One Last Time, With Feeling

Well, the gang rounded up, some enthusiastically, some less so (see picture), for one last trip to London.


The plan was to see Madame Toussaud's Wax Museum, then a show. The wax museum was on Baker Street, so my friends became unwilling victims of an overixcited tourist (me). Anyway, they'll be happier now that they have a picture with Sherlock Holmes. Note the excitement on these faces.


So sue me. I was TRYING to make memories.

Anyway, the following pictures are all from the wax museum which was RIDICULOUSLY expensive, but was actually very fun, and pretty much was the whole day for us. Anyway, here they are:


Carly, with the fab four.



Donnamarie and I with Robbie Williams. I'm trying to look 'natural' and she's paying homage to Take That's song "It Only Takes a Minute Girl." Presumeably she's showing the number of minutes "it" takes.



I can't get away from the Catholics for 10 seconds, even in England. However, Donnamarie had a great time having a pious-off with Pope JP2.



This is my favourite picture from MY camera. This is because it seems to me as if I'm clinging to the hulk for some sort of protection from the big bad world, when he's about to punch me in the butt. Quite the tableau, really. I should hold a "insert the caption" contest. Mail entries to x2004bhj@stfx.ca.


Now, I know you're wondering...."wax is boring! What show did you see?" Well, to give you a hint, let's see another statue and me... (I know, it's getting gratuitous.)


Anyway, we saw We Will Rock You, which is a musical based on the music of Queen. It was kindof Marc's idea, but we thought it'd be cool. That is, until five minutes before the show he told us it was about space and the future and robots and Queen music is in it. We were less enthused then. But anyway, it ended up being awesome and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who likes Queen AND futuristic laser shows OR robots. Or my dad.

Anyway, I'll leave today's post (the last?) with this picture of Jon Adams, and the street that England named after him for something like "Most Honest Man" in England. Marc got a similar award, but he was too modest to let me post it on here. What a guy.



Good times in England, now it's time to jump the pond, as they say.

X-Ring!!!

Hello everyone, I'm back from my hiatus wherein I was doing a lot of schoolwork. (I still have a ton of schoolwork to do...) Let me first say hi to my mom's friend Heidi who will especially like this entry, even though it probably won't be that hilarious. Anyway, yesterday was X-Ring, and under the special circumstances, I think I should write about how it happened here in Harlow, England.
Four kids here in England were due to get their X-rings yesterday and we thought it would be a sin for them not to have a nice ceremony just like all the Nishers. So, with the help of the really great local priest from the Catholic church, and a couple enthusiastic and organized X students (and some from MUN!), we pulled off a great X-Ring ceremony.




So, here is the Church of the Assumption, where the ceremony was held. It was really a great venue. The guy near the front is my super-organized friend Marc, who I ended up calling "pageant mom" because he....well, let's just say he was a really great speaking coach. Anyway, we didn't decorate it a lot or anything, but the lighting was good, and it was perfect size for our small group of about 30-40.



This is Dr. Clancy with the rings on a pillow he brought from home. I thought that was hilarious and laughed secretly to myself, but apparently the situation required a little more solemnity in public. Anyway, Dr. Clancy spoke on behalf of the school administration, and introduced our guest speaker, Jennifer Webb. By the way, Jennifer's speech was probably my favourite part of the ceremony. Very well done.



And here are this year's Harlow X-Ring recipients...
Andrew Cameron, Adam McKecknie, Jessica Baxter and Jay Heisler. (Jay was raised Buddhist, and was pretty uncomfortable in the whole situation. Which was a source of endless entertainment for me.) P.S. I'm in the background there: check it out!

Later there was a reception/afterparty, and I've included some pictures from that for my mom's enjoyment, mostly.



Me and the boys, only 2 minutes before Marc spilled coffee all over me. Luckily I was wearing a black dress. Anyway, Donnamarie (the photographer) pointed out that in one year, we will be forgetting all about putting our arms around each other for the picture and shamelessly flashing our rings instead. She's so right.

See? Adam's doing it in the picture below! But can you blame him? They're so shiny.


Anyway, another great Feast of St. Francis Xavier goes by, and we not only pulled off a whole X-ring ceremony across the ocean, we introduced the idea of X-ring to MUN, made the day of about three or four alumni, and confused a few British people along the way. (No, it has nothing to do with Freemasonry. Sheesh.)

