Seeing London's Architecture

Seeing London's Architecture--taught by the ridiculous, eccentric, passionate, and insipiring Benedict O'Looney (he has his own UrbanDictionary entry)--is a history/drawing/engineering/vocabulary/touring/life lessons (although it is labeled as an architecture class) class I'm taking this semester. For the first 8 weeks of class the touring was pretty miserable because London is a very gray, damn cold city. But yesterday, class was completely different. The sun has started to shine in London and it feels like spring.

 For class yesterday we walked to the magnificent Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral and enjoyed the surrounding buildings. It was the perfect day for it.  Everything looked so beautiful. And it was actually warm outside! At the end of class we visited the observation deck of a new high-tech, low-energy retail/office building in the area to sketch. It was amazing! Such a great view of the city. My favorite class we've had by far.

I sat there drawing St. Paul's until dusk. Because it was just that kind of day.

London is a much nicer, more beautiful city when the sun is out. I hope this spring weather continues!

Pivo in Praha

Sorry I haven't posted anything substantial lately, midterms have taken over my life recently.

I don't know how to read this...is it time to go yet?

But I got to escape school work a few weekends ago and traveled to Prague with all of my friends from BPE on Stern's dime (yep, the perks of being one of Stern's Chosen Ones)! It was an awesome weekend and a much needed get-away from dreary London. It was beautiful and sunny and just tons of fun!
Unfortunately, it wasn't a complete respite from school. Over our weekend in Prague we spent about 8 hours sitting in lectures, learning about economic transition in Eastern Europe. There was more than one instance when I felt as if I was being submitted to cruel and unusual punishment because it was so beautiful outside and there was a jazz band performing on the street outside the lecture hall, which just made me want to jump out the window and escape the incarceration and become a gypsy. But alas, there's no such thing as a free trip to a formerly-communist Eastern European country...so I patiently sat through the lectures.
When I wasn't sitting in class, I was exploring the city! I visited Prague with my parents about 9 years ago. Because I was so young, I definitely didn't appreciate the city the first time and now I don't even remember much about the trip (except for the two most important words in the Czech language that I learned on that trip: "zmrzlina"-ice cream, and "pivo"-beer). So it was really exciting to be able to return to that beautiful city and see if I could pull up some buried memories. And I did! I totally remembered walking across the Charles Bridge, watching the astronomical clock chime in the old town square, admiring the "Fred and Ginger" building (named after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers because it looks like a dancing couple...I tried to tell people this, but no one believed me) on the banks of the river, and eating lots and lots of delicious, heavy Eastern European food.

Yep, all mine!

And of course there was lots of beer...tasting. I guess I take after my dad in that Pilsner Urquell on tap is delicious! The best places to eat in Prague (besides street vendors) are by far the beer halls. I had so much fun sitting in those noisy halls with a big group of friends, drinking beer, eating pork knuckles and dumplings (essentially large dough balls covered in fat)...perfect!

Prague is easily one of my favorite European cities. The architecture is so beautiful, and it still has that great old-world feel that you can't really find anywhere else.

American food!

Oh how I miss sugary cereals.

...But these have probably been sitting there for at least 10 years

Happy belated Valentines Day!

Cookie Adventures Continued

To continue our Sunday night warm cookies and cold milk ritual, we made snickerdoodles two weeks ago. So good!

And last weekend we decorated sugar cookies in honor of Valentines Day!

Because we don't have any legitimate baking tools, we had to make due with what we do have...

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): depression due to lack of sunshine.

Check.

Paris. Fin.

Laduree. So delicious!

The rose window of Notre Dame.

Under the Arch de Triumph, looking down the Champs Elysee

Through all of the famous sights, fancy architecture, delicious food, and world renowned art my favorite part of Paris was probably our short trip up to Monmartre. We first climbed up the hill to visit Sacre Coeur.  From there we got amazing views of the city. But the best part about our hike up there was the guitar player playing to a big crowd on the steps of the basilica.  The guitar player had a friend who would rap to the popular songs that the guitar player got the whole crowd singing.  I'm a big fan of street performers, and these guys were particularly cool.

After hanging out at the church for a bit, we headed down the hill into another rather infamous area of the neighborhood...