10 Things

I went to the cake shop again today. It's a twenty minute walk and thought I'd bust out one of two iPods I brought here (I downloaded a bunch of travel podscasts on each before I left). I haven't listened to my iPod in almost three years. Now that I have Pandora on my Blackberry, I just play that, but as I don't have a data plan on my phone while I'm here, I figured I would listen to music three years old. Sounds good right? I had no idea what was on it. As it turns out, I had just about everything from the Jonas Brothers to Metallica with a little bit of New Found Glory from high school in the middle. Even on shuffle, I found it amusing that the Apple gods found it necessary to play three Ace of Base songs in a row. I'm not going to lie, I listened to all of them in full.

Anywho, my walk gave me some time to think. I'm half way through my summer here and thought I'd share ten things I love about Britain and ten things I miss about my home. So, here it goes:

10 Things I Love About Britain

1. The bread, cheeses and desserts - the other food, not so much though
2. Roundabouts - I'm obsessed and don't mind not seeing STOP signs anywhere
3. Walking everywhere - Although my legs are tired at the end of each day, I'm glad we don't have a car
4. The smallness of everything - The British don't need excess anything
5. The fact that even Smart Cars look tiny and ridiculous here - enough said
6. Everything is Royal here - even the mail is called the Royal Mail
7. Public transportation - although it has proven to be unreliable at times, I do like navigating with trains, buses and subways
8. There's more than just London - we explore as much as we can during our short time here
9. The language - English is English...NOT. There's still a bit of a communication barrier at times and it's fun decoding it all
10. The weather - I've only worn shorts about 2 days since I've been here....it's usually between 68-73 NICE!

10 Things I Miss About Home

1. Falafel - I even miss his waking me up in the middle of the night
2. Looking left first before you cross the street - it still hasn't sunken in
3. My kitchen - the complaints will continue until I have it all back (mixer, pots, enough dishes to load the dishwasher)
4. My bed - we got a new grownup mattress as a wedding gift and this Ikea bed just isn't cutting it
5. The cost of living - the prices look the same here but the exchange rate is about 1.6 so everything is about 60% more
6. Healthy options at the grocery store - low fat and high fiber options are hard to come by
7. My gym - yes, I'm more active here but I do miss some good old weight training
8. My friends and family - good thing for Skype
9. School - I would be missing this anyways if I were home but I can't wait for classes to start back up
10. The customer service - There's literally none of that here

So that's that. I also wanted to keep you posted about the Husband's alias. Dr. Nose ended up winning. However, after talking with him, he was hoping to find the RIGHT name and doesn't love any of the options. For now, he will remain known as the Husband (unless he decides on something better). Thanks for all of your involvement and we don't mean to disappoint.

Cheers!