The English Countryside; The President

Last week I had my first trip outside of London in the UK. I went to Bradenham Manor, the GTUK's training facility, which is literally this English manor house in the country. The trip there is only about an hour's train ride, and I decided to make the trip the morning of my training, you know, since we don't start until 9 am (every time I mention the fact that the workday starts at 8am in the US people gasp likes it's the most inhumane thing they've ever heard). I'm so glad I did b/c it was a perfect morning and it was my first glimpse of the English countryside. The fog was just beginning to lift so it was still covering some of the hillsides, there were sheep-dotted pastures, and in one pasture there was a herd of horses galloping along with the train. I know this sounds like a story, but I'm being serious. It was just that perfect. The houses were cute and quaint (I didn't see any actual thatched roofs, but there were houses in the English Tudor style).


Bradenham itself is a complex of several buildings, including the giant manor house and then several outlying buildings like the stables, and I'm sure what used to be servants' quarters or something. I know all of you GTUS people are cursing right now b/c I get to go to this place for training and you have to go to the awful Q Center. On the first day, they made some general housekeeping announcements, including notification of the place to gather in the event of a fire: The croquet lawn. Awesome.


Everyone kept telling me how great the food was at Bradenham, but I quickly realized that there was a caveat: The food is good if you like English food. There was cottage pie (ground meat with mashed potatoes) for lunch, and lamb and potatoes for dinner, amongst other things. I've realized that the English diet is not that far off from the American diet - meat and potatoes. Except the English eat about four times less of it. Seriously, I think I've seen one obese person since I've been in London. I know we hear it all the time, but I've had that sinking realization since I've arrived that America really does have a major obesity epidemic. On TV the other night a comedian made the comment that Americans have the gold medal in being fat. Sad. But I digress.


The training itself was good, it was a soft skills course which I haven't had before, so loads of role playing and such which I really loathe, but good b/c you get to know the people in your training course better. Met some lovely people from other offices and departments.


I was at Bradenham last Tuesday evening, during the election. Needless to say I got next to no sleep that evening and was utterly worthless and cranky for the second day of the training (training was Tues-Wed). I know I've mentioned it before, but I just can't get over what a big deal our election is to everyone here. It's all that was on any news channel, and pretty much every other show mentioned it as well, and it was all anyone could talk about, especially to me being an American. It was like nothing else was happening in the rest of the world. When I was watching BBC while getting ready on Wednesday morning, there was a massive banner going across the bottom of the screen that read, "Barack Obama - US President Elect", and literally during the hour that I had it on, they did about two minutes on some train crash in Mexico, and then straight back to the election. Insane! On Thursday morning on my way to work I passed by a newsstand and had to stop and stare b/c every single newspaper had something about Obama on the front cover. Not being one bit sarcastic here. My favorite: "The Day America Became a Little Bit Cool Again". Brilliant. (Oh yes, I've been using the word brilliant non-stop lately, just like a local. I sound like those Guinness commercials back in the States where the old dudes just sit around and say, "Brilliant!").


A few more comments on the election and then I'm done. I've realized that although people here are interested in the election, they are only interested to the extent that the media covers it, and form their opinions over what the media tells them (I know, it's not that much different for most people in the States, but I will ignore that since it's so irresponsible it makes me sick). Anyway, when people would start to ask me about the election (and most would then start to sing the praises of Obama), it would always give me a tiny thrill to really engage them in an actual discussion about American politics. Save for one person, none of them could make it past the first sentence. Of course, I can't blame people here for supporting Obama, they live in a country where the most conservative politician is still not as conservative as our most liberal (being Obama). All they saw in McCain was a man who looked like Bush in physical appearance, but when I started to discuss his stance on the issues vs. the Bush administration, they would get all glassy-eyed. On the positive side, I am proud that we have elected our first black president and hope that now everyone will realize that most white Americans are not racist and never were. I'm excited to see where Obama takes our country with his energy policies. I just hope his magic wand doesn't run out of pixie dust too soon.

