I, being the jaded veteran to snowy winters, often kanyeshrugged at my friends’ visceral reactions to the first snowflakes on Columbia’s campus (“SNOW!!!!!!!1111″). And, you know, I thought my blasé attitude was totally merited — until this topic of snow was brought up at work several months back. I thought Columbia was strange, but being in the company of people who had lived in California their whole lives was a total eye-opener altogether. However, as I tried to rack up memories of white Christmases in a vain attempt to prove that not everybody has been deprived of snow, I mentally came up with a list of winters past. But then I realized that I couldn’t mention the Christmas before, because I had been sweating bullets and enjoying the sunset at Angkor Wat. Nor could I mention the year before, because I had spent Christmas riding elephants in Bangkok. Or the year before, because I had just arrived in Sydney. Mid-conversation, I found myself at a loss for words, as I had to actually stop and think about the last time I had a holiday season with snow, and I eventually came to the stunning conclusion that I have not had an actual white Christmas since …

… wait for it …

… middle school.

Case in point:
2010: Vietnam, Cambodia
2009: Thailand
2008: Australia
2007: Florida
2006: Mexico
2005: Indianapolis … and it didn’t snow! Hah!
2004: Las Vegas
2003: Mexico
2002 and before: HAHAHA COME ON. All I remember was that I was in middle school and therefore, I was an irritable, pubescent teenager with a crotchety temper, an unhealthy addiction to Neopets, and an alarming tendency to rage over petty middle school drama on her LiveJournal. Anything from this time period will remain forever blotted out in my memory.

That said, if the past 8 years are anything to go by, it’s that I am presumably fated to spend the holidays in a place that Does Not Snow. Luckily, this hasn’t served as a source of bother for me, because (a) warm weather? Bring it! and (b) I don’t really buy into stereotypical holidays anyway. So obviously, it made perfectly logical sense that the 2011 family Christmas trip would take place in Bali, with a bit of time to spare in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

See, since moving to San Francisco, I was essentially in a bit of a rut up until December, travel-wise, seeing as I’m the type of person who demands a temporary change in pace every 3 months or so, lest I go stir-crazy. Besides a two-day work offsite to Monterrey and a visit to my relatives down in San Diego, I had essentially been in the same city (and okay, surrounding area) for nearly six months. And for somebody who thrives on expeditions and excursions, I was going nuts.

Now, enter Bali. Tropical island, lush, green, bursting with fauna — about as far removed from San Francisco as you could get and very much worth the eight hours of flying.

To paint a portrait of Bali requires lots and lots of green paint. No matter where you are on the island, you’re constantly immersed in a thick blanket of greenery, and for somebody who’s so used to urban landscapes and wide open seascapes (none of which are green in the slightest, at least not in a visual sense), it’s a marvel to stare outside your car window just to soak in the scenery. That, and green is my favorite color, so.

If you had to ask me to name my top five animals, monkeys would rank pretty high up there, along with cranes and tigers and dragons (shut up, dragons so count — I will always be proud of my zodiac sign!). So, of course, I was ecstatic when we went to Ubud Monkey Forest, which — surprise, surprise — is populated by a cartload of monkeys. Fun fact: the collective noun for monkeys is indeed “cartload”. Or tribe, troupe, or barrel. I think I prefer cartload.

The forest reminds me a bit of Kenya, in that the monkeys are just right there and in front of you. As cool as zoos are, it sucks that you’re usually separated from the animal by this barrier of glass, whereas in places like Masai Mara and Ubud, there’s no feeling of restriction. There were monkeys literally everywhere that I’m surprised that I didn’t catch some funky monkey disease.

When you’re in Bali, you’ll see these things a lot: tiny, handwoven baskets placed on oversized leaves. These baskets usually contain flowers, money, incense, and the like — and believe me when I say that you’ll see them everywhere: temples, doorsteps, spas, the ground. Balinese families place these spiritual offerings (prepared by the women) every morning on the ground as their way of giving thanks.

Because it’s not a Cindy post until there’s food porn, here you go.

If you ever go to Bali, you must must MUST eat suckling pig. Good suckling pig is roasted to melt-in-your-mouth perfection and the skin fried to a delicious crackle and holy SHIT, is it amazing.

Another dish worthy of note is the Bebek Bengil Crispy Duck at Dirty Duck — it’s different than the duck I’m used to (roasted Peking duck!); think less succulent, but with far more crisp.

Unfortunately, as the Bali leg of our trip was winding down, we finally experienced the true meaning of the rainy season. We had been spared the precipitation for the first few days, but man, when it rains in Bali, it really freaking pours.

A caveat when travelling to Bali: wear pants (I probably shouldn’t have to explain this one) and invest in some good insect repellent and Cortisone. I cannot stress this enough. As somebody who has served as walking, talking bait for mosquitos for well over two decades (years of living in a house shrouded by trees and slumming it in summer camps out in the woods have made me a survivor of countless mosquito bites), I can safely say that you WILL be bitten relentlessly.

Exhibit A: (Please don’t actually click this if you have extremely delicate sensibilities.) my legs after the very first day in Bali. Trust me, it did not get any better after that night. The itching got so unbearable, so I ended up scratching my legs so raw to the point where my ankles swelled to the size of grapefruits and I was limping rather pathetically to my plane from Denpasar to Singapore three days later. Not to mention, I realized that Bali is a hotspot for dengue fever, which is not exactly reassuring.

