Happy St. George's Day!

A few weeks ago, I noticed that all the pubs started hanging these white flags with a red cross everywhere. I assumed what I always assume when something's going on in a pub that I don't understand, that is had something to do with football (soccer) and ignored it. About a week ago, Bobby informed me that these flags were being hung for a British holiday I had never heard of: St. George's Day. Neither of us knew what St. George's day was, so we went to the man who has all the answers: Mr. Wikipedia.

As it turns out, St. George is the patron saint of England and that flag is his emblem. So, St. George's Day is like the british version of St. Patrick's Day. Legend has it that a pagan village was being tormented by an evil dragon. To appease the dragon, they would offer it human sacrifices. They decided who would be sacrificed by drawing lots. One day, the queen's lot was drawn. She was about to be killed by the dragon when St. George (a Turkish Christian) showed up on one of his many travels. He promptly made the sign of the cross and slay the dragon. To show their appreciation, the pagan village converted to Christianity.

So yeah, that's the story of St. George as I understand it. More than anything though, St. George's Day is the British national day. St. George's Day happened to be yesterday; so, like true Brits, we did what everyone here does to celebrate: went to the pub.

Things I Love About London, Part 1: The Accents

Since I thought post after post on things I miss about America would make our blog sound too depressing and convince people that we're not happy in London when, in fact, we LOVE it here, I decide to intersperse posts on things I love about London.



Things I Love About London, Part 1: The Accents

Really, these series of posts could be called "Things I Love About London: EVERYTHING", but then it would only be one impossibly long post, so i'm going to try to break it down a little more. Lets start with one of the most obvious: people have wickedly cool accents here. I'm getting better at distinguishing between english vs. irish vs. scottish vs. australian vs. new zealand, but it can be difficult sometimes and people get offended when you mess them up. The other side of the cool accent coin is that people think MY accent is awesome. I had someone tell me the other day that they thought, and I quote, my accent was "beautiful." I find this hilarious because, compared to the British people I work with, I feel like my english sounds rude and incorrect most of the time.

Bobby and I find that, most of the time, we have difficulty understanding people not because of their accents but simply because word choice is very different here. For example, they say things like "trebled" instead of "tripled" and "courgette" instead of "zucchini". Some words have different meanings here than they do in the states. For example, the Brits call a "vest" what we would call a tank-top (and they call a "tank-top" what we would call a vest), also "pants" mean underwear here. What we call "pants" the Brits call "trousers." This can be embarrassing when I take a bunch of trousers to the dry cleaner and forget to go into British mode and tell the man behind the counter that I have 4 pairs of pants to drop off.

Sometimes, however, I do have trouble understanding people because of their accents. When Bobby and I go to the pub and I try to eavesdrop on the conversations of the older gentlemen who hang out there all day spending their pensions on Guinness and the slot machines, I have absolutely no idea what they're saying. Seriously, i'll understand maybe 1 world out of 10. They might as well be speaking a foreign language (and sometimes I think they are). For the most part, I don't have this problem with the people I work with as they speak the very well-educated english that we hear in movies, but sometimes we do hit a language bump. For example, my boss and I were talking the other day and he said a word I didn't understand, so I tried repeating it. We both repeated the word about 15 times each and I ended up writing down "work." The word he was actually saying was "walk."

All in all, I love people's accents here. I'm sad i'm past the age where one picks up accents, because it would be cool to come back to the states sounding like a Brit. I probably will, however, come back calling "pants" "trousers" and spelling things with "s"s instead of "z"s (ie organisation vs. organization).

Laura's out of vacation time....

When I got my job offer and it included 25 vacation days on top of the 8 Bank Holidays the UK observes every year, I thought I would never be able to use it all. Well, I was wrong. This weekend bobby and I planned out our holiday schedule for the rest of the year and I am completely out of vacation days. So, if you were planning on coming to visit and we have yet to discuss it in real terms, and assuming you want to hang out with me on your trip, you're going to have to put it off till next year and get your request in earlier this time!

On a side note, because bobby has something ridiculous like 32 vacation days, he still has some flexibility in his vacation planning. So, you can still come and travel about Europe with him.

Things I Miss About America Part 1: Washing Machines and Dryers

So, because everyone keeps asking and because i've been here 5 months now and feel that I can start talking about it, i've decided to do a series of blogs on the things I miss about the states. Also, because Bobby tells me we need to blog more so that more people read the blog (doesn't really make sense to me, but whatever). This series of posts may also seem odd considering the fact that the place I lived before London was rural Uganda, so really how can I complain? But being in London almost makes it harder. In Uganda you expect to not be able to find good cookies in a grocery store, but in London? I've been surprised by the number of differences two countries so similar (the US and the UK) can have.

Anyways, here we go.


Things I miss about America, Part I: Washing Machines and Dryers

Don't get me wrong, we do have a washing machine and dryer, (Let me correct myself, we have a washing machine/dryer, it's one unit) but maybe after a little description you'll understand why i've come to loathe it.

1. The Machine itself is TINY. To begin with, this devil of a machine can carry a load about the size of my head. I can fit approximately 3 t-shirts and 1 pair of pants (or, as the brits would say, trousers) in at any time. What does this mean? We do a load of laundry almost every day. Yesterday (Sunday) I did two loads. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but if you keep reading you'll see why having to do this amount of laundry has start to drive me crazy. Now, as I write this I realize that this point of view is very American of me. As an American, I want things bigger and I want household chores to be easier. But really, if you're going to have a washer/dryer anyways, why not make one that holds a decent size load?

