Conclusion

The snow, the cold.... no, it's not England, it's the American Northeast.

Sitting in the airplane, it still hasn't hit me that I'm leaving. My boyfriend, his family, my co-workers, my flatmates, my friends, the BMX bikes in the living room, Daisy's Pub, the yellow double-decker buses, sausage rolls, TopShop, Lemsips, Grazia magazine, and Orange Wednesdays becoming an ocean away every second.

Arrival is bittersweet. American accents greet me in Detroit, Michigan, my layover, but under less than fortunate circumstances. With almost three feet of snow halting life in cities in New England, the airport is a circus. I'm surrounded by unhappy Christmas travelers. Some crying in corners with bags of overpriced airport crap littered at their feet. Others pacing back and forth with rage, vented on their cell phones. Most are sleeping on the floor, or waiting dead-eyed and defeated in long customer service lines. Merry Christmas, anyone?

Soon I join the hundreds of stranded, as I miss my connecting flight to Cincinnati, although it's not weather related, I'm just fucking retarded (long story that I'm not getting into). I make my way to Holiday Inn Express via shuttle and sleep.

I wake up. It's 4 a.m. I don't need to be up until 6:30. And I know I'm going to continue to be on London time for a while. Luckily, I make my flight and in an hour my dad's greeting me at Northern Kentucky Airport. I find myself secretly observing everyone around me, trying to soak up middle America.

The weather is cold. The streets are clear but snow is firmly planted on every unploughed surface. Usually when I come home for Christmas from California, I'm freezing. But having lived in the ice and snow for the past months, I'm just fine, warmer even.

We get home, pick up my brother and head for an early breakfast at Frisch's Big Boy, an All-American classic. The white wedge-capped, red checkered, doe-eyed plastic Big Boy in front is oddly comforting. I order a Number One: two eggs, hash browns, bacon and toast but then instantly crave England's HP brown sauce, a tangy dark barbecue-like breakfast condiment that I've grown to love. And then I sadly realize I'm never going to have a Full English Breakfast from my work ever again.

My mom comes home from work around 7 p.m. And we have our Christmas celebration. They've saved the presents until my return. I tell them of my experiences, the differences, the weather. I tell them how on Christmas Day my boyfriend, his mom, her husband, and myself broke open traditional crackers, which are small cardboard rolls filled with a joke, a small toy, and shiny crown to wear, and they find the shiny hats a funny tradition, just as I do.

Sitting besides the Christmas tree, surrounded by my loving family, scratching our traditional Christmas lottery ticket games (I only won $7, but two years ago I won $275), I know it's good to be home.

Being away made me realize how much I love America. How proud I am to be an American.

Only now, as I sit here writing my thoughts do I get the full effect this trip has had on me. How this trip has become an eye-opener to the American-way, as well as the English-way.

How lucky people in America are to be in school until 18. Sixteen, the age where the required schooling is finished in England, seems too early to know what direction you want to take, or if you want to go to continue school or not.

I think of how lucky America is to have such a vast and diverse homeland. Where we can travel from coast to coast experiencing so many different climates, accents, lifestyles, without a passport or changing currency. Yet, I find it incredibly amazing that people in England have so many countries to explore just a short jump across the English channel.

I've realized how wasteful I have been. How in England, my flatmates always turned off all the lights in the house when they didn't need them, how they hung there clothes to dry instead of a using a dryer, how they did the washing up by hand and not by dishwasher. How each individual electrical outlet had an on-off switch to conserve energy. How the recycling bin was far more larger than the rubbish bin.

Walking around in the Kentucky malls, I notice the the same stores and the same clothes for sale as in England, yet all the people surrounding me are dressed completely different. I miss the fashion forward people of England. I'd say their style is most like New York fashion, where it's less about conformity and looking "hot" but more about individuality and standing out. There wasn't a day that went by in England where I wouldn't see a bald girl or a bright pink dye-job. And it wasn't like you had to be in the right trendy, scene place to see that, it was simply country-wide fashion.

I remember vividly a cold day in England, walking along the beach listening to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, and more specifically the lyrics, 'Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way'. Now, having been and lived it, was it, in fact, true? And yes, in a way, those lines seem suiting. Behind the exciting football games, hipster hangouts, lush countryside and pub quizzes there seemed to be an element of desperation or sadness, especially on the cold, rainy days. Seasonal depression, they call it. When waking up to gray skies day after day zaps the happiness out of life.

Every other week, it seemed, whether it was at work or at home, I would hear news of someone leaving, going on holiday, trying to escape. In America, you may go on a vacation for a week or two, but in England it seemed people, not rich, just your average Englishmen, would go away for months at a time. I clearly remember telling a friend about my impending trip to Australia with my family. When I told her we'd be there for two weeks, she was dumbfounded. "That's it?" Well yeah, I think that's pretty long.

I don't think America is better and I don't think England is either. I'm simply content with my life, my country, and that I have the means to travel and see my home from another perspective. This journey has made me grow as a person, has helped the transition from college student to adult, has solidified my relationship with my boyfriend, and has brought me new friends and family that I will remember forever.

Although I've spent almost all my money and have to endure the stressful task of relocating back to Long Beach, CA and reestablish myself all over again, this trip was definitely a success and something I'm proud of myself for doing.