I'm sure I'll see all of you soon!
-Nat

Dear Mom and Dad: England is really fun. The food is...well, anyway, England is fun.

So, I figured that I should write about the most infamous aspect of British life. Oh, no...not the teeth, although I guess that ismore infamous. Anyway, I was going to talk about....dun dun dunnnnn....the FOOD!

Okay, so first of all: is British food as gross as people say? Well, no, but it is ridiculously unhealthy and bland. So, eating it for four months when you're used to delicious Thai food on occasion is not the coolest. But there are some winners and some losers in the situation. Let's start with the Grocery store, because the majority of my meals are made by me.

Grocery Stores

Okay, so grocery shopping has become less of an excursion than it once was, mostly because I've run out of time to do anything. However, there still is the occasional group trip to Tesco, which I can best equate to maybe Loblaws in Canada. Anyway, it's the huge all-night grocery story down the sketchy path.

Here is my good friend Carly modelling one of the aisles at night. Notice the food on the floor....they restock after 10 and just fill the middles of the aisles wth the food. Anyone who's dealt with Canadian Food safety guidelines would find this a little bizarre, as I did at first. I no longer care.


Anyway, you can get anything you want at Tesco, including Canadian maple syrup which can be found in the baking goods aisle. Let's check out some of the more exotic products avaliable:


Heinz Mean Beanz! Note the blue can is 'Thai' flavour. Wtf.


Spotted Dick! Yeah, everyone knows that it's just pudding with raisins in it. But we laugh anyway. Note that we had to take this picture in a whole different aisle so that people wouldn't see how immature we are. (Aside: this is Alicia, another of my fabulous food models.)

Anyway, Tesco is the place to shop if you want selection, but is also way far away. Usually I go to the smaller grocery store on High St. No Mean Beanz though.

Cafeteria Dinners!

Five nights per week, we are provided dinner by the gruff cafetria man with a heart of gold; Nick. The meals are sometimes okay, occasionally good and sometimes really gross. Especially on nights where gammon is involved. (Gammon is really pale hamsteak...Nick's have been known to have the skin of the pig still on.)

Generally there is a meat dish, a vegetarian dish, some steamed vegetables and dessert. Fistfights have been known to happen over the couple strawberries that are put out in a dish every day. I'm pretty sure that they put out a handful of strawberries evvery day just to see people run and fight to get them.

Here is Jon's actual reaction to the meal one night...I can't even remember what that was...


Basically that says it all.

Eating Out on the Town?

There are a couple places in Old Harlow where a hungry person can eat, if they have a couple spare pounds. THe local fish and chips joint, aka "the only place open after the bars close", is called simply: Tasty Fish Bar. The food is really sketchy, and the tartar sauce tastes like curry....but there's nothing better than those half-cooked, oversalted chips after a night of pints.

If the 'night of pints' was last night, and you want something greasy and disgusting to match how you feel, the best hangover breakfast is the #4 at Cafe Blue. The number four is a traditional English breakfast, including 2 rashers of bacon, a sausage, chips, a fried egg and some beans. (Mean Beanz?) At any rate, I generally get this, sans beans, plus coffee. I should mention that Donnamarie and I go here quite a lot, and pay four pounds for breakfast no matter how much we get. (They love us.) Anyway, that said, I'm definitely more at risk of a heart attack now than most 50 year old men, so it's not all sunshine and roses.

And last but not least, there is E. Dorrington's. Delicious, quaint, E. Dorrington's. Look! Marc loves it!


Those lovely green striped boxes are from the local bakery, where the ladies who work there all wear smocks to match. The pastries are delicious, the bread is even better, and they have coffee to boot. Definitely the most delicious lunch/snack spot in Old Harlow, if you can brave the cross old lady who sometimes works the cash register.

Anyway, that is my tour of the local flavour...so to speak. Basically I'm trying to say that I'm now 40 pounds heavier, 400 pounds poorer, and am now addicted to flapjacks.

Cheers.

Norway, Y'all
Hello everyone. I know it's been a while, but here are the pictures from my recent expedition to Norway. There isn't much to tell, but the photos are amazing, so I'll let them speak for themselves mostly.

