Three Lions

Well I made it across the pond with very little trouble. I was able to sleep fairly well on both my flights, which is good considering I barely had any sleep the night before. I can only make one complaint on my travels and that was with my seat. When booking my flights I had explained, or rather my mother since she was the one speaking to them, that I had problems with my left knee and therefore had to be seated on the right side of the plane so I might stretch my knee into the aisle. The agent got this backwards. I was going to ask to switch sides on my transatlantic flight but Delta had overbooked and people were quite agitated so I chickened out.

Mustn't grumble, what matters is I have arrived. I've spent the weekend staying with Luke and his parents in Southam, Warwickshire but tomorrow Luke and I shall head up to Manchester with his cousin, Becki. I've had an eventful weekend that surprisingly has not been dampened by jetlag. I arrived Thursday at noon, Luke and his grandpa picked me up from the airport, but we didn't get back to the house until about half-two, customs and collecting my baggage took a good hour. Lindsay, Luke's mum, had arranged a nice light lunch with pate and cheeses.

Friday, I just unpacked and that evening went to dinner with Luke, his mum and Ian, grandad, Becki, and Ian's parents Pam and Mick. Just went down to one of the local pubs, The Bowling Green, so I could have a taste of English cusine. I had liver and onions, which were made with lamb's liver. It was good but certainly not as good as my mothers, I think this was partially due to the fact it was lamb's liver and not beef. I had a giggle at the menu when I read about one of the desserts called 'spotted dick' which apparently is a type of sponge cake with raisins in it if I'm not mistaken.

Saturday was a big day as it marked the first match for England in the World Cup. It was a particularly big day in this household as it just so happens England was playing the good ol' U.S.A. I felt very outnumbered being surrounded by England flags everywhere, Lindsay gave me an American flag to wave and I decided to count the dog on my side as an American supporter. Within the first five minutes England had scored a goal and I braced myself for what I assumed was going to be a humiliting defeat. However, America did not disappoint me, as I must confess I'd been predicting for the past two days. They managed to score a goal, but this was only due to the England keeper's, Robert Green, fumble.

After the match, Luke, Becki and I walked down the the cricket club. For those Yanks who have no idea what this means, cricket is a huge summer sport for England of which I'm sure I'll have a countless number of posts on in the coming months. I still don't understand the game, no matter how many times Luke or anyone have tried to explain it to me. Lindsay has told me to not worry about it though, she's English and doesn't understand the 'bloody sport'. The club is just where all the members of the team and their familys go to hang out and watch various sport together and drink, of course. I didn't get teased too badly by the people down there, most of them were too ashamed of England to say anything to me about the tied game. Therefore I was able to leave the club with my head held high knowing my team didn't perform nearly as poorly as they had been expected to.

It's been a lovely couple of days here so far. Whether has been nice, although it has been threatening today and yesterday evening. Still it's warm and I've managed to take the dog on a number of lovely walks in the English countryside. Like I said tomorrow, Tuesday, I'll be heading up to Manchester, which means I get to see Luke's dad's side of the family and get a lovely curry on Curry Mile. I'm quite looking forward to it!

Erin x