The Christmas Post

On Friday, I slept in more than I had expected. Still, I found candy canes, magical elves, and a chocolate orange after a long hunt through every store I could think of before drifting out of the rain into a bookstore. Also, I found turkish delight in a pound store.

For the win!

I actually grabbed all different colours from two different containers without looking.

A magical elf.

At last, the hard-won candy canes!

It's real!

Of course, it was pretty gross. "Rose" isn't a very strong flavour, so I mostly got "sugar" for that one, and lemon actually tasted exactly the same.

I had read Hogfather the day before, so I watched the movie, a made-for-tv affair. It was okay, and nowhere near as bad as it could have been. Almost all the actors were british, and they followed most of the plot pretty well. Death was a little weird; I always figured him as pretty impassive, but this one had an angry skull. The voice wasn't too bad, though. Susan was played by, as Jessi pointed out, "the girl from Downton Abbey," which sounded more vague than it was, and she did okay. Mustrum Ridcully was played by Joss Ackland with a beard, which disguised him pretty well, since he was bald and beardless as the Russian ambassador in The Hunt for Red October (and also as the villain in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey).

Saturday, I slept in again It is vacation... Or, as they say here, holidays. Jessi had already left to meet her parents, probably at the airport. Over the course of the afternoon, I decided not to go with chinese takeaway because it just doesn't sound appealing. Also, the restaurant that's closest to Clanny is pretty pricey for just one dish, and I felt that I'd already spent a lot of money on food.
In the interests of exploration, I tried blue cheese for the first time in about 17 years. It started as "For SCIENCE!" and ended as "I know too much science to eat that." The non-blue parts aren't too bad, but thinking about putting large quantities of concentrated, highly visible bacteria into my mouth freaks me out (I added those qualifiers because, you know, we put a ton of bacteria into our mouths on a regular basis, we just can't see it). I killed some in the oven, and it didn't taste too bad, but... shudder. It's that horrible feeling that you get when you touch something gross... Just... ugh.
It wasn't just for exploration and science, it was that lots of people I know like blue cheese (also the food blogs, but I really do know people, real people, in real life that like the stuff), and I thought, maybe I've got this all wrong and I'm letting a barely-remembered incident and my parent's opinion colour my perception of this rather famous, generally accepted cheese.
Now, it's my opinion. If you got rid of all the mould, it wouldn't be too bad.

To distract you from blue cheese, here's some pictures of fairly delicious candy!

Hawick Balls (mint, if you can believe it).

Rhubarb and Custard thingies

Dandelion and Burdock bottles

I think these are either rhubarb or strawberry 

Silver things. They turned out to be kind of minty, but I mostly got them because they were shiny.

Sounds exciting...

Nothing too magical.

Barley sugar, I believe. I always wondered what it was, and I still wonder why it's called that.

Treacle Toffees: Purchased out of curiosity. Such things exist?

Clove somethings

Around the plate of candy, which includes the above plus some chocolates not mentioned, we have a mince pie, a chocolate orange, cookies, a slice of fruitcake, and oranges. Also Hogfather between the cookies and the cake.

Repast. And yeah, I was kind of into taking pictures of my food that night.

Pure Heaven white grape and peach non-alcoholic sparkling beverage.

...Which had a fancy cork! 

Luckily, Adam had left his leatherman in the kitchen, so I set about opening the first cork I'd ever encountered.

After a long and arduous battle, I won.

Someone left a wine glass. I took advantage of it.

I roasted chestnuts. From left: uncooked, cooked, opened and half eaten.
They weren't very good, actually. A little to sweet and spongy for me.

I had a santa hat, and I wore it all day. This is my facebook profile now...

In addition to stuffing myself with cheese, I watched a lot of movies. I forget all of them, but I watched Polar Express and Nativity Story on Christmas Eve for sure, and I also watched, during the course of the weekend, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Miracle on 34th Street, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Home Alone, Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Gremlins (those last four are all set on Christmas and/or Christmas Eve), and all three of The Santa Clause series.

