Jonathan Andersen

I have received dozens of emails asking me to write a post about the foods I’ve been eating while here. Actually, that is a lie, but I’m going to write about it anyway.

Each day we have breakfast provided for us in the hotel. It consists of cereal, toast, assorted jellies, water, and orange juice. This suits me just fine, but it is incomparable to the full English breakfast we received while on our coach tour everyday. Every morning I had fried eggs, English bacon (what we call country ham), tomatoes, baked beans, toast, and sometimes mushrooms. I miss biscuits, grits, and sausage gravy but all of those will make my homecoming trip to Waffle House in Conyers all the better (and yes Waffle House does now serve biscuits – but they don’t have ovens in any of their restaurants…).

Now that I’m living in a hotel I have sandwiches for lunch a lot otherwise I just grab a sandwich out, a Cornish pastry, or a hot dog/sausage from a cart by the tube station. Saturday I was at the Portobello Road market and I had some Ghanaian food – my best lunch so far. I noticed on the sign that the food had been featured on the BBC and when I looked at the guy serving me I grabbed my camera and started snapping. Just the night before I had seen this guy and his wife on a reality TV show called “The Restaurant” where teams try to have the best restaurant. If they don’t, they get kicked off Donald Trump style. The night before he had gotten kicked off, but the food was great and he was excited that I had seen the show.

Each night we usually go out to dinner and pretty much choose a different ethnicity of food each night. Italian, Chinese, Mexican (no free chips and salsa), Kebab shops, American, Pubs, or just wherever we find that looks good. I haven’t had any restaurant blow me away with their food yet, but I’m waiting on my parents to arrive next Wednesday and then I’ll begin to really start eating good in the neighborhood. My favorite appetizer was the authentic garlic bread we had at an Italian restaurant. If it didn’t cost the equivalent of $6 a slice I would’ve ordered more. My favorite food I’ve had that was unique was at and American diner here that had a sign that read “Hi Y’all Come on in”. I had the breakfast burger which was a hash brown, burger patty, bacon, fried egg, and brown sauce. It was very good and I intend to bring this recipe back to the States. Yes, I have had fish and chips. I don’t have dessert often but I do love getting Haribo sugar covered gummy treats at the corner stores and trying the chocolate bar assortments, of which Cadbury Flake is my favorite so far.

When I travel to Italy I anticipate better food stories but this is all I have for now. I’m going to China town soon to try fried Pigeon which I read in the local paper is quickly becoming a popular dish as chefs are encouraging restaurant goers to try wild game meats. Finally, if you’ve read this far you either really love me or you are getting hungry so here is the recipe to my newest favorite dessert that I learned to make this summer. Courtesy of church members in Section, Alabama:

Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding
2 dozen Krispy Kreme Donuts
Can of Sweetened condensed milk
2 cans fruit cocktail drained
2 beaten eggs
9 oz raisins
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Icing
Box of confectioner’s sugar
Stick of butter
¼ cup of water

Start by mixing all of the ingredients besides the donuts and icing items into a mixing bowl. Then chop up the donuts and put them with all of the other ingredients and let soak a few minutes. Bake on 350 degrees for one hour. While it is cooking bring the mix of confectioner’s sugar, butter, and milk to a boil and pour it over the product when it comes out of the oven.

It won’t kill you, I’ve tested it on many people.

First, I must apologize for not posting for over a week. We are now completely settled in London and we have been busy attending lectures, visiting sites around the city, discovering the nightlife, and mastering The Tube.

I’ve seen many things so far:
St. Joan at the National Theater
The Merchant of Venice at The Globe
John Wesley’s House and museum of Methodist History
Buckingham Palace
Parliament
The Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum
The National Gallery

Basically each day we have lectures for a couple hours in the morning and then we are off to explore the city for the rest of the day. It is a pretty good arrangement. The weather was great the first few days but lately it has been rainy London as expected. The weather held out for our weekend trip to Eastbourne where we saw the chalk cliffs on the coast, quite beautiful. I have noticed lately after browsing through art galleries and taking photos on my own that I love landscape photography. Luckily for me there was an exhibit at the National Theater of the UK’s best landscape photos. If you want to be inspired go here (http://www.take-a-view.co.uk/2007_winners.htm).

One of the main highlights of the week was finding a church community to become involved in. A few us have been going to the College Ministry and worship at Holy Trinity Brompton, an evangelical Anglican Church right down from Harrod’s. Holy Trinity created the Alpha Course which I know many of you have done or heard about it. All of the students there have been very accepting of us and we have met a lot of great people. It is a very international group and it is amazing to worship with people from all over the globe.

