Tale of Three Thanksgivings

This was the third Thanksgiving I’ve spent in England and I must say it’s been the best one. The ward I’m in now has quite a few Americans and I was hopeful that I’d get invited to a good ole-fashioned homemade family Thanksgiving dinner. I was not disappointed. I ended up having three Thanksgivings. My first one was actually a few weeks ago and was a great way to kick off the feasting season. My friend and fellow American with whom I serve in Young Women’s is married to an Englishman. She does a Thanksgiving every year for all of her friends and family and this year I was included. Pretty much my favorite part of Thanksgiving is hanging out and making the meal and chatting, so I asked her if I could help with the cooking. She was nice enough to accept my offer and I had a fabulous time. We mashed potatoes, roasted yams, and gabbed the afternoon away. Then we headed up to the bishop’s house for the party. The dinner was delicious and we laughed and I felt like I was back with my family. It was a great night and I discovered that I can fit an entire slice of coconut cream pie in my mouth all at once.

My second Thanksgiving was a bit more low key, but delicious nonetheless. Another American family in the ward called this week to see if we would want to join their family for Thanksgiving. The answer was definitely yes. We went over Friday night and had an amazing meal. She had made rolls and they were so fantastic. I ate three. Then we played games with their cute kids and watched a movie. They were so hospitable and I felt right at home with them. Their kids are sweet and made me miss my cute little guys at home.

Then today I hosted my very first Thanksgiving dinner. I have to say it went well. I was pretty worried about it, having never cooked a turkey or made stuffing before, but I can honestly say that I did a pretty darn good job. I do make all sorts of experimental food and it usually turns out well, so I was fairly confident. I invited a few friends from the ward here and a few from Reading. We ended up with seven of us and I had a distinct sense of accomplishment at the end. I roasted the turkey to perfection and even made stuffing just like Grandma makes, though not quite as well as she does. Everything was done right on time and there was plenty of it. The house was even clean and the dishes loaded in the dishwasher. It was loads of work, but totally worth it. I feel like a proper grown up woman now. Maybe next year I’ll even try pie.

My Grand Misadventure

I had work in Oxford the other day. It’s at the same school where I worked a lot last year. It’s a pretty rough school and I was hoping to never have to go back there, but I’m not really in a position to turn down work right now so I had to take it. Besides not being a particularly good place to work, I also didn’t know how to get there from my new flat. I know my way around Oxford and I knew which bus to take once I got there, but the getting there was a problem. That problem was exacerbated by the fact that our internet still wasn’t set up so I couldn’t use my trusty friend google maps. On a totally separate subject, I LOVE google maps. I can with complete assurance state that, without google maps, I wouldn’t be able to survive life in England. It has become my truest and nearly constant friend. It never lets me down and is always there when I need it. Except for this time. But it wasn’t google maps’ fault. It was the unwillingness of our internet provider to come set up our phone line until nearly two weeks after we’d moved in that was at fault. Two freakin’ weeks. That’s just ridiculous. But I digress. Back to the story. Charlotte, my bookings agent, had called me Wednesday for Friday so it did give me some time to see if I could figure things out. I agonized over what to do and finally decided to test the sincerity of our neighbors’ offer of ‘anything you need.’ I had only met them once, but they seemed really nice. So, I popped across the hall, knocked on the door, and unfortunately interrupted their dinner. They were gracious and welcomed me in and set up the computer for me to use.

First I checked the national rail website where you can plan train journeys. Strike one. No trains from High Wycombe to Oxford. There was an option to go through Banbury (of Banbury Cross fame,) but it would have cost £26 and that’s just outrageous. Then I typed in the postcodes on google maps and, sure enough, something came up. It would take over two hours, but it was pretty straightforward. I wrote everything down, thanked the neighbors for their kindness, and headed home. I spoke to Charlotte the next day and told her I’d give it a shot and if it worked I’d go back. (I was secretly hoping it wouldn’t work so I’d have a good excuse never to go back to that h*** hole.)

