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!