Extremely long post mostly about food

Okayyyyyy I have been slacking so there is much to tell.

Let's start with last weekend. 

After I wrote my last blog entry I realized I left out the MOST IMPORTANT PART of my day! Namely: that I got to pet a lemur. I know, it's shocking that I could forget something so important. Let me explain: Wycliff Hall, the theology college SCIO is associated with, was having a party Saturday night, so all SCIO students were invited. I had been told by a Wycliff student that there would be free Domino's pizza (I was sold.) along with live music and some “special guests.” But he wouldn't say anything more about the special guest, probably because he could not express just how special it was, as it was a lemur. They seriously hired an animal trainer to come with a lemur so you could pet it/take pictures of it. It makes me wonder if this is the cool thing to do in England. In any case, I plan to do the same thing for the next big party I throw, which will probably be my wedding reception. 

I know this looks suspiciously like a cat in the darkness, but I swear, it's a lemur:

Okay, moving on. MY BIRTHDAY!!!!! It was a splendid day. The fact that the sun was shining was enough to make me extremely happy. A group of us took advantage of the sun and went to University Church Tower, where you can climb up this tiny little staircase to take pictures. And this was a good choice because guess what? Oxford is BEAUTIFUL:

My library from above:

 High Street!

Check out the purty colors:

 The gang's all here:

We embraced our status as American tourists that day. 

Actual quote from British person walking by: "I don't get it."

After that we went to G&D's, a famous ice cream chain in England that I hadn't been to yet. Kathryn and I split the brownie sundae and I was full for approximately three hours after that. You will understand when you see the below picture. I would have thought my intense lifelong large-portion-size food training as an American would be able to get me through, but these English have some tricks up their sleeve. 

This brownie sundae is not messin' around:

We ended the day by watching Indiana Jones, so it was obviously wonderful.

Monday, as you may have heard, was VALENTINE'S DAY. I honestly don't think I've ever eaten that much chocolate in one day. I had planned to be taken to dinner by several British boys, but when that fell through, I went to a girl from my Bible study's flat with some SCIO girls, and we made heart-shaped pizzas and ate chocolate. Then I went to choir practice and they had biscuits. Then I came back home and there were was lots of chocolate cake. I'm going to go with the theory that all the extra walking I'm doing burns calories, and thus I deserve said cake. 

For the many readers who are concerned about my English love life, I should let you know that I have figured out why I have not yet snagged a British chap! I was walking through the parks and it hit me! I have clearly not been walking my dalmatian in the park to get tangled up with some guy's dalmatian, leading to us falling in love and living in the wealth of his blossoming music career. But there is an easy way to fix this:

Step 1: Buy dalmatian

Step 2: Run into bloke with dalmatian, be initially annoyed, fall in love, etc. etc.

Step 3: Take care of 100 dogs.

This seems like a good plan to me.

But anyway, Valentines day was pretty brilliant (Translation: good). What could be the perfect end to this perfect day? One word: loot. I got three packages, baby.

I was joyous. 

My Spoils:

• Beautiful tye-dye shirt, props to Bethany and Jasmine
• An insane amount of chocolate
• A beautiful poem by one Hannah N. Merrifield. It touched my soul.
• Book, “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists.” Thank you, Megan Simon. You can tell this is going to be a classic.
• And from my mother, another book, “Junie B. Jones and the Mushy Gushy Valentine.” She is clearly aware of the high intellectual standards I have for reading. These two books will definitely contribute to my academic endeavors/success. (If you haven't read Junie B. Jones, you're kind of behind the times/living a deprived life. Seriously.)
• Wonderful letters from Trinity folk
• AMERICAN PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!
  
  You are all extremely lucky that I received this because I was going to start using this blog exclusively as a desperate plea for American peanut butter. I may have even gone on strike (I know, scary, right?) until receiving said peanut butter. Who knows? I was desperate. I have been craving it insanely lately, and I reaaallly don't like the stuff here. It tastes like, you know, peanuts, instead of processed sugar. What is that all about? Who do these crazy Brits think they are? And as long as I'm ranting against the food industry of England, I would like to voice my opinion that England should return the high-fructose corn-syrup to my Coke. Also they should sell tasty generic spaghetti-os. Thank you.
  
  Anyway, I don't really know what brought on this intense craving for good butter. I mean, I like peanut butter, but I don't eat spoonfuls of it like Hannah does. I think I wasn't helped by the whole “always wanting what you can't have” thing. Because I kept looking. And they don't do any sort of chocolate-peanut butter combination either. Like, on Valentines Day, I spend about ten minutes staring at the candy row trying to find peanut butter chocolate. It doesn't exist. So basically I looked like a forlorn single girl too distressed by her singleness to actually make a decision as to what to stuff her face with. And when we went to G&D's I was looking for chocolate-peanut butter ice cream. No go. In case you were wondering, there is not Peanut Butter Captain Crunch equivalent here either. It was clearly a hopeless situation. But my strike has been happily prevented by the loving actions of my beloved Trinity friends, and for that I am (as you also should be) extremely grateful.
  
  This is now really long but I have to tell about my day TODAY! Today was very exciting for a number of reasons: 1) I went to a palace and 2) I had my first English tea time! Oh yeah. With scones and jam and clotted cream and everything. Even tea. Yes, everyone, I, Lisa Speckhard, hater of tea, drank my first full cup. Now that I'm 20, I seem to be much more mature. In reality, it probably had a higher percentage of milk and sugar than actual tea, but I'm taking baby steps. The whole thing was pretty great, as we all had the “cream tea” and got real teapots and sugar cubes and acted very dignified. I felt so classy. Probably no one could even tell we were American. 
  
  
  Tell me that's not classy.

 Please note that the tea cup is almost empty. 

Look at me, all refined and English and 20 years old:

Also the whole "palace" thing was great and beautiful:

Gate that must remain closed as part of the intense security system that forgot the actual fence.

Winston Churchill's grave:

Also the signs: 

This seems like a violent way to put it...

England + Big Brother = BFFs

Please don't "cause nuisance."

As a final note, I really have to find a way to appease the Clumsy gods. I tripped over the sidewalk today and took a flying leap that looked extremely dramatic and was dangerously close to me falling on my face. And now I'm not only tripping over myself, but my clumsiness has extended to me dropping food on the floor pretty much everyday. This is sad because A) that whole butter-side-down thing is true, and B) I have to pay for my own food. This has got to stop. I'm open to take any suggestions.