Since being back home (referring to York, obviously) I've found myself doing well on my resolutions for the new year in the form of cooking more 'real' meals, attempting to spend less money and seeing more of York. I'm getting closer and closer to seeing all of the tourist sightings of the city but there are still things left for me to do. I visited the York Castle Museum two weeks ago with Amanda where we learned what life was like in York from the 18th century to the 60's. I procured myself a city of York library card that not only allows me to check out books (the first one I took out was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, oh yes) but also let's you get into a couple of museums for free including the Yorkshire museum that I checked out last week. Yesterday I underwent a training session for Barley Hall, a medieval hall set in the centre of York hidden in the medieval streets and owned by the York Archaelogical Trust. Starting in a couple weeks I will be volunteering on a weekly basis, running the front of house and hopefully making my way to room steward where I can share my historical knowledge with the public!
Cooking wise i've been doing well also. Pasta is still my favorite dish but i've been getting creative with my salads and have also been developing my omeletes to a superb level of tastiness. Not only that, but i've been working on larger dishes to feed not just me but our 'flat family'. My first dish was homemade mac and cheese that I made from scratch, cheese sauce and all (well I bought the noodles but that's a bit tougher.) It was excellent and I was amazed at my skills. This week I'm thinking about tackling some enchiladas so as to get my mexican food fix, i'll let you know how it goes!
The most exciting thing I've done is visiting some friends of mine in Shropshire near the Welsh border. For those of you that don't know, after living in Brighton two summers ago I traveled to Shrewsbury on my own for a few days. There I went to a methodist church and was taken in by a lovely couple, Martin and Pam, whom I met there. I've stayed in touch with them and have been meaning to visit them ever since I got over here again. We finally coordinated and I made my way to Shrewsbury for a weekend stay. It was absolutely lovely having a visit somewhere that felt like home. I mean this in a way that I was with some great people, staying in a house and eating home cooked food. I joined them for a dinner with the local Amnesty International Branch (of which Martin is the chair) at a posh pub in town and met some great people. I also got to see a lot of the countryside including a little trek over the border into Wales to see the largest canal aquaduct to be built by Thomas Telford during the industrial revolution. I also got to watch tv! This sounds trivial, and it is, but think about how much TV you watch in a day or a week even. It may not be a lot but I'm sure you find it on in the background at least a few hours a week. Well I haven't watched any television in four months and it was really nice being able to just veg and watch some good old British tele. I was sad to go on Sunday and came home with an odd sense of homesickness that cannot be placed nor explained in a rational way.
If anything, I find the feelings one experiences on this kind of adventure (that beeing living away from home and in a different culture) to be one of the most fascinating things. It helps to understand yourself better, not just about how close you are to your friends and family, but how you deal with things. How a reaction can be set off by something small and insignificant or stifled by the simplist joke from a friend over dinner. Now that I've been gone for a good amount of time I've gotten to the stage where coming home is on the horizon (considering I have very strong eyesight, which in fact, I don't) and my time here is numbered. I find myself thinking of all the things I want to do, all the places I want to go and of all the friendships that have an effective expiration date. What it really makes me feel is a strong sense of being. I am determined to live the next 5 months to the fullest and so far I'm doing a pretty good job of it. I'm putting myself out there, making new friends, forming stronger bonds with the ones that I already have and overall taking advantage of all the oportunities that I can get my greedy little hands on. Because let's face it: sure i'll do more traveling in my life, that's the kind of person I am, but this right here. I'll never have this again.
I didn't mean for this to take that slightly tangent turn but no matter. A blog is the creation of its author and this refelcts me perfectly: a twist, a turn, something new around the corner and a beautiful lesson about life on way.
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