American Students, English Teachers, and Fat Tuesday

OK... now it might be that I am constantly looking for cheap places to go in London or maybe it is just a downright coincidence, but last night at a pub called The Sports Cafe I met 7 people just from St. Louis and I bet anyone from Stl can guess the first thing they asked me. " What high school did you go to"!! It was funny to see our idiosyncrasies follow us all abroad! I have also found that not as many everyday english people play or even care about football (soccer) here. Every time I spark up a conversation I automatically start to talk about their national sport, mainly because it is always on TV and because of the fact that I could watch another sport of theirs, cricket, for years and never be able to comprehend what the heck is going on! In the pubs they are always rowdy though and it doesn't normally matter which teams are playing.

OK out of four teachers only speaks english as their first language. So today when I had the class for the first time I was unexpectedly enthusiastic about being able to go through 3 hours of class without having to concentrate more on the spoken language than the material itself. Unfortunately, this certain professor has by no doubt the strongest british accent I have ever heard and is actually harder to understand than the Indian, Brazilian, or Ecuadorian professors. He seems like an interesting guy though and gave a 42 page report to read about the bank run at Northern Bank that he wrote. So hopefully the report is a recap of his lecture for my own sake!

Ok so here is something I have never heard of. To celebrate Fat Tuesday here Londoners make pancakes and carry/throw them around on the streets. Not too many people were throwing them around though unfortunately because I would of probably have gobbled them up! But don't worry Mom it is not because I am hungry, I just like pancakes. Anyway, there traditions to celebrate the beginning of Lent are a little different than the binge drinking that takes place in the states.