6:00 Friday morning came really early. I got up, got dressed, ate my go power, and headed out. Step one: catch bus 32 into town at 6:47 for £3.20. That part went smoothly. I was familiar enough with town to know where I was and where I needed to be. Step two: catch bus 275 to Oxford at 7:08 for £5.50. This step was also completed without incident. The bus ride was lovely. It wove through charming towns, patchwork fields, and dense forest. I typically quite like taking the bus because it forces me to see areas that I wouldn’t otherwise see. Step three: get off bus 275 at the end of the Headington Road, walk a couple of minutes to the Cowley Road and catch either bus 1 or 5 by about 8:20 for £2.90. Now the success of this venture hinged on me knowing where to get off the bus in order to get the next one without wasting too much time. As we came in to Oxford, I began to feel a bit nervous about this last step. I had no idea how long it would take for the bus to get to the right spot, nor did I know exactly where the right spot was. Unfortunately, I missed getting off at the correct stop, so step three was a fail. I got off at the next stop, which was several minutes farther into town in the opposite direction of where I needed to be. As I was walking to the right bus stop, I saw a number 5 go past. Lame. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long for a number 1 and we were back in business, but after wasting nearly 10 minutes, I was going to be cutting it pretty fine. I did in fact make it with 2 minutes to spare and didn’t end up having a first lesson; all the rushing was for naught. The day went pretty well, but I was pretty glad to leave.

Now, the real adventure began. I needed to be home no later than 6:30 because we had a young women’s camp reunion and as the camp director, I really needed to be there. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem at all, seeing as I had three and a half hours to make the journey. I took bus 1 back up the Cowley Road, got off at the right spot, and walked to the bus stop across the street from where I should have gotten off that morning. So far so good. I waited patiently for bus 275 thinking that surely there would be at least one every hour. I had made the schoolboy error of not checking the return journey on google maps, but I assumed I could just make the same journey in reverse. I waited for half an hour without seeing one and figured that I must have just missed the one that came that hour. After another half hour without any sign of bus 275, I began to panic. I knew the bus ride would take around an hour and a half and I didn’t have loads of time to spare. Plus, I needed the loo, but I couldn’t leave in case the bus came while I was gone. So I kept waiting. Finally after waiting over an hour, I decided that drastic measures needed to be taken. I called the bus company and asked when the next bus would be leaving from Oxford. Imagine my despair when the woman told me the next bus wasn’t until 5:40! That was just not going to work. I decided to get on the next bus to Aylesbury, which is in the same general direction as High Wycombe, and hope there was somewhere along the way where I could catch a bus to High Wycombe. (People here laugh at me for being more familiar than they are with England’s geography, but on this occasion, it saved the day.) So I got on bus 200 to Aylesbury for £3.80. The bus driver was really helpful and told me where to get off to catch the next bus. It was in a lovely little town called Thame. Luckily, there was a bus there that goes to High Wycombe. It only leaves once per hour and I got there with 10 minutes to spare. Not quite long enough to hunt for a toilet, though. So at 5:40 I boarded bus 40 for £4.40. (For those of you keeping track at home, that’s nearly £20 spent on transportation. The part that really frosted me was that I wasted the money I paid for the return journeys to High Wycombe and my house.) It was set to arrive at High Wycombe at 6:30 so I called Robyn and asked her to meet me at the bus station with a pair of jeans and a sandwich so we could head out there for the reunion. We made it in plenty of time, but needless to say, I don’t think I’ll take work there again.

What Have I Become?

When I was preparing to come to England nearly two years ago, I was convinced that I wouldn't become one of those silly people who move somewhere and then come back to America and be all pretentious and use foreign slang. You know the ones I'm talking about. We've all met those guys who went to Chile on their missions and now insist on calling it Cheelay. I was bound and determined to resist the temptation to change, but sometimes it's just easier to give in. So without further ado, my dictionary of English words and phrases that I now use in a totally pretentious, American ex-pat way.

Posh: usually used for something nicer than you need

Toff: old-moneyed people and their interests; like polo and sailing

Fancy: to like/want something or someone; could be chocolate, could be a man

Bunk off: skip, as in work or school

Chav: we don't really have anything like it. They are the low class people who have loads of illegitimate children and live off the government. Their distinctive lifestyle and way of dressing are fodder for comedians everywhere.

Camp: another word we have no equivalent for. It's a man who is heterosexual but has all the markers and behaviors of a homosexual.

Knackered or shattered: completely exhausted

Bucketing down: pouring rain

Minger: someone who is REALLY ugly

Spots: zits

Scrotty: dirty, gross, smelly

Sort out: get everything taken care of

Crack on: keep going

Dodgy: we don't have a word like this one; it pretty much means something that's a bad idea, risky, unreliable, or chancy. It's a great one. I use it all the time now.

