I wrote this a few months ago (in february, in fact, and it is now july) and then forgot about it. I just got turned into an "ISEP Ambassador" (in something of a fit of irony, given the issues a bunch of us had with ISEP) which reminded me of this, and I also have to resit an exam which is making me think about having studied abroad again. So here's my reflections from just a month after having studied abroad.
Tomorrow, I'll have been back for a whole month. It's kind of crazy.
I'm already so absorbed by school that I have a hard time sitting down and thinking about England. Fortunately, I have a lot of homework to avoid, so it happens more than it should. Right now, for instance, I should be thinking about inorganic chemistry.
So.
I was pretty close on my "what I won't miss, what I will miss" predictions. I really miss the people; I get excited when I hear australian accents before remembering that Josie is in Leicester, and it's weird being on facebook and seeing people from Sunderland friend people that I don't know and go places I'll probably never be.
And, yeah, I miss the easy Sunderland workload (but not the work itself) and cheese and onion pasties. I miss being somewhere where people know what a pasty is... and how to pronounce it. It is fun to explain the "putting stuff in pastry" phenomenon, though. Also, the "irish" pub that moved in across from Whitworth is reported to sell at least meat pasties, so I'll be checking that out sometime.
I don't miss the exchange rate at all, but I'm still confused when I cross the road. I have to think about where I would be sitting if I was driving, and where the center line would be, and therefore where a car will come from when it hits me. Ah, it'll be from behind. Better get on the grass, just in case they aren't paying attention. Note: this is only on campus. I'm very careful when I cross the street from my house to the Whitworth side.
I'm doing pretty good on the "not talking about England ad nauseum" thing, except when I get together with other long term study abroad-ers, and then none of us want to shut up. I found one girl who went to australia and knows the university that Josie and James went to, which was amazingly exciting, although it would have been cooler had she gone to their uni. I also met a girl who went to Northern Ireland (and who confirmed my suspicion that the northern accent is much easier to understand than the republic's), and who shared my frustrations over "I'm from Washington. No, not DC. Yes, there is a state called Washington. Where is it? Um, it's by California." conversations as well as my longing for pasties.
I've stopped saying "uni" so naturally and dropped back into "college", even though I use uni as a texting abbreviation.
I do miss being able to say "chips" and have people think "delicious, deep fried, soft, thick potatoes" instead of "crispy potato slices".
On the other hand, I've settled back into Whitworth pretty well. I've made new friends, even.
I blame my newfound gregariousness on having been somewhere where no one knew me. For the first time ever, there was no familiar face, no one I knew from church or liberty or whitworth, and I think I branched out without knowing it. If I wanted a familiar face, I had to get to know people. So I did. It helped that everyone else was dealing with the same sort of thing, and so were more willing to share my effort, but I could have made no friends. I know people who did just that, and I'm ridiculously proud to say that I'm a successful human being now. Last year, in Duvall, I did not make a single friend in my dorm.
This year, in England, I made several.
Of course, it's still hard for me to just strike up a conversation with someone, but I've definitely made strides in the "being able to function in the real world" department.
Showing posts with label accents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accents. Show all posts
Wednesday, 25 July 2012
Monday, 16 January 2012
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.
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.
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! |
*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.
Sunday, 15 January 2012
The Last Days in Sunderland
Tomorrow morning, I will be leaving Sunderland, quite probably forever. I may never see some very close friends again, unless they send wedding invitations, which is probably unlikely in most cases. My life as far as I know it is packed up into four bags, and I'm oddly unemotional about it.
For the plan-happy amongst you, I'll be in Leicester for two nights and a day and in London for five nights, and also in Bath for one day and zero nights. I'm sure I can find some internets in London, if not in my hostel, then nearby, so I'll post pictures as I feel like hogging the bandwidth and might give short daily updates if I don't feel like using a lot of internet. They'll probably run something to the effect of "Oh, my days, I just walked through Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey!" with a picture or two as teaser. You can substitute any historical thingy that I've always been interested in.
Like the Sherlock Holmes museum, which is within easy walking distance of my hostel. (!!! my expectations are so high that they'll probably be dashed. This will in no way diminish my picture taking habit or plans to purchase something to stick on the flap of my bag or something to commemorate the time I visited Sherlock Holmes's house.
In the meantime, I've been planning for my return home. Specifically, for The Questions.
Every traveller, whether to the next town for a few days or to the other side of the world, knows The Questions. I always struggle with these, quibbling with myself out loud about how hard it is to answer them before launching into an hours-long rambling story with enough rabbit trails to be the hundred acre wood. So, this time, I decided to plan ahead. And, disclaimer, Questions 2 and 3 are not generally asked to day-trippers, but other-side-of-the-world-travellers seem to get them a lot, and I always want to ask them, so I'm answering them.
1. What was your favourite part/thing?
I would have to say that this is one of my least favourite questions ever. It's really hard for my decision-making-impaired brain to narrow down a whole range of generally enjoyable experiences to just one, unless I had a terrible time, in which case the pessimist within insists that "leaving" was my favourite part. Usually, nothing stands out that much until years later, when I only remember the best part and have forgotten everything else but the worst.
In this case, I'm going to say "cheese and onion pasties, cheap nutella, being called "love", "darling", and "pet" without a southern american accent, and the friends I made."
2. What are you going to miss the most?
Similar to the first, but not the same. I'm really not going to miss being called love all that much, but I will miss being able to microwave a cheese and onion roll for a quick, filling, and delicious breakfast quite a bit.
