elc984

As part of my job our directors have asked the front desk staff to try out some of our fitness classes so that we can better explain them to members. It's not required, and we don't pay (we never pay!) but it's just one of those things that we should do if we can.

In general I'm a fan of this, and have been taking a class for 4 weeks now that I really like. I take it with 3 other girls I work with. I can only go 2 out of 3 days a week, but I'm still finding it really enjoyable.

On Mondays we do kick-boxing with this girl named Jennie. She's super and I really enjoy her and her class. We do 45 of cardio and then 15 minutes of fun weights (like looping exercise bands around each others waists and have someone try and hold you in place while you try to run across the room...oh so fun.) and then 15 minutes of abs.

One Wednesdays we have the mean Colombian lady, Imira (I think that's her name) and she teaches us step aerobics. Again we do 45 minutes of cardio and 15 of weights (not fun, though, VERY mean) and 15 of abs (painful!).

So anyway, Jennie is very good at explaining things and she understands well when people don't get what's going on.

Colombian lady, not so much. She just keeps on trucking. It's taken me 4 sessions to finally get an L step right. And I was just starting to feel comfortable in that class and understand what was going on. Coordination? You mean I actually have some! Celebrate good times, c'mon.

And then.

I fell off my freakin' step today! Not even during some tricky jump or turn thing like we were doing before, during a regular step. And my co-worker who was standing behind me thought it was hilarious. It was. I mean that seriously. It was funny. It didn't really hurt at all which made it better!

What's not so funny, however, is that I've actually sprained my ankle! It's not that bad, I can still walk and I only have a small limp but it's mildly painful/

And I've got a bruised ego.

This is funny. You should read them.

Things My Boyfriend Says

I promise you'll laugh.

This one made me snort...

A visit to the dentist.

"I think I'll ask the dentist to install tusks in my face so I can fully embrace my orcish heritage."

For every African Studies course you take you have to do a map quiz. It's pretty much required, and I hate it. Not because I'm bad but because it's such a tedious task. This time, though, our instructor has given us two online puzzles to practice with and I'm getting good.

This is the first one:

http://www.yourchildlearns.com/mappuzzle/africa-puzzle.html

Start with the puzzles with outlines. Just click on the country and drag it to its location. If you get it wrong it will put it at the end of the queue. After you place all the countries it will tell you your time. My best time on the map with outlines is 1:58, and without outlines my best time is 2:49.

This is the second:

http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/afrquiz.html

On the right is says "Where is...?" and you then have to click on the correct location. You have 3 tries to get it right, if you get it right on the first try it's 3 points, 2 if it's the 2nd, and 1 on the third attempt. If you don't get it right by then you just have to move on. Note that the islands count too! The total amount of points available is 162 and my best attempt is 159.

If you don't know the geography of Africa I suggest looking over a map first before you try them out!

Sorry, but I love sports photography because you get people in the funniest positions. For example:



The short one is Craig Bellamy, and the tall one is Peter Crouch. I do believe that Crouch is jumping a bit off the ground, but he's seriously that tall. I believe he's 6'7". He's ginormous and it's too funny. But I love him so. And if he goes to Newcastle I'm going to be upset because Liverpool is such a good fit for him. When you're 6'7" good fits are hard to come by.

So, Jiffy Girls, do you remember Kim who was the teacher at Binford who used to come in all the time to get something made with twist yogurt (either a cyclone with butterfinger or a hot caramel sundae with crushed pecans)? She had a daughter named Lisa who got married during my first summer there, and her daughter was a teacher at St. Charles.

Anyway, my first day working at the YMCA I saw the aquatics director and was like "I know him from somewhere!" and someone told me his name which I didn't recognize at all. Then I had this moment of recognition! He's Lisa's husband! He's related to Kim the yogurt lady! Ryan and Lisa have a new baby named Sophie who was born in August, and Kim has recently gotten married to the man who proposed to her in the M&M bag. Initially he didn't recognize me until his mother-in-law came in for a FitTrip one day, and then Lisa came too and they were like "OMG! It's A Jiffy Reunion!".

