Countdown to kickoff.

I just clicked onto the Baylor website and saw this: 

I then proceeded to freak out.

That's right, friends! College football kicks off this weekend.

I can't really explain what it is about college football that makes my heart skip a beat. And trust me, I've tried -- especially since moving to London. No one here gets it. No one. This is probably for two main reasons:

1.  It's American football. Not many people follow it. Even fewer understand it. And if you tell anyone you enjoy it, you'll probably hear some form of the phrase, "It's not real football." Except it is, England. And I love it.

2.  There's no such thing as college sports over here. Universities don't really have competitive sports. They might think they do, but really they're about as exciting as watching B team sorority girls slug it out on the intramural field. It's nothing like what we're used to.

(God bless America.)

So that means that while my Facebook and Twitter feeds are buzzing about the games that'll be played this weekend, I'll be holed up in my room, looking up last season's highlights or watching Remember The Titans by myself -- mostly just trying not to bore my housemates with football talk.

It's fine. This isn't my first football season in London.

Last year, I survived almost entirely thanks to ESPN text updates. But it was painful, and I'm not sure it will suffice this year. After all, a girl cannot live on highlights alone. I'm determined to find some website (however shady) that streams the games. Granted, a 6pm kickoff in Texas means I'll be tuning in around midnight, but it's totally worth it.

Especially if it's to watch my Bears.

Happy college football season! May your favorite team win. Unless they're playing against mine.

(Go Baylor.)

  

We win.

Just a quick shout out to my homeland. Congratulations, America! You won the Olympics! 

China was making me nervous there for a bit, but you pulled through.

Go team go.

Wednesday randoms (that have to do with London 2012).

As it's Wednesday, I've decided to briefly tear myself away from the BBC Olympics website (it's where I've been spending most of my free time lately) to post a couple of randoms.

Oh, Ryan Lochte. You're a great swimmer, which is why we can forgive you for this. But next time, let's leave the attempts at stringing words together to form coherent sentences to someone else, okay big guy? It's just better for everyone.

Olympic memes are taking over the Internet right now. But my two favs so far are McKayla is not impressed and One is not amused.

Brilliant idea: Since there's really no way for us non-Olympians to wrap our minds around just how incredible these athletes are when they're competing against other incredible athletes, they should have a regular person participating in each event. That way, we can better understand just how much stronger, faster, and more talented these people really are compared to the rest of us. Even some kind of a "normal human" marker (similar to the world record lines that they show during the coverage of swimming or track and field events) would do. That'd give us some perspective.

Speaking of track and field, if you ask someone about that here, you'll just get blank stares. Here, it's called the athletics. Which is kind of confusing, because I was under the impression that, this being the Olympics and all, pretty much every event was athletic...

Meet Boris Johnson, the mayor of London. He's a legend. The other day, he got stuck on a zip line in Victoria Park. He also did this once.

I got this in the mail yesterday, which means I'm finally able to cheer on my 'Mericans properly.

Ask any American to sing you the Olympics theme song, and they'll give you their own rendition of this. But did you know that it isn't associated with the Olympics anywhere else but the US? Because they don't play it during their coverage here, and hardly anyone I know has heard of it. Crazy.

Anyway, that's all for me. Happy Olympics!

Olympic cyclists: blink & you'll miss em.

The cycling came right through Kingston today, so of course we had to go see it. We got there plenty early, and spent an hour or so watching official-looking guys walk up and down the road, telling people to stay on the sidewalk, as the cyclists could be there at any minute. Every so often, a non Olympic cyclist would pedal by, and the crowd would cheer and laugh.

We knew they were close when we saw the helicopter circling overhead. Everyone got really excited.

And then this is what we saw:

  

 

  

We were so close to the athletes. There were two groups (that video is of the first), and they were going crazy fast. It was pretty incredible how close together they all were -- one little mistake would surely cause the whole group to go down.

  

And it did, apparently. About five minutes after they passed us. Crazy.

Also, Chris Froome of Great Britain was lagging way behind (at least, we think that was him). Not sure why. But he got a huge applause when he finally came through.

   

  

Anyway, after they passed by, we booked it to a nearby pub to watch the rest of the race. And even though neither the US nor Great Britain medaled, it was still so fun! Our first Olympic event! And then we came home and gathered round the computer screens to watch other events for about six more hours. (Sidenote: Handball! What the heck?!) 

  

All in all, a great day.

 

Wednesday randoms.

Well, summer has finally hit London, and sunshine abounds! The highs this week have been in the upper 80s (20s and 30s for you Celsius lovers). I know that's nothing compared to the 105+ degree weather back home, but it certainly feels hot.

Say you want to shave some calories off your Starbucks beverage. You'd probably ask for "no whip," right? Well that would get you confused looks here. Instead, you'll be asked whether or not you want "cream." Whipped cream is the homemade stuff that you actually have to whip yourself. The stuff out of the can? That's "squirty cream."

