week eight
Week 8 is here and gone. February 23rd - March 1st. Ask your financial aid advisor about the Gilman Scholarship for study abroad today!
February 23rd
Hey, hey. Now when I run, the cold air doesn’t set my lungs on fire. Making progress…
Megan and I did spend a good hour or two planning trips today. I will fill you in on them once they become official, but right now the plans look like: Bath, Salisbury, mainly as a staging point for Stonehenge, Birmingham, and Castleton in Peak District for some hiking. Then up to Kilmars, Glasgow, and maybe even Inverness and Loch ness in Scotland. And possibly fly over to Ireland for two days. These and all the other trips with the international people makes for quite a lot of traveling in the final 2 weeks. AND, we seem to have left out London, but I’m beginning to think London may just require a trip of its own one day. Maybe around the 2012 Olympics…
My Mom called me today, but not to say how much she missed me, rather to inform me that Pizza Hut charged me for $469!!! Now, I like pizza as much as the next guy, but this is a little extreme. I’m only including this because if you are thinking about studying abroad, one of the most helpful things for me is to have my parents in on my account so that they could clear up any little mishaps, and let me know what my balance is and all that while I’m away. A joint account with someone you trust saves you all the hassle of trying to work with the bank over the phone (with very expensive rates), or through e-mail, which isn’t always the quickest way to get things done. And your money is your lifeline over here, without it you are really screwed. I suggest taking two debit cards with you. Keep the extra incase you lose the first one. Your bank is not here, so you can’t just stroll into one and ask for some cash out of your account.
Booked a tour of the Manchester United stadium and museum today for Saturday. Should be exciting.
I got some of my grades from my plants and medicine course today and I got a 72, and 83, and 90 on my test, essay, and presentation. This is really exciting since an 80% is an A, and personally I only need 50% to get credit at ECU. Not trying to brag (too much anyways), but I was also the highest grade in each category! Go me, representing America. Hopefully this will carry over to my other classes.
Megan and I went into China Town for a nice dinner out. This place called The Great Wall was really nice; I’d never been in such an elegant Chinese restaurant. They have a little ice bucket for your wine, they pull out the chair for you, and even fold the napkin right around your lap! Quite a change from the takeaway place at home, where the sweaty guys in the back are shouting at each other and tossing your food about. Everything was quite delicious until Megan discovered that she had squid in her seafood noodles. And not just squid bits; no, more like giant purple tentacles wiggling out of the noodles at you like some creature from the black lagoon. I expected Megan to scream and throw up on the spot, but no, she surprised me and just set them aside for me to eat, and they were actually quite delicious. After she saw how much I enjoyed them, she even tried a few as well. Gotta try new things while you have the chance!
February 24
Today we did a bit of exploring and went to Manchester’s Trafford Center, which is an enormous shopping center/mall. Some say it’s the biggest in Europe. Its located over in a part of the city called The Quays, which is right on the wharf, so in some of its nicer parts The Quays are actually quite scenic.
Most people didn’t think we’d be impressed because America is the king of malls, but this place just floored me. Its like our malls on steroids. We walked around for 2 hours and I still don’t think we saw everything. And its nice too! Roman columns line most of the walls, the ceiling is entirely glass to let the precious sunshine in, and there is a fountain of dolphins (statues, not real Flipper dolphins) that shoots water up 2 stories to the top of the glass dome in the center of the building.
The food court puts any other food court I’ve seen to shame. If you walk in one way its decorated like china, with Asian style buildings, statues of monks, and bamboo trees. Walk in the other end, and its Bourbon Street in New Orleans with outdoor café’s, jazz bands, and American flags. Pizza Hut is situated in an area designed like Ancient Egypt, whilst McDonald’s, ironically enough, is in a Middle Eastern section. You can bring your food to a giant area that decorated like the deck of a luxury cruise liner, complete with pool, lifeboats, and a mast with an enormous big screen TV in it. Fast food joints were mixed in with fancy restaurants and posh wine bars. I’d never seen anything like it.