Sunday, I was planning on going to St. Gabriel's for their Christmas Day service, to be in church when I couldn't be with family and friends, and to see what an anglican church is like. I'm curious, after learning quite a bit about their formation in Core 150 and English Social History 1500-1750. We don't really see many of those in the US; probably something about being the whole reason that the religious establishment in the states was what it was.
Unfortunately, I woke up ten minutes before the service was to start, due to my really annoying habit of turning my alarm off in my sleep. I ended up getting up around 11, again.
In the afternoon, happily after I was up and had made my bed and stuff, Jessi and her parents came by. Fortunately, they spoke enough english to make things not-awkward, and Jessi translated when their english failed them. My german never came into play, although I did pick up on some of what they said. They were pretty nice.
After they left, I got started on dinner, and it resulted in this rather suspicious-looking concoction.

Soup. More of a stew, actually. I slaved over this.

It was delicious, and ended up feeding me for three days.

I skyped with my parents in the GMT afternoon and the rest of my dad's side of the family in the PST afternoon, which was nice. I've been talking to people back home more and more, and I'm getting pretty excited to get to the house in spokane, and to be back at whitworth, and to see my family in person. I haven't actually had a major W-curve depression moment, although I'm pretty disillusioned with the University in general. That sort of depressed mood hits me at whitworth, too, like when I get a particularly bad mark, or I'm having a hard time with an assignment, or a professor isn't being helpful. It happens a lot less at whitworth, and the professors are a lot less unhelpful than here, and I also have a great advisor at whitworth who has proved her worth by helping me get here and by not judging me for having a breakdown in her office over physics. I think she probably sees a lot of that from science major freshmen, you know, the ones who were pretty darn smart in high school, were at the tops of their classes without trying, who never had to study (oh, how I miss those days)... 

Overall, Christmas was a success. It was helped more when my flatmate that moved away (causing the sad puppy whimpers from me) invited me to visit her at her boyfriend's house in Beford for a few days and maybe spend new years eve with them and another flatmate who's been traveling. I didn't start any big traditions (I was hoping for Chinese on Christmas Eve, like crepe tuesdays. In retrospect, I didn't have any family or friends around to make it a worthwhile tradition, so I just continued in the family habit of eating cheese and crackers for Christmas Eve), but I didn't have an emotional breakdown and I don't think my family did, either. 

Oh, and I intend to call christmas lights "fairy lights" for the rest of my life. It just sounds so much cooler.

A Walk In The Park, And Also Food — Sunday 18 December to Wednesday 21 December

Before I get into the post, I have a blog post from a kindred spirit, at least as regards my crepe stand plan. I can't find the post where I detailed my plans to open a crepe stand if the whole scientist thing falls through, but I think it was pretty detailed. If anyone has information on where I talked about that, please let me know. It's bugging me.
Sunday, I went back to Barnes Park. I think I've mentioned it to at least one person who reads this, but I'm not sure. I didn't have my camera the first time I went here, so I kind of had to go back.

This is the big grassy area before the park. Good for dogs, kites, frisbee games, and football games.
The lensflare/glory rays were completely accidental. I wasn't even looking at the screen at the time, due to the sun being really bright. 

Some of the toys, which were all at the front of the park.

This was to show off the snow behind the gate. I don't know what the big, flat depressions are. They have stairs, so they might be for sports... It was also really icy; this walk in the park was no walk in the park.

That turned out to be something called a "stumpery", for the purpose of growing ferns like the victorians did. I think this whole park has been restored to something resembling its presumably victorian glory days.

The lake has a set of stairs leading down from it. I don't know why.

Frozen lake. I tossed a rock, and it bounced.

Ducks!

Okay, this tree bothers me. I see them around, but I don't know what they are or why people like them. They resemble pines from a distance, but up close...

It looks like something that should have been extinct for a really long time.

Do not like.

