Sightseeing and rainy London

It's been ages since I've updated my blog!  Been busy busy busy!  Kelsey and Giselle and Kelsey's parents were here visiting this past weekend from America.. very exciting!  We did a ton of sight-seeing (some of it in the pouring rain.. thanks a lot London weather) and I managed to not take a single picture with my American visitors!  Oops!
Here are a few pictures I did take though..

Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace! The day was actually as cold and gloomy as it looks, believe it or not.

We walked through Covent Garden at the same time they were setting up the red carpet for the BAFTAs.  So many famous people in London and we didn't see a single one!

We took a stroll across Millennium Bridge after going to St. Paul's Cathedral.  It was absolutely pouring down rain and super cold.  But London still manages to be pretty :)

I've been frantically filling out all my ethical approval forms for my dissertation research.  My eyes are burning from staring at my computer screen for so long! I spent the morning working on my essay, and tomorrow will be another dissertation day.  I'm getting things accomplished this week!

Subway.. and Hampton Court Palace

So everyone knows how much I love Subway, right? If you don't know, I really love Subway.

I just had a Subway sandwich from the Subway down the road from my flat and I was not impressed. Let me tell you why.

1. No flatbread. Honestly. It's 2013. Get some flatbread English Subway.
2. They didn't let me choose my cheese OR whether I wanted to toast my sandwich - they just did it.  What if I wanted a cold sammie, huh?
3. No Cold-Cut Combo.
4. You only get 1 cookie with your meal. Who only needs 1 cookie!? I definitely need two cookies.
5. They have odd curry flavoured sandwiches.  Who goes to Subway for a curry sandwich!?  There are 6 million (I'm not exaggerating.. there are at least 300 per square mile) curry and take-away places around that probably do much better curries and ethnic foods than Subway ever will.

Needless to say, I miss American Subway.  If someone wants to box up and mail me a 6 inch cold-cut on flatbread with lettuce, pickles and a little bit of ranch, that would be great!

On a happier note, I've finally found a replacement for apples.  I have a bit of an apple obsession, but can't really eat them because I have a bad jaw ($5000 to fix.. I'll suffer a little longer!).  Makes it really painful to bite into and chew apples, but I've still been eating at least 2 a day.. until now!  I found these yummy dried apples to eat instead! Not quite as crunchy and refreshing, but they'll do the job.

Amanda and I spent the day at Hampton Court Palace yesterday.  It was beautiful, but really cold!  We got free tickets because some girl in line in front of us accidentally bought 2 extra tickets.. how you manage to buy two extra tickets that are £15 each I have no idea but it worked out in our favour.  We did an audio tour, learned a lot, and then drank some tea to warm ourselves up.  I didn't take many pictures but here are a couple!

Outside the palace entrance

From in the inside courtyard looking out the entrance.  Such a pretty day at a pretty palace!

The end :)

Cake and Brighton

Boiler is getting fixed as we speak... FINALLY! :)

Here's the cake Mat and I made the other day...

Okay fine I mostly just made it - I can't blame Mat really.  I know what you all are thinking though.. "Allie how can I make a cake just like that?! It looks so yummy and edible!"

Here's how you do it:

1. Use the wrong pan.  This recipe called for a tube pan, which we didn't have. So we used a normal round cake pan.

2. Completely leave out the pecans for the filling because you don't have any in the cupboard and you can't be bothered to walk to the grocery store.

3. Then, put the topping inside as the filling, and the filling on top as the topping.

4. Make the whole thing by hand rather than with a mixer as the recipe says.

5. Only bake it for 49ish minutes when the recipe says between 50-60 minutes and do it in an oven that never holds a consistent temperature.

In summary, don't follow the recipe at all and you too can have an inedible coffee cake!

Okay we actually did eat most of it. We just scooped out the batter in the middle. Most of the outside was cooked through.

You should have heard the sniggering between Mat and Paul when they realised this American recipe for Sour Cream Coffee Cake didn't actually have any coffee in it.  "Surely the most important ingredient in a coffee cake is coffee!  Stupid Americans!".... I tried to justify it by saying that it's a cake you eat WITH coffee but they weren't having any of that explanation.

