Spot the Python!

It took me a while, but I finally located Eric Idle in one of the school photos hung around RWS. (Enlarge it to see him in the center.)

 He was a cute kid!

Some guy tried to mug me tonight so...that was interesting...

Notice I said "tried," because no way was I going to let him succeed! It was cold, and I had to wait a while for the bus, so I decided to wander around. The whole story of how we "met" isn't that interesting, so to make a long story short, he said "Hands up!" and gestured his hand-in-jacket-pocket at me, and I said, "No!" and kept walking. He yelled something after me but I promptly reached a main street and went back to the bus stop. It would be a better story if I could tell you that my "no" was calm and firm, but really it was more half-laugh, half-incredulousness because, A) I couldn't believe what was happening, and B) I couldn't believe the guy thought I'd actually do what he said. If he'd really had a gun, it would not have been in his pocket---we were not in a bank or something where it would be necessary to hide it. Also, it would have had to have been the smallest gun ever because his windbreaker was the fitted track-jacket kind, with small pockets.

You might be wondering if I called the cops? The answer is no, for two reasons. First I don't have a cell phone; even though it might seem otherwise from this story (of an isolated incident), I really don't need one. Second, reporting him would have necessitated me pausing and taking the time to study him for a description, and since I used all my quick thinking time sizing-up the non-threat, I wasn't about to waste more time looking at him for justice's sake :) .

Have I ever been to Florida?

I have been asked this question so many times that I actually started to notice. For every one question I get about New York City (which is to be expected), I get three inquiries about Florida.  I guess it's a popular destination for rich British people or something? I can think of a billion better places to go than Miami, but whatever...

Sign Round-Up: Crossing Awarness Edition

Crossing Light people. (No one bothers to use these, btw. They take waaay too long to change.)

Be aware of horses.

Be aware of pedestrians. (I think.)

Be aware of cows.

Be aware of school children.

Be aware of sheep.

And my favorite:

Be aware of old people.

Where Canola Oil Comes From

These fields of yellow flowers are all over the countryside! They're very pretty, the flowers smell decent enough, and the seeds are harvested to produce canola oil.
Also? The plant is commonly known as rape, which is a ridiculously jolting name. As in, "Just smell that rape!"

I'm pretty sure that's the Wrekin [wree-kin] in the background. Mary and I got a little lost and ended up driving all the way around it.

On Sandwiches & Snowdonia

On our way to Llandudno, we stopped in Snowdonia National Park, to take a short walk up a "mountain" (re: a big hill) and eat lunch. I brought my own baguette to transfer my sandwich fixings to, because, just as I anticipated, the pack-lunch sandwich was slathered with margarine. If a pre-made sandwich doesn't have mayonnaise here, you can bet it has margarine/butter instead, which is pretty interesting: I know people in the US who use butter as a sandwich spread on their own homemade sandwiches, but I can't remember ever seeing it on commercial sandwiches.

 Can you see the tiny people?

There was a lake at the top of the hill-mountain. I bought those capris and some sunblock the day before; it's not as if I thought I'd need either while here :) .

Jackie, wading, or "paddling" as they say here. Jackie teaches religious studies and accounting.

Colin, after I got in a pretty good burn. Colin teaches business. He freaked me out big-time when I first met him because he put on this stiff Englishman facade, and he's very strict with the students. But really he's a big goof.

HEAT WAVE!

It's hot here. Not middle-of-the-summer hot, but definitely unusually toasty for May; the internet says its 80F now, and with no clouds and no wind, we're definitely feeling it. On Friday my Year Sevens (sixth graders) were so uncomfortable that my cooperating teacher let them take off their neckties (a BIG no-no usually).

Yesterday my colleagues Jackie and Colin me along on their boarders' day trip to Llandudno, a beach in Wales. Here's the beach from a side-pier:

If you enlarge it, you should be able to see the heat-haze, as well as how far out the tide was. I was wearing sneakers (we went on a little trek [ie: PERFECT for me!] in Snowdonia for lunch, before we got to the beach; I'll post on that tomorrow) which are inherently not sand-compatible, and anyway, I detest the smell of ocean air (if asked the immortal question, "which do you prefer: the mountains or the ocean?" I will  pick mountains every time) so I took photos and then walked into the town, where the breeze was actually blowing through the streets (for some reason, the air on the beach was dead...).

 

A very sweet local kitty.

The British are really keen on marshmallows as candy. This table/chair set was sooo adorable I would have bought it and found a way to get it home if only I had a true use for them...

"Ground floor: Perfumery..."

A rainbow of trimmed houses: [left to right] red, brown, indigo, bright blue, green, black, yellow, peachy-pink, green. I have photos of these taken straight-on, but I haven't stitched them together yet.

Name My Hippo!!

Car boot sales are the BEST events EVER!! They're basically yard sales, but instead of the customer going through the effort of locating and then driving around to all the different sales, the sellers bring their stuff to a big empty field, and the customers all pay about $1.50 to get in, and then everyone's all together to buy and sell! I went with Cerys, and Mary, who's the House Mistress of one of the two female boarding houses.

Cerys buying a measuring pole for geography activites.

 Mary, "pole dancing"

 I bought a few books, and Mary got me a real nice accordion portfolio (I tried to haggle down the price and the lady wasn't going for it, so when I was going to walk away, Mary just went ahead and bought it for me), and a bracelet with a retro sterling heart-shaped padlock; the maker's mark indicates that it was made in 1980, in Birmingham, but I haven't been able to identify the actual marker.

[I have no clue why the photo is sideways; I've tried reloading it but it still shows up the same.]