My favorite store had to be Selfridges’s, not that we could buy anything there. It’s a department store, but with very high-end stuff, like Luis Vuitton luggage, Armani jeans, and Burberry bags. This store also had a food section, which just completely messed with my mind because I’d never seen food for sale in a department store. They had sections from Britain, India, a sushi bar, liquor you could put in your own custom bottle straight from the cask, and lots of stuff from the rest of Europe. Our personal favorite of course was the American section, where you could get rare delicacies for an outrageous price. Lucky Charms are what $2.50 in the states? At Selfridges they are 7 pounds!!! Sweet potatoes are 2 pounds, Oreos are 5, marshmallow crème is 3, and individual Reese’s Pieces are about 1.50, and Kraft macaroni and cheese for about 6!!! Good Lord!!! And, then add in the exchange rate and you realize that a box of Lucky Charms is about $13!!! Ahhhh! People that shop here are absolutely insane. They sell one bottle of beer for about 1.50, that I bought a four pack for in ASDA for 2.50. It was just mind-blowing.
Since I’ve become a fancy pants official 2-3 pound wine connoisseur, I bought one of those fancy pants lever operated corkscrews. It’s friggin’ awesome! I just roam the streets now looking for bottles to open. I love it.
Cooked up some English sausage, fried some onions, and served them on a wheat roll drowned in English mustard for dinner, along with the last of the macaroni and cheese my mom shipped in. The mustard here is really packs a punch and the sausage is just so nice and browned, and plump and juicy. Mmmmmmmm. I’m really going to miss the food here.
February 25th
Today we took a tour of the Old Trafford football grounds that the famed Manchester United calls home. If you don’t know Man. United, you probably have heard of David Beckham, and this is the team he used to play for.
I was amazed with the sheer size of the stadium. After their renovations this spring, the place will hold over 70,000 people, making it the second largest stadium in Britain just behind the new Wembley stadium and right in front of Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium in Wales. The place must be absolutely insane during a big game.
Budweiser sponsors Man. United, so you can’t even get a proper British beer in Old Trafford. However, they do make about 2,000 lbs. of pies a day, their most popular concession. I guess their experience with crazed football fanatics has pushed them to have better security that we lack in America. You can’t drink beer out in the stands, only in the concessions area, there are security cameras covering all the fans, which helps if an incident was to occur (anyone remember the Pistons-Pacers brawl a year ago?), and if you appear intoxicated they will throw you out of the place. Wow, and this in England, one of the alcohol capitals of the world.
The field has hot water pipes pumping thousands of gallons an hour underneath it to keep the field and players warm, although you’ll freeze to death in the red plastic seats watching them. Unless of course, you are a cooperate sponsor, then you can use your box seats. Oh, you don’t have box seats? Just write a check for 16,000 pounds (for the cheap one!), and join the ten-year waiting list. And there are about 300 seats right by the field just for disabled folks. Even blind people come, get a free radio tapped directly into the commentary booth, and enjoy the game from the best seat in the house. All this is free, paid for by Man. United for the disabled population. Wonder if that plate in my wrist qualifies…
You can have all your major life events in the football stadium: be born in the mini-hospital, get married by the fully licensed staff and celebrate on the grounds, get drunk and thrown in the Man. United jail, and when you die, even your ashes can be spread out onto the field. Talk about a football culture!
We also got a behind the scenes look at the locker rooms, players lounge, where and how they eat and train, how the wives are treated, how they keep rival teams separated during press conferences, and we even got to walk out of the player’s tunnel and on to the field just like the team does during a match. Well, minus the 70,000 raging fans. Then we went to the Man. United team museum, which traces their history from the late 1800’s until now. I had a really good time, and I can’t even name a single guy on the team, so imagine how cool this is for a true fan. All for only 6 pounds!
