Ouma is here!

Hi everyone...sorry I haven't written in over a week! Please leave comments if you read this because sometimes I feel like no one reads it so I have no motivation to keep writing LOL. Anyway, this week we went to this delicious sushi restaurant called YO! Sushi. It was so cool! You sit around this revolving strip and all different Japanese dishes pass you by. They have different colored bowls which tell you the price according to the color and at the end they count how many of each color you had.

Here is the revolving sushi:




Here is us at YO! Sushi:






I worked on Saturday night at the King's Hotel. It is a very posh hotel that is right next door to our village. It was a beautiful wedding and I was just helping behind the bar and with the catering. After my shift was over, I apparently had passed their test and they gave me papers to fill out to be a new hire...unfortunately those papers include my National Insurance Number, copy of my Visa, etc....which I don't have! So tomorrow I will probably get a phone call that I can not work there but at least I had one more night of work! It was pretty fun but definitely hard work! The bride and groom also got married at the hotel and I saw the bride right before she walked down the aisle trying to talk the flower girl out of crying! I felt so horrible for her...she was like "Please Mya...please....daddy has a chocolate for you...at the end of the aisle." And of course, once Mya entered down the aisle...all you heard was crying!

This morning we picked Ouma up at the airport. Ouma is Africaans for grandmother. What a lovely lady! I have found I have a lot in common with Ouma. She is from Jersey. I am from New Jersey. And we both love garage sales and bargains! In fact, today we went to the "boot sale" (British huge flea market/garage/yard sale thing) and got tons of bargains! We watched the Wimbeldon final...what a nail biter!!! I am so upset Roddick lost! And we had a lovely dinner at the Mowchak (you know that Indian restaurant that screwed up our doggy bag last time...). Well this time we were sure to ask for "take away" not "doggy bag", just reinforcing that WE will eat it...not our dog. At the end of our meal we got a complimentary drink...I couldn't help but wonder if he remembered us! After dinner we went for a drive through the Chilterns which is the area around us full of beautiful farms, countryside and gorgeous old homes, many of which are heritage homes...meaning they are protected and cannot be knocked down or added on to.

Here is Donovan and Ouma:



And one of Ouma's dreams is to have a house with a white picket fence...I told her my mom had the same dream. And she gave me beautiful beads made from a South African bush. They are very hip these days and thankfully, I'm ahead of the trend now... Here is me and Ouma and my beads!



I ran 5 miles 4 days this week! That was an accomplishment and hopefully I can keep that up! The weather has been absolutely gorgeous! Oh, and on Tuesday I worked a few hours at the pub and met a girl from Mountain Lakes, NJ!!!! Well, she moved there when she was 10 years old and lived for a while. Also met some nice guys who had been to New York City and one who was apparently born in Arkansas but was definitely 100% Welsh because I could not understand a WORD he said...especially when he kept referring to Syracuse! Seriously ask a Welsh person to pronounce that word---it's impossible!

This week me and Nat finalized our Eurotrip (well, minus our hostels in Rome). Nat will arrive on July 28th from Dublin and we will do London. Then we will go to Paris for a few days...then Rome...then Venice...then I will go back to Munich with Nat and spend a few days and then back here! I should definitely have a few interesting blog entries from that trip...to say the least! We are flying everywhere but we have one night train from Venice to Munich.

Tomorrow we drive Ouma to Auntie Carol's house which is about 2 hours away...looking forward to meeting more of Donovan's family! All of Ouma's siblings are still in Jersey and she will be spending 3 weeks there. She hasn't been there in 19 years! Her family is so excited for her visit! After her time in Jersey, she will stay with us another night or two before returning to South Africa.

And thinking of differences in culture from here to the States...in the States, when you walk down the street you either have people beeping at you or Mexicans saying "Heyyy Mommyyyy" and here you still have beeping but the cat calls are more like "Afternoon!"

Oh and the ice cream man comes around everyday and one day I got a "Nobbly Bobbly" which is my new favorite ice cream! I have no idea what it is but it's delicious!

We also saw "Ice Age III" which was AMAZING! And I've never even seen the first two!

Hope everyone had a Happy 4th of July! The only thing they had here was some British guy on saturday morning cartoons making fun of Americans...not so much fun!

No more random thoughts at the moment and I've been up since 5:30am so I'm going to bed...cheers!