Bottom line: mosquito bites, thou art a bitch. Also, I do not have dengue fever. The end.

Anyway, one day of being a temporary cripple did little to deter me from exploring Kuala Lumpur. If you’re ever in KL, check out the Butterfly Park and the National Mosque! And wear lots of sunscreen!

There you have it! A Christmas holiday post in the dead of May — ha! In the meantime, I have to go do laundry and pack for my trip to New York. That said, I’m going to be a bit of travelling within the US over the next four weeks, for a variety of reasons that range from work to pleasure to family-related things, so if you’re going to be in the following cities, shoot me an email: New York, Seattle, Providence, Chicago, or Boston.

For those who have no clue what/where Napa is, you should watch The Parent Trap (yes, the Lindsay Lohan redux) and jog your memory.

Anyway! We were hungry (surprise, surprise), so we first grabbed lunch at Bottega:

polenta under glass

butternut squash caramelle with bosc pear, pecorino, crispy sage, brown butter emulsion and amaretti – poppy seed gremolata

This was so amazingly good that you’re going to have to suffer through a second photo. Sorry I’m not sorry.

Am I the only one who finds it kind of hilarious that there’s a Bouchon Bakery in Napa of all places? I had always associated the place with the very shiny Columbus Circle back in New York, so to see it in the middle of Napa was a bit of a pleasant surprise!

Chickens from the French Laundry farms — cluck cluck!

Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, I took my friend around the city, where we went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown:

…the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market, where we got a French toast and a halibut sandwich from Rose Pistola:

…and — of course — In-N-Out. (I still prefer Shake Shack any day, but hey — I’ll take the next best thing if I can’t have my Shackburger-minus-the-tomato.)

Anyway! On a related aside, I will actually be heading back to New York, my favorite city in the history of ever, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of, next Wednesday. I’ve missed that place something fierce, and I’ll probably express my nostalgia with my mediums of choice being retail therapy and eating ALL OF THE THINGS. It’s like performance art! Kind of!

And yes, I will be eating Shake Shack.

1. The weather is balls cold. Yeah, you could make the argument that (1) it was smack dab in the middle of February and (2) gosh, what was I even supposed to expect — 70-degree balmy weather? But even London and Edinburgh felt leagues warmer than this, even under my coat and woolly sweaters, and weirdly enough, it felt warmer during the evening than the morning.

   Okay, maybe the fact that I was on a boat during my stay might have contributed to the cold-weather feeling, but. Still.

   COLD.

2. Yes, you can get by just fine with English.

Anyway, unlike the UK, it was my first time in the Netherlands, the country that graced us with many wonderful things in life, such as speculoos, Gouda cheese, Pieter Bruegel, Rem Koolhaas, Mark Van Bommel, Arjen Robben, and Sven Kramer — so I was excited, natch. Even the fact that EasyJet tried to swindle me out of $60 because I had two pieces of hand luggage on the Edinburgh-Amsterdam flight (really, EasyJet, really?!) did little to dampen my excitement. Or the fact that we spent forever and a half trying to find the right train to take to Centraal station, because screw this — I was in Amsterdam, and I was going to enjoy this, damnit.

A train ride and fifteen minutes of lugging our suitcases across a bridge, we arrived at our hostel:

QUESTION: guess how many people can fit into this boat. You’ll see why in a few minutes!

Before you start yelling out Lonely Island lyrics at me (“I’M ON A BOAT! EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME ‘CAUSE I’M SAILING ON A BOAT!”), yes, I was on a boat. A boat that happened to be my hostel. Seriously, how many opportunities do you get to stay on a boat? This ain’t Sea World.

Pop culture references aside, there’s a certain novelty to staying in a houseboat. It’s quieter and far less intrusive than most hostels, and there’s a nice sun deck. And you get bragging rights because chances are, your accommodations are infinitely cooler than the person next to you. However, a 5-star hotel these are not. For one, the rooms are tiny. You thought hostels were cramped? Hahahaha! Try this on for size: think of the smallest dorm room your college had to offer, cut that in half, and add two people. Yep.

Okay, did you guess the number of people that boat can fit? 36, guys. Thirty-six. Kid you not.

Confession time: I might have eaten my entire weight in pancakes when I was in Amsterdam. Number of regrets? Zero.

This ain’t your typical IHOP fare — I had my banana pancake long after breakfast. Dutch pancakes are different in that they don’t have that rich, bloat-inducing fluffiness that you’d usually find in American breakfast fare, but rather a lighter, crispier feel. (In order of ascending thickness, I’d say that crepes < Dutch pancakes < American pancakes.) And they’re usually not soaked in a plate of syrup, so you could eat them straight-up without feeling like you need to chug a gallon of water. To compensate for the thinness though, the pancakes are huge, like the size of a satellite dish. In America, pancakes are rarely ever larger than a Frisbee.

Don’t get me wrong — I love my American pancakes (three guesses as to what I ate this morning, first two don’t count!) as much as the next person, but Dutch pancakes are a different specimen all their own.

Also, I love stroopwafels.

This wasn’t my first time eating a croquette (hi, Barcelona!), but man, does Van Dobben do them well. Croquettes are basically meat and potato (hee, thanks Emma!) encased in deep-fried bread crumbs — which translates to warm, savory goodness that’s a perfect pick-me-up for those cold nights when you’re absolutely starving.

