Never Eat a British Burger

Mele Kalikimaka! (It's the thing to say on a bright, Hawaiian Christmas day).

Christmas in England was all I thought it was going to be. There was lots of food, lots of drinks, and lots of hugs and kisses. It was a lot of fun! I also had my first experience with a Christmas cracker. It's a tacky, but fun, present that two people pull on the ends of and it, well, "cracks"! It's filled with little toys and prizes. Think of a pinata, but with a British accent. After the Christmas cracking and turkey eating, everyone played "Britain's Got Talent" the board game. It's safe to say that I have no talent, and I'm not British (all because I didn't know the theme song to the popular British TV show "Dr. Who"). While I wasn't at home in Kansas, in the freezing temperatures and feet of snow, being in England for "Father Christmas", as they call Santa, and Cadbury chocolate eating wasn't so bad. Playing catch with an electric-shocking bouncing ball and having people explain Christmas puddings and mincemeat pies, made Christmas a fun day. I hope everyone else was able to enjoy it as much as I did!

As for today, two days after Boxing day, we closed early on a Sunday roast day, and six of us employees were able to enjoy a Co-worker Christmas party, minus the bosses. Nikkola, James, Ben, Andy and his girlfriend Ashley, and I went to the city of Watford and enjoyed a nice game of bowling. Not just bowling...COSMIC bowling! And not just cosmic bowling...DRUNK cosmic bowling! We each bought a round of drinks as we bowled our hearts out. So, after stumbling through 10 frames, we played once more, and drank more, and enjoyed the night off. After the bowling/drinking (I went all six rounds...of drinking. But barely scored 100 in the bowling portion of the evening), we hopped across the street to a nice, little chain restaurant. When I heard "Great American food" I immediately thought, "Thank god! A Burger!" Because, let's be honest, that's all I've been craving. So, with pizza's ordered, and onion rings, and pasta's, I put in my order for a bacon cheeseburger, no mayo. It's got to be good, right? Wrong. Not only did they put mayo on my burger, which was later nixed from our bill, because of the screw up, but it also didn't have the same juiciness and the same beautiful taste that is a great American burger. It tasted more like sausage than anything. So, managing to eat nearly a 1/4 of the burger, I sat it down, and sulked in the disappointing moment. I guess it'll be another 5 1/2 months before I taste another succulent burger from home. Be sure to line them up for me.

Outside of the burger, my co-worker Christmas party was very much needed. Working and living in the same building doesn't allow much time to get out, but tonight I did, and it was more fun than the past few days combined! Hopefully I'll get more days like this.
Oh, and one more Christmas present the staff received: 3 days in Mallorca, Spain January 12-15. That will be a great vacation!
Everyone eat a burger for me!
xo's,
jill

Thank (Cadbury) Crunchie it's Friday!

I'd like to introduce you to my new friend. His name is "Crunchie" and he has a chocolate outside with a golden honeycomb center. He can be found in aisle 13 at the Sainsbury's Supermarket in King's Langley, just a short drive from here. When I first heard of the Crunchie, I was told it was going to be one of the best candy bars I'd ever eaten. Ever eaten? I was skeptical, considering I was a connoisseur of fatty, chocolatey goodness, so I immediately had flashbacks of pre-teen years, grasping melty Butterfingers or Kit-Kats on hot Kansas summer days. Or, Hershey bars and Snicker's spread out along a floor after a chilly night of trick-or-treating, roaming house to house as a sugar-crazed 10 year old ghost. Surely this Crunchie couldn't quite encompass all the happiness that comes wrapped in a candy bar. It must just be some British fraud dressed as a candy bar, but actually containing calves liver and blood pudding with some hokey accent proclaiming "Aye-ya!" as it walks into a room and "Cheers!" as it leaves. But with one, slow, no-pun-intended 'crunchy' bite, I embraced the British candy bar and began to reminisce of a first week of pub work; George, a local, buying me a vodka and coke after my first order screw-up, William, the 17 year old dishwasher forcing me to eat my first mincemeat pie without actually telling me there's no meat in it, and Thomas the cat sleeping on my bed nearly every night, keeping my feet warm during the cold English nights. Although it gets stuck in teeth and adds 7 grams of fat to my belly, the Crunchie bar is in fact, one of the best candy bars I've ever eaten. The jury is still out on the mincemeat pie, however.

xo's from London,
jill

My Jilly Lies Over the Ocean...

"Well, when you're down on your luck, and you ain't got a buck, in London you're a goner."- Jimmy Buffett "London Homesick Blues"

Today I spent about 20pound just on transportation in/around/out of London. But where I felt I wasted money, I also managed to save, believe it or not. My dinner for 1 at Piazza (some fake Italian restaurant near Covent Garden) was only 10pound. And it was actually good! Covent Garden was by-far the highlight of my day. That's not saying a lot, considering it was the only place I was actually able to visit. But after 2 hours in a small, hot room, setting up my bank account with about a dozen Australians and New Zealanders (Aussies and Kiwis, I believe) I was ready to get out and actually see London. So, at the advise of my co-workers, Covent Garden it was.
On the short walk from the bank meeting to the garden, I was able to ponder (is that a British word? Sounds like it) topics that had confused me all day on Thursday. A) The Aussie girl I work with kept telling me it's "bitterly cold" in London "at least -1'." I'm smart enough to know the -1 was in Celsius and just below 32'F. But when I walked around London, it really wasn't that cold. So, when I got back to the pub, I asked the Aussie where in Australia she's from. "Just outside Melbourne. The coldest it gets is 8'." That explains why she said it was so cold she couldn't breathe. I think maybe there should be a reality TV show that gives away $1 million to the first Aussie that can stand 20 minutes in a midwestern winter day. B) On the topic of Aussies/Kiwis;they're everywhere! On the underground, I kind of felt like maybe I flew to the wrong country and somehow ended up in Oceania. My new game on the tube is "spot the Aussie/Kiwi" It's really easy. They're usually the one's that think it's way too cold to live. And C) People drink a lot here. Probably about as much as a 19 year old Frat boy in Kansas. But they don't get out of hand. They just start talking really loud and laughing at everything, even at the lack of Cider (an alcoholic drink that is like Apple Cider, but for those legal to drink) in America. I tried one and it is actually a good drink. "A dangerous booger," said the local Baldy Paul. He's bald, hence the nickname.
The only other thing I did today was see Parliament and the London Eye. It was night, so everything was lit up and Shops had Christmas lights everywhere. My take on London: so far, just that there are tons of people. It's really a nice place. It's kind of like Chicago, but with less homeless people and, well, 6 million more people.

Oh, and a note about Jet-lag: it's kind of like a bad hangover, but you remember everything that happened the night before; you flew a total of 8 hours, watched the in-flight movie "The Sound of Music", midway through the headphones breaking so you repeated each line in your head (because you're crazy like that) and then you didn't sleep at all, because the jerk behind you was poking your chair.

But don't worry, I'm over it. Especially after I found out they're filming the last Harry Potter film down the street. Literally, down the street. I can see Hagrad's house! Maybe I will meet Ron Weasley...

xo's,
jill