In case you're reading this and didn't know...

I'm back in Kansas for a visit. I had a project for my classes that I could do here in the States and then we have off a month for spring break, which is nice. I will be here until April 5. So far, I'm enjoying being back-I don't especially want to go back, which is very sad. I've wanted to live in England for YEARS! And now, I want to go back to Kansas. It's funny, you always think that there is something better out there and there may be and I don't know it yet, but Kansas will always be home. I still love England and maybe when I'm less high maintenance, I can live there. I still love my internship and my roommate and I love being able to get on a train and run down to London, but we're far more spoiled here in the States, so I will stop taking it for granted and no one better ever trash Walmart in my presence because I will set them straight. From what I have been forced to pay in England for everyday items is a crime and I had to go to three stores before I could find standard medical tape-tape you can buy at Walmart and Dillons. But no, not in England, I had to go to an actual pharmacy and I was charged $8.00- I looked at medical tape at Walmart (even better tape) and it was $2.40. I have been enjoying the wonderful American food. I don't think I ever took American food for granted-I knew I was going to have problems in England, but it's worse than I thought.

Oh, what a week...

Happier days for my car


This has been quite the week. Wednesday morning I got up and was headed out to Birmingham. I walk outside of my house and look at my driveway. First, it takes a moment to register-there's nothing in the driveway. Where's my car??? That's right-it was STOLEN!!! I just stand there for a minute thinking I don't know the 911 equivalent and my roommate is gone and Josh is in class. I go to my neighbor and ask him if he remembers seeing my car or someone near it. He said that the previous night (Tuesday), he took his father home and the car wasn't there. He gave me the 911 equivalent, which is 999.

I run back home and call the police. My car had been found around 11pm Tuesday night. I had just driven it Tuesday night and got home around 8pm. I locked the car like I always do and parked it in the driveway. My roommate was at his parent's house in Doncaster, so he wasn't home. So, the car must have been stolen after 8pm. It was really windy that night and my neighbors are noisy-they're always playing with their cars or in their garages, so I didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. I'm really grateful to the person that phoned it in. Apparently, they called the police and reported that they saw someone hot wiring a car in city centre around 10:10pm. It was eventually found in Hunslet at 10:45pm.

My car was taken to the Halfway Garage, which is about 10 minutes from where I live. On Wednesday, they couldn't give me many details. They weren't allowed to inspect the car until the police came and fingerprinted it. This was around 2pm yesterday and they were supposed to call me when it was ready. I waited by the phone the rest of the afternoon and no calls. I had called my roommate earlier and told him and he came home early from work. Around 5pm, he called the garage to ask them what was going on. The car had been fingerprinted, they just didn't call me. Anyway, they told him that it was probably driveable, but that it had steering problems and the ignition didn't work. Plus, they said there was a £160 ($320) "police recovery charge" that I had to pay in order to pick it up. That really annoyed me-my car gets stolen and I have to pay to recover it. I didn't pay much for the car in the first place, so I didn't want to sink a bunch of money into it.

I figured today is a new day, so I took a cab to the Halfway Garage. I was really worried about the prognosis. I didn't want to pay the recovery charge if the car wasn't going to be driveable. Josh only does brakes, so he wasn't going to be much help. Besides, I often run to him when I need help, so I wanted to try and handle this without him.

It was funny, as soon as I walked inside and said hi-the guy was like "ah...the American is here." I had called about half a dozen times trying to get answers out of them, so they already knew me. Fortunately, the men at the garage were great. The guy that showed me my car was really helpful and honest. He said that there really wasn't anything major wrong with my car, but the key doesn't work in the ignition anymore and the plastic top of the steering wheel had to be taken off so it doesn't rub against the wires. I have to start it with a "plug" thing, I can use a key or even a flathead screwdriver, which makes it vulnerable to theft again, but it's fixable. I drove it home and didn't notice any steering problems. Other than starting it with the plug, there really isn't anything wrong with it. Plus, it ended up only being a £105 recovery charge, which is better than £160.

