The Christmas Post

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

For the win!

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

A magical elf.

At last, the hard-won candy canes!

It's real!

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

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

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

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

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

Rhubarb and Custard thingies

Dandelion and Burdock bottles

I think these are either rhubarb or strawberry 

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

Sounds exciting...

Nothing too magical.

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

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

Clove somethings

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

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

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

...Which had a fancy cork! 

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

After a long and arduous battle, I won.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ducks!

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

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

Do not like.

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

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

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

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

Prettiness! In Sunderland, even!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christmas; Joy and Sadness — Tuesday 13 December to Saturday 17 December

So, on Tuesday I found out that I had my history exam a month earlier than expected, and most of my day was consumed by revising (studying) for that off the back of the how-to-revise lecture (luckily, I had already procured and wrapped my secret santa present). It was a two-question essay exam, so I needed to look up some basics on three or four topics and the details on some primary sources (historical documents we've looked at in class) so that I would be prepared for anything the exam threw at me. For a study break, I made crepes in a wok that I bought against the possibility that all the good skillets would be gone. I felt pretty good about the wok: it only cost £2, doesn't burn the crepes, and only tilts a little bit when empty (unlike the other skillets that I got for £2, which tip over when empty because the pan is lighter than the handle). I accidentally stayed up late, but I managed to wake up on time to make the 10 AM exam time on Wednesday.

My professor, however, missed her metro and was 10 minutes late, which sent me into a pre-exam panic. I always have these panics, but this one was forestalled by the fact that I didn't know about it until the day before. The main topics that my brain freaks out about are:
1. Is it really today?
2. Am I in the right room?
3. Was it really scheduled for this time?
4. Oh, God, I should have checked my email before I came!
Usually, my freakouts are ended by the presence of the other students and/or the proctor of the exam being in the room at the time that I show up. This time, I was the only student in the room, and the proctor wasn't there.
PANIC!
Fortunately, she showed up and I sat the exam with no panicky blank stare moments.
After this, I prepared for Christmas night. I snuck my present downstairs, and waited around for Adam to come and take Josie and I shopping for food.
He took a while.
We finally got to Asda and had a great time navigating the awkward store set-up with crazed christmas shoppers filling the aisles.
When we got home with £70 of loot, Josie hurriedly put the 3 kg (~6 lb) pork roast with a thick layer of crackling fat into the oven, since it was going to take 3 hours to cook and it was almost 17:00. Bad Adam. Then we all kind of had to knock around for a few hours until the squash, yams/sweet potatoes, and potatoes were ready to go in, and I had to wait until 10 minutes before everything was done to heat up the quorn lamb things that I got for Felicity and myself.
Before Felicity came over, we had the gift exchange. Here's a picture of all the presents looking very nice around the £5 tree:

Josie got the redeem code for the X-Factor winner's single on iTunes from Conor, Conor got a Daft Punk CD from Flo, I got a book and a "Tea Deck" of cards with info about tea from Jessi, Adam got a bunch of CDs that Josie thought he would like as well the Coldplay album with his new favourite song on it, Jessi got a bright, fluffy scarf and irish coffee from me, and Flo got an "insult-a-day" calendar from Adam. I'd call the presents a success. I was impressed that Jessi and I managed to draw each other and then keep it a secret.
Here's the Christmas decorations that we put a ton of money into (nothing cost more than £5):

The rest of the tree. It has lights, but the batteries went out.

The tinsel garland looks cooler from this angle, trust me.

This was supposed to be another garland, but instead it's an awkward little tree that sits in the back of the kitchen.

Fairy lights around the board, and the tree.

Three things in this photo... Let it snow!, the Christmas moose that faces the window. and fairy lights held up with sticky tac. And the tail end of Merry Christmas on the other window.

One of the stars that Jessi's mom sent.

Jessi's advent calendar. The bags have dates on them and candies inside them.

The other star is in the window. We get some cool shadows from that.

That was the Joy part of the post.

Thursday, I slept in until 2 because my lectures were cancelled, then went and hung around Sunderland with Freya, who is slightly devastated by the fact that I'm leaving in a month. I'm impressed, since I'm a terrible conversationalist...
When I got back in, I knocked around the flat a little, then went to have another boring night of trying to update the blog and watching movies until the wee hours.
I got a text at 19:30 that Grandpa had passed on two hours before, and I spent the rest of the night trying to come to grips with the situation. It's really weird for me, being over here. I don't have the close connection with family that facilitates mourning, and I'm not really one to sob and scream when I'm upset. So I watched sad movies that would let me cry and wondered why I felt so disconnected. I didn't really tell anyone, unless they brought it up, since I don't know how to broach the subject. It's not much of a conversation-starter, and I'm not looking for people to tell me how sorry they are that a man they never knew isn't there anymore, even if I do appreciate the sentiment. I know that I'm sorry on behalf of others when people close to them that I never knew pass on, but I always feel awkward when that comes up. I think this is part of the disconnect.

I thought about canceling with Freya for Friday, since she wanted to hang out again and do "stuff" but decided against it. I needed to get out of the flat. I did have a good time; had some good pizza, saw some cute rabbits and a cute puppy, laughed... I felt a little like a traitor to Grandpa's memory, but I made up for it by looking up the stages of grief and analysing my feelings later that night. And don't worry, Mom and Dad, I'm not going to let this ruin the whole trip, I promise. I'm not going to just bury my feelings (NOT healthy, I know, I've tried it before), but I'm going to let myself have a good time when the opportunities present themselves and have some sad times when I need them.

Saturday, Josie moved to Leicester (pronounced "Lester"), which was like the end of freshman year at whitworth on a more permanent level. I sat around making little sad puppy noises, like the weird little alien from Star Trek (2009) makes when Scotty and Kirk beam onto the enterprise. Josie's kind of the fun one in the group, but I guess I'll be visiting her in Leicester (I cannot write that without pronouncing all the parts: Lie-sest-er) in January, maybe for new years, maybe later. But still... It's like the end of things. Also, the flat will be pretty empty during break. Conor is in Germany, Adam's going to be home for most of it, Josie's in Bedford (where James' home is), Micha's going home on Tuesday, Thomas is probably in Ireland, Florian's in Germany, and Jessi's going to be staying with her parents when they come to visit. Okay, that last part makes me happy, but everyone else being gone is kind of sad.

In other news, I didn't get dressed today. By the time I woke up, it was going to be dark in two hours anyway, and the library trip can wait for tomorrow. I did get up, eat breakfast, go outside, drink three or four cups of tea, and I'm going to eat proper dinner, but my purple plaid flannel pyjama pants and tank top are perfectly decent for knocking around the flat on a saturday.