-English people do not rinse their dishes after washing them. OK, probably not all English people, but three I've met so far just put the wet dishes on the rack to dry...and they're still covered in suds. I asked if that left a soapy film on stuff that they could taste (I mean, really, you'd assume you could still taste some soap on a glass or something), and they looked at me like I was crazy. This lack of rinsing dishes is not a UK phenomenon that I will ever participate in.

-It's getting cold here, to the point where it can almost be considered "proper cold," but then I remember I don't think it's ever gone below freezing, and I don't think we've had a single frost. I think I'm acclimating, sadly, because I'm cold when I walk to and from campus every day, but then I remember what it's like in CT around this time of year, and I laugh and miss it. My room is freezing, but I like it like that. My only complaint about my room is the ventilation: moisture just remains trapped in here, and it makes it smell moldy. No one else seems to have this problem. There is actually mold growing on the wall around the window, and also in the bathroom, but since the entire bathroom is made of plastic, it can mostly be wiped off.

-I think English lightbulbs are different: last night, the wind blew my window open and knocked my lamp over, shattering the bulb. Today I bought a new bulb, identical to the shattered one, and...I can't figure out how to put it in the stupid lamp. I swear it doesn't fit, and it definitely doesn't screw in like our lightbulbs. How many Americans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

-I have two papers, a presentation and a (stupid) paper proposal to write in the next two weeks. I think someone should just put me out of my misery now. It's actually the paper proposal that's putting me over the edge: I don't want to have to write this paper, I don't really care about it, and...I honestly didn't think I'd have to worry about it, since I thought Dickinson wouldn't care if I continued taking Humanities 310 or not, since I'm still paying them absurd amounts of tuition for another semester.

-I have a little Christmas tree, and it makes me happy.

-I've decided I want a tuxedo jacket. I have to keep in mind that I have nowhere to wear lots of these things I admire these days, but I've seen people wear tuxedo jackets with hoodies and jeans here, and I love the look. My mission now is to find a tuxedo jacket that looks like this one from J. Crew that isn't over $200:

I credit Gwyneth Paltrow with the style, even though it probably came from a bunch of sources, since she wore one with a sequined dress to the Iron Man premiere in 2007, two years before either thing was in mainstream style.
Gah, let's not remind me how much I'd kill to be Gwyneth Paltrow.

I'm officially staying. I heard on Thanksgiving, and it made it a rather nice day.

However, Dickinson is making it harder to actually leave than I thought they would, so the fighting with them begins Monday. Because I totally have the time to argue with them about why I should be allowed to overload my classes and why I shouldn't have to complete Humanities 310. Argh. Well, the biggest victory has been won.

Snow Patrol

Snow Patrol might have been one of the best concerts I've ever been to in my life. However, it's almost unfair to rank it with all the others, because it wasn't a concert in the common sense: it was a special, unique event of sorts. We thought we were just going to see a regular, run-of-the-mill stop on the Snow Patrol tour that happened to be at the Royal Albert Hall. I think I started to think something was fishy when I found that highly unusual setlist I posted in the last entry. I then noticed that the tickets didn't say "Snow Patrol Live" or something typical of that nature, they said "An Evening with Snow Patrol." I knew something was definitely up when there wasn't a security check of any sort at the doors--no matter how momentarily they look into your bag, I've never been to a concert without a security check before. I began to notice the people in the hallways weren't the sort you'd necessarily imagine being at a Snow Patrol concert: most were around 30 and wearing things a few marks nicer than the faded jeans, white Hanes t-shirt, and hoodie I had on. We climbed to our seats in the choir, behind the stage, and noticed that there were places onstage for quite a few more than five musicians. There was going to be a significant portion of an orchestra.

There wasn't an opener, and the band (well, Gary) came out almost exactly at 8 wearing a suit and tie. He started with "the Finish Line," which I still find odd, but I love that song, so I can't complain. It turns out we were in for an amazingly stripped down, intimate concert that was certainly more of an event than a regular tour stop. Gary talked with the audience at length between quite literally every song. I never really knew that much about Snow Patrol the band in the way that I know a lot about Coldplay the band or the Beatles the band, but I quickly decided that Gary Lightbody was entering the "lead singers I have a massive crush on" list. I guess from the music, you'd think he'd be a kind of mopey, sad, shy sort of guy, but he was hilarious the entire night. He leapt off the stage at three points during the night to hug random audience members, and once to help a random guy propose to his girlfriend. I loved how small he made the place seem by just talking to us like he was: the Royal Albert Hall isn't a huge venue to begin with, but it felt like there were only about 100 people there as opposed to 5,000.

