Cooking Extravaganza!!

Mema, I do think you may be right… this blog has turned into my cooking brag outlet. I suppose its just because I didn’t actually think that I’d ever be able to cook properly, and yet here I am, 5500 miles away from home turning into a competent cook. Well, “competent” may be going a bit far. Perhaps I should explain. I tried Sopapillas again, and this time I had proper measuring spoons and measuring cups (thanks to the European equivalent of Wal*Mart: ASDA!). Anyway, they turned out absolutely fantastic, and everyone loved them. We stuffed them for dinner with mince, beans, potatoes, lettuce, tomato and Cholula sauce and they were excellent! I think they may have even given my mom’s Sopapillas a run for their money… haha, I’m sure she probably wouldn’t agree. Anyway, I was so excited that they had actually puffed up this time that I started screaming and Lucy (who was assisting me in this endeavor) started laughing at me. I then called my mom and dad to inform them of my success, and they (I’m sure) thought I was crazy. Which I am, so it’s no big deal!

Right, so those were great, and then I made breakfast burritos with sausage and potatoes the next morning for the whole flat. I think I’ve gotten them addicted to my American cooking! They seem to enjoy it… especially since they’d never heard of things like breakfast burritos or stuffed Sopapillas. And then tonight, I attempted an English meal. I was starting to get tired of all the things that I’ve cooked multiple times, so I made a sort of Cottage Pie (or is it Shepherd’s pie? Whichever one has beef, not lamb) and it actually turned out quite nice. I was so proud of myself that I took a picture. And I made enough so that I don’t have to cook tomorrow night.

Right, so enough about cooking, as I am sitting here writing this blog you will never guess what just happened. So I’m sitting here on my bed with my computer in my lap and its about 1am, and all of the sudden I feel the walls shake, so I just assume that my flatmates are banging against the wall or something, but then the floor and bed starts to shake too. So after it got a bit worse, and kept going, it finally stopped. I was so confused though, so I went out into the hallway to see if anyone else had felt it only to find everyone else in my flat coming into the hallway as well! I think we just had a small earthquake/tremor! I didn’t even know they had those in England! Maybe I’m overreacting, but that was really strange! And don’t freak out, it wasn’t big at all, it was more just a little shake. Haha…. Weird.

So I stayed up until about 5am on Sunday night watching the Academy Awards because I’m a movie dork. I spent the whole of last week trying to find someway (any way, really) that I would be able to watch the ceremony live. Something about watching Hollywood give itself a big pat on the back appeals to me for some reason… I have yet to find out what that reason is. Anyway, after a lot of searching I finally found a website that was streaming ABC, but the ceremony started at 5pm in LA, so that’s 1am England time. I had fun watching it though, even though it didn’t end until 5am and I had class 5 hours later… ah, but that’s the price that is to be paid, right? Kyle appreciates it too… so I’m not *entirely* alone, just *mostly* alone. (After all, “there’s a big difference between being mostly dead, and all dead. Mostly dead… he’s slightly alive!”)

Anyway, nothing else really new to report except that I think I may be going to London again this weekend to hang out with Lucy’s family again for the weekend. I’m excited to get out of Norwich for a couple days, so that should be nice. I’ll be able to do a fair bit of homework and reading on the train too. Yay for 3 hour train rides. This really isn’t that interesting, but I’ll tell you anyway, Lucy and I were talking about distances today and how because of the size of the different countries that each of are from, our concept of how long is a “long” distance and how short a “short” one is are completely different. She said something about an hour and a half train journey like it was a long thing, and I couldn’t help but think of the fact that I drive 3 hours to get to Colorado to go snowboarding and then drive back the same day like its no big deal. Its weird, I’ve been here for almost 6 months now, and I still feel just as American as I was the day I stepped off the plane. Sure, I’ve picked up some British-isms and stuff, but I’m still horribly American… I’m trying to figure out if that’s a good thing!

Well, at least we appreciate some of the same stuff. We’ve been having fun watching Survivor online every week. I got Lucy hooked, and I think Kara as well. Its like a bonding experience or something. We’ve also found some amusing videos on youtube… I just have to share this one because its so darn cute! It’s a 3 year old little girl explaining (surprisingly well, actually) the plot of the original Star Wars movie. I still can’t stop laughing!

Alright, well that’s it for now. Can’t wait to see you all again, although it hit me the other day that in 4 months I’m actually going HOME… and consequently, I won’t be coming back to England anytime soon. That was a strange thought.