Thanksgiving in England.

This year marked my very first Thanksgiving away from home. Normally I can depend on other members of my family to do the heavy lifting (read: bird wrasslin'), while I contribute a few dishes and an extremely healthy appetite. I love Thanksgiving, possibly above all other holidays, because of the spending of massive amounts of time in the kitchen and the lovely smells and the friends and the family and, of course, the eating. So, being away from home, I decided that I would simply have to host a full-on Thanksgiving of my own, and also that it was probably my duty to give unto my new friends the joy that is this most delicious of holidays. And so I set about trying to make it all happen.
I started menu planning and recipe hunting weeks ahead of time. I enthusiastically invited way more people than my dorm-kitchen would comfortably hold. I contacted local farms, searching for the best option for procuring a free-range fowl an entire month before fresh turkeys are usually supplied in England (being the traditional Christmas Dinner fare over here in devoid-of-Thanksgiving land).
One of my classmates (who is American but has lived in England for about 30 years) took pity on me while I was lamenting the sheer magnitude of groceries I needed to buy and the cruel state of automobile-less-ness I find myself in which makes transporting such a quantity of groceries back to my flat nearly impossible. She drove me to the giant Sainbury's outside of town and spent 2 hours wandering the aisles with me, helping me find everything on my list and educating me on appropriate substitutions for ingredients that aren't to be found here. So instrumental (no crisco - so Trex Vegetable Lard for my piecrusts; no karo corn syrup - so Golden Syrup for my pecan pie; successful location of creamed corn - imported from Canada, apparently; successful location of cranberry sauce, ocean spray in a jar, not a can; successful location of Ritz crackers, in a tiny box).
As I had class all day on Wednesday and Thursday, I decided to have my Thanksgiving party on Sunday. This also gave me 2 and a half days of preparation time. And boy did I make the most of it. On Friday I went on my final market and grocery store runs (for the perishable items I couldn't get ahead of time, and including 8 lbs of white potatoes, 8lbs of sweet potatoes, and 4 lbs of apples... heavy!) and made some cranberry-apple relish as well as four pie crusts worth of dough. Saturday was pick up the turkey from the market/pie-making day; 17.2 lbs of bird hauled home by Amanda and I/two pumpkin, one pecan, and one apple (for which my dear grandmother had to read me the recipe over the phone). I also cubed two loaves of bread for the stuffing and made turkey giblet/neck stock for the gravy.
Sunday was the big day. I got up early, finished making the stuffing, mushed some inside of Bernard (the turkey), then rubbed him with butter and spices and lovingly draped him in fresh herbs and bacon. Not to mention the half-hourly basting in wine and butter. Yum. We peeled a ridiculous number of potatoes, whipped up some green beans and shallots in balsamic butter, churned out a couple of baking dishes of scalloped corn, and simmered a big pot of spiced cider. I even made gravy - with the giblet stock and drippings (something I have never done before), and it was dern tasty if I do say so myself. Oh, and for those of you out there who don't like the traditional overly sweet marshmellow-and-brown sugar sweet potato casserole, I have discovered the secret to delicious savory mashed sweet potatoes (okay, somebody else discovered it, but I'm happy to copy genius). You boil them in cream. Believe me, it's worth trying.All in all, it was a huge success. We had about 20 people show up, we all ate until we could barely walk, and still there were vast quantities of left-overs (just the way I like it). More than 10 different countries were represented, and contributions of food (I asked people to bring dishes inspired by cultural or family traditions) included fried plantains, baklava, stuffed grape leaves, dutch beef stew, cheesecake, venezuelan potato salad, canadian cornbread, spanish omlets, greek salad and crepes, among other things. It was a feast. And even my very first solo turkey turned out to be pretty scrumptious. And today, Bernard proved himself again by yielding very tasty turkey soup.I had SO MUCH help - I couldn't have done it without everybody. So thanks for lending me pots and pans and knives and bowls (and a meat thermometer), and tables and chairs and a coffee pot, and for helping me grocery shop, and for chopping things and cooking things and washing HUGE amounts of dishes, and for traveling by train to join the festivities, and for bringing dishes and wine to share, and taking leftovers home, and for vacuuming and decorating and un-decorating, and for coming to help make my first Thanksgiving away from home a fabulous experience, and for being excellent company. You guys rock. And if you want to see more pictures, go here.And now I'm going back for my second round of leftovers today. Awesome.

