Cooking Disaster and Strange Costumes

My first week in Newcastle is complete! I can’t believe I’ve been here only a week.  It feels so much longer!

Carly and I have explored most of the city surrounding the university and I think we both feel 100x more comfortable now.  I’ve almost mastered travelling by bus which I’m excited about because I’ve never taken city buses before haha!

I’ve been to England 2 times before and I’m completely aware that the English are not known for delicious food and found some really great restaurants so far.  We found this Italian restaurant that makes AMAZING pizza. If I didn’t know any better I’d say the restaurant was somewhere near my house that’s how good it was.

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Since my flat is self-catered (meaning I don’t get dining hall meals) I tried to go to the food store, Morrison’s, today…I ended up walking 10 minutes in the wrong direction and got so pissed that I just came back.  I ended up going to the city center and stopped in a Tesco convenience store on the way home.  As I was heating up my pasta, all 4 of my Chinese roommates came into the kitchen almost at once and started making their dinners as well. The girls are really nice and they were really excited to see me make pasta.  They asked if they could watch me make my pasta, as they've never seen it done before. I was happy to share part of my culture with them, even if I couldn't wrap my head around how they've never seen pasta made before, They asked me all kinds of questions about how to cook the pasta and what kind of sauces you can put on it. 

As I was cooking, one of the girls put some oil in a pan, turned the heat on, and then walked out of the kitchen. I knew immediately that there were going to be problems.  When she came back she began cutting up vegetables and her oil started burning and smoking like crazy. I brought it to her attention and she immediately took it off the stove.  Then they all started yelling in Chinese and I had no idea what was going on so I just stirred my water as I waited for it to boil.  Boiling water took me about 30 minutes because I couldn’t figure out the settings of the stovetop. The stove is electric so it was immediately my enemy and the knobs for the range were faded so I couldn’t tell what was low and high temperatures.  Finally I found the setting that was apparently “Red Hot Spiral of Death” and my pasta cooked in about 3 minutes flat.  I said goodbye to my roommates and scurried back to my room.

And that’s not even the strangest thing that’s happened so far.

This upcoming week is called Fresher’s Week and its basically one big party for the freshmen students.  There are night events and day events but you have to buy a bracelet in order to participate.  They cost £50 ($77). Carly and I thought about it and we really didn’t feel like spending that kind of money to hang around with drunken freshmen all week. 

One of the traditions of Fresher’s Week is that you dress up in costumes…all day. Yesterday while I was waiting for Carly outside the Student Union, (which kicks the shit out of La Salle’s Union. I’ll post about that soon) a crowd of students dressed as bananas walked by.  Bananas. The only reason I knew I wasn’t hallucinating was because another international student I was talking to stared at them open-mouthed as they walked by.   Just this morning I went to register with the local doctor and there was a group of 5 girls wearing leggings with underwear on the outside. #NotMadJustConfused.

Other costumes I saw (worn by men and women):

• -          Hugh Hefner & Bunnies
• -          Cave people
• -          The Village People
• -          Painters
• -          Men in tutus
• -          Circus folk
• -           Pajama Party go-ers
• -       Clowns wearing neon colored outfits (they were simultaneously trying to raise money for
           Epilepsy Research)

Carly and I decided to escape the burgeoning numbers of costumed Brits on our campus and took a trip to the coastal town of Tynemouth (see my/Carly’s FB albums for pictures!) It was a short 15 minute train ride from Newcastle.  The town was so quaint and cute! It was like right out of a movie!  We got lunch and walked around the town and then went to the weekly flea market in the train station.

There were a lot of really cool and interesting things for sale there including jewelry, books, housewares, posters, etc. so I know we’ll be back sometime soon.  I saw many metal mirror/brush/comb sets that were beautiful so I plan on picking one up when I save some money.

This week is my program induction week so I’ll be learning all about my program and the requirements for my courses so I’m sure I’ll be complaining about them here soon!