This is the sexy currency, Kroner. Kroner magically makes everything expensive.


Passport and Norweigan mittens. Delicious.


Nice little country houses.




Delicious lefse.

A Post-Vacation 'Word Up'

Well, I've just arrived home after quite some time away. We went to Wales for a trip, which I'm afraid I won't be writing about for sheer lack of time. However, it was very fun. This week is our break week, and Jon, Marc, Donnamarie and I went to Paris/Barcelona to celebrate our being in Europe and having parents who still send money if we sound hungry on the phone. Here is an abbreviated version of the trip...

Things I Checked off My Life's 'To do' List Over the Vacation:

-Got two new stamps in my Passport
-Got hit on in french. (Ah, bon soir madame...)
-Stayed in one of France's more culturally 'interesting' areas.


-Watched news about Canada in Turkish on TV in a restaraunt in France.
-Saw a two famous ladies at their home in the Louvre. (The other one was two dimensional and smiling.)


-Ordered a meal in french.
-Thought about how much the cities in Canada need to reconsider their lighting schemes.
-Made my own lip gloss colour.
-Bought my own lip gloss colour.
-Walked along one of the most famous streets in the world at night.


-Ordered a bottle of wine for dinner.
-Felt uncultured whilst watching one of my male friends have to try the wine and approve of it before we could drink it. (Didn't know that actually happened in real life.)
-Took Public transportation in another country
-Visited one of the most opulent palaces in the world; laughed at the scaffolding covering some parts.
-Sat in the garden of the aforementioned palace and pretended I was having a garden party there and everyone was my guests.


-Didn't eat at McDonald's while I was in continental Europe.
-Got hit on by Paris, the voice-over personification, during a documentary-type movie.
-Had what can be best described as a quintilingual count to 10 at the dinner table one night.
-Looked like a cheesy American tourist. Took pictures accordingly.


-Actually shrieked a little bit upon first seeing the Eiffel Tower.
-Laughed along with a waiter at Marc's funny Quebecois accent.
-Imitated some sexy Renaissance models. (Left hand on breast, look indifferent.)
-Made two males in their 20's reconsider whether they really wanted to live with women in their future lives.
-Laid on a park bench under the Eiffel tower at night.


-Got lost in Paris' sex district, tried to avoid stopping in the "Sexy Centre" to ask for directions.
-Got turned away at a bar for gay men.
-Got subsequently referred to the bar for gay women down the street.
-Had a beautiful wine/cheese/grapes/baguette picnic in a park beside Versailles.


-Attended a service at the famous Notre Dame Cathedral.
-Walked around a medieval market and did not laugh at the vendor's costumes/wares.
-Later, DID laugh about the vendors costumes and wares.
-Had tea and ate pastries which, by all basic formal logic, are some of the best in France. (At Laduree)


-Bought lunch at a huge Spanish market which had a lot of questionable looking sheep body parts.


-Listened to some Spanish-speaking Jazz singers doing their best at some great English jazz standards.
-Got somewhat lost on the streets of Barcelona.
-Watched Barcelona's best street performers.
-Pretended that the people who had just ripped a plastic emergency poncho advertising a Welsh-language channel in half, and fashioned two new items, were not my friends


-Decided what I'd do if ever forced to become a street performer.
-Saw the Barcelona Football stadium.
-Took a boat ride around Spain's mediterranian coast.


-Two words: muchos sangrias.
-Cured a friend of his map fetish.
-Relied on two of my bilingual friends to do most of the talking on both trips.
-Saw about 3000 "what are they compensating for?"-type statues/monuments.
-Navigated my way out of Spain with a friend who speaks as little spanish as I do. (no habla espanol?)
-Got through customs on the way back into the UK without getting racially profiled. (Evidently this was hard the night we came back.)

Anyway, it was a nice trip and I hope that I get to go back to Europe again in my lifetime. I've been very lucky so far to go twice. I highly recommend either city as being stunningly beautiful, but my new love of life is the Eiffel tower: it's terribly romantic. If you aren't in love with someone in Paris, you probably should reconsider your relationship.

Now, back to the endless schoolwork.

Click on the picture so you can see a bigger one!