Two Months

Today marks two months since I moved to the UK. In some ways it feels as if I have been here longer, and in others it feels like I am still just getting my feet wet. This week I received my National Insurance number, which is basically the same thing as a Social Security number. I guess you could say that now I am definitely an official resident of the UK because now I can pay taxes to the British government.

I still feel like I speak a completely different language. I needed chicken broth for a recipe and Jason was going out to get a paper so I asked him to pick me up some chicken broth. He came back with condensed cream of chicken soup. We went to the grocery store and I asked him to point me toward the soup, I found a can of chicken broth but to my surprise the word "broth" here means exactly the opposite of what it means in America. In America chicken stock and chicken broth both mean "chicken flavored water". Here, chicken broth is chicken soup and chicken stock is chicken flavored water. Add this difference in dialect in with the fact that I was grocery shopping with a man and you have a married couple standing in the soup aisle of the grocery store trying to figure out what they call "chicken flavored water" here in this country and where they might keep it in a grocery store.

This seems to be a conversation we have over and over again and its a good thing we are very patient with each other because every time we go into a store it seems like the thing I am looking for is not in the place I would expect it to be and after explaining it to a sales associate while they look at me like I am either crazy or just fascinating they finally decode my secret language and have a "Eureka! You mean bobbledy boos!" moment and then point me in the right direction. It seems to me even the simplest of things have a different name, come in different packaging and in the case of food almost always come in strange flavors. If anything this experience of describing things has made it clear to me at times how arbitrary products names are on both sides of the pond. I find myself so often having to break down something into descriptives and then I am always left wondering "Why on earth do we call it zucchini?"

There are still a few items that I simply can't find the name for. For example, it is autumn and I am naturally craving some hot apple cider. Much to my frustration, the term "cider" is already taken and is my favorite alocholic beverage. Cider here is a cold carbonated alcoholic apple beverage. I asked Jason the other day if he knows where I could find "cloudy apple juice" or "unfiltered apple juice" and he seemed to be drawing a complete blank. I haven't given up faith that at least by the time winter rolls around I will have identified what they call cider here and I will be enjoying some mugs of hot cloudy apple juice.

That wraps it up for this week, next week I promise I will post on Monday. Jason was home for a long weekend and we finished painting our bathroom. Once we have installed new fixtures I will post some photos of the transformation. Thanks for reading!

My first week in the UK

In case you aren't already jealous enough, I am sitting next to my open front window watching the tide go out. The sun is shining and it is about 65 and sunny with a light cool breeze.

This first week here in the UK has been a bit of a learning experience, as I'm sure my next few weeks will be. Grocery shopping was an absolute nightmare, it was difficult to tell which brands were good and which food contained healthy ingredients. The good thing is that Weight Watchers has a huge selection of products in the UK. My favorite is the Weight Watchers rice pudding, it is delicious!

I also attended my first English wedding on Saturday. It was my brother-in-law's wedding and it was at quaint country inn about 30 minutes away in the village of Nunthorpe. There were a lot of things about English weddings that are very different. First of all, there are many children in the wedding party. There was one maid of honour and one best man and some ushers but they did not stand up for the whole wedding. There was a flower girl, a ring bearer and a few page boys which is something we don't have in American weddings. There were more children in the wedding party than adults.

I can't speak for religious ceremonies because I think they are a bit different, but the civil ceremony is a bit less formal than the traditional American civil ceremony. The ceremony is performed by a registrar and there is a recorder who records all of the vows and everything that is said at the wedding is written down for public record. The beginning of the ceremony was very different because it was a lot of legal talk, the bride and groom had to state their full name and then before the vows they had to pledge that there was no impediment to them being legally married. It sounded more like a court proceeding than a wedding at first, but I think its good to be reminded that marriage isn't just about love but the joining of two households and it is a serious obligation and responsibility. Then the vows started and the weddings guests are asked to stand for the duration of the vows, which were really quite long! Then the ring ceremony happens and then right there at the ceremony in front of the guests the bride and groom sign the marriage license and certify that the record of everything said at the wedding is correct.

There was no rehearsal dinner, so at the dinner the bridesmaids and best man and ushers, children and parents of the bride and groom were given gifts and thanked. The father of the bride, the groom and the best man all do speeches. My husband Jason was the best man and he told me a bit about the speeches. Like American weddings, the best man is expected to make a humorous speech (bordering on a roast of the groom) but the other thing I found interesting was that they also read a few of the wedding cards aloud. Then at the end of the dinner the bride and groom cut the cake. English wedding cakes are traditionally fruit cake but my brother and sister in law chose to have fruit cake, carrot cake and sponge cake. The dinner was pretty much the same as an American reception, the difference is that its split into two parts.

It is traditional in England for fewer people to be invited to the actual ceremony. In this case, there were 70 people invited to the ceremony and formal dinner afterwards. Then there was an intermission of a couple hours where the guests who were staying for the evening party could hang out at the bar. Then at 7pm there was a "disco" and also a buffet for about 120 guests. I have to say with such a long day (the ceremony was at noon) when the buffet started in the evening I was ready to eat again and was thankful it was there. At the beginning of the "disco" the DJ played some games with the children which was nice. Then there was the first dance but that was the only special dance. There was no daddy/daughter dance or bridal party dance or any other special dances. The rest of the evening was pretty much exactly like an American wedding with lots of drinking and dancing.

HATS! I was told it is mostly older ladies who wear hats to weddings, at this wedding about a dozen or so of the ladies of all ages wore either a small hat or a little plume of some kind tucked into their hair. Below is a photo of my favorite hat, I think it is fabulous and wish I had the "bullocks" to wear a red hat to a wedding! Most of the women who chose something more like what my mother-in-law (right) and sister-in-law (left) are wearing in the photo on the bottom.