I was going to walk by the gazebo, but I think I would have ended up with a broken something, or maybe some more bruised cartilage.

Up there is the large grassy area from the beginning of the post. It goes very up, and this part of the park also goes a little down.

I brightened up the picture to make the cool bridge in the middle less invisible, but I might be able to see it just because I know it's there.

I love this funky little structure. If I'd had more battery, I'd have taken more pictures. Alas... 

Prettiness! In Sunderland, even!

I had planned to go further, but with the battery issue and the fact that it was really friggin' cold, I decided to go hunt down the cafe that I'd seen signs for at the park entrance and see what they had in the way of hot drinks. What I found was more of a small kitchen behind a candy-and-crisps counter. Fortunately, the kitchen contained a coffee pot, a hot water pot, possibly a microwave, and a friendly local. It had been a while since anyone commented on my accent, and I soon found myself chatting with a stranger (not for the last time) about my Christmas plans. I got a cup of hot chocolate with a generous portion of whipped cream on top, and it was pretty good, even if it did get grainy at the bottom and didn't do much for my hands freezing off. It was tiny, but cheaper and rather better than anything I'd get at starbucks, and also whipped cream.
That night, after my hands thawed out, I made plans to get up early and Do Things on monday. My christmas plans took form, from an abstract list to a firm idea of what I needed.

Monday, I got up before 9 AM and Did Things. I walked down Pallion, the startling street behind Clanny, and found cash, chestnuts, and a sweet shop in the style of Badger Canyon Herbs and Tea. I got some weird candy, in lieu of candy canes, my main objective. I realised that, although I'd planned to get fruit and soup makings monday, it would be a week before I'd end up using them. So, I ended up getting candy and nuts. I also went to the area outside the Bridges (mall just down the road from the university) and hunted for a tacky Christmas sweater, but they didn't have anything. I mean, there was plenty of tacky, but no Christmas.
I was disappointed, but I headed for the bookstore across the bridge. I'd seen it, but couldn't remember the name. I could, however, remember that it is on the road that the bridge is on, so I walked across the bridge with some chips from a fish and chip place outside the bridges.
I cursed myself for forgetting my camera as I walked across the Wearmouth bridge, which I've been wanting to photograph, and also saw the gorgeous-looking park thing underneath the bridge (I've made plans to go back, initially on tuesday, although that got scrapped when I woke up sick, but more on that later).
The store was closed. I almost got killed by cars three times trying to get to it, and it was closed.
Unbelievable.
Well. Maybe it was just closed for lunch... I began my hunt for the St. Peter's campus, a place I'd been exactly twice, and one of those was on a bus. The other time was when we skipped the treasure hunt during orientation and got lost on our way there before coming at it from the kind of opposite direction (almost exactly four months ago; it doesn't seem like that long ago that I didn't know some of my favourite people). I ended up getting slightly lost in a residential area, but kept following the sidewalk in hopes that I wouldn't have to turn around and go all the way back.  Luck was with me, and the sidewalk dumped me out by a sign that said University.
St. Peter's is a lot prettier than City Campus. The libraries aren't much different, although the view is better from St Peter's. I looked up the "Bridge Books and Music" store, which doesn't have a proper website, and decided to try again after the lunch hour, as it's supposedly open all weekdays.
However, unless the lunch hour is really long, Bridge Books and Music is closed for the holidays, so I'll give it another shot after new years, probably. I'm a little sad that I can't find any second-hand bookstores, and the only bookstores I can find are large chains, which are invariably expensive.
I walked home, which entailed the following: almost dying three times in roundabouts, checking the charity shop for a sweater, and getting a library card to check out Hogfather by Terry Pratchett.
The library on Kayll Road (it collides with Pallion, the street of the fruiterer and three pizza places within twenty meters of each other, and I don't know why the changed the names, but whatever) is pretty limited, but they do have Terry Pratchett. It was here that I had my second discussion with a stranger over my Christmas plans; the librarian was quite friendly.