Things I haven't been able to find (and really miss)... or 'A grocery list for visitors.'

In no particular order...

Canned Pumpkin
We are in the middle of NOVEMBER, people, and that means that I need pumpkin pie. And pumpkin soup and pumpkin bread and roasted pumpkin seeds, and maybe even pumpkin cheesecake because I saw this great recipe on cooking light but it also called for Nilla Wafers, which we'll get to in a second. Good thing my dear friend Heather is shipping me a can of pumpkin so that I don't have to do without for the big introduce-new-friends-to-a-bit-of-American-gluttony-aka-culture shindig I'm having on Thanksgiving. Whew! Close one.

Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
How in tarnations am I supposed to make chocolate chip cookies?
All I've found so far are these tiny little expensive packets of chocolate chips that come about ten to a bag. I'd need an entire trolley full! This is a problem, as one of my favorite procrastination techniques involves making giant vats of homemade chocolate chip cookie dough, eating half of it, then baking the other half and using said produced cookies to bribe my way into the hearts (and stomachs) of new friends.

Kraft 2% Milk American Singles
Grilled cheese sandwiches just the way mom refused to make when we were little because she believed in real cheese, not fake processed cheese-food product. Le sigh. So of course they became a staple as soon as I ran off to college for the first time. The perfect late night grilled cheese is no longer mine to be had, and so I've settled for Monterey jack and Worcestershire sauce in toastie form. Not bad, actually, but just not the same (and although my new "toastie maker" is quite nice for making these late night snackette-sandwiches, it still doesn't hold a candle to my George Foreman back home).

Nilla Wafers
Two words: banana pudding. Why do I always crave the things I can't have? And I haven't even looked to see if I can find Jello vanilla pudding mix...

Claussen Dill Pickles
What I wouldn't give for a jar or 40 of these right about now. I am a pickle fiend (pickled cucumbers, pickled okra, pickled cabbage - of both the sauerkraut and kimchi varieties - pickled peppers... you get the idea), and in England, they are not so big on the pickled cucumber. They have a lot of "pickle," which is a strange, dark colored spread that wikipedia describes as: "sweet and spicy with a chutney-like consistency, containing small chunks of vegetables in a thick brown sticky sauce." While fine on some sandwiches, this is not the form of pickle I desire. I've tried two kinds of pickled cucumber here, and both have been much too sweet and also severely lacking in the vinegar/salt/garlic/dill departments. But the search continues, for something similar to this, my most beloved of snack (I did, however, find kimchi at the local Asian market, and for that I am eternally grateful).

Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownie Mix
If you've never had brownies made from this mix, run out to the store right this second and buy yourself several boxes. You have already wasted precious time and precious dessert calories on sub-par brownies. You will never go back. I will be returning to the UK with about eight boxes of this powdered chocolate magic after Christmas, because, sadly, the brownie mix here looks so unpromising in comparison that I haven't even been able to bring myself to buy it. I will, because one must be open-minded. But seriously, this is heaven in ooey gooey fudgy chunky chocolately form. Make some pronto and eat an extra one for me, or better yet, ship me a few.

Now, that being said, I have found things over here we don't get in the states that I'm going to miss. In general, the bread (crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, and completely lacking sugar!), cheese (lots more variety and many more "mature" incarnations, especially in the cheddar family), and bacon (more meat, less fat - and lovely in a bacon sandwich) are fabulous. Also, I have realized that I have a thing for "cheese and onion sandwich filler," which is an odd mix of mayonnaise, shredded cheese, green onions, vinegar and spices that you spread on sandwiches - maybe alongside some cucumbers or ham or both. Very tasty. Also, as I've mentioned before, you can't beat a traditional English Breakfast. Yum. Plus they have some yummy vending machine goodies, like the Cadburys 'fruit and nut' chocolate bar and 'Snack' bar, and the Nestle KitKat CHUNKY bar, which is like a kitkat on steroids. And perhaps most exciting, all of their Coca-cola is made with sugar. Actual sugar - as in not high fructose corn syrup - and boy does it taste better for it. Yum. Looking forward to teaching my Dutch flatmate about the divinity that is the Coke Float.