I'm still really annoyed, but for having my car stolen, I'm actually pretty lucky. My car was only missing for a maximum of 3 hours, the interior is fine, my cd player was still there, only a little bit of the gas was used, and overall, the inside is clean. The outside was pretty muddy on the tires, so I washed it and it looked pretty good. It is now safely locked away in the garage. My poor little car-it's not meant to be dragged all around Leeds. It just goes to and from school, the grocery stores, and Josh's.

I called the police four times yesterday and this morning. I repeated the same story again and they still didn't have any type of record of my name, address, or anything else or any relation to my car being stolen. I know my car isn't high profile, but I think they should at least take a statement or have some type of record of the crime. However, as I typed this message-there was a knock on the door (it's 10pm here) and an officer was here to get my details. He was nice, but he had a record of all my phone calls. I did what I thought was necessary for some action to be taken. I've never had my car stolen and I want justice!! If that meant calling the police and the garage every hour, then I was going to do it.

I think my roommate feels guilty about my car. It's not his fault. All of my neighbors have better cars, my car is dependable-that's why I bought it. However, it was easy prey. I think it was taken for a little joyride. Rich is funny-he drives a black 2004 BMW, but has decided that it has too many miles on it, so he's trading it in for a silver 2007 BMW, which he will get next month. He's really excited-works for me, I'll get to ride around in it too. We went to Pizza Hut tonight. I think he also worries that I don't eat, which I haven't really the past two days. I've been too worried about the car that I forgot to eat. Pizza Hut was yummy-I hadn't been there since we were in Paris in January.

I'm going to relax this weekend-I need a little break after a stressful 48 hours. Rich sold his other house, so he's currently wealthy. I think we're going shopping on Saturday. The Corn Exchange has a cool market on Saturdays. Josh ate the recalled Peanut Pan PB. I told him not to, but oh well. He's seems ok, so far. If he gets sick, I don't want to hear about it. Well...at least England isn't boring.

London Fashion Weekend

I went to London Saturday for a fashion show-it was very cool. It was held at the National History Museum-a fashion show in a museum-could that be more perfectly me? The goody bag was great-Elizabeth Arden perfume and make-up, gift certificate for a manicure or pedicure, hair products for Toni Guy, a charm bracelet, samples of food that only models would eat, coffee, and some other things. The pictures are from the runway show. I had a good seat, but people kept getting in the way. Some of the designers featured were Chanel, Dior, Chloe, and Narciso Rodriguez.

London was packed-the underground was terrible. They work on the subway lines on the weekend and a few of the main lines were down, so that moved hundreds of people to the PIccadilly line, which is the main one I use. We were packed into the subway cars like sardines-not a very fun ride.

The chicken guy at my grocery store, Morrisons, knows me. I buy a plain, roasted chicken breast 4-5 times a week. From now on, I probably don't even need to say anything-he just knows. The uncooked chicken here is gross. I don't like touching it, let alone eating it.

The other pictures are from the British Museum and near my house. The church is about a mile from my house, I don't think it's used. I think the cemetery is cool, it's pretty old. Some of the tombstones are really interesting and ornate-there are statues lying around some of the tombstones. Leeds just celebrated their 700th birthday this year, so I'm sure the church and cementery have been here awhile.

"24" Addiction

Thanks to my roommate I've gotten hooked on "24". I had never seen it before until Rich ordered the second season and we started watching it. The episodes are only an hour of the day, so I get addicted wanting to know what happens next. The entire season is just a day-reminds me of "Ulysses".

We have frogs in our yard. I'm not used to seeing frogs, we have toads at home. Rich opened the door the other day and one hopped into the foyer. We don't have a lot of them, this frog just hopped the wrong way. I had to catch him and take him to the backyard-he was very slimey.

I've been eating much better this past week. I've had macaroni and cheese the past few days-it was delicious. I've been making a lot of banana nut bread also. Josh liked the British Bisquick mix-he made a large stack of pancakes with eggs on top (gross).

