A Lovely First Day

First of all, I said that I would pictures up today, so I thought I would hold true to that promise :) This is the view of what's out our room window, to give you an idea of how blessed I am to be here! The weather today I felt was pretty chilly (between 46-48 degrees), but I thought it was funny that I heard another girl tell her friend that it was pretty warm out...I think she's from more Northern US, so that would explain it :) still...quite nippy for me!

I woke up today around 8 (super proud of myself!) and was able to socialize and read a little bit until we had a mini-orientation at noon, with a BBQ at 2:30...the leaders or "RD's" are being pretty accommodating giving us pretty typical American food (so far, we've had pizza hut and hamburgers for dinner), but after this next week it's all on our own, so I'm excited to try more local food.

Some people played croquet on the lawn, some people hung out and had tea, so the afternoon was really nice and mellow. We got our bikes from "the bike guy" whose name obviously escapes me - I never thought I would be enthralled by their accents because the only time I hear them is when people from California are imitating them - but his accent is pretty much a harsher version of Jude Law's maybe? And I will readily admit that I'm a fan of legit British accents. Our RD, Subiksha, lived for a long time in India, Wales, and Oxford, so she's kind of acquired all three of those location's accents, and that's fun to listen to as well :)

Also, some exciting news is that I walked with a lovely group of people to the Eagle and Child, which is the pub where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis met every Tuesday with the Inklings, a group of friends that would discuss their ideas and literature they were working on. On the way, we stopped and went down a small street which had a building that someone said C.S. Lewis would give lectures at. She said that he would come out of the door, into the alleyway and across from his door was another door that had fawns on either side; THEN to his right was a lovely typical British lamp post in the middle of the road. (Coincidence, I think NOT!). So, naturally I took pictures. They're lame because it was nighttime (which happens at around 4 or 4:30, by the way!), so sorry if the quality isn't the best. From the pictures, you can pretty much get an idea of what I saw, though :)

I wanted to order Fish and Chips at the pub, naturally, but they said they ran out (??), so I had the equivalent of mozzarella sticks, but with Brie cheese. It was delightful. We also had some bread and butter pudding and sticky toffee pudding, which were perfectly sweet without being super rich, so that was yummy too.

P.S. more fun differences:

• When you're "in line," you're "in queue,". A girl from the house and I were wanting to order our food, and she asked if they were in line - they said yes...(confused maybe?...or perhaps not really understanding and just nodding in agreement at whatever it was these odd Americans were asking them), so then another girl that had been here asked if they were in queue after about ten minutes. We asked again, using the magic word and Voila! Done deal, they said no, we got our food, our stomachs were happy.

• "Popsicles"="Ice Lollies." Sorry America, they definitely win on that one.

• "Manky" = "Dirty or filthy?" Maybe that one's in the US too; I just haven't heard it.

• "Yield" sign = "Give Way" sign

• The equivalent of "Cinnamon Toast Crunch" is called "Curiously Cinnamon" here. I haven't tried it yet, and I'm curious. Ha! Ok, I'm done.

• Their version of a CVS is Boots, which is a brand I think they also carry in America, so it's pretty common, but I bought the Boots brand of shampoo / conditioner today because it was buy one, get one free, AND I get to use British hair care products rather than Pantene, which tickles me pink.

That's all I've got for now...it's about 1:30 am here, which means it's about 5:30 pm or 8:30 pm depending on which coast you're on :), so I hope you all had lovely days! Appreciate all of the well wishes and prayers!

Some of my housemates at Eagle and Child with me :)