crazy man on the tube

So the other night I was on the tube in Central London. It was a fairly full car but not too crowded. This crazy old man got in the car and yelled, "Can I have your attention: Please don't fart on the train! It's very crowded and if you fart you're just going to gas us all out!" Now that's funny stuff! I was laughing like a 12 year old boy at a fart joke -how could you not? Unfortunately, if you recall the Denial Rule you won't be surprised that some people didn't react at all. I would say a good amount of them at least chuckled, though.

emergency text?

Thanks to Kelly for pointing out this useful new texting service in London. Here's hoping I don't need to use it.

yes, I CAN cook!

This Thanksgiving presented the true test. I thought it would be fun to celebrate Thanksgiving with all my friends but the catch was that I'd never prepared any dishes from Thanksgiving before! So Mom and I collected all the recipes and I started getting organized. I was a little nervous, especially about the turkey and the gravy...I had to prove to my friends that I could cook things that didn't come out of a box! Everything turned out great- the gravy was very tasty, if I do say so myself.We also had them make hand turkeys to expose them to the wonderful elementary crafts we enjoy.Some of the satisfied customers!
Thanks to Melissa for all of the help! I couldn't have pulled it off without her.

I'd do anything for a klondike

I've been looking forward to the Kanye West concert for awhile now...and it did not disappoint. We were out of our seats dancing the whole night! There was a good review in the paper here which I think sums it up well. Like I said, I'm not much of a music critic I just know what I like - and I love Kanye!

I get by...

...with a little help from my friends.

I recently listened to a sermon from my church, St. Andrews at 7, on Friendship. I highly recommend downloading it (here - see "Friendship" by Phil Allcock on 28/10/07). It was from a series about relationships which I found extremely helpful and would recommend them all. This one in particular was great and pointed out how our culture often devalues friendship but how important the Bible says it is. It will definitely make you appreciate your friends.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! This is a unique Thanksgiving for me since it's my first away from home. This morning Melissa and I went to a Thanksgiving service at St. Paul's Cathedral. I was a little wary of going because I've never been able to reconcile how I feel about mixing patriotic type holidays with church. I'm also skeptical of attending any Church of England* services since I know that many of its leaders don't believe in Biblical Christianity or that everything Jesus said was true. It turned out to be pretty much what I expected, here are a few of my observations.

The man who spoke to open the service (whatever his crazy title was) said this was his first time to be involved in a Thanksgiving service but if it meant a full cathedral (as it was today) he would be involved all the time. Well, after sitting through the service I can see why the building isn't always overflowing.

The American ambassador to England said a few words. He mostly talked about family and not surprisingly, giving thanks. He called the service "a celebration of Americans in London." Fair enough, but then why are we meeting in a cathedral and calling it a church service?

Finally, the leader of the American Church in London gave the sermon based on 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 about sowing generously. He said that Paul's gospel meant that living a thankful and generous life "was the path to life as God intended it to be." He stated something along the lines that "no matter who you believe Jesus is- a prophet, cool guy, or Lord and Savior...his teaching tells us how God wants us to live our lives." Hmmm...I think he got it backwards. The Bible actually states that Christ is the path to life as God intended and that through his grace we are enabled to live thankful and generous lives. At the end he had everyone say aloud with him,"Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift." Unfortunately the sermon never mentioned what that indescribable gift really was. I can see why that church isn't full. What they preach is not different than any other religion that teaches I can make it to heaven on my own, so why bother believing anything at all?

At least the offering was to support the International Justice Mission: A Christian human rights organization that advocates justice for those who have no support - including those enslaved by human trafficking. Now that's something I can get behind. The man told a story of a girl who had been rescued from a brothel in Thailand. While she was held she had scratched into her wall Psalm 27, "The Lord is my light and my salvation- whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid? When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall." After her rescue she quoted Psalm 34, "I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips...I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears." Wow.



*I also think it's a little ironic that the pilgrims left England in pursuit of religious freedom, but today Americans were gathered in the Church of England to celebrate.

lack of a competitive market

I like to throw in an economics lesson every once in a while. This Thanksgiving I have been presented with the perfect opportunity. If you don't find this interesting you might like Freakonomics; the authors' examples are a little more impressive than mine.

I have chosen to celebrate Thanksgiving in London. I thought it would be fun to introduce my friends here to the holiday. (I've never cooked any Thanksgiving dishes at all so this will be quite the experiment.) The first test was finding a turkey. Obviously not everyone here is buying them at this time so I had to special order it from a butcher. That's when I realized this was going to be an expensive party!

In American turkeys are being advertised for 57 cents per pound. That's less than $15 for a 15 pound turkey. All economic theories are based on a perfectly competitive market but in the UK the turkey market is not perfectly competitive. Since not everyone here is buying one, sellers do not have to be especially competitive when it comes to the price. This causes the price of turkeys to be unfortunately high.

A second possible reason for the high price is the bird flu epidemic that is happening here. This essentially causes a shock to the theoretical production function of turkeys. This causes the supply of turkeys to be low and therefore drives up the price. All of this, combined with the imperfect currency market means that my turkey will cost about 10 times as much as a turkey in the US.