Today while I was working Ryan and I had a long and meaningful discussion about Jiffy Treet pre-ghetoization, and how I knew his wife and mother-in-law through their important days that they spent at Jiffy Treet. (On their wedding day Lisa and Kim came in the Jiffy Treet after Lisa got her hair done and she had her veil on too. That, my friends, is dedication to the Jiffy cause.) He said that they haven't been to that store in about a year, but I gave him directions to Dave's store and he and Lisa are going to go and visit with the baby...who, by the way, is possibly the cutest child ever.

Ah, Jiffy Treet.

And on a completely unrelated note Chex Mix Tropical is absolutely divine.

Today Simon, Sara, and I went to Nottingham for the day. My mission was to go close my bank account, get an England football shirt, and some lip gloss from Lush (because it's fan-fucking-tastic!). Somehow, though, I've ended up with that all done, and 6 new CDs and a dress too!

Let's concentrate on the dress...I've had my eyes on this gorgeous blue dress from this shop called Monsoon. However, it was 60 pounds ($110) and I couldn't justify spending that money on a dress I had no use for. Anyway, Sara had to go to the bank which was right next to the store and Simon said he wanted to see this dress I'd been talking about. We went in and he said that he really liked the dress and thought I should get it, but I refused to even try it on because I didn't want to spend that much money on it. He persisted about it, but lucky for me the only one in my size had a huge stain on it. I thought we were done and then Simon said that the green, which there were a few of, would look even better on me. Then Sara showed up and said that either she was going to try the dress on or I would so I somehow ended up in the dressing room with this green dress on...and I loved it. But I wasn't going to buy it. Too much money. Then I took it off and was standing near the till and the lady asked me if it worked and I said yes, but no and then Simon took it from me and paid for it.

So now I can justify having this gorgeous green dress that I want to wear, but have no occassion for it because Simon bought it...not me.

Wow. My brain is so mushy right now, I'm not even kidding.

I have exams on Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday and I've pretty much been going at it for 8 hours a day for the last week and a half. I did have a day or so off in there, but seriously it's been oh so not fun. It's just that the class topics are so friggin broad and they can't tell you anything about content at all, so there's no narrowing it down. And lectures are so much more broad, they cover everything once so there's no way of picking up on what is more important because we've talked about it already. Then there's the fact that you can't do an essay on the exam that pertains to your essay or seminar topic...so the stuff I DO know is useless! I suppose that the good thing is I'm aiming for somewhere above a 60% because a 60 is a B+ and that's my aspiration right now. If I pull an A out of my ass then it's a friggin miracle, but I'm not really forseeing that right now as I have too much information in my brain.

We went and saw the Da Vinci code on Friday. We went at 2 in the afternoon so it wouldn't be that crowded. I thought it was long movie. I actually had to go pee in the middle of it because I drank too much Diet Coke. Aside from that, I thought it was good. It's been a while since I've read the book, but I still thought it did justice to it. The only thing that annoyed me slightly was the end because the old lady didn't explain it correctly...

( If you haven't seen it, don't read this bit! )

We went to London last Tuesday. Simon had his visa appointment at the American Embassy. I wasn't allowed to go, nor did I particularly want to waste a day in London in an office...so instead I mossied my way on over to the Imperial War Museum.

First. On a map Victoria doesn't look THAT far from the museum, but in actuality it's a long friggin' walk. The museum itself is really, really impressive. It's 4 floors of stuff, but I only went to two because that was all I could see in 3.5 hours! The first floor is every conflict/war since WWI. There's this really cool part called 'The Trench Experience' and it scared me shitless. My favorite part was the fourth floor because it was just this huge Holocaust exhibit and it had so much cool stuff. It was a bit creepy because they have the examination table from Auschwitz and one of the carts they used to move the dead bodies in the Warsaw ghetto. It was definitely an emotional place. Especially because all through the exhibit they have video recordings of survivor's stories and they're really touching. I wish I could have sat and watched them all but I didn't have the time.

