Lake District and Salads

I am now all alone in Manchester. My flatmate (I'm told I can't say roommate here because it implies something different) has moved out and I am left to keep myself  entertained. Over two days I've read a book and half so far, sketched, played sims, and am in the planning stages for two animation projects and restarting my graphic novel. I think being alone will work out well for me.

 

Although my classmates have left, I'm not really alone. I have all my friends at church to annoy...er, talk to! Last weekend I managed to snag a last minute spot on the church weekend. We went to the Lake District. Here are a few pics...

 

 

My room. The weekend before I had been at the Rockabilly Rave and the accommodations there had been...not so impressive, so I was really happy to see that at this one it was much more hotel like and not the bunk bed style I'm use to from youth church camps.

 

 

During our down time most everyone went on a "walk". I thought I'd join but then I was asked if I had 'gear'...for a walk? I'm told to walk I would need a water-proof windbreaker, water-proof shoes and pants at minimum. Yeah, that sounds like work. I can't say for sure since I decided not to go, but when they say walk, I think they mean hike. I don't know if I will go buy gear for hiking or not...

 

Instead I walked around the grounds of the building we were staying at.

  

I had a really nice time over the weekend and got to meet a bunch of new faces. A lot of times what happens at the church's weekends is that people who have moved away in the past come to just the weekends in order to see old friends. Seems like a really nice compromise to me. We got to learn a bit over the weekend but in a very relaxed atmosphere so it felt more like a vacation rather than a seminar.

 

Then, Tuesday was creative salad night at church. Apparently word has circled around amongst my family about it since I asked my mother and grandmother for their recipes so now everyone has expressed interest in how it went.

 

I volunteered to bring two salads, Taco Salad and Pinkie's Blueberry Salad. I bought the ingredients and then the point of the activity night is to make the salads together and of course enjoy eating them together. For the blueberry salad I did a lot of prep work on it because you have to leave time for the jello portion to set. The only thing left to do for it that night was to make the icing but not everyone wanted to be too involved in salad making so that made a nice easy option for people. The taco salad was much more involved. I had one person making the salad portion and another person just for the dressing. I couldn't find Catalina Dressing at the local Sainsbury's and I asked their customer service person and was told that it's not just me, they really don't have it. Had never even heard of it.

 

These are some of the other delicious options we had that night. Both of my salads went over very well and several people told me they planned on making them again at home. It was a lot of fun and I'm really glad I had the opportunity to participate :D

 

Well, I've eaten up all my leftovers now so I've got to go to the grocery store today and buy something I can pack up into lunches. For one week only I'll be working full-time and then my sister comes and we are going to travel around Europe and see as much as we can possibly see. We still don't have a plan, but whatever we end up doing I'm sure will be amazing.

Movin' and Rockin'

Hello! Been a while since updating so I have lots of pictures for you guys this time :)

Way back on June 2nd my friends and I went to the Manchester Day Parade. It was fun, better than the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Here are a few pics...

This one was really cool. The legs moved when he did and he coordinated the front legs and back legs. Very creepy little walk, a lot like a crab's :)

At the end of the parade they immediately cleaned the streets. Even the street cleaners were dressed up for the parade :D

 

 

One of the last meals at my old apartment. I made a spinach and mushroom etouffee. It was pretty good, but not Yats. ONE DAY! One day I will achieve a really good etouffee.

 

 

 

MY NEW PLACE! (not my car :( Maybe if I move here for real)

The living room. This was right after I got my keys. I set my stuff done and just absorbed in the wonderfulness of renting. Then walked out the door and began the long process of moving. Honestly I personally didn't have that much stuff, but after I was gifted the leftovers from three different houses...There was a lot of stuff. It is all going to be put to good use though :)

The bathroom. Yeah, a blue toilet. Haven't seen that before :P

My tiny kitchen. Scroll back up and compare...cooking can't be so spread out any more.

