Back home

I've been taking it easy back at home, trying to catch up on my sleep. Jamie and I did make it out to the Vampire Weekend show last night, which was fun (but short). I'm going to end this with a few snippets that didn't make it into the blog. I'll see you all back at work next week. Sigh.

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So I'm at a market checking out some magic toys for possible gift ideas when a complete stranger (duh) approaches me and tells me that I am the whitest person he has ever seen. "Any whiter and you would be a ghost, my dear!" Um. OK? Lemme say, I know I am pretty darn pale. But the palest person in London? Really? Get me to the mystic tan.

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Before I boarded my plane from Minneapolis I met this wonderful older woman from London. She comes to Des Moines every year for the winter to take care of her elderly aunt. She had long white hair and a nose ring and fabulous jewelry. Anyway, she was warning me about how the food is so different over in the UK. She said she likes the food in the U.S., and she said she always misses the pancakes when she goes back to London. She said that the Brits just can't seem to get pancakes right. I thought that was funny, since pancakes are pretty simple.

Well on my second day in London, I saw this huge line of people around a food cart. In fact, I took a photo.



Can you read the sign? Pancakes and Orange Juice. And look at the line! So I headed over to see the British pancakes and to get an idea of how they are different from ours back in the states. Well you know what? They aren't pancakes! They are crepes. YUM. so I got one with Nutella and bananas -- my favorite.

Anyway, so I guess maybe you can't get proper pancakes in the UK? Or maybe the woman at MSP just doesn't like crepes? I dunno, but I was pretty pleased with them...

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LESSON ON THE TUBE

It's Friday night. I'm heading back to the dorm on the underground after a night out. Suddenly the crowd standing behind me all push in front of me to stand in the middle of the train. I turn around and some poor guy is puking in the corner of the train. Oy.

We all move forward to give the guy some space. We pull up to the next station, and the doors open. Well, since it's Friday night, the trains are pretty crowded. And there's a bunch of people crowded on the platform ready to push their way onto the train. Do you see where this is going?

So the doors open, the sick guy turns to exit the train, and (wait for it) ...
pukes all over the crowd who are all dolled up for the evening pushing their way onto the train. Lesson of the day? Stand back from the doors and let the folks on the train exit. You never know what will greet you if you don't.