Tips for Study Abroad European Travel

I’ve mentioned this before, I’m alright with the occasional pandering. That’s because my London Study Abroad posts, specifically my tips and what to wear and the most viewed posts on this blog. Why? Well, I like to think the tips are helpful! But, really there aren’t many lists out there for people making the leap across the Pond.

Another important aspect of studying abroad in Europe is of course TRAVEL! There are so many amazing places to go and so little time and money to see them all. That’s why I’ve enlisted the help of a few of the girls I lived with in London to help me out. Between us we’ve been to nearly 20 countries in Europe (That’s including all four separate countries in the UK.) This is the first post with a little help from Laura, Julie, Mary-Kate, and Beth. 

 I’ve compiled some of our place specific tips including where to travel, how to travel, and where to stay.

Best cheap airlines:

Ryan Air

Wizz Air for Eastern Europe

Air BNB

Once in the lifetime travel:

Eurostar to Paris

Why? Because the view from the window is incredible. The Eurostar, also known as the Chunnel, takes you directly into the heart of the city, unlike the Paris airport which is over an hour outside the city. The Eurostar isn’t cheap but it’s definitely worth it to take from St. Pancreas to Paris. It also goes to Amsterdam.

Ferry to Ireland from London

Why? Beth says it was one of the most fun things she did and you can also get very reasonable rates.

Best places to Stay:

Our Apartment in Prague with full kitchen, etc.

Apartment Share- apartmentsapart.com, how we got an amazing apartment in Prague.

Hostels- just make sure if they certified from a hostel website. Depending on what city you are visiting they can vary from $15-$75 a night per person. Also, if you are traveling with a group of 4-5, try to get a private room by booking all the beds together so your personal items are more secure.

Favorite Blogs, Tips, and Websites:

Beth's favorite blog, The Londoner

Top 15 Packing Tips from the College Tourist

Packing Advice for London

College Fashion's Packing Tips for London

Great London Study Abroad Pinterest Board

Packing Advice from Real American and Canadian Women

Real London Reflections:

Musings from my friend, Kara@ Food Baby Blog

Travel Reflections from Julie

Mary-Kate's Reflections

That Time I Studied Abroad Musings

My Own London Tips

My Own London Packing Advice

Tips from my travel buddies:

“Check out local places like coffee shops and just hang out. It really allows you to be immersed in the culture and see what the people around you are like!” -Laura

“I'm also a huge fan of trains.  Traveling by train is a wonderful experience because you can see a lot of the countryside (or the town or city) in a way you might be able to on a bus or a plane."- Mary-Kate

“One of my favorite things to do in London was go to markets! All of them. Definitely just go to a museum and after you finish, just get lost around the neighborhood.  you're more likely to find a hidden gem that way.”-Beth

           

       “Getting lost can be the perfect opportunity to find the best hidden gems (as long as you it is a safe place of the city to get lost in...).  I also agree that Markets are the best thing - taste test your whole way through and buy your favorite things!”- Mary-Kate

Favorite places to travel:

“Ireland is a country I found, in particular, that it was really easy to talk to the locals and those are the people that sometimes have the best advice.  If for nothing else it is nice to just have another person to talk to when traveling.” –Mary-Kate

“(We knew people who) stayed in a hostel on a houseboat in the Amsterdam canal which sounds so cool, I wish we did that.”- Julie

“For students, look for as many deals as you can. We got into all the ruins and museums in Athens for free with student IDs.”- Julie

Julie’s place specific Advice:

Amsterdam:

“Definitely go to the Anne Frank House (but try to go early to avoid the crowd). We went to the Van Gogh museum, which was great.”

Brussels:

-Everything is expensive...

- We randomly went to the European Union museum and I loved it, I wish we could've stayed longer. And it was free!

Munich:

- Go to the BMW factory! I have little to no interest in cars but it was really cool and cheap. You have to call to get tickets, which is kind of weird but just Google it.

- We went to Dachau concentration camp, which was very somber but fascinating

- Definitely go to a beer hall

- Walk through Englisher Garten. See if you can find the artificial wave where people surf, we watched for like a half hour...

- I think in the summer you can do stuff in the Olympic park

Berlin:

- there's all the usual stuff, Berlin Wall, WWII memorial, Checkpoint Charlie. Don't go to the checkpoint Charlie museum, not worth it

- The holocaust museum is great.

