Chocolate crinkle cookies: A recipe for procrastination.

 

I had a lot of reading to do today. So I baked instead.

These chocolate crinkle cookies are super easy to make. And they're quite tasty, too. What more could you want?

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup powered (icing) sugar
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 whole eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
   

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (about 175 C).

Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl, about 3 minutes.

Add first egg and beat until smooth. Add second egg and vanilla and beat again.

Add dry ingredients. Mix until a dough forms.

Roll dough into small balls. Cover each in powdered sugar.

Place about 2 inches apart on baking sheet. 

Bake 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven.

Cool for 10 minutes before eating. 

(Or you can be like me and wait like 2 minutes before needing to try one three.)
   

And that's it! Go forth and bake, my friends.

   

Wednesday randoms.

It's Wednesday, which means I get to forgo method and/or purpose for this post and just ramble for a bit.

The weather has been phenomenal. Around 70 degrees F (so that'd be like 21 C?) and sunny. I wore a dress today and pretended it was still summer.

There's a man who frequently plays guitar and sings outside of the Bentall Centre (a shopping area). I literally stopped in my tracks when he began his rendition of "Hallelujah," by Leonard Cohen. It was beautiful.

The shopping carts (trolleys) here have wheels that can spin all the way around. That means you can roll sideways just as easily as backward or forward. When people come flying around a corner, they typically lose control for about half a second and slide out sideways. It reminds me of the cars in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Granted, I've never actually seen that movie, so I'm just going off what it looked like in the previews.

The folders are different here. Like the kind you put documents in. I'm not going to try to explain it, so just trust me on this.

Regardless of the country, it seems a girls' night in with a romantic comedy will always produce the same effects: Singing along to songs like "All By Myself," and lamenting the lack of your very own Prince Charming, often while eating ice cream or some other sweet treat. It's like [fake] self-loathing. But in a fun way. (Does that make any sense?)

At restaurants, drinks are really expensive. Even the water.

If you come visit me, don't throw up the deuce. A backward peace sign is essentially the same thing as flipping someone off. I'm trying to curb my gangsta tendencies quickly so I don't keep accidentally offending people. It's tough.

Coffee creamer (like Coffee-mate) doesn't exist here. Neither does Pandora. Or Netflix (at least my subscription). Boo.

Sorry to all you crazy American college partiers. While your first-year mistakes may have cost you dearly by the time graduation rolled around, the Brits don't share the same consequences. Here, the first year of university study doesn't count. Yes, you read that right. From what I understand, they leave it out of the average that makes up your overall score. Crazy.

There's a great little app called Textfree that allows me to message friends back in the States for free. Hit me up, and I'll send you my Textfree number so we can once again communicate like there's not an ocean [of international fees] between us.

That's all for now. Sorry for the lack of pictures lately. I'll try to do better this week.

Happy Wednesday!

Butterflies-slash-pterodactyls.

I'm officially a grad student. I've got the homework to prove it.

It was a good first day, though. I had political communication, advocacy and campaigning (which was an optional/elective module I picked).  There was an hour-long lecture, then an hour break, and an hour-long seminar. Our professor (tutor) is a funny little French man named Francois who has a round Santa belly and throws his head back when he laughs.

I like him already.

A girl from my hall is in the same class. And she's also in my media theory class. This was quite unexpected, as we're not in the same program. It turns out she picked my core module for her option, and I picked hers for mine. We figured this out this morning at the bus stop, then we rode to campus together and sat next to each other in class.

Having a familiar face there helped to tame the butterflies-slash-pterodactyls* that had taken over my tummy like it was the first day of kindergarten. So that was nice.

In other news, Baylor won last weekend, I bought some baking stuff, and my dad got his ticket to come visit me in November.

So I'm quite a happy girl.

-----------
*For the record, I spelled 'pterodactyls' right the first time and I didn't even need help from spell check. Master's degree, here I come.
  

Back to school.

I had induction last week. I had no idea what that meant till I got there.

Turns out it's an introduction to your program. You meet the faculty and the other students and essentially get a crash course on what the year's gonna look like. Our course looks like 4 hours a week (only!) with plenty of time devoted to outside reading/study. It also looks like 26 people, though only 12 showed up to induction, 11 of which were girls.

