February 22-23rd: Manchester with Maria

Many of the people reading my blog have been giving me similar reactions: "You seem like you're having such a great time, Ellen! I love reading your posts! I just think that you should travel a bit more and blog less about how much fun you have buying food." Well, although the supermarket is undoubtedly my favorite part of England, seeing as how everything is new, exciting, and edible, I guess that the people who say these things to me have a point. As long as I'm in England, I should probably explore more things than the cereal aisle at York's grocery stores. Therefore, since I didn't want to study abroad without traveling a bit, I decided to take this weekend to visit my friend Maria in Manchester.

Maria and I met two summers ago at the camp I work at, Camp Christopher. Camp Chris does this program where children and teens from Spain can come to camp for a month to improve their English and travel around a bit. Maria was one of the teenagers in that group and came to be a counselor. We switch around which cabin we live in every week at camp, but when she first came, she and I were assigned to live in the same cabin together, Cabin Elizabeth Ann Seton Townhouse, or East. The day I met Maria, my co-counselor Tereah and I were painting our kids' faces to look like the characters in Up. I looked at Maria and said, "Hey, do you want to be a dog in our skit? Just sit with the other dogs and woof." She was a bit confused, but agreed to do it. It was the start of a beautiful, life-long friendship.

Tereah and I were snipes.

When she left that summer, I cried the entire way home, fully believing that I'd never see my friend ever again. However, the next summer, Maria came back to camp! The heads of camp all knew just how close the two of us were, so they assigned us to have the second oldest girls' cabin, James Gibbons, together the first week that she arrived. We had a Les Miserables themed cabin, and it was one of the most fun weeks I've ever had out there. That summer, we grew even closer than we had before. I found out that she was going to uni in Manchester, and she told me that I HAD to study abroad in York so that we could hang out in England. She's actually one of the reasons that I decided to come over here. I knew that Summer 2013 couldn't be the last time I saw my friend. It just couldn't be.

I'm not sure why there was blue marker on my face, but I'm pretty sure that it stayed there for a few days.

I was a nervous wreck about going to Manchester, to say the least. I mean, I'd never ridden on a train by myself before, and I wasn't 100% sure on how to get to the York train station, so the nerves were high. My train was scheduled to leave at 11:40, so I naturally left my room at 9:00 in the morning, getting me to the bus stop at 9:20 and to the train station at 9:40. I did a bit of people watching for a couple of hours before going to my platform. While waiting, I made a list in my iPod of the different stops my train would take so that I could tick off each city as they came to prevent myself from panicking that I'd accidentally missed my station. When the train came, I boarded into my car, found my seat, and was off to Manchester.

Waiting in the York station. As you can see, I was quite nervous

Waiting for my train

#LikeABoss

 

 

When I arrived in Manchester, I was greeted at the arrivals gate by Maria. We jumped on each other and hugged like in the movies. We were laughing because it was the first time we'd ever seen each other wearing coats and looking presentable. I think it's the first time she's ever seen me in makeup, too. It was just so great to be reunited with one of my best friends.

When we left the train station, we started to walk around Manchester a bit. The city was big and scary. It felt like a scarier version of London, if that's at all possible. She pointed out a few things to me, but admitted that she herself wasn't terribly familiar with the city yet, so we were both a bit overwhelmed. We got onto a bus to drop my stuff off in her little room so that we could do the most exciting thing ever: go to Taco Bell.

The Manchester Eye: A lot less exciting than the London Eye

Manchester Big Ben?

After dropping off my things, Maria and I got back onto the bus to get Taco Bell. Now, I'm not sure how many of you know this, but Taco Bell is my life. Within three days of me being at York, half of my house knew that Taco Bell is one of the most important things to me. I actually turned 20 in a Taco Bell, and I mentioned Taco Bell on my Junior IS poster. A few of them actually sent me Snap Chats saying "Have fun at Taco Bell!" and asking me how Taco Bell was going. It's kind of a big deal.