Tuesday, I woke up sick. I blame the fact that I walked, quite literally, all over Sunderland in the rain and cold. The bus wasn't there when I was, okay? Don't judge. I slept in until... late... and then dragged my sorry behind out of bed only to go downstairs and see that there was nothing I wanted to eat. I put a load of laundry in, after forgetting my detergent, and went to the supermarket that seems the least sketchy for crepe mix. I wasn't really up to making the (admittedly not labour-intensive) batter on my own.
Conclusion: I like mine better, but it was fun making the batter in a bottle.
I spent the rest of tuesday sleeping through movies, getting bored with them when I was awake, planning Christmas, and craving soup.
I drifted downstairs sometime in the evening and decided to make soup happen. Micha left gobs of pasta, and we have a bunch of leftover vegetable bouillon from various and sundry theme nights, and Josie left lots of frozen vegetables...
It was pretty good. While chicken noodle soup was kind of out of the equation, vegetable noodle soup was pretty darn good. I think it was the noodles in hot broth thing that did it for me.
Today, Jessi redeemed herself for every time she was a horrible, insensitive, ranting b-word. She was nice to me when I was sick, and that makes up for every argument I've had to lose to preserve the lack of hostility in my room. She's lent me quite a bit of money over the course of Ireland and me not having change for laundry a few times, too. I was in a good enough mood, also triumphant after making soup, to play go fish and lose at egyptian rat race twice (blasted sandwich rule; I cursed it even when I remembered it). Jessi's not a very good winner or loser, but she was very nice when I was sick...

Wednesday, I would have stayed in bed forever, but we were supposed to have a fire alarm test, which means the incredibly loud alarm going off for three to six seconds over five to fifty second intervals for one hour. It's the most miserable time to be trying to be lazy. I decided to do my mall shopping: I got a santa hat to make up for my lack of a sweater, some mince pies that I'm hiding from Jessi until after christmas, at which point she can finish them, some fancy cheese, crackers/biscuits, lentils, sparkling white grape and peach juice (non-alcoholic; I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find any non-alcoholic cider, so I went with the first sparkling thing that reminds me of christmas that I could find), a whole lot of tomatoes, and a strange melon that I've never attempted to eat, to my knowledge.
I should explain the tomatoes. I've taken to reading food blogs; not sure how that happened. I think I was looking for a spiced cider recipe when we planned out Christmas Night, and ran across Accidental Hedonist, who had a guest writer a while ago who writes a blog called Tomato Kumato.
As I read through Tomato Kumato's archives, I find myself resonating with Emily, who's lived all over the world. No, I've never lived in or even been to New York, Toronto, or Paris, but I do know how it is to have so many "homes" that it gets a bit confusing. I know how it is to wish that you could stay in your new home, with your new friends, new cultural norms, and new habits. I know how it is to want to make your own place in a big world. I've been forcing myself to stop looking eagerly at "to let" signs that pepper Sunderland.
Of course, Tomato Kumato is a food blog. Emily posts a lot of recipes (including one for garlicky tomato soup), and I'm almost quivering with anticipation for cooking my Christmas food. Then I got sick, and felt like a master chef when I managed to scrape together tuesday night's soup. I decided that I could make a garlicky tomato soup from scratch, especially after reading about someone who's been cooking with fresh vegetables. I've always been one to jump on a bandwagon, so two pounds of tomatoes came home with me.
Unfortunately, I have no food processors at all. Josie took her potato masher with her when she moved out, and we certainly don't have any kind of blender. Of course, I was far too excited to bother with this, figuring that I don't mind a few chunks of tomato or some tomato skins in my soup.
I'll just skip to the end... It wasn't the texture that got me, it was the salt. I think I got my salt requirements for the week out of that soup, even though I tried putting potatoes in it. It was okay if I dipped some bread in it.
So, note to self: Don't try roasting tomatoes for soup until you have food processing equipment. Also, the garlic would have been garlickier if you hadn't roasted it. Since the point of the dish was to clear your distressingly clogged sinuses with a blast of garlic...
In any case, I don't feel sicker. Actually, I think I'm doing a lot better. I'm on quite a culinary trip. I made latkes while waiting for the soup, something I've wanted to try since I read the story "Latkes for Dixie" in Highlights (Dixie was the family dog, a collie, if the illustrations were to be believed). I finally pulled it off, although I have no idea if they tasted right, never having had any before. In any case, they were the success that the soup was not, and I enjoyed them with leftover apple sauce from Christmas Night.

