Home Again, Finnegan

Today was my first real day back from Christmas, in that I had my first lecture of the term.  It was good to get out of the house.  I actually arrived back in the UK on Thursday the 7^th of January, the morning after one of the largest snowstorms in UK memory.  So I left cold and snowy Utah for cold and snowy England.  Now, I came to England under the impression that it wouldn’t snow here.  I have been disappointed.  Granted, snow is uncommon here, but no less undesirable in my mind.  The problem is that since snow is uncommon here, no one knows how to function in it.  I found out later that the airport had only recently reopened when I landed.  This meant that there were thousands of people who had been stranded there the previous night who were now understandably anxious to get home.  This led to some less than pleasant exchanges between the RailAir coach driver and several passengers.  Suffice it to say, I finally got on the coach after waiting in the sub-zero temperatures for nearly 45 minutes. 

Reading is about 40 minutes from the airport and the ride was luckily uneventful.  I was a little put out that I had to come home to a snowy mess, but to be fair, it looked beautiful.  However, as we made our way through the snowy countryside to Reading, I began to wonder how I was going to get from the train station to my house if the roads were impassable.   I went to the bus stop and stood in line, still in sub-zero conditions, only to find out that the bus I needed wasn’t running.  The only option would be a taxi, most of which were charging extra for hazardous conditions.  Rude.  So I got in another line to wait for one of very few taxis that were out that day.  After another 20 minutes in the cold, I told the driver where I lived and he told me he would get me as close as he could.  This turned out to be the end of my street, which left me to drag my suitcase through the several inches of snow covering my road.  Lovely.  I finally made it in to the house, which thankfully, was warm. 

The next day I decided that I needed to go to the little corner grocery store since I had left very little food in my cupboards when I left.  The snow hadn’t melted at all and I couldn’t face trudging through the snow on my front walk.  Then I had a stroke of brilliance.  I grabbed one of our cookie sheets and cleared our walk, laughing the whole time at what the neighbors must have thought.  With our path clear, Kim and I journeyed to the store and bought the necessary provisions, minus milk and water, which they had sold out of.  I lived the next few days on beans and toast and whatever else I could find left over in the cupboard.  Luckily things have now thawed and we discovered that the big grocery stores let you order online and have groceries delivered.  Brilliant. 

(Also, they use bulldozers to clear snow.)

My life of late

I know it’s been ages since I’ve written anything, so I’m going to try to get everyone caught up with the goings on here.  I‘d like to say I’ve been busy with schoolwork, but we all know that would be a lie.  My term ended on Friday and I have an essay to write over Christmas, but that can wait.  There are too many other fun things to do.  I have blogs to write, and films to see, and boys to flirt with, and people to chat with.  I can’t be bothered to actually do what it is I came here to do.  Don’t be silly. 

Life has been going well, other than the cold and rainy weather that has led to the skin on my toes falling off.  I should probably look into that.  Luckily they have a national health plan here so I can go it anytime for anything.  So apart from the diseases, things are going great.  I really like it here and have informed my parents that I may never come home.   I’ve mixed a few new idiomatic phrases into my vocabulary and I’m using the English slang mostly correctly.  There is still the occasionally ‘pants’ incident, but for the most part I’ve avoided embarrassing myself too much.  I think I’m getting the hang of things over here and I’m becoming a proper Brit.  I’ve made some friends in my course and they’ve even started inviting me out for drinks after class.  Hooray!  There are even plans in the works for next term to get together on Thursday nights for pub quiz night.  I’ll keep you all posted on that, but I can’t help thinking that I would excel at it considering my competition will be drunk.    

One the best things about being here, though, is the proximity of Reading to other exciting locations.  I just popped over to Bath last weekend for the Christmas market and got rained on the whole time, but loved it.  Bath is a beautiful town and plus, I got kissed under the mistletoe a couple times. (Just on the cheek, mom.  Don’t worry.)  Then on Thursday I got to go to the British National Archives in Kew.  It…was…amazing.  I know I’m a history nerd and everything, but still, it was cool.  We got a special tour that took us into the actual archive rooms.  I’m amazed at the amount of information contained there, and the interesting people that spend their days there.  There were some wicked old men in really interesting clothes scattered throughout studying ancient manuscripts and maps.  Next time I go, I’m planning to wear an odd hat and mismatched clothes so I’ll fit in better.  After our visit, some of my classmates and I went into the city (London) for the rest of the afternoon.  We walked through the Hyde Park Christmas Fair and wandered along the Thames.  It still amazes me that I actually live here.  I just hop on over to London every now and then like it’s nothing.  Who does that?  I think it’s fantastic. 

