The Hanging Basket!

Last Friday night, Mike and I felt like going out in Bedford, nothing special just having a drink or two in a local pub and perhaps listening to some live music as well. So, we walked down the main street away from the house where we are staying and came across a pub called "The Flowerpot" that looked nice and small and casual and had a sign out front that said there was live music there on Friday nights. We went inside and it was a small place, with just a few people scattered about the bar chatting to each other, and there was a young guy playing his guitar over on the left side of the place, and a few people who looked like his friends sitting right up in front of him. Mike ordered a Magner's cider and ordered me a rose wine and then we took our drinks over to a table by the guy playing the guitar so we could watch and listen and enjoy the music.

The singer/guitarist guy turned out to be named Sam Miller or something like that, and he sounded a little bit like Paolo Nutini combined with Gavin DeGraw or something..it was good music, he played some covers as well as some of his own stuff. It was nice to just get out of the house and go somewhere and hang out and chat and listen to good music and have a few drinks on a Friday night. After we'd been there a few hours, we decided to head back home and as we were walking home - Mike got confused and said he'd had a fun time at that bar...what was it called..the Hanging Basket?

Food

As much as people say that food in England is limited to fish and chips, I have to say that I really enjoy being here because the food is pretty good. It's not like I eat fancy cuisine or anything, but I love the little snackie-type things that I eat all the time. Like, today for lunch I had a yummy cheese and pickle sandwich with mature white cheddar cheese (very strong and delicious) and Branston's pickle (it comes in a jar, and is like a diced pickle in a sweet/tart brown-colored sauce, sounds weird, but tastes YUM), on delicious Hovis thick-sliced white bread. I also had a bag of tasty McCoy's thick ridged crisps that were cheese and onion flavor with a jalepeno twist, yummy. So yea, even though this food all sounds super weird - I love it! haha. Also, the other night for dinner, Mike and I were ready for a change of pace from our usual fare: pizza, pasta, spaghetti, or chili and decided to make "breakfast for dinner" with a full English-style breakfast. It turned out SO good too! Mike did most of it, but I helped with the grilled mushrooms and onions. Our breakfast was one fried egg, white toast, Heinz baked beans, mushrooms and onions, two pork sausages, one thick piece of bacon, anddd...I think that's it!! Our plates were pretty much overflowing - we were so pleased. :) And for dessert, Mike wanted to prove that he could bake a cake from scratch, so we followed the recipe for a Victoria Sandwich cake (white cake with jam sandwiched in the middle) off the back of the flour bag and it turned out all right actually. The only problem was we decided to make powdered sugar frosting and we added vanilla flavouring and some red food coloring, and it ended up tasting just a little bit too sweet. But the cake itself was surprisingly nice. Mike even decorated it with the sweets he'd bought earlier in the day. It was good with a cold glass of milk. Yum!

Summertime

To everyone who enjoyed reading my blog while I was studying abroad last fall, I've decided to start writing on here again since I have now returned to the United Kingdom for an indeterminate amount of time to enjoy my summer months after graduation with my boyfriend. As you all probably know, Mike lives in a town called Milton Keynes, which is about an hour and half drive away from London. Milton Keynes is a newer city, kind of reminds me a little bit of Alpharetta in the way that it is suburban and the main downtown area is comprised of the mall. Not too much to do there, but there's always a good movie to see, a good pub to have a cider or two at, or a fun afternoon stroll around the "city center" (what they call the mall area here). When I got here a few weeks ago, I started living at Mike's house, but starting at the beginning of the month, Mike and I started housesitting for one of his old co-workers in a town called Bedford - which is about half an hour away from Milton Keynes.

The couple who live here usually have gone away on vacation for a few weeks, so Mike and I are watching their house and taking care of their dog Eric while they are off having fun in the sun. It's really nice being here actually, Downtown Bedford is only about a fifteen minute walk away, the dog is a really adorable chocolate lab, we have our own place (kind of..) for about a month, and it's a beautiful house as well which is an added bonus. Mike has to work during the week, so while he's away at the office, I usually stay at home here and clean, or read, or watch tv, or walk downtown, or just rest around with the doggie. It's kind of boring and I get a little lonely sometimes, but it's nice because rather than having to call Mike at the end of the day, I get to actually see him when he gets home from work!! It's a nice change of pace.

This weekend, we had Mike's sister and her boyfriend over to the house for a BBQ and a movie. It was fun to be able to have them over and cook up some chicken and burgers and drink some cider and wine and then watch a silly movie (Body of Lies with Leo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, it was all right, just a little long and overdramatic) and then just hang out and chat for awhile. And on Sunday, Mike cooked breakfast for the four of us, and then after our guests left we walked downtown and shopped (mostly window-shopping...) and just wandered around for awhile before coming home and resting the rest of the afternoon. We watched the movie Remember the Titans, and then got really inspired (as I always do with cheesssssyyyy movies) and so decided to throw the football around in the backyard (the back garden, as the Brits call it) for a little while. We had to stop though when the doggie got a little too riled-up and would rush us whenever we'd try to throw the ball. It makes it difficult to enjoy playing catch when you have a pretty strong dog running straight at you while you are trying to catch the football. So, we just sat outside in the swinging chair thingie (don't know the real name for one of those) and enjoyed the nice cool summery weather.

