8 & 9 September

I feel like I am just falling further and further behind at this. I try to keep up, and then all of a sudden a week has gone by, and I'm just even more behind.

So Monday was just classes, nothing too exciting there. Gerry, our Scottish Globalization professor, brought us free cds and dvds he had gotten in the Sunday newspaper for the past several months/years. He always gives us something during class, which is really nice. Monday is a long day of class because we have that three hour one, but luckily I only have two. Monday is also supposed to be our cleaning day, but since the library wasn't messy, I didn't clean. Brilliant.

Monday night was also our first cooking lesson with Henry Hoskins. We made Scottish shortbread and bannack, which is a flat bread that keeps forever and is good to eat with cheese and peanut butter (not at the same time). There is a group of five of us that take the lesson together on Mondays: Drew, Joan, Marie, Jason and myself. There is another group of five that do it on Tuesdays.

Monday night, or I guess technically Tuesday, a group of about seven of us decided to stay up and watch the Vikings/Packers game on streaming video. It didn't start until midnight, and I finally threw in the towel around 3am. I missed like the last eight minutes. It was pretty fun, we were all just laughing and passing around a 2 liter of cider and sweeties. The only real problem was that I was super tired for class the next day.

The best part about the weekend of American football was that I won the picks! There were about eight of us that went in on it, just a pound each, but I was excited to have an extra 7 quid. Leah and I were the only girls in on it, and I think the guys were a wee bit crabbit that I won, but oh well. They will have their revenge this weekend, I'm sure.

I also got some laundry done for the first time, so that was exciting. I wish I would have packed more clothes, though. I know you are never going to believe it wasn't enough, Mom! They lasted me for a long time, but I just hate doing laundry! I also need to get some detergent, Leah let me borrow hers, so that was nice. Also, there is a slight loophole in the laundry system, and the machines just chuck our pence back at us. So I don't see laundry being a big expense this semester.

Now to the food. It is just rubbish. Last year, they actually had a trained chef (Henry, the one doing the cooking and fly fishing lessons) but since two of the UW schools dropped, and they have been struggling budget-wise, food seems to be the thing that got sacrificed. It is just not good. I can't think of one meal yet that I have actually enjoyed. We had pork loin one night, and it was cooked the day before so when it was reheated, it was extremely dry/disgusting. Just absolutely rubbish. And there seems to be no relief. I guess it is about 16 quid per student per week, so I can understand why it is hard, but really. They could at least make it edible. I have never been a salt and pepper user, and now I cover everything in each meal in it. I even went out and bought a pepper grinder because the pepper here is tasteless (and I mean that. I put some on my pizza once, then licked it, and still didn't taste anything). So that is our meal situation. Not a good one. Good thing I have Kabob Mahal.

Oh, and Tuesday was also the night I started the blog. Yay!!

Cheers!