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.

Mas Fotos!

AQUI!

http://unm.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29157&l=3e67b&id=545464971

This One Is For You, Ellie!

Hi Ellie! I just got your comment, and I think I entirely agree with you, that I need a new blog. Again, (you must be tired of hearing me say this… oh well) I’m sorry its been so long, I again have no good excuse but I’ll just try to fill you in anyway. Once again I’d like to thank all of you who read my blog…. You make me happy!

Ok, so I think we left last time with Pancake Day and all of us sat around the kitchen table playing Squeak. I can’t say much has changed, except that my losses in Squeak are becoming more frequent. Emma, Irene, and I all played a few nights ago for about 3 ½ hours straight (5 games in a row), and out of the five I won three, and Emma won the other two. Yesterday, I lost for the first time since we started playing to Lucy, and that was a blow, haha. Anyway, Squeak still continues to be one of the things that the entire flat can get into… although I think it may be getting progressively more competitive… even violent!

Besides Squeak, we haven’t been doing much. Squid and I got bored and played Frisbee in the corridor yesterday though. We were having a good time banging the thing against everyone’s doors, because the corridor is far too thin to actually throw a Frisbee, and we were having a great time until I accidentally hit the ceiling light! It actually fell down and broke! Lucy gave me the disapproving mother look, but I couldn’t stop laughing! I couldn’t believe that I was the one who’d knocked it off… if it was going to be anyone, I would have thought it’d be Squid! Anyway… now I’ve broken the hall light and my wardrobe… I should start making a tally of all the things I break. Not really.

So Jimmy came from Germany last weekend. That was fun to see him and hang out with him. He came for four days, I think, and we had a good time just kinda bumming around in England. We weren’t able to go to London because it was sort of a last minute trip, and it would have cost too much to get a train ticket that late in the game, but we just hung out in Norwich instead. It’s hard to entertain guests for a few consecutive days, especially when you’re both staying in a single dorm room and you don’t have a car. But, nevertheless we had a good time. We tried out this pub called The Fat Cat, which is supposedly one of the top 5 pubs in Britain (I think…. I could be lying…), and it was actually really good. I tried this horribly overpriced Belgian Peach Beer, which was to die for, and I also got some of this chocolate beer that they had which was pretty good too. It was nice to get out of the flat that night.

While Jimmy was here, we also had some absolutely gorgeous weather! It got to the point where I almost didn’t even have to wear a jacket. It was sunny for about 4 days straight, and then Valentine’s Day hit, and it was cloudy, cold, and gross all over again. (My guess is God doesn’t like Valentine’s Day either…. Just a guess though.) But the temperature has since dropped. We’ve had some really foggy nights (which looks really cool, btw) and then we wake up to frosted mornings (if you’re awake that early, that is). But I don’t think we’ll see snow again. We might though. Lucy told me it won’t be warming up until the end of March/beginning of April. That’s a long time. Although, maybe it’ll be warm for my birthday. I’m all excited because I’m turning 21 in five weeks!

Spring break is coming up soon too. We have a month off, and I think Lucy and I are going to try to travel, but we’ll see. Emma and I were thinking of going to Liverpool too, to see the Beatles’ Museum and all that stuff. It should be cool. I’m excited to meet Emma’s family also, they seem like they’re lots of fun. Plus, it’ll be nice to go visit northern England, as I haven’t been up there yet.

School, on the other hand, is a bit of a bore so far. I like my creative writing class though, and my drama projects class is starting to pick up. I get to meet with my project supervisor every Friday to give him a sort of progress report, and I only had my first one last week. The 15 minute show I’m supposed to be working on isn’t written yet… unfortunately, so I don’t have a lot to tell him at this point. I’m still trying to keep up on my reading though, and stay busy, although I’m having issues doing that. I’ve been watching a handful of movies though, trying to catch up on what I’ve missed out on not being in the States, especially with the Academy Awards coming up! (I know… I’m the only one who cares, but still.)

And finally, I don’t think this would be a proper blog if I didn’t talk about my cooking situation. Mema told me in one of her letters that I should start calling my blog the cooking show because I seem to measure my weeks by what I’ve cooked! And she’s probably right… although, I must confess that cooking is becoming more and more of a chore. I think it’s because both my resources and my cooking knowledge are limited, and therefore my cooking is limited. I’m getting a bit tired of cooking the same things every night, so if any of you have any good and SIMPLE ideas for cooking, email them my way (iamthejoey @ hotmail.com). Although (this is entertaining), we made smores last night in the grill. Yes, that’s right, in our grill thing. And they were actually really really good! We didn’t have ghram (sp?) crackers so we had to use tea biscuits (still good), and not having an open flame we cooked the marshmallows on chopsticks in the grill! All my English friends seemed impressed, only Lucy’s sister had ever had one before. We got marshmallow stuff all over though! That was fun to clean up this morning.