Oh, Christmas plans... I wouldn't normally share the details beyond "watching some christmas movies and generally relaxing while my roommate's off with her family, and I'll be skyping with the family sometime and eating delicious food" except I'm getting really excited about this, in spite of the fact that I can't find candy canes anywhere.
Friday the 23rd, I'll be reading Hogfather and then judging the movie.
Christmas Eve, I'll be watching Polar Express before midnight and trying not to finish the whole bottle of sparkling grape juice. I'm torn between ordering chinese and just eating some cheese (I have a lot of cheese), bread, and apples. I'll have mince pies and cookies, in any case.
Christmas morning, I'm making the berry strudel that's been in my freezer drawer for a few months for breakfast before heading to St Gabriel's (Anglican church just down Kayll Road) for the 10:30 service.
Lunchtime will be leftover strudel and the cheese combination. I'll probably watch more Christmas movies, and I will put on my hat.
At some point in the day, I'll be skyping with my family.
Dinner will be a grand soup. I'm getting so excited about this soup. It will have everything. Lentils, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, hopefully courgettes (british for zucchini; I kind of wish Americans had picked up on the french version instead of the italian one), mushrooms, garlic... And more!
And bread. I just need to find some and hope that the place I get it from is open the day before Christmas eve. I'm thinking I'll get some not-all-the-way-cooked baguettes from aldi Thursday, just in case. I'll eat it eventually, I'm sure.
Then... I haven't planned. The great soup might be before the skyping; it might be after. For all that I've laid this all out, I'm not sure what goes in the middle of the things I'm doing.

I've got batteries, so I'll be putting up more Christmas pictures soon. And, with any luck, I'll be feeling like I can go outside without needed to wear all my clothes even though it's not that cold out (so much for all that "worst winter on record" stuff, unless "worst" is actually defined as "most disappointing").

