Friendships and Food

Hi There Dear Reader,

As promised, this is instalment two - Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The MUN Conference took place largely on Saturday and Sunday, so I was one of the few people walking around in a suit before 9am at the weekend. Nevertheless, the debate continued on in our new home of St. John's College (which is the biggest college, made up of around 8 Quads, including one which seems like it has a small wood in it!), and by the end of Sunday afternoon, we had managed to unanimously pass a resolution to solve the financial crisis in Europe. The answer? To ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the money!

In the evenings I arranged to meet up with good friends. On Saturday night, one of my best friends agreed to cook dinner and so I went to spend the evening in a house with most of my ex-housemates, in which I probably would have been living if I wasn't abroad. It was a lot smaller than our old house (having had roughly half our Ab population decide to flee the hectic student lifestyle for their year abroad in places such as France, Germany and Argentina), but just as cosy and welcoming! We enjoyed a delicious homecooked meal (all from scratch) - thanks to my beautiful Irish Cara - as she is most talented at cooking and very welcome to test recipes on me whenever she likes, plus we also enjoyed pudding of toffee-apple muffins made by one of my other lovely best friends, of which I may have eaten rather too many...It was an evening spent drinking tea, gossiping and feeling like we were back in the old house once again.

Sunday night was equally spent surrounded by good friends at Shanghai 30's - a Chinese restaurant, which cooks food as I remember it being in Beijing. I ordered the Pineapple "Gu Lao" Duck, which came served in half a pineapple, topped off with a cocktail umbrella. Gu Lao means pineapple in Mandarin and is what the Chinese people call Sweet and Sour. In this restaurant (and in China, naturally), they cook this sauce properly - not like the artificial fluorescent goo that a lot of takeaways will try and convince you is authentic - so that it tastes beautifully sweet and tangy.

I was very sad to leave come Monday morning, and after celebrating another friend's 21st at G&Ds for breakfast (I had a Cookie Monster - two homebaked cookies with a scoop of homemade ice-cream between them), plus a quick wizz around the supermarket to top up my tea supplies, I was sat on a bus going back to the airport. I had an amazing weekend - thank you so much to all those who made an effort and took time out of their hectic schedules to say hello, natter and catch up - coming back next year will not be the same without you all being there.