- We rented bikes and went all the way to the 1936 Olympic stadium. If it's open do a tour.

- Get Black Forest cake! It's the national dessert.

Come back soon for advice on Eastern Europe, Morocco, and more!

WIAW turns 21! Easter Weekend

This last week has been particularly hectic for me as my time here in London comes to an end. Last Wednesday after my final exam I had to rush to meet my mum, Mackenzie, and Jon who just arrived in London that morning. We have seen so much during their short trip and I was happy they got to see London as I have been lucky enough to these past few months.

Since then I have only checked my email twice and could obviously not blog thanks to no hotel internet and a ridiculously busy schedule. So do to that this will be a short-ish post.

On the upside we have seen quite a bit and eaten even more. Over the Easter holiday we visited with my Aunt Janet and Uncle Maurice in the village of Fairlight in Sussex County on the Southern coast of England. We stayed in an adorable little B&B right down the hill from their house and were served full English Breakfasts every day! (Mine without the bacon or sausage of course) From Saturday to Tuesday we were stuffed to the gills with delicious homemade meals, afternoon teas, and treats from my Aunt. This would have been the highlight of the trip if the company wasn’t so fabulous! (Which is was.)




To top it off, lots of fruits and veggies for the April WIAW challenge too!

Here are some of the amazing meals we were given over the Easter weekend:

Saturday

Late Lunch

Coronation Chicken tea Sandwiches and Prawn Mayonnaise sandwiches

Smoked salmon and mushroom pates, bread, crackers

fresh strawberries, tomato salad, crisps, Spanish frittata

Dinner

Poached Salmon in Watercress cream sauce

Potato cakes

Salad with pomegranate seeds and vinaigrette

Cava

Sunday

Lunch

Fish and Chips in Rye

Dinner

Herb marinated chicken, crispy oven potatoes, roasted vegetables

Red cabbage and Cucumber salad

Monday

Mocha at the De Le Warr Art gallery and community centre

Lunch

Penne Alla at Simply Italian in Rye

Tea Time

More fabulous food and tea of course.

Dinner

Various elements of the weekends’ meals with the addition of fresh salads and a pecan apple tart.

We had such a lovely trip despite the awful rainy, windy, cold weather that my family has seemed to have brought with them to break up the two week heat wave in England. Thanks a lot! But the best bits are all do to my Aunt and Uncle who worked so hard to show us around and make us feel at home. Luckily the next time we will see them will be next summer for my wedding rather than the ten year gap that preceded this visit (and my time here this semester.)

A quick preview of some other highlights from my family’s visit:

Coach trip to Hampton Court, (Stonehenge again, ugh) and amazing Bath (for a split second!)

The Warner Brothers Harry Potter Tour! Ahhh magical!!!

Windmills

Family


The busy schedule continues! I hope that Friday I can recap more of our visit, my recipe for curry quinoa and sweet potatoes, and announce my London giveaway! Come back Friday to see what I am giving away to one lucky reader! It’s pretty good if I do say myself!

Enjoy!


Love,

The College Cuisiner

WIAW #18: Greenwich and getting in my Greens

When thinking about how to incorporate more “green" into my week it felt like the perfect time to tell you all about my trip to Greenwich just outside London. It definitely goes with the WIAW Green theme.

I’ve definitely been consciously considering how many greens and vegetables I pack into every meal and been doing pretty well with it even though I do love vegetables already!

In addition I am just not eating meals like this:

But back to Greenwich.

This is just on the edge of the city but feels forever away. It has trees and a park! Yes, I currently live 5 minutes from Kensington Park but this is different, so nice.

It has a village feel with a proper town center and a great line of shops that seem like it’s from another area: butcher, cheese shop, vegetable monger, and flower store all in a row. I’m not sure if it is technically “outside” London but it definitely acts and feels that way. Lovely!

We met some lovely people and took a walk around in celebration of Mary Kate’s 21^st birthday. We briefly went inside the National Maritime Museum and around walked outside of the Royal Observatory.

It was just too beautiful a day to be in doors.

I’ve realized that sometimes I tend to oversimplify my travel and let the photos do the talking. Because of that I thought it might be a good idea to give you something to fill in the gaps. My roommate Mary Kate has her own blog that is dedicated to her time abroad. Since we are normally together, she tends to write more and just as much about what I do. If you what some more info and just a generally good read, check out her blog at Living London.

