Opinion: So-Called "Clean" Eating

I was on the sofa the other night, scrolling through my Facebook feed, when I came across a link a girl I used to go to college with had shared. Entitled “Clean Eating’s Dirty Secrets”, the screen cap showed a young girl unknown to me (who, it turns out, is Grace Victory: “the internet’s big sister” and UK lifestyle and advice blogger with 106,000 Instagram followers and 209,600 YouTube subscribers…oops) holding a green smoothie and a plate of that hipster go-to of the moment - avocado on toast. The original Facebook post was by a girl I don’t know, who’d written a rather long paragraph about how “dangerous and unhealthy” she feels the clean eating regime has become, from personal experience with it. I was a bit skeptical at first - the clue is in the name, how bad can clean eating really be? - but the original poster claimed to have come to this conclusion from studying nutrition, and my curiosity was really quite piqued, so I clicked on the link. I figured I would watch the first five minutes or so and see whether it would be worth a watch. I ended up stuck to my iPhone screen, watching the whole thing right through to the end. It’s a really fascinating and somewhat unnerving look into a fad that seems innocent on the surface but actually harbours some disturbing information that definitely isn’t advertised under #cleaneating. I’m always a bit wary when writing these opinion posts, because I don’t want to pretend I’m some huge expert and expect some people will be offended by what I say, but I think this is an important issue that needs more coverage. 

Travel: Brighton Micro-Trip

My boyfriend and I have been trying to spend some time travelling England recently; he’s here for the whole summer and we don’t have the funds to travel further afield at the moment, so we’re taking advantage of places close to home. I had a couple of days off from work this last week and we headed to Brighton! I completed my degree at the nearby University of Sussex, and lived in the city for three years - it’s one of my favourite places in the world. We visited most of my BTN must-dos, and I wanted to mention them here. 

Travel: Ultimate Washington D.C. Guide!

I’ve been wanting to write a post about Washington DC for a long time now. In fact, I think I said I would last time I returned from there, but...didn't (oops!). You may or may not know that I studied abroad in DC for the 2013/14 academic year, and that's where/how I met my (American) boyfriend. Since then, I've returned to visit around four or five times, so I consider myself pretty well informed on the city. 

DC is a strange place. Specifically designed as the capital of a then-new United States, it still sort of feels like a faux-city. It's split into four, somewhat diverse sections: North East, South East, South West, and North West - like on a compass. Some of these areas are extremely affluent, clean, and business-oriented, whilst others are strikingly under-developed and lacking in resources on many levels. That being said, I haven't seen nearly all of what it has to offer, but what I have, I love. 

I've broken the post down into several components: things to do; places to eat and drink; places to shop; how to get around. I intend for it to be a pretty comprehensive guide to what I consider to be the best of DC. I'd love to hear your comments or additions, whether you've been to DC or not! 

Travel: Bristol

Why have two cocktails when you can have four (for the
price of two?!)

So my trip to Bristol was far too short, especially once I'd realised how well this city and I would get on! I was visiting a friend who's just moved there, but she had an exam the following Tuesday, which meant that I didn't go until Saturday afternoon, to give her time to revise. We'd booked a table at Turtle Bay, a Caribbean restaurant that has an amazing 2-4-1 happy hour - a rare find on a Saturday night! Apparently it's a chain (normally when I go somewhere new I like to find a more local place to eat), but we couldn't resist BOGOF cocktails! Apparently neither could anyone else, because the place was rammed! We managed to grab some drinks just before happy hour ended, and even a seat to drink them at while we waited for our table. It’s a good job we did, because the trip seemed a little wasted once we realised just how hot all the food was! Neither of us are big spice people but we figured that if we went for some safe options (i.e. nothing with the words “chilli” or “jerk” in them) we’d be okay. Uh-uh! Cue lots of water-downing. So, whilst I could appreciate how quick and fresh the food appeared, the experience was kind of wasted on us.

Travel: Prague (part 1 of 2)

I’ve been looking forward to writing this post for so long! I’ve always enjoyed travelling, but I’ve definitely been more inspired to travel since spending a year studying in the United States. I also met my boyfriend there, who is very passionate about seeing the world. So when he comes to visit me, we try to get somewhere in continental Europe together; obviously it’s much easier to get to from here than from America! 

Last January we went to Paris, and this year it was Prague’s turn! We chose Prague mostly because of recommendations from friends, and also because of how cheap it is. It’s the first country we’ve travelled to both having never been before and where neither of us could speak the language (we picked up some essentials from this guy on YouTube!). We were there for four nights, three full days and two “half”/travelling days, but managed to squash so much in that this is going to be part one of two! I’m hoping this will be helpful to anyone thinking of visiting the city; enjoy!

Day 1 (Sunday January 3rd)

Having arrived at Stansted at 4am for our 6:40am Ryanair flight (never again; even easyJet was better!) we were pretty knackered once we landed in Prague at 10am. So the first thing we did was decidedly un-European: got a McDonald’s! But at least that gave us fuel for finding the apartment, because transport into the city centre had us a bit muddled! My boyfriend went to get us 3-day transport passes (only available at select metro stations but also at tourist information points; there was one of these in the airport’s arrivals area). They cost 310Kč (approx. £8.60/$12.50) but we ended up getting “Airport Express” (a private service, not public transport) tickets too, as we thought they took us directly into the city centre. Actually, they kind of did, but had two stops: one to connect to the B metro line (passes work for all forms of Prague’s public transport: trams; buses; subway/underground) and one to the A metro line. Therefore that was a bit of a waste of money - although only about £7 - because the public bus does exactly the same thing, just a little slower! We also didn’t know how to get to the metro from the bus stop, but found it after several wrong turns! I’ll talk more about transport later but the long and short of it is: Prague’s public transport is amazing and I want every city to follow their lead!