But like my living situation, my program is incredibly diverse. Of the 12 people there, two were from India, two from the UK, and the others were from France, Germany, Bulgaria, Malaysia, Switzerland, Cypress, Iran, and I was the only American.

It's funny, because I fully expected to be one of the only foreigners. But I love it. And it will make my Intercultural Communication class that much more relevant/exciting.

My classes start Monday, so I've got to get back into school mode. Hopefully that year I took off didn't completely ruin my study habits. I bought a couple spiral notebooks today, so that counts for something, right?

Who am I kidding? I was excited about those spirals, and I've already started reading for my Thursday class. I'm just as much a nerd as I ever was.

Bring on the learning.
 

My kitchen is cooler than your kitchen.

I came home tonight to this:

 

It's a tent. In our kitchen.

Further proof that we've got the best kitchen in the building. Spacious, well-stocked and, now, doubling as a campsite. Be jealous.

  

Gray skies (are gonna clear up).

Today was the first semi-rainy one I've seen here, which is kind of surprising I suppose. All you ever hear is that the UK is always gray and dreary, and yet there's been an abundance of sunshine lately.

But today the weather was kind of fitting, as it reflected my mood. My mom left today. We met up in France on the way over here, and she's been close by, just exploring. But this evening, she took the Eurostar to France and will be headed back to the States tomorrow.

I met her for lunch and then we grabbed her stuff from the hotel and made our way to St. Pancras so she could catch her train.

Which meant we got to lug her suitcase up these babies again.

I tried really hard not to cry on the way back home -- I absolutely hate crying in public, and I was on the Tube, which is like extra public -- but more than a couple of tears managed to sneak out and slide down. People stared. I avoided eye contact. They kept staring. I brushed frantically at my cheeks.

It was the first time I've actually been alone here. Now, literally no one knows me. Yes, I've met people. Really nice people. But they don't know me. Not yet. So it's kind of scary, you know?

Don't get me wrong, I'm still so excited and happy to be here. And I'm still looking forward to a great year. I just had a bit of a gloomy day. But I came home and listened to this song a couple of times and skyped with one of my favorite people, so now I feel better.

And tomorrow, the forecast calls for sunshine.

London Town.

A quick look at my day tour of London:

 

Whew. There was so much to see.

And I only got lost once.

  

So many potatoes.

I spent most of today hitting up the major tourist attractions in London. I've yet to go through all those photos, but I'll put them up later, promise.

So to tide you over, here's this:

Would you like fries (chips) with that?

We all did our grocery shopping separately. Then we organized our kitchen and found that we now have enough potatoes to last for pretty much the rest of the semester. Oops! Next time, we'll all go shopping together.
 

Tackling Tesco (aka trying to buy groceries and failing miserably)

Today was grocery shopping day, because (wo)man cannot live on bread alone, and that's basically all I had in our kitchen.

I was surprised by the amount of glass packaging and alarmed by the lack of peanut butter (but there was plenty of Nutella, so that's a relief). And I was a bit bewildered when I realized that the vast majority of the labels were ones I'd never seen before. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I guess I've always just assumed the major brands in the States are global.

Wrong.

I was managing well enough till I got to the butter-slash-yogurt aisle. I saw absolutely nothing I recognized. Then I had a minor panic attack and decided I had plenty in my cart (trolley), and I'd just go back later.

Did I mention that today is Sunday, and EVERYONE was at Tesco? Just a bit chaotic. So that didn't help.

But I can't live without butter. Not for long, anyway.

I'll try again in a few days, and this time I'll be more emotionally prepared.
 

Serious information overload.

How did it get to be Saturday already?

If I had to sum up the past few days in three words, they'd be, "Serious information overload." I've learned so many names -- of people, of cities, of streets, of shops -- and I'm just hoping it'll all stick.

I live in a big hall of flats with 39 other people, and we're seriously from all over the place. There are people from the UK, the States, Greece, Ireland, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Slovakia and more. It's amazing. (My flatmates and I have decided we need to run a language school out of the building to help us pay for our degrees.) A lot of us went out the other night, and I laughed pretty much the whole time.

So what I'm trying to say is that I'm really happy about my living situation.

In addition to "important" things like figuring out how to use the public transportation and learning about the university (oh, right...I'm here for a degree...), I've also gotten to do a lot of exploring. There's a great little market place/shopping center downtown and the weather has been absolutely beautiful, so I've spent most of my free time just wandering around. It's kind of fun being anonymous in a new city.

