What's New at Northampton

My cookies...mostly doodles and Harry Potter








Karen's cookies..far more elaborate and blasphemous.








Our recyclables the day after the house party (the pics are on yahoo now)








My house is so diverse in our extracurricular pursuits...

Are there any Thanksgiving songs?

I have to say, it's pretty weird to be in England on Thanksgiving. What is a huge celebration (read: day of feasting) at home doesn't even exist here. As a result, they don't know when it's appropriate to put up Christmas decorations, they advertise for "Christmas turkeys," and I am not allowed to eat all day long. The program is making us a dinner tonight but it's not until 7... we all know that that's when the third or fourth Thanksgiving dinner takes place. It's alright though, I'll recover.

I am completely done with work until finals and it is glorious. This weekend I plan to bum around, reread the 4th Harry Potter, and watch the entire second season of House on dvd. I aspire to greatness, it's true.

I'm not really sure why I'm posting since I clearly have very little to say...I did make some excellent cookies the other day that were decorated by myself and Schreink quite amusingly, I think I'll post pictures of that soon. And perhaps some pictures from our house party, which was insane.

I propose that everyone who reads this (all 5 or 6 of you) send me a pumpkin pie. Just a suggestion.

A Few Numbers...

1 week until Thanksgiving.

2 weeks until Paris.

3 weeks until the Northhampton Christmas Party

4 weeks until I am home :-)

9 weeks until I am back at wam !!!

Being finished with 3/4 of my papers has prompted a lot of excitment over here.

On a more terrifying note, last night the largest fattest spider crawled in through my window...and disappeared.

What a horrible way to conclude this post. Instead, a picture:

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Yess Lego Santa.I love consumer holidays. I'm not being sarcastic; I really do.

Ah!

It's a good thing I have Fiore, or I might've missed THIS.

(go! click it! it's exciting!)

Public Art, Munich Style

So Santa Clarita has this giant bear statue in Valencia Heritage Park. I named him once when he spent a week in City Hall, but I can't remember what name I gave him (Franklin?). Anyway, he's a part of the CA Bear Project (hmm that's kind of a weak link), which is an attempt at some CA-wide public art... I say attempt because I'm pretty sure Franklin (?) is one of the only art bears.

Munich, however, has the Lion Parade (and the website is awesome).

When I first got there, I saw one or two of these lion statues. They were painted and kind of random and I wasn't really sure what they were doing...but no, they're EVERYWHERE. I don't think you can walk 100 feet without encountering a lion. And I'm pretty sure no two lions are the same. Some of my favorites:

This one has a stein. How appropriate.


Neopolitan?


Art, a bench, and a trashcan: quite the multitasker.


I think this one is having an identity crisis.

So yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. I think the SCV should adapt the bear project into something equally cool, although I'm struggling to come up with a smaller animal that lives there...besides, like, the coyote. The coyote parade would not be very impressive.

On a mostly unrelated note: now that I have had German beer, I can never drink another beer again.

The Pubs of Bath

From left to right: The Dark Horse, Saracen's Head, The Rat and Parrot, The Huntsman, The Boater, St. Christopher's, and The Pig and The Fiddle

We earned our first place prize...even if splitting a bottle of champagne 7 ways doesn't amount to much.