And I will really miss my friends. I've never made such close friendships with people that I know for a very nearly fact that I won't see again. I've made friendships this close in high school, and I still count the Inklings as some of my closest friends ever; I've made friendships this close at Whitworth as we bonded over difficult classes and the odd batty professor and core, and I plan on being friends with these people for a very long time, and will probably be going to their weddings, even if they scare off all the timid whitworth boys. But none of this has prepared me for making friends, to a sibling-like point, with people with whom the only thing I have in common is that we lived in the same flat for four months. I almost can't remember not knowing Josie, Conor, Flo, and Adam. And I never want to forget them.
3. What will you not miss?
I will not miss the friggin exchange rate. I will not miss being unemployed. I will not miss being unable to understand the cashier's accent. I will not miss the sidewalk being paved with cigarette butts. I will not miss having a roommate (especially one that gets snippy when she's tired). I will not miss the University of Sunderland. I've been here long enough that I can think of these very, very easily.
4. What was your least favourite part/thing?
Easy. The impossible little frenchman. Not only could I not understand half of what he said, he didn't like me. The only time he showed any lack of somewhat haughty condescension, like I was a particularly stupid breed of moron who was soiling his oxygen, was when I dominated the GC software.
I don't like being thought of as stupid. It didn't help that I was completely unfamiliar with lab habits, lab report expectations, and the labs that were prerequisites. I have the knowledge. In fact, I solidly passed organic chemistry and its lab. But I didn't take PBM103 or any of the other first year biomedical science modules at Sunderland, which put me at a severe disadvantage when it came to figuring out what was expected of me.
The other thing that I didn't like was having a difficult roommate. I'm a little mad that she even signed up for a double room. When I asked her why, she replied that she had never roomed with anyone before and felt that if she was doing all these new, unfamiliar things, she might as well share a room, too. This was not fair to me. I was expecting someone who, like myself, had no need for the stupid little "how to not to make your roommate hate you" pamphlet.
I know, I know, life's not fair, but I'd like to have a word with whoever assigned us to the same room. Flatmates are one thing. People who are predisposed not to get along can still be in the same building; kitchen use just needs to be regulated. People who are predisposed not to get along cannot share a room without misery on both sides, if not open hostility and the urge to scream into your pillow, except you can't because she's sitting right there. The most annoying part was the vague superiority complex, except where english was involved. Look, all right, you've been to a million more places than I have, you know more about the world than I do, and you speak a lot more languages than I do, but at least I'm not rude, loudly, in public. The worst part is that I think we would have got along fine if we hadn't been roommates. It's certainly not that she's german. I've met several other germans, and I like all of them. It's just that we are not the sort of people who can room together without starting to hate each other a little bit.
That was a downer of a Question to put last, but it always seems to come up last. So...
5. Would you do it again?
Absolutely. I'd do a few things differently (get a visa or an internship with a stipend or something), but I'd do this again in a heartbeat. It wouldn't be the same — nothing ever could be — but I seriously doubt that I'll ever regret this. I might, in a fit of reverse culture shock, regret having turned my life upside down, but the friends I've made, the experiences I've had (including the ones I'll never wish on anyone)... I'll always pine for England, at least a little bit. I think it's fair to say that this has changed my life, if only in that I've done something that's made it so that only people who've at least done something similar can really relate to me for a few months. This isn't to say that I won't be friends with my friends that I left a whitworth or various and sundry other universities across the pacific northwest, but there's going to be a bit of a divide between the "us" who have lived abroad and the "them" who haven't.
For the plan-happy amongst you, I'll be in Leicester for two nights and a day and in London for five nights, and also in Bath for one day and zero nights. I'm sure I can find some internets in London, if not in my hostel, then nearby, so I'll post pictures as I feel like hogging the bandwidth and might give short daily updates if I don't feel like using a lot of internet. They'll probably run something to the effect of "Oh, my days, I just walked through Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey!" with a picture or two as teaser. You can substitute any historical thingy that I've always been interested in.
Like the Sherlock Holmes museum, which is within easy walking distance of my hostel. (!!! my expectations are so high that they'll probably be dashed. This will in no way diminish my picture taking habit or plans to purchase something to stick on the flap of my bag or something to commemorate the time I visited Sherlock Holmes's house.
In the meantime, I've been planning for my return home. Specifically, for The Questions.
Every traveller, whether to the next town for a few days or to the other side of the world, knows The Questions. I always struggle with these, quibbling with myself out loud about how hard it is to answer them before launching into an hours-long rambling story with enough rabbit trails to be the hundred acre wood. So, this time, I decided to plan ahead. And, disclaimer, Questions 2 and 3 are not generally asked to day-trippers, but other-side-of-the-world-travellers seem to get them a lot, and I always want to ask them, so I'm answering them.
1. What was your favourite part/thing?
I would have to say that this is one of my least favourite questions ever. It's really hard for my decision-making-impaired brain to narrow down a whole range of generally enjoyable experiences to just one, unless I had a terrible time, in which case the pessimist within insists that "leaving" was my favourite part. Usually, nothing stands out that much until years later, when I only remember the best part and have forgotten everything else but the worst.
In this case, I'm going to say "cheese and onion pasties, cheap nutella, being called "love", "darling", and "pet" without a southern american accent, and the friends I made."
2. What are you going to miss the most?
Similar to the first, but not the same. I'm really not going to miss being called love all that much, but I will miss being able to microwave a cheese and onion roll for a quick, filling, and delicious breakfast quite a bit.