Things and thoughts...

I made the Mexican food from Friday night last until today. Every bite was delicious. We also finished off the PB cookies from one of my mixes from Amazon. Amazon Grocery is actually a pretty good deal-you buy things in bulk and it isn't very expensive. It was amusing when I was ordering-the site kept sending me to the British Amazon, which was what I was trying to escape from. I don't trust the food health codes over here-I sometimes don't trust them in the States, but they are far more lenient over here, which makes me nervous. I had to throw away my Peanut Pan PB-the websites kept saying to discard it.

I'm off to Birmingham tomorrow. I was there most of yesterday. I really enjoy doing it, I just wish the commute wasn't so long. Plus, I never time it right with the buses once I'm back in Leeds. It's cheaper to take the bus because parking at the train station is very expensive (about $70 for the day) and the bus is only $4.50 for the day. Anyway, everytime I get to the bus stop, I JUST missed my bus and have to wait an eternity for the next one, which makes the day even longer. I'm not a big fan of public transportation unless it's the Underground in London.

I've decided my roommate and I have very different tastes regarding movies. To me, he rents the weirdest things. Most of them are American films, but I haven't really heard of them or they flopped at the box office and most of us don't watch them. Somehow, he finds them and brings them home. He probably thinks I watch too many chick flicks-that's usually what I rent.

By the way, please keep Josh in your thoughts and prayers. I just found out that a brother of a friend of his was killed in Iraq yesterday. I don't know the details, but it affects you more when it hits home-makes it more real.

Yay-American food!!

So, this has been a great week for food. My mixes came from Amazon Grocery yesterday (somehow they got delayed in British customs?) and my boxes from my family arrived on Wednesday. I'm so happy to have food! Josh and I had Mexican tonight-it was delicious and I made banana nut bread and peanut butter cookies from my Amazon order, so we had plenty of good food. I gave Josh all of my British Bisquick mix-it tastes funny to me. He's not as picky as I am, so he was happy with it. My mom e-mailed and told me that Peter Pan PB is being recalled, which is the brand I brought with me. So I looked it up on the internet and the numbers that begin with 2111 are being recalled-ALL of mine that I brought with me start with 2111. That's very annoying-although my mom said if I cook the PB it should be ok. I'm still annoyed-it's not like I can run to the store and buy more American PB. All of my food is precious to me and I don't want to waste anything-I'm not throwing it out-I can find ways to use it.

Did everyone have a good Valentine's? Mine was ok, since I tend to be accident prone, I managed to sprain my wrist. The "brace" I was given is absolutely useless. It's like a thin sock-I don't know why I'm bothering to wear it. I'm going to try and find some tape to wrap around it. However, it's hard to track down medicine tape. We really take for granted stores like Walmart in the US-stores that have everything in one store. Here there's separate stores-I have to specifically go to a pharmacy if I need some type of medical item-it's a big pain.

I'm headed to Birmingham this weekend to get some extra hours in. They start painting the galleries next week, so we're narrowing down what paintings will or will not be displayed and then we'll start on the historical background for the paintings and galleries.

Lovely snow in Leeds

Here are some pictures of our little snow. These are pictures from my bedroom window looking down at the backyard. To the left is the fish pond, so far, I've counted 8 fish. They're some type of goldfish, I think-6 of them are gold, 1 white, 1 black. They like to eat wheat bread. The little white one is kind of mean-he steals bread from the other fish when they try to eat it. The other picture is of the house and my little car.

I'm also including some pictures of Paris from when my mom, aunt, and I were there last month: the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and the Rose Window, Sacre Couer, Arc de Triomphe. Sorry about the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame pictures, I don't know how to rotate them when uploading them.

My internship is still going really well. Right now, we're taking lots of measurements before we re-do the Pre-Raphaelite galleries. They're also going to repaint the galleries in a couple of weeks. While that's going on-we'll be working on the historical background for the painting panels.