Yesterday, Josh and I made a pilgrimage north up the Bakerloo line to Kilburn where we paid homage to the wonderful store that is Poundland. Well actually, we liked the 99pense store better, but it's all good. =D It's funny--I turned into a big spender when everything was only a pound!
I bought lots of stuff for our flat: dish towels, some cute mugs, extra spoons, air freshener, cleaners, big baking pans, etc. It...was...AWESOME! But the downside was I had to carry this ginormous bag home on the Tube and then lug it up three flights of stairs to my flat because the lift broke again. Sheesh! I seriously hope I'm loosing weight from all the stair-climbing. =D
I'm really starting to miss Fresno. I miss my car, my room, my movies, my puppy, my kitties, my peeps, everything! I even miss going shopping at Riverpark. I think one of the first thing I'm going to do when I get back is to hop in Percy and drive all around Fresno again. I can hardly remember driving now--all I ride here is the Underground and buses. I've only been in a nice car once, and I felt really spoiled. Haha!
I miss movies at Edwards, too! :(
I've really had to downsize here; there's a completely different mindset. Everything is on a much smaller scale. For one, not that many people here have cars (only the rich people have cars), so everybody takes public transport. This means if you go grocery shopping, you can only buy the equivalent of two bags of groceries because you have to carry it home. As a consequence, you only buy about two meals worth of stuff which means I'm going the the grocery store two or three times a week. At first it was annoying, but now I'm shocked that back home we would load up our trunks with a month's worth of food. Weird.
Also, the grocery stores here are small--sometimes only a quarter of the size of a SaveMart or Vons in Fresno. There are big stores that are "American" size, but they're out in the 'burbs. Marika went into a SaveMart sized Sainsburys in Canterbury and our eyes about bugged out of our heads. We got so lost in there--and all we wanted was some water!
Also, the appliances here in the city are smaller. Our refrigerator comes up to my waist, so we really can't fit that much stuff in there; it's a good thing we have two! We have a front-loader washer/dryer combo, i.e. the same machine washes and dries our clothes. It's probably a third of the size of mom and dad's new washing machine, but it washes great! Oh well.
I'm beginning to miss the wide open spaces of the West. I miss my California sunshine. The sunshine here is cold, if that makes sense. If the sky is grey and cloudy, the temperature actually feels warmer. When the sun shines, it's colder!
Oh, the other funny thing is that I think the British pretend they hate Americans. They're always like, "Oh, the Americans are stupid. They're presidental races are ridiculous. They're culture is so loud and obnoxious. They're so violent, too (The Brities are very much against the war in Iraq). They always have to solve other people's problems, blah, blah, blah."
However...
They love our fashion, our television shows, our movies, our music. It makes me laugh. I think they're just jealous. Yeah...or not.
So anywho, that's all. Now I need to go work on my homework. Poopy. I have too much to do; maybe if I whine about it all the work will go away.
*sigh*
No comments:
Post a Comment