DeFrosting

Yesterday we reached the breaking point. There was no more room in our tiny freezer (we are sharing it among 5 people) so Ryan and I made a tough call and decided to defrost the freezer on the other fridge. This sounds easy enough, but the freezer was literally a block of ice, as in the door wouldn't close, because there was a giant, freezer-shaped block of ice was protruding about 1" through the door.

We scavenged and found an abandoned towel. I used my hairdryer, about which was conflicted, because hairdryers use a ton of energy. But after discussing this with Ryan, we decided that the open freezer door actually wastes more energy than a few hours of hair drying ice. It was a long, wet, process but we now have a foothold against the ice that is inevitably consuming our freezer/refrigerators.

Today felt a lot warmer than it actually was. Andy, my asst manager, is giving me crap about not following the standardized dress code at work (who knew a dress code of looking "smart" actually meant black dress pants?) At any rate, I wanted to look smart, but also stay warm, so I put on my long johns, black dress pants, and pumps. This was a mistake. (Could I be acclimatizing?) I was hot and my feet hurt. After work and grocery shopping, my feet were killing me. So, on the long walk home from Marks & Spencer (the only shop in town with sea scallops, which is pretty good because when Ryan sees the receipt from this transaction we will NEVER eat them again!), anyway, I was channeling Regina Spector and I took off both of my shoes. Nobody seemed to be noticing, and then I saw Oliver, from Ryan's class. He probably thinks I'm crazy now, but that's okay. That's what I'm used to.

Heating Restored

Well, Ryan and I finally got some cash and paid up our card. After restoring the card, we huddled around the radiator, but to no avail. This was followed by a fairly comical scene of the two of us in the woodshed, huddled around the hot water heater, lighting matches in quick succession to read the "reset" instructions. Sadly, the lighting in the shed doesn't work, and we have no "torch" as the English call it (flashlight.) I was close to concocting my own real torch out of newspaper and a glass bottle, but Ryan figured out how to reset the water heater before this was necessary.

Thank you all for your generous out-pouring of concern and ill will towards my roommate. She is not really a bad person, she's actually pretty nice....just lazy and not very bright/responsible. As predicted, she woke up after the heating crisis was resolved. I did however, very passive-aggressively, reset the thermostat timer from turning off at midnight to 11:30, yeah, so take that!

Also, last night as Ryan and I were washing our dinner dishes, Angel woke up and turned on some Mariah Carey-sounding Chinese music and she began to sing really loudly and off-key. It was pretty hilariously awful, so we also had a good laugh and she sang her little Chinese heart out.

Domestic Dispute

So as of last week, our house went from nearly empty to full. After Ryan and I came back from London, we discovered someone had been moved into our house during our absence. We met her a few days later in the kitchen. Her name is Dorothy and she is a nurse, originally from Nigeria. She is very nice and cooks a lot, like me. She pronounces my name "Kaily" but I don't mind. She lives on the top floor and we usually see her in crossing from the kitchen to her room.

Then last Saturday, right before Ryan and I were leaving to watch rugby at the Moon & Bell we had a knock on our door. It was another new roommate, moving into the downstairs, named Angel and from Beijing. We were glad she came to introduce herself and we tried to give her a quick run-down on the house: what works, what doesn't, how to sort through the abandoned dish ware in the kitchen. She apologized profusely for the noise of moving in and asked if she could store a box in the corner of the living room. We said sure, and left for rugby.

Flash forward to Sunday afternoon: we come home from church and the entire living room is covered in boxes, including a large mattress laid across the furniture. We ignored it and made some lunch. About 3pm Angel toddles out of her room to ask us to turn the heat on.

Maybe at this point I should clarify the heating system of our house. As I have mentioned, it is a large Victorian house with a lot of "original work" as my landlord put it. Meaning, the floors haven't been varnished in 1oo years and the window frames are sieves for all our heat to escape through. Heating is done by natural gas in England and is very expensive. Our thermostat is set to run twice a day for a few hours at a time. To supplement our heat, we wear layers and also have a small electric radiator for our room. The gas is paid for by card, and every so often (usually after a lot of nagging) our landlord will drop off 50 pounds for us to take the card to the mini-mart and charge it up. He said he expects the 50 pounds to last a month. This is also supposed to cover our cooking gas and the hot water heater, so as you can imagine, we economize.

Since Angel has moved in (3 days ago?) we have gone through a week's worth of gas. Our thermostat is set to turn on a few hours in the morning and a few hours at night, turning off around 10:30. The problem is that Angel goes to bed after midnight and sleeps till around 5pm. (She told us she is looking for a job in London ?) Ryan was making tea yesterday evening when she stumbles out of her room wrapped in a comforter and heads for the thermostat. Ryan explains how the heating system is currently set, and offers to change the hours around, to which Angel replies "why don't we just turn it on when we're cold and turn it off when we're hot? We're not paying for it." Which sounds logical enough, except when you've spent a few anxious days tracking the movements of your landlord and hunting for an open shop when he finally rolls around with the gas card top-up.