To get the full effect, say it out loud.
But don't pronounce the 't'.

Now that the rain has stopped, I keep looking for excuses to be outside. The past few days, a bunch of us have gotten together to play football (European style), which has reminded me just how out of shape I am. Still, so much fun.

A fellow American and I really wanted to get an American football to throw around, so we went to this giant sports store in town to find one. It was four floors of every piece of sports equipment you could think of, including baseballs and bats, but alas...no pigskins. It worked out okay, though, because his brother is visiting, and he brought one. Since no one (and I mean no one) from here has ever thrown one, my sloppy spiral might actually look good for once!

The most frustrating thing about job searching is the fact that you don't often hear back if you're unsuccessful. And I guess I kind of understand. Companies get hundreds of applicants. But the not knowing just means you sit there waiting, indefinitely. It can be very frustrating. I'd so much rather get an outright rejection, even in the form of a mass email. And I'm not the only one...

Just to clarify, that's hyperbolic language.
I promise she didn't mean it.

Hannah showed me this months ago. I still laugh out loud.

Imagine you're sitting in your room trying to get some work done, and all of the sudden, you hear this blaring from your flatmate's speakers. You may or may not almost fall out of your chair laughing, like I did...after a brief moment of pure horror, of course.

And finally, since today is July 25, I want to wish you a happy Christmas in July! Take some time to celebrate with these boys.

Enjoy your Wednesday.

Wednesday randoms.

My favorite food is anything breakfast, so I was really really excited to see that this exists.

We went to a pub in Surbiton to watch the Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Chelsea. Since Chelsea is a London team, pretty much everyone there was wearing blue and singing songs like, "You are my Chelsea..." The game went to overtime, and then penalty kicks. And then Chelsea won, and all hell broke loose. Half the guys immediately ripped off their shirts and started swinging them around their heads. Others climbed onto the tables to lead a celebratory sing along. A couple glasses went flying, and we decided that was our cue to leave. It was certainly entertaining, though. And the whole bus ride home, these guys behind us were singing this song. Quite the night.

I submitted my final essay of the term today! I had over 16,000 words in this month, so I'm not as worried about my 10,000 word dissertation as I used to be.

McDonald's McFlurries choices are severely limited here. They choices are all Cadbury's stuff...no Oreos, no M&M...and, worst of all, no Reese's! Disgraceful.

The best email a girl can get? "Two pairs of pretty, but occasionally impractical shoes headed to you tomorrow." Thanks, Dad!

On the subject, mail is quickly becoming my love language. Especially when there's coffee involved. And the tank was just in time -- the next day, it was 75 degrees (F) and sunny! Lovely.

I'm really excited for June. Friends are coming the first and last weeks, and about mid-month, I'm headed to Italy! The last time I was in Italy, I was only 5. All I remember is getting stung by wasps, my uncle's cracked rear-view mirror, and people burning trash on the side of the road. So I'm hoping this go around will help to redeem the country for me. And with Google images like this, I'm thinking that might just happen.

Happy Wednesday!
 

Pass the Ben & Jerry's.

Baylor lost and I'm in mourning. Somebody pass the Ben & Jerry's before I have a meltdown...

This girl could really use some Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz right about now.

Yeah. We lost hard. The highlight of the game, though, was Heslip's lone three to cut the deficit to thirteen (yes, thirteen). My British, formerly-non-basketball-enthusiast-turned-super-fan flatmate and I both completely FREAKED OUT when he hit that shot. So good.

But apart from that, there weren't too many bright spots Baylor this time. Bummer.

At least the women are still in it. 

Go, Lady Bears, go!

 

Fancy a knockaround?

I played tennis all through high school, and there are days when I really miss it. Today was one of those days. Luckily, one of the girls in my building used to play, too. There's some courts a short walk away, so today, since it was perfect tennis weather, we decided to go hit. Except here, people use the term "knockaround," which sounds way cooler.

Anyway, there were four of us, but we only had two racquets. We were all ready to just rotate through, but a group of guys who we met at the courts let us borrow two of theirs. So nice of them.

We didn't actually play -- just rallied a little -- but it felt great to be out there hitting again, even though I was pretty rusty.

So hopefully we'll get a few more racquets and go again soon.
  

Wednesday randoms.

More happenings and observations for you!

The whole floor numbering system in the UK is different than in the US. Here, when something is located on the first floor, they don't mean the first floor. They mean the second floor. Because, here, the actual first floor is called the ground floor. This is particularly unsettling when you're faced with a stairway. At home, if I need to get to the second floor, I climb up one flight of stairs. Here, I've got to climb up a bonus one too. Yay for cardio, I suppose.

We spent St. Patrick's Day in a pub in Twickenham, watching rugby, and I learned a very important lesson: I don't know anything about rugby. Which was really frustrating, because I'm used to being the only, or at least one of very few girls who actually knows what's going on at sporting events. But not this time. Not even close. 

