Away for Now

Five lessons about life I've learned this past week.

1.) Some meals are successful.

On Monday 19 September, I made spinach and cheese stuffed chicken with our group groceries (for Marisa and Melanie and me). It was nearly 9 o'clock before it was done, and we scarfed it down in no time.

About 10 of us pitched in to make fajitas on 11 September. Dee-lish-ous.

2.) Some are not.

I ordered this for dessert, as an attempt to be adventurous. Why, I don't know; the ingredients were far from appealing: plain greek yogurt with chia seeds, pistachios, and fermented bananas. There's not much I don't like, but this makes the list for sure! I tried to eat it, but after three bites, I physically gagged and threw it out.

3.) Sometimes you need a little bit of order.

Later that evening (Tuesday 20 September), we threw a group meeting to discuss how we are going to survive three months of communal living :) Not all of us are pictured here, but here's the majority of us:

We've got a good system down; chore chart, rules, etc. Not because we are little kids who need to learn good behavior, but because living with this many people is difficult! Imagine sharing a sink and two stoves with fourteen other females. The little trash can in the kitchen needs to be emptied several times a day!

4.) It's okay to accept help.

Ally folding a scarf and telling me I need to organize.

Kat made me a 'cake in a mug' because I was stressed out (not that I condone stress eating!) :)

Emalie taming my messy hair in a braid.

5.) Things don't always go as planned.

Me, Amanda and Zoe at Canary Wharf.

Arcadia pre-booked a boat tour of the city for us, but conflicting emails and Facebook messages had some of us thinking we were meeting at 9:30 and others believing it started at 8:30. Add in confusing texts about directions and no wifi to text, the three of us ended up at Canary Wharf...about an hour away from the rest of the group. Disappointed but not deterred, we decided to do some exploring on our own.

Zoe posing somewhere random along the way:

It ended up being really fun. We took the tube to London Bridge (below, middle). And on the way there we passed a random church and went inside to check it out. We kind of forgot that it was a Sunday...a bunch of people were dressed up and about to have mass. Half of the church was open to the public for museum-like purposes (it's so old!) and the other half was occupied. I wonder if the people who go there regularly think about the centuries of people who sat there before them! I don't have pictures of the inside of the church because I didn't want to disrupt anything, but it was beautiful.

I'm a little bummed we missed the boat tour (especially because I probably won't spend the money to go myself), but it was a nice touristy day nonetheless!

And that is it, friends! I'm somewhat caught up (next post: Dad comes!!)

I still haven't posted pictures from last weekend, and it's already this weekend! The days are absolutely flying by. So here's a look into my very Festival-y weekend:

{Friday 16th September}

The first one was a tiny festival near the Camden Town tube stop. Ally found it on Facebook labeled as a "free event" so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be much smaller than I expected, but the food was delicious (and free!) and all the people were really sweet. Alara Cereals, a company similar to WholeFoods except on a much smaller scale, hosted the festival on the property of their warehouse.

Some pretty architecture we passed on the way there:

Another example of really old buildings next to brand new ones.

Little underground yards between house and the road

This is the entire festival. It was tiny! But so neat to feel like a part of their local community.

After eating dinner, one of the guys helping run the festival gave us a tour of an urban orchard, planted by The Orchard Project.

Lewis was so passionate about fruit trees and maintaining them and how vitally important they are in this world. He had me ready to get on my hands and knees in the dirt and help the group!

Here are some interesting facts (granted, it's been more than a week, so it's not quite fresh in my memory)

There are such a variety of apples. He said that you could have a different apple every day for six years and still not taste every apple. There are apples out there that taste like strawberries. Ones that taste like bananas. Bitter apples. Sweet apples. Tangy apples. The list goes on. The problem is, "they're a pain in the bum to grow" (direct quote). Certain apples are easier to transport and last longer than others, so those (few) are the ones that end up being available in supermarkets. Humans have lost touch with apple variety and apple orchards. No pun intended.

Medlars: which loosely translate to 'dog's butt'.

So. This project is working to recreate random orchards in urban areas around the UK. The trees will "keep on giving" to the community; anyone can come and take what they wish free of charge.

I also found it really interesting that, due to World War II, the soil in London is made up of rubble and is not very easy to plant in. Humans have truly been destroying this planet!

Me with my "The Orchard Project" badge

Once darkness fell, we gathered around a bonfire, ate more food, watched an apple-pie bake-off, and listened to a local band play their music. I think it was one of my favorite nights!

The night cost me one pound (because I bought two raffle tickets). But even that paid off because I won the second place prize: an entire basket of Alara Cereals products. Enough granola, cereal, hot chocolate mix, oatmeal and chia seeds for a while! The excitement over free breakfast food may or may not be catharsis for the stress of shopping for my own food (although I will say it's been going fairly well!). Bottom right: I almost got whacked in the face by a 'bee' with very large wings.

One last picture (credits of the local photographer hired by Alara Cereals). As I said to Ally on Facebook, "We famous!" It was so cool to spend an evening with a bunch of local people who had no idea we were Americans. Neat stuff :)