London bridges falling down

I can't help it. I love bridges for some reason... I can't explain it. I loved them in Paris (I will post pics later) and I love them even more in London. I think the best part of my day is when I walk on the Westminster Bridge to and from work.

Pics of a few bridges in London:

1. Millenium Bridge - walking from Tate Modern to St. Paul's Cathedral

2. Westminister Bridge: on the way to work to the hospital (i love this bridge more because of the stuff around it, not because of the actual bridge itself)

(pic of st. thomas hospital)

look right, look left..

Yes, I'm in London... and I'm still getting used to looking right first when I cross the streets. A lot of you know how paranoid I get crossing streets in the States. Imagine how stressed I get in London.

Anyway, we got to London this past weekend and settled into our place near Putney Bridge. We're living on the 3rd floor of this family's home. The family consists of this lady, her mother, and occasionally her daughters (who are away for school). Amy & I are sharing a bedroom, but it's pretty spacious. We share a bathroom with a French exchange student who is here for work. We don't see him much. We basically have very little interaction with the family. It seems like the lady wants us to do our own thing. She does her own thing. We're paying 180 pounds per week for the both of us. Not too bad. The only major complaint I have is that they don't turn on the heat the whole time. It's a timed system and only on when we wake up and when we're about to go to sleep. I blame being sick on the lack of heat.

St. Thomas' Hospital: It's ridiculous! The hospital is right on the river, and right outside my preceptor's office, across the river, you see Big Ben and the Parliament building. Ridiculously gorgeous especially when everything is lit up. To be honest, this whole weekend I was thinking how London is just like any other American city with a bunch of people who have British accents. Today was the first time when I went "awww" to the city. I can't believe I'm doing my rotation right next to Big Ben. Unreal.

In other news, we made friends! There are some American (+1 Australian) students who we met today who are also doing electives. It's a good mix and should be fun hanging out with them while we're here.

Pic: (courtesy of Amy, who was frolicking around London while I was working hard in the pathology lab... I'm not bitter or anything)

I will try to take a pic from the hospital one day because it's SO beautiful...

Paris Day 5, 6, & 7

To wrap up Paris--

Day 5:

-train to versailles

-walk around chateau

-buy & try some laduree macaroons

-go back to paris

-see moulin rouge

-eat at chez ganette to try croque madame

Day 6:

-sleep in! =)

-itineraires for lunch

-longchamp shopping

-berthillon ice cream

-champ-elysee to LV and la maison du chocolat

-mussels restaurant

-finished our macaroons

Day 7:

-"biking"

-walking around park & rue du rivoli

-angelino's for hot chocolate

-random restaurant to eat one last croque madame

-jean-paul hevin chocolate

-chcolat michael cluizel

-perfume shops

-one last look at bridges on the river

-back to hostel

-eurostar to london

-arrive at jumee's

Summary of notable foods in Paris

Croque monsieur or madame: I actually really liked this snack. It's very simple, but tasty. We had this at two restaurants which did it differently. Basically, on the toasted bread (one place made it on a baguette while another [pic below] made it on regular sliced bread), you have a thin slice of ham with melted guyere cheese... and voila! (aka waalaa... yes they actually say this in france)-- you got yourself a croque monsieur (or crock monster as Melissa would call it). If you add an egg on that, you got yourself a croque madame. I tried the croque madame and it was very yummy. It's so filling! In the croque madame below, they put the ham in between the two pieces of bread and toasted it and melted the guyere cheese on top of the "sandwich." Elisa got one with a tomato slice in hers, but I forgot the name of it. She said it was good.