When we saw the Taco Bell at the mall, I got rather excited. Maria had never had Taco Bell before, even though Camp loves going on T-Bell runs, so she was pretty pumped, too. She took my picture with my favorite place ever before we got in line to order our food. Although they did not have my beloved Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Taco Supreme with no tomato, I was able to order a Crunchwrap Supreme with no tomato without any issues. Instead of coming with a side of a soft taco like it does in America, it came with something called Mexican Fries, which were quite delicious. As I ate, I felt so happy. It felt like America was hugging my tummy. Maria looked at me funny as she ate hers, saying that it didn't even taste like Mexian food at all, but I didn't care. I was reunited with T-Bell.

That is the face of a girl who is truly happy

Maria's first Taco Bell!!!

Reunited and it feels so good (until that T-Bell Regret feeling hit later)

Invest in these, America!

After Taco Bell, the two of us sat together for awhile and talked about camp. We talked about everyone and everything. It felt so good to just talk about the people that I missed so much and to re-connect with the camp side of my life.

After we'd sat for a bit, we went to walk around Manchester. It was even scarier this time around. We ran into several protests, including a rather terrifying one of people screaming "BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS!" to protest some shoppe using animal fur in their clothing. (What made it more awkward was that a lady was walking past in a full fur coat and hat...) But we still had a nice time and took some cute pix.

When we got tired, the two of us went to Nero to get hot chocolate and talk about camp some more. We stayed for over an hour.

After Nero, we got on a bus to go back to Maria's place. She asked me if I'd mind stopping at the grocery store on the way back. I was like, "Of course not!!!" We went to Sainsbury's, which I'd never been to before, and I was just as fascinated as ever as I looked at all of the food selections.

When we got back to her place, we had a typical girlie sleepover party. We stayed up late looking at every picture from camp that we possibly could, singing songs from the camp playlist on my iPod, and taking pictures together. It was something that I needed so much. I needed to hang out with someone who knows me. Someone who has inside jokes with me. Someone who I've known for a few years. It was so refreshing to have that.

The next morning, the two of us took a walk around the park by her place. Since we're both huge camp nerds, we decided that the park was camp and named every puddle after a lake, the playground after day camp, and decided that this one brick building was the courts. We also took some nice pictures and decided that that counted as our nature period.

All too soon, it was time to go. Maria helped me back to the train station, where I boarded my train and came back to York. However, this time, when I said goodbye to her, it wasn't tearful like it had been for the past two summers. I know for a fact that this isn't the last time I'm going to see Maria. Life has a funny way of bringing people who enjoy each other together, and since I enjoy Maria more than I enjoy most people, I know that life will bring us back together again.

17 February 2014: Happy Birthday, Cousin!

Ten years ago today, the older of my two little cousins, whom I shall not to refer to by name because she's a minor and I don't want to post information about her on a public blog for confidentiality reasons, was born. I can't help but feel a bit old as I think about the fact that the little infant that I held in the hospital while wearing an American Girl t-shirt has hit the double digits. She's just a really great kid. Smart, too, and funny. Before I left for England, she gave me a bracelet that she'd made and told me that she made a matching one for herself so that whenever we missed each other while I was away, we could look at our bracelets and think about one another. I'm not sure if she'll ever know how much that means to me or just how often I look at my bracelet.

In honor of my cousin turning 10, I thought that I'd post 10 things that I've learned about England since I've been here. Not only because she's an extremely smart kid who loves learning fun facts, but because I should probably talk about my study abroad experience in my study abroad blog ;)