So, this morning we are out of gas. Maybe now Angel will see the importance of not heating the entire house for 12 hours a day. Unlikely, though because it is 10am and she is not due to wake up for several more hours.

What do you do with a drunken Finn?

Friday night Ryan and I were invited to play Beer-tionary (aka alcoholic Pictionary) with some guys from the Master's course. So, after a quick dinner we bundled up and headed over to the only grocery store open after 5pm, Sainsbury's, to pick up some refreshments. The whole store was filled with college-aged people loading up their backpacks, and friends' backpacks with cheap beer.

After this brief foray, we meandered over to a campus apartment complex's common room. A group of semi-intoxicated international masters' students had already assembled. Most of these fellas are not native English speakers, so as you can imagine, simply explaining Pictionary's rules was pretty interesting. Not to mention, Fernando, a guy from the Canary Islands, is a total cheater. Worse than me, seriously. Anyway, after the first round my team was doing pretty well, and I managed to guess "the Earth" almost instantly. The second this happened, Stefan, my French friend, yelled "you shit!" I was a little taken aback, but I figured "maybe this is some cultural thing." HOWEVER, he continued to shout "you shit! You shitted!" until another French guy whispered something into his ear, at which Stefan turned bright red and they both spent the next few minutes trying to pronounce the word "cheat." "Shhchhiiiiit, Shhhcchhhiiii-eeeet." It was pretty hilarious.

After some decisive cheating on Fernando's part, our team was victorious, and people began mingling and hanging out, mostly discussing lab blah blah blah. Then a very fancily dressed Asian lady approached me and began asking me a lot of questions. This would be a fairly normal situation, but what struck me about this lady was her perfectly stenciled eye-makeup, blank expression, and automated-sounding voice, which explained that she "come from outer space." I have to say I was a little creeped out. After a moment, a guy I sort of recognized came over and sat next to me. I was glad to have another person to converse with, and I soon realized this guy was fall-down drunk. It was pretty amusing because he was drunk enough to be kind of unaware of his own body, but at the same time, thinking everything he is doing is very cool.

His speech slurred out slowly, and he was hitting on me, but I explained that I was married, and gestured over to Ryan. He must know Ryan, right? He seemed to take the hint and asked if we were going to watch the Rugby World Cup on Saturday. I said, yes we are. He suggested we watch it together, and I figured sure. So I gave him our number. In a few minutes, I was back over with Ryan and I said "Your Finnish friend wants to watch rugby tomorrow night, so I gave him our number." Ryan says "Who?" "That guy from Finland...over there." I pointed to the Finn, who gave me a weird winking face. Ryan said "I don't know who that guy is...you gave him our number?" "Well, I thought he was in your program!"

I spent the rest of the evening avoiding this Finnish guy, and also the robot lady. It mostly worked, minus when I was helping clean up Pictionary and Finnish guy made a swipe at my ass. Man, there's nothing more attractive than a desperate and super drunk guy who thinks he's really special.

We slept in on Saturday and occasionally made anxious checks of the cell phone, but our drunk Finn, for some reason, did not call. I don't know whether to feel hurt, rejected, or what. You just can't trust those alcoholic Finns.

London

Last weekend the husband and I trekked down to London. I've been meaning to write about it all week, but I don't know what to say, exactly.

We took the train down early Saturday morning, and back late Sunday night, and all in all, it was a whirlwind. I'm not sure I even have a fundamental feel for the city due to the brevity of our visit.

For one thing, London is EXTREMELY touristy. We met far more tourists than actual Londoners. It is very different from our little town of Loughborough, where we've met only one other American. Ryan and I first touched down in the Tower of London, and then spent most of the weekend in and around Trafalgar Square/SoHo/the West End. It was wonderful shopping and theatre, but I don’t feel like we really connected with the city until Sunday night.

After pub dinner, we walked along the Thames as all the buildings were lit, and it was really beautiful. That is the London I'd like to see more of next time. On the way back to the train station we walked through a park with a World War 1/World War 2 memorial, and Ryan noted how ironic and sad it was that so many monuments in England talked about the horrors of "The Great War" and then were forced to add an addendum a mere 20 years later. It is frustrating and discouraging that humanity can experience the sorrow of such wars and still continue to engage in the barbaric practice.

