Annie Across the Pond

September 16, 2009

Today was a fantastic day, partly because I got to sleep.  I finally figured I should make an appearance by about 1:00.  I showered in what may prove to be the one downfall of my stay here, other than the lack of a dishwasher.  It was alternately freezing and scalding.  I guess I don’t yet know how these English showers work.  It may help me to shower quickly, though, so maybe it’s not a bad thing.  After a quick lunch of a ham sandwich with the Queen’s mustard, which is delicious and very pungent, Kim and I headed into town to get my house key and do some exploring.  As we walked down the street, we discovered two charity shops.  I was beyond excited to have my first charity shop experience.  I was not disappointed since I found something special that a member of my family might just get for the Christmas white elephant gift exchange…if they’re lucky.  We then wandered onto campus and ended up gathering horse chestnuts for a game called konkers which all the English kids apparently play.  You drill a hole through the nut and put a string through it then alternately try to hit the other person’s konker until one breaks off the string.   Harry and Kim were kind enough to demonstrate for me later that evening.  When we got home, I finished unpacking and getting arranged.  Then I decided to have a quintessential English dinner, a kebab.  There’s a kebab shop just down the street from us so I walked down there all by myself and got a chicken tikka kebab.  It was DELICIOUS!  I think I’m already addicted.  Just writing about it is making my mouth water.  I predict that soon the people there will not even have to ask what I’ll have. Whether that’s good news or bad, I’ll leave up to you to decide.  Overall, I’m feeling very confident that I will love my life here, if I don’t freeze to death.  I have a bad feeling about the state of my internal temperature, which suffers greatly throughout the Utah winter and is already suffering here.  I’ve only been warm for a few hours total since I got here and most of them were while I was in my bed.  Unfortunately I can’t spend all of my time there.  Something drastic may have to be done.  Stay tuned for further developments in Andrea’s Quest for Warmth.