"You either love it or you hate it."

On Monday, we finally found out what we were supposed to do with all the food we had bought over the weekend. My British Life and Culture professor, Lyndon, wanted us share our experiences at each different shopping location, and of course my group had stories to share. Then he wanted us to try all of the unfamiliar foods. The Jafa cakes, which are small cake disks with an orange jelly filling and topped with dark chocolate, were delicious. The Yorkshire tea biscuits were also one of my favorites because they tasted like a non-greasy version of a shortbread cookie. No one went near the black pudding. The stilton cheese was the strongest, most pungent cheese I had ever had in my life. And marmite jelly, made from beer residue, was absolutely disgusting – way too strong. I don’t even know what that would taste good on! But then again, its slogan is, “You either love it or you hate it.”

Lyndon brought us some food called Laddhu, which are little, round, bright yellow cakes made from chickpeas. They’re sweet and really didn’t taste too bad, but I don’t know if I would eat them again. However, Lyndon loved them! It must be a British thing. They originated in India, but somehow made their way over to Britain where they are really popular. Lyndon also demonstrated the proper way to make tea, and showed us how different social classes drink their tea.

That night we went to our second musical. This time it was “Les Miserables”. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as “Blood Brothers”, but it wasn’t bad by any means. It was just different – and much longer. There were a lot more solos in this one and it had a much more serious plot. But there was one character played by a little boy, who was so adorable and had an amazing voice. Just think about his resume when he gets older – He’ll probably be able to get almost any job he wants because he was the London “Les Miserables” musical when he was ten years old.

Yesterday, I had international relations class in morning – We talked about the whole financial crisis happening back home in the States. We really only hear little bits and pieces of it here, so it was nice to finally hear the whole story. Basically, it just sounds like bad news bears all around. Dr. Scheele did share an interesting fact with us though – At the end of 1992, the States earned half of the world’s gross domestic product. Now they only earn 23% of it. Just kind of interesting to think about – what exactly happened?

After class, I decided to go on a run through Regent’s Park. Apparently yesterday was quite the religious holiday amongst the Islamic community. It was the last day of Ramadan. Well, we sort of live in area where there’s a large number of Muslims, so they were all out and about. The crowds were huge, and there were bobbies on the sidewalks for crowd control and even a few streets were closed off to cars. Of course I chose to go running at that time and just happened to be wearing a bright blue t-shirt that said “Hollywood” and shorts that said “Army”. But everything was fine… I mean, I got a few stares, but no one said anything mean or rude. I don’t know if I expected them to or what. I guess I don’t really know that I expected. I just feel like no matter what Americans have preconceived notions about Muslims for obvious reasons no matter how hard we try not to. But they’re just like everyone else – some are nice and some are mean. While I was running yesterday, I definitely found out what it feels like to be in the minority.

I tagged along with the art history class to the British Museum later that afternoon. It was rainy outside so it was a good day to go. Everything is so amazing there – slightly overwhelming because there’s so much, but nevertheless, very cool. Recently, people have done CAT scans on Egyptian mummies in order to find out the gender, age, and other information about the person inside. That way they don’t have to open them up – very smart idea. The Rosetta stone is always amazing to see – just because of the historical importance of it. And it’s fun because I recognize a lot of the Greek letters on it from physics class. Something that I think is sort of sad is the huge display of Greek Parthenon statues and stones that the British Museum owns. It doesn’t belong there. It should go back to Greece where it belongs.

After that, we needed a little Starbucks pick-me-up (of course!). Then we all went out to an American pub/sports café to celebrate a girl’s birthday. It’s always a fun time when the whole group is there. :)

Now we’re preparing to make Toad in the Hole for our professor to eat tonight! I’ll tell you more about that soon.

Until next time,
Rachel