But the best thing I got is this:

It's a large plastic hippo! I bought it because it made me laugh. That's the only reason :) . So what should I name it? Leave your suggestion in the comment box, but nothing already famously attached to a hippo---it deserves an original name.

I'm traveling to Denmark alone...

and I'm as nervous as I am excited: I've never been anywhere by myself where English is not the primary language spoken. But Rika, who is my awesome, wonderful artist friend from Camp---and who visited me last year---is having an art show opening on June 19th in Denmark which will be really cool to attend, and anyway it's about the only time my free-time matches up with her schedule, so I splurged on a ticket (I could have gotten a much cheaper one, but because of time limitations and my desire to avoid as many complicated transfers as possible, I paid extra to take a direct flight from Birmingham airport [distance and significance-wise, Wolverhampton is to Birmingham as Everett is to Seattle]) and found a hostel and will cross my fingers that I won't get hopelessly taken for a ride.

 Rika and Rusty Shackleford, February 2009

Liver Got the Better of Me

It's quite difficult to surprise me. I mean truly surprise me---yes, I regularly exclaim shock for conversational or dramatic value, and I continually learn things that are completely contradictory to my assumptions, and I definitely use the phrase "I'm/I was surprised," but I'm pretty on the ball about not being overly flustered by the unexpected or unfamiliar.

Which brings me to yesterday. While waiting in line (we, the staff, get to cut---how cool is that!?!) at the dining hall last night, I glanced over my colleagues shoulder to survey the main courses. There was stir-fry, and also some sort brown meat with onions. [You know from the title of this post, exactly what that brown meat was, but that's not so much the point of my story.] Entirely unaware, I eagerly pointed to the dish and asked what it was. Never in my life was I expecting the answer to be "liver," and entirely caught unawares, before I could stop myself, I very loudly exclaimed, "Oh gro-wgtuosdnp!" That garbled bit is where I managed to remember my manners and choked on my words before finishing the word "gross." I was entirely mortified at my reaction, and moved on immediately.

Also? Almost everyone had liver on their plates! Since I know, like, nobody under 70 who eats organ meats, that was a pretty interesting revelation.

My Journey Through British Sweets: Jelly Babies

Jelly babies are a classic British candy.

The original brand, Bassetts.

Flavors: excellent fruityness, not chemically at all

Texture: hard to describe, somewhere between a Swedish fish and a gummy bear.

Overall: Jelly Babies are very tasty, and I will miss them when I return home.

 
I do have two relatively superficial complaints though:

1. The (rice?) flour used to coat the gummies is messy and unnecessary.

2. The back of the packaging highlights the nutritional benefits of Jelly Babies. As if! Such idiocy is not original to Jelly Babies (Trevor has an advertisement removed from Haggen in disgust which proclaims the healthy inclusion of Runts Skittles in a person's daily fruits & vegetables), but that's not an excuse.

Also, I am given to wonder what the Bassetts marketing department was on when it came up with such absurd character names.

Copyright Infringement: Fun for Everyone!!

Sign Round-Up

In case you didn't know, I LOVE signs. So here are just a few that have caught my eye.

People don't steal road signs here, but I sure want this one.

Well, if there was ever a place that needed a charitable pick-me-up, I suppose it would be Compton...

So polite!

If there's a fire, you apparently better get out of my way.

Em...what?! This was in a restaurant window, and I really need to remember to ask someone about it.

And how!
[You probably have to click on this one to see the green sign.]
(Also: LATFH [Warning, your eyes/soul may be scared for life.])

Sadly, corn chips are not called corn "crisps"

And I thought we loved meat:

Ick! My notice of shrimp flavored potato chips marks one of the first times I was actually put off by a cultural culinary difference. They are very common, and according to the colleague I asked, quite popular. The worst we have are those wretched---my apologies if you enjoy them---Chicken in a Biskit crackers, which according to Wikipedia are actually Australian originally.

I was also amused by these "American" chips:

I am NOT an AMERICAN!

And I am not from "America"! Okay, technically I am, but so are Canadians, and Brazilians, and Puerto Ricans. It's bad enough that we use the term, but to have to hear people who should absolutely know better echo it... doesn't anyone realize how presumptive our dominance of the label is? I am very careful to say I am "from the United States," or that I am a "United States citizen"---and I could be a "United Statesian," but that's not a word, although I'm thinking of making it one---but it doesn't really matter, because the correction is subtle enough that no one notices.

Also, Canada is not the US. Honestly, that's just as bad as when people just automatically assume New Zealand is the same as Australia, or that Ireland is the same as the UK.

However, I will admit that when I say "in the US" / "we," I often mean "in the Pacific Northwest," and I usually forget that clarification. Some day somebody I've talked to is going to visit the South and decide I was full of baloney.

In which I absolutely do *not* go where I'm not supposed on prison grounds.

I get lost ALL the time here. Streets in England are poorly marked, and since most of the cities are quite old, they're not gridded, so my normally stellar sense of direction is completely useless. It's very frustrating.

So when I went to Shrewsbury two weekends ago, I, of course, ended up totally wasting time unintentionally wandering in a less than awesome area (i.e.: nothing worth talking photos of). Finally I got to where I could see the train station, but it was all the way on the other side of a building. I stood around for a few minutes at the back of the building contemplating jumping a locked gate which appeared to lead into an open back passage, but ultimately decided against it, and instead took the footpath around the building like a good citizen. Turns out I made the right decision because I came around the front of the Shrewsbury Prison.

 

 This is the prison (in the center, behind the barriers) from the train station. I didn't take a photo when I was standing in front of it because I was a little too surprised.