I also loved the originality and spontaneity. Of course, they had a setlist planned out, but Gary decided that for "An Olive Grove Facing the Sea" that they would do it completely without microphones or amplification. He turned off his microphone and unplugged his guitar and got the choir girls to stand around him, and because the Albert Hall has world-renowned acoustics, you could hear every single note just by being in the same room. Each song was slightly different than the album version: some songs I couldn't even recognize by the musical intro, and I didn't know what was coming until Gary started singing the words. I missed videoing some of the best songs this way. They also used the Albert Hall's actual organ for "Dark Roman Wine." I didn't think that thing actually worked anymore! I thought it was just for show and architecture! Luckily, I got that song on video, unlike many others that I wished I had. I wish they had recorded the performance on CD or DVD: I've never wanted to relive a concert this badly purely for musical reasons. If I had known this was going to be special and there wasn't going to be a security check, I would have brought an MP3 recorder. Also my SLR camera...even though I was behind the stage.

And now for a bit of a fangirl rant: this is the exact sort of thing Coldplay need to do. As much as I'm in love with them and die of happiness every time I see them in concert, they really need to shake themselves up a bit when it comes to their live performances. Every show has the same setlist and they don't divert from it, and it mostly consists of the most recent songs. Chris even cracks some of the same jokes from night to night. Snow Patrol pulled out songs from their first two commercially-unsuccessful albums, as well as several songs from Gary's side-project band the Reindeer Section. Coldplay need to get a nice venue (perhaps the Royal Albert Hall? It's my favorite venue in the world bar none after seeing two concerts there now), an orchestra, a guest musician or two, and play some old songs, play some recent songs in different ways (acoustically or with the orchestra), and just relax. They don't trust themselves to play anything or say anything that's not printed on the pre-planned setlist or play longer than 1.5 hours, and they can totally pull it off. They need to have a unique event like this. It also wouldn't hurt if they wore suits.

Here are my pictures from the show. They're not very good, but the videos, that I'm slowly posting on my YouTube channel, are quite good in terms of sound quality. Here are official pictures from the evening, and here's the three-hour long setlist. The only thing I would have changed was that I wish they played "Open Your Eyes" and "the Lightning Strike" with the orchestra.

-I've lived in Holland and I've lived in England, both for somewhat significant amounts of time, and I still can't freaking figure out 24-hour time. Well, of course I understand it, but I can't memorize it. I can never remember what 20:00 is without counting...my instinct is to say 10:00 PM, but it's actually 8:00 PM. I just made myself a nice chart to help me remember, but I think it's a permanent affliction.

-So. The medicine I'm putting on my foot seems to be making my skin schlep off. Strangely, it's not really doing that so much to my foot as it is to my hands: I look like a lizard. I'm stopping using it, since in the little packet of information, any skin irritation and itchyness is supposed to be a "serious" side effect (though kidney problems and stomach pain are "less serious," oddly enough). Sigh.

-My new, doctor-ordered sneakers definitely don't let my toe move around as much, but I figure once they're broken in they will. Perhaps then they'll also STOP GIVING ME THE WORST BLISTERS EVER. One of them now has some pretty good blood stains on the inside.

-I bought pint glasses yesterday in order to better monitor my Ribena drinking problem. 4 classic pub pint glasses for £2! So now, instead of making lots of little glasses of Ribena all the time, I can make fewer yet bigger ones. I think this might mean I'll drink slightly less in the end, albeit only by a bit, since I wonder if you can actually OD on vitamin C. Rosie and I calculated it, and I drink three double-servings of Ribena a day. This is 1000% of the RDA of vitamin C, TEN TIMES the recommended amount. Besides this point, however, Ribena is pretty expensive. Besides that...well, I just feel pretty English drinking out of a pint glass. It would be lovely if pubs served Ribena. I think some have it in juice boxes behind the counter. If I ever find this in a pub, why yes, I WILL order a juice box from a bar and drink it happily while everyone else is having lager.