Speaking of my lovely Dutch flatmate, she was kind enough to accompany me to the Leicester International Fair a few weeks back and introduce me to Pofferjies, which are little fluffy Dutch-style pancakes (notice the cute Dutch flag stuck into them) covered in powdered sugar and butter that you eat with a weird little forked wooden stick. Those were pretty spectacular. We took pictures to document the momentous-ness of the occasion....And now I'm hungry. Again. And I have no pickles. Life can be so cruel.

My cup runneth over.

On the night of the most incredibly exciting and historic election of my lifetime, I ended up sequestered away in my dorm room listening to BBC 5 Radio and switching compulsively between coverage on nytimes, washingtonpost, cnn, msnbc, bbc, and indecision2008, searching for updates and crossing all my fingers and toes for a victory that I knew wouldn't be certain until well into the next day. But by 2:40 in the morning - much earlier than I had expected and much to my glee - several networks had called both Pennsylvania and Ohio for Obama. Even my home state of North Carolina looked like it was going to swing blue for the first time in decades. It seemed safe to go to sleep, and indeed it was (if this pilfered photo doesn't say it all, I don't know what does).


Today I woke up to something that felt a lot like Christmas. I brushed my teeth while listening to Obama's acceptance speech, during which I cried just a little bit into my toothpaste. I put on my wellies and long underwear (it was a very cold and rainy morning, and we were headed to Beacon Farm - an idyllic place just outside of Leicester that is run on 100% renewable energy and is trailblazing technological developments in fuel cells, hydrogen power, energy storage, and alternative fuel generation; where cows push a simple pump with their noses when they are thirsty in order to pull water from a local stream - saving electricity and protecting the native trout and crayfish populations from trampling), and embraced a day of obvious American-identifiable-ness by wearing my Obama t-shirt over the whole ordeal. When I hopped on the rented minibus that would take us on our lovely field trip, I was met with an enthusiatic cheer from my classmates at the sight of my Obama shirt, the victory it implied, and my obvious euphoria. We all went out after class and had a few pints of Guinness to celebrate, what feels like to me, A Brand New Day, and a brand new America. Today was a good day.

And even though I was a bit upset that I couldn't celebrate with everyone back at home, or stay up all night watching the results roll in, or take part in all of the amazing door-knocking and phonebanking and voter registering and GOTVing that made this incredible thing happen, what I found myself wishing for most was that my mom had gotten to see it all. She would have simply LOVED it, and she would have made an adorable Obama Mama. But it was still a very, very good day.

So thank you - to all of the people who made this happen. Friends and family and colleagues back home who voted, and asked their friends and neighbors to vote, and worked tirelessly for months and never let up until the last vote was in, and made this all possible. We are all in your debt. And yes we did.

And speaking of stereotypes of British vs. American culture and humo(u)r...

Thanks to my friend Laura (who is studying about 12 miles away at Lloughborough University) for forwarding this to me. I got a chuckle out of it.

A (fictional, obviously) letter from the Queen:

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.) Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
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1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise.' Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').
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2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ''like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.'
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3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
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4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist,then you're not ready to shoot grouse.
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5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
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6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
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7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.
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8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
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9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable, as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
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10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.
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11. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).
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12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
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13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
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14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
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15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.
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God Save the Queen!

The "comforts" of home abound in unlikely form.

I love the fact that, here in Leicester, I have the chance to continually meet a ton of different people from a whole slew of countries. What this also means is that I spend a lot of time talking about US politics and what people's misconceptions of Americans are (and which ones hold some truth) - and they are always really fun conversations. But it has also made me more aware of the odd bits of American culture that find their way over, either through TV (yay, Grey's Anatomy and Dukes of Hazzard!) or media or what have you, that lend to those impressions.