Later, Megan and I ended up in Piccadilly and we checked out the Manchester Farmer’s Market. I found some authentic, home made Cornish pasties that I can easily heat up at home, and even some haggis, which I am really anxious to try. Haggis is a Scottish dish involving almost every part of a sheep; those Scots are so resourceful. The brain and other parts are mashed together with oats, offal, and spices and then placed inside the sheep’s stomach. Boil this for about 30 minutes, the cut open the stomach and bon apetit! Don’t eat the actual stomach, just the goods on the inside. The stuff we got I think is just the brain and meats already boiled; we just have to grill it for about 4 minutes on each side. I hear its nice with parsnips and potatoes. If I like this I’ll have to look for some proper haggis and get in on some of that stomach boiling action.
February 26th
A lazy, relaxing Sunday.
Cooked my Cornish pasty for brunch, and it was great. Flaky, crusty croissant type bread filled with mash, beef stock, and some veggies. Will have to find a way to make these in the states.
Finally finished that essay for art. Now I can go through the whole process again for my drama class. Yippee!
For some reason this dorm doesn’t have recycling, so I saved all that reusable good stuff and took it down to the recycling depot at ASDA. Hooray for saving the earth.
February 27th
Four people, FOUR, turned up for our plants and medicine lecture on diabetes. It may go down to three as I can hardly see the point of attending a lecture on diabetes when the lecturer can’t even pronounce it correctly. However, I am learning about this mysterious new disease called “dashteeb”.
Had a dive-bomber pigeon take a little poop on my book bag today. I will most likely catch bird flu and die. Perhaps I will just start cooing randomly, but at least I will get lots of space on the bus.
Dorm life here is definitely crazier than at ECU. My friends down the hall made a tennis ball cannon out of old Pringles cans, duct tape (what else!), and hairspray for projectile fuel. Word is they manage to get a 3-foot flame shoot out the back end, so they will probably blow themselves to bits. Can you kill someone with a tennis ball?
I am spending more time trying to correctly cite this stupid essay for my art class than I am actually trying to write it. I’ve never had to do footnotes before, and I’ve never even heard of the MHRA format, so I will probably screw up the whole thing. I’m afraid I’ll be charged with plagiarism and get a zero for all my hard work just because I made an honest mistake. Oh well, we’ll see how this goes.
February 28th
Happy Pancake Day!!! The Brits have Pancake Day instead of Fat Tuesday, so be sure to party down English style and toss around some flapjacks.
It was beautiful, sunny day, so I tried to do my run like one of the locals today, in just a T-shirt and shorts as opposed to being completely bundled up like that Ralphie kid from A Christmas Story. Well no shocker here, but it a hell of a lot colder than it looks. Especially when its windy, which is…hmmm…ALL THE TIME. And especially when you run through shady, tree lined parks, which is exactly what I decided to do. After about five minutes of running things start to get a bit better, but not because you’ve warmed up, no, rather because your extremities have been officially frozen and you can’t feel them anymore. On the bright side of things, I got a really nice workout because A) you can’t stop jogging to walk and take a break, because you will probably freeze in place, and B) you run much faster because you are trying to hurry up and get the hell inside! I may be on to something here.
We were planning to go to The Pancake House for Pancake Day, but as you can imagine, it was kind of mobbed. Went to Abdul’s instead, for a donner kebab. Still don’t know what donner meat is. Reindeer maybe? Get it, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolph?! That’s a funny joke, c’mon. Anyways, Abdul’s is to Arabic food, as McDonald’s is to American grub; a quick, delicious, and cheap bite to eat.
Spent about two or three hours trying to plan trips today. Megan tried to sign up for the international office’s trip to the Lake District, but they were out of spots. I told her to sign up like a week ago, when I did, but she was in no mood to hear it so I tried not to gloat too much. Hopefully someone won’t show up and we can still go together. If not I will end up going alone, but that will make for some peaceful hiking and some solitary time in nature, and that’s not so bad. I think we could probably use a little more time apart anyways.