Class, Naps, and Paranoia — Tuesday 27 September

Today was another successful crepe tuesday. I figured out that mixing olive oil into the batter helps make them better.
I went to talk to IT before my noon class (the only one for tuesdays) and was told that my issues with receiving emails were pretty much a mystery. Sigh. I was more successful at the payments desk, where I picked up my stipend cheque to be cashed at one Barclays Bank. Then I went to class, and took some notes before class started. I'll probably sound pretentious. Don't say I didn't warn you.
HIS114, which turned into my first module at the University of Sunderland: So far, really warm and probably full of freshmen. Smelly ones. Although, that might just be the room. 
All the british students are up in arms about the heat. It's supposed to get up to 25 ºC (which is around 77 ºF). That's a rather warm room temperature. 
I had a strange conversation about study abroad, modules, and the weather with an irate southerner (I suspect London, but I'm not sure). He insisted on calling me "Raeanna". 
The classroom was really warm, and no one on the windows would open one. Regarding the outside temperature, I heard someone with a british accent trying to explain the term "Indian Summer" to a german international, so I guess it's one of those terms that forgoes rational cultural identification.
I need to come up with better reasons for going on this trip. "Because I've always wanted to see England" doesn't sound that great, and "I've always wanted to study abroad, and I don't speak any other language fluently" sounds worse. Any thoughts, please let me know.
I was pleased when I didn't end up in the 09:00 seminar group, but then I realised that I wasn't registered for the class and so hadn't been placed in a group. Bummer. I ended up in the 10:00 group.
The first lecture was an overview, and I didn't know most of it. I did know that the world wars aren't in the early modern period, which stretches from approximately 1500 (1453 and the fall of Constantinople and 1492 and Columbus sailing the ocean blue are two academic contenders in the great debate) to 1750 (I don't know why). That made me feel better, because I'm slightly less unknowledgeable than the person behind me. It looks like the class will be over the social events of the period and how they are intertwined with the political and religious events of the period. I'm pretty satisfied with this, since I know a little bit about the religious events as taught in Core 150 (who knew it would be so useful?) and I have a vague impression of English history for that period.
After class, I hunted for Barclays. I was not very successful. I got directions, all conflicting, from three different people. The last one finally landed me at the "fruit and veg stand" across from the bank, but only after I walked all the way up and down three streets and ended up covering the same ground two or three times.
I bought some strawberries, peaches, and pears with some of my £520 in cash that I need to hide around my room in £38 aliquots. On the first day of orientation, Emma told us about a kid who lost £6,000 that he was carrying around in a brown envelope. Stay with me, it's related. When I got my cash, they gave it to me in a brown envelope. I went home pretty quickly, with a tight grip on my bag.
I foolishly didn't buy a pair of slippers at a random shoe store, so I was incredibly footsore with very little to show for it by the time I got home. I heated up a cheese and onion pasty (remind me to look up and test a recipe before I head home), then put on Pride and Prejudice. I updated yesterday's blog, then fell asleep for about five hours, I would say.
When I went downstairs around 20:30, everyone was just getting ready to watch Sherlock Holmes (with Robert Downey, Jr.), so I had a snack and hung around. "Everyone" here means Jessi, Conor, Josie, James, and Adam, since Micha doesn't hang out with us much and Flo was on a date (tikka chicken chom chom). We had a fun time switching around the seating arrangements every time someone got up, too. Adam's computer doesn't have a very wide angle of viewing, so the people on one end of the "couch" got the slightly inverted colour scheme.
After the movie, I set about arranging a skype date with my family for tomorrow. Now it's time to sleep, which will be aided by some mint tea.

Orientation Day 3, Metrocentre, Birthday — Wed 21 September

Today began with a frantic search to find my alarm, which was neither under my pillow nor coming from my computer. I eventually found it under my bed. Fortunately, the adrenaline was an effective way to wake up before the skype call planned with my family. I got to see yet another sunrise, much to my chagrin. Beautiful as they are, I hate sunrises.

The call went well, and it was nice to see everyone even if they did call ten minutes early. After the call, I went back to bed for half an hour.
Quick note: "module" means "class/course". This threw me off to no end before I figured it out.
Jessi, Josie, Flo, and I had the same advisor meeting at 9:30, and we were hoping to be out before the coach to the Metrocentre left at 12:30. Unfortunately, the advisor was half an hour late and talked for an hour about the online systems (that mostly don't work for study abroad, as it turned out). 12 o'clock came around without me seeing the advisor, and I managed to arrange for more of an independent online module-code-finding adventure before a physical meeting the next day. It wouldn't have been such an issue if the physical module lists had included biomedical/pharmaceutical sciences...

In any case, we all got to the coach (which is just a big bus, like LCS used for away games) on time. I was looking forward to more of england in the daylight, but I don't have any pictures from the way over because I was extremely carsick. I thought it was just me, but Jessi had the same problem. I resolved to remember my dramamine on the York trip friday.
After what felt like several hours but was in fact about half an hour, we arrived. My group included Jessi, Kari (Jessi's friend from Germany who's studying here, too), Josie, Conor, and, briefly, Scott from Colorado and a girl who might be from Whitworth, but I never caught her name. I don't actually know her, so...
We ate at Nando's, which is a mostly chicken restaurant. I got chips (fries in American) and ratatouille. It was okay, but a little heavy on the onions. After that, Scott and mystery girl split, and the rest of us went to Primark for cheap clothes. I wanted jeans, but there were none in my size. At all. In the end, I got a longsleeve t-shirt for a few pounds, a duvet cover and pillow case, and some hangers. Jessi, a goddess among women, held my place in the massively long queue so I could get the hangers.