1. Yellow mustard is called American hotdog mustard.
2. The Olympics aren't as big of a thing in England. America goes a lot more nuts than the majority of the world does about the Games.
3. If you think a boy/girl is attractive, you say that they are "fit."
4. There was a period in the early and mid-2000s where English people didn't listen to American music and Americans didn't listen to English music. As a result, hanging out and listening to "throwback" tunes of our childhoods can be very frustrating...especially when Smash Mouth never "crossed the ocean." (Not that you'd know Smash Mouth, either, cousin. Well, no. You're a smart kid. You've probably at LEAST heard "All Star.")
5. British television shows are a lot better than American television shows. And American television shows are a LOT better than American shows that are based off of British shows.
6. Cadbury chocolate melts more quickly than Hershey's chocolate. It tastes sweeter, too.
7. "Awesome" is a word that only Americans use. Whenever I ask my English friends to put on an American accent, the word 'awesome' will usually come up.
8. "You okay?" or "You alright?" is kind of the same thing as "What's up?" or "How are you doing?"
9. It's really hard to find stick deodorant in England. Everything here is either roll-on or spray can. And the only stick stuff that I found is over three pounds for a little stick of it, so I'm getting used to this spray can stuff.
10. No matter how different somebody's upbringing and culture was from your own, you can still make friends wherever you go.

So happy birthday, my dear cousin :) I love you so much, and I can't wait to see you and your little sister (who I also love so terribly much that I can't stand it) when I get home.

12 February 2014: Food for Thought

First of all, as I mentioned in the last post, I made a video about England's Nutella sometime during my second week here. I hesitated on putting it up, seeing as how I'm a bit awkward on film, but maybe some of you will get a bit of a laugh over it.

While we're on the topic of food, several days ago, one of my friends from back home asked me what they called American cheese over here. I took some photographs to show him, and he complimented the English on being brutally honest. I don't really care how unappetizing it sounds on the packaging, though. Stick some of that onto a chicken patty sandwich with a squirt of mayo and I'm a happy little Ellen!

Today while I was at the grocery store with my friends, I noticed that there weren't any pudding cups. There were yogurt cups, (or "yoghurt," as they would spell it here), and there are delicious mousse cups (which are MUCH better...I'd take a frothy lemon mousse over tapioca pudding any day!), but no pudding cups. When I got home, I asked one of my friends if there were pudding cups anywhere here. He had to google what that was and said that if it's the same thing as yogurt, then there are. I told him that it's different than yogurt and had a really hard time explaining what pudding is in America. I then asked him if pudding was really just that cake stuff, and he said it is, but no one really eats it except for on Christmas. I then learned that pudding can be used as an all-encompassing term for dessert. Like, you can have a Popsicle for pudding. But pudding is still pudding. And pudding is also not pudding. And Yorkshire pudding is fried dough, which is COMPLETELY different than pudding. Whatever pudding is.

I never thought that I would be this confused about pudding. 

10 February 2014: The Kinder Surprise Egg

 Since my Monday lecture/seminar kind of took it out of me today and I'm really in the mood for something sweet, I've decided that today is the day that I eat my very first Kinder Surprise egg. I honestly could not be more excited right now and am literally trembling with anticipation.

Let me explain.

A Kinder Surprise egg is a delicious chocolate egg with a toy inside. From what the Internet has told me, it's literally the greatest sweet in the world. However, since the American FDA does not permit food with inedible objects inside of it to be owned or consumed in America, these delicious little treats are illegal in my home country. The people of the Internet like to rub it into the Americans' faces that we cannot have Kinder eggs (to which we usually reply with a picture of an eagle saying something along the lines of, "I'M SORRY, I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY FREEDOM!!!" but the moment that Kinder eggs are brought out, we know that we've lost the argument). 

America takes this Kinder egg thing really seriously

Too bad I'm in England right now!!!

So as you all might imagine, this is a really big deal for me.

I'm going to try something a bit new today. Instead of doing this blog post as a reflection, I'm going to do a bit of "live blogging." I'm going to type down what's going on as it happens. There's going to be pictures taken, but they'll be inserted after the actual writing. I know that I could just do this in video form, but as you'll all see when I upload my "Nutella" video, I'm much better at writing things down than speaking things out.

So without further to do...

Right now, I'm looking at my egg. It looks so pretty in its wrapping. I have no clue how to get it undone.