And I will really miss my friends. I've never made such close friendships with people that I know for a very nearly fact that I won't see again. I've made friendships this close in high school, and I still count the Inklings as some of my closest friends ever; I've made friendships this close at Whitworth as we bonded over difficult classes and the odd batty professor and core, and I plan on being friends with these people for a very long time, and will probably be going to their weddings, even if they scare off all the timid whitworth boys. But none of this has prepared me for making friends, to a sibling-like point, with people with whom the only thing I have in common is that we lived in the same flat for four months. I almost can't remember not knowing Josie, Conor, Flo, and Adam. And I never want to forget them.
3. What will you not miss?
I will not miss the friggin exchange rate. I will not miss being unemployed. I will not miss being unable to understand the cashier's accent. I will not miss the sidewalk being paved with cigarette butts. I will not miss having a roommate (especially one that gets snippy when she's tired). I will not miss the University of Sunderland. I've been here long enough that I can think of these very, very easily.
4. What was your least favourite part/thing?
Easy. The impossible little frenchman. Not only could I not understand half of what he said, he didn't like me. The only time he showed any lack of somewhat haughty condescension, like I was a particularly stupid breed of moron who was soiling his oxygen, was when I dominated the GC software.
I don't like being thought of as stupid. It didn't help that I was completely unfamiliar with lab habits, lab report expectations, and the labs that were prerequisites. I have the knowledge. In fact, I solidly passed organic chemistry and its lab. But I didn't take PBM103 or any of the other first year biomedical science modules at Sunderland, which put me at a severe disadvantage when it came to figuring out what was expected of me.
The other thing that I didn't like was having a difficult roommate. I'm a little mad that she even signed up for a double room. When I asked her why, she replied that she had never roomed with anyone before and felt that if she was doing all these new, unfamiliar things, she might as well share a room, too. This was not fair to me. I was expecting someone who, like myself, had no need for the stupid little "how to not to make your roommate hate you" pamphlet.
I know, I know, life's not fair, but I'd like to have a word with whoever assigned us to the same room. Flatmates are one thing. People who are predisposed not to get along can still be in the same building; kitchen use just needs to be regulated. People who are predisposed not to get along cannot share a room without misery on both sides, if not open hostility and the urge to scream into your pillow, except you can't because she's sitting right there. The most annoying part was the vague superiority complex, except where english was involved. Look, all right, you've been to a million more places than I have, you know more about the world than I do, and you speak a lot more languages than I do, but at least I'm not rude, loudly, in public. The worst part is that I think we would have got along fine if we hadn't been roommates. It's certainly not that she's german. I've met several other germans, and I like all of them. It's just that we are not the sort of people who can room together without starting to hate each other a little bit.
That was a downer of a Question to put last, but it always seems to come up last. So...
5. Would you do it again?
Absolutely. I'd do a few things differently (get a visa or an internship with a stipend or something), but I'd do this again in a heartbeat. It wouldn't be the same — nothing ever could be — but I seriously doubt that I'll ever regret this. I might, in a fit of reverse culture shock, regret having turned my life upside down, but the friends I've made, the experiences I've had (including the ones I'll never wish on anyone)... I'll always pine for England, at least a little bit. I think it's fair to say that this has changed my life, if only in that I've done something that's made it so that only people who've at least done something similar can really relate to me for a few months. This isn't to say that I won't be friends with my friends that I left a whitworth or various and sundry other universities across the pacific northwest, but there's going to be a bit of a divide between the "us" who have lived abroad and the "them" who haven't.
Friday, 13 January 2012
It's my last week in Sunderland...
So, I'm leaving Sunderland for good in a mere three days. Rising to the top of my mixture of emotions is the panic of not having packed — or even having enough suitcases, in all likelihood — at all, not even sorting my stuff.
Of course, this has been a week of more "lasts" than I can remember having since my high school graduation. I was in denial about graduation for three months before it until two days before it, when I finally read through my speech and got the panics.
I had my last day with my british biochem lab partner Freya, who's been featured on this blog before.
I turned in my last assignments.
I've been busily not buying more food, since I'll just be leaving in a few days (I use jessi's milk instead).
I returned all my library books. I really will not miss that place. I spent too much of my time cooped up trying to write lab reports on the top floor.
I keep realising that each day is my last "day of the week" in Sunderland, probably ever. I probably won't see Conor, Josie, James, Adam, Flo, Jessi, or Freya ever again after I go home.
Of course, I won't have to deal with that impossible little frenchman ever again (except for when I have to take that exam in friggin' June, not that I'm bitter). I won't have to feel like I'm wasting my time by going to lectures (I hope. I've never felt like I didn't need to go to a Whitworth lecture).
It's just as well that I'm done with my papers, though, since I had my last packet of alpine cider this morning.
A couple of funny stories about words with different meanings:
1. Cider. Cider in the UK means the alcoholic kind. It's like beer with apples, I believe. Comes in cans. Cider in the states, unless preceded by "hard", means "cloudy apple juice, I guess" or "hot, spiced apple beverage that is mostly sugar". I got some funny looks when I said that I write my best papers while drinking cider.
2. Fanny. In the states, it's sort of like saying "bum" in reference to someone's hindquarters: a fairly polite word for a culturally amusing body part. We even have fanny packs, which sit either on the bum or on the stomach.
In the UK, fanny means, ah, "ladybits", as Adam so delicately put it when we pried the definition out of him.
I probably wouldn't think this was such a funny word if I hadn't grown up with it as a quaint, funny way of saying butt.
Snrk. Yes, I am five years old.
3. The Garage. Here pronounced GARE-uhj, which still seems foreign. Although, I use and hear this one enough that it's making guh-RAHJ sound weird and foreign. In the states, a gah-RAHJ is the thing that holds your cars when you're not driving them. I think it's normally that way for GARE-uhjes here in the UK, as well.
