Back by popular demand

Ok, so maybe only one person said they wanted me to write on my blog. You know who you are.:) Crissy has been here this week so that has been great. We were in London last weekend and witnessed carnival in notting hill. Picture Hugh grant posh neighborhood with Caribbean women and men in thongs and feather headdresses. One of these things is not like the other...it is basically a two day carribean dance and party festival. Basically it was awesome. I can't imagine how crazy the real carnival is in brazil. Some of the dancers actually had a party van going along with them and they would just take their drinks up to the side and they would get refills from the djs and party hosts in the trailer/long van.  Out of control. Tomorrow we are heading to Paris so are excited about that.

Let it ride

I haven't really posted lately because you start to get in the swing of things and this starts to become your life. I am finding that there are still a lot of differences. For instance, I find a lot of differences in soccer. First of all, they call it football here and we don't practice we train. This will be more interesting to soccer players, but you can sit on the ground and kick for the ball where you can't in the States. Also, they call it offside and not offsides. Another thing is you can't say "let it ride" because they find it distracting to other players. You can actually get a free kick for that. And when you go for a ball you can't say "I've got it" or "mine" you have to say Jane's ball or Jane goes. Which makes you seem a little crazy to be talking in the 3rd person! And they made fun of me the other day because I yelled "Go y'all!" from the sidelines and they said "we didn't think people actually said the word y'all". I'm so excited because Crissy is coming this Saturday and we are going to hang out in London for 3 days, Oxford for 4 and then Paris the following weekend. Tough times! We are going to the European version of Carnival in London this weekend so that should be interesting and should provide better stories for the blog... :) Feeling a bit bad for C though because it looks like the rain is coming back.

Quirks

Did you know that typically when British people introduce themselves they don't say their names. It's too personal to say their name early in the conversation apparently. Wednesday, I went to a soccer 5 a side (as it is called here) basically just a pick up game of soccer and I didn't know anyone. So I say to this guy hi my name is Jane, he goes "hi". That's it. No name... nothing. I mean I guess I would possibly understand if you are in a bar and it's a little too soon to share names but on the soccer field I actually have to call your name so you will know I am passing you the ball. It's so funny to think that just because we speak the same language that we would be the same. There are so many cultural differences though!

Crikey!!

I could not have been more of an American last night. I don't have a dryer in my apartment and was not ready to acquiesce to the British ways so found a laundromat up the road. Of course, it's raining when I head out for the dryers so I'm already thinking this may not be the best plan. And it's kind of a heavy load since all the clothes are wet and since I've washed everything I can possibly think of since this will be my weekly trip to the laundromat. So I get to the laundromat and it is £1 for each 4 minutes. Now I am pissed b/c I have just walked all the way up to the laundromat to realize that I probably can't afford to dry my clothes. So I put in £2 and I get a solid 8 minutes of drying time. Then I have run out of pounds so go to the corner store to buy a Cherry Coke and get change. Well then I'm talking on the phone and put the pounds in the wrong dryer. So I dried air for about 30 seconds which really cuts into the drying time when you only get 4 minutes per bloody pound. :) Basically, I spent £6 (plus 65 cents on a coke) to moderately try my clothes. I still had to walk back and hang half of them around the apartment. Good times...

The Gut and the Bad

So I think Gut means good in German but I'm not sure. Those are my people now after this weekend. I got in touch with my fun German friends from the soccer final and we met them at the German House. At first we thought we were going to be hanging out with the German athletes and their families but it turns out they were at the posh club next door. We were in the random room with picnic tables and German beer. You could see people on top of the German house being interviewed. But we common folk still had a good time though. The Germans won the hockey gold so the place went crazy. There was a German congo line and there was a lot of German chanting. The Germans know how to party!! It was really cool being in London over the weekend b/c there would be random athlete spottings everywhere. We saw two women athletes from the States (no clue who they were but they were rocking the USA athlete backpack and had seriously good bodies) That's right... I said it! :) HA! Then we were on the train on the way to the German House and we met the Angolan women's basketball team. It was so cool! They said there has never been a woman's basketball team from Angola in the Olympics. Then on Sunday morning we saw parts of the men's marathon. The vibe with the Olympics was so cool b/c people cheer for all athletes and they don't care which country you are from. Was just so amazing to be around all of it. Oh, so that is all the good.... The bad is that I washed all of my clothes last night thinking I would walk up to my neighborhood laundromat to dry them. Well, the wash took a little longer than I thought and then I had to meet my soccer team for dinner so I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to rewash the clothes tonight. I'm sure this is helping the musty smell in my apartment!

Things that make your head hurt...

Having to subtract 12 from a number when it's past noon here. I wonder if I will ever just look at 14:00 and go... oh man, it's 14:00 o'clock!!! I think people can see the wheels turning when I look at my computer after noon and have to count. Mom, you may be in trouble. :)

Also, something interesting about the game last night: anytime there was a call or a stop in play they would not show the replay on the big screens. We didn't see what you saw at home. I think they wanted to have crowd control if they made a bad call. My German girl, BB, made no bad calls in my mind though seeing as the States won! BB was the German ref who was the girl for which my new German friends were cheering. They were trying to convince me to celebrate the US win with them after. They taught me that X ing a beer means finishing it quickly. I told them it was crushing a beer and they thought that was the funniest thing. They would put their elbow up to make an X and then would say Crush it. Picture someone doing that with an Arnold Schwarzenager accent. Awesome.