And then there's central London. I got to see a bit of it today. We went down to some antique shops and found our way to Kensington Palace. And we found this little gem:

So glad I'm rocking the frizzy Hermione hair. It's totally on purpose.

It was lovely. We're planning to go back and do all the touristy stuff like Big Ben and Buckingham Palace on Monday.

But for now, I need to catch up on sleep.
  

Wednesday randoms.

A smattering of observations/experiences:

There are a million different kinds of British accents, ranging from very subtle to barely understandable.

Tesco, though described to me as the UK equivalent of a Walmart, is no such thing. Regarding produce, it's probably better. But it's like 0-3 for what I've needed. So, sorry to say it, but Walmart wins this round.

It's official: I have an accent. My mom and I were asked about ours twice today.

The drive-thrus at restaurants are backward. It makes sense, since they drive on the other side, but it's a really strange sight to see.

We got 2 pints of strawberries, 2 pints of grapes, a giant loaf of crusty white bread and a cheesy bread twist thing for less than £3! So good.

Poor photo quality, great value!

Shopping in the UK will make you feel fat. My dress size almost doubled. It's gotta be their sizing system, because even though I ate a LOT of pastries in France, I wasn't that unrestrained.

There are sooooo many coins! Unlike the US, which really just has 4 coins (yes, there's a 50 cent piece and a dollar, but come on -- no one uses them), the UK has coins for £2, £1, 50p, 20p, 10p, 5p, 2p and 1p. Our envelope from the bank was tearing from the weight, so my mom had to buy a little coin purse.

Pretty much the whole country smokes. Okay, that's an exaggeration. I've yet to see any little kids smoking. But oh my goodness.

I got a phone today. It's a tiny little thing -- a throwback to my late junior high years -- very, very basic. It may be lacking Internet capabilities and an app store, but it's got a radio and an alarm! (Shout out to Alexis! Now we both have phones with sweet features.)

Ever wondered why I'm not a hand model? Well here's your answer.

Aaaaand all my clothes fit in my wardrobe! What a relief.

Happy Wednesday, guys! My day's just about over, but I hope yours is/was/continues to be absolutely lovely.

Who's driving?!

I'm going to get hit by a car. It might not be today. It might not be tomorrow. But sometime while I'm here, it will happen.

It's so strange having to look right-left-right before crossing, instead of the left-right-left I'm used to. I'm seriously afraid of crossing the street. Even stranger is the fact that the driver sits on the right side of the car. I keep glancing up at passing vehicles and thinking things like:

"Why is the driver reading?!"
"She shouldn't have her feet on the dash!"
"That five-year-old isn't old enough to drive!"

Then I realize that those people are the passengers. Oops.

The good news is that I got enrol(l)ment taken care of. So I'm a real live student, with an ID card and everything.

Au revoir, Paris.

And hello, London!

I woke up in Paris this morning. Now it's time for bed, and I'm in London. Weird. Though I seriously enjoyed our few days in France, it was so refreshing to actually be able to read signs once we stepped off the Eurostar this afternoon.

Speaking of, I highly recommend the train from Paris to London. Super easy. 

Guess what's happening here next summer.

Something to note, though, is that if you travel through France or the UK, be prepared for a LOT of stairs. Elevators (lifts) are few and far between. I mean, seriously, what are you supposed to do if you're in a wheelchair...or lugging a 50lb suitcase?? In other words, travel lightly. Don't be like me. Unless you're moving here. In which case, it's TOTALLY APPROPRIATE for you to be dragging a giant bag up the stairs, and no, people staring, I'm not that girl who brings 17 different outfits for a weekend getaway.

Sorry about that.

Anyway, we took the Tube and another little train into Kingston. After that, we had planned to walk to our hotel, since it wasn't too far, according to a nice man who gave us directions. However, that man came half-jogging back to us a block later to suggest a bus line. That ended up being perfect, since our day pass covered the fare.

The really helpful bus driver dropped us off about a block from our hotel, though the stop wasn't technically part of his usual route.

And now we're here. And I've got enrollment (spelled enrolment, here) tomorrow. I've got butterflies like it's the first day of kindergarten. What if I get lost? What if I everybody hates me? Where do I go? What do I wear?