-After some polite yet urgent requests, UEA will hopefully get back to me with an official answer on Wednesday about whether I'm in for the next year or not. Everyone helping me has been very optimistic, so I have been too, but the fact that they've taken their damn time granting me academic concessions makes me a slight bit worried. Then again, I have like five different UEA people on my side to contest it if need be. However, I NO LONGER HAVE THE TIME TO CONTEST IT. There are things I need to get back to Dickinson with now, and I just kind of want all of this sorted, especially because they told me it wouldn't take anywhere near this long.

-I need to explode for a second:
COLDPLAY PLAYED A GIG AT THE UEA LCR BACK IN 2000. I've often wished I was about 10 years older so I could have seen them back when they were young and arguably at their musical prime, but this takes the cake: Coldplay, intimate concert, MY UNIVERSITY, £10 ticket. Of course, it's not that strange that they played here, since it's quite common for UEA to have pretty good bands play here when they're small, and there aren't that many universities in England, so when most small bands tour England, they do the uni circuit as well. But knowing for sure that Coldplay played at UEA makes me completely jealous. This link, complete with setlist, makes me want to scream and find a time machine.

On a similar topic, I only noticed a few weeks ago that in the paper shop on campus, right above the magazine stand, there's one of those light-up ad boxes. One day when I was paying for something, I thought one of the guys in the picture on the ad (which is permanent, it doesn't change every week like ones at bus stops or whatever) looked quite a bit like Jonny Buckland. Looking closer, I realized it was Jonny Buckland, along with the other three in a picture of them when they were quite young. The ad says "Blue because you missed 'Yellow' in Norwich?" and then it's an ad for finding out what's going on in Norwich or something like that. But I squeed at the time, and that's what made me Google "Coldplay Norwich" and find out that not only did they just play in my city, they played my ACTUAL university.

-Speaking of setlists, this is what I can expect from Snow Patrol on Tuesday. It's actually a very odd setlist...I guess I'll judge when I see it.

-The English call shelled peanuts "monkey nuts." Sometimes I find it very hard not to worry about the sanity of this nation.

-I realized today that I've stopped noticing that I'm in England, and I haven't noticed it in a while. Of course, I still notice Englishisms and English things, like the monkey nuts observation above, but I've stopped noticing accents, and I've stopped feeling like an outsider. The first few weeks, I was very aware that everyone around me had an accent, and I was even more aware of the fact that I sounded different. My accent sounded so different to me that it sounded twangy, as jarring as a deep Southern accent would be to people from CT. I don't notice any of that anymore, especially the fact that I sound different. When people ask me where I'm from, I say "America," like they couldn't tell or something, and then I have to go back and answer their implied question, which was where in America I'm from. In my brain now, everyone around me just talks normally, not English, and it's actually jarring when I hear an unexpected American accent, like in a commercial or something. I stop and say "wow, that guy has a weird accent," and then I realize that's my accent. It doesn't happen when I'm listening to my Dickinson friends, or when I'm watching my regular shows, because I expect those people to sound American and I already know what they sound like, if that makes any sense. But when I'm unexpectedly ambushed with the sound of an American voice, like when I'm walking across campus and hear one or when there's one in an advert at the movies, I'm so disoriented by it that it's actually funny.

I also am a bit surprised by how well I've kept my accent. I think I've mentioned this before, but it still continues to surprise me. It probably has to do with the fact that I'm often surrounded by a group of American friends and watch a lot of American TV. I occasionally do notice my intonation changing, specifically when I'm out with Rosie or talking with my flatmates, but that's fewer and farther between than I anticipated four months in. Interestingly enough, I've noticed two of my friends becoming occasionally more American in their pronunciation. I don't think I expected to have that effect.

The Foot (Pt. 4): THE END.