This weekend my flatmates and I, along with a couple other friends (Andrea had a friend in from Mexico) played kings in the flat before going out to a club that no one had ever been to before. When we were paying the cover I asked the doorman why I couldn't just bat my eyes and get in for free ("I'm American, that's what we do in America!", I tell him), he just laughed, told me that I was beautiful but that I was going to have to pay. I was disappointed until we walked upstairs and realized that it was a gay club and my eyelashes weren't going to get me anywhere in this club! It was really fun - I mean we could have been anywhere and had fun in the state that we were all in after playing four rounds of kings. The unisex bathrooms were something of an adventure though...

Saturday I stayed in (still recovering), and Sunday morning I tried a new church. They were doing some renovations and had just done the floor but hadn't stained it yet, so everyone had to remove their shoes at the door. A bit of a weird impression for my first time. But the service was great, and it's much closer than the other one that I went to (it's actually another branch of that one), so I think I'll give it another go. Hopefully next time I'll be able to keep my shoes on. Thank God I didn't have any holes in the socks that I was wearing on Sunday!

Had a sick day yesterday, just a little head cold. It's amazing what a few extra hours of sleep will do for you. I don't think I've mentioned it, but here, there isn't an allowance for sick days, and they also don't count as a vacation day. You just take one if you need one. It's so lovely and it made me realize that the US firm vacation allowance really isn't that much better than the private sector's standard 2 week allowance, b/c in the private sector they usually also get a sick allowance, which at GT has to come out of the vacation time. Here we get more vacation time (only slightly more), and sick days don't cut into it. More and more I feel like I was just a slave in the US firm. Probably not as much as people working in the Asian firms feel like that though.

Some fun new words and phrases I've learned:

A muppet = an idiot/silly person
A Richard = a douche bag
What's the chat? = What's up?
This is a good one - I hear the word "chat" quite a bit, and you are jokingly judged by your "weak chat" or "strong chat", as in how interesting or witty your banter is
You got the wrong end of the stick = You took that the wrong way

Must go, but I miss you all so much!

A Vice Presidential Halloween

Governor Palin

The Strictly Come Dancing star and I

Brokeback Mountain

You know what this is...

Sarah Palin - moose-hunting gun enthusiast. Except

she prefers a shotgun - something with a little more

fire power

_________

I was worried about celebrating Halloween in the UK, b/c it seemed to me that Londoners didn't celebrate it quite like Americans do, or at least to the extent that the Americans that I know do. But in the end, the Londoners that I know put on quite a show. I decided to be Sarah Palin, which everyone here had a huge kick out of, and also sparked some good political debates. However, I found out that not surprisingly, most English don't actually know what they're talking about when it comes to American politics. I guess that's not far off from most Americans either though (sadly). Anyway, we had great fun, and everyone was in great costume (called fancy dress here). I bought some Palin rectangular glasses which ended up giving me a headache b/c they had a prescription in them (interestingly enough they seemed to get less and less fuzzy as the night wore on, hmm...), and spent about an hour at work on Friday making a nametag with an American flag and "Gov. Sarah Palin, R - AK" on it, for all of those who were slow to pick up on the costume. Then I wore the power suit with the power heels, and tried my best to mimic the updo she always sports. One of the guys was a maxi pad (gross but hilarious), another was a Brokeback Mountain cowboy, and another was a Strictly Come Dancing star (the British version of Dancing with the Stars) - one of the female stars. I was definitely the most creative of the girls - they were all butterflies and cats or something. Lame. We were pretty outrageous and stayed out way too late.