I had the exciting opportunity to photograph some monks from Burma the other day protesting in front of the foreign affairs office (pictures will be up soon) and while I was doing so a local man asked me if I knew who was responsible for the current conflict in Burma. I knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth and I proved correct – it was George Bush’s fault. I asked him how so and he went into a diatribe about Iraq, the Chinese Olympics, Sudan, and brought all of these points together and ultimately told me that the only way the conflict would be solved is by the USA intervening and putting troops over there. I stood there perplexed by his logic and arguments as he quickly moved on. I really was happy he stopped and talked to me. It was a nice change from people avoiding eye contact at all costs while walking on the street or on the train. Sometimes I try to make eye contact with people just so they don’t forget what it is like.

The latest observation Keith and I have had is that bread molds a lot faster over here. After about 4 days (sealed) mold begins to form and we can’t figure out why. All of the loaves were labeled no preservatives but I think we need them in our bread. Is this normal?

We just moved in to our room for the next 39 nights at the Royal National Hotel in London. All packages should be sent to:

Jonathan Andersen
Room 1222
Royal National Hotel
Bedford Way
London
WC1H ODG
United Kingdom

The part about sending packages was a joke, but the good news is I have free internet access from my hotel room, and anyone who knows me well knows how excited I am right now.

If you have been to London before, I would really appreciate an email with great places to visit, eat, travel, etc. so that I can maximize my time here.

We’ve left York and are on our way to the city of Bath. We only had one day to explore York but I was able to make it to Evensong at York Minster and it was a great opportunity. Worshipping in the largest gothic cathedral north of Italy was stunning and the two hour tour I took of it wasn’t long enough to even get a glimpse of its history. Out of all the old churches we have visited, I could feel the spirit and love of Christ in this one the most. Everyone there was vibrant and glad to say that the reason the cathedral was so magnificent was to reflect the glory and power of God and to honor him.

I have been a part of many culture clashes thus far on the trip, but one of the most funny was last night at the Mexican restaurant we went to in honor of Sally’s 21^st birthday. First, there are no free refills like everywhere in Europe so that was fine. Then our group of 20 realized chips and salsa weren’t free so we ordered some ($5.00 for each basket). They arrived and it was a portion big enough for a three year old. We were fine with the lack of free refills on chips and salsa and 2 hours later our food came out. They never separate checks so we all pay in cash in one big pot which always causes drama. But in spite of all the differences I enjoy the culture because it causes us to stay longer, slow down, and enjoy each other’s company more.

Today was our longest bus ride, 9 hours since we left now, but we try and make the time pass by sleeping, reading, and playing games. We just finished a makeshift game of Family Feud where I was Pat Sajaks and I got to choose the top 5 answers for each question. I’ll be in London in two days so all you cultured people reading this who have been to London before please email me all the sites I must see.

I had only seen one sunrise since we had come over so I decided to set it out my first morning in Edinburgh to watch it and try and take some good photographs. Bridget, who is always up for an adventure as well, came along with me and after asking the bell clerk at 6:00 am where the best spot to watch the sunrise was he directed us to a place called Calton Hill. The sunrise was beautiful and up on this cold hill full of monuments we saw a man who had a camera as well. He was also packing up a tent so we talked to him and found out his interesting story. His name was Youseff Shiban, a Christian Palestinian who went to university in Germany. (His blog http://visitingthekingdom.blogspot.com )

After hearing his story Bridget and I no longer felt quite so adventurous. Youseff and his friend were literally backpacking all over the UK living in tents and staying in people’s houses while hitchhiking rides everywhere. He informed me that in Scotland anyone can sleep on public property so he just set up his tent in different parks that suited him. Luckily, he didn’t have to do this often since he and his friend were “couch surfers”. I was familiar with this concept but I’m sure the general public is not. Basically, people all over the world post on the internet that they have an extra couch for anyone coming through town to use and travelers call them to see if its open at that time. (http://www.couchsurfing.com) Nana and Papa, I know you have a lot of extra rooms in your house so I went ahead and listed that you had 3 rooms ready for anyone coming through Conyers.

I saw all the major tourist sites in Edinburgh like St. Giles cathedral, the castle, the Walter Scott monument, and lots of others. The ugliest site I visited was their parliament which looked like a new age coffee shop turned into legislative chambers. You should look it up on google images. Keith, being the rugby expert on the trip, found out that a match of the Rugby World cup was being played in the city one of the nights we were there so we got tickets and watched Scotland tear the Romania team to pieces. At the end a streaker ran onto the field – of course he was quickly detained by police.

Living out of a suitcase is getting old as well as washing clothes in a sink. London will be here soon enough and I can’t wait.