the chocolate: {double decker}

so everyone raves about how good london's chocolate is.  as you and i well know, chocolate is something i have a particular affection for.  and by particular i mean rather enormous.  thus, i embark on a tasty sojourn through the bars, fudges, and other such treats of london.  sheer revelry.

scoring of the chocolates will be based entirely on subjective and whimsical criteria.

tonight's tasty treat (wouldn't it be more fun if it was spelled "treet"?) is cadbury's double decker.

THE CUTLINE: soft on top with a crispy bottom.  intriiiiiguing.
THE DESCRIPTION: Cadbury milk chocolate with a soft, chewy nougat top & crunchy cereal bottom.
PRICE:  £ 0.55
AS PURCHASED:

AS OPENED & EATEN:

THE REVIEW:  the nougaty top was indeed soft and chewy.  the cereal bottom was indeed crunchy.  think rice krispies, only krispier.  the most enjoyable part of the bar is the texture--the crunchy cereal bottom is held together by soft chocolate, which makes for a delightful textile experience.  the nougat was a little much i felt.  how bout peanut butter?  i guess the brits aren't really as into the ole P.B. as we are.

SCORE:  texture: 7/10

taste: 6/10

ease in eating: 4/20 (the nougat.  difficult.)

culturally-clever title: 11/10 

overall: 28/50

the shining city of london

dear royal borough of kensington,

first, thanks for being royal.
second, thanks for being the place where i get to call home for the next two months!  i love your quiet streets.  i love your pigeons bobbing along the sidewalks.  i love that your marbled windows reflect a marbly sun.

i love your cheese and bagels, and that the flatmates before me left black velvet pumps and a monet-blue scarf and a gray peacoat that's softsoftsoft, all because they couldn't fit them in their suitcases home.  we new flatmates felt the heavens were smiling upon us with such nice things.  not to mention when the nice man at the tube station gave me his daypass tube card because he'd finished using it for the day.

in short, dear kensington, i am in love with you.

sincerely,
one jet-lagged though very starry-eyed girl

see the grey peacoat and monet-blue scarf?  i feel very british in them.  (while retaining my america-lovin heart: see rainbow slippers on feet.)

to fall historically in love

teenage love.  those are some days i wouldn't mind having back.

the days when it was acceptable to say things like i will die without you.  or we were meant for each other, and to actually believe that there really was no other person you could ever be happy with.  the days when you completely believed that at some moment in your life, a boy would show up at your window screaming he was in love with you and you couldn't break up because he loved you too much.

the days when you believed someone would do something as crazy as fly across the country or heck the world for you.  the days before people did things like "giving you your space" and "being okay with whatever decision you make" and being so horribly rational about something as wonderfully irrational as love.

i knew a guy who bought his girlfriend a star.



and on that, i have one song to remind you how that used to feel:

(a hammock because that is what i'm installing the second i move into my apartment in the fall...because it has a balcony, and i am in love with it.  in love the way teenagers are in love.)
(and thanks to amigo for reminding me that this song exists.  and for being amigo.)

the victory lap & an unlocking of summer

the last lines in "re:stacks" by bon iver are (ahem): this is not the sound of a new man, or a crispy realization.  it's the sound of the unlocking and lift away.  your love will be safe with me.

first, i love those words.

second, that's kinda how it feels when you've been in the library every night for a week, plus all day on friday finishing a paper on british poetry, and suddenly it's four fifty-two and you're done.  for those for whom paper-writing isn't a major part of their college experience, here's a little taste of what this moment feels like:



embarrassing (and kinda awesome) that this video gives me goosebumps.

and as i'm walking up those stairs to leave the library, it suddenly hits me: summer has staaaarted!!!!!  and i'm leaving for london!  kind of a crispy realization, but more so the unlocking and lift away, like a huddle of helium balloons floating up to the sun.

oh my oh my

The Lumineers' lead singer Wesley Keith has a voice that sounds like it's trickling down the stairs of an old wooden house. Part of that is definitely the way it's recorded, but it's also the fact that his voice simply sounds that way: every word uttered is distant, aching, blurry around the edges...let these Denver kids climb up the creaky boards to your heart.

— Vincent Geels

canker my soul/r

canker sores.  

something i know about.

remember this, my first month in d.c.?  remember how i also had a new canker sore every week my first two months in samoa?

my body's pretty good to me.  really.

but something about traveling large distances gives me cankersores.  maybe it's stress i'm unknowingly suppressing.  maybe it's that i've just been eating too much chocolate.  but really, i think the truth is my body is somehow very aware of upcoming events.  on a cellular level.  any major sicknesses (etc.) hold off until after i'm done camping, or presenting at a conference, or meeting boy's parents.  whatever the "thing" might be, it's like all my little carolyn-cells are individually and collectively aware that they can't be flopping.  and so they wait.  which is wonderful for things like colds and so on.  but for cankersores, those little dudes know they're flying across the ocean, or driving across the country, and so they come at me with ferocious abandon.  what is to be done.  

well, one idea is to tell a funny story about another who has frequent sores of the cankerous kind:

sister rosie brings us this story, about (who else) the legendary melissa.  (have i mentioned before that all this girl melissa eats is sugar?  no but really.  my mom raised us all to be really healthy eaters.  and then there's melissa.  red hair, talks a million miles a minute, and then the sugar thing.  no one knows where she came from.)  here's rosie:

Melissa has some bad cankersores and so we told her NO SUGAR for two weeks.  So she is dying and today is day 1.  She was lamenting this to me and she’s like “Mom said no sugar.  That means no granola bars, no frosting, (then her voice gets quiet and she looks at her toes) and no more otter pops.”  Haha  Later I made chocolate pudding and she was drawn in by the scent and sat across from me as I ate it delectably and she actually started crying she wanted it so bad!  “Melissa, you’ll survive!”  “I know I’ll survive it’s just going to be really HARD!” (as she seriously breaks into sobs). She cheered back up and was her spunky self again so I decided to try a little experiment and left the room with my bowl of pudding right in front of her.  I waited around the corner and counted to 30 then popped out and sure enough she was leaning over the bowl and had a big glob of pudding on her finger and was about to eat it when she saw me and just went into a FIT of giggling.

thank you melissa, for making this world a happy place.  


may your mouth be canker-free, your days full of pineapple and tomatoes and other acidic foods, and all your dreams be of traveling to europe for the summer.

p.s. anyone know of a good carousel?  i'm currently in the market.

why i love studying english

because i come across lines like this:

"there comes besmeared with blood about the chops a lioness, all foaming!"