However, there's a petrol station that I think of as "behind Clanny", although it's really more to the side. Anyway, it's the place to go for late-night food hunts that don't include hot pizza or any other kind of takeaway. Do we call it "the petrol station"? No, we do not. Someone in Clanny House, past or present, started calling it "the GARE-uhj", and the name stuck. If you say "I'm going to the GARE-uhj, does anyone need anything?" then everyone in the room will either reply that they'll come with you or thrust fivers at you with orders. I think that if I tried to call it "the petrol station", no one would know what I was talking about.
The thing that makes this really funny for me is that I still don't think of a GARE-uhj as a place to put a car, but rather as the petrol station behind clanny. Guh-RAHJes are where you keep cars.
I'd like to think that I'll be too busy packing and eating the rest of my food to post again before London or Leicester, but who am I kidding? I'll put it off until late Sunday night, and we all know it.
Of course, this has been a week of more "lasts" than I can remember having since my high school graduation. I was in denial about graduation for three months before it until two days before it, when I finally read through my speech and got the panics.
I had my last day with my british biochem lab partner Freya, who's been featured on this blog before.
I turned in my last assignments.
I've been busily not buying more food, since I'll just be leaving in a few days (I use jessi's milk instead).
I returned all my library books. I really will not miss that place. I spent too much of my time cooped up trying to write lab reports on the top floor.
I keep realising that each day is my last "day of the week" in Sunderland, probably ever. I probably won't see Conor, Josie, James, Adam, Flo, Jessi, or Freya ever again after I go home.
Of course, I won't have to deal with that impossible little frenchman ever again (except for when I have to take that exam in friggin' June, not that I'm bitter). I won't have to feel like I'm wasting my time by going to lectures (I hope. I've never felt like I didn't need to go to a Whitworth lecture).
It's just as well that I'm done with my papers, though, since I had my last packet of alpine cider this morning.
A couple of funny stories about words with different meanings:
1. Cider. Cider in the UK means the alcoholic kind. It's like beer with apples, I believe. Comes in cans. Cider in the states, unless preceded by "hard", means "cloudy apple juice, I guess" or "hot, spiced apple beverage that is mostly sugar". I got some funny looks when I said that I write my best papers while drinking cider.
2. Fanny. In the states, it's sort of like saying "bum" in reference to someone's hindquarters: a fairly polite word for a culturally amusing body part. We even have fanny packs, which sit either on the bum or on the stomach.
In the UK, fanny means, ah, "ladybits", as Adam so delicately put it when we pried the definition out of him.
I probably wouldn't think this was such a funny word if I hadn't grown up with it as a quaint, funny way of saying butt.
Snrk. Yes, I am five years old.
3. The Garage. Here pronounced GARE-uhj, which still seems foreign. Although, I use and hear this one enough that it's making guh-RAHJ sound weird and foreign. In the states, a gah-RAHJ is the thing that holds your cars when you're not driving them. I think it's normally that way for GARE-uhjes here in the UK, as well.
However, there's a petrol station that I think of as "behind Clanny", although it's really more to the side. Anyway, it's the place to go for late-night food hunts that don't include hot pizza or any other kind of takeaway. Do we call it "the petrol station"? No, we do not. Someone in Clanny House, past or present, started calling it "the GARE-uhj", and the name stuck. If you say "I'm going to the GARE-uhj, does anyone need anything?" then everyone in the room will either reply that they'll come with you or thrust fivers at you with orders. I think that if I tried to call it "the petrol station", no one would know what I was talking about.
The thing that makes this really funny for me is that I still don't think of a GARE-uhj as a place to put a car, but rather as the petrol station behind clanny. Guh-RAHJes are where you keep cars.
I'd like to think that I'll be too busy packing and eating the rest of my food to post again before London or Leicester, but who am I kidding? I'll put it off until late Sunday night, and we all know it.
Sunday, 18 December 2011
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.
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").
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.
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| 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. |
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| Some of the toys, which were all at the front of the park. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| The lake has a set of stairs leading down from it. I don't know why. |
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| Frozen lake. I tossed a rock, and it bounced. |
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| Ducks! |
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| 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... |
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| It looks like something that should have been extinct for a really long time. |
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| Do not like. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| I love this funky little structure. If I'd had more battery, I'd have taken more pictures. Alas... |
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| Prettiness! In Sunderland, even! |
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").
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Northern Ireland — Friday 9 December to Monday 12 December
Friday started for me at 4 AM; at 4:30 for Conor, Josie, and James, and at 4:49 for Adam. For Jessi, Thursday never really ended. We all had varying levels of exhaustion, but I think James summed it all up when, as Josie told it, he plaintively said "please stop..." to her alarm when he couldn't figure out how to turn it off. However, Jessi was able to overcome her exhaustion by being really, really excited about ireland. I think she giggled and said "We're going to Ireland!" about once every five minutes on the forty minute drive to the airport. Thank God we weren't on the metro (same trip is over an hour)...
I love flying. There's something about it. I hate airports, at least the getting into them part, and I dislike the boarding processes, but once I've got my luggage stowed overhead and underseat and myself tucked into a seat, be it next to strangers, friends, or no one, I start getting really giddy. I stare out the window for everything, including the taxi to and from the runway. While I do get a little nervous during bad turbulence, I'm definitely not afraid of flying. Taking this into consideration, I've decided that I have a few backup plans for careers. If the whole scientist thing falls through, I'll try opening a crepe stand (one of those portable things, like hot dog stands: it'd be cheaper than a store, and if I have the money for that, I'm doing my tea/yarn/book store, not food), and if that doesn't work out, either, I'll be a stewardess. I'd get to fly all the time. Even if I don't get to look out windows and I have to put up with far too many upset babies and stupid passengers who try to sneak check-sized bags into the plane and stuff like that, I'd still be flying and even going to potentially cool places. I think it'd be worth it.
