Superbowl and Evensong

So, here's what I've been up to the past 2 weeks.
I went to the Australian bar called Walkabout where the 'American football' players put on a social to watch the Superbowl. There were mainly Saints fans because they were the underdog team. I got there at 10pm and stayed until about 3am to watch the whole game. I wore my gold USA women's soccer team jersey. It was fun, though we didn't have any of the Superbowl commercials from America so it wasn't the full experience here, but I met a guy that his dad used to play for the Bengal Tigers, and his friend was in the royal navy. They were nice and tried to be true English gentlemen.

I was working on a project in the library computer lab one afternoon when a random guy from London sat next to me and asked if I was a composer since I was trying to create a song for my DVD with Garageband on the computer. After replying what I was up to he realized I was American and we ended up having a conversation that covered politics and religion for over an hour. Then I met my two friends at a pub and had cottage pie again and tried some really good winter fruit cider. Every night when I get home I can find my flatmates watching their usual soap operas.

My design professor Colin is very hard to describe, but I will say imagine Hugh Grant with white hair, a tad shorter and stouter, and you've got Colin - similar accent and mannerisms. This professor kept telling me that I have to make it up to Evensong some evening at the cathedral to experience the heavenly voices. Thus, on a Thursday I ventured up to the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln. Scenes from the movie The Davinci Code were filmed there. I was in awe of how huge the Cathedral was, just about everywhere in Lincoln you can see it because it is on top of a hill. Since it is a part of the Church of England, no longer Catholic, it saddened me to see how empty if felt since there was no tabernacle or pictures of saints. I quietly walked to the area where the choir was singing and the organ's tune was powerful. This particular evening had a choir of 18 young girls and 12 middle aged men. (If you click the link scroll down and that is what they looked like) There was also a little prayer service between the songs. It lasted for about a half hour. (check out the video I made below.)

When I was in the lab at the library one evening, a few friends came by to work on their group design project. I then met one of their group members, Kylie, who I recognized from my Globalization class with the Scottish professor. We got to talking and I found she grew up in Lincoln a few miles from campus. She has a few show horses and seems to be more 'countryish' rather that a city girl. I was glad to meet her and made plans to experience some true Lincolnshire food and see the countryside a bit. I'm excited that she is so into learning about the Midwest rather than New York City and she wants to come visit me in America someday. She's going to ask her mom if she can bring me home with her sometime for supper too. After walking home from the library, and not getting much done (at least I have 9 weeks for this project) I went to the corner grocery store - Tesco - and bought a pizza to take home and bake, along with some peas (mom- I figured you'd like the fact that yes I bought some frozen peas to make, they are not canned peas and they are like our garden peas so I don't mind them - i still don't like canned peas.) Before I went to the checkout the security guard said "ah, its one of those nights" and we got to talking since I spoke up and he wanted to guess whereabouts I was from. He noted it wasn't Texas, Boston, or New York, then rattled off more southern states and I told him...more like Canada. ND/MN and he wanted me to guess where he was from. It wasn't too hard since I haven't heard anyone with his accent so I guessed Irish and I was right. He was surprised. When I got back to my flat, one of my flatmates was like "Yay, you're eating real food." (The first few days I was here I ate sandwiches, tons of tasty strawberry wholegrain (yes bits of oats mixed in) yogurt and Shreddies cereal, and I made lots of pasta. So this was new for me to be eating pizza. haha.) Though I have had some great meals, ex: I made eggs with mushrooms and toasted hot cross buns with orange juice and Cadbury hot chocolate.

Well, today is Valentines Day and I splurged and had some donuts after mass and I'm going to do some laundry - which costs 2.20 pounds to wash and 1 pound to dry so almost $5 total- talk about expensive, now spending $2 in the dorms to wash and dry clothes is not bad at all.