We booked the bus ride to Birmingham and the Cadbury world tour, so that should be exciting. Found out it would be about 72 pounds on train fare and a hostel just to spend one night in Bath, so we probably will be skipping that. Looked at flights to Ireland and although that is a bit more expensive than Bath, we will be spending more time there and it is so much farther away, that it seems to be worth the extra cash. Also found out that ferries run to Dublin as well, so I’d like to do that as it is cheaper, but longer, by about 8 hours. So far, we’ve only found ferries that take people in cars, not foot travelers, so this has also been a problem.
People said to me before leaving on my trip, “Oh, your in Europe! It’ll be so easy to travel around. Just hop on a plane and go to Rome for a weekend, teehee!” Well folks, it ain’t so easy. Flights don’t run at all the times you need to be traveling. Sure I can catch a flight to Scotland, but I’ll get there at 2am, with buses probably not running, and me not knowing where the hell I am. Some hostels, the cheap one’s we’re hoping for, seem to be getting more booked up by the day. It also doesn’t help when your girlfriend refuses to stay in the cheaper, 10-20 person shared dorm hostels. “Ewww, Greg! They could be sooooo GROSS!” Well for 20-40 extra pounds in my pocket, I can handle gross. My roommate was gross and I dealt with him for four months! And then, once you think you’ve found a cheap flight, then they toss in taxes and fees, and it has quadrupled the price. Or when you think you’ve found a really sweet bus deal for like 5 pounds from here to Bath, and then you book the return and it is 50 pounds. FOR THE SAME ROUTE!!!! Ahhhh, it is enough to make you scream sometimes. I know there are a lot worse problems than trying to plan how to gallivant around Great Britain over the spring, but I am still pretty stressed.
March 1st
Finally turned in that stupid essay today. What a load of my back that is. I’m so relieved about that I almost forget that I have other classes to worry about.
Discovered HP Brown Sauce today. Not sure what is in it, but its kind of a mystery sauce the Brits put on everything, kind of like Heinz 57. Its well nice on a sausage barm.
Guess whose going to Ireland!!!!! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! I’m so excited! We went to this travel agency and they booked the entire thing for us. We got a flight cheaper than a lot of the ones we had seen online, and we even got a hotel instead of hostel for about the same price. It was a little more expensive than I had planned, but as most of the hostels were booked, and since this is a hotel so I can leave my stuff there safely, and not have to worry about a crappy roommates, I think its worth it. There is even a Jacuzzi bath in the room, how swanky is that! Supposedly its three stars, but we’ll have to see. Its also in a posh part of town, about ten minutes walk from the heart of Dublin. 3 days, 2 nights in April after uni is over with. We decided to cancel one of our trips with the international society to make room for this trip, and we may have to eat a few more rice and bean dinners to save some cash, but I think this is totally worth it. With plans to go home with our Welsh and Scottish friends for a while, this means we’ll hit every country in Britain; we’re not too picky about the Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland dispute. To us, Ireland is Ireland, and that’s that.
Got yet another package from Mom today, and that was just the icing on the cake. Had the new Avett Brothers CD in it, and I’ve been listening to that all day long. Everyone should go get it. Also got a box of Girl Scout cookies, which I’ve discovered make awesome tea biscuits.
Watched the England vs. Uruguay World Cup friendly (exhibition) match today with some guys in the dorm. The English are nuts, these perfect normally mates just went bonkers for about 90 minutes while the game was on. They were completely different people; I guess its kind of like March Madness back in the states. Even I was getting excited and I know next to nothing about football. My friend Tom is going to take a bunch of us to the Man. City match Sunday, so I’m really hyped for my chance to be a part of the action.
Hmmm…. well that seems to be it for Week 8. Megan’s friend is coming to stay with us next week for her spring break, and we have lots of activities planned then. Hopefully everything will go smoothly, and you guys will have lots of interesting reading.