Of course, I didn't get to see a whole lot, given that the sun comes up at about 8:30 and our plane left sometime after 7, but definitely before 8, but still. Flying.
Also, every time I fly, I think of that Weird Al song Albuquerque. The part I think of is 2:00-2:30 minutes, and you don't need to watch the rest unless you're a big Weird Al fan. It's a weird song.
We landed successfully, not too much turbulence, and got slightly lost in Belfast International. Eventually, we caught the Belfast International Express bus to Belfast and decided not to knock around Belfast with all our bags and less than 20 hours of sleep among six people. We managed to catch the sort-of express to Kilkeel just in time, and had a crazy bus ride south (although I had somehow convinced myself that it was north). My internal compass gave up its fight a long time ago, and I've kind of decided that my window is north. Ish. It's probably wrong.
In any case, we bought some groceries (as always, slightly impractical ones; we always mean to get useful staples and end up with pizza, crisps, and muffins) and ordered a taxi to 76 Brackenagh East Road, which I thought was spelled Brackney.
Also, I was completely wrong about my internal compass. My window faces almost due east, but we're north enough and it's winter enough that I think the sun never hits high noon, and lurks off in the south, making it pretty much impossible for me to figure out where it is. Also, too much city-stuff for me to see it setting, and heaven forbid I see it rising. Based on my rather belated walk a few weeks ago, the pretty part of a sunset around here is in the southeast (according to the google maps compass), so whatever. And Clanny House is oriented completely differently versus the coastline than I had thought. Gah... Now I'm going to get a headache whenever I think too hard about it.
Anyway.
We had to take two taxis because they didn't have a van around, so Josie, James, and I waited around for the second one. Our driver was an interesting character who's been all over the world driving taxis and trucks. I've discovered that the northern irish accent is way easier to understand than the southern (like Thomas's... It's like listening to the Swedish Chef from muppets (turn on the youtube captions for that video; it's not vital, but it's funny). I know he's saying words, and I'm pretty sure they're English, but for the life of me I cannot understand him. I don't get why Jessi thought his accent was attractive, because I personally am attracted to being able to understand people.).
The house is adorable. Adam described it as a "Nana house" and it really is, inside and out. It's adorable outside, and it's a little too small and filled with trinkets from long-ago travels as well as more recent trips and pictures of family. The area is what you'd kind of expect from Ireland. It's very green, full of sheep and cool little walls.
Within two hours of getting to the house, we had made pizza and tea and set up the TV. Er... We were also walked in on by a neighbour lady who was just "making the rounds, you know, checking that all the doors are locked" while Conor's grandmother wasn't there, and "didn't know anyone was there" (that's a laugh. She probably saw the taxi drive up, and she also probably knew that someone was coming for the weekend through the neighbourhood grapevine.)
As a flat, we hope to be like Josie's nan, who owns and runs a pub on the truck route in Australia, and who ran after a snake in the road and shot it at age 87, rather than creeping on the neighbours to keep ourselves busy. But probably, we'll end up watching TV all day.
Dinner was pretty slapdash. Since we can't really survive on toast, Josie wanted to make pasta with the tomato puree and the Quorn mince that she found, but she had to get creative on the pasta. There was a little penne and a pack of lasagna sheets, so she cooked the lasagna sheets to a little harder than al dente and cut them into strips, then combined them with the penne.
We tried to watch The Two Towers that night, but in spite of the epic battle to get the TV to recognise James' hard drive that ended in hooking my USB stick (yay IT day!) and James' hard drive to Adam's computer and putting the one of the three parts of the extended version (I was expecting two) onto the stick every time we finished one part, pretty much everyone fell asleep before the end. Conor and I managed to stay up, but I suspect that we may have had the most sleep.
Saturday, it was Josie's birthday. I did my best to sleep through the visit from Conor's distant relative. I'm terrible at visiting. Apparently, though, I missed her waltzing into the guest house where James and Josie were rooming before they got up. Again, with the not knocking thing. But she did leave us a steak and ale (or some kind of booze, I forget the exact word) pie, a dish of cheesy potato things, and a pack of four mini mince pies, which are delicious, by the way.
Adam, James, Josie, and I went dinner shopping, and prayed for deliverance on the taxi ride to the store. I mean, daaaang, these people are crazy drivers.
Ireland does not believe in vegetarians. Luckily, there was some Quorn chicken at the house, or I'd have been one protein-deprived vegetarian. After the store, everyone bundled up in preparation to climb what may have been "Bingian" or possibly "Binian", a mountain-y hill just north of the house. And it is north, I checked.
To get to the hill, we had to cross what appeared to be a field but was in actual fact a marsh. Everyone's shoes got pretty well soaked, Jessi went in up to her midcalf, Adam went in up to his knee, I did a hasty faceplant (the brunt was on my shins and my left glove; no facial or even torso contact with the ground), and Josie went in up to just above her ankle.
It was still a good time, and I have some great pictures.
We had mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and peas, and steak pie and chicken-ish pie for everyone but me, and quorn chicken in a vegetable gravy that I found in the cupboard for me. We also watched the (UK) X Factor (the cousin of American Idol and the older sibling of the american X Factor, and probably a relative of [Country]'s Got Talent) all day because it was Josie's birthday and the first round of the finals was on that night. Spoiler: for her birthday, her favourites both got through, and for the day after her birthday, her favourite favourite won.