Macaroons: So there is so much hype about this... We were expecting fireworks. There are two places that are known for macaroons--laduree and pierre herme. I only got to try laduree. They are super pricey. 6 macaroons for 16 euros. So I shared them with Melissa and Elisa. 6 flavors came in our box: rose, caramel, chocolate, vanilla, cherry, and pistachio. A macaroon kind of looks like a cookie sandwich. On the outside you have this soft, wafer-like cookie with a pasty cream in the middle. First came cherry. We were so disappointed as the cream filling tasted like jam. Next was pistachio. Again we were disappointed as the filling was very dry and nutty. The wafer did not seem all that special. We actually stopped eating the macaroons that day because we were so disappointed. The next day we finished them because Melissa was leaving for Chicago and she paid big bucks for them. We were surprised to find that the rose, carmel, chocolate, and vanilla were so tasty! The cream was more pasty (the way we expected it to be) and it was very smooth. The cream was not overwhelming and we were able to enjoy the wafer portion. The wafer was soft and basically crumbled in your mouth. Elisa and I don't usually like caramel and we actually liked the macaroon. We were happy with the macaroons we ate that day and laughed at how we were bashing macaroons since our terrible experience the day before. To quote Melissa, "I was about to give up on the macaroons. Good thing I didn't." In fact, Elisa bought more the following day. I guess never make a decision about a food until you try it more than once.

Berthillon ice cream: Read Day 2 post

Chocolates galore: While we were planning our paris trip, I came across a NYTimes article about all the top chocolatiers in Paris and and thanks to Amy's amazing navigation skills we were able to try a number of the chocolate places: Michael Cluizel, Jean-Paul Hevin, Patrick Roger, and La Maison du Chocolat to name a few. I did not try all of them, but it seems that many like the La Maison du Chocolat. They're known for their ganache. I have only eaten 1 out of the 2 pieces that I bought, but to be honest, since I am not a sweets person I'm not a really good judge. However, I sent some back to Monica, the chocolate expert, and she gave her stamp of approval.

Escargots: I'm getting tired so this may get shorter. Anyway, when I was younger, my family went to disney world every year. I disliked french food, but the one dish I liked was escargot and for some reason we only ate it when we went to this one french restaurant in disney world. Really random. Well I had to try it in France... and it was DELICIOUS! The snail was tender (haha i know half of you guys want to throw up after reading that sentence) and the green herby sauce was not overwhelming. They also gave me small crusty bread on top of each snail. And verdict is: escargot in france is better than escargot in disney world.

French desserts - Creme brulee and souffle: yum! (yes I'm getting tired)

Falafel: We heard about this famous falafel place and we just had to try it. It's such an interesting experience. Reminds me of getting Philly Cheesesteaks. Basically everyone is trying to get you to come to their falafel stand, but you see the massive line in front of the place we went to... and you know which one you should choose. We tried the falafel and to be honest, it was a little salty for my taste (we had to eat french fries to counter the saltiness). Everyone raves about this place... even the lady in front of us raved about the falafel. To me, it was good, but not excellent. I did like how the falafel had a bunch of veggies in it, including a mix of radishes.

Fromage: CHEESE! I ate lots of Cheese in London. One of my favorite meals was when Melissa, Elisa, and I got 2 different cheeses and wine from the super market and ate it with crackers and bread. We also melted the cheese. Our favorite combo was melted mild brie on bread.

(cheese in picture actually from night with eunice & jumee at restaurant, but I don't have pics from when Melissa, Elisa, and I had our cheese&crackers/bread&wine dinner)

French fries: Of course we ate lots of french fries here... and they aren't anything special to me, but french fries are always good. Every time we got them, they were the fat fries, which are yummy.

...again, I had some fancy shmancy lunches & dinners, but have not included them. Mostly because I'm not a fancy shmancy person (although I must admit, the fancy shmancy food has surprised me and I've actually liked a lot of it).

And now I'm in London... and probably going to blog less about food, given that food is definitely not as good here.