February 23rd
Hey, hey. Now when I run, the cold air doesn’t set my lungs on fire. Making progress…
Megan and I did spend a good hour or two planning trips today. I will fill you in on them once they become official, but right now the plans look like: Bath, Salisbury, mainly as a staging point for Stonehenge, Birmingham, and Castleton in Peak District for some hiking. Then up to Kilmars, Glasgow, and maybe even Inverness and Loch ness in Scotland. And possibly fly over to Ireland for two days. These and all the other trips with the international people makes for quite a lot of traveling in the final 2 weeks. AND, we seem to have left out London, but I’m beginning to think London may just require a trip of its own one day. Maybe around the 2012 Olympics…
My Mom called me today, but not to say how much she missed me, rather to inform me that Pizza Hut charged me for $469!!! Now, I like pizza as much as the next guy, but this is a little extreme. I’m only including this because if you are thinking about studying abroad, one of the most helpful things for me is to have my parents in on my account so that they could clear up any little mishaps, and let me know what my balance is and all that while I’m away. A joint account with someone you trust saves you all the hassle of trying to work with the bank over the phone (with very expensive rates), or through e-mail, which isn’t always the quickest way to get things done. And your money is your lifeline over here, without it you are really screwed. I suggest taking two debit cards with you. Keep the extra incase you lose the first one. Your bank is not here, so you can’t just stroll into one and ask for some cash out of your account.
Booked a tour of the Manchester United stadium and museum today for Saturday. Should be exciting.
I got some of my grades from my plants and medicine course today and I got a 72, and 83, and 90 on my test, essay, and presentation. This is really exciting since an 80% is an A, and personally I only need 50% to get credit at ECU. Not trying to brag (too much anyways), but I was also the highest grade in each category! Go me, representing America. Hopefully this will carry over to my other classes.
Megan and I went into China Town for a nice dinner out. This place called The Great Wall was really nice; I’d never been in such an elegant Chinese restaurant. They have a little ice bucket for your wine, they pull out the chair for you, and even fold the napkin right around your lap! Quite a change from the takeaway place at home, where the sweaty guys in the back are shouting at each other and tossing your food about. Everything was quite delicious until Megan discovered that she had squid in her seafood noodles. And not just squid bits; no, more like giant purple tentacles wiggling out of the noodles at you like some creature from the black lagoon. I expected Megan to scream and throw up on the spot, but no, she surprised me and just set them aside for me to eat, and they were actually quite delicious. After she saw how much I enjoyed them, she even tried a few as well. Gotta try new things while you have the chance!
February 24
Today we did a bit of exploring and went to Manchester’s Trafford Center, which is an enormous shopping center/mall. Some say it’s the biggest in Europe. Its located over in a part of the city called The Quays, which is right on the wharf, so in some of its nicer parts The Quays are actually quite scenic.
Most people didn’t think we’d be impressed because America is the king of malls, but this place just floored me. Its like our malls on steroids. We walked around for 2 hours and I still don’t think we saw everything. And its nice too! Roman columns line most of the walls, the ceiling is entirely glass to let the precious sunshine in, and there is a fountain of dolphins (statues, not real Flipper dolphins) that shoots water up 2 stories to the top of the glass dome in the center of the building.
The food court puts any other food court I’ve seen to shame. If you walk in one way its decorated like china, with Asian style buildings, statues of monks, and bamboo trees. Walk in the other end, and its Bourbon Street in New Orleans with outdoor café’s, jazz bands, and American flags. Pizza Hut is situated in an area designed like Ancient Egypt, whilst McDonald’s, ironically enough, is in a Middle Eastern section. You can bring your food to a giant area that decorated like the deck of a luxury cruise liner, complete with pool, lifeboats, and a mast with an enormous big screen TV in it. Fast food joints were mixed in with fancy restaurants and posh wine bars. I’d never seen anything like it.