Confession: I enjoyed watching and was excited when Little Mix became the first group to ever win X Factor, and the first girl group to ever be a serious competitor even though I haven't followed it at all and won't after this.
The only downside to the day, aside from widespread puddlefoot, was Jessi. I'm going to try not to go into detail, since I've already complained to pretty much everyone (sorry!), but she managed to be insulting to almost everyone and pick stupid arguments with everyone else. I do try to give her grace, since she's doing something that I have never done by going into a culture where no one speaks her native language, but it gets hard to stand down. I'm not the most graceful loser, and to end an argument with Jessi over opinion-based statements is pretty much to lose it, or at least have her feel that she's won. Which, of course, is chalked up by my brain as a loss, leading me to resent the fact that she doesn't seem to notice that she's doing this. She always laughs while she's telling you that what you would rather do in a totally hypothetical situation is flat-out wrong, and it tends to make me feel aggressive, which makes me nervous about having an honest-to-blog fight with her, because we do have a month and a half to go, and I don't want hostility. Besides, she's probably harbouring her own pet peeves about living with me, so I'll keep a lid on my irritation if she does.
Hey, lookit that! My "not going into detail" managed to be the longest paragraph in the whole post!
Josie and James had to leave the next morning, but Adam, Jessi, Conor, and I watched TV late into the night.
Sunday, Conor, Jessi, Adam, and I went to the Silent Valley park, which is apparently where the water in Belfast comes from. It was beautiful enough to overcome my frustrations with Jessi, and I was even in a good enough mood by the end of the loop to make a joke about her rhetorical question that I know the answer to without answering it and irritating her. I may turn into Sheldon from Big Bang Theory when people ask idle questions about science, but I'm working on not answering them if people don't request an answer. At least around Jessi, since she does it enough to annoy Conor, and I don't think my answering does anything to improve relations. Something about that glazed-over, vaguely annoyed look she gives me when I finish... (Was that sarcasm? It was?! I'm on fire tonight!)
Enough about Jessi. Here's pretty pictures!
After we got back, we watched the final X Factor final while Conor and I made miscellany for dinner. We ended up having baked beans on baked potatoes, the potato and cheese thing that Conor's relative brought over, and the rest of the quorn chicken with peas and green curry sauce. It was pretty good, to my surprise (even though I made it. I don't trust curry, as a rule). Then we had mince pies for dessert, and they were incredible. I always suspected mincemeat of being full of meat (mince is british for ground meat), but it's actually all fruit. I even found a jar of mincemeat at Aldi, and it's got "suitable for vegetarians" on the label. I've got to say, that is one of my favourite things about this country. Vegetarians know what's what. Either that, or the government is tricking vegetarians into eating meat-based products for kicks. ...I still check ingredient lists, by the way.
Monday, we cleaned, made the beds, hid the TV, and headed to Belfast. We caught the bus just in time, and it was another double decker. Yes!
What I saw of Belfast was pretty nice. We ambled through a christmas market, which smelled amazing, didn't buy anything, lost Jessi, found Jessi, lost Conor, found Conor, lost Conor again, decided to leave, and found Conor. We were heading to St. Anne's Cathedral when Jessi got distracted by some fairy lights (which sounds way cooler than christmas lights) and we headed down a little shopping hallway. We were instantly drawn into a pub, where Adam and Conor worked on pints of Guinness for a while because it's supposed to taste better in Ireland. By the time we left, it had started raining hard, and we were hungry, so we ended up sitting in a cafe for a while longer. We had to get our bags from the welcome centre at 17:30, so we headed back there around 17:00, grabbed our bags, and headed to the bus station to catch the Belfast International Express (same one we took from the airport) by 18:00 so that we could catch our 20:25 flight. I was pretty bummed that we hadn't explored more city, and that it felt like we had spent more time sitting around than seeing Ireland, but it was okay.
Adam held us up through security. Tssk. He'd actually been expecting it, since his mild, quiet, unassuming, inoffensive demeanor tends to set off red flags for security at airports. He wasn't expecting his bag to be unpacked, but it seems that Newcastle airport has pretty lax security as far as liquids and aerosol cans go.
I did look out the window for this flight, but it was pretty boring since the sun was all the way down. I tried to doze, but I think the jet stream was in our favour, since the seatbelt sign was off just long enough for the drink cart to go around before we started our descent.
We took the metro home and waited on the train for about half an hour before it started, and I slept for a little while. I think we went straight to bed when we got home. It was a long trip, but a very good one.
I love flying. There's something about it. I hate airports, at least the getting into them part, and I dislike the boarding processes, but once I've got my luggage stowed overhead and underseat and myself tucked into a seat, be it next to strangers, friends, or no one, I start getting really giddy. I stare out the window for everything, including the taxi to and from the runway. While I do get a little nervous during bad turbulence, I'm definitely not afraid of flying. Taking this into consideration, I've decided that I have a few backup plans for careers. If the whole scientist thing falls through, I'll try opening a crepe stand (one of those portable things, like hot dog stands: it'd be cheaper than a store, and if I have the money for that, I'm doing my tea/yarn/book store, not food), and if that doesn't work out, either, I'll be a stewardess. I'd get to fly all the time. Even if I don't get to look out windows and I have to put up with far too many upset babies and stupid passengers who try to sneak check-sized bags into the plane and stuff like that, I'd still be flying and even going to potentially cool places. I think it'd be worth it.
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| Still pretty, even in the dark. |
Also, every time I fly, I think of that Weird Al song Albuquerque. The part I think of is 2:00-2:30 minutes, and you don't need to watch the rest unless you're a big Weird Al fan. It's a weird song.