This is pretty much what our washer/dryer looks like. Now, imagine putting your hand over the glass circle and it taking up the entire space. That's the size you're dealing with. The opening doesn't get any wider once you open the door (like American washers do) the entire thing is the size of that glass circle and it only has a depth of about a foot. So yeah, like I said, tiny.

2. It takes FOREVER. This is, perhaps, the most annoying aspect of this machine. One load of laundry takes approximately 5 hours. I am not exaggerating here, it really does take 5 hours. The wash cycle alone takes about 3.5 and the dryer about 2 (at which point the clothes usually still aren't dry and you have to stick them back in for another hour or so). I really miss my American 30 minute wash cycle. What does this mean? Because of #1 you have to do many loads of laundry, but you can only usually do one load per day because of a combination of #2 and.....

3. It's loud as crap. Sometimes, I think an airplane is taking off in our flat, but no, it's just the dryer going. This is annoying not only because well, loud things are generally annoying, but also because we can't do laundry at night. This would be a nice way to combat "reasons I hate the washing machine" numbers 1 and 2, but alas, we are stuck with doing loads only during the day and only when we're not trying to do something that requires any form of concentration.

4. Everything comes out HORRIBLY wrinkly. I said that #2 was the most annoying thing about the washing machine, but this is by far more annoying. Why? Because I have to iron EVERYTHING. Yesterday I spent the afternoon ironing my jeans (really, who irons jeans?) and, if bobby let me, I would iron his undershirts. If you think this is strange, I don't think you quite understand the level of wrinkliness that this machine produces. I don't know if its because it's just so darn tiny or because it doesn't use any fancy products (like dryer-sheets), but my jeans come out looking like someone tied them into a series of tiny knots and let them sit like that for about a year. Ironing everything is completely necessary, which is why we've come to rely on dry cleaners much more, despite their ridiculous prices. It's worth $6 to me to not try to get all of those wrinkles out of bobby's dress pants.

So there are, I think, some very good reasons as to why I hate our washer/dryer and miss the amazing laundry world in America where a load of laundry doesn't take you all day. One day we'll return to that world but, until then, bobby and I will become very good at wearing things over and over again.

The rest of the Prague pictures....

I've posted the rest of the Prague photos on Picasa.  You can see them here.

Laura and Cameron Visit Prague

Cameron, one of my best friends from my time in Kenya and therefore a experienced travelling buddy, came out this past week to visit. A few months ago, she had come up with the fabulous idea of going to Prague and, having never been there but hearing only amazing things, I decided to join her. After a day of whirl-wind London sightseeing, we left on the strenuous 1.5 hour flight to the Czech Republic.

Prague was, in one word, AMAZING. Mercifully preserved from WWII, it is a reflection of architecture over the last 500 years. Baroque, Art Nouveau, Roman, Gothic, Prague has it all- sometimes in the same building. The end result? You feel like you're in the city that inspired Disney World.

If I had to use a second word to describe Prague, it would be COLD. Cam and I braved the snow for all of the walking tours, but I would recommend holding out and going in warmer weather. After walking around for about 8 hours every day, we replaced all those burnt calories by eating loads of traditional Czech food. "What is traditional Czech food" you may ask? Meat and potatoes, what else? We ate enough dumplings to feed a small army, but it was delicious!

As usual, I find it easier to talk about travels by posting pictures, so here goes.

At the top of the hill is Prague Castle. It is one of the biggest castles in the world and that hill is much steeper than it looks.

Here's me and Cam on our walk to Prague Castle.

Me in front of St. Vitus Cathedral (part of Prague Castle). It took almost 600 years to build- construction began in 1344 and it wasn't completed until 1929!

This is me in a tiny house on Golden Row- a row of little cottages used by King Rudolf II to house his alchemists (hence the name). Later, Franz Kafka lived in this one.

This is Old Town Square which I think is the most beautiful part of Prague. I love the church towering above all the more modern buildings. It was especially beautiful at night with everything lit up.

This is the famous astronomical clock in Old Town Square.

We found that we were lucky to be visiting right before Easter because all the markets were selling these very traditional, very beautiful, very real and fragile painted eggs.

By visiting Prague right before Easter we also discovered the amusing Czech tradition of the Easter Monday Whipping Stick. On Easter Monday, boys will hit the girls they like with this wooden stick. In return, the girls will offer them one of the painted eggs. Yeah, we have no idea what this tradition means either, so if anyone knows, please enlighten us.

So that's pretty much it. There are tons more pictures, but I think these are the highlights. I'll post the rest on one of those photo-share website sometime soon.

Miss you all!!

Laura is Employed!

So I thought I should write a quick post and let everyone know that I FINALLY got a job. Now bobby can stop being disappointed with the fact that I ended up making a horrible housewife because I refused to cook or clean while he was at work.

I'm working for an international NGO called the Global Leadership Foundation (www.g-l-f.org). They exist to, and I quote from the website, "promote good governance - democratic institutions, open markets, human rights and the rule of law - and to contribute to the prevention and resolution of conflict through mediation." I do basic admin work and some research. It's not exactly what I want to be doing, but i'm happy to have a job. The people I work with are really great and I work in a BEAUTIFUL area of London. (Right next to Hyde Park and Green Park).

I have to say, having a job has made me like living in this city all the more. I'm sure i'll get over this fairly quickly, but I love taking the bus into work and going past all the famous sites (like St. Pauls). It really is an amazing city.

Plus, now we can use my income to travel! Scuba diving in Egypt, here we come!