 hardboiled eggs and approximately my body weight in chocolate. I won't be going hungry, that's for sure!

Happy Easter!

Travel Adventures, and Other Stories

Well, I am back in Cambridge! I will recap my travel adventures after I finish with our Vermont trip. I like chronological order.

Thus. Sunday morning in Middlebury. First of all, excellent breakfast. Possibly the best packaged yoghurt I've ever had?

Mom and I decided to go to church, but I had not packed for anything more than lazing around with Nana and PopPop. Lucky for me, Dad had brought three of Mom's dresses from the dry cleaner in Cleveland for her to take back to Atlanta. (Yeah, it's complicated). What this meant, however, was that I had a dress to wear! Not one I would have picked out for myself..but whatever. The only problem was footwear. I hadn't brought anything except converses and boots. So I went to church like this.

I looked like a crazy person. But I refused to go to church in jeans, so for some reason this seemed like an appropriate alternative. Fortunately, they still let me in.

Back at Nana and Poppop's house, I had lunch.

This bowl was one of... four or five.. The Ben & Jerry's making an appearance from the night before. Yes I did eat the entire pint. No not entirely on my own. But pretty much. It would have been wasted otherwise!!

Also set out a plate of leftover goodies. The Greek response to family gatherings..

After visiting for a while, we stuffed ourselves back in the car and drove back to Burlington.

Provisions.

Scenery.

Back at the airport, we headed out separate ways. While we were taxing in JFK, we saw this giant out the window.

It's hard to see in this photo (but you can click on it to make it bigger!) but this is an Airbus A380, biggest passenger jet in the world. Also amusing that here we were at JFK the day before one of these beasts would whack a little Delta plane (like ours!).

The highlight of the trip back was... Mum and I were upgraded!! On our flight from New York to Atlanta. It pays to be a frequent flier apparently!

Check out that leg room!

Cheers!

Mummy's meal. Nom.

And mine.

Just kidding! Mine, for real.

The whole flight was excellent. It was less than two hours, so I didn't really need to recline and sleep, but I put my feet up, reclined my seat and curled up with my book. There are worse ways to travel, I must say.

Also, a side note. I sat in the same seat on both my flights! I am probably the only person in the world who would find this noteworthy. Still, how often does that happen?

We headed back to Mom's apartment, with gummies for sustenance!

Also noteworthy: Sunday was the first day in a week I didn't cook/bake anything! Trying to wean myself off kitchen access. :( On the upside, I still have delicious adventures from last week to share! I left off with Thursday baking adventures. In addition to these whole-wehat fig newtons, I also made a version of beignets, baked, rather than fried. I'm not a big fan of greasy sugary things, so this recipe was appealing. They came out of the oven looking like yummy little rolls.

I just ate them like this, since I really dislike sugar, but they a look a lot better with a little powdered on top.

That evening, we met up with good friends from when we lived in Dayton, and tried a vaguely Spanish/Mexican/Southern tapas style place, which turned out to be pretty decent. Plus we got to sit outside. The South is good for some things.

Started with queso (YUM CHEESE).

A southern classic, shrimp and grits. Also delicious.

Mussels.

And another Southern staple, Fried Green Tomatoes. Good, but.. why? Why fry something that is already good?

Good night, with great company.

Friday was a short day, as Mom came home early from work to get us to the airport. Still, I couldn't resist the kitchen and made a second batch of muffins. Some had jam on the inside, a few I stuffed with blackberries, and three had peanut butter chips inside. :)

Right, now jumping back to this week. Monday was a pretty uneventful day. I took Mummy to work, ran 3.13 miles on the treadmill (yay!), and then ran a lot of errands for things to take back with me. I bought a lot of stuff.. Tea, cereal bars, pens, Peeps, gummies, Easter egg dye, grits (I know, so southern!), cereal, granola, etc etc. Too much.. I went to get Mummy from work and she took me on an exciting adventure!