Because our hostel didn’t provide Internet, we had to go to the nearby library for our wifi fix: the Openbare Bibliotheek. This, my friends, is not your run-of-the-mill library. As much as I do adore quaint, storied libraries filled with old books and history for centuries, I do love love love shininess:

Food and sports aside, a huge reason why I wanted to visit Amsterdam was because of the art. There’s like some unwritten law of the universe that wherever art museums are, I will follow. If I couldn’t fulfill my lifelong dream of living in a treehouse, I’d want to live in an art museum. Anyway, I’m kind of obsessed with Flemish painting, because it has a certain modesty, down-to-earth quality to it that translates into charm. It doesn’t overwhelm me; for one, I’ve never been a huge fan of excessively showy art, like that of Mannerism or Rococo — which is probably why I can appreciate the pared-down simplicity that has characterized most of Dutch painting. Granted, Van Gogh is probably the exception to the rule here, but damn, does he have an awesome museum devoted to him. My friend and I went to the Van Gogh Museum, which, sadly, does not allow photography, otherwise I would have spammed this post with enough Van Gogh to make you start seeing things in swirly paintstrokes forever. I did buy this postcard of Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers by Paul Gauguin, because (a) I love Gauguin and (b) I love both Gauguin and Van Gogh.

I’ve noticed with most major cities that museums tend to be clustered together — 5th Avenue/Museum Mile for New York, the Golden Triangle of Art in Madrid, and the Orangerie + Louvre + d’Orsay combo in Paris for starters — and Amsterdam is no exception. If that isn’t good urban planning, I don’t know what is. There’s the Van Gogh Museum, Stedelijk (which was closed for renovations, alas!), and the Rijksmuseum, which houses a nice but modestly-sized collection of Dutch art, mostly of the painting variety:

The famous Milkmaid painting by Johannes Vermeer.

The Night Watch by Rembrandt — it’s like my Art Humanities class revisited!

By this point, my stomach was bemoaning the fact that I hadn’t had much to eat besides breakfast from forever ago, so I gave in and got … fries. Somewhere out there, the nutrition gods were shaking their head and sighing. However! These were not just your ordinary greasy fries that you can easily get at McDonald’s or your generic fast food place. These were frites.

We went to Vlaams Friteshuis Vleminckx to order a helping of oorlog frites: (war) fries with two large dollops of peanut sauce and mayo — a wonderful mix of savory and sweet!

The funny thing about the stand is that they close at 6pm — which, from a business standpoint, makes zero sense. Let’s be real: this is perfect drunk food! Perfect. And — I mean, think about all the money you could make off of all the drunk people at stupid o’clock. The Pommes Frites stand in New York always gets ridiculous lines at 2am, and considering that Dutch nightlife is pretty happening around that time as well, you could earn so much bank. There’s some food for thought.

Anyway, our real lunch-dinner (linner? dunch?) was had at this adorable little cafe, Gartine, where they grow their own veggies and fruits in their local garden:

Even now, more than two months after the trip, I still find myself missing the Europe trip something burning. Not just because it was a fun experience, but more about the fact that I find myself more wanderlustful than ever. The thing about living in San Francisco is that it’s far more expensive to fly outside the country, a fact that I had always taken for granted when I lived in NY. Back when I lived in the East Coast, it was so easy to hunt for a good travel deal that could take you to Europe or South America or whathaveyou, but everything feels so isolated from California (and the West Coast in general). Going to another continent will take you at least 8 hours via plane. Scouring the Internet and the travel section of the bookstore for future trip ideas has become somewhat disheartening, because there are so many more logistics to consider (Are there direct flights from SFO? Should I do a red-eye flight? Do I even have enough vacation days from work?! Does this city have a Google office where I can work remotely and not squander any of my vacation days?!) and finding a good travel deal is worse than finding a needle in a haystack. Basically, I’m not entirely sure about the next time I’ll be able to travel to Western Europe again, but it will be dearly missed!

Welp, until next time!

P.S. Now that I’m finally done blogging about this trip, I realize that I’m grossly backlogged on most of the trips I’ve taken in the past few years (Bali, Italy, Greece, Hong Kong, Korea, Peru, Thailand, Turkey, Egypt — oy vey). I haven’t even edited, let alone opened, the Italy and Greece photos from the trip that I took in June 2011. I’m thinking that my next series of posts will be centered around Bali, and then I’ll (gradually) work my way back. It’ll be a challenge on how far I can overstretch my memory, but we’ll see!

P.P.S. The entire Flickr set of my Amsterdam photos can be viewed here. Clicking on the images also takes you to the full-size page.

Anyway, this past month has been super in that I’ve had quite a few college friends visit me, which means I get to play Tour Guide and shamelessly do touristy things in a very non-ironic fashion. And as much as I do love jetting off to new locales, it’s nice to have a good staycation every now and then! This particular one happened about three weeks ago in early April (see, I’m getting better at this posting-things-on-time business!):

George and I woke up bright and early to brave the hour-long line outside of Mama’s on Washington Square, a cute little brunch place that gets as much notoriety for the long line as it does for the amazing food. We got there around 9am on a Saturday (an extraordinary feat, if you think about it), and we still had to stand outside for a good hour before we were seated.

Spoiler alert: the food is actually REALLY, REALLY GOOD. And yes, worth the wait.

I had the Dungeness Crab Benedict, which is — you guessed it — eggs benedict with dungeness crab. And spinach too! And HOLY SHIT is it good in that mouth-watering, brb-I-can-go-die-happy-now calibre of good. I’m usually not a brunch person (the thought of me waking up early enough to eat brunch is a completely laughable concept), but this? This is downright porn for the taste buds.