You know, the usual.

Wish me luck!
  

What we saw.

A snapshot (or ten) or the last two days:

I can't believe we were able to see so much in such little time. It's been lovely.

We leave for London tomorrow.

 

Paris: A lesson in humility

I don't even know where to begin with this one. When we left CDG (which wasn't as terrible as I expected from reading reviews), we had really no problems getting to the train station that was supposed to take us into Paris from the airport. The biggest issue was our semi-large suitcases (only one each, though!), which made it a tad difficult to get through the very narrow turnstiles. Still, in no time, we were on the train and headed to Gare du Nord, which was our first stop on the 17-step process of getting to our hotel (okay, like 4, but it was rough).

That itty bitty train started to get way crowded, and soon my mom's suitcase was pushed up right up against a woman across from her. It only proceeded to get more crowded, and of course, everyone wanted to get off at Gare du Nord. There was no way my mom was going to get out, especially with that suitcase. Out of nowhere, the aforementioned squished-by-the-suitcase woman had convinced another random girl (whom she did not actually know) to grab my mom's suitcase and carry it off the train for her. We were super grateful. But she didn't stop there.

She asked us (in English, PTL!) where we were going. We pulled out our lengthy, convoluted directions. She took one look at those, shook her head, and said, "Oh no. With these big bags? Too complicated. Follow me, it's better for you." Then she grabbed my mom's suitcase, once again, and we followed her.

We followed her for the next hour or so, down hallways, through (and, occasionally, over) turnstiles, and up many, many stairs. Every time we got to a big staircase, she'd grab someone to help us grab them. I seriously have never encountered that many helpful strangers. I think my suitcase was carried by at least 4 other people. As they heaved it up those stairs, I kept wanting to apologize for its weight, and to explain myself. No, I didn't overpack for a little vacation...that was my whole life for the next year! But I didn't speak the language, so I just blushed and accepted their assistance.

Something that is important to mention is that this woman had to go pick up her kids at 4:30. This was all happening around 3:30, and by assisting us, she was not only going out of her way but was also using a good amount of time -- something she couldn't really afford to waste on us clueless Americans.

Ultimately, she got us to a bus stop, told the driver to tell us which stop to get off at, turned and left. She wouldn't take anything we offered her to thank her for her help, except for verbal appreciation. She simply told us that she was happy to help, and then said goodbye. We didn't even get her name.

I'll just call her a blessing. Our own Parisian angel.

We got off the bus when we were told, but then weren't quite sure where our hotel was from there. We found a McDonald's with free wifi (which, incidentally, they call "weefee") and looked it up. Once we thought (key word) we'd figured it out, we pressed onward, dragging out suitcases behind us.

After stopping and asking for help another two times, we finally arrived. Sweaty (sweaty, sweaty), bleeding (my mom ripped up her hand) and sucking air, we checked in. I'm sure the clerk was more than just a little alarmed at the sight of us, but she smiled sweetly and gave us our key. We climbed one at a time into the smallest elevator ever, had a ton of trouble with the lock, and finally made it inside our room to collapse on our bed before venturing out to find food...since I hadn't eaten since the dinner the day before. The whole thing took approximately 4 hours. It should have taken 2, max. But we made it. Finally.

Hello, little room. We are so, so happy to see you.

The moral of the story is this: French people don't hate Americans as much as you hear. Not any that we encountered anyway.

And God is faithful to get us where we need to be. But just a heads up that it could involve complete helplessness, His provision, and a big lesson in humility to get there.

Getting here.

Here are the highlights from my Dallas - Paris adventure:

1. Linda -- I was lucky enough to be seated next to her on my flight from Dallas to D.C. She made me laugh almost the whole way. 

2. Icelandair -- What a funny little airline! The plane was pretty much covered with Iceland tidbits. From the lullaby on my pillow to the language/etiquette tips on the seats, I learned more than I ever expected to about the country (including the fact that the prime minister is listed in the phone book, and about half the country's population believes in elves). Also, the flight attendants pretty much looked like Nordic Barbies...they smiled a lot, but still managed to have an expression that convinced me I should not mess with them. That's partially why I don't have a picture. I was scared to ask. That, and it probably would have been creepy.

You might think this would've helped me sleep. But you could be wrong.