No clashing!

By the time I got out of the store, everyone else was gone. I decided that I would go to one of the two Orange stores to see if I couldn't get my mobile up and running. I found it after about an hour of wandering, and finally got it registered. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my £10 voucher for the pay card, so I tried to top it up at a "cash point" (ATM). I need to look that up online, because I have no idea how it's suppose to work. I ended up going to the other Orange store to have them either explain it or top it up for me.
It worked out, and I wandered the mall in a good mood until I got to a stationary store and tried to buy a binder and some paper.
My wallet was not in my bag. It wasn't in my shopping bag. It wasn't in my jacket pocket. It still wasn't in any of my bags or pockets after three searches. The cashier was very sympathetic, and offered to hold my stuff until I came back with my wallet.
This was pretty devastating. While I only had £15 in cash, I had all my cards and pictures of friends in the wallet. I also didn't want to have to buy another wallet, cancel my debit card, and get a new drivers' license, Whitworth ID, debit card, and library card. I was also mad at myself for losing yet another wallet (lost my first one a few weeks into my freshman year at Whitworth), and so soon into the trip. I would have to rely on the goodwill of my friends for food and transportation until the debit card company sent me a new card.
In spite of my troubles, I held it together pretty well. I remembered exactly where I'd been, and suspected that I'd left the wallet right in the Orange store. Still, I walked back through all the stores, up and down stairs and escalators, until I returned to the Orange store. After what seemed like a very long wait in a very warm store, I was directed to the help desk just outside the store.
They had my wallet! I was walking on air. All my cards, all my cash, all my pictures, right there in my hands again when I  thought I'd never see them again.
I thanked God sincerely for the unexpected birthday gift.
I used my phone to call Jessi and find out where anybody else was, and found them successfully. We all kind of showed off our loot, then headed back to the meeting point at about 17:15 before waiting about an hour for the coach to show up. Josie had bought a huge cookie from a cookie store in the mall, and was asked repeatedly who it was for. Apparently, she was planning on eating cookie for about a month.
I sat much closer to the front, and it took at least fifteen minutes for the carsickness to kick in. I got some pictures during that time.

Spire! Steeple! Thing!

Countryside. About how I saw it by that time, actually... 

Practically home.

Jessi and I hypothesized that it's the road, not the driver or the bus. I think that bumps and any other types of sudden motion (like the terrible shifting in the first bus) jerk us around too much and shock our brains into thinking that we need to be nauseated.
When we got back to Clanny, it was decided that we should go to an Indian takeout place along Hylton Street (runs along one side of Clanny House). Once Flo finally finished doing his registration stuff on Conor's laptop, we collected Kari and set off. Adam and Michaela pled full stomachs and didn't come.
On the way, we met the Ginger Clanny House Cat, a huge long-haired orange tabby who has his own facebook page.
Once we reached Curry Express, we sat down in the hotel registration-like front room of the restaurant and read the menu. Flo read it out loud, and "Tikka Chicken Chom Chom" became an inside joke. Picture it said with a sleazy eyebrow wiggle... In any case, I got Vegetable Biryani and an order of garlic naan.
Remember the cookie that Josie bought? It was actually my "cake". It said "Happy Birthday, Raeann" (spelled correctly!) and had a card signed by everybody in the flat. Josie got some pictures of it, and I intend to get them onto the blog ASAP.
That night, there was a "nerd" themed party at a Uni bar, which was interpreted by most girls as "slutty school girl uniform". This meant that there were people in the kitchen in varying states of drunkenness, and I hung around for a while before deciding that beer smells really gross in a warm kitchen full of people drinking beer. I went upstairs, killed the spider above the bathroom door for Jessi, and updated the blog before I went to sleep.
It was a good birthday.