George got the breakfast sandwich, and I might have been tempted to steal a bite off his plate if it weren’t for the fact that I have an extremely irrational dislike of tomatoes.

The weather was so nice that day that it was practically begging us to take advantage (hurr hurr) and do something that didn’t involve being a hermit and staying indoors. Not too hard of a challenge, right? Anyway, we decided to bike across this random bridge to Sausalito and Tiburon. Apparently, this bridge is really famous and tourists dig this shit:

Once we biked downhill to Sausalito, we treated ourselves to ice cream at Lappert’s, where I got a pistachio cone.

Biking to Tiburon was a relatively easy ride, though we were tempted once again by the allure of ice cream (what! It was a nice day!), this time at The Grass Shack Organic Ice Cream, where I got a honey lavender scoop. By the time we caught the ferry back to SF, our energy levels were basically feeding off of two ice cream cones. No lunch — just ice cream and breakfast that we had gotten hours ago. Yep — talk about a balanced diet.

Once we were back in SF, we went to Gigi’s Sotto Mare, mostly because George wanted to try the cioppino, which is rumoured to be the best in the city. He seemed to agree:

Unsurprisingly, we passed out before 11pm that day. Now keep the old geezer jokes to yourself.

The next day was relatively low-key, as our asses hurt from all the biking. Since I live relatively close to Japantown, we walked over to the Japantown Center and grabbed lunch at Maki:

We then took a bus to Chinatown, where we checked out a bunch of the shops and bought some egg tarts, before I went to arguably the best concert of my life: Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel fame. Let’s just say that every single expectation I had was completely blown out of the water and I have been forever ruined into thinking other concerts will be just as great as this one. Hearing your absolute favorite song of all-time (and your absolute favorite album of all-time) live? That’s mind-blowing in and of itself. Also, the fact that he performed April 8th on April 8th? Priceless.

So, yeah. The verdict stands: it was a good weekend.

You’d think a one hour flight would be a relatively painless affair, but in our case, getting from London to Edinburgh turned out to be a bitch and a half. For starters, there was the long train ride to Gatwick airport at butt o’clock in the morning. Actually, it was earlier than any reasonable morning hour, so let’s make that the butt crack of dawn. Annoying, but fair enough, considering we wanted to have the entire day in Scotland. Then, in the middle of our inspecting our luggage and checking our tickets, EasyJet arbitrarily closed check-in earlier than the time listed on our ticket, which meant that only one of us was able to get on the flight. Several WTFs and moments of squabbling and extraneous transfer fees later, they put my friend on a later ticket, so I ended up with a few hours to spare in Edinburgh alone.

Unfortunately, that was not my only horrific experience with EasyJet during this trip (more to come later in Amsterdam), but honestly? At this point, it’s neither here nor there, so moving on! Anyway, I got to Edinburgh, took the bus to Princes Street (the main shopping street in the city), took another bus to the hostel, checked in, dropped off the suitcase, walked through the Meadows and back to Princes Street, and grabbed lunch because I was starving and sleep-deprived at this point.

Lunch was had at Urban Angel, a cute little cafe with an emphasis on seasonal/fresh ingredients. I ordered a mighty delicious pumpkin and butternut squash risotto with mushrooms and topped it off with a warm cup of hot chocolate. The wait took a while, much to the chagrin of my stomach, but it gave me some downtime to find some places to visit while waiting for my friend to fly in.

After walking around for a bit, I decided to check out some of the museums, mainly the National Museum of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. The former is a bit hard to describe, as it’s part history museum, part natural science museum, part technology museum, and everything else in between (taxidermy, mummies, and computers — oh my!). A total smörgåsbord as far as museums go, but that’s what makes it interesting!

As for the National Gallery, they’ve got a small but decently-sized collection devoted to portraits. Unfortunately, they don’t allow photography, so no pictures from my end. However! If you’re into art, it’s definitely worth exploring — it’s free, too!

After going shopping on Princes Street, the lack of sleep was starting to kick in (stupid morning flights), so I went back to the hostel and took a nap to rest up — which was good timing, because my friend had flown in. As for the next day, I woke up bright and early with a singular goal in mind: visit The Elephant House.

Before you ask the three obvious questions (“Why?”, “What’s an elephant house?”, “There are elephants in Edinburgh?”), this probably merits a bit of backstory.

Anybody who’s ever known me in good capacity knows that I am a diehard Harry Potter fan. It is the one thing that can turn me into a shameless sap and the one thing where I can stay up for hours during the late night reading a 700-plus page book and the one thing that will convince me to wait an entire day for a midnight premiere. In terms of personal/emotional investment, I owe J.K. Rowling a shit ton, basically. So obviously, I had to make the pilgrimage to the Elephant House, the cafe where JKR wrote Harry Potter way, way back in the day. For any HP fan, this is like Mecca.

As much as I love a good peanut butter and banana toast and a pot of Earl Grey for breakfast, the real highlight for me was going to the bathroom.

…which sounds incredibly disturbing and insulting on so many levels, the more I think about it. (Sorry, Elephant House!) However! The bathroom is actually famous for good reason:

Harry Potter fans like to scrawl their messages of thanks and gratitude to the goddess herself, J.K. Rowling, on the walls of the bathroom. The notes range from the sappy and heartwarming to the downright hilarious to the so-esoteric-only-hardcore-HP-fans-would-understand (“Always.”), but they make for the best bathroom reading ever. Screw magazines and newspapers. If you ever go, be sure to check out the bottom half of the right wall of the girls’ restroom for my humble contribution:

Looking at these photos, I regret not taking a Sharpie with me — alas!