My faith has been restored in NHS and socialized healthcare worldwide. I had an appointment with the UEA Medical Centre again today, with an actual doctor this time, and even though I somehow mistakenly thought the appointment was at 2:40 rather than 2:10, I ACTUALLY got what I wanted out of it. The doctor listened to my whole story, took me seriously, and asked constructive questions. And he actually made a diagnosis that made sense (i.e., NOT GOUT). He says basically it's the early onset of a classic bunion, perhaps with a stress fracture involved, and there's not a whole lot I can do about it, and getting a cast or brace would only serve to make me walk properly on it and would be kind of overkill to help it heal. Fine, I'd rather not wear one and look like a moron anyway. He said I need to get better shoes, since all of the trainers I own are flat and have no actual support in them (Adidas Sambas, various Converses, Vans slide-ons), and he gave me a gel to put on it to stop it swelling and aching so much. I could have hugged him. He also told me to rest it as much as possible (I've been doing quite well with just staying in and only walking to class this week, but then after the appointment, I went into town and ruined that). He says I have to come back in two weeks as well for a follow-up! This man knew what he was doing. New favorite doctor ever.

So, I got the medicine and I got the shoes: I have a pair of running shoes at home I wish I could have sent for, but I got quite a cool pair of silver and purple Adidas running trainers in town for only £25, marked down from £80. And they have stars on them! I'd say I'm quite thrilled I actually got paid attention to. Of course, the actual process of going into town and going shopping etc. didn't make my foot feel so good, but I hope that it'll get better soon...I'll wear my proper shoes for a while (except Thanksgiving, I'm wearing my boots to dinner because I got a nice dress that purple & silver sneakers just wouldn't go with) and try to cut down on the walking and put the medicine on. FINALLY!

In the meantime, here are some lovely acoustic sessions Snow Patrol did:
Chasing Cars
Run
Just Say Yes
Crack the Shutters

NEWSFLASH: CHELSEA MEETS NEW SETBACK WITH NHS! (The Foot Pt. 4)

So. After Sarah's birthday dinner, Rosie and I took a taxi to A&E. I signed in and waited. The sign on the window said that the wait was currently about three hours, so Rosie and I just talked. It looks like there was a 2-for-1 special on foot injuries at N&N Hospital in Norwich tonight, since of the approximately 20 other people in the waiting room, approximately 15 had foot injuries (including three prisoners!). We found this very funny, in a tragic, ironic sort of way.

After only an hour, I was called in to the exam room. I began to tell the lady my story from the beginning, about it occasionally bothering me once or twice in London when I did a lot of walking there, and then it hurting much more after Scotland...but she just got frustrated with me. I was just trying to give a clear picture! Do English nurses have something against me?! Finally we got to the part where I take off my shoes and she jabs at the little swollen protrusion. According to this nurse, stress fractures in the big toe area are actually uncommon. She told me they couldn't do anything for me, and that I needed to go see a GP (general practitioner). AKA, this means THEY SENT ME BACK TO THE UEA MEDICAL CENTRE. I tried to tell her that they were the ones that sent me here, but she said I just needed to book an appointment with a doctor this time, not a nurse, and that I didn't have to tell them what it was for, that I just needed to book it. I tried not to burst out laughing.

The icing on the cake, though, was that though she told me it actually probably WASN'T a stress fracture, she thought it might be arthritis (it runs in my family like crazy, though I'm a tad young), or...get this: GOUT. Gout, like the disease that primarily affects men aged 50-80 who eat a lot of shellfish, foie gras, and fine wine. THIS ISN'T GOUT. The symptoms don't even fit! I mean, I take what I read on the internet with a grain of salt, obviously, but GOUT?! If I go back and see a UEA doctor and they decide to test me for gout, I'm walking out and I'll wait to see about all this until I get to America in December: they slapped a cast on my brother a few weeks ago and he was out of the office in ten minutes. All I want is an x-ray or an MRI. I think I'll see if I can ask directly for that...I'll try to mean business more when I go in to see a doctor. I want them to tell me "here's a splint/cast to immobilize it so it doesn't get worse, see if that helps" or "it's nothing, on your bike." If they shuttle me somewhere else without a DIRECT referral (IN WRITING) to someone that has an x-ray machine in their possession that they're willing to use on me, fine. But I'm tired of going between people.

But it gets better! I try to login to the appointment booking system with UEA online...and it's currently DOWN. I guess I'll just wake up 10 minutes early tomorrow and try again. BUT REALLY.

