spotting the differences

Download this: “The 3Rs” by Jack Johnson
why: because the english are nutty about recycling. they have 3 different bins they have to divide their recycling into. they want everyone to use recycleable bags at the grocery. that kind of stuff. and its actually a great idea even though it makes for a kinda crazy sorting process...

Fact: There is an Oxford in New Zealand, an Oxford in Canada, 21 Oxfords in the United States, besides a Mount Oxford, two Lake Oxfords and Oxford County, Maine (whose capital is South Paris). The city lends its name to Oxford bags, Oxford Marmalade, Oxford grey (a very dark gray colour - hommage to the skies of Oxford perhaps?), Oxford shoes, the Oxford Comma, the Oxford Group, the Oxford Movement and the Oxford accent.

So needless to say that after the late late night of fun Friday, we were a bit lazy on Saturday. Ok, a lot lazy on Saturday. As in we didn’t get up until after 1130 and we really didn’t get moving at all until after noon because erin, Cassidy (the dog) and I decided to stretch out in bed and be gossipy. Anton had apparently left quite early in the morning so there were no guests left in the house to worry about. Not that it was a problem anyway, but we were just soooooo flippin lazy.

By the time we all got up and moving it was mid afternoon, and the barbecue had been moved to that night, so I got to have a truly authentic English experience… a trip to the grocery store. And let me just say that it was insanity. That business would never fly in the states.

So we head to the local Sainsbury to pick up food for the night (I volunteered to whip up a potato salad to go with the burgers and wings that we would be making) and erin and drew needed to do regular grocery shopping as well. It ended up being a huge shopping trip for everyone since I decided to get some breakfast foods and snacks for myself (mmm granola bars!) so I got to experience the british grocery full on.

The easiest assessment to make was that it was just ridiculous. It was insanely crowded (and for some reason, parking spots are ridiculously small so drew had to pull an Austin powers move to get us parked) in the store and the shelves were decimated. Everywhere you looked the shelves were empty. Now, im not an advocate of having the huge stocking carts cluttering up the aisles when you are trying to shop but at least having SOME food on the shelves would be a good idea. I could just imagine going to Kroger and listening to people yell about how all the shelves were empty. Apparently this is nothing new either. They just don’t stock their shelves for some reason. Shopping on a Monday is supposed to be the worst day of the week for that.

Anyway, being a total geek, it was interesting to see what they price things as in these stores. Generally speaking, if you get paid in pounds, a lot of things are not much different in price. The one major difference however is that stuff here is ridiculously small. Like, not that I got any, but crates of eggs come in 6, not 12 as we are used to. Milk and juices come in super small containers as well and I actually laughed at drew when he brought me a bag of potatoes for my salad and they were about the size of gold balls and it was like a 1 pound bag. Apparently, they don’t do sacks of potatoes here. They do do extremely cheap wings and prawns (shrimp) here so that’s what we picked up for the main course and appetizer.

One thing I will give them is that they have a ton of organic food and they are extremely big on organic free range chicken here. This can also be referred to as chicken that tastes like chicken and not that hormone stuffed jazz that Tyson peddles in the US. And yes, I am becoming a food snob. Its just that sometimes you don’t realize how different (and not always in a good way) the stuff we eat at home is for you. They are not very big on preservatives here either so a lot of the food is use it or lose it really quickly. That may explain why it comes in smaller containers as well so it is easier to use without going bad.

The most humorous part of the trip came when drew and I were bagging groceries (you have to pay to have someone do it for you I believe and you are highly encouraged to purchase and bring reusable bags) and the girl was trying to ring up a pack of cheese with no price. She called the manager over and the manager couldn’t find a price either and she turns to me and says “what do you want to pay for this?” I was totally confused so I told her to ask drew. Apparently since it didn’t have a price we were allowed to pay whatever we wanted to keep them from having to walk back and look. We ended up getting a 3-4 pound block of cheese for 1 pound 20 pence at drew’s suggestion.

Rushing home from the grocery (after grabbing some ready made food from their deli) we set to work getting food ready. I did my best to throw a potato salad together (it was just ok by my standard but everyone else LOVED it) while erin made the most amazing cookies ever. I love them so much I made her give me the recipe for them, so I will now have a new cookie to add to my repertoire. Erin also made a killer cocktail sauce for the shrimp (pure horseradish, creamy horseradish, ketchup and some lemon juice) just as mark and jenny arrived bearing French cheese and wine and strawberries from the market. Renick and jo were not two far behind.

I have to say how much fun the barbecue was. The thing I like about here is the same thing erin likes about living here. People are much more willing to try new things and to have a variety to their lives than back home. Here, people like to go out and try new restaurants and pubs as well as having people over to cookout. And even when staying in, people are still more willing to try new things like the cheeses and wine for a perfect example. (side note: mark and jenny are American expats who were previously working in the hamburg office and mark currently manages the oxford and hamburg offices. Renick is polish – drew refers to him as the polish express at times – and he is engaged to jo who is native to oxford). Apparently, the cheese and wine were gifts to mark and jenny from someone who had just come back from the paris office. Jenny figured that this would be the perfect place to try them out so spread them out on a plate for a good try. It was the most hilarious thing ever. One of them that looked like a crème brulee was the stinkiest cheese imaginable. It tasted like nasty feet. NO ONE liked that cheese and it ended up making the entire kitchen smell bad as well. There was another one that was a goat cheese that ws covered in a coat of blue mold. Erin hates mold of any kind so it was really funny to see here cut a hunk off and try to choke it down. Despite being blue and fuzzy, it was one of the best cheeses ive tasted. Most of the other cheeses were fabulous too (nothing like fresh, preservative free cheese from people who really know their cheeses) although I cant remember what most of them were. All I know is that I was in heaven being the cheese lover that I am.

Gotta say that it was just fun to have the grown up kinda of gathering that im starting to really crave these days. Just different from the college cookouts and such where you each cheap crappy food and drink cheap crappy booze. Im really starting to love these kind of things where you eat good food (ok so wings aren’t exactly high class, but its not a burnt hot dog either) and have good drinks (wine that doesn’t come with a screw cap, beer that isn’t referred to by some nickname or as “piss water”) and just mellow out instead of just trying to get drunk (not saying that after a few glasses of good French wine it didn’t happen…) and have adult conversation. Wow. When did I grow up? Holy cow that’s a strange feeling to realize that im an adult now. Any chance I can make it stop lol?

so anyway it was just an all around great night hanging out, having a few drinks (im a huge fan of pear cider now thanks to drew) chatting and good food. yay. we also busted out the you tube videos again and had a great laugh at some of that stuff.

it was another late night again with good company, and we really didnt have a plan for the next day other than to maybe drive out to the cotswolds which we ended up doing.

i have to say sorry for not putting up any pictures at the moment, but im working on erin and drews laptop. they have wireless access, but i cant connect my computer with it even with the password (i have to be authorized by the network) so unless i drag my laptop into town, ill have to wait a few more days to post some pictures and update that part of it. i also know that i need to update about the trip to the cotswolds and the trip we took to windsor yesterday but that will probably not be until tomorrow. as it stands, ive got a beautiful sunny day to explore while erin and drew are working so im off to walk into town to explore and amuse myself for a bit. ill try to get caught up in the next few days though.