Today I've just been up and about cleaning, jogging on the treadmill (for a verrryyy short amount of time), hanging out with the doggie, watching tv, eating yummy cheese and pickle sandwich for lunch, and now I'm doing some laundry. I'm gonna post some pictures below (as usual!!) for you all to see one of our nights out with Mike's sister and her boyfriend, pics from our adventure to Bournemouth Beach, Mike's two cats at home, and our little doggie friend here too! Miss you all very much, love you, and if you come across any free tickets to England - I'd love some visitors.

So close.

It's really weird to think that I'm almost done with my semester in London.  It only really sunk in a few days ago that in a very short period of time (two final exams, one final paper, one weekend, and a few goodbyes from now) I will have to go back home.  It's actually a mixture of good feelings and bad feelings about leaving the UK.  While I am very sad to go, I am very happy to go back and be home and see my family and friends and eat my American (and REAL Mexican) food and have Christmas and all that fun stuff.  But I am sad to go.  I will definitely miss London.  A LOT.  I wish I could go back home for a little while, and then just turn around and come right back here.  But that is silly.  Here's a preliminary list of things that I will miss when I leave.  In the ACCENT Center Departure Guide (the actually very useless guide for how to leave the program...), it says that we may experience "Reverse Homesickness" upon returning to the states.  This might be true, because even though it sounds really cheesy, I have sort of in fact created my own little home here over the past four months.  Oh yeah, here's my list:

Things I am going to miss when I say bye bye to London...(version 1)

1.  Pret, and all pre-packaged sandwiches in general.

2.  Flavoured crisps, especially the salt and vinegar ones.  

3.  Good white bread.  It's better here.

4.  Teatime in the mornings with B&M.

5.  Riding the tube with my iPod on.

6.  Riding the 73 by myself, after a lovely afternoon of shopping at Dorothy Perkins.

7.  Realizing that I know exactly how to get home on the tube without even looking at the map of the underground.

8.  Super Noodles (and yes, I do realize a lot of the stuff on this list is food...I really enjoy food)

9.  Cider

10.  "x" at the end of text messages from Ann

11.  The pound.

12.  Primark

13.  The cold.  I actually really like it.

14.  Walking home from class when it's just getting dark and cold and I'm all bundled up and warm and know I'll be home soon to my warm room

15.  BAM! (but I'll see them again soon I know)

16.  Mike  (but I'll see him again soon I know)

17.  Going to the Angel with the girls and drinking Rose wine.

18.  Tortilla burritos

19.  The London Paper and The London Lite

20.  More to come...

I will make this list longer later, I am sure.  But, for now, I'm tired so I gotta go to bed. :)

Piglet and Giblet in London!

So last Tuesday while I was sitting in Starbucks, trying to focus and get work done on my paper that was due on Thursday...I was met with a very special surprise.  I was sitting there, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I looked up and Mike was standing there smiling at me. I was soo surprised because he should have been at work, but I just figured that he took the day off to surprise me. Then, after I finished hugging him hello, I looked behind him and was even MORE surprised to see my little Piglet standing right there! In Starbucks! In London! And she was laughing sooo hard, because I looked like a total idiot, because I thought that I must be dreaming or something.  And all of my friends were sitting there laughing, and Mike too, because they ALL knew! They all knew that Annica was coming...everyone except me of course!! hahahahah. Because I'm very slow and totally and completely and totally oblivious. But it was a very very wonderful surprise, and apparently Annica had been planning it for about a month now, and everyone kept it from me. It was sooo lovely. She left on Saturday, but we had a wonderful time frolicking about London. I miss her. I love my Piglet.

Chelsea Football Match!!!

On Saturday, we all went to the Chelsea Football Match because Mike was actually able to find us all tickets!!  It was really really fun, and we actually had pretty cool seats, like right behind the goal.  It was even better because even though it was raining the whole match - we were under an awning, so we didn't even have to get wet.  Then, the only thing that sucked was when the tube was closed after the match and we had to walk soooo far in the rain to the next closest tube station and got totally and completely soaking wet.  But it was really very much fun...so I didn't care. :)

It's snowing in October!!!

Omygoodness.

So today I heard rumors around in my classes that it was supposed to snow tonight in London around 10 or 11.  This was actually pretty easy to believe, since it was already significantly colder than it has ever been since I've been here...plus, it was already sort of sprinkling rain outside.  But I had to see it to believe it.  Then, when I got back home after dinner with the girls, I was on the phone with Mike and he told me that it had snowed earlier this evening up in Milton Keynes, and I was really really jealous because I wanted snow too!  Then, while I was still on the phone, someone knocked on my door and it was Ann and Meghan and Jessica and they were yelling that I had to hurry and come outside because it was snowing!!!  I quickly told Mike I had to go see the snow, threw on my boots, grabbed my camera, and we ran downstairs and outside into the courtyard behind our building....where snow was already falling from the sky.  I love snow.  I love snow in London.  I love living in London in the winter because it's cold and pretty and soo magical.  I'm so cheesy I know.