Food and weather update

I haven't really been spoiling you readers, have I?

England's getting colder. In the mornings I look out my window (I rub a hole in the steam to see out) and look at my sunflower in the garden below me to see how fast its moving back and forth to determine how windy it is to determine how many layers I need. The wind/rain combinations are the worst, though on the whole we've not had too much rain, for which I'm grateful but also frightened -- I can dress for the wind, but the rain will always just make you miserable.

I like it here. In the evenings I cook with my roommates or have them cook for me. In the past week I cooked for us twice, a tortellini pasta dinner and a greek dinner (cous-cous, olives, peppers, feta, crunchy bread). They like my meals because they think they're really different. And I like when they cook because they make sure it's completely vegetarian just for me. It's sweet. I couldn't have asked for better roommates. Even with the unbelievably annoying problems with our house, the roommates have made it worth it.

Last Sunday I joined and met up with the Vegetarian Food Society, a group of vegetarian-empathetics/vegans/vegetarians who like to cook and eat together. We went to the Farmer's Market downtown, bought vegetables together, and then ate vegan sandwiches at a nice little deli called Pickles and Potters (it was absolutely adorable!). I took (and have been taking) pictures with a disposable camera, so as soon as the roll finishes I'll need to find a place to develop them, which may or may not prove to be difficult. I've become a better vegetarian over here, since I'm cooking for myself mostly, rather than eating out, and because I've had more time to think about my health/food choices. Not that I wasn't as strict in Atlanta, but here I feel I've been given a chance to start over, a chance to start forming habits that I can apply to the rest of my life, whereas in Atlanta I just kept some old habits because of a too-tiredness to change. Here I've even checked for vegetarian beers (with the help of some of my new vegetarian friends). And I feel better, inside and out. I used to think I'd be a vegetarian for as long as I knew I could always be aware of the food I was putting in my body and for as long as I thought I needed to rebel against the kind of culture that puts food-for-efficiency into animal bodies, but I think now that this decision will stay with me indefinitely. And I'm happy about that. I think I'll continue to eat meat whenever I'm in Nicaragua, but I'm fully confident in my rationale for it here.

During my days, I drift in and out of the English buildings. I spend most of my time in the small English reference library in House 10, and give myself breaks to walk to the computer lab upstairs for printing, or the student lounge downstairs to eat a bit of lunch, or the Refectory (food court) in the student union for a cup of soup. I've been eating quite a bit of soup lately. For 1.39 I can get a cup of soup and a piece of bread. My other favorite lunch place is a small sandwich shop called Opposite, where I can get a hummus and pepper sandwich with a small clementine orange for 2 pounds fifty.

Honestly, though, since I do all my grocery shopping on the weekends with small trips to the corner shop during the week for ingredients I've forgotten, I've been worried about money. Everything really is twice as expensive here, without taking into consideration the fact that I go out and pay for more than just food. My landlord is thinking about taking 2 weeks of rent off the past months bill because of all the boiler and water problems we've had to go through, and I'm really hoping that goes through. Besides the fact that we've been miserable through the cold and had to live without our shower for 3 days (I was in the middle of a shower when the water just shut off), I need the money. I'm keeping on trying to look for jobs, but the fact that I don't have a National Identity Number (a big deal, apparently) is off-putting to most employers. And even if I did get a job, I'd have to worry about managing my time between work and school, because right now I'm always up to my ears in schoolwork. I'm not exactly stressed out, but I usually have a thought or two along these lines each day. I know that I'll manage, I have no doubts that somehow it will work out, and poor or not this will be a huge foundation for every American day in my life after this.