I've made it to Leicester — Monday 16 January

I'm out of Sunderland! In spite of several factors, I might add.
1. Adam, who I was hoping would drive me, texted me (after a text, a call, and a pounding on his door from me) that he was sorry, but could I get a cab, and that he hoped I had a safe trip. I'd kind of been expecting this, to be honest. I was just bummed that I didn't actually see him during the week and didn't really get to say goodbye.
2. I accidentally neglected to inform national express that I was packing four bags (limit: 1 to stow in the luggage area and one to carry on, oops). I didn't really even notice the thing on the site saying "luggage allowance" until the drivers looked behind me to my mountain of luggage. In my defence, the carry on bags are far skinnier than when I came over, but there is an extra check bag.
In any case, I made it out of Sunderland. I felt embarrassed by having the drivers lecture me about how if everyone did that, they would run out of room, although they'd let me skip the fee this time (£10 per bag! Ouch.); I was called "Flower" and "Love" multiple times. I kind of wish more people called people "Flower", but I'd prefer to think of myself as a flower that fights back. Roses are pretty brutal, for instance.
The ride was okay; the drivers were both pretty bad about stopping. Neither of them liked to stay still, and would come to at least four complete stops at each light or stop sign. I got seasick at stop signs.
It was cool driving through Nottingham; I saw but was too sick to take a picture of the sign for Sherwood Forest and the Robin Hood thing. I also saw a "Sheriff's Pub" (ahaha, sheriff of nottingham, yes). I was hoping to see signs for the university (birthplace/home of periodic table of videos), but I may have been shoving my head against the seat in front of me to alleviate my carsickness. I'm a little mad at Jessi for using half my carsickness-preventing medicine, all of which I paid for, then getting her own when I ran out and not offering to share any of it. I didn't ask, so I'm not letting myself get too upset, but still. I offered her mine after sitting next to her on the bus to York, where she was pretty much nauseated the whole trip.
ANYWAY. I was pretty happy when I got in to Leicester, and the drive was really pretty. I was just about to Leicester when the sun set after a lengthy, hazy sunset around the whole horizon. There was some really pretty purple to the south.
Oh, it is interesting to note that part of my inner compass failure can probably be attributed to the fact that the sun never reaches high noon. There are always long shadows, as I saw driving through the countryside between 11 and 13. Some of the fields still had the thick frost in the shadows to the north (which I cleverly identified by the fact that all the signs that I could see pointing the way we were going said "The SOUTH"). I was pleased by the sunset, although it never went above the haze around the horizon, versus the massive, sky-on-fire sunsets at home.
The taxi drive in Leicester was not fun. My driver, pretty clearly not a native speaker, had no idea where Josie's house was (yes, I gave him the street address), and kept turning before I actually pointed out that he should turn. He was pretty fair about getting lost, though, and let me off £1.70 of the fee.
It was really good to see Josie. While the distressing case of no one really liking Jessi has made me a little wary of people actually liking me (although I like to think they do; and I'm not too paranoid about it), Josie seemed as happy to see me as I was to see her.
I'm really going to miss having her and James in the same country.
Her house is really cool. It's this huge thing — fits 11 pretty comfortably, I believe, as well as a cat — and is just a cool old house. Her housemates seem pretty cool, too. There might be pictures, although I think it would be awkward to walk around photographing someone else's house. I'm pretty sure I'll get a shot of the toilet room, though.
That's another thing. Toilet and shower go in different rooms here. The only times I object is when the sink is in the shower room, and someone else is using the shower.
Now, Josie and James have gone to Bedford, as Josie has an early morning interview there, and I'm sitting in the huge TV room downstairs watching QI, which may be my favourite non-dramatic show. It's people with british accents talking about arcane topics. Arcane is right up my alley. I've learned a lot about cake and biscuit (not actually cookie, I don't think; cookies are still the round, thin, soft things with chocolate chips in them while biscuits are crispy little affairs): the difference is apparently that, when stale, cake goes hard and biscuit goes soft.
Every now and then, I'm right about some random bit of arcane knowledge, like how baby boys wore pink until fairly recently because pink was considered the close relative of red, which was considered a very strong, masculine colour.
Good to see my random collection of facts comes to good use.
It's a lot like jeopardy, only without the timer. It's less competitive, although they do have some kind of scoring system; they mostly discuss the topics and crack weird british jokes and puns about their crazy rabbit trails. For instance, the american on this episode just said that the term for a group of baboons is "the pentagon", and the host, Stephen Fry (Mycroft Holmes from Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows; he is considered by the british to be just about as british as one can get and has a great accent), just insulted the irish (specifically, the irish guy on this episode, although the whole country was implicated) with this little zinger: "Do you know why the grass in greener in Ireland? No, not the limestone; it's because you're all over here walking on ours."
And I was right about Anders Celsius inventing the Celsius scale of temperature. I can never remember if it's Anders Fahrenheit or Anders Celsius. Wikipedia says that Fahrenheit's given name was Daniel Gabriel.
Back to the house. It's got ivy growing in through the toilet room window, and antique locks on all the inside doors. I think I'd like to live in this house; they've got a lot of plants scattered about, including a christmas cactus. I was pretty excited about that.
The cat, Oscar, is adorable. He's a long-haired grey tortoiseshell tabby-type, and he's very friendly. He's not allowed in Josie's room, as he's after Bob Diddyfish, who has a ceramic turtle friend now and seems to be enjoying his new house. He's doing less almost-dying than in Sunderland, in any case.

Two items of note: the key, which is one of those cool old ones that you see in antique shops and on jewellery* these days, and the doorknob, which is kind of odd. 

Bob! What a rap star.

So cool! Can't wait to move into my house in Spokane and then promptly start house hunting, hopefully!

So far, I do miss Freya, Conor, and Flo, but I don't really miss Sunderland. I might eventually, but my brain is currently convinced that I'm just on vacation, and is way more interested in my new surroundings than in the fact that I've brushed my teeth, made a cup of tea, slept, etc., for the last time in Sunderland. I didn't even take any "parting shot" pictures. In other words, "So long, suckers!"

*I've changed my browser spell check to british; jewellery just looked wrong and I kept trying to spell it "jewelry", so I looked it up. Wikipedia says it can also be spelled jewelry. Those crazy brits.