I've ripped back some of the foil. I feel a bit sad that my perfect egg is about to be eaten, but then I remind myself that I can get another one the next time I go to the store.

I can smell the chocolate so well! It appears that there's a white stripe in the center.

I squeezed the egg gently and it divided into two halves! It's white on the inside!!!!!!

IT TASTES SO GOOD! OH MY GOSH THIS IS LITERALLY THE YUMMIEST THING EVER. LIKE PERFECT COMBINATION. WHY DON'T WE HAVE KINDER CHOCOLATE AT HOME? WE GET SOME CADBURY STUFF. BUT THIS MAKES CADBURY SEEM LIKE CHILD'S PLAY. OH MY GOSH!

I'M EATING THIS SO SLOWLY BECAUSE IT'S MY NEW FAVORITE THING EVER. MOVE OVER, FREDDO FROG.

THE CAPS LOCK IS NECESSARY BECAUSE IT'S SO IMPORTANT!!!

Okay, now that half of my shell has been eaten, it's time to figure out what's in my surprise!!!

First of all, I'm trying to figure out how anybody could accidentally eat this thing. It's inside of a capsule thing and, like...no one can swallow that.

I'm too dumb to open the darn thing.

Aha! You just have to squeeze it! And inside is...a thing?

Just trying to build it following the instructions...

Aha! I've got a little...ball thing...

Apparently it's a magic ball. And the kids on the instructions seem to be having the best time ever playing with it, so I'm assuming that it's going to be a hoot.

Ignore the empty bag of crisps...

It's telling me to go to 2.magic.com, so that's what I'll do...

Aaaand once again, I'm not allowed to have full access to my Kindery fun because of my location. I thought that Kinder eggs were okay here!

But that's okay, because I still have another half an egg left!!!!!

In conclusion: The Kinder Surprise Egg was everything I could have hoped for and more. 10/10 would recommend, will buy again. Now it's time to play with my nifty toy!!!!

5 February 2014 part 2 - A Journey to Morrison's

This evening, right after I'd finished eating a sausage roll from the fake grocery store across the parking lot, my friends knocked on my door and told me that they were going to the real grocery store, Morrison's, and wanted to know if I wanted to come along. I was more than excited to go with them. I mean, I've been surviving off of Nisa just fine, but the thought of having a bit of variety in my diet was way too tempting to pass up.

When we got to the store, we walked inside to get our carts. They were all chained together. My friends each got out a pound coin, put it into a cart, and unlocked it from the others. I raised my eyebrows. It cost a coin to use the carts?! However, after seeing the utter confusion on my face, my friends explained to me that I'd get my pound coin back at the end and this was their way of preventing grocery cart...I mean "trolley"....theft. I was still pretty confused, but put in my pound coin to get a cart.

The store was a bit surreal, I'm not going to lie. Sure, the produce section was all very familiar to me, but mostly everything else was different. The brands and logos were mostly things that I wasn't used to. I mean, like, with the exception of the sweets, they were all things that I'd seen at home...just in different packaging.

When we turned into the sweets isle, I glanced to my right and dramatically gasped. Not just a little intake of breath. My hands both flew to cover my mouth. My friends saw this and laughed a bit, knowing that this was one of the biggest moments of my life. Before me was a rack of Kinder surprise eggs. I quickly put one into my cart. I haven't eaten it yet, though. That's going to get its own blog post.

As I wandered through the store, I felt like a real adult. I was doing price comparisons, prioritizing things, planning out meals, and even chose to get the grown-up turkey instead of the turkey stuff that had a dinosaur in the middle of it. It's weird how much this experience is making me grow up.

Although to be fair, those dino things are quite rad. Maybe if I'm feeling adventurous someday, I'll get some.

At the end of the shopping trip, I was waiting in line, minding my own business, when I walked into some plastic barrier thing. An alarm sounded throughout the entire store. I looked down and saw that the barrier was labeled as being alarmed. For a solid 10 seconds, everybody in Morrisons was looking toward me. I just kind of chewed on my tongue and tried to look sheepish. Leave it to me to do something completely socially awkward in the middle of the grocery store.