Paris Day 3 & 4

Paris Day 3

-Musee du Louvre

-Center Pompidou

-Walk around the Paris A LOT

-Dinner with Jumee & Eunice at L'ardoise

-Drinks at the Hotel du Louvre

Paris Day 4

-Walk around

-BVG

-Notre Dame

-Lunch across from crepes

-Arc de Triomphe

-Champs-Elysees

Food (quick because my internet is being slow)

-Fallaffel

-Escargot, oysters, seafood platter, duck, curry fish, souffle, creme brulee

-Macaroons

-Nutella crepe, cheese/wine/crackers

Paris Day 2

I decided 1 pic per day due to the slow internet. This is Amy & me eating a crepe off the street.. YUM

Day 2:

-Porte Neuf bridge

-La Conciergerie

-Saint Chapelle

-St. Michel

-Notre Dame

Good eats:

-Berthillon ice cream: We heard so much about this place--supposedly it is the best ice cream in the world. We had to try it even though it's freezing outside. And they are not kidding. It's the best ice cream I've ever had. Amazing... We got two flavors - red peach and tiramisu. Two scoops in a waffle ice cream cone. Red peach on top. Tiramisu underneath. Red peach was extremely good but not to-die-for. I definitely loved it. It was an interesting flavor, kind of berry like. But once the tiramisu hit my tongue, I was in heaven. The flavor is not too sweet and not too strong... so subtle but somehow really powerful. It was white (usually isn't it brown?) and had sparse chips of chocolate mixed with some sort of nut or coffee (we were trying to figure it out). Even the chips were subtle but powerful. It wasn't like the in-your-face chips that you get in mint chocolate chip. They were lighter in flavor/texture somehow... easier to bite and would melt in your mouth after a crunch. I love ice cream but never have I been in awe of it. Usually when people say it's the best ice cream, it's too sweet for me and I'm disappointed. This was definitely just right. And the waffle cone - awesome. Not too crunchy where it gets all over right when you bite. It felt fresh. I looked around it see if the cones were home made, but I didn't see a waffle cone maker, but it definitely smelled/tasted fresh. Not too pricy either. 3.4 euros for double scoop+cone.

-Patrick Roger: While we were planning our trip for Paris, I found this NYTimes article about all the chocolatier places and did some extensive research.. and so Amy has tried her best to fit as many as possible on our itinerary. We tried Patrick Rogers today. The place was so cute (man, wish I could upload pictures in this hostel). The shop was all green and brown, reminded me of a big frango box. The display had a mountain of chocolate (literally a mountain molded from chocolate) and green chocolate shaped like trees. We tried 5 different chocolates. To be honest, I forgot some of the flavors that she told me, but they were good! First one up--black pepper chocolate. And that's exactly what it tastes like. The flavor is more tame than I expect. Definitely interesting. The next one up was passion fruit which felt like a billion flavors in that little piece. The next one was lemon chocolate, which was more subtle and taste exactly how it sounds. I liked how the chocolate wasn't too powerful or too bitter. I forgot the last two pieces, but my last one was my favorite. It was nutty more than anything else and very neutral compared with the lemon, passion fruit, and black pepper. Felt like it was more about the texture than the taste. For some reason, I thought chocolate in Paris would be richer and more intense than what I tasted. I'm not usually a fan of the "unique" flavors and enjoy my chocolate "normal" (i.e. Hershey dark chocolate). This was definitely interesting to try though. 5 pieces for 3.8 euros. We'll see about the other places.

-Crepe: Tried my first French crepe off a street cafe. Amazing. I had a formage + jumbon crepe. The crepe was so light and went really well with the cheese and ham.

-Dinner at some fancy shmancy French restaurant: uhhh so I'm not really into fancy french food but I tried a place today with Eunice+Jumee for dinner. We had a 3 course meal and got different dishes so we could try a little bit of everything. I will get back to you with the details since the whole menu was in french and do not know the names of the dishes. It was definitely good, but I think I'm still not a fan of fancy french food. I rather eat stuff off the street.

Paris Day 1

I'm in paris! :)

Day 1:

-Musee d'Orsay

-Napoleon's Tomb

-Musee de Rodin

-Tour Eiffel

(The internet at our hostel is really slow so I cannot really update too much in Paris)

How long can I live out of a suitcase?

01/21/10 - 01/28/10: Paris
01/28/10 - 02/27/10: London
02/27/10 - 03/03/10: Amsterdam
03/27/20 - 04/25/10: Kapsowar, Kenya