Sun on your Chinny Chin Chin

It might have taken 6 months, but finally the skies have cleared and the sun has decided to rear its beautiful face amidst the pasty arms, legs, shoulders, faces, necks, hands, and feet that make up the English populous. I give these folks a lot of credit though. They wear their fair skin proudly. Short shorts and cutoff tanks for girls, and apparently, shirts optional for guys. Not only that, but the many parks of London transform into big old pale exhibition-fests, with one ghost-like figure more naked then the next! It was like a real-life Rubens painting, lumpy fair-skinned crowd and all. While I enjoyed the scene in the moment, my favorite part might have come when the sun went down, riding the tube later that evening, and seeing all the metamorphosed lobster people staring back at me. Bring on the aloe vera, these English folks will be hurting for days!!

So, in honor of the recently sprung Summer-time weather, I wanted to post about the savory sweet that is Chin Chin Laboratories. What is Chin Chin you may ask? Well, take your good old periodic table of elements and slam it full force into the refreshing, milky dessert you know and love. You guessed it - Nitrogen ice cream.

Located in the heart of the grungiest hipster neighborhood of London, Camden Market’s Chin Chin Labs is Europe’s first nitro ice cream parlor where the scientists behind the counter create icy deliciousness using liquid nitrogen. I’m not going to try and explain the process but from what I remember from AP Chem, liquid nitrogen is very very cold. How’s that for a public school education?

Nitrogen.

Cold.

Will freeze things.

My AP Chem teacher, Mrs. Silver, would be so proud. (or rather Mrs. Ag, the periodic symbol for silver – funny enough, her maiden name was Au-stein or Goldstein for those not so chemically inclined. Au became Ag! That joke writes itself right there!)

I was recommended the basil chocolate chip (pronounced Baaaa-sil, like the sound a sheep makes), which is their take on mint choco chip. I was not disappointed. I know it sounds like a strange combination, herb flavored ice cream, but trust me it was good. Topped it off with some chocolate syrup and white chocolate chips and you had one satisfied science eater. Move over Friendly’s sundaes!! The pale ones’ nitro ice cream is here to stay!

English word of the day: Sun cream = a special English lifeline used to preserve the aforementioned condition which has run rampant throughout the UK. Also known as pastiness. Be careful not to miss a spot!

April swales bring Big Bumba snails

True to form, April Showers are here, but rather than bringing May flowers, I have stumbled across a new variation of the adage. Living in my wellies and permanently sheltered under my brolly, my line of vision has seldom wavered from the slippery red bricks that line the 0.7mile walk to the tube from my flat. It was with this focused gaze today that I saw not one, not two, but THREE Big Bumba snails on my way to and from work.

Tough picture, will search for a non-nocturnal one to replace this

For those who may be missing the reference here – Big Bumba (buhm-bah) is a longstanding family word, originating on, what else, the good old softball diamond. Primarily used to aid in teaching the receiving position of the first baseman, with applications to participation in run-downs as well as the act of catching stealing runners, Big Bumba was The Skip’s go-to term for describing why you needed to get out of the way of the runner. Modestly using himself as a Big Bumba example, The Skip would “barrel” down the line (by barrel I mean shuffle his feet, move his head from side to side, and wave his arms around) to mock run into/knock down whoever was standing in his way. It has since become the standard term used for any being that is extremely larger than the norm. (and in softball, they were more likely to be Bumbas than non)

It should also be noted that this was very much contradictory to everything he taught me about soccer, preaching to his little munchkin daughter “the bigger they are the harder they fall,” but that’s neither here nor there for this story.

Back to the snails. Growing up in Long Island you never would have blinked twice if you saw a monster slug crawling across your driveway, but THIS was something I couldn’t ignore.  These were the English, more proper, slightly better dressed slugs from my childhood! Seems that over here even the mollusks are stuffy and pretentious enough to always cover up with extravagant, vintage shells. 

Until this wet weather subsides I would imagine I will be seeing more of my single muscular footed, mucous layering, hard-backed friends, and I will keep a running tally, so far Snooty Snails - 3, Slum-of-the-earth Slugs - 0. I guess no one told the snails that London was in a drought right now, with the Environment Agency last week extending the drought zone up to Derbyshire (wherever that is?)?? I think Big Bumba begs to differ with that decision.

English word of the day: Put paid to = an expression which means to put an end to something. For example you could say that sun put paid to the snail invasion, meaning they stopped venturing out once it stopped raining.

First snow, the BIG FREEZE, and treacherous travel

News channels with 24-7 Superbowl hype or BBC TV with 24-7 “SEVERE” winter weather warnings…which of the two evils would you choose?

Tis true, it does in fact snow in London proper. A scenario, which, apparently is cause to shut down the entire city! Perhaps it is my fault for ignoring the warnings that were issued on the tube over the PA, at work via corporate emails, on the telly breaking into the news, and on some of my favorite British blogs, but all of these warnings were only calling for around 5cm in the city (2 inches my metrically challenges friends), 5cm MAXIMUM! The “storm” started off looking like this nice serene first snowfall…and I thought, oh how nice and British.

And it was endearing to find people roaming about the streets making street angels in the dusting that covered the road, grown men and women sticking out their tongues to catch the falling flakes. It was like these people had never seen snow before! I was appreciative of the naivete that characterized the first snowfall, and somewhat scorned the Bostonian nonchalance of trudging through 4-foot snow banks to get a cup of Dunks on a Saturday morning. As the snow continued to fall, and the men, women, and children reverted back to primary school snow days, I was somehow talked into preparing myself to make the trek south of the river to go to a friend’s birthday party followed by a night out in good old Clapham.