Happy Thanksgiving!

slip ups

I've had a few slip ups in my quest to retain the integrity of my American culture. I've been drinking a lot of tea this week. It started as an attempt to find something to put my echinacea drops in so that I wouldn't actually taste the drops. After drinking several cups I decided tea definitely does have a different relaxation quality about it that coffee doesn't have. I'm sure I still like coffee better though.

Perhaps more embarrassing, I said the word "keen" a couple of times. Since I realized this I have become extra vigilant so as not to make that mistake again. Here they use the word keen in the context, "Are you keen to go to the movies this weekend?" or "I'm really keen to read that book." But I can't shake the association of that word with, "Gee that's keen!" which sounds like a line straight out of Leave it to Beaver.

It's a good thing Melissa is coming next weekend; she can set me straight!

PS. Melissa & Melody- I almost put a comma splice in that last sentence but I caught myself thanks to your tutoring. I hope I got it right! I'm sure there might be others in there, though.

stream of consciousness

I’m sitting at the airport in Frankfurt. It’s 8:30 on a Friday night and I’m looking at getting home around 11pm. This is exactly how I want to spend my night. So, I figured while I had time to kill I would write. As I write this I’m taking a break from reading, “A Dark Oval Stone.” I’ll probably have it finished by the time I get home tonight. It’s really good. The only problem is it deals a lot with grief, and because I’m a crier I tend to cry over these books which is not good when you’re in a public place. I don't think anyone is staring at me yet...I’m also listening to the new Iron and Wine album, “The Shepherd’s Dog.” I recommend this as well.

I’m still amused at the “conversation” I had with my taxi driver on the way here. In broken English he was describing the German social welfare system and then saying how horrible the US system was. How could millions of people be living on the streets? How could they not afford health insurance? Then he asked me what I thought about it. Wow, that’s a complicated question to end a day of 4 hour meetings.

Getting through security was frustrating. I thought the Germans were supposed to be efficient but we were all going through one security line. On top of that, the conveyor belt with everyone’s bags was crawling and there seemed to be lots of security people standing around pointlessly. And if they did it right the first time why do I have to go through security again at the gate? Nothing like doing the same work twice…

Fortunately I've developed a defense mechanism in travel situations. I’m normally somewhat impatient when it comes to time and waiting (which you probably already knew). But when I travel I force myself to be utterly relaxed. If I let anything get to me it will all snow-ball. With so much traveling my stress level would skyrocket. So I choose to remain perfectly relaxed in my own little bubble.

There is one silver lining to a one day business trip to Germany. It's not the duty-free shopping because I am so over that. (Just because the Vera Wang is duty free it doesn't mean I can afford it.) But I can afford Haribo. My favorite Haribo are the “happy cherries” but they don’t sell them in the UK. So I was overjoyed- perhaps disturbingly so, to find them in a shop here and bought two bags. I had to hold myself back from buying more.

that's all folks

Sitting through a long conference call today, led by folks in Cincinnati reminded me just how often folks in America refer to folks as "folks." Is this just a mid-western thing or do all folks say it?

I never really did like that word much...look at it closely and you'll see just how weird it looks. Plus it just sounds weird.

Poppies

Sunday is Remembrance Day in England. It's basically the British Memorial Day and is observed in several other countries. The main symbol of Remembrance Day is the poppy. Last year at this time I remember seeing guys selling paper poppies on the streets, and everyone seemed to be wearing them on their coats. Then I started seeing it again this year so I finally asked what they were for. The money raised goes to the British Royal Legion.

It's interesting because everyone actually wears them for about 2 weeks before the actual day. I'm not sure if anyone in America would wear them. I suppose if it was the tradition then maybe we would. Overall, I think we're less oriented toward traditions...but maybe that's just me. This year the British Royal Legion has gone high tech and you can now send poppies to friends on Facebook.

a little weight

I think I put on a little weight while I was home on vacation, not that I am too surprised by that. I know I'm not supposed to say things like that but I'm guessing you probably wouldn't know how much weight I'd gained if I told you in in stone.

They use stone as a measure of weight here a lot. I am always wondering, "don't all stones weight different amounts?" It's like saying something is heavy, but in relation to what? But alas, stone does have an actual weight attached to it. It's actually equal to 14 pounds or 6.4 kilograms. Apparently it originated as a reference to the weight of potato sacks...how modern. At least it's not the official unit of measure anymore but people still measure their weight according to it.

Well, unfortunately for you since I told you the conversion I won't tell you how much I gained. Hopefully it's less than 1 stone!

driving on the right...or is is the left?

I've got good news and bad news.

The good news is I found out I can get a company car!

The bad news is I have to now get a UK driving license. Unfortunately my US license is only good 12 months from the date I became a resident. I think it should be 12 months from the time I start driving but I doubt the government is really going to hear me out on this one. That means I have to apply for a provisional (temporary) license, pass a written test and a practical driving test. Deja vu. Didn't I already do this 10 years ago?? This is definitely one of those experiences I was hoping not to repeat.

yeah...

new music

Last night I went to a cool music venue called The Bedford. The entry was free, the atmosphere was cool and the music was great! There were 5 bands that each played 4 songs. Of the 5 bands I had 2 favorites. August Way is a cool band from Australia and Marcus Bonfanti was an awesome bluesy singer and guitar player. Check them out!

pumpkins

I brought back some mellowcreme pumpkins to share with friends here. They seem to think that they taste like fudge. I've never really thought about because to me they taste like, well...candy pumpkins. Any thoughts?