Going for Gold!!!

Game day!!!

or as they say here "match day". I'm not really sure if they say match day but they say match for game so am just improvsing. I'm pretty stuffed up from either playing soccer in the hail or from the awful musty smell in my apartment, but it's not hindering my excitement for the game. I've got my red flats, white tshirts and blue cardigan laid out at home with the big American flag. I hope my seat neighbors are pulling for the US or don't mind that I will be a little bit obnoxious. So nothing too funny to share today. Just really excited for the game. Love y'all! USA USA USA :)

Growing Pains

I had my first night in my new apartment last night. As mentioned before, my washer/dryer is actually just a washer so my sheets were still not dry. I just slept in my comforter. HA! The mattress they gave me with the apartment is pretty crappy so I don't mind not putting my sheets on it. I'm having a mattress delivered tomorrow though so am excited about that. So I washed another load of laundry yesterday and now have socks, underwear and shirts hanging all over the apartment on door knobs and chairs. It's a classy sight. Then I put the refrigerator on a really low setting by accident and froze the hell out of my milk and cheese. So, we are back to square one on that. :) I did discover my local "sports bar" last night though. I don't have a tv yet and really wanted to see the USA vs Canada soccer game so decided to go across to the cool pub on the river. Well they don't really have sports bars here and only had one tv. The guy suggested I go to the Folly Bridge Inn where they have sports everywhere. He failed to warn me that it was an old school smelling of 50 years of smoking establishment. And by sports everywhere he meant two tvs and 3 old men playing dominos. In the bar were me, aforementioned three men playing dominoes, the owners and a big dog. I didn't care. The game was amazing. And the beer was only £1.70. Can't beat it!

Football, Olympics and Flats

I seemed to have done a lot this weekend. Friday night I went to the USA vs Serbia volleyball game. My friend Kristen and I took the train into London. The beauty of the train is you can get drinks to go in the train station. So we each had a lovely little cosmo in a can on the way to the games. It was amazing to be around all of it. I go to the women's gold soccer finals on Thursday. I really hope the US makes it! I need to get some more use out of my £2 American flag! Then on Saturday I moved my boxes into my new flat. Benefits of new flat equal: so close to work, awesome people watching of people going along the trail by the river, decent space, and tea maker.  Negatives of the flat equal: Currently smells seriously musty, washer/dryer promised by letting agency is actually just a washer, 70s orange curtains, and the carpet is the hardest thing ever. I had to put tennis shoes on to walk around the flat. I have to go by the store today to get some febreeze. Good stuff... Then yesterday we had another scrimmage with my soccer team. It was sunny when we started playing and then all of a sudden the bottom dropped out. Literally, I've not seen it rain that hard in forever. Then, just when I don't think it can get any worse, it starts to hail. I'm looking around like does anyone else realize we are playing soccer in the hail? I'm thinking any minute someone will come to their senses and call the game off. Oh no, we played the first 30 minutes and it was time for a break. Thankfully, they called it off then because there was no letting up in sight. Totally ridiculous! I dumped water out of my shoes after playing. Definitely was a little homesick yesterday and this morning. I know it will pass but I miss y'all! My coworkers are so great and have cheered me up.

Olympic Fever

It's really strange watching the Olympics in another country. Especially when that country is the host country. It's been so cool. I am still pulling for the States and have definitely gone out and bought a ridiculously large American flag but I am definitely also pulling for Team GB. Did y'all see the gymnastics where they won bronze? That was so good! I know you will all be watching the USA vs. Serbia volleyball match since it is sure to be thrilling. (couldn't name one volleyball player) You will have to watch out for me because I'm going with my new American friend Kristen. I can't wait!!!  I will be waving said obnoxious flag. I'm pretty sure we have nose bleed seats but it will still be really fun. Then I have tickets (actually ticket) since I am going by myself to the Women's Gold medal soccer finals. I'm so excited about that and hope the US makes it. I'll be sitting alone but some girls from my soccer team are going along with one of my coworkers so I can at least go with a group. Love to all!! Oh and I move into my place on Saturday and am SOOOOO excited. I killed it at Ikea last night. It was like shopping for college all over again. Had to buy random things like silverware holders and toothbrush holders. (not that I had either of those in college.... maybe more like when I went shopping after college?) You get the point...

Happy 1 August

For all of you Swiss people out there. I had no idea that August 1 was Swiss Day but now I do because we are hosting Swiss Day at Lincoln. My boss is on vacation so she asked me to be the representative for our office. Awesome since I know so much about Switzerland and I look like I'm Swiss. I couldn't stick out more. Usually we just have some cheese sticks and champagne and toast the flag but this year it's a bigger deal because really smart scientists are holding a meeting here. So there will be a guy from the institute of molecular sciences and some other science people. One person is from a university that is known for their scientific research so I googled them and found this funny news.

1 August 2012 is a special day for ETH Zurich. Heidi -------, the first female rector, is retiring due to age reasons after five years in office 

Poor ole girl is retiring because she is too old. How funny is it that they put it that way?

I'm sure I will have a blog post post Swiss Day lunch as well. :)