Clad in what I would hardly call “snow appropriate” attire, I set out through the centimeters of white stuff to get to the tube. Getting there was fine, but again I heard grumblings in the station about how they were already starting to see delays and it’s only going to get worse. Again, I ignored. After all I was Infernos bound! You don’t let a little snow stand in the way of you and London’s Greatest Disco! Off I went, and didn’t look back.

Since we started early, two of us decided we were going to try and also get an early jump on the getting home situation and try to catch the tube before it stopped running. Or so we thought. We both made it to our first train to take us to the good side of the river Thames, and parted ways while I headed to make my connection. There I was, sanding on the platform with 50+ people, and the TFL makes an announcement that, you know what, this line I need is no longer running, and we should just go ahead and find alternate transportation. What?!? It’s well past a respectable hour and I’m only at point B on the map below, and I need to get to E where my nice warm bed awaits. As a self-proclaimed tube extraordinaire, I just easily switch to another line and await the next train that will bring me closer to my final destination. 10 minutes. 20 minutes. 30 minutes go by. By this time there are about 100+ people on this new platform waiting for the train they say is coming momentarily. It finally arrives 45 minutes later, and of course it’s not the one that will take me all the way home, but I can get closer, so I sardine in and settle in for what I assume is going to be a long ride. Luckily for me, I can’t say everyone in the car would agree, but luckily, the train decided that a lot of the stops on the line are just not suitable for stopping given the “adverse weather conditions,” AKA 2 inches of snow on the tracks. Before I know it I was at the closest stop to my home I could feasibly get to via tube, point C, and it’s time to look for a cab. Of course there were none to be found… 

I set out walking to try and get myself in a position to flag one down. Feeling all Jo March-indignant as I walked through the snow to get anywhere warm, I had the ingenious idea to duck into a hotel to have the concierge call me a cab. I was desperate. What would you know? No cabs running at this time. Back to the streets.

Walking, walking, walking (only on well-lit streets, don’t worry mom and dad!) I spot a man disembarking a cab a few blocks up. SPRINTING I catch my new best friend, Cabbie. Pleading with him to drive me home I promise him a serious tip if he will bring me the rest of the way. Let it be known it was at point D I was finally rescued by my own little RMS Carpathia and I was on my way, of course not without a struggle…

Cabbie – “Lovey, I really should not be driving on these roads.”

Me – “You’ll be fineeeeeee just a little bit further” (There isn’t even enough snow to make tire tracks!)

Cabbie – “They said they were going to salt, I don’t see any salt”

Me – “Yea, you would think they would have prepared better for this.” (You don’t see any salt because there is no ice or snow to put the salt on!)

Cabbie – “I’m not going to be able to make this turn, I’ll have to let you out here”

Me – “That’s fine, thank you, get home safely.” (No big deal, I already walked 2 miles in this, what’s another 50 feet! Weenie Cabbie!)

Lesson learned, when they predict even the slightest accumulation of snow, I will be nowhere near the southern side of the river, and I certainly won’t be putting any of my good friends the cabbies in such “grave danger.”

English LESSON of the day: In light of the snowy, chilly weather I decided to make myself a cup of hot cocoa, only I decided to do a little experiment. Getting a little greedy and overly gluttonous I wanted to make my hot cocoa with milk instead of water, and seeing as my electric teakettle boiled water so quickly, why not use it for my milk? WRONG! It worked a little too quickly and I ended up with a burnt teakettle bottom and my whole flat smelling like candy floss (see previous post for definition). I was actually pleased to find out that burnt milk smells kind of nice! It could have been worse. But I did ruin my hot cocoa.

Singing in the rain

It being Christmas time and all, I have taken to planning my runs so that the route conveniently ends at a shopping venue. It’s a great way to explore, it pushes me to run a little farther than I normally would, it gives me a destination to work toward, and as I said before, it conveniently ends at a shopping venue. What happens if I find something I like, you might ask. Easy. I always carry my credit card in one pocket, and my Oyster Card in the other so that I can purchase until my little heart’s content, then hop on the train with my bags of loot for a quick ride home. System’s flawless!

Until the system break down…

So today, I got home from work, and was really not feeling the whole running thing. I started making up excuses; it’s late already, so windy, kind of cold, finale of the Young Apprentice is on…all the usual suspects. Making a compromise with myself I decided on a little run, something short, sweet, to the point and without the laborious process of having to ride the tube back post-shopping (also without the reward of some brand new goods, but I was in a low risk low reward type of place). Off I went with only my keys. I got going for a little bit, was feeling pretty good, pushed it a little more, and right when I got to my halfway point where I decided I had enough for one day and it was time to turn back, cue the waterworks! Torrential downpour. And what did I have with me? Nothing but my keys and my own two feet. Not only did I not even want to go running in the first place, but there I was halfway up the river without a paddle! London is just so silly. Out of nowhere it can just start pouring buckets? What's that all about? What is this, Boston?

That’ll teach me to force myself to run. Or better yet, I think the lesson we take away is that we always end a run at a store and take the tube home. Everyone wins.

English word of the day: When asked, what did you read in university, they are actually asking what you majored in. Easy enough to figure out but I was recently caught off guard by the question and fumbled through my answer until I landed on “economics.” They were probably thinking….yea sure, if you even went to university. Language barrier, gets you every time.