Funny enough we’ve been celebrating this girl’sbirthday all weekend but hey you only turn 21 once, and she got to do it here. If you do stop by please wish her a happy 21^st, and tell her I sent you!

After working up an appetite we went to a little teashop called Royal Teas because the street is was on was called Royal Hill. Clever tea people.

They had a “Cream tea” for only £6.95 but strangely it looked more like a full tea trolley to me, tea, two salmon, cucumber, and cream sandwiches, large fruit scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam, and a piece of homemade cake at the end! Can’t get better than that! Everything here was decent price but I suppose that is what happens when you get a little outside London, things are so not so ridiculously overpriced here. This was lunch and we were so full we had to order the cake takeaway. When I told the people from my program they couldn’t believe we found a full tea this cheap. Winning!

For a good review on this adorable place check out a blog post from the Greenwich Phantom.

I want to show you our lovely tea and my other green meals from yesterday and today so I will start in order.

Two pots of Loose leaf Earl Gray

Salmon, Cucumber, and Cream cheese tea sandwiches (full sized to me) with lemon and salad garnish, which I put in my sandwiches

Large fruit scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam

One piece of Coffee Walnut cake (saved for later)

Late Dinner after the theatre:

Linguini with sautéed fresh  mushrooms, asparagus, banana shallot, wild garlic, garlic sage chicken sausage, and cherry tomatoes in white wine and mushroom tomato sauce topped with a little parmesan. Darn, I’m good.

Water

Bed

Lunch today just because I was so “green” in the square park, (which has wifi!)

Mixed greens salad with cucumbers, chickpeas, grain salad (lentils, quinoa etc.) roasted  red peppers, beet straws, cherry tomatoes, hummous and roasted seeds in a low fat dressing with a tortilla for the hummous.

Apple from the market

Sparkling organic orange juice

Sea salt crisps. (all from Pret except for the apple.)

I feel so green. Lots of green and other colored veggies!

I had such a good weekend in London. It was record-breakingly beautiful and I spent it between markets, reading outside, and eating of course. Not to mention the Pimm’s I’ve had at three separate places. I love Spring and jugs of Pimm’s split between friends! I’ll have to post a recipe for it. Monday we went to see One Man, Two Guvnors for our theatre class. It was so funny and definitely a crowd pleaser. I love that they brought up members of the audience and interacted, it was so brilliant. It’s coming to Broadway so try to see it if you can!

p.s. it’s pronounce as “Gren itch” not “Green wich” which if not from the Village in NYC, I probably would have referred to it as the latter. Strange English words.

How was your weekend? Have you seen the Hunger Games yet?

Enjoy!

Love,

The College Cuisiner

WIAW #16: Aaron's last week and Wild Garlic Recipes

First off if you have not seen my post from Monday check out it first before reading the below post. If not, beware of spoilers!

I feel so guilty about missing WIAW last week due to Aaron’s visit and a major Sociology paper. So I must make up for it! Today I’ll give you a taste of what I’ve eaten this week. Get it.

  

You got a pretty good look at our trip to Paris and a selection of the 200+ pictures but Aaron was here longer than that! Unfortunately I still had to go to class this week so I had send him off to do the “touristy” things by himself and occasionally with escorts provided by my housemates.

Here are some of his London photos on my camera:

On Thursday we had the chance to go to St. Alban’s and have a lovely dinner with Tony and Gill, my surrogate family here. We had a lovely time to celebrate Tony’s birthday and our engagement. Gill said she is already picking out her hat for the wedding. I love that they wear fancy hats here to special occasions. We had such a great time visiting with them and St. Alban’s is so cute.

On Friday we took an early train down to Hastings to visit my Aunt Janet and Uncle Maurice for the day. We lucked out with the weather and spent the day going around my favorite little town of Rye Royal, and later going to Fairlight where they live.

We met them in Hastings and then drove to Rye for lunch at a place we used to go to when I was last in England 10 years ago. It’s a great little Italian restaurant and they “remembered” me but hey, we got free wine and after meal limoncello out of it so they must of remembered! It was so nice.

Here’s what we ate:

Aaron’s seafood pasta and Maurice’s pasta Carbonara.