My favorite store had to be Selfridges’s, not that we could buy anything there. It’s a department store, but with very high-end stuff, like Luis Vuitton luggage, Armani jeans, and Burberry bags. This store also had a food section, which just completely messed with my mind because I’d never seen food for sale in a department store. They had sections from Britain, India, a sushi bar, liquor you could put in your own custom bottle straight from the cask, and lots of stuff from the rest of Europe. Our personal favorite of course was the American section, where you could get rare delicacies for an outrageous price. Lucky Charms are what $2.50 in the states? At Selfridges they are 7 pounds!!! Sweet potatoes are 2 pounds, Oreos are 5, marshmallow crème is 3, and individual Reese’s Pieces are about 1.50, and Kraft macaroni and cheese for about 6!!! Good Lord!!! And, then add in the exchange rate and you realize that a box of Lucky Charms is about $13!!! Ahhhh! People that shop here are absolutely insane. They sell one bottle of beer for about 1.50, that I bought a four pack for in ASDA for 2.50. It was just mind-blowing.
Since I’ve become a fancy pants official 2-3 pound wine connoisseur, I bought one of those fancy pants lever operated corkscrews. It’s friggin’ awesome! I just roam the streets now looking for bottles to open. I love it.
Cooked up some English sausage, fried some onions, and served them on a wheat roll drowned in English mustard for dinner, along with the last of the macaroni and cheese my mom shipped in. The mustard here is really packs a punch and the sausage is just so nice and browned, and plump and juicy. Mmmmmmmm. I’m really going to miss the food here.
February 25th
Today we took a tour of the Old Trafford football grounds that the famed Manchester United calls home. If you don’t know Man. United, you probably have heard of David Beckham, and this is the team he used to play for.
I was amazed with the sheer size of the stadium. After their renovations this spring, the place will hold over 70,000 people, making it the second largest stadium in Britain just behind the new Wembley stadium and right in front of Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium in Wales. The place must be absolutely insane during a big game.
Budweiser sponsors Man. United, so you can’t even get a proper British beer in Old Trafford. However, they do make about 2,000 lbs. of pies a day, their most popular concession. I guess their experience with crazed football fanatics has pushed them to have better security that we lack in America. You can’t drink beer out in the stands, only in the concessions area, there are security cameras covering all the fans, which helps if an incident was to occur (anyone remember the Pistons-Pacers brawl a year ago?), and if you appear intoxicated they will throw you out of the place. Wow, and this in England, one of the alcohol capitals of the world.
The field has hot water pipes pumping thousands of gallons an hour underneath it to keep the field and players warm, although you’ll freeze to death in the red plastic seats watching them. Unless of course, you are a cooperate sponsor, then you can use your box seats. Oh, you don’t have box seats? Just write a check for 16,000 pounds (for the cheap one!), and join the ten-year waiting list. And there are about 300 seats right by the field just for disabled folks. Even blind people come, get a free radio tapped directly into the commentary booth, and enjoy the game from the best seat in the house. All this is free, paid for by Man. United for the disabled population. Wonder if that plate in my wrist qualifies…
You can have all your major life events in the football stadium: be born in the mini-hospital, get married by the fully licensed staff and celebrate on the grounds, get drunk and thrown in the Man. United jail, and when you die, even your ashes can be spread out onto the field. Talk about a football culture!
We also got a behind the scenes look at the locker rooms, players lounge, where and how they eat and train, how the wives are treated, how they keep rival teams separated during press conferences, and we even got to walk out of the player’s tunnel and on to the field just like the team does during a match. Well, minus the 70,000 raging fans. Then we went to the Man. United team museum, which traces their history from the late 1800’s until now. I had a really good time, and I can’t even name a single guy on the team, so imagine how cool this is for a true fan. All for only 6 pounds!
