welcome to foggy town.: Fill In The Blank: _______

Can someone tell me why they put circus at the end of each town, city... whatever the heck its called?

well, yesterday we went to oxford circus. today we went to piccadilly circus... and surprise surprise, its not the creepy clown, elephant, cotton candy kinda circus you think about. nope, just another part of the city. i mean clearly its a UK thing, but i just dont understand why they have to call it a circus?! so with this barmy (crazy) word.. i decide to do some research, wikipedia obviously.

according to wiki, In this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning "circle", is a round open space at a street junction.

basically, as the Brit's say, in america this word would be a "load of crack" (crap). sounds like a traffic circle to me, and if u want to get fancy... rotary.

Anyway, we ventured into PC today and met up with some of the other kids from our school and went out to lunch a restaurant called "tiger tiger." With such drastic change, we havent had the best appetite, given some parts of the day i feel like i was punched in the stomach. (lets hope that goes away soon). but enough of the homesickness, thats depressing... the point of the story is the service.

After this meal we began to see how things over here differ from america. over all it took forever to get everything, from drinks to the check. once we finally ordered we realized you have to ask for everything. for example once we got our food we had to ask for ketchup and salt and pepper, they weren't on the table like we were used to. (granted this could all be the individual restaurant, i dont have much to compare to yet). after that we sat around for about 20 minutes then our plates were cleared and 20 later we had to ask for the check. mind you, when we asked for the check...im pretty sure a snail passed our waiter on the way over. after we paid, came the most valuable lesson of the day. you must ask for change if you want it back! before henry used his debit card, our bill was almost fully paid. we assumed he'd put the rest on the card and give us the change... NOPE! needless to say erin and kristin were both our 3 pounds after that meal. finally, here in foggy town, the like limes. every drink we ordered, came with a lime.

save the limes for tequilla shots, would ya?

later we ventured around and just scoped out the situation. i went into mc donalds to buy a bottle of water and once ago, they do this a bit different than us. there is pretty much a walking drive thru inside of the building. you walk up in line, and stand next to the cashier. once you order you then follow the railing to the counter where u can pick up your food. once we got to the front i saw a mc flurry machine and much to my surprise they make mc flurries with cadbury chocolate!

yummmm!

....needless to say i almost died. if i was fortunate enough to have a camera on this high tech phone i received yesterday, i would have sent this picture to my mom...she'd love it. cant go wrong with cadbury.

next on the list... directions. although noone has given us directions for anything since we arrived, how to use the tube, where orientation is, where we find FOOD, we have had some help from the city. on the street they remind you what way to look before crossing.

first...

then...

and thank god, because it would only be a matter of time before i looked the wrong way and then...splat. haha.. no so funny, sorry mom!

in addition to the directions on the road.. they also have them on soda bottles. unfortunately i threw mine away without thinking (so no picture).. but on the top its says "open with hand". now this one, kind of idiotic. thanks for the heads up but i like to open my soda with my nose.... uh duhhh.

finally to add on to the lack of peanut butter in the uk, i was told there are no reeses. and as an avid reeses connoisseur i almost passed out when i heard this. but today, look what i founddd!!!

granted pieces don't come anywhere close to cups, but it bloody hell its a start!

thats about all for today. tomorrow we start orientation, and erin and i have to some how find our way to campus tomorrow and figure out where we are going. it will definitely be interesting. once again here are some pictures from the day. didnt take to many but im sure there will be plenty later.