It's March Madness -- one of my favorite times of the year. Unfortunately, there's a 6 hour time difference between home and here, so the games don't start till like 11pm. And now that I've found a shady website that streams most of them (I tried to pay for the CBS service, but no...), I start watching about the time I should be going to bed, and before I know it, I'm up at 4am watching Kansas beat Detroit. Did I mention I still have classes to attend? Madness, indeed.

I mailed my first letters home! I sent my mom and Kim their birthday cards on Friday. I was told it'd take 5-6 business days, so I was expecting them to arrive around Thursday. But no! My mom got hers on Monday! Which was such a relief, as that was her actual birthday. Thanks, Royal Mail.

Honey Loops are not as good as Honey Nut Cherrios. Sorry, England.

I've mentioned that queuing is all the rage here. But it also can incite rage. I went to the bank the other day to exchange some dollars. At my bank, the tellers are all in a row, with the travel services window at the far left. There was a queue when I walked in, but I didn't need a teller. I needed the travel services window, which had just become available. So I walked right up. And then I got yelled at. "EXCUSE ME. THERE'S A QUEUE HERE," shouted a very large, imposing man from the middle of the line. Now, there's something you should know about me. I hate conflict. I hate being the center of attention. My heart freaks out when people stare at me. And people were staring. I felt like an idiot. I looked up, startled, and pointed to the sign above the teller. "Travel services," I said in my foreign accent. "I need to exchange some currency." He went red, mumbled an apology, and turned away, embarrassed. Now, he was the idiot. So that situation ended up being both panic-inducing, and extremely gratifying.

And now, back to being studious. These essays won't write themselves...unfortunately.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We spent the afternoon at a pub in Twickenham, watching rugby and laughing at the banter between the Ireland and England fans sitting behind us. The luck of the Irish wasn't with the boys in green (they lost 9-30), but by the end of the night, Hannah and I had scored some foam fingers and a Guinness hat. So it was a win for us.

(Wales v. France. Wales won it all.)

This is how I spent most of the match. Rugby is confusing.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, friends!

 

A British Super Bowl

Watching the Super Bowl in the UK is quite a different experience from watching it in the States.

For starters, kickoff isn't until 11:30 pm, which means it won't be over until around 3 am. Second, most of the people watching with you won't know much (or anything) about the sport -- like what second and five means, or if every team has impossibly large men like Vince Wilfork, or if they're actually allowed to just shove someone out of bounds. (But I didn't mind, since I haven't really gotten to talk football all year.) Third, you have British commentators. And whether or not they know what they're talking about, the fact that they have an accent and keep explaining basic aspects of the game in great detail really doesn't do much for their credibility. Here are my two favorite Neil Reynolds quotes of the night:

"That was a safety. A safety is the American football equivalent of an own goal."

"It's third and goal. They can't get a first down without scoring a touchdown."

Right...

We would have been lost without these guys.

But the biggest difference is the fact that you don't get the commercials. Sure, you get commercials. But they're not Super Bowl commercials. So you've got to go looking for those on YouTube afterward.

All in all, though, it was really fun. By the second half (which is when the game actually started getting exciting), most of my friends had a pretty solid grasp on what was going on, and everyone was pretty into it. There was plenty of yelling at the screen and laughing at the commentators, just like there should be. Plus, we had some great food: sliders, pizza, little smokies, fries, brownies, chips and this great 5-layer dip. (Side note: I had to explain on several occasions what dip was...as in, "Oooh, what's this called?" "Dip." "Dip?" "Yeah." Confused look. "Because you dip your chips in it..." "Ohhhhh.")

Tragedy struck, though, when our feed cut out right after the Giants' last touchdown. The Pats had just started their final drive, and there was 54 seconds left. By the time we finally got it working again, the game was over, and they were showing replays of the missed attempt in the endzone. Booooooo.

We finished up the night watching these:

And everyone finally left our kitchen around 4 in the morning.

So, yeah. I'd say our UK Super Bowl party was a success.

 

Rugby.

We wanted to play rugby last Tuesday. Instead, we spent 2 hours wandering around looking for a park. And we found plenty. The problem was that none of them were open to the public.
But we had a good walk. Plus, we found a fox.

Today, we tried again. And we were successful! We found this great park -- big fields, a playground (with a zipline!), basketball courts, tennis courts and a miniature golf course. Perfect.

We played "played" rugby for about an hour. Now, when I think of rugby, I think of this:

But thankfully there was none of that. Charlie did hit himself in the face though. But don't worry, Hannah and I were really polite about it...you know, rolling on the ground laughing and all.

The wind was crazy, so I'm blaming my total lack of rugby skills on that.

Here's what I learned: (1) Rugby balls bounce funny, (2) I can catch better than I can throw, and (3) I'm really out of shape. 

Seriously though, I'm going to be super sore tomorrow.