Well, I think that’s about it. I’ll try to get some pictures up here in the next day or so, and I’ll put a link to them up here on the blog. Anyway, I miss you all terribly and can’t wait to see you!

Pancakes!!

Well, this is officially the longest I’ve ever gone without writing a blog, and I’m not sure why that is. So for the 900^th time, I’m terribly sorry! Although, not all that much has been happening. I told you all about my school schedule and how not demanding it is, so that has been nice to just sit back and relax, but its getting a bit old! How sad is that? Isn’t it every college student’s dream to not have a lot of homework? I suppose if I had a job, it wouldn’t be that bad, but sitting in the flat for hours on end doing absolutely nothing is getting old. SO, I decided that I would start reading again. I used to read books like nobody’s business when I was in middle school, and then it dwindled in high school and almost disappeared when I started college. Anyway, I’m turning over a new leaf. I read Catcher in the Rye and The Picture of Dorian Gray (both VERY good, I would highly recommend both), and now I’m reading The Case for Christ, also good so far.

Well life hasn’t been too bad out here, just hanging out more than anything. We’ve recently developed an addiction to the card game Squeak. It’s like a community version of speed Solitaire. And it all started when I taught Lucy how to play about a week ago, then everyone else, one at a time, wanted to join in too. Its gotten way competitive, and Lucy absolutely slaughtered me the first night we played, but since then I’ve been unbeatable. Unfortunately, last night was the end of my Squeak reign. Emma beat me last night. It was a sad day in the world. Well for me; everyone else seemed pretty happy about it. Oh, but the good news is, Dan decided he wanted to put money on one single round of Squeak, so we put a fiver on the game, and I ended up just barely winning. That was fun.

Besides Squeak though, I have been doing *some* school. My creative writing class isn’t too bad, my Intro to World Dramatic Literatures is still a bit boring, and my the proposal for my 15 minute show is due in my Drama Projects class on Friday. So I think, like I said in my last blog, that things are going to get a bit busier here in the next few weeks. This weekend should be fun though, Jimmy’s coming from Germany to stay for the weekend and a few days after. His semester is finishing (the German school system is even weirder than the American or English one’s), so he’s going to come visit out here, and hang out with me and my roommates.

Oh, on a different note, we’ve (all of us in the flat) have all been getting along really well this term. Its been fun, what with playing Squeak and all, and we’ve started doing a group dinner every Thursday night. Heather made enchiladas last week, and those were way good. A bit different in England than New Mexico, but still very good. I think Anna’s cooking tonight, some Thai soup, but its just nice to not have to cook once a week. (I think I may have already told you all of this before… so I apologize if I’m repeating myself…) And even better than someone cooking for you once a week, was today: Pancake Day! Yes, it’s a national thing. Everyone makes British Pancakes (think crepes), and then you eat loads and loads of them! Lucy’s been perfecting her pancake mix since we got here, and we made 4 batches to feed all 9 of us! The kitchen got all smoky, and we had fun flipping them in the pans… we didn’t even drop any of them! Although… some ended up a bit wonky, still tasted good though!

Well, I think that’s pretty much it, I’ll write more in the next few days, and I’ll try to do it a bit more regularly. I shouldn’t like to go another 3 weeks without a blog! I do apologize. Ooo, but it snowed! IT SNOWED! For the first time! It was awesome. We made snowballs and threw them at each other and froze our hands off. It was fantastic. I’ve had my fix now, so I can go another year without snow if I have to… even though I don’t want to.

The only other interesting thing that has happened is that we got bored one night and attempted to fit as many people into my wardrobe as was possible. Sounds dumb, I know, but it really was quite funny. We started off fitting three people, and were all proud of ourselves, but we’ve now graduated to fitting five of us in there! It was hilarious, because all of us were squished in there, and then Emma, who was tucked on the bottom at the back, started yelling because she could hear the floor of the wardrobe breaking under our weight! Then, within a few seconds it snapped and we all screamed. So now my wardrobe floor has a crack… I think it was particle board, so I don’t know why we thought it could hold the weight of 5 university students! Anyway, now my wardrobe has character.

PICTURES

SNOW!!!!

Just wanted to tell you all that it is snowing! snowing! SNOWING!





Hehe, I'll write more later, but I just couldn't contain myself. We already went outside and played in it, and made snowballs and everything, and now I can't feel my hands anymore. Oh well! I'm sure we'll be back out there soon to make more snowballs and have more snowball fights!

SNOW!!!!