Well: used the way we'd use 'very.' "That movie was well scary."

Shrapnel: the little bits of change hanging out in your wallet

Blag:There are loads of ways to use this one: make something up as you go, usually because you forgot to do it; convince someone to give you something; convince someone that what you said it actually true

Broody: baby hungry

Coppers: one and two pence coins

Then there's all the words like trousers, mobile phone, rubbish, courgette, aubergine, and handbag that I hate using, but have to so people don't keep saying "In England we say _____." Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. I promise I won't use them when I come back.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

As I was walking home from work today, it started raining. This isn’t really that out of the ordinary, but this time it caused me to reflect on a couple of things. First of all, as I watched a number of people cowering under trees to escape the rain, it occurred to me that Vizzini should have included one more thing in his list of classic blunders: going out in England without an umbrella. It's really just silly not to. It may look like a perfectly sunny day, but that's when it gets you. It only took getting caught, and subsequently soaked, once or twice for me to make the decision to sacrifice the space and endure the added weight of an umbrella in my bag literally everywhere I go.

Secondly, rain is a totally different game here. Growing up in Utah, I’m accustomed to about two kinds of rain: the kind that boils up during summer afternoons, pours down for a few minutes, and makes everything smell clean and fresh and; and the kind that rolls in from the west during the spring and autumn months, lasts all day, and makes you want to eat soup and fresh baked bread. Either way, there’s usually plenty of warning. Here in England, though, rain is a way of life. As such, there is a myriad of different types of rain and ways to describe. Having lived here now for nearly two years, I feel like I’m starting to get a grip on English rain. There is rain the comes down in bucketfuls, rain that comes out of nowhere, rain that goes sideways, rain that blows up under your umbrella, rain that soaks through all your clothes in one minute, rain that lasts for days on end, rain that is really nothing more than mist, rain that gushes out of the sky and floods the gutters, rain that… The list goes on and on. I think they’re sort of like the Eskimos who reputedly have more words for snow than anyone else. The English have more ways to describe rain and the way it’s raining than anyone else. I think the best new word that has entered my vocabulary on the topic of precipitation is the word ‘spitting.’ It’s used to describe the type of rain that is literally like someone blowing raspberries in your face. It’s not raining enough to actually need your umbrella, but is quite enough to get you wet. You can’t use your umbrella without people thinking you’re a wuss, but it will definitely mess up your hair. I’d almost rather it chuck it down and get it over with.

The Wedding

What can I say? The wedding was amazing. It's been quite a build up over here. While most people pretended that they didn't care, pretty much everyone I know watched it. The British are funny that way. It's just not okay for them to actually admit that they're patriotic or that they care about anything, except football, and that's only every four years at the World Cup. It seems like the younger generation is just jaded toward the world, while the older generation still loves the royalty. I think this wedding may have changed things a bit. Everyone seems to genuinely hope that Kate and William will make it. They appear to be a happy couple and as Prince Charles said upon their engagement, "they've been practicing long enough." I can't imagine what it must be like for her to be thrust into this kind of life, but if yesterday was any indication, she'll acquit herself very well. She looked absolutely amazing. It was spectacular and a day that will spark dreams in the minds of little girls (and big girls) everywhere.

I was torn between going to London to be part of the celebrations held at Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square or stay here in Reading to watch it on TV with friends. In the end I opted to stay here, partly because the weather forecast had been for heavy rain and because I wouldn't have actually seen any of the wedding. I invited some friends over to Margit's house and we watched it with her and her family while eating a delicious brunch of crepes and scrambled eggs. It was pretty fun. Margit is unlike anyone I've ever known. She and I enjoyed the wedding probably more than anyone else. We exclaimed several times and gushed over every new part of the wedding. While I enjoyed myself, after watching the footage on TV, I did feel a little sad that I hadn't just gotten myself there. It looked like quite a party.

