Happy 2012 to any of my remaining readers. After an exciting and busy December and Christmas holiday, I am back to reality here in London. Over the last while, I’ve
written paragraphs here and there, but nothing to a post-able extent. Here is a pieced together recap:
Dec. 2-4: I went to
visit Tony. Tony is my
grandfather’s cousin (my first-cousin-twice-removed, if we want to get
technical). He is a pretty great
British old man and he lives about an hour north of London. I’ve been up to visit him a few times
and it has always been very enjoyable.
This weekend was particularly fun because I got to do two things that I
have never done before: I was a golf caddy and I attended a pantomime play.
My golf caddyship came
about because Tony had accidentally booked himself a round of golf for Saturday
morning, forgetting that I would arrive on Friday night. He was very apologetic about it (I
insisted that I really didn’t mind and was not offended), and offered me two
options: sleep in, or act as his caddy.
While I do love to sleep in, being a caddy sounded like fun, so that is
what I did. We got up at 6:15,
suited up in many layers and waterproof gear (it was raining, but cleared up),
and set out to the golf club. I
thought I’d be lugging his golf bag around, but it turns out that he has this
motorized thing for his bag, so I just had to walk behind it and steer. It was pretty fun, but at the end of
the game, Tony fired me because he did not win. Oh well. Golf
caddying may not be my future.
Hopefully architecture still works out.
After 18 holes, we had
breakfast with all the golf buddies.
I don’t mean to flatter myself or anything, but I got the feeling that
these old British guys definitely enjoyed having a young American girl around. There were lots of “Gentlemen,
gentlemen, watch your language—there are ladies present!” sorts of jokes. One guy even took me out to the little
practice putting green and had me take a few putts. When we came back inside, the table conversation had turned
to Youtube videos. These guys were
amazingly well versed in the subject.
They loved Charlie Bit My Finger, the one with the antelope hitting the
cyclist, and one of this angry guy chasing his dog Fenton (I hadn’t seen that
one). I must have found the old
British man versions of Zach and Jit.
We also got talking about the eurozone crisis. There was definitely a smugness to them about it—“We knew
this would happen! Margaret
Thatcher had it right with her ‘no, no, no’! This is the third time in a century Germany has tried to
control us! It won’t happen!” Long live the pound sterling.
Saturday evening, Tony
and I went to the little theater in his town for the pantomime. He was also treating his cleaning lady,
Lynn, and her twelve-year-old son, Blake, to the show, so we met up with them
for drinks before the show. It was
the second time in one day that I felt like the American girl novelty. Blake was very fascinated with me and
talked my ear off—did I know any famous people, what do we have for dinner on
Christmas if we do our turkey dinner on Thanksgiving instead, did I really just
call it a parking lot because everybody here calls it a car park, etc. He was a funny little kid and I really
enjoyed talking to him. He wants a
metal detector for Christmas.
Apparently, pantomimes
are a British Christmas tradition.
Before the show, Tony was telling me all about how the actors really
engage the audience, and there is lots of yelling back and forth between the
audience and the actors. I was
confused. “Yelling?” I asked. “But
isn’t this a pantomime? Aren’t the
actors miming?” Tony got a
huge kick out of this. “No!” he
said, “The actors yell and sing and dance—they are anything but mimes!” When I asked why, then, was it called a
pantomime, Tony told me not to be difficult.
The show itself was
probably everything I could have hoped for. A bizarre Robin Hood plot, punny jokes for the children,
punny jokes for the adults, humungous and hilarious guy dressed in drag, etc. They also adapted several popular songs
to fit the story. I was very
pleasantly surprised when Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” was the closing
number of the first act. It just
warmed this Jersey girl’s heart.
Dec. 7: My
birthday. It was the first
birthday in years that I managed to escape any sort of “day that will live in
infamy” jokes. Perhaps this
correlates to the fact that it was my first birthday outside of the
states.
It was a good birthday,
even though it fell on a Wednesday.
Ashley and I, having become big fans of the British chef, Jamie Oliver,
went to one of his Italian restaurants.
I had truffle risotto and it was delicious.
Sometime that week:
After I got home from work, I accidentally left my keys in the door. They stayed there until Ashley got home
hours later. I know, dumb. Luckily, our neighbors who would have
stolen them and made copies (or who would have just come right in and
robbed/murdered me) were evicted by the police at the end of November. Apparently all the neighbors were fed
up with them—they’ve done some terrible things. So the police showed up and told them to get out. Remember when our heat was broken? The guy ripped our pipe out that day as
a nice little goodbye, and because he needed a doorstopper while they lugged
their crap down the stairs. So
they are gone, which I am thankful for. But we’re also a little afraid that they might come
back. Might be time to buy a
baseball bat.
Dec. 10: We had a small
soiree at our home (Marguerite, Scarlet Pimpernel) for a few friends from work. We FEASTED. Baked brie is a gift from heaven. We also made our own egg nog. Raw eggs, whole milk, heavy cream, and rum...delicious.
Dec. 17-18: Shopping
like crazy. Oxford Street and
Regent Street have about every store anyone could ever imagine. For the first time, I was successfully
done with Christmas shopping before Christmas Eve.
Outside of Fortnum and
Mason’s (a sweet Harrods-esque, super old, highbrow London store), scantily
clad Santa-ladies were asking people to join their effort to stop Fortnum and
Mason’s from selling foie gras.
They were very passionate about flirting with male passersby…I mean they
were very passionate about their cause.
They had a poster board petition that looked like one of those huge
birthday cards that people make and have the whole class sign. Seemed like a pretty amateur attempt to
stop the injustices of foie gras.
When a Santa-bunny asked me to sign the poster, I stopped myself from
telling her that halting the production of foie gras is really far down on the
Things That Will Make the World a Better Place list and politely refused to
sign. In return, I got a very
hurt, pouty face. Um, put a
sweater on.
Outside of Marks and
Spencer (a less good version of Target), angry men were shouting on
microphones, urging people to boycott the store because it supports the killing
of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
I didn’t quite follow their logic, but at least these guys were wearing
clothes.
Dec. 21-Jan. 3: I had
such a nice time being home that I had no time to take any pictures. Not a single one. Oops. Highlights include: dinner with my New York archi buddies,
annual people watching/gossip at Christmas Eve Mass, Whoville-style Christmas
caroling around the town tree, wonderful Christmas Day with my family, really
nice visit with Will and his family in Atlanta, continuous feasting and game
playing with Matthew and Rachel et al in Maryland for New Years…
Jan. 3: Kelsey and Claire Take London, Part II!
