So I am starting to settle in to regular life in London. Amazingly, I still like it here, even though the brand newness of it all has slightly worn off. By that I mean that I am not really a tourist, or a business visitor anymore, just a regular citizen of London. Londoner? Londonite?

As predicted, the hardest thing for me has been being a little lonely. The good news is I haven’t been achingly homesick yet, and I haven’t cried yet (although I wanted to on Sunday with all the moving headaches). But I keep having very vivid dreams about interacting with a weird combination of the people I have met here and my friends and family back home. As much as I love the adventure of what I am doing here in London, I have to say that I truly love my family and miss them a lot. The most challenging thing about the way I (and blessedly, Michael) live my life is that just when I get comfortable, I start to yearn for the excitement of the unknown. But then I find myself wanting the comforts and familiarities of home! What a difficult time my mind causes me!!!

On a brighter note, my roommate, Isa, had a small dinner party last night. There were a total of 4 of us… Isa, myself, Audrey, and Pierre. The other 3 are all French, but Isa wanted to cook me a real French dinner, so she had to invite her French friends to make it authentic! I was worried that I was going to put her out because I don’t eat meat, but she explained (in very good English) that she rarely eats meat in England anyway, because she doesn’t trust the meat. Apparently, the meat is of extremely poor quality, and tends to be very overpriced. Plus there is a lingering concern about mad cow disease, after the major issues here several years ago. So she made a potato and onion omelette type thing, a sautee of mushrooms, tomatoes, and onions, and a simple salad. Then we had a cheese course!!! I HATE goat cheese, but I ate it anyway, and since I had smothered it in fig jam. Then dessert… Audrey had baked some apples earlier in the day, and Isa mashed them up with cinnamon, and served them the sauce with ice cream. It was really good! I also had fun getting to know her friends. We had some mildly heated debates about vegetarianism – Pierre wanted to know if the animal was raised on a clean farm and lived a good life, would I eat it? We also discussed politics, and everyone wanted to know my opinion on whether or not Barack Obama would become the next president. The French consensus was that America is not ready to elect a black man, and they (regrettably) think McCain will win. I had to explain the electoral system, and even though they kind of understood it going in, they all wanted to hear it from a real live American, because they just couldn’t believe that it was truly the way we elect our presidents. All in all, it was a great night, and I got the double cheek kiss thing from Audrey and Pierre at the end of the night. If only I had remembered to wear my beret… I bet they would have thought I was super cool! Oh AND, I spoke French today! AND the person I spoke it to understood me! The phone just rang and I picked it up and it was Isa’s grandmother, who only speaks French. She kept saying Isabelle? Isabelle? I paused and thought back to High School French…. “Je ne parle pas de Francais! Je suis Jennifer, et Isabelle no es ici…elle es a la maison d’ami!!!” And yes, sadly, I am pretty sure I said it with the exclamation points. And yes, I introduced myself for some reason. And yes, I realize I have probably butchered the spelling an grammar, but, I think the grandma was glad I at least tried. There was a LONG pause and she said “Oui, oui oui…. something something La Louvre es tres bien something something…. goodbye!” Yes! I knew I was secretly fluent in French. By the way, if you don’t know what all that means, you can call Joanne, because she is fluent, too.

I also met another colleague today, Hannah. I REALLY like her. She is a little chatty, but simply couldn’t be nicer. Also, she has been extremely helpful with explaining some of the details I felt I was missing at work. Just a lot of little things that added up to some confusion. She took me out to lunch at Leon, and I had a sweet potato wheat wrap. Yum. I love having all the veggie options here. I have also have been assigned a project at work – It has to do with SEPA, which is the European effort to start making the Euro the main form of currency for electronic debits and payments. I find out more details tomorrow, and so you will find out then too! I am sure you are waiting with bated breath.

And lastly, I went to Manchester on Monday, which was quite interesting. I took the train, but there was a signal line down, which caused a backup of all the northbound trains. It took 4 hours to make a 2.5 hour trip. Luckily, I had a gaggle of boisterous teenagers to entertain me with their delightful observations about British popular life. They had some kind of tabloid and proceeded to decipher every nuance of the photos therein. I know, I know… I am an old lady now. Sigh…. lousy teenagers.