After breakfast, my friend and I went up to Edinburgh Castle, where we got some fantastic views of the city.

And because it’s near impossible to talk about Scotland without at least one mention of haggis, I will say that yes, I ate haggis. And I liked it. (And no, it did not taste like cherry Chapstick.) I mean, I get that it’s not for the faint of heart or the pickiest of eaters (when’s the last time you had a craving for sheep’s stomach?), but then again, you’re talking to somebody who’s eaten fried scorpions and deep-fried grasshoppers without a single fig to give. So needless to say, we ended up ordering a plate at The Amber and finishing the entire thing, along with whisky to boot.

Before we flew to Scotland, I was told by my friend Sabrina to get a deep-fried Mars Bar, and while I’m not one of those deep-fry-happy people, I figured why the hell not. It took a bit of Googling and walking, but we finally found a random fish fry and got our 28 billion calories’ worth of gooey, deep-fried, chocolatey goodness. Much, much better than a deep-fried Twinkie, but as far as deep-frying goes, Oreos still reign supreme for me.

With everything checked off our proverbial to-do list, we did a lot more walking around with a bit of time to kill before our flight. My friend (the politics geek) took us to the Scottish Parliament where we got to sit in on a parliamentary debate, before we got reminded of our days in high school forensics. While exploring Edinburgh’s many closes (I wish the US had these!), we stopped by the Writers’ Museum, which is focused on Burns, Scott, and Stevenson. After a bit of window shopping, we repacked our bags for the next (and sadly, the last!) leg of our trip — Amsterdam!

Also, as a sidenote, all of my Edinburgh photos can be viewed here! You can also view all my UK photos here.

Such was my dilemma the night before London, when I tried to rack up a to-do list of sorts. But aside from Stonehenge, the Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Tate Modern, and London Fashion Week, nothing really jumped out at me. I mean, sure, I could go museum hopping (British Museum! V&A! Tate Britain! Oh my!), revisit places like Buckingham Palace, and/or do lots of walking around the city, as I’m usually wont to do, but for the sake of time constraints and the soles of my feet, I took it easy this time around. That’s what I love about London: the way the city generously expands and contracts to fit your schedule, whether you want to stuff your itinerary with every tourist destination known to man and Lonely Planet or throw caution to the wind and just amble around to your heart’s content. In short, this translates to a lack of touristy things in this post (if that’s what you’re interested in, I’ve got photos from my first trip here for your perusal!) — save for the photo below of this totally random clock and Stonehenge (more later on that!).

Getting to Stonehenge was tricky (for me, at least!), as living in New York, San Francisco, and Shanghai has spoiled me into thinking that visiting any tourist destination is easy as taking a subway and boom, you’re there. Unfortunately, that’s not necessarily the case with Stonehenge. Googling “how to get to stonehenge from london” the night before resulted in lots of head-scratching and “Sooooo, I take the train from London to Salisbury, but how the hell do I get from Salisbury to Stonehenge?!” and inevitable confusion on my part. And if you’re anything of a late sleeper like I am, chances are, you’re probably going to miss the last Stonehenge tour bus by the time you even arrive in Salisbury. Bummer.

But fear not! I ran into a few people at the train station who were in the same boat as I was (tourists who barely had an inkling of what they were doing, save for the fact that they wanted to visit Stonehenge), and we split a cab, which was actually a good move on our part, seeing as a) it’s faster, b) the driver gives you 30 min at Stonehenge and drives you back to the station (trust me, you’ll hardly need more than half an hour), and c) you don’t feel obligated to go on those guided tours. So! For future tourists to Stonehenge, that’s your answer to your Google query: take a cab from Salisbury.

Right! Stonehenge! Basically, it’s set up so that you’re walking in a circle around the stones — pretty straightforward stuff. The stones aren’t quite as monolithic as I’d expected them to be — either that, or I’ve just been raised on too many travel features that give me unrealistic expectations of manmade wonders. It’s kind of like that feeling when you see the Mona Lisa in the Louvre for the first time, where your brain automatically makes the connection between greatness and size and thus believes that the most talked about painting in the world is this giant ass canvas, but you finally get to the painting, only to find that it’s about as average-sized as any old painting could be, and you go, “Wait, what.” because you expected to be physically floored by this masterpiece, and you’re … not. Still, though, Stonehenge is a masterpiece, and it’s interesting to frame it in its historical context and imagine the crazy mechanics that must have taken place for any person to have created it. Either that, or I’ve spent way too much time in engineering school.

Other noteworthy things include visiting the Tate Modern (I could spend forever and a half at the Poetry and Dream exhibit, but for your sake, I’ll spare you all of the fluttery feelings I have for de Chirico.) …

… and catching the shows at London Fashion Week! The perfect place to people watch and pretend that you’re a credible photographer, hah! I saw Kanye at Mark Fast, which was all kinds of crazy for the fashion photogs, but unfortunately, I only managed to walk away with a blurred snapshot of the back of his head. This, my friends, is why I would fail as a member of the paparazzi.

And of course, there is no such thing as a proper travel post unless there’s at least one gratuitous food photo. We all know the bad rep British food gets (so bland! so uninspired! &c.), but let’s be real — when I’m hungry, I honestly can’t be arsed to care less.