When we left the store, we hooked our ca--trolleys back into the hooks. Once it got hooked in, the pound flew back out. I suppose that it makes sense, but at the same time, anyone with a pound can steal a trolley...

Oh well. Whatever. I'm just glad that I have a variety of foods to choose from now! However...as lame as this sounds...I'm not really hungry right now, so I might just have a Mama noodle cup a little bit later.

5 February 2014: Still Getting Culture Shocked

Now that I've been in England for over a month, I'm starting to falsely feel like I have this place all figured out. It only takes me ten minutes to figure out how much my loose change is worth rather than fifteen, I've started craving such delicacies as beans-wrapped-in-pastry-dough, and I only have to ask for slang translations a few times on a typical night with my friends. I know that a Malteasers Teasesrs bar is superior to any other kind of chocolate, Walkers Cheese & Onion crisps are better than any crisp flavor that we've got in the States, and that if you want to order lo mein at the Chinese restaurant, you have to ask for chow mein. Really, whenever I'm feeling a bit caught up in everything, I'm forgetting that I'm an American at all.

However, like I said, this sense of security is false. Even now, I'm still experiencing culture shock in a way that I didn't think was possible.

For example, the other day in my American Lit seminar, we were discussing the poetry of Frank O'Hara. In one of his poems, the poem's narrator states that he doesn't have an American body. My tutor asked the class what we thought that he meant when he wrote that line and asked what an 'American body' is. I mentioned how there IS no such thing as an American body, because everybody's 25% German, 30% Dutch, has Greek skin, Spanish eyes, etch. As I was saying this, one girl in the class looked at me and said, "Do people in America actually do that?" A bit confused, I go, "Yeah. I'm 25 Italian, 25 Bohemian, and 50 Slovak." She looked at me and goes, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." I looked down a bit and went, "Yeah, it all IS kind of stupid," and everybody chuckled.

I'm not posting that story to whine that "Awwwh the other kids were being mean to me!" Actually, no one was. I just never realized that in the rest of the world, people don't have that mixing-pot mentality that Americans have. Taking a step back, I'm just now realizing that people rarely identify as American. I mean, in England, I tell people that I'm American, but whenever Americans meet each other, we still ask each other what we are. And if there's a common country of ancestry, we ask what part of that country, what city, what street, which house...it's odd to take a step back and realize just how much Americans WANT to have an identity that's different than their neighbor's.

Last night, when we were coming back from the club (for Mimi's 20th! Shameless shout-out Happy birthday!!), we took something called the clubbers bus to get back to campus. The clubbers bus is essentially the ski club bus in the middle of the night when everybody has been having a bit too much fun and there's no chaperones to tell us not to try and pile fifteen people onto the back of one seat. Last night, when we boarded the bus, my friends all turned to go up the staircase to the second level. I started internally freaking out because I was actually in the second story of a double decker bus! Of course, this was no big deal to my English friends, but once the bus started to move, I looked at them and said, "Okay, random dorky side note, but this is my first time on the second story of one of these and this is a really huge moment in my life." They didn't know that America only had single deckers and completely indulged my excitedness.


Perhaps that's not a good example of "culture shock," seeing as how I knew that I'd end up on the second story of a bus at some point before returning to the States, but it IS a good example about how I'm not as "culturally assimilated" as I think myself to be. However, upon reflection, maybe I DON'T want to become THAT assimilated to York. I don't want there to be a moment when I'm over here when riding on the second story of a bus isn't that big of a deal. I want everything to be as cool and exiting as it was when I first got to this city on January 4th.

Also, let's take a moment to look at this picture of me getting into Kuda. Smiling at the camera. What a nerd.

And I'm glad to know that my Facebook friends are just as excited that I climbed some stairs on a bus as I was. Maybe we're ALL a bunch of huge nerds... ;)