On the topic of food

Whenever I come back to the States for a visit, the first thing people ask is, "How on Earth are you coping with that horrible British food?!" Alright they might say it more politely, but the sentiment is the same.

What I want to reply with is, "How on Earth are you coping with your heavily transported monoculture and high-fructose corn syrup?!?" However, I also try to be a bit more polite and explain how I really feel about British food.

First off, British food is tasty, not bland at all. I have yet to have a bad meal. Even better, I have yet to have an only average meal! The bangers and mash seem like a boring meal, but you would be surprised how many varieties of sausages you can get just from the corner shop. And we're talking legitimately delicious sausage. Caramalized onion. Bramley apple. Fresh herb. With fresh mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables? It makes for an excellent meal.

Steak and ale pie is delicious for a hearty winter meal, akin to a big beefy stew on a cold winter's night in the States. Fish and chips are an excellent treat, with much more flavor and umph than any fried chicken I've had.

And the best part? All the food in the shops and restaurants says where it came from. All the meat I've found is British. Most of the produce is too. In such a small country, that means what I'm eating is truly fresh, with pigs, cows, and chickens eating what nature intended them to eat. That means that the food is even tastier and more nutritious when I'm digesting it (cough, cough, corn is actually bad for the animals and bad for you when you're eating those animals).

And going to the market is an even better experience. All the selection I could ever want, all hand crafted.

And yes, I know you've all heard of the horse meat scandal. But might I point out:
1. When you go to Walmart and pick out ground meat that's a $0.05 a pound, you also cannot expect it's the finest beef, or beef at all.
2. Horse slaughter is legal in the United States, you may want to have your own meat checked as the US regulations are much looser when it comes to food.
3. Pink slime.

So how on Earth am I coping with British food? In short, I'm in heaven.

Missing You

Looking back on my previous posts, I've noticed a theme of pure love for everything British. And while this big move across the pond is the best decision I've ever made, I have made quite a few sacrifices to make my new life work. 

My grandmother passed away unexpectedly two weeks ago. If I didn't already have my plane ticket back to the States for my best friend's wedding, there would be no way for me to make it back in time for the memorial service. I'm thoroughly enjoying constantly experiencing new things and meeting new people, but I have a terrible fear of missing everything going on back home. 

Lucky for me, I have a good few plane trips back (mostly for weddings!!) so I won't have to miss absolutely everything. So all this goes to say...I miss everyone back home in the US and love the opportunity to catch up while I'm back Stateside :-)

Country Adventures

I have effectively disappeared the past couple months. I guess it was important because I had to complete my literature review to fulfil some unfortunate degree requirements, a full two months after my advisor-imposed deadline (it was 77 pages long...that doesn't get completed overnight!). After that mind-numbing experience, I earned myself a holiday.

All I asked was for a day trip to the countryside to go for a walk. Richard suggested Buxton, in the Peak District. After a quick Google search, we found a few trails around town and only £10 train tickets. Sold. While on the train, we noticed that the last three or four stops had signs for hiking trails. Buxton, however, did not. We wandered around town a while before realizing we couldn't find any trails, besides city sidewalks. We did see a sign for a park and thought, well, why not? We never did find the park, but we did end up following signs for a campsite out of town. Logically, there had to be a hiking trail there right?

What we found confused me...it's called a public bridleway. There was a gate blocking our entrance to the trail, but it was public right? So off we went up a hill and under a railroad track. Six gates later, after enduring mounting anxiety that we were trespassing, we found what looked like a gate to a driveway where carnival people live. While guns are illegal in England, we did not want to try our luck, so we turned around, back down the hill, cursing our lack of research, promising we would indeed PLAN our next adventure.

When the disappointment truly set in, we came across a woman walking her two dogs. We asked if the trail we gave up on indeed continued. She said that it did, through the sketchy gate, eventually winding its way back into Buxton. The "trail" (if you can call it that) meandered through many farm fields containing sheep, cows, farmers, and one apparently containing a bull (so the sign said at our exit). At every fence or stone wall, there were ladders or stone steps indicating we were still going the right way. Something in me was a little leery about walking on private farmer land, but Richard assured me this was normal and completely legitimate. These are not the kind of hikes I grew up on in Colorado, but I tend to trust anyone in a British accent so we kept on hiking. Turns out he was right, the moment I started believing we were completely lost, we would see another sign pointing a vague direction, which we followed. If there's anything I trust more than a British accent, it's definitely signage.

We didn't only roam through fields. We found a wooded path at one point, even though the sign told us a pathless field was the correct direction, not the path. We came across 2 villages, which were really just a collection of a few houses and farms. We crossed a motorway and railroad track. We found a 4-wheel drive trail that farmers presumably use to check on their sheep. We were pointed down an extremely steep slope that I didn't believe could really be a trail.

Finally, after four and a half hours of hiking, we came up a hill and saw Buxton again. What a relief that my parents wouldn't have to hear that I perished because I didn't google a good hiking trail. After a wander around a beautiful town and a few pints (in a pub that allowed dogs!), we boarded the train back to Manchester. That was plenty of adventure for me, and definitely a hike I'll do again...perhaps a bit more confidently next time!

Rugby, where concussions are the least of your concerns

To prepare for the Super Bowl, Richard and I watched the England versus Scotland rugby match this evening. I've heard rugby and "American football" are similar....but now I'm not so sure.