But London is not a comment on history, but an honest presentation of it. The Fabulous British Museum is full of rare and beautiful artifacts carried out of colonies. The Tower of London still stands to shock people with horrific tales of torture and imprisonment. (It actually was pretty entertaining, though I think their next step will be some Disneyland-style robotic people pretending to be executed-- you know, like the Country Bears Jamboree only with more blood.)

I guess my advice on London would be to really absorb it from a historical perspective first. Take in the less sensational sights like the government buildings and churches. Then move on to the more touristy areas. That’s my plan, anyhow.

Language Barrier

Everyone's probably heard the phrase "England and America are two countries separated by a common language." I'm certainly finding it true. Not only do English and American people use different words and different expressions, I think their whole manner of speaking is fundamentally different. In America, one speaks to get a point across quickly; for instance, when telling a funny story one will use exaggeration to prove how funny/absurd the situation was. Or when explaining something, one speaks quickly and directly, economizing words.

But in England, there is no such rush in language. People talk to talk. The funniest things here are asking directions and saying goodbye. Most of the English people Ryan and I have come across seem to love to give directions. They'll think as they talk, explaining a particularly good route, then doubting themselves, they'll say "no, no, go this way instead..." and explain one or two more routes. Also hilarious is saying goodbye, particularly our landlord. After concluding a 5 second phone conversation "we need more money on the gas card" for instance, he'll end by saying "Alright? Alright. Cheers, mate, cheers. Bye. Goodbye, cheers, bye." Seriously.

In general, the English are more courteous. I notice this a lot at work. When I tell someone their total, they'll say thank you or cheers (or sometimes both). I'll make change and hand them their receipt, they'll usually thank me again, tell me "cheers", "take care", or my favorite: "bless you, dear." They are also quick to slather the compliments, calling me "lovely", "darling", "dear", "love", etc. Or telling me that my ringing up of their items was "brilliant" or "lovely." Not bad really.

There is one thing that always catches me off guard, though. At my work, all the employees tend to say "Are you alright?" in a tone that makes one think they've just walked out of the ladies' room with mascara streaks running down one's face. They actually mean "how are you?" but it still takes me a second to respond appropriately.

Many of the customers ask me if I'm Canadian. I think a lot of them have a perception of Americans speaking with a New York, Boston, or Minnesotan accent. It doesn't bother me, really. I don't have anything against Canada. But they are very embarrassed when I correct them. I'm kind of amazed when they pick up on the accent when I say like 5 words to most of them. It's probably the "cheers" that gives me away. British pronunciation: chee-as, American: cheeeee-uhrs.

A Proper Tea

Thankfully, work was much less stressful today. I'd made 8 pages of flashcards with the codes on the back, so I can master the produce pricing, but it wasn't going well. This weighed on my mind as I trudged to work this afternoon.

The only lady over 30 at the shop was working with me today, she told me her name is Sharon, or "Shaz." She is very nice, but kind of bitter. After hearing my accent, she asked me where I was from and I gave her the run-down of what I'm doing in the UK. I asked her if she was from the area and her reply was "Born and bred. But I hate it here and would do anything to escape." Taken back a bit, I asked where she'd escape to. "Anywhere." "Would you stay in England?" "Never." But all in all she was very pleasant. And there seemed to be a funny flirtation between her and the assistant manager, Andy. They play jokes and pick at each other, its kind of like being in high school. In fact, when Shaz was on break, Andy approached me and asked where Karen was. Thinking I was misunderstanding his accent, I asked "Sharon?" "No, Karen, the other girl who works here." At which I blushed bright red and exclaimed, "Oh no, I thought she said Sharon, I've been calling her Sharon all afternoon! And Shaz!" He laughed and said "well she'd never correct you, she's too polite." I was soooo embarrassed and started to say something to her when she came back from break, but she stopped me and said that this was a joke Andy told everyone, and that half the customers now call her Karen. We decided to call him Adam for the rest of the day.

The codes are coming along better. I did overcharge like five people for their potatoes, but I am getting better. Not bad for two days. I've discovered that a sense of humor goes a long way. This seems obvious, but its hard to step back from a stressful situation and just laugh. This afternoon an old man went off on me when I called his cabbage "lettuce." He was remarking loudly to everyone in the line that I didn't know what cabbage was, and that I worked in a grocery store! How absurd! The gentlemen seemed genuinely offended by this fact, so I deadpanned and explained that we don't eat vegetables in America. At the mention of the US his whole demeanor changed from cranky old man to curious neighbor. After asking me all the standard questions (during which time I was able to find the code for his particular type of cabbage) he wished me luck and left happily with his groceries. The novelty of being a foreigner will carry me far, I think.

And as I sat in the Market Square on my "tea break" watching the generations doing their shopping and socializing, people from many different countries meeting and greeting, I have to say I felt oddly at home.