After the museum I took the tube up to Camden Town to meet Simon. Camden Town is a borough of London, but it's basically like one big street market/vintage store/gothic store/futuristic store. Has anyone ever see Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's Winning London? The bit where they go shopping and have their mini-fashion show is in Camden Town. I can't really describe it any better other than saying that there are lots of booths to buy crafts and jewellery and whatnot, then there are hundreds of vintage shops, and some small shops that sell 'new age' clothing that looks like it's from outer space, and then you have stores that are like Hot Topic times 145339493329. It was really fun to walk around, though, because we definitely got to see some very interesting people.

From there Simon decided that I hadn't done enough walking that day (because 2 or 3 miles wasn't enough!) and wanted to walk back to King's Cross/St. Pancras via Regent's Park (that's where the zoo is). All would have been fine and dandy except that the heavens decided to open and unleash on us and we had to walk across this HUGE park under a tiny umbrella. I will say, though, that the park is GORGEOUS and has amazing gardens...but it was really raining.

Anyway, I'm coming him in like a week and a half. That's crazy ridiculous. I get to drive again!!

It's 11:25 and I've eaten a whole roll of spearmint Polos...they're just like wintergreen lifesavers, but called Spearmint Polos. Who knew?

Also, I've never been so happy to get a 68 in my whole friggin life! A 70 or above is (a) equivalent to an A+ and (b) impossible because they take grading so ridiculously serious here. Not even kidding. Anyway, that 68 is worth 50% of my grade...so I'm pretty damn pumped about it!

We had our program dinner last night at this fantastic Indian restaurant called Mem-Saab.

Seriously.

SO GOOD.

We started of with pompadons, then I split a scallop tandoori starter with Christina, and then came the main course of king prawn korma with three different kinds of naan bread. O. M. G. I think I'm still full.

My mission when I get home is to find a good Indian restaurant in Bloomington to serve me curries whenever I want them.

The socializing at the meal was great. I had a long debate with James, our program director, about the merits of the England World Cup squad. I was only able to do this because James has the same ideas about the ways Sven runs the England team as does Simon so I could easily regurgitate names and figures that I've picked up from my lovely boyfriend.

We also ended up in some debate with the Nottingham staff and James trying to explain to two girls that protesters generally aren't anti-America, they are anti-Bush and we got into this long discussion about how they are two completely separate entities that people often confuse. Honestly, I've never felt threatened or uncomfortable with anti-war/anti-Bush protests. I haven't seen many, and when I did I didn't feel like they were directed at me. I've had nothing but positive experiences with people here and have never felt like anyone was blaming me or singling me out. Others, though, feel like when people criticize Iraq they are criticizing Americans as a whole. We figured it out, though, that the people who feel like they've been mistreated are those who are Bush supporters! That makes sense, I guess, because then you feel like your beliefs are being attacked.

For the record I didn't think going into Iraq was a good idea in the beginning, but right now I think we're too far in to withdraw so the best thing to do is to support the troops and hope they return home safe and soon. Just because I didn't support the war initially doesn't mean I am a bitch. And just because I say we should support the troops now doesn't mean I support the war, it just means that I support them for doing their jobs and helping people. That's all. Please don't tell me that I think otherwise or else I might fling the nasty Punjabi drink in your face.

And yeah, if someone offers you a punjabi drink at an Indian restaurant you might think twice. It was yogurt with cumin and some alcohol. I had a sip and it made me gag and I had to spit it out. AT THE TABLE.

ANYWAY!

Dinner was fantastic. I earned £10 while I was there. I'm not a complete and utter uber-evil bitch. At least not all the time. And I want more Indian food. Now.

Loads of stuff to talk about. In no particular order...

1.) On Friday I went to my Politics Seminar and as I was walking in the door the Tutor, Phil, said we were going outside for class. I thought that was a good idea since it was like 80 outside and no where has air conditioning so it was all stuffy inside. But the REAL reason we went outside? The 8 boys in my class had bought a big case of bottled beer and bribed Phil. So we went outside and the boys and Phil each drank 3 beers whilst we had class (the other girl and I didn't want any, but we were offered).