Here's my basic understanding of rugby:

• Each team goes in for a big group hug and plays cat and mouse with the ball.
• Once someone grabs the ball, it's complete chaos and everyone runs around with no real purpose.
• You cannot throw the ball forward, only backward. This seems counterproductive.
• If you get bored, you can casually kick the ball down the field.
• Once you get the ball in the special end zone thing, you have to touch it to the ground...running around and dancing in the end zone doesn't count.
• Making it into the end zone gains 5 points, making a field goal gains 2. Haven't figured out if they have something like a safety yet.
• There's a field position called "Number 8" and I'm still trying to decide what they do.
• There are no pads or protection, no stopping of the clock, and no whining.

So I guess I didn't really learn much, but it was exciting. The one thing that was missing was all the good ads. 

Let it Snow

I've been back in Manchester for less than a week and today is the first day it hasn't snowed. This unfortunately means it's the first day since I've been back that hasn't felt like Christmas.

I had a wonderful time at home visiting with friends and family. To be completely cliché it truly is the most wonderful time of the year, especially this year as I've had (count 'em!) 10 Christmases. Totally beats anything Hollywood could produce.

Of course there was the Manchester Equestrian Club Christmas party before I left and the Boulder barn party when I came back, both horse functions top the list for most alcohol consumed at a Christmas party in 2012. Yee haw!

Then, thanks to my brother and his girlfriend packing up and spending Christmas in Mexico, we had an  early immediate family Christmas with them, one with my dad's side of the family, and one with my mom's. Christmas Eve was spent in the mountains with oyster stew at Dad's parents, Christmas morning with Mom and Dad, Christmas night with Mom's family again (why not eh?). Once I flew back I had Christmas with Richard and another with the sisters in law. Oh my the food that was consumed this holiday season...

Not to brag or anything, but my Christmas totally trumped your Christmas.

And, if you're a by-the-numbers kind of person, snow was falling from the sky for 1/2 of them and there was snow on the ground for 9/10.  And speaking of snow, I've had a first-hand view of what's called the urban heat island.

(Since my grandfather is convinced I don't do any schoolwork, I'll take this opportunity to explain the urban heat island in an attempt to prove I have learned something at some point in my career as a student)

On a hot day, if you're out on the grass, it feels cooler than if you're standing in the street. You can amplify that by walking into a city with all that heat-absorbing concrete around you. There you go...the urban heat island.

It's been snowing here since I arrived and places in the UK have thigh-deep snow...not completely normal if you're not from around here. I heard my friends at The Paddocks have a foot and a half and are snowed in. At my house, we've only ever gotten a dusting, unfortunately, whereas a mile out of the city there are at least a couple inches of snow. Manchester's urban heat island and a bit of protection from the Penine Mountains around us meant that we didn't have a lot to show for that white stuff coming from the sky. Bummer for me, but I suppose it makes my walk into work a bit less treacherous.

Since the snow is done (for a couple days at least!) I suppose I should take this time to accept that all my Christmases have passed this year and it's time to move on to other things...like maybe all that school work my grandpa doesn't think I do...

Happy Christmas

It really is the most wonderful time of the year.

Manchester has a distinct chill, and I can faintly smell fires burning in chimneys some nights when I'm coming home. And while it hasn't snowed yet (in Manchester at least!), we have gotten frost on the grass and the puddles from all that rain are frozen on the sidewalks and in the streets. And, being the children we are, Richard and I race to stomp around and shatter the ice. 

Luckily, we aren't dumb enough to try to shatter the ice that's formed on top of our favo(u)rite pond next to our house. Hello, hypothermia waiting to happen!

But between Christmas dinners, sharing tapas with our friends Vic and Ste, visits with the sisters in law, and all that work we need to wrap up before the end of the year, Richard and I have taken every opportunity we can to sneak over to the Manchester Christmas Market which lines many streets of the downtown area. Even better, Santa is there!! That Santa...can't trump him with geography.

So with bellies full of Bailey's hot chocolate, brats, French provincial food, and Dutch toffee waffles, Richard and I wish you a very Happy Christmas, as my British friends say. And for all of you back in the colonies, I hope to see you on my travels home this season :-)

The writing on the walls

I've always loved public restrooms.

And no, that's not sarcasm...ask my mother. Every time we were out running errands when I was a child, I'd ask to go to the bathroom in every store we went in, just to see what they all were like.

As I've grown up, I still enjoy reading the writing and doodling on bathroom stalls while I'm doing my business. In fact, it's my favorite form of in-bathroom entertainment (my second favorite form of in-bathroom entertainment is weird gossip and advice you hear one girl giving another while in adjacent, or sometimes the same, stalls).

In high school, the subject matter was mostly on which boys were hot and which girls were whores.

In college, while these ladies had obviously graduated from high school, they hadn't risen above the same high school stall writing, although they did learn some more colorful language and more explicit doodles.

Now that I'm in England, I've encountered a whole new genre of bathroom writing. All I have encountered thus far is positive and/or clever. A lot of it also mentions alcohol. And these comments can be found outside as well on sidewalks, light posts...anywhere really. Instead of ridiculous commentary, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites.

And since I know you will ask...yes, I bring my phone into the bathroom. No, I haven't dropped it in the toilet yet.