drinking cheese

Next to the yogurt in the Marks & Spencer today were these tiny containers of Petits Filous. Hmmm. Tiny French yogurt? I'll try it. 

It tastes like yogurt, only slightly grittier. 

Wiki says it is fresh cheese. Like drinkable cheese.

I feel violated.

the blue-eyed maid

Finding a job in London when you are an international student is not for the faint of heart. Even my modest quest for a part-time service job took almost 2 months and lead to several dead ends.  I talked to this one girl at a copy shop who said that for her position, they went through 89 applications. Wow.
This past Thursday I made a round with my CVs (like a resume but longer), papering pubs and retail shops with my American credentials. That very afternoon I was offered a 'try-out' at a pub called The Blue-Eyed Maid. For bartenders, try-outs are basically working 3 hours or so for no pay so that the manager can decide if you've got what it takes.
Friday was my first official shift (10 hours!) and gave me a crash-course in English pub-ology.
The Blue-Eyed Maid is a charming old pub with a hodgepodge of mismatched comfy chairs and wooden tables, ornate wallpaper dotted with (inexplicably) photos of Bruce Lee. Its clientele - a mix of salty regulars, groups of young 'mates', couples, a splattering of professionals, etc. What is unique to the pub or typical I am unqualified to say, but it boasts a manual dumbwaiter which is still used (!!!) to send food orders down to the bar from the kitchen upstairs. The menu offers traditional English fare alongside Indian curry dishes (this is typical) and despite having a limited cocktail menu, no one orders cocktails. The place doesn't even HAVE sour mix. I found myself itching to mix something, staring plaintively at the 'spirit' bottles all night. What offended my American bartender sensibilities the most was their recipe for a 'Margarita', which included GIN instead of tequila and sounded disgusting.
Clearly my mixology skills are going to rust over here. Guess I've got to get used to being a pub wench. And the low wages + non-tipping culture of London as well. Actually, not being motivated by tips takes a lot of pressure off a bartender to preform. The relationship with the customer is more relaxed, more friendly somehow. Expectations are low on both sides of the bar!
Oh, and sports? That's exactly the same across the pond. You'd better have that channel on the right football game on Sunday. (and it better be football!)
BTW - for those of you that don't follow football (soccer) religiously - today I watched a game for like an hour before EITHER TEAM scored a point. Yeah. I'd almost rather watch American football.

oxford!

Last Sunday I joined some fellow adventurers from my residence hall on a day trip to Oxford. What a photogenic day - graceful trees littered with golden leaves, stately buildings glowing with the little bit of sun that shone that day - and 13 frozen students huddled on the top of a (roofless) tour bus snapping a zillion pictures.

As you can see from the photo, they gave us headphones so we could hear the tour guide describing all the historical sites, but I wasn't paying attention and just took a bunch of pictures.

Which means now I have loads of pictures of buildings that mean nothing to me. But they're pretty!



What impressed me most about Oxford were the vast opportunities to nerd-out.
For instance, we ate lunch at this tiny pub called The Eagle and Child , which was where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis hung out together. I could really imagine a hobbit living in that pub. The ceiling was all cadywompus - it would slope at different levels, and was drafty and cozy at the same time. They had a lot of meat pies. A LOT OF MEAT PIES.

Oh, and then there was Hogwart's, AKA Christ Church . As I stood before the church, I could imagine all of my Harry Potter friends squealing in nerdtastic glee. The inside was incredible - it had the very cafeteria area featured in the movie. Or so I'm told. I was too cheap to pay the £3.50 entrance fee.

Are you obsessed with The Lord of the Rings and/or Harry Potter? Did you like Alice in Wonderland? Come to Oxford and give the nerd in you a holiday to remember.

el presidente & porky pig

So the President of Ecuador just happened to be in the neighborhood and dropped by LSE for a speech. I can't believe the billing they have for speakers here. I harbor a secret fascination with celebrities of all types, but in particular political leaders, and jumped on this event like white on rice.

Whether or not you agree with his "21st-Century socialist" policies or the direction he's leading his state, you've got to admit, the man can hold an audience. He's passionate, eloquent and he's got great hair. And a sense of humor.
So in the middle of explaining how structured reform exacerbates problems for Latin America, Pres. Correa takes a sip from his glass.
"Salud," someone says from the audience.
"Sin alcohol." he retorts.
{copious amounts of laughter from Spanish-understanders}

Amid lofty thoughts of socialism, imperialism, nationalism, and various additives to these isms (ethnonationalism, technopsuedofascism ok i made that up), I find myself entangled in the every-day-ness of ex-pat life. And with it, the increasing awareness of my United States-ian culture of which I have been apparently clueless.

Case example: in the bank today, this guy is giving me my password for my bank account and somehow gets to talking about Porky Pig. His colleagues have convinced me that he does a phenomenal Porky Pig impression, and with some encouragement, he performs for me.
It wasn't even close. It had the 'be-debba-be-debba' but it was all enunciated properly and lacked something I couldn't put my finger on. This made it even more funny. I did a Sylvester impression that earned me a free Nat West piggy bank.

O juxtaposition! How I love you.