Along that vein, I've been highly amused by the variety of American references that show up on shop signs in this city, many of them state-specific. More often than not, the form they take seems to oddly miss the mark of what would actually be worthy of transcending continents. Now I don't mean the obvious or inevitable, like McDonalds or Starbucks or KFC (all here). What I mean is, if you had to pick just a handful of uniquely American things (of the edible persuasion, in particular) that were truly awesome enough to deserve being distributed for the greater good, I wouldn't have pegged any of the following as fitting those qualifications...

For example, I wouldn't expect to see a reference to the state of Maryland just out and about in Leicester. But if I did, I would assume that whatever it was that had made it all the way across the pond would be something exceedingly superb that also embodied that for which Maryland is most famous. Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but to me, that would be seafood; more specifically, the fabulous crabcake. If there is one translatable food idea from Maryland that should be well-known enough to make it to Leicester, I would expect it to be crab related. So you can understand why I had a bit of a chuckle when I saw this:
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm sure that there is plenty of delicious fried chicken to be found in Maryland - but when I think fried chicken, I don't generally think of Maryland... it's not even in the South (okay okay, as a Southerner I might be a little biased about proper fried chicken, but I readily admit that)! And it's even funnier, because apparently it is a really popular "late night, after the pub" eatery. Priceless.

But I'm getting ahead of myself - because I did find a little place around the corner from campus that claims to sell "Southern Fried Chicken." Hooray! They're finally on to something. However, in general, if I'm going to associate a chef's name with authentic fried chicken, then I want it to be something like Mama Dip at Mama Dip's or Jestine at Jestine's Kitchen. And even that is rather unnecessary, since "Southern Fried Chicken" stands alone as fairly self-explanatory (and delicious, especially with waffles, but that's another discussion). This sign, however, makes me a little skeptical of the "Southern" quality of the chicken. Does this restaurant name fail to scream "home" and "like grandma used to make" to anybody else?
Now, back to the topic of seafood. There are so many great places in the US to get good, fresh seafood. And come to think of if, considering how much coast they have, there should be plenty in England as well. Personally, the ideal seafood obtainment situation involves being able to buy wild caught shrimp right off the boat (Ooh, how I miss you, Cherry Point, SC) to take home and boil up with a bit of Old Bay... or popping into a great local restaurant in a coastal town for some scrumptious shrimp'n'grits or freshly grilled grouper. So why, in the name of everything that is holy, did the owners of this establishment choose to evoke the image of a land-locked city in the middle of a desert in order to aid in the selling of fish? Somebody's geography teacher has some splainin' to do.
Now, it has nothing to do with food, but after seeing this place, I want to know exactly what American Nail Care for Ladies & Gentlemen entails, and why you cannot normally get it in other countries...I mean, other than the occasional pedicure with my sister, I don't spend much time in nail parlors. Perhaps I should go to an English nail place and then this place and compare? And yet somehow that notion just isn't so appealing... hmmm. Dilemma. Perhaps this goes into the records as one mystery we just don't solve. Kind of like the Great Poo Caper of 2004. We'll never know who was responsible for that one, will we? Oh well.

Freshers' Flu, times two!

So when freshers (a fancy term for freshmen) move into the dorm for the first time, they usually get sick at least once in the first few weeks. Just a cold, normally, but it comes with the territory of stuffing so many young'ins in the same place - all those lovely germs packed into high density housing where the unclean masses share lager glasses and participate in other microbe-sharing activities.

They call this phenomenon "Freshers' Flu," and even though I don't generally come into contact with too many freshers, I have so far enjoyed this wonderful experience not once, but twice! I've concluded that I must be doubly susceptible, as my my body is used to USA-grown bugs, not these sneaky foreign UK bugs. But nothing too serious so far... a sore throat the first week, a few days respite, and now a new sore throat with a bit of a cough tagged onto it. Awesome.
In any event, I decided I should probably register with the University's "Surgery" (health center) just in case I found myself in need of a doctor at some point. Turns out, the folks down at surgery are big proponents of the meningitis vaccine. Somehow I've gone my whole life without one of these, so they set me up with an appointment during which they plan to remedy my susceptibility to the lovely Meningococcus bacterium. I suppose it's a good idea - if all of the dire warnings that cover our complimentary kitchen calendar, such as "know the symptoms - meningitis kills," are true, it's probably wise to take precautions against this unfortunate yet preventable deadly disease. Sigh. I hate shots. And I'm not even a freshman!