Anyway, that what’s going on here.  Life in England is good and getting better every day.  

You don't know what you've got till it's gone

Things I miss the most about America:

      1.   Functional deodorant (I’m going to stock up over Christmas)

      2.    Mexican food that has flavor (The Brits really don’t like spicy food)

      3.  The Bill of Rights (No explanation necessary)

      4.   Crunchy peanut butter (No one does it like the Americans)

      5.    Central heating (This radiator business is killing me)

      6.    Driving (I’ve walked more in the last 3 months than the previous 3 years)

      7.    Clothing and shoe sizes I understand (I still have no idea what size I wear) 

      8.    Funny TV (Luckily I can watch the good stuff online)

      9.    A large selection of cold cereals (I’m getting tired of Cheerios)   

      10.  Baggers at the grocery store (I have a new-found respect for their skills)

A Thanksgiving to Remember

Thursday’s Thanksgiving will go down in history as my strangest.  Even on my mission and study abroad we had relatively normal Thanksgiving celebrations.  This year, unfortunately, I had to go to class.  I had been invited by my friend Sara to a proper American Thanksgiving, but had to turn it down because England apparently couldn’t care less about our American holidays.  The lecture I usually have on Tuesday afternoons was switched to Thursday from 4-6.  This led to me having the exciting opportunity to spend my favorite holiday listening to a fairly boring lecture about the new British history.  Definitely not Thanksgiving related.  Luckily, I did have something to look forward to later that evening.  I had been invited to a murder mystery dinner party.  We started the evening with potato and leak soup, then had chili over rice, and finished up with apple crumble.  Also not really Thanksgiving related, but delicious nonetheless.  While we ate, we became involved in a murder.  As part of the fun, I was given the part of an American journalist who was in England to cover a big horseracing event.  I was supposed to be loud, brash, and “American,” whatever that means.  Anyway, it was set in the 1920s, which is one of my favorite time periods because of the mob.  I’ve sort of always wanted to be a 1920s mobster’s girlfriend.  I realize that’s not possible, but it has always held a fairly romantic appeal to me.  Now, back to the murder.  The group of us was on the train to the races when the jockey was killed.  Through the course of the investigation, it was discovered that I had ties to the American underworld.  That’s right, I worked for the mob!  My dream had come true.  Incidentally, I was also the murderer.  Darn Americans!  We had a really good time and I was glad to have something to do so I didn’t mope around being jealous of the turkey and pie everyone was eating at home. 

            Fortunately, Friday I did get a proper Thanksgiving dinner and it was fantastic.  My friend Lindsay is also American and her parents came over for her graduation.  They brought some of the necessary ingredients for preparation of the required elements of Thanksgiving dinner.  There was turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie and the required sharing of what we’re all thankful for.  I was put in charge of that, I guess, because being thankful is an American thing.  The food was delightful and we all ate until near bursting, which of course is the best part of Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately, there was no fat dogging afterward.  So despite my rather strange Thanksgiving of the night before, I still got my turkey and stuffing.  Alls well that ends well, as they say.

Swedish highlights

Most of you know I went to Sweden a little while ago.  What you don’t know is that it was fantastic.  I had a wonderful time there.  My cousin is living in Stockholm so I had a personal tour guide for the entire trip.  We wandered around the city and visited a number of museums.  A fair amount of time was also spent commenting on the general good-lookingness of Swedes.  I had no idea that everyone in the whole country is beautiful.  I was flattered when people actually mistook me for a Swede.  I may have to return to Sweden if this England thing doesn’t work out.  Anyway, we also ate a fair amount of delicious food.  There’s this one thing they have there that is heavenly.  It’s a cookie of sorts, but better than any cookie I’ve ever had before.  It’s a really soft, chewy cookie with a layer of chocolate butter (I know!  Why haven’t we thought of chocolate butter in America?  Forget honey butter) that is then covered with a hard chocolate shell.  Delicious.  We also ate some meatballs that we’re still not sure of the ingredients for.  On the English translation of the menu it was called “wildforce” meat.  So if anyone has any insight into what a wildforce is, I would love to hear it.  My favorite was lunch the last day.  We went to what amounts to an indoor market where some of the stalls have a sort of deli counter.  There’s a bunch of prepared foods and you just choose what you want and then they warm it up for you and you sit at their counter and eat.  I felt very authentic.