I think Janet had sea bass with roasted potatoes and vegetable if I remember properly.

I had mushroom and chicken risotto.

We then went back to their house for a great homemade cream tea. Should have taken a photo.

First we had some sparkling wine to celebrate the engagement of course! Aunt J got the scones from her favorite restaurant and tea shop and since they make them homemade it counted! We have some delicious Jersey Clotted cream and her homemade black currant jam to go along. Yummmm… Not to mention the delicious smoky Earl Gray tea and additional chocolate biscuits. This was one of the best teas I have had so far, I only wish I could have afternoon company with them more often!

And once again I could kick myself for not taking a group photo of the four of us! Well, I have to wait until Easter when I see Janet and Maurice again.  

I’m guessing that was all a part of Janet’s evil plan though…because somehow she got about 15 photos of Aaron and myself! But it's okay because she gave us one of the photos from that day framed as an engagment gift. Thank you Aunt Janet!

Then after a leisurely afternoon we took the train back to London and met my cousin Martin and his friend Andrew for a drink and jazz in Covent Garden. Finally tired and starving, Aaron and I dragged ourselves home to pass out before his flight in the morning.

But wait, what did I what eat this weekend?

Ready for Saturday?

After dropping Aaron out at Heathrow, I rode on the tube an hour to Borough Market so I couldn’t shut myself in my room and wallow. One mango orange juice and a cocoa tea later I still didn’t feel much better. So I grabbed a Mediterranean lunch box to-go and went home to eat it alone. Don’t feel bad, it was delicious. I should have taken photos.

I was practically all by myself as the rest of my housemates were in Wales so I had the house and the telly to myself for once! So I proceeded to rent and watch the entire second series of Downton Abbey along with a dinner I made late Saturday night.

So worth it.

After picking up some red beets and wild garlic leaves at Borough I went to town!

I had never tried wild garlic before but was willing to give it a whirl. It is gaining in popularity here and I found it at many a stand at Borough. I proceeded to add it to every portion of my meal.

White wine sautéed red beets and beet greens with wild garlic and banana shallot

Baked chicken breast stuffed with mushroom pate and wild garlic. Yummmmmmmm….

And Mashed sweet potatoes with wild garlic....

And the wild garlic is green so it totally goes into this month’s WIAW theme!

I’m not sure if wild garlic is readily available in the States, but here is London it is at all the markets. If you can find it, do try it. Wild garlic gives a delicious garlic flavor that’s less bitey than normal garlic but with all the deliciousness and healthiness of the bulb.

I struggled over which recipe to share. I do think everyone should try the beets but since the sweet potatoes are pretty self explanatory and sooooooo delicious I thought this would be a good recipe for WIAW despite my lack of photos.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Wild Garlic: 2 Servings (easily doubled)

Ingredients:

2-3 large sweet potatoes, peeled, chopped into small chunks

One banana shallot, cut in half (a small yellow onion works too)

3-5 leaves of wild garlic, roughly chopped (alter depending on your garlic preference)

1 tsp. butter

1/2 tsp. garlic salt

salt for water

Splash of skimmed milk

Directions:

Bring a pot of salted water, banana shallot and cut sweet potatoes to boil, covered.

Once water begins to boil, take off lid and continue boiling for 10-20 minutes depending on how small you cut your potatoes. Check the doneness by piercing a potato chunk with a fork, should be soft enough to slice the potato.

Once potatoes are done drain the water.

In the pot (NOT ON HEAT) mashed the potatoes and shallot so they are well mixed. Add chopped wild garlic, garlic salt, butter. Mix and add milk depending on desired consistency.

Eat while hot with any meal!

Sweet potatoes are so good for you and such an inexpensive treat. Try this recipe to add a little more “sweet” to your life! And make some red beets while you are at it!

Because I haven’t done a Cuisiner Playlist in a while I thought I would recommend checking out Keane’s new single, “Silenced By the Night.” The album doesn’t come out until May 7^th but I am SO EXCITED! I missed Keane. Check it out and buy this album I need more of this band in my life!

http://www.keanemusic.com/

Enjoy!

Love,

The College Cuisiner

 p.s. look for Prague pictures coming soon I promise! I’m going to Barcelona this weekend as well. Can’t wait for the sunshine and good eats!