For our last night, we decided to go for Mexican, something I find is completely lacking in England. I entrusted us to the internet, and we found a little hole-in-the-wall near the apartment that ended up being pretty decent.

YUM.

On Tuesday morning, the travelling adventures began. Mom was flying to Florida for work, so we went to the airport together. We got the MARTA (the train) at 8AM. This was perfect for Mom's 10am flight. Not so perfect for my 7.15pm. No matter! Extra time with Mummy was good. We got there with no issues, and while Mom checked in and hit the gift shop, I tried to get on an earlier flight. After dealing with possibly the slowest Delta woman I've ever encountered, it was established that I could not get on an earlier plane without paying a lot. Fine. Then she starts looking through my passport, asking me about my return flight. I don't have one, since I bought this round trip ticket from London. She finds my student visa, which I let expire last year since I have a Greek passport and can move around/stay in the EU. She starts whispering worriedly with her colleagues, without actually asking me anything. Then finally one of them says, I'm sure she has it worked out, she must have citizenship or something. So I flash the Greek passport and all is well.

We head through security, find Mummy's gate, and I saw her safely onto her plane. (This is actually it! I know, it could be one of literally hundreds of Delta planes I saw that day..)

After saying goodbye, I settled in for a very long day. I started with Starbucks and Time magazine.

(An excellent cover story by the way. I really loved this photo series. Seriously powerful, check it out).

I got out my laptop (no free WiFi alas) and got some reading/notetaking done. I did a lot of terminal walking too! Went to another terminal for lunch at Au Bon Pain. Then walked to another for a mid-afternoon snack of frozen yoghurt! I was really looking forward to having some while in the states. This trend hasn't quite hit Cambridge yet.

I read, and read some more. And then read just a bit more. Around 4 I decided to head back to my gate. There, I (guess what) read some more. I kept myself sustained on a huge bag of grapes we picked up the night before, an apple Mummy had lovingly chopped up for me, and a microwave oatmeal cookie I'd made that morning. I also walked past a Ben & Jerry's, and, lo and behold, it was free cone day! So I had a second dessert.. I mean.. they were giving out free Ben & Jerry's!!

This is my 'predatory' face.

After what seemed like no time at all, it was time for my first leg to Boston! After a brief panic in the airport when I thought I would have exactly 11 minutes to make my connection (I actually had 50, it was fine), I got on the plane, got out my book, and settled in. Somehow I seem to always sit near the people that MUST put their seat back. We hadn't enough reached whatever altitude was required before he leaned back and squished my legs. Sigh. Legs have gotten used to it now though, and can contort quite effectively.

I was a little worried about getting my flight to London, but it was in the same terminal. A bit of quick speed walking brought me to the gate where people were still boarding. I got on and found myself with the two seats by the window to myself! Score. Again though, I had the crazy person behind me who kept tapping the bag of my seat. For a while, I was seriously freaked out. I mean.. who does that? An occasional bump I can understand, but a continual tapping? I decided eventually he must have been playing a game on the screen.. so I moved over to the window seat, where I wanted to sleep anyway. Soon after, the tapping began ON MY NEW SEAT. What?! I was creeped out. I leaned against the window rather than my seat and was soon asleep. But it was weird. I slept through pretty much the entire flight. I missed breakfast, and literally woke up as we hit the ground. Not a bad way to spent a flight.

Customs was easy (I like being an EU citizen :) ) and my bags came out quickly (I also like being a frequent flier!) and I settled down to wait for my coach. Only.. 3 and a half hours. Blah. By this point, I was a pro, so I...got out of my book and did some more reading! Also snoozed a bit.

Coach ride to Cambridge was uneventful, but I got some nice(ish) pictures.

Overcast, obviously, but still pretty! It's also rather cold. Slightly unpleasant after Atlanta. I am all settled in now, and am back in my spot in the library! A long few months lie ahead..