Despite all this, I refuse to lose my faith in socialized healthcare. Coming to the conclusion that it's actually kinda crap based on one hilariously annoying experience with it....just goes against everything I stand for. I still believe, America, so don't think you've lost a radical liberal. Unless I'm bleeding out of the eyes and they say "eh, it's not so bad," I will still believe in socialized healthcare!

The Foot (Pt. 3)

I haven't completely lost my faith in socialized healthcare yet, but I just got kicked out of the UEA medical centre again without any help. I go into my appointment, which coincidentally happens to be with the same nurse that looked at my foot last week and told me to just take aspirin, like that cures things. I booked my appointment online, so in the box that asks what the appointment is for, I wrote "probable stress fracture follow-up," since that's what she said she thought it was last week. But the second I walk in the door to the exam room she says "What's this about a stress fracture?!" I told her that's what we discussed at the previous appointment, and she claimed she never said that's what it was. Well of course she didn't say that decisively, but she did say that might be what it is, and since then, I've done my research and the symptoms fit exactly! That's why I was having a follow-up, to see what they could do about it!

She told me that if I was "still worried about it" I should go to A&E at the hospital (the ER) to get an x-ray if they deem it appropriate. Note that she didn't say "you should probably go to A&E just to be sure it's not more serious." But now her tune is that it's weight-bearing, so it's probably not a hairline fracture, and that it might be muscular. Either way, I need an x-ray or an MRI, neither of which they can do at UEA, so it looks like it's A&E for me tonight. I called my mom just to make sure I wasn't overreacting and being stupid about all this, but really, regardless of the fact that it hurts in a sort of annoying, occasional stabbing way, I just don't want it to get worse by me walking on it. If the second opinion at A&E tells me not to worry about it, then I'll just have to accept it, but the fact that it looks funny, hurts most of the time except when I'm not walking (rare), and fits the symptoms of a stress fracture makes me think the lady was just brushing me off.

So, after Sarah's birthday celebration tonight, I'm packing my books and iPod and taking a taxi to camp out for hours at A&E. I just want a final answer from someone who's not irrationally annoyed with me, and perhaps a test that's more than just jabbing it for five seconds. And hey, it's FREE!

The Foot (Pt. 2) and More

-I was on bedrest all weekend for my foot, which was "convenient" since I had to write a paper. It was also mind-numbingly boring, which is interesting, since I rarely leave my bed/room when I'm at home anyway. I suppose there's just a lot more to do here, and everything involves walking, which I wasn't supposed to do. Also, there's something about HAVING to stay in bed which makes it less appealing. But what a wonder, my foot felt great all weekend, and then today, when I had to walk the usual mile to class and back, it starts being cranky again. I have an appointment with the health centre again tomorrow. I can has aircast, pleaze? I think by tomorrow evening, I'm either going to be immensely satisfied by socialized healthcare, or I'm going to see where some of the flaws come in. I'd like the former to happen. I need my liberal worldview to be validated sometimes.

-Some people are addicted to cigarettes, some people are addicted to drugs, some people are addicted to alcohol. I'm addicted to Ribena. Specifically, strawberry-flavored Ribena, which I can only get from Morrison's, which is a 30 minute bus-ride away, and then I have to carry everything back from the bus stop, so I make do with the original blackcurrant flavor. But seriously. One bottle of Ribena (which is concentrated, so you have to add water to it) is supposed to last a person about two weeks. It lasts me about two days. This is partially because I have a drinking problem and an addiction, but also because I like it about twice as strong as most English people. But hey, it has 167% vitamin C per serving! And because I make it double strength, there's like two servings per glass for me, and I drink like three glasses a day. I wonder how much vitamin C you have to have before you OD on it.

-Still no word from UEA, but I know they're working on it, since they sent me an email about it, and my history professor asked me "how the transfer is going" today, because the admissions office asked him for my grades so far. So much for keeping the whole thing on the DL as much as possible, though I suppose the cat's been out of the bag for much longer than I thought, perhaps at my own fault. If I don't hear by tomorrow night, though, I'm popping by the office on Wednesday. I need to plan my work schedule for the rest of the semester, and I need to know whether or not I need to factor in my Dickinson work.