Anyway, enough about delicious food and even more delicious people.  Now on to the actual trip.  The first day we went to the city hall where they hold the Nobel Prize banquet every December.  It was pretty cool.  I had a definite history-nerd moment there.  Unfortunately no one there could answer my question as to why President Obama was given a Nobel Prize this year.  Erik said it was because the committee was Finnish this year and they’re all a bit off.  Who knows?  After the City Hall, we wandered around town for a bit and then went to the Vasa Museum.  The Vasa is a giant warship that sunk after 25 minutes on its maiden voyage.  Funny story.  It sat in Stockholm harbor for 300+ years and was finally rescued in the 1960s.  They spent 30 years restoring it and now it has a museum built around it.  It was pretty cool.  Next on the list was the Swedish culture museum.  It had an entire floor dedicated to table settings, which I’m told are a big deal in Sweden.  It looked a little like an IKEA showroom.  When we finished there we went to the old town and wandered around.  That’s where we had the meatballs.  After dinner, we headed to a YSA dance where people from all over Scandinavia were competing for who could speak English the best.  I’m not kidding.  I thought some of the people were American.  Well, we danced the night away and I met some lovely people, who I’m sure I will never see again.  The next day was Sunday and we decided to get some delicious breakfast before Church, which ended up costing us more than dinner the previous night.  Oh well, it was tasty.  Church was the standard testimony-meeting-with-a-bunch-of-people-who-are trying-to-impress-each-other stuff.  The only thing that truly impressed me was the level of English proficiency.  Impeccable, once again.  Monday morning we went to Skansen, which is an outdoor museum, I guess.  There’s a zoo with native animals and some typical houses from different areas and time periods in Sweden.  My favorite was the glass-blowing demonstration, mostly because one of the guys kept looking at me.  I rewarded him with smiles and the purchase of a vase.  After Skansen we had lunch at the market place and then I had to leave for the airport.  All in all, not a bad weekend.  I think next time, though, I’ll go in the summer and without a guy who I’d like to think deterred the hot Swedish guys from hitting on me.  

The interior of City Hall.  It's pretty impressive

This is the Vasa.  Sorry it's so dark.

        Lovely me in lovely old town wearing my new coat, which I'm glad to say passed the Sweden cold test.

The view from Skansen.  Stockholm is a beautiful city.

Erik and I freezing to death at Skansen.  

Who's Guy Fawkes?

Last Thursday was Guy Fawkes Day.  It’s not a holiday we celebrate in America so I’ll give you the rundown, as I understand it.  A long time ago, there was a group of people who didn’t like the king.  Apparently he was abusing his power or something.  Well, this group decided that they needed to do something about it, so they planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament.  They put the plan in action and planted a bunch of gunpowder under the building.  Guy had one simple job to do.  Guy was the triggerman.  Unfortunately for Guy, he was caught, then hung, drawn, and quartered.  In celebration of his failure, apparently, the Brits make effigies of Guy and burn him.  Then they shoot off fireworks.  I’m not kidding.  That’s the whole story.  Well, my roommates decided that I needed to have an authentic Guy Fawkes Day experience and so we made an effigy, lit him on fire, and shot off fireworks.  Here are some of the pictures from the night’s festivities.  

My roommate Kim and our friend Lindsay creating Guy.

Guy gettin' a little fresh.  He deserved to die.

Some wicked awesome firework action.

Guy meets his end to the cheers of the onlookers.

Autumn on campus

Everyone has been asking for a few pictures of what campus looks like, so I carried my camera around last week like a total dork and took a few pictures.  I hope it was worth my public humiliation.

This is one of the older buildings on campus.  It houses part of the law school.  I'm considering hanging out in front to pick up a lawyer.  I'll keep you posted.

These are some of the lovely trees on campus.  The campus is fairly old (like over a hundred years) so there are a lot of old trees.  It's beautiful.

This is the way I walk to class sometimes.  Don't worry mom, I don't walk there alone after dark.  And Jack the Ripper died long ago.  

This is the lake on campus.  Pretty posh, having a lake on campus.  I have grand plans for what to use this lake for, but haven't yet found anyone with which to accomplish those plans.