 

 

Last weekend (14-17) my friend and I went to the Rockabilly Rave. When she told me about it she called it a festival...we get there and it calls itself a rave. It ended up being somewhere in the middle :)

Everyone (except me >.<) dresses up in 50s style clothing and they brought their cars all in various stages of renovation. They had booths to buy more 50s era items, mostly clothing. It was a cool, fun atmosphere. Similar to the enthusiasm for Comic Con attenders, but at the end of the day everyone goes to the bar for a lot of drinking and some dancing...which doesn't happen so much at Comic Con :P

They had a fashion show put on by the venders. One of the coolest parts of the rave in my opinion. I took pictures of every outfit I think, but here are some of my favorites.

This outfit, I would wear. We went looking for that jacket afterwards but didn't find it anywhere. I probably wouldn't have wanted to pay the 35 pounds they would have asked for anyway.

 

 

Although  I don't have a 50s wardrobe ready for this kind of thing, my friend convinced me to go out and buy a dress that I could dance in. When we got there I also bought the little flower to help me blend in...

As the weekend went on we got lazier, and sleepier. Before going to the rave we had to meet our deadline for our scripts. It was a long stressful week and neither of us had been happy with what we turned in but we simply didn't have time. A lot of the weekend at the rave was spent recovering from the script deadline. Sunday we went out and enjoyed some sunshine at the beautiful beach that was nearby.

 

 

 

Now back in Manchester and back to working at the library. I have a summer ahead of me to plan and fiddle with my new script, a conspiracy theory story. But I'm sure I will find time to do some fun things too :P Going on a church trip this weekend, which is why I'm posting this now and not Sunday. I'm staying busy so over the summer you will probably just get posts as I have the time, but I won't forget about you guys ;)

New Place

I'm moving the last of my things to my new apartment today. I haven't decided what to do about internet yet so my updates may be late after this. I'll still be going to cafes and I have internet at work so you can still reach me, but I will be slower to reply for a while. TTYL.

The Last Goodbyes

It is clearly time for my father to come visit me because my laptop is becoming very temperamental. I was downloading pictures from my camera and in moving them over it corrupted a bunch again. I have learned my lesson now though and will copy pictures instead of cutting from now on :(

It has been a long weekend of telling all my classmates goodbye. Today marks another sad day of goodbyes but before we do that we are going to a parade, eating frozen yogurt, seeing a comedy show, and meeting our teachers for drinks tonight. We are getting the most out of our time together while we can!

In other news, it is very cold here. Friday was a "warm" day with it getting up to 64 F in the middle of the day. Everyone was out in sun dresses and shorts. I continue to wear a sweater. I feel a sad longing for Arizona's 108 degree weather although if I was actually there I'm sure I would be miserable. I'm tired of being cold though. I will have to go shopping and truly update my wardrobe for this brisk British weather since I'm planning on staying here a while.

On Monday I went with one of my roommates to the Trafford mall. It was AMAZING. I'd been to Arndale's in the Manchester City Center, and though "sure, this is a nice sized mall." Trafford is in a league of its own though. If I needed to buy something, I'd go to Arndale's. When I want to SHOP, it'll be at Trafford. Gorgeous, gorgeous place.

Huge food court. decorated with around the world themes and the decorations matched the type of food at the restaurants in that corner. The New Orleans section was nice looking, but no Cajun restaurant there :(

More of the fancy décor in the mall. We spent a lot of time just wandering around and looking at the mall in awe. Kinda forgot about shopping until hours later...

I found a cream soda! I was very excited. I don't think I've ever had it in a can before. I think it's better in a glass bottle.

Last day of classes :( The Lowry mall here is where we ate lunch almost everyday.

Fuel is one of the cafes we often went to when we needed to write. We had one of our goodbye dinners here. I ordered a hot spiced apple juice to have something different than coke. It was actually cheaper than ordering a coke and I really, really liked it. May become my new standard drink, at least at Fuel.

 

I'm off to see a parade! I hope you are all enjoying warm weather wherever you are! I consider it to be warm at 75-80 degrees. It's not hot until you hit 90. Do you dare disagree with me???