We landed successfully, not too much turbulence, and got slightly lost in Belfast International. Eventually, we caught the Belfast International Express bus to Belfast and decided not to knock around Belfast with all our bags and less than 20 hours of sleep among six people. We managed to catch the sort-of express to Kilkeel just in time, and had a crazy bus ride south (although I had somehow convinced myself that it was north). My internal compass gave up its fight a long time ago, and I've kind of decided that my window is north. Ish. It's probably wrong.
In any case, we bought some groceries (as always, slightly impractical ones; we always mean to get useful staples and end up with pizza, crisps, and muffins) and ordered a taxi to 76 Brackenagh East Road, which I thought was spelled Brackney.
Also, I was completely wrong about my internal compass. My window faces almost due east, but we're north enough and it's winter enough that I think the sun never hits high noon, and lurks off in the south, making it pretty much impossible for me to figure out where it is. Also, too much city-stuff for me to see it setting, and heaven forbid I see it rising. Based on my rather belated walk a few weeks ago, the pretty part of a sunset around here is in the southeast (according to the google maps compass), so whatever. And Clanny House is oriented completely differently versus the coastline than I had thought. Gah... Now I'm going to get a headache whenever I think too hard about it.
Anyway.
We had to take two taxis because they didn't have a van around, so Josie, James, and I waited around for the second one. Our driver was an interesting character who's been all over the world driving taxis and trucks. I've discovered that the northern irish accent is way easier to understand than the southern (like Thomas's... It's like listening to the Swedish Chef from muppets (turn on the youtube captions for that video; it's not vital, but it's funny). I know he's saying words, and I'm pretty sure they're English, but for the life of me I cannot understand him. I don't get why Jessi thought his accent was attractive, because I personally am attracted to being able to understand people.).
The house is adorable. Adam described it as a "Nana house" and it really is, inside and out. It's adorable outside, and it's a little too small and filled with trinkets from long-ago travels as well as more recent trips and pictures of family. The area is what you'd kind of expect from Ireland. It's very green, full of sheep and cool little walls.
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| Classic. |
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| It turns out that Ireland isn't green because of the native fauna, but because almost every arable patch of land has been turned into pasture or field. |
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| Walls. This is part of the gate to the house. |
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| Pretty good vantage of the countryside. I think that's the Irish Sea on the horizon. |
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| Fields. Walls. I was pretty happy. |
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| Sheep! Or, as Jessi always tries to call them, sheeps. My history prof succeeds at this because no one corrects her in the middle of class, plus it livens up the lecture. |
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| More, um, sheeps. You can't help thinking that it's cuter after a few repetitions. It wasn't fun explaining moose and deer to Jessi, either. |
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| The walls all have huge gaps in them, as seen in the background — no, that's not a hedge — and the left foreground. Our taxi driver said it was to keep the wind from knocking them over. They're new walls made of old rocks. |
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| A ruined building, my guess is a barn, on Brackenagh Rd. |
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| A nicely-lit view of Bingian, I think. |
As a flat, we hope to be like Josie's nan, who owns and runs a pub on the truck route in Australia, and who ran after a snake in the road and shot it at age 87, rather than creeping on the neighbours to keep ourselves busy. But probably, we'll end up watching TV all day.
Dinner was pretty slapdash. Since we can't really survive on toast, Josie wanted to make pasta with the tomato puree and the Quorn mince that she found, but she had to get creative on the pasta. There was a little penne and a pack of lasagna sheets, so she cooked the lasagna sheets to a little harder than al dente and cut them into strips, then combined them with the penne.
We tried to watch The Two Towers that night, but in spite of the epic battle to get the TV to recognise James' hard drive that ended in hooking my USB stick (yay IT day!) and James' hard drive to Adam's computer and putting the one of the three parts of the extended version (I was expecting two) onto the stick every time we finished one part, pretty much everyone fell asleep before the end. Conor and I managed to stay up, but I suspect that we may have had the most sleep.
Saturday, it was Josie's birthday. I did my best to sleep through the visit from Conor's distant relative. I'm terrible at visiting. Apparently, though, I missed her waltzing into the guest house where James and Josie were rooming before they got up. Again, with the not knocking thing. But she did leave us a steak and ale (or some kind of booze, I forget the exact word) pie, a dish of cheesy potato things, and a pack of four mini mince pies, which are delicious, by the way.
Adam, James, Josie, and I went dinner shopping, and prayed for deliverance on the taxi ride to the store. I mean, daaaang, these people are crazy drivers.
Ireland does not believe in vegetarians. Luckily, there was some Quorn chicken at the house, or I'd have been one protein-deprived vegetarian. After the store, everyone bundled up in preparation to climb what may have been "Bingian" or possibly "Binian", a mountain-y hill just north of the house. And it is north, I checked.
To get to the hill, we had to cross what appeared to be a field but was in actual fact a marsh. Everyone's shoes got pretty well soaked, Jessi went in up to her midcalf, Adam went in up to his knee, I did a hasty faceplant (the brunt was on my shins and my left glove; no facial or even torso contact with the ground), and Josie went in up to just above her ankle.
It was still a good time, and I have some great pictures.
