EAT THIS: Yak Yeti Yak

So since I'm gonna be on the move the next 2-3 years and probably not have proper kitchenware, I won't be posting recipies like I used to when I was back home. I really miss baking my own food from scratch, f.ex granola bars, cakes and bread. And man, I miss my blender and mixer..

Anyways, instead of recipe posts - I will do "restaurant/cafe" reviews because let's face it, people like to look at photos of food and it might be fun to keep track of all the restaurants we will visit the next few years. Yes, we really like going out to dinner and that's something we will continue to do even though we're poor students living abroad.

The first restaurant we visited was a Nepalese restaurant, located in one of the many cellars here in Bath. It's called Yak Yeti Yak and it was fantastic! Everything about it was good although my companion said he would have liked bigger portions. The decorations were authentic Nepalese (we suppose...haha), the service was very good and the food.. oh my! We were drooling through the whole meal. We started with Pappadums with the most amazing tomato/mango/chili chutney. Then we each got a main dish plus an original rice dish which included mustard seeds, spring onions and carrots. The dishes were both delicious and the price was pretty fair. 

The Nepalese beer was supposedly very tasty.

There was a "pink day" in Iceland the day before, I took it just the more seriously the day after and wore my pink collar pin (for breast cancer) and a new pink watch Eyþór brought.

Eyþór had chicken in chili.

I had chickpeas and potatoes in cumin (love that spice)

Next time, we would like to sit here while we eat!

ODEON movie theatre is one house away from us. Overall a good cinema excluding the high price for us Icelanders with the freaking pound... But caramel Ben&Jerry's ice cream made up for it. We saw the movie "The perks of being a wallflower" and man is it good! A very touching story, I was quite vulnerable as we walked out of the movie theatre with tears in my eyes. Definitely recommend it.

(Photos taken with Nokia N8)

Fyrir ömmu: Jájá, hér koma enn fleiri matarmyndir (ég talaði við ömmu á skype í dag og hún sagði okkur systurnar alltaf vera að tala um eða taka mynd af mat..haha, ég sagði henni að það væri trendið í dag, allir að taka fallegar myndir af mat). Við Eyþór fórum á svakalega góðan nepalskan stað á laugardaginn, fengum kjúkling í chili og kjúklingabauna&kartöflurétt í cumin. Eins og sést á einni myndinni þá var hægt að sitja á púðum og borða matinn en við fengum því miður ekki þannig borð.

Eye of Pængs

I've been super busy lately (hello grad school!) with school and of course hanging out with my boyfriend who I picked up at the bus station at 2 o'clock after midnight on Friday.

We had a lovely Saturday, where he took beautiful photos, some of which you can see on his blog

Eye of Pængs (the photos from Saturday are here). I've got some phone photos from our evening date on Sat coming up, we went to an amazing restaurant and saw a great movie).

This statue is of some swimmer dude, it's situated in one of the main shopping streets, very close to our apartment.

P.s. I'm now on Instagram!! Finally.. all of my friends are on there and I've been catching up. My username is valgerdurbjork if you're interested in seeing more photos from our daily life in Bath :)

Only the lonely (randoms)

I kind of love this song.
TOMORROW night I'll no longer be lonely girl!

No worries, I have a bunch of new wonderful friends in Bath but after having spent nearly every single day for 5 years with somebody, a 3 week separation needs some getting used to.. 
I think I've managed pretty well so far (I've always been an independent girl) but I can't wait to be able to share this experience with my beau.

Anyways, the photos of this post have nothing to do with that, they are just random photos but some do entail a reference to "lonely times".

 Studying at Starbucks with a Pumpkin Latte (heaven forbid, it tasted amazing)

Enjoying some light reading in between the scientific articles..

 Ready-meals have been a common dinner at this househould lately. It's Icelandic fish! 

"Healthy" girl (in between all the crap I've been eating, I mean there are so many new English treats I just must try..) So this is fish&veggies and an "oatmeal cake" for breakfast.

                                  All the coupons and stuff I got at the Student Fair.

 

Magnús páskaungi (Magnus - the easter chick) came with me to Bath! (you can see more of him and his brother here)

Little shop of Horror

Last weekend I went to see the musical "Little Shop of Horror" at the university's arts theatre.

It was surprisingly good! Well, we didn't know what to expect but the cast was great, the story was fun and I loved the songs (yes, I am a sucker for musical songs...). 