Umbrellas Are Weird

That’s right, weird. I bought an umbrella just before I left the states and I have used it more times this week than I had in all the months of being in England prior to this week. Ok, that may or may not be true, but it sounded good and it sure is close to the truth. Anyway, I bought it (or rather my awesomeness of a mother did) from Wal*mart (which I miss more than I miss Dion’s Pizza… and that’s saying something!) and its been holding up, today especially, in some nasty wind. That thing is flimsy. The other night Anna and I switched umbrellas just for the fun of it, and I realized just a how cheap my umbrella truly was. BUT, the good news is that it is still going strong, and the rain drizzles day after day.

Anyway, here’s another week gone by. School started, and the rain came, and the sun doesn’t bother to shine, and my bed’s just as uncomfortable as I left it, and my room still gets every bit as stuffy if I don’t leave the window open; all things I miss. Sorta. Hehe, anyway, no I am very glad to be back. It felt a lot more normal flying out here this time. I settled right back in, and was really happy to see my roommates, and we still all get along just fine. In fact we spent a few of the first nights, before classes and homework, hanging out in the kitchen playing poker and stuff. It was quite fun. I lost both times. Oh well. Hehe. Its funny, because I think we were just happy to see each other so we made an effort to hang out. All of us girls went and saw a movie (first time since I’ve been here that we’ve been to the pictures, as they call it, or the cinema rather). We saw PS I Love You which was a cute tear-jerker, and by the end of the film I was the only one in our little group, and the entire theatre probably, who wasn’t bawling. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie and even thought it was sad, I guess I just don’t cry in movies. They all thought I was heartless!

Anyway, other than that and school not a whole lot else has been going on. We’ve watched a handful of movies, and poker, and went into town a couple times, even made it over to the Waffle House. But, school is going to be interesting this semester. First, we are in school for 8 (or is it 9?) weeks and then we get a month off for Easter Break. Then we go back to school for 3 (or 4?) weeks before we have our month long assessment period (finals month). So we’re here for a total of 5 1/2 months, but we only have 12 weeks of classes!

So I went to my first class last week and it wasn’t there. Yeah, so Carey and I (another girl from UNM, she’s in my class) spent the next half hour trying to find the class which we later learned (a week later… today) was cancelled, which is why we couldn’t find the darn thing. So we made breakfast instead and then went into town to look for an accordion because Carey wanted an accordion. Hehe, we even found a kid’s one! So the day wasn’t a waste. So Tuesday rolls around and I go to my Theatre and Social Change class. After going to class and reading the first article for it, I decided that I wasn’t going to make it an entire semester in that class, so I decided I’d drop it. The problem is that as an exchange student I have to be taking only 3 classes, so to drop that class I needed to find another one, but the pickings for classes out here are even slimmer than the ones back at UNM! Well Wednesday rolls around and I went to my Drama Projects meeting. Apparently that class just consists of each of the 25 of us writing, producing, directing, everything-ing our own individual 15 minute show! We don’t have weekly classes, we just have to check up with our teachers to make sure that we’re actually working, and go to them if we get stuck or need technical help or something. So that class sounds like a whole ton of fun and a whole ton of work too! So Thursday and Friday I bummed around and didn’t do much, but on Friday I had to go try to change my class and had a bit of a time doing it, because the poetry class I wanted to get into was full, and then the Jane Austen/Bronte class I wanted filled up over the weekend. Anyway, long boring story short, I got into a different creative writing class that’s on Tuesday nights. So we’ll see how that goes.

Saturday was a lazy day. Sunday, Lucy and I went to Calvary Chapel again, which is where I think we’ll be going to church from now on. Everyone is very sweet there; its just such a tiny church that being new is to be VERY conspicuous. And to top it all of there aren’t many (or any?) students, so we’re the only people not under 10 and over 35. But the guy who was preaching that week was from California so we talked to him and his wife after.

OH, I forgot the best part about this week! Thursday night I attempted (with a lot of help from my girls) to make Stuffed Sopapillas and Spanish Rice. Unfortunately I was having issues measuring American measurements with British measuring devices (or no measuring devices at all!) and somehow I screwed the dough up and the Sopapillas didn’t puff when we put them in the oil. To top it all off, the rice wouldn’t cook fully, and the potatoes we’d put in with the beef and beans hadn’t cooked fully either. So after a whole lot of improvisation and frustration, we had flat Sopapillas with stuff all ON TOP of them instead of inside them, we got the potatoes to cook eventually, and the rice ended up being about half cooked. Hehe, but everything still *tasted* right, even if it didn’t look quite right. Almost everyone in the flat partook of the meal and we all had fun sitting down to eat improvised Mexican food a la Joanna (courtesy of Mamma Michnovicz). Having never had Sopapillas before, they all were quite taken with them. I think they felt about them the same way I feel about their amazing British pancakes!

To top all the cooking endeavors off, we had a fun time using this muffin mix that my mother had sent me. We used these weird little tins we had saved from Emma’s Yorkshire Puddings to bake the muffins in the microwave, hehe. And Lucy and Emma were quite amused to see that on the back of the packet with the directions there were additional directions for “high altitude”. They got a big kick out of it.

