English-isms

A list of things that have left me in wonder....

Butter-It's on everything.

Skinny jeans-British males somehow make them look hot without looking an ounce of emo.

Traffic direction disparity-They drive on the left side of the road yet on sidewalks/escalators they walk on the right...

Coin confusion-The two pence is as large as the fifty pence and a pound is small but thick. Dive your hand into a coin purse and there is no way you can guess what you're getting. 

Dislike of turkey-Ham is the meat of choice. Ham?! Not cool.

Cider- Some venture capitalist please please please bring this to the States.  There is a large untapped market of girls who do not like beer (which I will never understand) who would absolutely adore this stuff!!!! I honestly don't know why such a tasty drink doesn't exist everywhere. 

Garbage- Garbage bins are rare on the streets and non existent in Tube stations...so how is London so clean? Anomaly.

Free art museums- !!!!! (I may be the only one so excited for this)

But the absolute kicker is....

NO ICED COFFEE- An employee at Starbucks actually told me he thought black coffee on ice would "taste bad" and gave me an Americano instead. I was left in shock and disbelief. I miss you Dunkin'. 

Primark and its life altering capabilities

Last week I went on a journey to Primark and what I found there was truly life altering.  

I walk in and didn't make it more than two steps before I froze.  It is HUGE.  I didn't know what to do.  As far as the eye could see there were endless amounts of clothing racks and people and the sight of an escalator only meant more clothes were upstairs. 

Everything at Primark is unbelievably cheap.  The whole tshirt section had nothing more than 3 pounds.  The skirts had a whole rack for just 5 pounds.  I literally hyperventilated when I found the dresses and started mentally budgeting out food for a month so I could just buy them all.  (I reluctantly chose survival)

What makes Primark different is that it really does current trends for cheeeeap.  I got two slim cut blazers a la The Row for a steal and a half.  This company is a mixture of mega Forever 21 and H&M on crack! 

The best part of the trip was when I checked out and the cashier sees my things..

"Oh, you got it in both colors, good choice."

"I know, I just had to."

"I loove this jacket.  Best thing we have here.  You're such a good shopper!"

"Oh my god...thank you!" 

I learned to party from the Welsh

Just got back from my trip to Wales, and am dehydrated, tired, and incredibly sore.  Here is the explanation for that:

Friday: Arrive in Wales and check into the countryside manor called Parc-le-Breos.  A little old English woman served us a homemade dinner and it was off to bed.

Saturday: Get up wayy too early for breakfast and then riding lessons before our day long ride.  I got paired up with a huge gray horse named Smith.  I took it as a sign that I really am Samantha from Sex and the City.  The ride was GORGEOUS, along the top of a ridge that let you see the ocean to the left and the countryside to the right.  There were horses, cows, and lambs all over the rolling hills.  We tied up our horses while we stopped and got lunch at a local pub.  This food was amazing and cheap, which meant that my budget allowed for not only one but two ciders.  The ride back was much more enjoyable.  We got to canter a little bit and I think I managed to get the rhythm right by the end of the ride.  I would love to someday be able to ride with the horse full out running (my need for speed).  

That night a minibus picked us up to take us to the closest city of Swansea.  Mind you, we were expecting to go into town and have a few beers and go to a couple pubs to get a sense of the normal country life in Wales.  We had NO IDEA what was actually in store for us there.  First of all, the bars we went to were no joke.  The first had chandeliers, two huge bars, and a dancefloor equipped with a pole.  Large Welsh men, young and old, were already dancing like crazy by the time we got there at eight oclock.  We quickly tried to catch up.  Then we started to notice the Welsh women.  Even the older ones wore sequins dresses, but the weirdest part was that many girls had full out costumes on.  I saw a bumblebee and many sailor girls.  It was truly bizarre. We left that place to find the street full of people-it was like a festival! But after some asking around apparently this all was a very normal Saturday night in Swansea. The second bar we went to was crammed to the brim and we found out why-one pound shots of basically anything.  Hillary and I had a field day with the silver tequila and had a great time finding out that the Welsh love American accents (or so they say).  The night ended with chants of "USA! USA!" and making friends with random costumed people. 

Sunday: Woke up excruciatingly early for breakfast again and then started our hike to the beach.  This beach legit looked like it was from Planet of the Apes.  There also were ruins of a castle that we hiked to.  Well, more like climbed to.  We literally went up a sand wall.  It was basically a stairstepper on steroids.  We dragged ourselves back, saw some cows in a forest on the way, and departed our little country getaway.

We've got the vision now let's have some fun

I've jumped on the bandwagon and started a blog for my time here in London/Europe.  I'm a follower, I'll admit it. I always do things like this then get bored within a week so we shall see how long I actually keep this thing going...but I did try really hard to make my page pretty so that improves the odds. 

Here's a quick catch up on my life here so far:

I finally arrived in London and my first night out I won 850 pounds at a casino (I have no real explanation for this except karma) and met my very first bona-fide British boys. Cha-ching. Also went to Oxford for a day trip and saw the Harry Potter great hall-oh, and a university.

The following week I tried to survive on as little sleep as possible while going out every night, attending torturous econ classes, and attempting to be a put together person.  

The pubs here are amazing because 

1) they serve lots and lots of beer and this magical thing called cider 

2) they close early so weekday partying is possible without having to use willpower

3) they are everywhere

Grocery stores, however, are not so amazing.  I've been living off of the 2 pound lunch special from Tesco Express since arriving.  And yogurt. I'm very nutritious. 

My next weekend I traveled to Venice, aka favorite.place.in.the.world.  Almost didn't make it but after 8 long hours of traveling on every form of transportation we arrived in the breathtakingly beautiful city.  I had a gloriously gluttonous weekend of pasta, pizza, paninis, gelato, and lots of souvenir shopping.  

Tomorrow I'm going to Wales to go horseback riding and spend a quiet weekend relaxing.  I will also be pretending that Oktoberfest isn't happening and that everyone else isn't there. 

Cheerioooo