Our apartment was absolutely gorgeous; we found it via Airbnb, which I use regularly. It was a perfect size and everything we needed, especially as we wanted to be able to self-cater to keep costs down. After a quick nap, we headed out to do a food shop - getting an incredible amount of stuff for around £14/$20! Prague has Tesco supermarkets, and while I know it’s a bit of a cop-out, it was nice to have something so familiar and (somewhat!) easy to navigate in amongst all the foreign-ness.

By that time it was time for dinner; I’d used Yelp! to find a couple of local, authentic restaurants that wouldn’t break the bank, but the first one we got to had an hour’s wait so we quickly moved onto the one slightly further away: Restaurace Mincovna. This was meant to be because we had an incredible meal there; we loved it so much we visited again on our last night! It was just off Old Town Square (a popular area/neighbourhood in the centre of Prague) but not packed with tourists and with very reasonable prices. We shared a veal tartare to start, and then I had veal schnitzel with a potato salad, and my boyfriend had the “knee of roast piglets”. The name was a bit off-putting but it was possibly one of the best things I’ve ever tasted; so tender, literally falling off the bone! With a glass of wine for me and a half-litre of tank beer for him, the meal came to 1000Kč with tip - around £27/$40. We were floored by both the price and the quality, so I’d definitely recommend it! The staff were extremely friendly and - like most of the people we interacted with - fluent in English. 

There were still Christmas stalls set up around the square (as well as the biggest Christmas tree I think I’ve ever seen!) so we wandered around a bit after dinner, and discovered an amazing traditional Slovak pastry: trdelník. This is rolled dough wrapped around a stick, then grilled and dipped in a sugar and walnut mix. Most places also offer it with Nutella spread inside; anything carb-loaded and dipped in sugar/Nutella/both is an absolute must for me. As it was pretty cold (around -3 degrees centigrade!) and we were still quite tired from travelling, we didn’t stay out for long, but it was great to see the square all lit up in the dark. 

Day 2 (Monday January 4th)

View from the Charles Bridge

We must have needed to sleep because we didn’t manage to drag ourselves out of bed until 11am on our first morning! I did feel a little guilty, but what’s a holiday if you can’t do exactly what you’d like?! In the end it was a perfect day; we wandered over the Charles Bridge* - five minutes walk from our accommodation - with snow falling! On the other side we visited the John Lennon Wall^; a tribute to the musician which was famously re-created each time Communist authorities whitewashed it. It’s full of paintings of Lennon, Beatles’ lyrics and quotes. My favourite was “may the best of your past be the worst of your future”, although this is apparently originally an old Irish saying! 

Next, we headed to a museum we’d read about in our Lonely Planet Pocket Prague guide book, about a Czech man named Karel Zeman who was known for his contribution to film special effects. At 140Kč - or £4/$6 for a student ticket (always check for a student price as many places offer a discount as long as you have some kind of student ID!) it was perhaps a little smaller than other museums we visited in that price range, but nonetheless very interesting. I hadn’t heard of Zeman before but he really was a pioneer of special effects, and the exhibits showed you exactly how he created innovative footage. There were also lots of hands-on, interactive things to get involved with (fetchingly modelled here by my boyfriend), which broke up the reading and made the experience fun and memorable! 

Now I don’t know about anyone else but my boyfriend needs to eat around four to six times a day, so by this time a refuel was needed! In another twist of fate, we failed to find the nearby cafe I’d found on Yelp, and headed back towards the Charles Bridge. On the way we chanced upon Pekařstvi Karmelitské± - a lovely Czech café/bar/bakery where we gorged on sandwiches, crepes, and pastries washed down with a French press of coffee for around £5/$3 each! Again, the woman behind the counter was very helpful and it was a great place to sit and catch our breath; we both read and my boyfriend journaled for a bit. 

After wandering back over the Charles Bridge, we stopped off at the apartment to decide on a place for dinner. We ended up at the Globe Bookstore and Café - an English language bookshop with a pub-cum-restaurant-cum-bar in the back. Unfortunately the store - one of the main reasons we’d gone - closed whilst we were still eating; when we’d looked at the website the “opening hours” displayed were 10am-midnight but it seems this must have been just for the café. Regardless, we had a good meal and mega cheap cocktails, so it wasn’t the worst thing to happen! 

So that’s days 1 and 2 - I hope you enjoyed it; part two (days 3, 4, and 5) will come later on this week. And if you've been to Prague, please let me know in the comments!

*Charles Bridge - Karlův Most, 110 00 Praha 1

^John Lennon Wall - Velkopřevorské Náměstí, 100 00 Praha 1

±Pekařstvi Karmelitské - I couldn't find a website for this but it's address is next to/very near to Karmelitská 268/26, 118 00 Praha 1!

Café review: Caracoli (Guildford, Surrey)

Once again I found myself in Guildford this Friday! In order to get the biggest bargain on a pair of shoes from Urban Outfitters, I had to return two pairs and re-buy them instore, so I was back again this week to return the last pair! Wanting to try somewhere different - as always - I did a bit of research and came across some great reviews of coffee shop/food store Caracoli. 

Café review: Coffee Culture (Guildford, Surrey)

I went for a little shopping spree in Guildford last week, with my mother and sister, and we stopped in this lovely, independently-owned coffee shop in the town centre. I love independent café's - probably because I used to work in one, but also because I go to university in Brighton, where new ones open every week! I know that familiarity can at times be useful and comforting, but exploring what different things the world offers is so exciting! I also feel that independent establishments can be more interesting and welcoming, with an eye to detail that chains don't need/want to bother with.