Nothing to do with England...

But it needed posting. My sister's dear friends Debbie and Kevin just got married. And because neither was keen on doing a typical "first dance" as husband and wife, they decided to learn the choreography to the dance of another well known couple. And I must say, I'm sorry I missed it. Thank goodness for youtube, and thank you Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, for giving us the time of our lives, so that Debbie and Kevin could give it to us all over again.

Is it odd to be excited by textbooks?

Renewable Energy (It's physics, engineering, use, environmental impacts, economy and planning aspects) by Sorensen, Bent - ₤27.75
Renewable Energy by Boyle, Godfrey - ₤26.75
Natural Resource and Environmental Economics by Perman, Roger - ₤32.55
Environmental Science in Building by McMullan, Randall - ₤20.55

Four nerdy textbooks
= ₤107.60 (~$210.00)

Being this excited about textbooks
= Priceless!!

Okay, so it's a cheesy rip off of Mastercard's overused ad template, but hey, borrowed clever is better than none at all.

In any event, I had my first two classes this week, and I have to say I am simply thrilled and still a little amazed that (a) I actually managed to find (and get in to) a master's course focused on pretty much exactly what I want to learn (with only a little extraneous material) and (b) that it's off to a strong start with the first two modules, both of which promise to kick my butt, and be really engaging. AWESOME.

For each of the next six weeks, I have one solid day (9:30-5:00, Wednesdays) of 'Renewable Energy' and a second solid day (9:30 -5:00, Thursdays) of 'Sustainable Development.' A good bit of the rest of the week will be spent reading material, working on assignments, and preparing for those structured days. The schedule actually feels a little overwhelming, believe it or not, but if you haven't already surmised, I'm really excited.

Renewable Energy this week was a general introduction and overview - the carbon cycle, the energy cycle, various energy flows and pathways, and a broad look at the available alternative and renewable energy technologies that we'll be focusing on in depth. We even busted out with some energy formulas and units that I haven't thought about since my last Physics class. Please say I stored all that stuff away somewhere safe in the deep dark depths my brain. That would be helpful.

Sustainable Development was a little bit more theoretical - we discussed the origins of the term and our own preconceived notions of its meaning, then looked at the history and milestones of the global political 'sustainability' movement and compared the varying opinions of what exactly the idea entails. Toward the end we got more scientificy (not a word, I know, but it should be) and looked at some of the statistics on poverty, global wealth inequity and what it would mean to address sustainability on a worldwide scale. It was really interesting, especially since the goal, apparently, is to take a scientific approach to figuring out how the idea of sustainable development is best realized and applied to the climate change struggle. Oh, and we're also going to work on our "critical appraisal" skills. That should be interesting...

And there you have it - WAY more detail than anybody would want to know about my first week of school, but I'll post it anyway and you can just skim down to the funny pictures of the Englishman's butt.

English Pride

Shows up in the most interesting of places...I suppose it's an improvement over common American shorts-displayed terms like "juicy" or "brat", but somehow I couldn't resist taking a picture.GO ENGLAND!!

Canal boats and castles and Lord Mayors (oh my!).

This Wednesday, October 1st, I have my very first class as a graduate student. Luckily for me (pictured here with my first pint in the UK as a graduate student), out of the nearly two thousand pages of "recommended" reading, only about 32 are required. Nonetheless, I imagine I'm going to be making a lot of space in my brain for all those words... wish me luck!

In the meantime, I had quite a weekend. I got to add to my list of UK experiences: (a) amazing English hospitality that included the summer camp-esque feel of child-sized bunkbeds, (b) a canal trip in a traditional narrow boat (resulting in many of the pictures you're about to see), (c) the Lord Mayor of Birmingham in full dress robes, (d) one of the worst meals I've had in a long time, especially considering how much I like fingerfood, (e) the hilarity of an English Barn Dance, and (f) some seriously stately-looking castles. One for the books (or at least the blog).