Coming from a dry campus this has to have been one of the weirdest classes I've ever had. Fine, I can handle students drinking...it's what they do...but the Tutor joining in DURING class? That's odd!

2.) Since I've been here I've spent less than half the amount of money I thought I would. I'm kind of happy about that.

3.) I friggin love Deal of No Deal. It's on every day at 4:15 and Simon and I watch it together. On Saturday Morris was offered $101,000 and he only had the $20,000 and the $250,000 left and he didn't take the deal and ended up with $20,000. I almost peed my pants watching that. It was crazy.

4.) This is my last week of classes and then I just have exams. Which I'm not prepared for. At all.

5.) We're going to London on Tuesday (as in a week from today). Simon has a visa appointment so he can work at camp. That means he'll have to sit in the embassy all day long (3-4 hours is the average) and, ironically enough, I'm not allowed in the American embassy. But that's okay because I'm going to do something fun. I thought maybe I'd spend money and buy pretty things for myself, but I don't really have room for more stuff in my bags, so instead I think I'm going to hit up the Imperial War Museum and maybe even Tate Modern too. I have to confess I don't really like looking at art (especially portraits...which is why I'm NOT going to the National Portrait Gallery), but I do like me some modern art and I hear that the Tate is full of it. And I think I'm going to make Simon walk me around Kensington Gardens. It should be warm next week, which would be a good reason to pretend like we live in a castle and can eat swan.

6.) Tonight I have a group 'going away' dinner with my program group and our director, James. He's booked us at this 5 star Indian restaurant in Nottingham and I'm kind of pumped about it. I love me some Chicken Korma (yum, yum!) but I also love me some free food...especially because it's expensive food!

7.) I have to buy another suit case. :( I did not calculate for the fact that I have to fit my coats in my bags to go home, and since I've picked up another one since being here that makes it even more difficult. Since I already have to pay $200 to change my flight I absolutely refuse to pay Delta $50 more for an extra bag on the flight. SO. I'm getting a carry-on sized suitcase and shall put my laptop in there with a bunch of other stuff and just cram and pray that it all fits. Simon can bring some stuff for me, but I really don't want to have him bring loads of winter clothes to me at camp because I have no use for them!

8.) I have really bad gas.

I've really been meaning to write about this since I got here, but I just keep forgetting.

The strangest looking motor vehicle ever has to be the Robin Reliant...



That's right. It's a three wheeled car. And there are too many of them in this country. They actually aren't very common at all, in fact they're just a weird cult car that they made from 1973-2002...but the cult seems to have it's headquarters near our house so we see them every day.

Firstly, they look like something that should come out of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. You know, with rationing and all they just couldn't afford that fourth wheel.

Secondly, they freak me out. I'm convinced that if you get the balance wrong then it's going to tip over. Simon has told me several times that the engineers work to prevent that from happening, but what if a really heavy person is driving? And every time we get close to one it always seems like there's a driver, front passenger, and back passenger sitting right in the middle of the car. Simon says it's coincidence and you can drive it with any seating configuration and no one will tip over, but I'm highly unconvinced.

Also, what happens if you're driving along and you blow out your front tire? You flip over and die! When my trusty T-1000 broke it's wheel-thingy we didn't flip over and die, we just went off the road.

Third, it's just friggin weird to see a three wheeled car.

4-wheeled cars 4 lyfe.

I've just reached that point in an essay when you go 'this is as perfect as it can be' and I went to check the word count and do you know what it said?

EXACTLY 2000!

I'm psychic like that. Supposed to be 2000 and I hit the nail on the head. Now I don't really care what I got on it because I have the satisfaction of knowing that I to it perfect (in terms of words).

I've just come to a conclusion.

I'm a water snob.

A friggin water snob.