Later, Megan and I ended up in Piccadilly and we checked out the Manchester Farmer’s Market. I found some authentic, home made Cornish pasties that I can easily heat up at home, and even some haggis, which I am really anxious to try. Haggis is a Scottish dish involving almost every part of a sheep; those Scots are so resourceful. The brain and other parts are mashed together with oats, offal, and spices and then placed inside the sheep’s stomach. Boil this for about 30 minutes, the cut open the stomach and bon apetit! Don’t eat the actual stomach, just the goods on the inside. The stuff we got I think is just the brain and meats already boiled; we just have to grill it for about 4 minutes on each side. I hear its nice with parsnips and potatoes. If I like this I’ll have to look for some proper haggis and get in on some of that stomach boiling action.
February 26th
A lazy, relaxing Sunday.
Cooked my Cornish pasty for brunch, and it was great. Flaky, crusty croissant type bread filled with mash, beef stock, and some veggies. Will have to find a way to make these in the states.
Finally finished that essay for art. Now I can go through the whole process again for my drama class. Yippee!
For some reason this dorm doesn’t have recycling, so I saved all that reusable good stuff and took it down to the recycling depot at ASDA. Hooray for saving the earth.
February 27th
Four people, FOUR, turned up for our plants and medicine lecture on diabetes. It may go down to three as I can hardly see the point of attending a lecture on diabetes when the lecturer can’t even pronounce it correctly. However, I am learning about this mysterious new disease called “dashteeb”.
Had a dive-bomber pigeon take a little poop on my book bag today. I will most likely catch bird flu and die. Perhaps I will just start cooing randomly, but at least I will get lots of space on the bus.
Dorm life here is definitely crazier than at ECU. My friends down the hall made a tennis ball cannon out of old Pringles cans, duct tape (what else!), and hairspray for projectile fuel. Word is they manage to get a 3-foot flame shoot out the back end, so they will probably blow themselves to bits. Can you kill someone with a tennis ball?
I am spending more time trying to correctly cite this stupid essay for my art class than I am actually trying to write it. I’ve never had to do footnotes before, and I’ve never even heard of the MHRA format, so I will probably screw up the whole thing. I’m afraid I’ll be charged with plagiarism and get a zero for all my hard work just because I made an honest mistake. Oh well, we’ll see how this goes.
February 28th
Happy Pancake Day!!! The Brits have Pancake Day instead of Fat Tuesday, so be sure to party down English style and toss around some flapjacks.
It was beautiful, sunny day, so I tried to do my run like one of the locals today, in just a T-shirt and shorts as opposed to being completely bundled up like that Ralphie kid from A Christmas Story. Well no shocker here, but it a hell of a lot colder than it looks. Especially when its windy, which is…hmmm…ALL THE TIME. And especially when you run through shady, tree lined parks, which is exactly what I decided to do. After about five minutes of running things start to get a bit better, but not because you’ve warmed up, no, rather because your extremities have been officially frozen and you can’t feel them anymore. On the bright side of things, I got a really nice workout because A) you can’t stop jogging to walk and take a break, because you will probably freeze in place, and B) you run much faster because you are trying to hurry up and get the hell inside! I may be on to something here.
We were planning to go to The Pancake House for Pancake Day, but as you can imagine, it was kind of mobbed. Went to Abdul’s instead, for a donner kebab. Still don’t know what donner meat is. Reindeer maybe? Get it, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolph?! That’s a funny joke, c’mon. Anyways, Abdul’s is to Arabic food, as McDonald’s is to American grub; a quick, delicious, and cheap bite to eat.
Spent about two or three hours trying to plan trips today. Megan tried to sign up for the international office’s trip to the Lake District, but they were out of spots. I told her to sign up like a week ago, when I did, but she was in no mood to hear it so I tried not to gloat too much. Hopefully someone won’t show up and we can still go together. If not I will end up going alone, but that will make for some peaceful hiking and some solitary time in nature, and that’s not so bad. I think we could probably use a little more time apart anyways.