Warning: novel-length entry ahead...

So, this past weekend I joined a bunch of other folks studying in Great Britain and Ireland for a LINK event in Birmingham; basically a chance for all of us to meet and get further Rotarized. The range of interesting and often comical activities they had planned for us definitely provided some good blog fodder.

Friday afternoon at the train station I met up with another American student studying in Leicester, Laura, who's from Pittsburgh and is doing a climate/renewable energy engineering course at Lloughborough University (about 12 miles away). Her course is one that I actually considered pretty seriously, until I realized I'd be up engineering creek with no quantitative paddle. In any event, once we found each other, we proceeded to miss several possible trains to Birmingham before we managed to get ourselves on the right platform at the right time. So our 5:12 pm arrival time in Birmingham became 7:06 pm or so... but we did finally make it.

Then Laura went off on her merry way to meet her host, and I met up with yet another American, Lindsay, who is from Louisiana/Texas (yes, both) and studying literature at the University of Edinburgh. Lindsay and I were both being hosted by the same couple, Philip and Joy, two more examples of wonderful Rotarians. When Philip picked us up, we learned that he and Joy had been guilted into hosting two additional students, and so we squeezed into his already mostly-full car, where we met Lisa, a lovely German girl studying intellectual property law in London, and Juliya, a Russian native who has spent a lot of time in Michigan, of all places, and is studying finance at Exeter.

When we arrived in Warwick (pronounced Warrick) 40 minutes later, we were greeted with an ENORMOUS and delicious meal: wine, chicken in gravy, potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and peas, which was followed by a homemade lemon tart with fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and fresh cream, which was followed by a cheese and fruit plate, which was followed (yes, I was in pain by this point, and had a stomach resembling a basketball, but kept eating) by tea, coffee and chocolates. Let's just say that when I squeezed into the lower bunk bed in the room usually reserved for the grandchildren, I only had a few minutes to take in the array of glow-in-the-dark stars and sheep plastered on the bottom of the bunk above me, a mere 18" from my face, before I passed out cold. Good food, good sleep, and a summer camp flashback, despite the slight claustrophobia.

In the morning, Philip and Joy took us out for a tour of Warwick. Right off the bat we learned that their neighborhood was built on the grounds of an old Mental Hospital... we were even shown the huge field that apparently served as the graveyard for the hospital and is full of unmarked graves. Despite being just a little creepy, the old hospital building was quite lovely. Though I must admit I'm happy I never had to live there.

Then we drove to St. Nicholas Park and Warwick Castle, where we only had time to see the outside (from quite a ways away, unfortunately) and take a few pictures of this very impressive-looking castle.
A little historical information for you, from Wikipedia: Warwick Castle was built by William the Conqueror in 1068, has been compared with Windsor Castle in terms of scale, cost and status, was named one of Britain's "Top 10 historic houses and monuments" by the British Tourist Authority in 2001, and is home to the largest and most powerful catapult in the world. According to Philip, the inside has been entirely restored and furnished as it would have been originally, and, even more exciting, is owned by the Madam Tussauds people, so there are wax figures in period dress throughout the place. Might be worth coming back... I bet it's really eerie at Halloween.

Afterwards, we drove into the town of Warwick and visited

St. Mary's Church (built in 1123), which is specifically not a Cathedral (because, I learned, it doesn't seat a Bishop or Archbishop). And because St. Mary's is a church and not a cathedral, Warwick is considered a county town, and not a city. The things we learn! After all this strenuous learning, we rested with cappuccinos in the town center. Whew! Hard work.

On the way home we stopped to see the local canal and get a demonstration of how canal locks work (to raise or lower water levels in order to move a boat upstream or downstream - very cool). We even got to help a boat with one set of locks as it made the journey down the canal. It's slow going, for sure. Good thing the boat owners were retired - they had about 20 to get through!