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| View from the fence after we climbed up a path for about ten minutes. I don't think that the Irish Sea is in the background, but I could be wrong. I can't remember which way I was facing... |
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| I liked the lone little shrub on the hill of grass and heather. And marsh. |
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| We decided to aim for the dip, given that we started very late and the taller bit was completely covered with a cloud. |
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| Adam and Jessi trying to avoid the stream. |
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| Jessi got mad at me for that one, but it's not my fault she was in the frame... She was running to keep her feet from sinking into the ground. |
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| Adam (back) and James (facing the camera) wore vans. The canvas kind. They did say that they don't have any hiking boots anyway, but still. |
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| All the white bits are water. The wet kind, not the snow kind that they look like in the picture. |
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| James and Adam slogging. I think about twenty different routes to the base of the mountain were taken by the six of us over the half hour that it took to get from the gate to somewhere on the mountain. |
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| Jessi in blue, Josie in pink, and I think that's Conor next to Josie. |
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| The heather in the marsh was orange. I was impressed. |
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| Heather over stream. |
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| I thought that was a spring, and that it was all dry past that. Wrong! It was still pretty, though. |
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| The red bits are soaking, the green bits are full of puddles, and the cream bits sink. Can't win. |
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| I guess it is pretty emerald under the scrub. Also, walls! |
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| I always wonder what piles of rocks came from. I think I read too many westerns. |
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| We were higher than we thought. I can see the house from here, but I don't know which speck it is. |
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| I think this was of the big protrusion that I photographed earlier, when I wondered about big piles of rocks. |
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| Looking up... fog. |
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| Also up: Adam being a zen master. In Jessi's picture, he's got his thumbs up. |
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| Why two? Cause it's pretty. |
Confession: I enjoyed watching and was excited when Little Mix became the first group to ever win X Factor, and the first girl group to ever be a serious competitor even though I haven't followed it at all and won't after this.
The only downside to the day, aside from widespread puddlefoot, was Jessi. I'm going to try not to go into detail, since I've already complained to pretty much everyone (sorry!), but she managed to be insulting to almost everyone and pick stupid arguments with everyone else. I do try to give her grace, since she's doing something that I have never done by going into a culture where no one speaks her native language, but it gets hard to stand down. I'm not the most graceful loser, and to end an argument with Jessi over opinion-based statements is pretty much to lose it, or at least have her feel that she's won. Which, of course, is chalked up by my brain as a loss, leading me to resent the fact that she doesn't seem to notice that she's doing this. She always laughs while she's telling you that what you would rather do in a totally hypothetical situation is flat-out wrong, and it tends to make me feel aggressive, which makes me nervous about having an honest-to-blog fight with her, because we do have a month and a half to go, and I don't want hostility. Besides, she's probably harbouring her own pet peeves about living with me, so I'll keep a lid on my irritation if she does.
Hey, lookit that! My "not going into detail" managed to be the longest paragraph in the whole post!
Josie and James had to leave the next morning, but Adam, Jessi, Conor, and I watched TV late into the night.
Enough about Jessi. Here's pretty pictures!
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| The Bingian elementary school. Not a lot of kids in this area... |
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| OMG Pwnies! |
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| The walls were busy being built, I think. Either that or they were busy falling down. |
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| Scrub. |
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| Cool silhouette at Silent Valley. |
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| It reminded me a lot of Muir Woods. The trees were smaller, but there was even a stream with a plaque on salmon spawning. |
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| I took a water picture that turned out pretty! |
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| It was prettier in real life... but this is pretty awesome, too. |
After we got back, we watched the final X Factor final while Conor and I made miscellany for dinner. We ended up having baked beans on baked potatoes, the potato and cheese thing that Conor's relative brought over, and the rest of the quorn chicken with peas and green curry sauce. It was pretty good, to my surprise (even though I made it. I don't trust curry, as a rule). Then we had mince pies for dessert, and they were incredible. I always suspected mincemeat of being full of meat (mince is british for ground meat), but it's actually all fruit. I even found a jar of mincemeat at Aldi, and it's got "suitable for vegetarians" on the label. I've got to say, that is one of my favourite things about this country. Vegetarians know what's what. Either that, or the government is tricking vegetarians into eating meat-based products for kicks. ...I still check ingredient lists, by the way.
Monday, we cleaned, made the beds, hid the TV, and headed to Belfast. We caught the bus just in time, and it was another double decker. Yes!
What I saw of Belfast was pretty nice. We ambled through a christmas market, which smelled amazing, didn't buy anything, lost Jessi, found Jessi, lost Conor, found Conor, lost Conor again, decided to leave, and found Conor. We were heading to St. Anne's Cathedral when Jessi got distracted by some fairy lights (which sounds way cooler than christmas lights) and we headed down a little shopping hallway. We were instantly drawn into a pub, where Adam and Conor worked on pints of Guinness for a while because it's supposed to taste better in Ireland. By the time we left, it had started raining hard, and we were hungry, so we ended up sitting in a cafe for a while longer. We had to get our bags from the welcome centre at 17:30, so we headed back there around 17:00, grabbed our bags, and headed to the bus station to catch the Belfast International Express (same one we took from the airport) by 18:00 so that we could catch our 20:25 flight. I was pretty bummed that we hadn't explored more city, and that it felt like we had spent more time sitting around than seeing Ireland, but it was okay.
Adam held us up through security. Tssk. He'd actually been expecting it, since his mild, quiet, unassuming, inoffensive demeanor tends to set off red flags for security at airports. He wasn't expecting his bag to be unpacked, but it seems that Newcastle airport has pretty lax security as far as liquids and aerosol cans go.
I did look out the window for this flight, but it was pretty boring since the sun was all the way down. I tried to doze, but I think the jet stream was in our favour, since the seatbelt sign was off just long enough for the drink cart to go around before we started our descent.
We took the metro home and waited on the train for about half an hour before it started, and I slept for a little while. I think we went straight to bed when we got home. It was a long trip, but a very good one.
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