Ironically, my first meal at Wagamama was actually in Boston (shhh!), but I’ll always associate it with London. Say what you want about chain restaurants, but Wagamama has a special place reserved in my heart for their Ginger White Chocolate Cheesecake alone. I was spectacularly hungry that night (to frame this in context, it was around 10pm and my stomach was crying tears of anguish by that point, which translated into the most unattractive stomach growling in the history of ever), so I got the Yasai Katsu curry, which is eggplant, butternut squash, and sweet potato encrusted in katsu and glazed in curry. Even as I type this entry at like, 9am, I now have a ridiculous craving for sweet poatoes that I never knew I had before. Hrrrm.

And scoff all you want, but I love Pret A Manger. Now this is interesting, because I associate Pret with New York, despite its British roots. Back when I used to intern in Midtown in 2009, I used to grab a Chicken Avocado sandwich, Blueberry Yogurt Parfait, and a LOVE bar from one of the many Prets scattered acrossed the neighborhood before I’d have to knuckle down for work in the afternoon. Ahh, nostalgia! Since moving to California, I’ve had a gaping Pret-shaped hole in my heart that I feared would never be filled — until I went on this trip and was reunited with my favorite grab-and-go sandwich and ultra-cute packaging! The one downside is that the British version of the Chicken Avocado contains yogurt dressing instead of Balsamic, but pahhh, a Pret sandwich is a Pret sandiwch is a Pret sandwich. Also, it makes for good food to bring along the train ride, am I right?

You know, now that I think about it, I think I used London as a way to experience all the things that I miss about New York: Pret, Fashion Week, MUJI — yes, MUJI! My favorite favorite favorite store — I could seriously live in a MUJI world where all the furniture is made of light beech wood and everything is written with a .5mm pen and everything is either clear or white or light brown and I could die happy.

I ended up tagging along with my friend to go to Fortnum & Mason, and the visit was worth it for the packaging alone — a lovely juxtaposition of old-fashioned and modern!

On our last day in London, my friend and I went to Sheba in Brick Lane for some good ol’ Indian food, as evidenced by this photo of naan. For those who have never had naan before, it is like the god of all carbs.

…and of course, I couldn’t leave England without having an actual scone with clotted cream!

I suppose what I’m trying to say is: HOLY SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS I MISS MY TRIP ALREADY.

But perhaps I’m putting the cart before the horse here. Basically, I spent the last week and a half in London (with a brief stop in Oxford!), Edinburgh, and Amsterdam visiting old friends and new places. And yes, it was awesome, as most vacations of the sort are wont to be. In fact, so awesome that I feel magically compelled to blog about it! So hah! I will begin!

The story basically goes: there were two friends that went to the same college in New York. After graduation, the two left NY in opposite directions; one (that’s me!) headed to California and the other (my friend) hopped across the pond to Paris. After milling over the possibility of one day meeting up during a vacation break, the two friends decided that Europe would be a good stomping ground for such an endeavour. After narrowing the cities down to London, Edinburgh, and Amsterdam (London because my friend wanted to escape the problem of a language barrier, Amsterdam because I wanted to go somewhere completely new¹, and Edinburgh because we both wanted to visit something Harry-Potter-centric like the shameless nerds we are), the two decided to squeeze in a bit of time to visit another college friend in Oxford. And thus began this trip!

After heading to the airport straight from work on Friday the 17th, I embarked on the ten-hour flight from SFO to Heathrow.² Half an hour prior to landing, I woke up on the groggier side of things, and as tempting as a nap in the airport would have been, I had learned from previous experience³ and decided to suck it up, brave the infamous rain (funny, I actually didn’t experience that much!), and head out to Oxford to visit my friend.

To preface this, this was my first time in Oxford, the first time in a while where I wasn’t surrounded by an urban jungle, and dear god, the first time since May (aka my graduation) where I’ve stepped foot in an academic environment. And to think, less than a day ago, I was basking in the Bay Area with all its cutting-edge technology, yet here I was, surrounded by buildings older than the entire city of San Francisco, droves of college students (even less than a year later, it’s hard to fathom that I was one of them!), and so much greenery. Sure, the Bay Area has its picturesque moments at times, but that descriptor is much more suited for Oxford. It was lovely traipsing around town, especially when we visited the different colleges (Christ Church and Balliol come to mind). That night, we got dinner at The Eagle and Child; fans of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis might recognize the name, since the pub served as a local haunt during their Oxford days. For me and my friends, the fact that we hadn’t eaten since our flight finally caught up with us, and we were, quite frankly, starving.

That’s the beef and vintage ale pie that my friend ordered. I got fish and chips, and my other friend ordered the Cumberland sausages and mash. (Of course we couldn’t go one day without getting standard pub fare!)

The next morning was followed up by more walking and more oohing and ahhing over the prettiness that is Oxford. We were due to head back to London for the afternoon, but not before we grabbed a nice breakfast at Quod.

I frankly didn’t care for the tomatoes⁴, but sunny-side-up eggs? Black pudding? Yep, I can dig that.

—–
footnotes:

¹ This was my second time in London but my very first time in the other two cities.

² Can I just say that one of the major downsides to living on the West Coast is that flying out of the country just seems more and more unappealing the more I think about it? For one, everything takes at least eight hours. It’s 9+ hours to get to East Asia, 9+ hours to get to South America, and 10+ hours just to get to the edge of Western Europe! And yeah, let’s not get started on Africa and Australia. Then you factor in the cost difference, which — if you compare to a flight from New York — is enough to make anybody sigh exasperatedly.