THEN we drove into Birmingham for the structured part of the weekend with the other 80-some students. First a cruise on a traditional narrow boat through part of the city - the abandoned industrial sector (a bit of an odd place for a tour, we thought) and then the newly revitalized district. Definitely interesting. I personally liked the brightly clad police officers scattered about.

After that we took a walk through the city to the Birmingham Council House, where we received a quick tour before being ushered into the semi-circled Council Chamber (divided into conservative, liberal, and labor sections - I sat in the liberal section by happy coincidence) to meet the Lord Mayor of Birmingham in his full dress robes. Another interesting experience - although the dress robes were flirting with comical.

Saturday evening found all of us at the Clarendon Suites hotel, in a basement level, 1970s styled conference room, waiting for dinner and also waiting to find out exactly what a "barn dance" was and what level of participation would be required. The dancing turned out to be pretty fun... each dance was different, but made up of easy to follow patterns that were repeated several times and involving the entire group. It brought to mind contra or square dancing. They would teach us the pattern for a particular song, then play the song so we could dance the pattern, which got repeated over, and over... so it was fun, and since the evening's main activity was dancing, we danced. I took video. It's worth watching. Though I still can't really categorize the music. Sometimes it sounded Irish, sometimes more like folk, sometimes bordering on country western - and occasionally a combo of all three. If you can tell from the 2 minutes of video I took, do tell me. But it was an experience, for sure.

If the video doesn't play, you can also watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbJsnBzVeF8

Dancing was broken up only long enough for dinner. If you could call it dinner. I was told later by Philip that the kind of fare we were served constitutes a "finger buffet" - or a buffet of finger food - and is a pretty common and inexpensive way of feeding a lot of people. He also noted that unless done really well, it is not usually such a great plan. In this case, I would say that Clarendon Suites does not possess the required mastery. We were mainly just confused, as nothing seemed to really go together. Specifically, we ate: mini sandwiches (of the ham, beef, tuna, cheese, and/or egg varieties), fried chicken fingers that looked like fish sticks, fried mushroom balls, fried potato wedges, something with cheese that resembled pizza, fried veggie samosas, cold saffron rice with corn, peas and raisins, sausage rolls, potato salad, and only mayo for dipping it all in. It would have been better, had not most of it been fried AND cold. Bad combo. So I have now encountered one meal's worth of "British" food that I most decidedly did not like (though maybe calling it British is inaccurate... perhaps it's better labeled "hotel" food). Can't win 'um all, I suppose.

We spent one more night in Warwick with Philip and Joy (who sweetly packed us bag lunches for the train ride back to Leicester on Sunday - with crisps, what state-siders call potato chips, and biscuits, their version of cookies) and then went back to Birmingham, but not without a quick detour to see Kenilworth Castle (once again, just the outside... sigh), which I found more impressive and authentic looking than Warwick Castle, even in ruins. You could almost imagine Mr. Darcy walking across the dew covered lawns in his long, sweeping and unencumbered coat... um, yeah, nevermind.

And then it was back to Clarendon Suites for the real orientation (speakers, slide shows, former students, lots of people thanking other people - the required program) before catching the afternoon train back to Leicester. We only missed one train before we found the right platform, I only needed my map once on the walk back to my flat from the train station, and I discovered a cute art gallery/museum on the way. See... progress!

Crossing of the pond successful, bangers and potato hash procured.

Seven hours on a plane, five crossed time zones, three patchy hours of sleep, two overweight bags, one pond jump and a full English breakfast later (not a single partridge or pear tree, however) I find myself across an ocean and in Leicester.

Yesterday afternoon, after three weeks of slow packing and two days of frantic bag-stuffing, I was finally in a position (albeit a slightly frazzled one) to get on a plane. My enormous duffel bags were stuffed to the brim, each coming in at 69.5 lbs. (the limit for free checked bags is 50 lbs. while the absolute limit is 70 lbs., so I'd say that's quite a packing accomplishment), and both earning their well-deserved $50 overweight-bag surcharge. And even though I managed to pack almost everything I thought I might need, the various kitchen appliances I was considering didn't fit, and I honestly can't tell you how I managed to bring 140 lbs. worth of belongings with me.