-My new favorite show ever is the West Wing. Rosie and I, being American Studies students, decided to start watching it, and now we can't stop. I want to be CJ Cregg. We're obsessed to the point where we found a mint-condition boxed set of all seasons (1-7) on eBay today and bought it for £35 (that's £17.50 each for a set that originally costs £200). Funnily enough, when you work it out, it would cost us exactly £35 total to get each season out of the Norwich library (DVDs cost £2.50 a week to take out of the public library! Not cool), so for the same price, we might as well own it forever.

-Where has Snow Patrol been all my life? Well, OK, scratch that, since I've really liked them for years, but I've been in a massive Snow Patrol phase for a bit over a month now, and I'm completely obsessed. They released a compilation album last week, complete with a few new songs and a DVD full of documentaries and similar awesomeness, and it's on heavy rotation. I can't wait to see them in a week! At the Royal Albert Hall, no less!

The Foot (Pt. 1) and More

Look at me! Blogging for the first time in ages...because I should be writing a paper! It's a wonder I get anything done and get good grades, I swear.

I suppose several things have happened in the past week or so, such as me turning 20, but the most notable came to light today: I think I broke my toe. It's been an issue since Scotland, and it would occasionally bother me in London on days where we had long walking tours or the like, but I decided to get it looked at today by good old NHS (look, America, socialized healthcare WORKS! What a wonder!). Basically, the joint of my big toe of my left foot has been bothering me for a while, mostly just when walking or doing things like putting my foot into my shoe or whatever. It's been pretty swollen, too: not to the point where it's purple and huge, but it looks more like a bunion sticking off of the side...and that's enough descriptions of my feet. I never said too much about it, since I didn't want to be a whiner about all the walking we do (I still hate all the walking, and I don't think I'll ever get used to it, but there's nothing we can do about it, so there's no use in complaining). However, my toe got a bit worse a few days ago, with shooting pains even when I wasn't walking, so I went to the health centre today. They seem to think it's most likely a stress/hairline fracture from repeated walking on it, and they told me to take aspirin and NOT WALK ON IT, and come back in five days. So far, aspirin has done squat, and there's no way I can just stop walking, so I fully anticipate to go back on Wednesday and come back with an air cast (hopefully not a REAL cast). As annoying as that will be, at least it'll stop it from getting worse, and I can stop walking on the outside of my foot, which I don't think is a good thing to be doing.

In other news, I still haven't heard back from UEA, despite the fact that they've had my application for almost two weeks. Today I got an email saying that they're working on it, but I would like to have an answer soon, mostly because I need to know whether or not I'll be continuing to take my Dickinson class next semester so I can properly budget my time. However, I decided to finally tell my professor that I'm planning on transferring, so I walked into his office and told him I needed to have a bit of an awkward conversation with him. He looked up at me and said "Oh, so you're going to tell me now that you're transferring to UEA?" He already knew somehow, and has known since I started all this. It doesn't really matter that he knows, of course, but I'd like to know who told him, but he refuses to reveal his sources. I suspect someone else on the trip that I had mentioned it to...or perhaps even this blog. It is completely public, so it's definitely possible, though it's not that easy to find if you aren't friends with me on Facebook. Either way, I was floored that he already knew, and he's been incredibly nice about the whole thing. Now I just need to hear back from UEA so I can talk to Dickinson about whether or not I'm continuing with Humanities 310 in the spring, since that heavily affects my work schedule for the next four weeks, and I'd love to just be able to put all my attention on my American Studies work and not the Humanities paper proposal.

Anyway, I have to get ready to go see Men Who Stare at Goats, and then I'll work on my paper more. On a completely unrelated note, I was wholly unaware that there's a British indie movie about the young John Lennon coming out here in December, and the trailer totally made me squee:

The Village of the Year Award

I know I should first write about Scotland, one of the most amazing weekends I've ever had, but I just have to write about my day I had today.

One of our Dickinson assingments this semester was to do a "travel report" on an assigned town/city/village in East Anglia, our section of England. We didn't have much direction with this project, besides Qualls grouping us in threes and assigning us a place with a name we had never heard of before. Megan, Barron and I were assigned somewhere called Worstead, and we decided in advance that today would be the day we would set out to explore it. Since Worstead is only 20 minutes outside of Norwich, the train tickets were only £5, and even though we didn't know anything about the place, we kept our minds open.

