Oriental Food Fair Disappointment

Chris and I are trying to save money for our upcoming travels, so we planned just one fun event this weekend....at least we thought it'd be fun. Chris' Japanese labmate Jun invited us to attend an Oriental Food Fair on campus. Chris was immediately interested upon hearing that it was an all-you-can-eat buffet for only 5 pounds.

The event was suppose to start at noon, but as we patiently waited in line, we were passed by an endless stream of Asian people who were bringing food to the event. Once we got inside the room around 12:30, we discovered the food was being served in a really small space and it certainly didn't help that the event was incredibly popular and there were people everywhere! There was nowhere to sit and people tended to just eat standing in front of the tables where the food was being served, which made it very difficult to actually get any food. Have you ever tried eating that type of food standing up? It was challenging to say the least. The concept was interesting though. There were five tables, each with a flag behind them representing the Asian country which the food was native of and it was all homemade by students from those countries.
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Chris' Canadian labmate Yotis comically pointed out that the three of us looked like giants among the sea of Asian people who were all a head shorter than us. Just when we thought it couldn't get worse, a very strange man heard Chris' accent and asked where he was from. Turns out the guy spent the last 8 years working in Iowa and just moved to Birmingham 3 months ago (he's originally from India). He asked Chris if he'd like to get a beer sometime and the two exchanged e-mail addresses. I thought the guy seemed strange, but wasn't sure what Chris thought until we were talking after we left and he said he wanted to kick himself for giving the guy his real e-mail address :)

Snow

I've found that the British react to snow the way Texans do...with awe and trepidation. Some parts of the country saw their first snowfall of the year this week. A newspaper article today stated that there was "travel chaos after 25mm of snow fell in the South-East overnight." For you non-metric people (I'm one of them) that is about one inch of snow.

Last night a co-worker and I were working late, when she advised that we should leave after looking out the window because it was starting to snow and we might be trapped overnight. When I looked outside all I saw was a slushy type rain...certainly nothing was accumulating and it wasn't even cold enough to freeze, but she was dead serious. Of course, you can't blame the Brits for reacting to snow (or something resembling snow) this way because they don't have the proper equipment to deal with a true snowfall. There are only a few salt trucks (called grit lorries here) for the entire county we live in. Nevertheless, I'm still amused by it :)

Work, Wine and Dinner Parties

I'm finally feeling better and work is still going really well! For the first time at work today, I got asked if I was American. It struck me as odd actually that I don't get asked this more frequently because it seems that Brits are always anxious to differentiate between Americans and Canadians. Anyway, I was helping a student today when he asked me and his reply was "very nice!" Perhaps he has a thing for American women :) It reminded me of a time in Egypt when we were sleepily waiting for our 3:30am convoy ride, and overheard two people talking in what sounded like British accents. Chris asked them if they were British and where they were from. We were shocked to hear, "Yes, we're from Birmingham." They live in a village just a few miles away from us!

How old do I look? I'd occasionally get carded at home, but that seemed reasonable considering I was only a few years older than the legal drinking age, but yesterday I got carded buying wine at the grocery store and the drinking age here is 18!! Luckily, we're waiting a few years to have kids otherwise I might get disapproving looks from people thinking I was a teenage mother.

I was buying wine because we're having a guest for dinner tomorrow night. My friend Becky who I met while temping is coming over to hear about our adventures in Egypt and tell me the tales of her latest temping gig. Our unofficial New Year's resolution is to invite people over more often because we now feel settled here and Chris enjoys cooking, so it makes sense to start hosting dinner parties. Our next party is what has been deemed the "foreigner party" because no British guests were invited, instead our guests come from France, Iraq, Japan, Italy and Canada. It's a group of people that Chris and I really enjoy socializing with (they all work in his lab). I think it's because we can all relate to being foreign here. We're not leaving out the Brits though :) Two weeks after that party, we're having two British couples over (the women work in Chris' lab).

We just found out that Chris' parents will be visiting us from March 8-20, which we're very excited about! I submitted a request for 5 days off during that time, which is in addition to 4 days that I had already requested off for our trip to Italy in April. I absolutely love the number of vacation days workers get here. At home, my vacation time would be almost entirely used up by requesting 9 days off (I got 11 days total at Famous Footwear). However, here I still have 15 more vacation days, in addition to 8 paid holidays and the entire time from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day off.

I Need A Vacation!

Ok, I know I just returned from Egypt and technically I had off from December 23 to January 7, but there was nothing relaxing about being in Egypt and I've been sick ever since we returned. Luckily I've been able to rest all weekend. It's really nice not having any commitments right now, which is so different than the hectic nature of our life last month...although I guess the holidays are always like that. Literally the next thing on our calendar is our trip to Italy over Easter in early April...so that leaves over two months to relax! I love travelling and it's what we came here to do, but it's tiring and takes a lot of work. Especially when visiting non-English speaking countries. I've been trying hard to make hotel reservations for Venice, but it's proving to be very dificult. Some hotels require a minimum 4 night stay over Easter, some don't have staff which speak English, and others are just incredibly expensive (starting at $300 per night).

So I started my new job this past week and I really like it. Being sick was a horrible way to start, but I made it in Monday through Thursday and just took Friday off. My co-workers seem great, I like the area I work in (lots of windows), and my work is interesting. One of the biggest perks is vacation time. Right now I get 28 days of vacation, however there's a deal being negotiated to raise it to 35 days, which HR told me should be implemented some time this year. Pay was negotiated last year and a 13.1% increase over 2 years was implemented. So every four months, I'll receive a pay increase. Another bonus, is that the admissions office which I work in operates on flexi-time, which means I need to be at work during the core hours of 10:00-4:00, but other than that I can keep my schedule flexible. So I can come in at 8:00 one morning, and 10:00 the next. If I work more than 37 hours in a week, that time accrues and I can use it as vacation time.

It's 11:00am here right now and I've been up long enough, it's time for a nap :)