Not a lot else to report.  We're heading to Brighton tomorrow to see Mat's brother.  Brighton is one of my favourite little (big) cities!  I just love the beach. I realise it will be freezing but I'm still excited.  

It won't be as good as the last time I was at Brighton beach with some pretty ladies though!

MISS YOU GIRLS!

And continues...

We had our 4th set of plumbers in to look at the boiler tonight.  We were under the impression they were just putting in a new one, but apparently that would be too easy.  They got here, stayed 5 minutes, told us they needed to order more parts to fix it so they'd be back on Wednesday night.

It's now going on 8 days with no heat or hot water.  I'm just really not a happy camper.

I will write happier blog posts when I can shower in my own flat again, I promise.

The boiler saga continues..

The saga of the broken boiler continues...

The plumbers came yesterday to replace the boiler that British Gas couldn't fix on Friday.  Our landlord said he would give the plumbers keys to let themselves in so we didn't need to be home.  So we weren't home.  And, of course, our landlord didn't give the plumbers keys.  So the plumbers sat outside our house for an hour with our new boiler and no keys and then left.  We all got home about 15 minutes after they left, but we all could have been home earlier if we had known they had no keys. SO ANGRY.

It's now been 6 days with no heating or hot water so Mat and I decided to just go stay in a hotel.  We found a nice one, booked it, and checked in.  If you were thinking, "Huh.. Mat and Allie seem to have pretty bad luck.. wonder if the hotel is going to suck too?" you were thinking along the right lines.  The hotel is very nice.. our adjoining room, however, is NOT.  There's a door in our room that used to connect the two rooms (I think) so noise travels.  Noise travels more when you are yelling conversations and having a grand old time with your two children... at midnight, then again at 6 am.  Honestly. What is wrong with people?  It's a hotel!  There is obviously going to be someone sleeping in the room next to you.  Why get up and yell at 6 am?  We're going to see if we can change rooms tonight.  The boiler won't be fixed until Monday so we're staying here until Monday.  It's just so nice to have a hot shower!

On a happier note, King's volleyball won the league yesterday! Whoooohoooo!

Now I need to actually do some work. Good thing there's a fancy desk and chair in this room :)

Cold.

I have to say after looking up the weather in Madison, I am glad I'm in London today!  SO COLD in America!  It's pretty chilly in London today too.. in the 30s.  Which would be fine weather except our boiler is broken.. womp womp womppppp.

That means no hot water AND no heating.  And it's not getting fixed until Friday!  Holy cold.

We've been having problems with the hot water for the past few weeks so I've perfected the art of the 30 second shower (we only got about 30-45 seconds of hot water before it turned stone cold).  I'm not sure I can bear it with absolutely no hot water though.  I'm going to try to boil a ton of water (stockpot full+kettle+every saucepan we have) and pour it in the bathtub for a bath instead of showering.  We'll see how that goes!

Busy busy rest of the week.  Work and meetings with supervisors at school and work and back to Dorking for Ollie's birthday.  Plus an essay, a dissertation, a book report, AND a case study to be working on.. plus weekly readings for class.  And I'm procrastinating the time away blogging.... :)

Snow and our new pub venture

We had snow again yesterday!  A decent amount, actually.  It snowed most of the day and was still on the ground today (I think the drizzly rain might wash it away today though).  Mat and I got locked out of our flat for about an hour, so we had plenty of time to enjoy the snow!  He made a snow angel in the middle of the road (we don't have a yard.. we have to use what we have) and I pouted under the covering outside the door.. you can tell which one of us was more excited about the snow :)

Mat and I have a massive list of restaurants to visit in London.  However, we can't really afford to go out to eat all the time.  So, instead, our new venture is to visit a bunch of London pubs!  We've compiled a list of unique pubs (like Bounce, which is full of ping-pong tables) and old pubs (like Ye Olde Mitre Tavern, which was built in 1546).  Last night we visited the Princess Louise in Holborn.

It's hard to get a good picture because it's such an odd pub.  It has all these doors with foggy glass etched windows.  Some of the doors lead to little cubby holes where you can sit with a group and have a drink.  Or they have 2 bars downstairs and 1 upstairs.  Very cool little pub! Good beer too :)