Wales-Essex-Scotland Trip Blogging

So now my next round of traveling is through Wales, Essex, and Scotland, this time more scenic. I'm going to try to vlog/blog about this trip more properly. 

Brecon, Wales

5/24 - on a train from London to Newport, some people threw rocks at the train and a nearby(?) car, and broke (a) train window(s) and injured the driver of the car, other details unknown. anyways, had to get off at didcot and switch trains. Awkward delay. On the new train, we ended up getting to switch onto Newport, the only difference is a table and a charger. There was also a group of college frat boys/jocks (presumably) that were making a lot of racket and being assholes in general. When I finally made it into Abergavenny, I was totally lost and contemplated hitchhiking for a good half hour before finally finding the bus stop that'd take me to Brecon. 

To be continued...

Visiting Book Settings?

So, while I'm still in England/Europe, I had this goal of visiting all the places in my favorite novels, and novels/plays I've had to read in class.
Bold is places I've already visited. Italics is places I'd like to, but don't think I will this time.

The Historian:
Oxford
Lake Snagov (and monastery)
Saint-Matthieu-des-Pyrenees-Orientales

Harry Potter Series:
Warner Bros London Tour
9 3/4 Platform


Shakespeare:
Verona (Romeo & Juliet)
Elsinore (Danish castle) (Hamlet)
Globe Theatre
Stratford upon Avon

Secrets of Immortal Nicholas Flamel:
Stonehenge
Yggdrasill (?)

The Secret Garden:
Great Maytham Hall Garden, Kent

Wuthering Heights:
High Sunderland Hall?
Ponden Hall (Haworth)
Haworth
Thornfield Gothic Manor (Jane Eyre)

To the Lighthouse:
Godrevy Lighthouse
Isle of Skye

Miyazaki:
Castle in the Sky
Visby, Gotland, Sweden (Kiki's Delivery Service)
Howls Moving Castle

A Little Princess:

Dickensen:
Bleak house/Broadstairs/Kent/Margate
London (Christmas Carol)

Of course, I didn't think I'd be able to go to all of them, but I can dream on for the future?

Cooking Simple Mulled Wine Pasta

So I have a half bottle of mulled wine and really had no idea what to do with it, so I thought of cooking with it. Because mulled wine is based on red wine, I figured it could work with beef... if beef was in stock. I ended up finding out about mulled wine pasta. I surfed through a lot of online recipes before deciding on this generic recipe formula. It's actually really simple.
What I did was cook some pasta about halfway, between 4-5 minutes. It won't be done, but drain it and put in aside. Boil the leftover mulled wine with sugar and garlic for about 2-3 minutes. This reduces the mulled wine. Pour the pasta back into this mixture and continually stirring it until the pasta is cooked and the mulled wine is soaked in. Feel free to taste it as you go. And thats the basics!
You can also add in beef or other meats, and vegetables, such as cucumbers, zucchini, or broccoli.
I had added cucumbers and mine turned out looking like this:

It tasted subtly sweet and zingy, not too strong but not too bland, though I think if I had put some cheese, onions or cloves it might have popped or evened out the flavor more. 

My Cooking Progress and Commentary Vlog

So as you know. This year I'm living in a dorm, and, unlike American dorms, this British university doesn't include meal plans SO we have to learn to cook by ourselves. I've literally never cooked before coming here, so my parents had to give me a crash course and hope i'm doing alright. 

Of which is a yes and no.

Last semester, of course, was 100% experimentation. I fried chicken once really well, but never did it again. I learned to boil veggie-meat soup things, which was basically my diet for the first couple weeks. I kept screwing up boiling pasta (and it wasn't the first time, either, i constantly failed back home) until I finally figured out the heat was too high after the gazillionth fail. But my favoritest thing was figuring out how to stir-fry [ON MY FRICKIN OWN! HA! Without a cookbook!] by accident. And then my experimentation took off from there.

Unfortunately, upon return from Christmas vacation I had all sorts of technical issues, grocery stores were low on stuff I knew how to cook because of the cold and the snow (really, Britain has a serious issue with not enough imports), etc. Then I got busy, so this was what I was eating for the past couple weeks. 

Anyways, so this vlog is me showing how I cook egg fried rice. Finally got an opportunity to shoot it. It's not really a tutorial/how to cause I'm not a chef, so I'm just making pointers and comments here and there.

Here's a link to more food that I've cooked last semester: http://airanimechiic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/baby-steps-into-cooking.html

UEA Norfolk Terrace Tour

So I'm living on the campus residence/dorm called Norfolk Terrace at UEA and I've finally finally finally made a small video giving a mini-tour of my flat!

This is the floorplan that I sorta drew out because UEA decided not to provide one for some reason.. To clear up the "L" and "zigzag" thing, basically, it looks like this:

Drawing not to scale!

     Basically, I took you around in this order- starting with the entrance at #1, going into the first hallway, or shorter end of the "L" at #2, kitchen at #3, second hallway or longer leg of the "L" at #4, the bathrooms at #5, and then I walked all the way back to the yellow dot with a red arrow where my room is.

     In case you're wondering what my room looks like, this is more information and the following floor plan:

I live in room B.

And that's it! I hope you enjoyed this video or found it useful.