Friday night I went to a house party with Dasha, and then the party moved to a club, one that I would categorize as a typical euro trash club. They played house music, which I came to realize is just music for white people that makes them feel like they can dance. Seriously, how can anyone enjoy listening to the same 5 second track 47 times in a row? These people were really getting excited about it though - they would cheer everytime the DJ got creative and changed the tempo of the 5 second track. Other than that the night was fun, oh, except that my stomach was hurting so badly that I had to vomit a little just to feel better (honestly, I wasn't drunk - I had two beers the entire night b/c my belly was hurting so badly). Fun times. There was also this girl at the party who was from the northern part of England, which means that her accent sounds more Scottish, so of course I could barely understand a word she said. But when Dasha told her she was from Russia, she goes on this rant about some TV program that she saw about Russian mail order brides and tells Dasha to be strong and don't go that way. Dasha and I just looked at each other like, "Is she for real??". What a bigot. This girl kept saying slightly offensive things like this the whole night, so I realized it was fortunate that I couldn't understand her.

Speaking of not understanding people, everyone here is used to American accents from the movies and TV so they have no problem understanding me, but I still struggle to understand the English accents sometimes. So not fair.

Last weekend I finished decorating my room and put all of my photos up on the wall, so it finally feels like my room. I also finally got a contract mobile phone, so if any of you have a good international calling plan and feel like having a chat, you can ring me at 075 9011 8601 (from the US: 0044-75-9011-8601). I love not having that ridiculous teeny-bopper phone that I had in the US anymore.

I went to church for the first time last weekend - Dan and Damara from GTUS somehow knew of a place here and gave me the info. It was great, seems very similar to my church in KC which is comforting. So far, there are only two downsides: It takes an hour to get there, and from the tube station you have to walk down this great shopping street - so tempting on the way back from the church on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

On Tuesday, whilst (I love that English word!) riding the bus on the way home from work, the bus came to a stop at a stoplight, and then just sat there for a while. After a few minutes, people start to just get off, and I walk to the front and ask one of the other passengers what's going on. Turns out there was a woman protesting and just sitting in front of the bus. Seriously - who protests the bus system?? How can you possibly view it as bad? I just rolled my eyes and thought, "welcome to London". Other things that I've had to become accustomed to while living in London: random splatters of vomit on the sidewalk (called the pavement here) every once in a while (I guess I contributed to that one on Friday night), being assaulted by the free newspaper vendors every evening on every corner, ridiculous over-the-top security measures on anything related to banking or IT (when I log in to online banking, I can't simply enter my pin and passoword (yes, you must have both!), it asks you for the third, fourth, and first digit of your pin, and similar for your passowrd, and it's different everytime you log in. So picture me sitting there counting on my fingers when I log in - super fun), rain, and people going on and on about Obama. I don't want to give you the wrong impression about my feelings for London, so here are things that I love about being here: no driving!!, the diversity (anymore, I just assume that the person next to me has a native language other than English), no crazy fluctuations in the weather like there are in the Midwest, amazing yoga studios, business working hours, overtime pay, and the clubs!

Did everyone watch the NFL game that was in London last week? I did! It really made me miss home though, it's awful having to sit here on Saturdays and Sundays and know that games are going on but I can't watch them. Sigh...all I want for Christmas is football - American football. Anyway, I laughed at the beginning of the game when they had to give a little synopsis of how the game is played. And the people in the stands were wearing every NFL team's jerseys - like if they had an NFL shirt at all they wore it. Also, did you realize that the British national anthem, God Save the Queen, is the same tune as the song called America (my counrty tis of thee, sweet land of liberty...). I thought it was humorous that we stole that bit from them and made it American. Although I looked it up and it turns out that the song was our national anthem for a while when we first gained our independence, so it seems like it was motivated more by the fact that we couldn't think of anything better rather than spite. I had to look it up to prove it to an English co-worker. I'm not that bored here.

Dasha and I went to the largest shopping center in Europe yesterday, which just opened a few days ago. It was huge and so busy, we could only stand it for about two hours. Then, when we were leaving, the tube station was closed due to congestion, and it ended up taking two hours to get home. Insane. It was also cold and rainy so I was in a lovely mood by the time we got home. I did get a pair of cute Asics sneakers though. There was also a store there that was devoted entirely to socks, hose, and tights - awesome!

Must run, but I love you all and miss you very much!