Tragedy, Curry Night, and Amsterdam

First of all, I realize I have not been on for about two weeks now. Part of the reason for the delay is to the extremely upsetting incident that took place about a week and half ago when I was on a city bus. While reading a book I suddenly realized that water was dripping from my purse. I looked inside and half of my water bottle had spilled creating a small pool at the bottom of my bag. I could go every moment of disappointment but that would just amount to a very depressing blog. So, to make a long story short, I lost my phone, camera, and iPod to this sad water bottle accident. But I've moved on.

Next - over the past few weeks I have had some amazin

g food! On Valentines Day, which also happened to be the kick-off for the Chinese New Year week of celebration, I went to China Town with most of my roommates (those of us without a Valentine) and ate at a Chinese restaurant. Although I'm guessing Chinese here is not what it is like in China, it is a lot less grease-y and fried. And the rice is better. Last thursday night we went to Brick Lane in East London, known for it's East Indian population, and had curry night. Because it was a CAPA event we ate our appetizers while listening to a former teacher talk about the poor immigrants of Brick Lane. The curry was really good and so was the rest of the four course meal!

The next day my roommate and I took off for Amsterdam. On saturday we went to a couple small towns not too far away from the city in which we learned about the process of making Gouda (and yes we got to sample about 20 different flavors of Gouda) and saw clogs. A lot of clogs. When we

got back to Amsterdam we took a boat tour to the Ann Frank house, walked around a very boutique filled street and then made our way to some museums. Unfortunately museums cost about €15 in Amsterdam (about $16.50) and they close around 5 on

Saturdays. So we hung out for a while then went to the Red Light district to see what that was all about. Before going on this trip classmates had told me this was a very scary experience and that if you took pictures pimps would come out of dark alleys, grab your camera, and throw it in the canal. Yes, prostitutes in the windows was weird and kind of gross, but it was so busy, so touristy, and had cops hanging out on the corners that I can't imagine being scared. The next morning we left Amsterdam to goto Bruges, in which our tour guide and coach driver constantly made references to the movie In Bruges. I was a very cute place with AMAZING chocolate. We got waffles covered with chocolate and fruit as well as hot chocolate. I mean every other store in this town was a chocolate shop. And the half was lace shops. By the time I got back to London I had been in four countries in one day (the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and the UK).

I leave for spring break on Friday - so yes I will be in Italy for a week (Venice, Florence, Pompei/Naples, and Rome). When I get back my wonderful friend Megan Gilmore is coming to visit me! then the weekend after that I just booked a trip to Scotland! What an exciting month March shall be! My biggest lesson so far - do not keep a water bottle in your purse.