I only realized this because every morning I wait outside of Boots (the pharmacy) until the doors open at 8:30 (I normally get here at 8:20) and then I go in and get my litre bottle of Volvic water with the easy to open cap and I always have my 95p waiting to pay with.

However, this morning Boots isn't opening until 9:00am and I've got a paper to finish (it's due at 4) and no time to wait 40 minutes outside of Boots so I had to suck up my water pride and go to the Student Union Shop and ponder what kind of crappy water I should drink today.

I settled for Evian, but I just don't like it. It tastes like feet. All the bottled water here tastes like feet except for Volvic which tastes just like Poland Springs water at home, which coincidentally enough I love.

So I admit it, I'm a water snob. And Evian you only won today's water battle because you too have the easy to open sports cap which I am a sucker for.

But there's nothing wrong with not wanting to taste dirty nasty smelly feet every time you take a drink.

I finally got my hair cut today! Seriously. 5 months of hair growth. It wasn't nice.

So we need a cheesy photo to celebrate this event...





In other news, it's 10:22pm and I'm home alone!

There's a flood at Loscoe (Simon's dead grandmother's house) so everyone is there trying to get it sorted out, but somehow I got out of going.

When I was in kindergarten and first grade I had these jeans which I though were ultra cool. They were light in colour, and tapered at the ankles. My favourtie part, however, was that at the tapered ankles there were little zippers with bows above them so that, if you so wished, you could give yourself more ankle room.

While I loved my jeans then, I wasn't too sad to see them go because they were, after all, a momentary blip on the fashion radar which symbolized a unique moment in time when the youngsters of the world were seemingly saying 'Look at me, I can make the choice as to whether or not I want to have excess ankle room.' I'm sure it had something to do with the end of the Cold War and telling the USSR to take communism and shove it up their left nostril because, by-golly, the youth of America are not only free to do as they please (within their parents rules, of course) but this freedom includes the option of undoing their ankle zippers to let in a nice breeze.

Imagine my surprise today, then, when I was walking into the library and a girl walked by me and she had on tapered jeans (all of the wannabe cool kids are wearing them--so that's obviously not me...I'm a genuine cool kid) but they looked way too tapered to be regular jeans so I looked down towards her feet and what did I see?

Zippers at the ankles.

God must hate us all.

Why?

Because he left out the bows this time.

And because tapered jeans with zippers on the ankles are back.

For fuck's sake, friends!

1.)Simon's happy with me because last night we were watching a football (as in the soccer sort) game between and English club (Arsenal) and a Spanish clud (Villa Real), and I got so into the game that I was pretty much yelling at the TV. I don't know what came over me because really I don't give two hoots about who wins, but I was possessed by some football demon and made to react. The good news is that all of my yelling made the Villa Real man miss the penalty kick at the goal keeper and then Arsenal won. Go them!

2.) I love flapjacks. Really. Not the pancake sort. I don't even know how to describe these things. They're sort of like a soft (not chewy) granola bar, and then they have some sort of flavoured topping (chocolate, butterscotch, black forest, etc). They're pretty much a meal in themselves, but I'd be quite happy (and fat) to just live off of them.

3.) I used to be under the impression that the only thing worse than one-ply toilet paper was going without (or maybe wiping your bum on the ground)...however, I'm ready to admit there's something worse.

I hate hate hate (did I mention hate?) when they give you these little one-ply individual squares to use. Seriously. They're like really cheap tissues that you would blow your nose on and get a bloody nose. But they're only about 3x3 inches. They're tiny. And they're so thin. And they normally come in some hideous colour (like pink). And it takes approximately 5987837483 of them wadded up together to do the job. I use nicer tissue paper when I'm wrapping a gift.