Maria, Marina and I went to the Plug (a restaurant/bar/club) at the Uni campus. Sarah, Floor and Anne joined us later for the show. Anyways, we had food, but more importantly: PIMMS. My three best friends in Iceland introduced me to this drink after their trip to London a few years back and it's safe to say we are addicted. The best one yet is the one Edda Rós and I had at a restaurant bar in Vienna, it really needs to contain cucumber and preferably fruits (missing in the photo below).

The creepy plant - Audrey 2.

Icelandic:
Við fórum nokkrar vinkonur á uppsetningu háskólaleiklistarhópsins á Litlu Hryllingsbúðinni. Sýningin kom okkur á óvart, reyndist vera hin fínasta skemmtun. Góðir söngvarar, skemmtileg lög og svo er sagan sjálf ansi hressandi.

Bradford on Avon

A few of us decided to take a Sunday trip to a neighbouring village, Bradford on Avon. It is supposedly quite popular with tourists but the town is very small so our walk through the city took us under an hour. We spent an equal amount of time at a lovely cafe, enjoying an afternoon cafe&cake.

Bradford is only a short train ride away from Bath and I hope I'll be able to take more of these short trips in the nearest future when my guy gets here (so soon!).

Icelandic (up on my grandma's request)

Fyrir ömmu: Við fórum nokkur saman úr náminu í lítið sætt þorp sem er um 20 mínútna lestarferð frá Bath. Bærinn heitir Bradford on Avon og það er ekki mikið um bæinn að segja nema að hann er sjarmerandi en mjög lítill þannig að það tók okkur ekki langan tíma að skoða allt sem eitthvað varið var í að sjá. Við fórum svo á kaffihús og fengum okkur síðdegisköku og kaffi. Mig langar svo að taka fleiri stuttar ferðir til nærliggjandi borga og bæja þegar Eyþór kemur :)

A Saturday (uphill) walk

Yes... uphill.

I talked to a British girl yesterday and she just hit the nail on the head: This city is like a bowl. The city center is totally flat but the surroundings are very hilly. Almost wherever you are downtown, you can always just look up to the side of the city and see a beautiful area of big trees and pretty houses. The longest uphill road in this city is without a doubt the street leading up to the university. You can imagine how "fast" the double bus goes up with a jam packed bus with students.

Anyways, on Saturday, after having English breakfast in the city center, a group of us (my fellow Euromaster students) decided to walk up to a high point in the city to enjoy the nice view. It didn't go so well, even though the weather was in deed nice and the walk was pretty refreshing after a night out the evening before - we were unable to enjoy the view we expected due to enormous trees everywhere. We need to find a better spot next time, it must be somewhere... ;)

The town was packed with people and we soon found out why - there was a rugby game going on. We could hear the loud cheering from the audience "miles" away. Apparently, Bath is pretty good in rugby.

This is the Royal Crescent, one of Bath's main tourist attractions. It's considered among the greatest examples of Georgian architecture to be found in the UK. My student building is actually named after the architect of the Royal Crescent.

 (You see the sign - it says SLOW. Yes, cars actually drive through here. And most of them did not follow the signs so you can guess the madness when all of us were escaping to the sides when cars drove through. UK traffic is pretty bad in general judging from the beginning of my stay here, in London and Bath at least.)

My new city: Bath

My first week in my new city Bath was lovely. 

For those of you who have never heard of the city (yes there are many Icelanders that have never even heard about Bath..same with me actually before I applied for the masters program), it's a small, very historical and beautiful city about one and a half hour train ride southwest of London.

During my first week (or "Freshers week" as they call it at Uni) there were bunch of events, ranging from a pizza night where half of the people didn't even get a slice, to the most boring pub quiz I've ever been to, to a nice welcome reception for the Euromasters students where the first two people I met in my program were from Oxford and NYU (I felt a bit insecure coming from the Uni of Iceland ;), to a big welcome party for all the graduate students where all of us danced until the music was stopped (why don't they just do that in Iceland, in stead of turning on the lights when you're not looking your greatest at 4 o'clock...). 

Alongside all the social events I was registering for school, getting kitchen appliances, buying basic groceries and so on.

On a sunny day, when the rain finally stopped I took a stroll through the city center of Bath with my camera. I live in a student accommodation right in the city center, such a great location even though my apartment is not really your normal Icelandic standards.. :)

 These two photos are of my building (no, not the one below, I wish...)

 I especially like seeing the young boys all dressed up, almost in a suit. Those young ladies seemed busy..

 On the bridge there are cafes where you can sit, have your tea&cream and enjoy the nice view.