³ Experience #4829, filed under Experiences I Prefer Not to Repeat Again: The last time I went to London, back in spring 2009, my return flight was at the buttcrack of dawn, and since the subways close early, I basically had to take a late night cab to Heathrow and wait until the check-in counter opened. And because I was pretty much in a non-functional due to the early hour, I ended up giving up all pretense and sleeping on the floor. Of the airport. While hugging my suitcase. For two hours.

⁴ Anybody who knows me well is more than familiar with my extreme aversion to tomatoes. That is all I have to say on the matter.

Guess what, kids! I’m moving to San Francisco (!!!!!!). I know I mentioned a few months ago that I’d be moving to Austin, but a little over a week ago, the company transferred me to their main headquarters in Mountain View, CA, so it looks like I’m going to be an official California resident! So, basically, same company, different office. The whole move both excites and stresses me out, seeing as I’m leaving for Sanfran in less than 24 hours to pick out apartments and more importantly, get my shit together. Yeah. The past few days have been spent scouring Craigslist ads and broker sites, both with varied results.

In an ideal world, I’d have a place secured by my start date, which got pushed back to July 25th. But of course, that might be asking for a lot. We’ll see. Am I excited? Of freaking course, even if my excitement often gets eclipsed by OH SHIT WHAT DO I DO WITH MY SELF.

P.S. I’m a bit of a Bay Area noob, so if any of you Californians have suggestions, tips, recommendations (food, shopping, etc), whathaveyou — I’m all ears.

a) I am not in Europe right now! I am in school as of this very minute and thus I do not spend every week travelling the world. That would indeed be a Very Nice Life, but I go cantankerous over midterms and problem sets, too! resting at home before I start work, which means I have ample Free Time to post the last of my photos and berate myself for being a lazy oaf and not posting this sooner.

b) I’m the type of person who draws things out, literally and figuratively. The latter means that I am obscenely late when it comes to travel-blogging. At this rate, you’ll be reading about Portugal in May June (ha ha freaking HA!) and my college graduation two years after the fact (okay, I actually posted about this in time, so no complaints here).

I feel like it’s almost necessary to preface this post by telling you about food. Out of all the three cities, Barcelona had the best food options, hands down. I mean, sure, we marvelled at the splendor that is Antoni Gaudi and we probably had our most relaxing time just lazing about on the beaches of Barceloneta, but YOU GUYS. THE FOOD. If anything, you simply must get Iberian ham in Spain. I don’t even like ham back in the States, and I was already missing jamón ibérico by the time I packed up my bags. And patatas bravas. More on that later in this post.

DAY 7 (03/17):

Anyway. Barcelona. By the time our plane landed, we were already craving dinner. Lugging our suitcases across town from the airport didn’t exactly put us in the highest of spirits, and by the time we finally finished unloading our suitcases at the hostel, I just wanted a bloody sandwich. Or something to make my stomach shut up. This is the part where a cute little vegan restaurant named Juicy Jones enters the picture.

Yes, I got my sandwich. And then some. Juicy Jones was one of my favorite eats in Barcelona, and I ain’t even vegan. I got a nice tofu sandwich and a Sweet Kryptonite milkshake made of soymilk, avocado, and pistachio. This isn’t your typical vanilla or chocolate milkshake, but it’s just one of those things that just somehow works.

The rest of the night consisted of dessert-hopping, which quickly devolved into drinks at Glacial, a pretty relaxed bar that seemed relatively popular with the locals. All I can say is, thank goodness Barcelona sleeps late, because if there’s one gripe I have about travelling, it’s waking up at butt o’clock in the name of sightseeing.

DAY 8 (03/18):

Our second day of Barcelona was aptly named Gaudi Day, seeing as we pretty much devoted the entire day to oohing and ahhing over the works of one Antoni Gaudi. This meant that we were basically traipsing the entire length of Barcelona to catch each one of his buildings. The amount of walking was a total clusterfuck for the soles of our feet, but seeing the architectural genius that is Gaudi? Totally worth it.

Midday was had at Parc Güell, an actual park fashioned by Gaudi. The buildings in the park resemble gingerbread houses (see above), what with the colorful detail and twisting, organic lines. As much as I was looking forward to it, the swarms of people that pervaded the park kind of dampened my experience, but those are just my hermit tendencies talking, not me. Womp-womping aside, the thing I like about Gaudi’s architecture is his sense of whimsy. He’s good at knowing exactly where to insert a jolt of color or a ripple. Just look at some of the details, like the colorful mosaics and the patterns!

The ceiling in Parc Güell

Another detail on the ceiling

Next up was Casa Vicens, one of Gaudi’s earliest works. I honestly can’t get enough of the clashing floral and checkered patterns.

After a fair bit of walking, we headed to Casa Calvet. My favorite part of the building is the balcony design; I love how the balconies flare out elegantly from the building. And I’m in like with the hints of mint green! Also, how lovely are those windows?

The next building up was Casa Milà. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of construction around the building, so it was hard for me to take a snapshot, let alone feel inspired to venture up to the roof. We also hit up Palau Güell and the Picasso Museum before heading to the Boqueria Market in search of food.

As colorful and lively as the market was, we were particularly craving food in the form of tapas, so off we went to Lonja de Tapas for dinner.

