Last week was a very uneventful one until the weekend. On Monday we didnt even have a required lecture event, but on Wednesday I did have to attend a movie showing for my South African History Class. You may have seen the film, it was about the Apartheid period in South Africa in the mid-20th Century. Cry Freedom starring Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline. It was actually quite good, we watched it in our NIDO “movie theater” which is simply a desolate room filled with bean bag chairs and a projector.
Back in the USA, all of you were enjoying a three day week for Thanksgiving! On thursday here in London, classes occurred as usual, however for me personally my afternoon class was cancelled meaning that I was home here by 2PM. I spent the afternoon working on a paper for my South African Class. It was really really weird being away from home on Thanksgiving, and away from family too. I was thinking about what usually goes on back home all day long, while I was getting through just another day over here. Many different friends groups over here got together to do a bootleg version of Thanksgiving, all of the kitchens on the floors were full of baking smells for the entire day. I was invited to join one of the dinners being made be some of the people I usually hang out with here, and it was a nice time. I brought spaghetti carbonara to the table though, since I had already prepared it and didnt want it to go to waste. They even had several pies to go along with the large scale dinner already prepared! Afterwards, we were all too full to go out for the night, so I went back to my room to work on my essay some more, skype with family back at home, and also with my friend in Prague who was feeling equally isolated from the US.
Friday, I woke up early to go to the supermarket and pick up a turkey for myself! I was headed off for the weekend to visit with a family in northern Britain. Earlier in the semester, I had signed up to participate in the UK’s HOST program which is a nonprofit organization that pairs volunteer British families with foreign students studying in the UK to spend the weekend, a week, or Christmas together. Its supposed to be a culture exchange kind of deal. I was assigned to a family of five in the northern part of England, in a town called Owston Ferry. The Oatways included Steve and Janet, the parents, and Charlotte (19), Abigail (14), and Josh (5). I took a high speed train up to Doncaster where Steve met me at the train station around 1PM. He drove me to their house in the center of their very small village, while we talked about the area and history of the place I would be staying. As it turns out, its always been a large farming area, that used to be covered by the ocean and swaps, but was ordered to be drained by a King hundreds of years ago.
We arrived at their house, and started what would be a very relaxing weekend for all of us. We spent a few hours getting to know each other before the kids had to be picked up from their schools (Charlotte is at University in Whales). We picked Josh up at Primary school, and came home ot play with Legos for a while before heading out to his swimming lesson at 5PM. He is an extremely energetic kid, never leaving much silence in the room at all. When we got home, Steve decided it was going to be a take out night, so Abigail and me joined him in going to a local “Chippey” to get meals take away. A Chippey is apparently any type of small food shop that serves fried stuff, we picked up four orders of Fish and Chips and brought them back to eat in front of the TV as a family. It was my first time eating Fish and Chips…not too bad, lots of salt.
After dinner, I showered and came down to settle in for what was a long marathon of TV watching…we started with “Im a Celebrity, Get my out of here!” which is a British show set in the Australian jungle, like Survior but with British Celebs. The only two with names I reconized were an Asian guy from StarTrek and the liberal politician who ran against the current Mayor of London and lost. After that came “Good Luck Chuck” which I highly recommend!
I slept in on Saturday, and then came down stairs for a small breakfast and a formal introduction to the Nintendo Wii. Josh is thoroughly obsessed with the Wii, and so we started off by playing a racing game for a few hours to get me used to the controls and movements. Its very intuitive, but sometimes frustrating playing with a five year old who always has to win. Around 2PM we ventured out to the supermarket to gather the rest of the things we would need for our Thanksgiving dinner. Of course, I was making them have Thanksgiving Dinner with me since I had missed it on Thursday, and they were excited to try it too. We actualy found lots of things that would be perfect for the dinner, but unfortunately Steve’s bank cards had been shut off by his bank becaus of an online purchase he made earlier, so we had to abandon our things at checkout and go home. Dinner was still good however, he substitued a few items like Yorkshire Puddings for stuffing, and broccoli instead of corn. It was nice to eat with the family at the table. That night we watched some more British TV, Saturday nights is when the XFactor is on, which is the show that spawned its American counterpart: American Idol. It was Britney Spears/American pop songs night, which meant I could actually be a critic too.
On Sunday, I was woken to a “traditional English breakfast” made for me downstairs, which was three different kinds of meats and scambled egg with salmon in them. It was quite animal based! After breakfast, Steve and Abigail took me on a tour of their small village, which has buildings over 500 years old in it. There is only a post office in town, which also acts as a small food store? The church in town was quite interesting, and I took lots of photos of the “quaint British town” that everyone pictures when they think of rural England. If it werent for the cars and satellite dishes, you could easily be in another century there.
I was taken back to the train station in the afternoon, and took the train back to Kings Cross right near to me. I spent the rest of the night finishing my South Africa essay and talking to people online.
It has finally arrived…DECEMBER! Only 30 more days till 2008 is history! I am in London for only 12 more of those days, and getting concerned that I still have lots of things around the city that I would still like to do. I will probably blog once or twice more before the end of the semester with all that I do around town. There are several exciting Christmas markets going on now, one in Hyde Park, one in Covent Garden, and one right on the banks of the Thames. Its beginning to look a lot like…winter. Only 42 degrees today and it will be hovering around freezing at night all week which means snow and sleet are not out of the question. I wil take lots of photos of my last days in London, and over winter break look for the highlights to be posted on Picasa and Facebook! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
