January and February 2014

Hello!

The most exciting parts of the past two months have been the weekends away. The mini-vacations punctuated an otherwise intense workload... And work is not the most exciting thing to write about.
The whole reason why we were able to go on these two European excursions was because Eurostar had huge sales during the winter months. Ben and I took advantage of that.

Brussels:

 This is Mannekin Pis (the spelling may be off)... But this little guy is famous in Brussels. Keep an eye out for him later.

 Tin Tin was created in Brussels and the people love their comics! They respect it as an art form. We went on a street art walking tour of the different comic murals and this is just one of the gems we found.

 Ben stole Tin Tin's hair style

 OH THE WAFFLES!

 European bread and patisseries are the best in the world. And it makes me so sad that you can't find anything like this in the US or UK (at least, they aren't all over like in continental Europe).

 THE BEERS!

 MORE BEERS! I was in the land of Lambics and I was loving life.

 Mannekin Pis eating a waffle. Amazing.

The food in Brussles was phenomenal! I absolutely loved the city and would recommend it as a nice weekend trip for anyone.



January also saw the beginning of baking adventures and getting back into an exercise routine. How hilarious that the two came at the same time! I was going to weekly spin classes, which built up over a month to multiple weekly spin classes, and I now have spin classes and running re-instated into my life. It took so long to get back into the routine, but I've finally now gotten back into the swing of things. I just need to add in some lifting sessions and I'm set! But more excitingly, here are the details on the baking adventures!!!! Ben and I have been baking from the Mary Berry book and started with a Victoria Sponge:

Delightful. We will have to make our own jam when summertime rolls around.



Paris:

I have now been to Paris twice, but still need to take a walking tour around Montmartre and go into Musee D'Orsay and L'Orangerie. I guess I'll just have to go next time!!!!

Our baking adventures at home continued with a Mary Berry Battenburg Cake (except we made pecan/spice instead of vanilla/walnut):

THIS recipe for bread and butter pudding:

THIS recipe for Buttermilk Pie:

The Mary Berry Tarte au Citron (which we sadly do not have a picture of).

And of course plenty of other delicious, non-sugar and butter based recipes.

Besides cooking and baking, we have been minorly exploring some pop-ups around Brighton. Half man Half burger pop-up and Likkle Bickle pop-up. I've only got the HMHB picture:

Besides food and travel, February also held a night of Derren Brown (a magician/ mind bender/ illusionist) and a concert with Eliza and the Bear and Luke Sital-Singh. I also, VERY EXCITINGLY, got some scholarship money for my PhD this past month!!!!! Overall, an epic start to 2014 and hopefully the rest of the year will continue this way!

October 2013 to Happy New Year!

Its 2014! And in an attempt to start anew, let's just have one huge catch up for the end of 2013 instead of keeping my horrible record of being months behind.

October:
October was full of A LOT of continued hard work at the research (to ease off of the week off for Oktoberfest), especially on a project for my co-supervisor's lab. And now, I am VERY excited to announce, I am published in my first scientific article for the work I've done. Want to read it? Click here: to access the article. I also became very immersed in teaching- besides the discussion sections that I hold, I also had 3 final year project students who I co-supervised. Finally, I became involved in the University's Athena Swan program- a women in science program that aims to increase gender diversity within the science, math, engineering, and technology fields. I am the PhD representative for the University of Sussex and have really enjoyed the work we have done so far.
Between hard work and Oktoberfest (which has already been covered, but I will still post my favorite pictures), I did try a few new things: a few new recipes (of course), a few new restaurants (of course), and read The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. I'm starting to think that my favorite classic authors are Russian... but more on that later.

Oh right, and I've also seen my first live NFL game. 49ers v. Jaguars in England! It was pretty epic, except I think I am slowly losing Ben to an NFL obsession..... haha

November:
More hard work filled November, but so did a lot of fun as well. We took a last minute trip to Prague to visit my friends Chelsea and Megan, who are teaching English there. I LOVED Prague, moreso than I thought I would, and now can't wait to see more of that part of the world. We also saw Kutna Hora, a little town outside of Prague with the infamous Bone Chapel.

 Absinthe in Bohemia!

We went to go see Kimberly Anne and Lewis Watson perform; two artists that we discovered at the Great Escape Festival back in May. We survived through all of Kimberly's set, however, once Lewis went on, I was feeling far too lightheaded and faint to continue in that tiny venue. So we unfortunately had to cut the concert short :/
Finally, the end of November brought Thanksgiving. I didn't have a typical get-together with a lot of people, but I did still make all of the delicious food. Except this time, I made it with a few new recipes. My first ever full turkey went wonderfully; it cooked perfectly and was delicious. I also made a caramelized onion sausage stuffing, American biscuits, green beans baked in bechamel, sweet potato latkes, and pumpkin pie with a maple meringue top. It was SO good.

December:
I was only in England for half of December, so was working up until the day before I flew off for the States. With the work, Ben and I did a "12 days of Christmas cookies" baking adventure. I didn't make it to all 12, but I came close. And ate way too many cookies in the process. The best cookie? Carrot cake whoopie pies with maple cream cheese frosting. Amazing. I'll be trying a banana whoopie pie recipe in the near future and am hopeful it will be even half as good as the carrot cake one.
We did make it up to London to see some of the Christmas decorations:

And then I was in California. I was in Novato/Petaluma and Santa Cruz for the first week and then in Sac with family for Christmastime.
I came back to England just in time for New Years, where Ben, Sarah, and I went to an 80s/Back to the Future themed party:

 and that's it! Now we are all caught up to January 2014!

Oh right, and the Russian author comment from before- I've decided this as I'm reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and am loving it just like The Master and Margarita. I don't know why we never read Russian authors in high school, but we should have. The writing style is wonderful and the stories are epic.
Until next time!