DAY 9 (03/19):

Because the day before wasn’t terribly forgiving for the soles of our feet, we decided to take it relatively easy this time around. We took the subway to Montjuïc, a green, hilly neighborhood with amazing views of the city. We hit up the Fundació Joan Miró, a museum devoted to Miró (duh) and his contemporaries with some really neat installations, and the Olympic Stadium before soaking in the amazing views at the Castell Montjuïc.

From there, we took a cable car down to the shoreline at Barceloneta, where we snacked on jamón-flavored chips and watched the sun set on the beach. All in all, a pretty relaxing day.

For dinner, we got coffee and the famed Iberian ham sandwich (famously dubbed the “Best Sandwich in the World” by Mark Bittman) at Cafe Viena. Because obviously you can never get enough of the rich, succulent goodness that is quality Iberic ham.

DAY 10 (03/20):

This was our last day in Barcelona and our last day of our vacation, period. We didn’t actually do anything, except eat, eat, and — well, eat. We had all slept in from the night before, which meant that by the time we hit up Bar Tomas way up north in Barcelona, the clock was already approaching the early afternoon. Which is a good a time as ever to indulge in patatas bravas, yes?

For those who have not heard of patatas bravas, they’re basically fried potato chunks draped in creamy mayonnaise and hot sauce. It hardly sounds groundbreaking as a must-eat dish (pommes frites, anyone?!), but one fry, and it’s basically hook, line, and sink. Pairing it up with beer was definitely a good move. Bar Tomas itself was pretty nice; even during a lazy afternoon, I was still rubbing elbows with locals as we stuffed our faces with croquettes and sausages and the like.

Within walking distance was a cute little pastry shop called Foix de Sarrià that had some mighty delicious desserts on display.

After lazing about on the beach (again) and running about in an unsuccessful bid for a relatively affordable paella dinner, we finally settled on Cervecería Catalana, a tapas restaurant. To say we went all out would be a bit of an understatement:

Fried artichokes

Fried squid

Stuffed red pepper

Baked Camembert

Mushrooms

Seafood risotto — easily my favorite of the bunch

As we split a pitcher of sangria, we were overstuffed, but honestly, it was the perfect Last Supper. And so ends my spring break trip, three months after the fact. COUGH. Either way, it’s been real, Spain and Portugal. Peace.

P.S. All of the photos from my trip are here, if you want to have another look!

a) I am not in Europe right now! I am in school as of this very minute and thus I do not spend every week travelling the world. That would indeed be a Very Nice Life, but I go cantankerous over midterms and problem sets, too! resting at home before I start work, which means I have ample Free Time to post the last of my photos and berate myself for being a lazy oaf and not posting this sooner.

b) I’m the type of person who draws things out, literally and figuratively. The latter means that I am obscenely late when it comes to travel-blogging. At this rate, you’ll be reading about Portugal in May June (ha ha freaking HA!) and my college graduation two years after the fact (okay, I actually posted about this in time, so no complaints here).

DAY 4 (03/14):

Out of the three cities we visited, I’m quite certain that Lisbon was the prettiest of the bunch. I might even go so far as to wager that Lisbon’s the prettiest city I have ever visited in Europe.¹ Sorry, Barcelona, but as much as I nerd out over amazing architecture, Gaudi doesn’t really compare to the easy-breezy charm that is Lisbon. “Strolling” around the city is akin to navigating a labyrinth. Screw grid streets; Lisbon is all organically sloped hills, limestone buildings that layer on top of one another, and stone staircases that meld nicely with the narrow, cobbled alleyways. Not to mention, there’s antique trams, the castles, the oceanside views, and the egg tarts. Not once did we take the subway. After all, it would have been almost insulting to experience the city underground when all of your outside surroundings are like a photographer’s treat.

This? This was the window view from our hostel.

…and this was the back view.

…and if you walked further back, you would have gotten a view akin to this one. Seriously, Lisbon. HOW ARE YOU SO PHOTOGENIC.

Oh yeah, did I mention antique trams?

We had just flown in from Madrid, so we only had the afternoon and evening to spare. We headed to Belem to visit all the monuments and museums, made our way to Parque das Nações to drool over the waterside scenery, and grabbed dinner in the Chiado area.

DAY 5 (03/15):

That day, we woke up bright and early so we could make our way up to Castelo de São Jorge, a medieval castle built on the top of the city. Did I mention that I love castles? And amazing views? I did most of the navigating, but I definitely didn’t mind; in fact, it was quite fun to find the hidden stairways and curved roads drawn on our map. We took a tram up the hill and then trekked up to the castle, which provided us with some of the best views this side of the Atlantic.

DAY 6 (03/16):

We were only afforded a few hours to spare in the morning, as we had an afternoon plane flight to Barcelona that we had to catch. Not content with lazing about in the hostel, we took a ferry across the water to Cacilhas, where we traipsed about in our surroundings.

ANYWAY. Lisbon. If you ever consider going, all I have to say is DO IT DO IT DO IT. Your camera will thank you! In fact, you’ll probably go, take a bunch of photos like the boss tourist you are, pilfer through your memory card, and be like, “HOT DAMN.” at all your picturesque, made-for-postcard snaps.

Also, do you like egg tarts? Yes? Then you’ll love it. No? Well, get one in Lisbon, and you’ll change your mind and once you get back home, you’ll be craving those bad boys like you never even thought possible.

¹: Tall bet? Feel free to prove me wrong! After all, I’ve barely begun to cover most of Europe.