I don't think anything could have actually spoiled my enjoyment of the day. I began watching at about 9 while the people arrived at the Abbey. I think I inherited my love of watching people in amazing clothes and commenting on their choices from my grandma. I wish I could have watched it with her. I do love the English tradition of hat wearing for the women. There were some really odd selections, but I think it's fantastic. It seems that the more outrageous the hat, the better. I think I might just have to buy one. Anyway, back to the actual wedding. I absolutely loved the way they decorated the inside of Westminster Abbey. The Abbey is one of the most amazing places I've ever visited and the trees and flowers inside added to the grandeur of the surroundings. I loved watching all the royals arrive and especially enjoyed the fanfare for the Queen. The music throughout the wedding was spectacular. I have to admit that there is something about religious music, especially sung inside an amazing cathedral. Then Kate arrived. She was stunning. I loved her dress. I thought it was appropriately princess-y but also fashionable and classy. In a word, it was perfect. I also liked that she wore her hair down and curled instead of all fancy and piled on top of her head. The veil was perfect and the tiara was not too extravagant. Loved it, loved it, loved it. That is all I can say. Great Day!

Country Rambles

Last Friday was Good Friday and our stake organized a hike through the English countryside for the Young Single Adults. It was splendid. The weather was perfect and the company superb. It was the most glorious day I've spent in ages. We walked through fields and forests and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. We had a lovely lunch and then hiked back. After we returned to our cars, we sat and chatted and I can't remember an afternoon better spent in ages. It was a day that reminded me of just what an amazing experience it is for me to live in England.

I have developed a love affair with English post boxes. Not the column style standing solitary on the street, but the type that is built into walls, buildings, and posts. The initials at the top indicate which king or queen was on the throne when it was established. This one is from Queen Victoria's time. It's only the second one I've ever seen.

Here are a few pictures from the walk.

I love the trees here. I thought this one was particularly cool with all of the moss growing on it.

The Long Overdue Update

Life in England is going well. I haven’t been doing much, since I can’t seem to get any work, but we’ll get there in a minute. I don’t know if it’s just that last year I wasn’t sure what to expect or if I was used to more blue skies during the winter, but it seemed like it was miserable and rainy all the time. I guess I’m slowly becoming English because this winter hasn’t seemed that bad. It’s still rainy, cold, and generally grey, but it hasn’t bothered me as much this year. It might also be that it hasn’t rained as much. Who knows, but suffice it to say, I still really like it here.

So, work. Well, when I got back from the States in October, I hit the job search hard. I applied to every history teaching job I could find, but to no avail. I also applied to be a supply teacher. (In America, we call it substitute teaching.) Here in England, they don’t have school districts, so there’s no way to get hired by a district and be sent out to schools by them. Instead, they have temp agencies that are dedicated to finding subs for schools. Anyway, I got hired by an agency in Oxfordshire, which is the county just north of where I live. Then I got hired by another agency that serves schools in the surrounding area. I was pretty excited, but there was some paper work, etc. that needed doing before I could start. Well, the paper work came through, but not in time for me to actually work before Christmas. BLEH! Anyway, since I’ve been back, I still haven’t had any work. I did find another agency based here in Reading. I met with them on Wednesday and they signed me. Unfortunately now the problem is that I don’t have my visa to prove that I have permission to work here. I had to apply for the new visa before the 31^st of January and haven’t gotten it back yet. So there you go. Luckily I have faith that my decision to stay was the right one because there are plenty of reasons to doubt. I’m a little bit nervous to teach here, but also excited for the challenge. I’m sure there will be plenty of interesting experiences that will make it onto these pages. Stay tuned.

Other than that, life is good. I have amazing friends and my housemates are great. I feel blessed to have so many fabulous people in my life. I have made some life-long friends here and I can’t ever think about leaving them without getting a bit misty. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to make new friends and it has been a good experience for me to be here and have to step out of my comfort zone and meet new people. It also makes me feel pretty good about myself that I’ve made so many friends who think I’m cool. Yep, still got it. In all seriousness though, I love the people here and they are extremely good to me. I love that I’ll always have friends in England. I’ve also invited all of them to stay at Mom and Dad’s anytime they’re in town. Hope that’s okay.

Spring has sprung?

I realize it's been ages since I've posted anything and I'm planning to be better. I guess I just forget sometimes how different things are here because it's become my life. Nothing is new anymore. That's not to say that I've gotten bored of it, just used to it. I'll try to be better.

Today I just wanted to post something that made my day. I was recently walking somewhere (since I walk everywhere now, I can't exactly remember where I was going) and I saw a tree in bloom. I'm not sure what kind of tree it is or what it's typical blossoming time is, but it's the first hint of Spring that I've seen. Suffice it to say, it the cold and rain of an English winter, it was a welcome breath of fresh air. I also saw a few daffodils peeking out of someone's flower patch. I'm so excited. Spring in England is a wonder to behold.