The holidays have left me entirely too busy. It’s near impossible to get any work done for university when I’m trying to do things like baking cookies, buying gifts, and introducing my boyfriend to the Seattle area. We spent an epic weekend in Vancouver visiting friends, who I miss dearly. Then, a week getting accustomed to being back home (or being in a new country, for my boyfriend), preparing for Christmas, and getting small amounts of project work done. Now that Christmas is over, I have a couple more days with my mom before she flies home, and then a week to do more touristy things and still try to get some work done. I think it will pass far too quickly.
The power went out on Christmas Day, just as we were about to start making German Apple Pancake for breakfast. With bacon and coffee. It was due to a wind storm, and it was just a local outage, so it was barely covered in the news. I’m sad about missing that breakfast, but thankfully that’s the only thing we missed due to the power outage. We were still able to go to my relatives’ place for dinner that evening, since most of Seattle had power, and we had already baked our traditional Pepparkakor cookies and bought presents for the kids (my second cousins).
My boyfriend’s impressions of America? There’s a lot to say. The major difference he’s noticed is that everything is bigger. I thought that was just an exaggeration that people threw around, but apparently it’s true. The cars, the sizes of food and drinks, the roads, the houses, the stores. There seem to be slightly different driving rules, apart from the obvious different side of the road; overtaking a car in the lane to your left is seen as legal here, yet it’s illegal in the UK. Tipping waitresses is expected of you here. And, most importantly: sushi is much cheaper.
I might manage another blog amid the chaos in the coming week. Until then… Happy Holidays!