So anyway, that’s the run down of the week. Its been good, and its been dreary. BUT, I can’t let it get me down, right? Right! Well shoot me an email or leave a comment and let me know how you all are doing. Hope all is well, and I miss you all!

Norwich-ing It Once Again

What up, dudes!? Or something less dumb… hehe…. Hi! So, I made it back to Norwich, after 24 hours of traveling, which, hopefully, I will not do again until I go back to NM for good! For those of you who don’t know, I spent the last week (ish) in New Mexico, seeing friends and family, mountains again, driving again, spending American dollars, and going to Laura & Chris’ Wedding… it was all quite fun! Needless to say, however, I’m glad I’m back in the UK, but I must admit that coming back was a lot harder than I expected it to be. I think I may have stayed home for a bit too long. After the wedding excitement was over, and I’d seen all my friends at least once, the novelty of it started to wear off and I sank back into my old routines, and it started to feel like home again, rather than just a vacation.

Anyway, the trip back was good. I woke up at about 5:30 that morning so that I could take a shower and make it to the airport on time. I had finally gotten over my jet lag, and now here I was, waking up *before* the crack of dawn so that I could do it all over again. I was flying standby, so there was a bit of apprehension as to whether or not I would actually get a flight, but I got onto the flight from ABQ to Atlanta just fine, and then I had a 4.5 hour layover in Atlanta. I busied myself by watching Friends (of which I now own all ten seasons, thanks to Christmas), and getting on the internet. It was great, although, whoever the genius is that decided we had to pay for wi-fi in public places is no friend of mine.

So the time to board the other flight was drawing near, and I still hadn’t heard from the check in people whether or not I had gotten on the flight. So getting slightly nervous, I went and asked even though they had told me just to wait for my name, which was what they told me (again) when I asked. But, just after they started boarding they called my name, and I got my ticket. When I looked at it though, it said that I was in seat 1G. “Did I just get first class?” I thought. And lo and behold, I did! So I walked up, in amazement, to first class, and while I’m trying to stuff my two bags in the overhead compartments, the flight attendant comes up to me and asks if I would like her to hang my jacket up!? So of course I said, sure. So now I’m in even more amazement.

I tell you what, they really do treat you like you’re gold in first class. I thought it was great, cause I’d never flown first class before. But the seats are enormous, they offer you champagne as you’re sitting down, you get to choose what kind of meal you want, and its freshly cooked, right there… or at least it tastes like it has been. I also had my own personal little movie screen, which I could choose what movie I wanted to watch, and then when the flight attendant saw me watching a movie, she came over and gave me nice big ol’ noise-cancelling head phones! Anyway, I spent the entire 7 hour flight in shock and awe, thinking that I gotta do that again. Anyway, thanks Mr. Wesselman!

Well, we made it into London by about 6:15 the next morning (due to the 7 hour time difference), and I went through passport control, and all that and had to go find the National Express ticket counter so I could get a bus back to Norwich… I had decided going into London to get the train just wasn’t worth it. So I bought my over priced ticket and waited about an hour (thankfully not 3 or 4!) for the coach. By this time I’m already nearing sheer exhaustion, but the coach came and I got on it, knowing that I had another full 5 hours to go. By the way, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about coaches. They are uncomfortable, almost impossible to sleep in, and this one was freezing! I made it back to Norwich by about 2pm that day, so I’d been up and going for almost 27 hours at this point.

Well, I couldn’t go to sleep, otherwise I’d be screwed for that night, so I chatted with Heather for a little while as she’d just gotten back the day before from Italy and Spain. I took a shower and then we made dinner after running onto campus to check our mail and stuff. Oh, and I have a new flatmate… the one who moved into Leigh’s room. Her name is Kara and she’s from Hawaii and so far we’re getting along just fine. She’s pretty nice. Anyway, I made it til about 9:30pm, barely, after watching Friends and making cookies with Heather to try to keep me awake, but after that I was completely and totally gone. I slept for a good 12 hours that night, too, and boy could I feel it this morning! Shoot, I got up and made breakfast though (mmmm, breakfast!) and then we (Heather, Kara, and I) hit town to go shopping.

So now I’m all stocked up on food, and ready to start the semester, even though I don’t know what time my classes are. Bleh. Haha, I guess I’ll find out on Monday, and hope I don’t have one then!

Well my roommates are slowly trickling in. So far the flat’s about halfway full, but I think the rest are getting in tomorrow evening… and once again, we’ll start school, and all will be back to normal… sorta. Anyway, Leigh, if you’re reading this, we miss you already and its weird without you! And everyone back in NM, I miss you already too, but I’ll be seeing you in six months!