Thanks to all who have followed my journey on this blog, and who have given me support throughout. I will post again if I decide to continue writing about my trip to Australia and moving back to Long Beach. This was meant to only be about England, but we'll see!

Also, I had the opportunity to write an article about my birthday trip to Brighton Beach for TeaTime-Mag, a free, online magazine to help people learn English. My piece should be in the January issue, so I will keep everyone updated.

Cheers! x

♡ - Kristen

Minced Pies and Puds

Minced pies are very English, aren't they? I always immediately think of Sweeney Todd and the pastries filled with human meat... gross. So you can image I was pretty surprised when at work all of sudden we had little minced pies on display next to our other deserts. Meat pies in the morning? Really? However, not all minced pies are created equal. During Christmas, fruit filled minced pies are all the rage. I still have yet to try one, but they smell delicious.

Christmas pudding, a very sweet cake made heavily with fruits such as raisins, plums and/or sultanas, and bread & butter pudding, a combination of buttered bread and an egg/milk mixture, are very popular during the holiday as well. I'm not a huge fan of either but the b&b pudding has the most heavily smell. Other year-round popular desserts include carrot cakes, lemon drizzle cake, and date & walnut.

Surprisingly, I've noticed a great deal of desserts drenched in cream, not fluffy whipped cream but a milky flowing liquid that creates a little moat around the pudding. Cooking show chefs on the tele are always "double-creme this", "double creme that"... they inhale the stuff!

Puddings, obviously, is a term used for an assortment of desserts here, while in the USA pudding is a term used for more liquid-like desserts like a custard or fudge (mmm, creamy chocolate pudding...). With that said, jelly in England refers to gelatin desserts (JELL-O in the USA!) and jelly in the States is more interchangeable with jam, as in strawberry jelly. Did I confuse you yet?

>>>Christmas Pudding (also known as plum pudding)

>>> Lemon Drizzle at my work
>>> Carrot Cake at my work
(the minced pies on top are from my work too!)

♡-Kristen

Brighton Birthday

My birthday was last Thursday. To celebrate my boyfriend took me to Brighton Beach, unofficially known as the gay capital of England. The city used to be a busy fishing village and the tightly compacted fish market streets have been transformed into a shopping oasis, a place for hipsters, posh heads, and Goth kids alike. We spent most of the afternoon browsing vintage clothing racks and shelf after shelf of old English trinkets and toys.

Although it was a little chilly, we had a nice long walk down the pier, which had classic carnival rides. Followed by a nice cider to warm up. We ending the night with a vegan burger from Red Veg, and it was thee most amazing veggie burger I have had in my life, hands down! I thought for a moment I was eating a Whopper! INCREDIBLE!



>>>In front of the Royal Pavilion.
>>>The old burned down pier.





>>>The best veggie burger EVER!
♡- Kristen

"Weihnachtsmarkt" & Mulled Wine

The aroma of Bratwurst (pork sausage), Krakauer (smoked pork and ham sausage), and Kaesekrainer (smoked pork and cheese sausage) is the fitting back drop to Weihnachtsmarkt, the German inspired Christmas market that comes to Bournemouth Square each year during the winter months featuring German foods, an authentic Alpine Bar and shopping.

Wooden booths line the downtown streets filled with random gifts and Santa crafts and cheesy mechanical Christmas decor ornament the lamp posts and walkways. Sausage stands and hot roasted chestnuts are available to fill an appetite and can be washed down with a hot mulled wine or cider.

Mulled wine (which I've never heard of before) is simply warmed red wine with spices and/or fruit. The German Alpine Bar downtown featured a selection of traditional, cherry, and mixed berry flavored mulled wine. I chose the traditional and found it especially tasty and suiting on a freezing cold snowy day.


"Prost!" - German for 'Cheers' but in German culture you have to make sure to make eye-contact while toasting or it is considered disrespectful.








♡- Kristen

Spinning in Gypsy Car Park

Seems like anytime I blog about how the weather is supposed to be, the next day Mother Nature proves me wrong.

I mentioned that Bournemouth doesn't get proper snow, mostly just slush that melts away before the next day, BUT today I woke up to a blanketed seaside city with a good few inches of fluffy white snow. Do I bring good luck or what?! And what better to do on a day like this then find an empty car lot and thrash the hell out of a car?! And that's just what me, my boyfriend, and flatmates did!

We headed to Hengistbury Head parking lot, snapping pictures and throwing snowballs at random along the way. Although the entrance stated "Car Park Full" (perhaps to throw us hooligans off), we went in anyway and were not surprised to find several cars spinning in circles. Chaz Mann, a friend who's staying at ours at the moment, promptly shouted, "We found a lot full of gypsies!" And that we did.

An old station wagon, a beat up BMW, a few oversized vans and my flatmate Aron's Volkswagen Golf got slippery, pulling hand break turns and wheel spins. There weren't too many near-collisions, and all the blurry faces in the other cars were grinning like mad, just like us. At one point the guys thought it'd be fun to stand on the outside of the car, holding onto the doors, gliding on the ice with their feet. Crazy!



I've done this once before in Cincinnati, OH. But doing it in another country makes it feel a bit more exciting!

♡- Kristen