4.) 3.5 weeks ago Simon's dad broke the shower tray in their bathroom (the shower tray is the part that you stand on if you don't have a bathtub, or if the bath is entirely separate from the shower). It was meant to take one day to replace it. But then he decided to change the pipes so he could put in a new shower head. So then it was extended to a 3 day job. Then he put the shower tray in and as he did that he knocked a tile off the wall and the other tiles just fell down. Then it was extended to another week. Now he's decided to completely remodel the bathroom. This would all be fine and dandy except that yesterday was when he was installing the piping for the new toilet and the new sink (they changed positions) so when we got home at about 4:30 there was no water and we didn't get water back until 12:30 last night (it was apparently shut off at about 10am). We couldn't do anything besides pee. No poopies. No face washing. No showers. No tooth brushing. Nothing. This morning we were supposed to be able to do those things but now he's messed up the hot water heater and all the water is coming out so dirty and disgusting so we can only use the cold water now.

It really sucks.

5.) I have class in 8 minutes and need to go!

Pushing people down and running away laughing.

I don't mean it in a mean walking-down-the-street-and-pushing-over-an-old-lady kind of way, I mean it in the way that you wait for someone who's sitting near you or standing and not paying attention to their surroundings and then you just push them over (onto something soft, not the cold, hard floor!) and for comedic effect run out of said room giggling.

Trust me.

It will brighten your spirits.

So we went to France last week. We left on Monday and got back way late Thursday night (technically very early Friday.)

We took the ferry over. It was an easy trip there. Very calm. You could hardly tell that the boat was moving, which is my kind of boat.

Once we arrived we got our rental car (a very cute little Citroen C2 that we named Cordon Bleu). It was exactly like this one:



We took Cordon all the way to the very south-west corner of Normandy the first day so that we could go to Le-Mont-Saint-Michel...this place:



It's a big Abbey on top of this rocky island. Below the Abbey there is a small town (now mostly touristy stuff) and bazillions of random stair cases that take you to every corner of this island. It is really beautiful and impressive. They used the abbey as a prison and a fortress during battles and wars, and as a consequence found the best use of prisoners ever. There was this medieval elevator that went up the side of the cliff. It was this cart thing that was attached to these huge ropes that they used to pull supplies up to the top. They then attached these ropes to this giant gerbil wheel thing, and made the prisoners get inside of it and walk (more like strain themselves to make it move an inch) so that it would turn and pull the elevator thing up. I was really impressed, particularly because I speak no French at all and managed to read the sign and figure out what it said!

Anyway, that night we went to our hotel. I booked the second cheapest hotel because the first was a bit sketchy looking. We didn't really have high expectations of this one, but we knew it just opened in December. It turns out, though, that our new hotel wasn't really a hotel as much as it was like apartments. We ended up with a kitchen (with a dish washers!), living room, bedroom, and bathroom. It was really nice.

The next day we had our all day tour of the d-day beaches. There was actually only one other person on our tour with us, which was cool, and then we had our nice crazy French tour guide. His name was Alain. He drove like a frickin' maniac. I mean that in the nicest possible way. I would go into the details of the whole tour, but I can't remember them all. I will say that based upon the points that the Allies chose to land, there was no way in hell that we were meant to win this battle. No frickin way. Especially Pont du hoc. It's a cliff. It was a landing point for boats. It's amazing that they got up there! I also was really, really impressed with the American Cemetery. The monument that is there is beautiful. Our guide showed us some specific grave markers, but he also showed us the place where the filmed the start of Saving Private Ryan, and told us the story about that plot and the strange coincidences. I think my favorite place we went, though, was this church in this tiny little hamlet. It don't even know the name if it, but it was really touching. It's shown in Band of Brothers, its the church that is used the first night as a red cross hospital. These two men set it up and would treat anyone who came inside, just as long as they left their weapons outside. That meant that they helped Germans, Allies, and local French people. Because they helped everyone the church itself never was taken by the Germans, even though the hamlet fell 3 or 4 times. These 2 men worked on 80+ injured men during that night, and they only lost 2. The church has remained virtually unchanged since then. The pews are still the original ones, and they have blood stains on them. It was quite eerie. The only thing that has really changed is the windows. The original ones were broken during the war, and were replaced with clear glass, but in honor of the two Americans who ran the hospital they are being replaced one by one with stained glass depicting the night. Right now they have two. One is of the paratroopers coming in (it's been there for 2 years), and the other is of an American flag and an eagle and it has their names (it was put in two or three days before we went to visit). It sounds kind of cheesy, but the truth is that I was really taken with them. I guess it's because as an American I have it in my head that the French hate us, but at least in Normandy they are very appreciative of the Americans and very, very kind to us as well.

