A strange thing has occurred since I returned to work this week after a trip to England to see the sights and my brother and sister-in-law. People would come up to me and say something like, "soooo... how was England?" in a tone of voice that suggested that it most likely sucked. They would often follow this up with a story about how their mother hated England with a firey passion or how they had heard that the British are much meaner to Americans than even the French. Oh, and English food is terrible. And so is the weather. (PS SARA- What a STUPID trip to take. Oh, wait, your brother lives there and you were visiting him? Oh. Oh, ok.)
I found it all very shocking because in spite of my amusement at how poorly the UK was able to deal with their snowfall and how incredibly expensive things are (except at Poundland! where everything is a pound! wooohoo!) I very much enjoyed England. And here are some reason why I think Britain is GGRRRRR-eat (HA)
First, in the food category (take that!)
Black Currants!
Please America. Please. Please please please bring these back into the mainstream. They are delicious and I love the flavor, especially in tea. I'm begging you.
Pheasant!
And other game birds. We just don't eat a lot of game birds here and I think that's a shame because I like them. So there.
Desserts (aka Puddings!)
Seriously, in America, I barely ever am tempted to order dessert because everywhere has the same things- cheesecake, ice cream, some sort of brownie. Blah blah blah. I know I'm weird, I know that, but I love custard. Love it. And in England it is so easy to find a pudding served with hot custard! Amazing. And Harry Potter is right, treacle tart is delicious. I have to learn how ot make that...
And those are just the stand outs. We also greatly enjoyed the curry, cornish pasties, chips of course and Joe was crazy about mushy peas (they did not win me over though I admit they are better that regular peas). Cheeses! Weird soups! It was good stuff.
Some other things about Britain that are cool:
- Derren Brown. Coolest magician/mentalist/almost scary because he's so awesome I've ever seen.
-Pantomime! A theatre production that is unlike anything I've ever seen. Think musical meets improv meets mayhem. It was so fun.
- Castles!
- British authors! CS LEWIS! TOLKIEN! (I got to go to the pub they hung out in. Where I ate the treacle tart! Which I knew about through ROWLING!)
I really could go on but people don't like to read long posts. They just look at them and think "Yikes, not even gonna try" and since I waxed eloquent about the food I have to stop now. But I just wanted people to know we had a great trip. Thanks Aaron and Becky for having us and showing us around. Thanks Joe for boldly driving on the wrong side of the road. And thanks Caerphilly Castle for still having part of the set from an episode of Dr. Who up, which piqued my interest and introduced me to an amusing show (David Tennant, you are great. Which is another thing about England- hot actors. All my most favorite eye-candy actors are British. Ow ow.).