When I arrived at Heathrow Airport at the ungodly hour of 6:35 in the morning, two Rotary members from Leicester, Moira and Howard, were waiting for me. They were holding up a large picture of me that I'd sent to them (awesome and just a little embarrassing), and although they were slightly thrown because I was wearing glasses, we managed to connect just fine. And then these incredibly kind people loaded me and my enormous luggage into their little hatchback, took me out for a full English breakfast (pictured above, and let me just say YUM - I'm a huge fan of the English versions of both bacon and baked beans), drove me the 2.5 hours to Leicester AND moved me into my dorm room. If you have to pick up your life and move it to another country for a stint, this is the way to do it. They even brought dorm room essentials (including an electric kettle - the British equivalent of a toaster oven) for me to use for the year. Simply incredible. I was blown away and my life was made exceedingly easy compared to what it could have been, especially considering the jet lag and mild sleep deprivation.My dorm turned out to be pretty nice - basic and clean. The coolest thing, however, is that it comes with it's very own BEANBAG chair. That's right folks, a beanbag chair. How fantastically middle school. And I have my own bathroom, which is also stellar. So far, I have 3 flatmates - Amanda, from Holland, who is studying business; Nick, from South Africa, who is exceedingly tall and studying film and animation; and Zathew (the pronunciation of which I always butcher), from China, who is studying fashion design. Maybe she can give me some tips. But the four of us share a kitchen and "common" area, and they are all very nice. I hear rumor that there is another American in the building, Emily from California, but I haven't met her yet. All I know for sure is that she's guaranteed to be much tanner than I am.

And even though my body was screaming for a nap, I went out for a walk around Leicester and took in a few of the "city center" sights - basically a large square with side streets full of various shops. But there are definitely some cute areas, and I'm looking forward to exploring once I've gotten more sleep and my bearings. I even managed to figure out the whole electricity/plug converter thing and get internet set up so I could charge my computer and let my family know that I was alive. All in all, it was a pretty good day, except for the part where I dropped my toothbrush in the toilet (or the loo, I suppose I should call it). Thank goodness I'm an over-prepared over-packer, since 2 oz of that 140 lbs. of luggage was a spare.

If England is going to be my mixing bowl, I'm bringing my own measuring cups.

This past weekend, after living in DC for just over a year, I packed my life into a 16' Penske truck and drove all of my possessions to my father's house in North Carolina. I now have T-minus three weeks and counting to sort through it all and figure out the bare minimum of what I need to survive in England, in a dorm no less, for an entire year. Three weeks to narrow down a 16-foot-truck's-worth of stuff into what will fit in two duffel bags. Granted, these particular duffel bags are big enough that I could check myself (and a small friend, see photographic evidence) to England - though only if luggage holds were climate controlled and luggage handlers weren't appropriately referred to as "throwers" - but a packing challenge nonetheless.

So far, other than clothing (especially of the warm and waterproof varieties), my list of essentials include:

• book of tried and true/favorite/family recipes
• measuring cups and measuring spoons (according to an Anglo-expert I know, the English don't measure their ingredients in this fashion - so if I want to cook any of my own recipes, I need to bring a set of each... exceedingly helpful advice, especially come Thanksgiving!)
• electric socket adapters
• ipod speakers

Obviously if I can cook while listening to music, I'll be content. On the list of possibilities (and I will happily take your thoughts on these... essential? ridiculous?):

• mini George Forman grill (is it odd that I like to eat turkey and muenster cheese sandwiches grilled with the convenience of a George for breakfast?)
• magic bullet blender (can I live without homemade smoothies for a year?)
• stovetop espresso maker and aerolatte (should I give in and just drink tea, or be a total dork and bring my own latte equipment?)

There seems to be a theme here... (disclaimer: I am exceedingly food-oriented, so I'm probably going to talk a lot about meals and cooking in this blog). Perhaps I can ship all the heavy kitchen-related gadgets to myself? Something to ponder if my bags reach their 50 pound limits without such inclusions. In any event, I solicit your thoughts. Any advice on other essentials I should bring?

The mountain of belongings to sort through in my bedroom is pretty daunting... I'll take all the advice I can get!