Anyway, the tour was really nice. It was a gorgeous day and we saw some really amazing things, and learned a lot.

The next day was our last. The morning was spent waxing our little rental car because it got injured. I'm not going into the story because then I wouldn't know which to tell you, but the long and short of it is that above the back-right wheel there was a dent and lots of scratches and we had to get this scratch-wax stuff and try and make it look better, but in the end we'll have to pay for the damage to the car. It sucks, but whatever.

After that we went to the Caen memorial, but it was ridiculously expensive (almost 20 Euros each, which is an ungodly amount for a museum) so we didn't go in, but we went to the gift shop and bought goodies for my dad.

Then was the ferry ride home. It was AWFUL! A ferry is kind of like a moving airport terminal. It's got lots of shops and restaurants and whatnot. Then on one floor there are private cabins, and on another there's a big seating area with big cozy chairs (like on an airplane, but better because it was only 1/3 of the way full on both trips so you got tons of room to stretch out). We were in the chairs, and all of the parents on board were letting their kids run around like apes. They were running up and down the aisles screaming at the top of their lungs and crawling under our seats. It was ridiculous. There was this kids play area where they were meant to be confined to and while it made loud annoying noises, it would have been better than the kids just running around. I will say, though, that the only funny part about their bad behaviour was that the English kids were playing hide and seek against the French kids and were running around the boat yelling 'France SUCKS!' I thought that was funny.

On top of the kids, the water was choppy as hell. The boat was all over the place and this guy who was sitting somewhere behind us had the most violent seasickness ever and vomited loudly every 20 minutes or so. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO disgusting. Seriously. Gross.

Anyway, all in all we had a great time (minus the ferry ride and the damaged car).

We're going to France today!

So there's bird flu is in Scotland. I'm not particularly worried, but it's caused me to have to share a geography lesson with several people. Consequently, I'm going to share it here too!

Let's start generally. The biggest unit is that of the British Isles. The British Isles is a geographic term, really, that refers to all of the is islands that make up and surround the United Kingdom and Ireland. It includes the entire island of Ireland (both the Republic and Northern Ireland), England, Scotland, Wales, and several smaller islands like the Isle of Wight, Isle of Man, etc. Here are the British Isles:



Alright. So we started with the British Isles, but that's not the same thing as the United Kingdom. The technical title is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This, then, is the UK (the white parts):


Ignore the fact that it includes Northern Ireland in Great Britain, because they've clearly not paid attention to geography and titles.

Notice, though, that Northern Ireland is not part of Great Britain. Northern Ireland is a province of the United Kingdom. Great Britain, however, is made up of three COUNTRIES: England, Wales, and Scotland. All are really countries, and everyone who lives within them is technically 'British' but primarily people think of themselves as English, Welsh, or Scottish. The only time they really claim to be British is when something good happens in another of the countries and they want to claim to be part of it. If you call a Welsh or Scottish person English they WILL get angry. With that said, if you're English you don't need a visa to live in Scotland or Wales or vice versa, and you don't need a passport to travel through.

Great Britain:




They all have their own regional languages. Welsh is by far the most prominent of the local languages as it's still taught in school and a good part of the welsh population can speak it. The other local languages are making a comeback, though, in an attempt to encourage the growth of local culture.

Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and England all have representatives elected to parliament, and Scotland, N. Ireland, and Wales all have their own local parliaments too. So they all have a say in the greater government, and in what happens locally.

So when they say that bird flu is in Scotland, that means that it IS in Britain, and it IS in the UK, but it is NOT in England! It's about 7 hours from me, so I'm a-friggin-okay!