We booked the bus ride to Birmingham and the Cadbury world tour, so that should be exciting. Found out it would be about 72 pounds on train fare and a hostel just to spend one night in Bath, so we probably will be skipping that. Looked at flights to Ireland and although that is a bit more expensive than Bath, we will be spending more time there and it is so much farther away, that it seems to be worth the extra cash. Also found out that ferries run to Dublin as well, so I’d like to do that as it is cheaper, but longer, by about 8 hours. So far, we’ve only found ferries that take people in cars, not foot travelers, so this has also been a problem.
People said to me before leaving on my trip, “Oh, your in Europe! It’ll be so easy to travel around. Just hop on a plane and go to Rome for a weekend, teehee!” Well folks, it ain’t so easy. Flights don’t run at all the times you need to be traveling. Sure I can catch a flight to Scotland, but I’ll get there at 2am, with buses probably not running, and me not knowing where the hell I am. Some hostels, the cheap one’s we’re hoping for, seem to be getting more booked up by the day. It also doesn’t help when your girlfriend refuses to stay in the cheaper, 10-20 person shared dorm hostels. “Ewww, Greg! They could be sooooo GROSS!” Well for 20-40 extra pounds in my pocket, I can handle gross. My roommate was gross and I dealt with him for four months! And then, once you think you’ve found a cheap flight, then they toss in taxes and fees, and it has quadrupled the price. Or when you think you’ve found a really sweet bus deal for like 5 pounds from here to Bath, and then you book the return and it is 50 pounds. FOR THE SAME ROUTE!!!! Ahhhh, it is enough to make you scream sometimes. I know there are a lot worse problems than trying to plan how to gallivant around Great Britain over the spring, but I am still pretty stressed.
March 1st
Finally turned in that stupid essay today. What a load of my back that is. I’m so relieved about that I almost forget that I have other classes to worry about.
Discovered HP Brown Sauce today. Not sure what is in it, but its kind of a mystery sauce the Brits put on everything, kind of like Heinz 57. Its well nice on a sausage barm.
Guess whose going to Ireland!!!!! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! I’m so excited! We went to this travel agency and they booked the entire thing for us. We got a flight cheaper than a lot of the ones we had seen online, and we even got a hotel instead of hostel for about the same price. It was a little more expensive than I had planned, but as most of the hostels were booked, and since this is a hotel so I can leave my stuff there safely, and not have to worry about a crappy roommates, I think its worth it. There is even a Jacuzzi bath in the room, how swanky is that! Supposedly its three stars, but we’ll have to see. Its also in a posh part of town, about ten minutes walk from the heart of Dublin. 3 days, 2 nights in April after uni is over with. We decided to cancel one of our trips with the international society to make room for this trip, and we may have to eat a few more rice and bean dinners to save some cash, but I think this is totally worth it. With plans to go home with our Welsh and Scottish friends for a while, this means we’ll hit every country in Britain; we’re not too picky about the Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland dispute. To us, Ireland is Ireland, and that’s that.
Got yet another package from Mom today, and that was just the icing on the cake. Had the new Avett Brothers CD in it, and I’ve been listening to that all day long. Everyone should go get it. Also got a box of Girl Scout cookies, which I’ve discovered make awesome tea biscuits.
Watched the England vs. Uruguay World Cup friendly (exhibition) match today with some guys in the dorm. The English are nuts, these perfect normally mates just went bonkers for about 90 minutes while the game was on. They were completely different people; I guess its kind of like March Madness back in the states. Even I was getting excited and I know next to nothing about football. My friend Tom is going to take a bunch of us to the Man. City match Sunday, so I’m really hyped for my chance to be a part of the action.
Hmmm…. well that seems to be it for Week 8. Megan’s friend is coming to stay with us next week for her spring break, and we have lots of activities planned then. Hopefully everything will go smoothly, and you guys will have lots of interesting reading.