the nose knows and pancakes galore

[side note: I wrote this post last week but my internet was completely on the fritz and then I was in Amsterdam and then I forgot. More recent events to come as soon as I can a) piece them together and b) make them blogosphere-friendly]

This week gave me my first insight to the amazing British holiday known as Pancake Day. Pancake Day was February 16^th this year but I think it’s generally held just on Fat Tuesday, so that everyone observing lent can indulge themselves in pancakes before giving them up in observance. Personally, I do not know anyone who has ever given up pancakes for lent but I’ll let it slide because I love pancakes and having an entire day in their honor was nearly heavenly. Also, I just want to note that I am not blowing this out of proportion. I went to the grocery store on the 15^th and they had an abundance of pancake mix and next to all possible pancake toppings (Nutella, sprinkles, fruit, whipped cream, syrup) they had a specially made plaque that said “Perfect for Pancake Day!” It’s  big deal here. My pancake festivities started (unintentionally) on Monday night when Jason and I went for dinner across the street at a restaurant called My Old Dutch. I had walked by it many times but never gone in, and they have pancake specials on Mondays so we decided that was the day to go. We ordered savory pancakes (I got basically pepperoni pizza on a pancake while Jason got ratatouille and spinach…ew) only to flip the menu over and find an assortment of sweet pancakes. Obviously, I resolved to save room for dessert. Also, it should probably be noted that the pancakes here are more like crepes than American pancakes, so they’re giant and flat and can be made to be savory…I didn’t just have pepperoni and cheese on top of buttermilk pancakes. Anyway, we ordered for dessert a chocolate sprinkle pancake. It came out with chocolate sprinkles, chocolate ice cream, and “chocolate sauce” (which really just appeared to be warm, melted ice cream). I hope it’s needless to say that eating this pancake was an amazing experience. I would say it was priceless, but it actually cost 5 quid, so that would be a lie. Then the next day at lunch I went to The Diner (a restaurant near work) and ordered banana pancakes with chocolate and peanuts (for real pancake day). These were more like American pancakes but were still outrageously good. I think I’ve found my favorite holiday.

Tuesday night, Jason and I planned on going to see the Lion King after I was done with work. (editors note: Tuesday was the worst weather since I’ve been here. TORRENTIAL downpour all day, my boots were entirely soaked through) So Jason and I went to find the Lion King theater, ended up 15 minutes out of the way, and then finally found the theater only to find out that they’re sold out for WEEKS. Generally, shows never sell out on a Tuesday night, so this was disappointing and strange. We moved down the street to a place called Café Rouge to eat dinner, where we both ordered a sausage baguette with mustard, which turned out to be pretty much the exact same thing as a hot dog. Really delicious though.

Wednesday was a completely exhausting day of field trips. I started off my day in Soho, for a British Youth Culture field trip. We were a bit rushed for time, so my professor was literally sprinting through the streets of Soho for nearly 3 hours. The field trip was really neat though, we saw things like record studios and homes of musicians like Jimi Hendrix. We also saw where talent like Elton John and David Bowie were discovered in Tin Pan Alley, and we saw the street where the photograph on the Oasis “What’s the Story, Morning Glory?” album cover was taken. We also saw the former sites of two epic London venues, one of which has been turned into a TGI Friday’s-esque bar, and one which is being turned into housing developments. On the site of the Fridays was the Marquee, which is where The Who really got started. My professor said that after it had been converted into this bar in 1996, Pete Townshend admitted to standing on the street facing it and weeping endlessly. I found this really sad, especially because they didn’t even turn it in to anything good. We saw where the Sex Pistols played their first gig and also the toy store (Hamley’s) where their manager once went in December dressed as Santa and took toys off the shelves and handed them to children. 10,000 quid later, the store manager realized they hadn’t hired a Santa for that day and tried to reclaim the toys from the children. As you can probably imagine, this did not go well. We also saw where the Beatles cut their first demo, Paul McCartney’s offices, and where they recorded The White Album. If you need more proof I can provide it, but this was an awesome field trip, even if it was completely exhausting.

In the afternoon I had a field trip for my architecture class where we walked around and saw churches and also some business buildings. This was cool but pretty standard (we do this almost every week), but at one point we got on a bus to go back to another church. There was a group of  people, I’ll say 18-21 years old who were smoking weed in the back of the bus. Not discreetly, there was a cloud of smoke around them, no windows open, and they were loudly heckling tourists and everyone who came on the bus. My professor Anne, a little British lady, was extremely caught off guard. I was completely amused.

Thursday I decided I was going to get my nose pierced! I was bored, and I decided that I might as well do it since I've wanted to for a while and if I didn't like it I could always take it out. Anyway, I got it done at a place called Cold Steel in Camden and the girl who did it was really nice, it barely hurt, and I'm really liking it. [You'll be able to see in photos from Amsterdam]

I think that's all for now! More to come...very soon!!