This is where the trip started turning into a tragi-comedy. Our train pulled into Worstead "station," which was really an old, boarded-up brick building with a concrete platform, and we were the only three people to get off. The train pulled out of the station, and we were the only souls in view, surrounded by dirt roads, cows, and fields. I had Google-Earthed the village beforehand, so I knew it was small and I knew that the train station was about a mile away from the village, so we starte trudging through the cold and the rain. It didn't appear as though we were getting anywhere, so we stumbled upon a Heinz ketchup factory (which smelled gloriously of frying oil and chips/fries) and wandered in to ask directions to the village. It turned out we were going the wrong way, and the factory worker we asked seemed to be utterly perplexed as to why three American kids wanted to be in the middle of nowhere.

So, we went back on the road through the rain. Instead of just following the road like the man said, we came upon a dirt pathway cutting across a field of cows that appeared to head straight into town (marked by a huge church peeking over the trees), so we took the shortcut. It did in fact end up being a shortcut, but somewhere closeby a SHOTGUN went off, and we were pretty sure we heard a bird or duck falling to the ground. Needless to say, we hurried on.

The town was completely deserted. We found the church, but it was dark and locked, and there wasn't a soul or car in sight. Next door, however, there was a pub with lights on, and we thanked the Lord. We actually had quite a lovely lunch inside the most authentic-looking pub I've ever seen and took refuge from the cold and the rain, and the bartender sold us a little book on the history of Worstead for a fiver. We'll probably base our entire 10-minute presentation on the information contained in that pamphlet.

After filling up, we headed back out in the rain in search of the actual town. It took us about five minutes to realize that the church and the pub WAS the town...the only other thing besides houses and cows there was a pathetic little post office, which had a few cards for sale on a rack, a guy behind a window, and a single hand-knit sweater on a hanger for sale. There wasn't even a general store where you could buy aspirin or milk or bread. If anyone's seen Hot Fuzz, the village was about ten times smaller and more boring than Sanford, and that's saying something. I'm completely baffled by what people DO with themselves in villages like this. At least small towns in Connecticut have places where you can buy FOOD and MEDICINE. It was also unsettling that the whole time we were in Worstead, we didn't see another soul, save for the bartender and the one or two men drinking at the bar in the pub. Presumably, there was a farmer shooting birds somewhere closeby (we heard a few more shots later), and several cars passed our lonely forms on the side of the road, splashing us with muddy water, but it was actually eerie that we didn't see or hear from another person, and that the lights were off in every single house and the church.

Because there was nothing else to see and because we were absolutely drenched and freezing, we decided to head back to the pub we ate lunch in to wait for our train, because at least it was warm. However, when we came upon it, we found the lights off and the door locked, even though we had just been inside with one other patron 20 minutes before. Severely disgruntled, we headed to the train station, but following the road this time so we didn't get shot. This proved to be dangerous: country lanes are NARROW, there were a few blind corners we could have gotten killed at, and we winced every time a car passed, expecting to get drenched with puddle-spray.

Our train didn't come into the station for about one and a half hours, so we sat on a freezing cold metal bench as the sun set and the temperature dropped (the sun is completely set by about 5PM here in October, so it was halfway dark by 4) as we froze. Two trains actually passed the station without stopping, even though they said "NORWICH" on the front, and we began to freak out a bit. Eventually another man came on the platform, and he told us that there was a train back to Norwich in about 20 minutes, and we thanked the Lord again. We got back to UEA by 5:45, which isn't too bad, but keep in mind it had been completely dark for about 45 minutes and looked at felt more like 10PM, and that we had been stuck out in the cold rain for hours.

Even though I'm a bit miffed that we wasted the whole day, it truly was a hilarious experience. It was like one of those shots in a movie where a train pulls out of a station, revealing three disgruntled-looking people on the platform making -.- faces. It was also creepy that the entire town was deserted (save for the pub, but when we returned to it, it was deserted, and it only had two other people in it to begin with) and that the only sounds we heard besides cows and birds was disconcertingly close shotgun shots. The only things that would have made it a worse experience would be if we hadn't found food and shelter from the cold and rain in the pub, and if...well, if we had gotten shot by the random, unseen farmer, or if we'd gotten run over by a car.