I'm sorry to say I wasn't brave enough to apply this information during my hour in Iceland.

3. Night flights -- I am absolutely no good at sleeping on planes. A handful of half hour segments were the best I could do. Lame.

The whole thing was relatively smooth and pretty easy. Then I left Charles de Gaulle and it went downhill quick. But more on that later.

  

Leave.

"And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it? 

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out. 

I want to repeat one word for you: 
Leave. 

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed." 


-Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts


   

Feels like home.

I love Baylor.

I must have said that a hundred times today. Since we're flying out of DFW, I got to spend today in Waco, walking around campus and marveling at how much it's changed in the short year I've been gone. But it still feels like home. I also had the privilege of hanging out with my brother and visiting with a handful of friends.

What a sweet, sweet time. There was so much laughing involved. And so many encouraging words. I seriously have the best friends in the world.

So thanks to Jamin, Lacey, Austin, Alexis, Phil and Adam for making my last full day (and a half) in the States an absolute joy. I'm going to miss you all so, so much.

I'll miss you too, Pat Neff--especially when you're green.

   

My bags are packed. I'm ready to go.

I don't really mind packing. I kind of enjoy it, actually. It combines several of the things I love, like making lists and being strategic (yes, I'm that girl).

Because of baggage fees, small trains, weak arms, etc., my mom and I are each taking only one suitcase to the UK. (Except I kind of get both of them, since she packed most everything she'd need in her carry on. Thanks mom!) That means one (ish) suitcase for everything I'm expecting to need during my year at Kingston. Granted, I plan on shipping a couple boxes later, but still. It's not much.

But you would not believe how much I've stuffed into those suitcases. I'm gonna look like Mary Poppins when I take everything out of there. It's kind of amazing, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, my superb packing abilities have led to one tiny little problem: weight.

I'm not allowed more than 50lbs per bag. I could easily fit 70lbs in there. (Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but not much of one.) So I've been playing a couple of games I'd like to call, "What Weighs More?" and "Suitcase Shuffle." Packing, weighing, unpacking, prioritizing, repacking, weighing, and on, and on, and on.

But I think I've finally got it right, which is a good thing.

Because I leave tomorrow.

 

It must be love.

There are things I know I'll miss next year. Things like my friends, my family and driving on the right (read: correct) side of the road. But I was recently reminded of something else. A something else that is very near to my heart. College football. And my oh my, what a great reminder it was.

I hope, for your sake, that you didn't miss the Baylor v. TCU game last night. Actually, if you're television-owning American and you're alive, I'm not sure you could have. And for good reason. Not only was it the only game on, it was stellar. A great game. High-energy, high-scoring (albeit often low-defending), and so fun to watch. Plus, Baylor won, and Lord knows I love my Bears.

            (Which is why I don't mind how blatantly one-sided this highlight reel is.)

Did it give me a heart attack? Well, sure. More than once. Did I yell at the television? Until I was hoarse. Was I really, really sad I wasn't in Waco to see it live? Duh.

                                                         (I can get a little excited.)

But I loved every minute of it. (Except for the majority of that ugly, ugly fourth quarter, but whatevs. No harm done, right?)

Afterward, I realized something. There is no football in England. Well, there is, but it's soccer--totally different. Don't get me wrong, I love soccer. I played for years. But there's just something wonderful about college football--the American kind. There really is no substitute. I'm seriously going to miss it.

So I'd like to apologize in advance to my future roommates and soon-to-be friends from the UK for what is sure to be a rough couple of months for all of us.

I will undoubtedly try to talk football with you, despite the fact that you'll probably have neither context nor concern for it. I will most likely be shocked and saddened the first few weekends I turn on the TV and discover it's not on any of the channels. And, consequently, you will certainly find me in my room, door shut, staring at ESPN.com for hours upon end. But the good news, for you, is that this all will be for only a season. It, like so many other wonderful things in life, must eventually come to an end. So if you'll just be patient and put up with my craziness for a few months, I promise that I'll finally be normal again.

At least until college basketball gets underway.

This just in.

10 days!

Holy cow.  Is this real life?

The problem is...

I don't think the bedroom in my little London flat has a closet. It has a wardrobe, but really what does that mean? I'm thinking I'll have to get pretty creative in terms of space and storage this year.

What I'm trying to say is any tips for living sans-closet would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.