What *don't* you know?

I have a few friends who knit and blog and we've decided to embark on a blog project that has nothing to do with knitting. We're going to take turns coming up with a topic every Thursday and we each have to blog about it by the end of that day and post links to each other's blogs so that people can see our different perspectives on the same topic.

Check out the backstory about how the project was conceived and how we all came together.

Here are the other blogs:
Froggie Knits Like Crazy
Charmingly Random
Desperate Madness


This week’s topic comes from yours truly again. I was watching “American Idol” last week and each of the contestants had to share something that most people would not know about them. I decided to have everyone, including myself, do the same.

(While the topic was mainly influenced by "American Idol," I also thought about how my mom recently told me that she used to knit when she was around my age or a little younger. I never knew that about her before!)


Here goes:

The ironically funny thing about me choosing this topic is that I’m an open book. I think everyone knows almost everything about me now that I’ve put myself out there so much on Facebook and have been blogging about things that come up from past memories. However, I was able to come up with something that I’m sure most people who didn’t know me at the time will have as new information and people who knew me then will have probably forgotten about it anyway.

I bet you’re thinking that the first time I ever traveled overseas was to Israel in 2002. I probably would have won a lot from such a bet because the first time I traveled overseas was in 1992, during the summer between sophomore and junior year of high school. I went to England for an exchange trip through my school.

Time to backtrack first: In the fall of 1991, there was an opportunity to host girls who were visiting from England for a month (and we’d also be able to travel to England the following summer if we chose to). I went after this opportunity right away (being that it’s not a lengthy visitor, and neither were the girls). The girl they paired me with was really nice. I remember that she liked frogs and collected erasers (which she called “rubbers;” something amusing to be yelled out loud in stationery shops). All the girls got to participate in school activities and check out the classes. They also went on field trips all over Chicago. I got to tag along for some trips, including one further away to Springfield (since I didn’t go there when I was in junior high, it was nice to be able to participate). On weekends, the girl would spend time with my family and me. We tried to keep her entertained as much as possible. I think my mom did that by herself though. She was the victim of a bad hair-dying experiment (from a salon, oddly enough) and also decided to get her ears double pierced. The girl thought my mom was trying to be a rock star! We had a fun time having her stay with us and participate in some of our daily or weekly family routines. We had some funny miscommunications due to my unfamiliarity with some British terms. Once she asked for “cotton” and I gave her cotton balls. She was actually asking for thread. Also, things sounded really cute in her dialect, like when she said our dog ate her nuggets (new-gits) or that our cat was massive (mah-siv). When she left to return to England, I was sad to see her go, but determined to go visit her the following summer.

Finally, it was June of 1992 and I was overly excited to board a plane that would take me overseas for the first time in my life. It was a long flight, but I read, watched movies and slept. When we arrived, I had major jet lag, but they decided to take us touring right away. In one town, an old lady asked me to help her cross the street and I was so freaked out by the change of traffic directions that I was practically running with her to get across safely! I also had trouble distinguishing pounds from pence when I went to get ice cream. And I even asked someone what a kwee-wee (queue) was! (That later became an inside joke with my husband.)

We spent a weekend in London before heading closer to Birmingham to meet our host families. While we were in London, we walked, took their underground or rode trolleys to get where we needed to be. We stayed in a youth hostel overnight, but it was very loud and hard to sleep. The lady managing our trip brought sandwiches for everyone but they were disgusting and birds wouldn’t even eat them. I did enjoy seeing a lot of London even though it was such a whirlwind trip. I think I’d enjoy it more now that half the books I read take place there. At night, we got to see a musical. I was hoping for something along the lines of “Les Miserables” but the trip wasn’t budgeted for such a show. We ended up seeing “Me and My Girl.” It was decent, but had more of a dinner theater feel.

When we finally got settled with our host families, I got to take a real nap and catch up on all the sleep I missed. Then I had tea (which is really dinner) afterward. I got to stay with the girl we hosted the previous fall. Her family was so nice. I adored her mom and even helped do chores around the house without being asked. I was there during Wimbledon season, so I got to see a lot of tennis. I was cheering for Agassi, of course. It got all heated between me and the family, but in a fun way. I got to partake in family traditions such as Sunday dinner (which is really lunch). I helped the girl and her mom cook using the metric system. I also read a lot of books that I wouldn’t have found in the US. I got hooked on watching “Neighbours” and “Home and Away” and laughed at all the funny commercials that came on during the shows. I also caught up on some classic movie musicals, such as “Oklahoma.” I’d stay up at night talking with the girl and laughing about crazy things. Other times, I got pretty homesick, especially after I talked to my family on the phone. I missed some of my friends too. A month feels a lot longer when you’ve never been overseas before.

During most of each week, I would go to school with the girl and check out some of the classes. I made friends with some girls I met in those classes. Everyone was fascinated by the fact that I was American. I think they found my dialect as amusing as I found the girl’s dialect the previous year. There was one time when we got to check out an elementary school and help out the kids with their assignments. The kids were asking me a lot of questions. (One was “Is it proper for a boy to marry another boy in America?” I wonder if he watches world news these days?) They also laughed when I said “period” instead of “stopmark.”

We also had some big field trips. We went to Bath, Oxford, Stratford, downtown Birmingham, etc. I have tons of pictures from all the places we visited. I also kept a journal detailing my trip (which I came across again while cleaning my closet and looked over some entries from that time). I purchased tons of souvenir items, as well. In the evenings, I’d spend time with the girl and her family. Sometimes we’d go out for meals and sometimes we’d stay in and barbeque. The food was interesting too. They had different names for things and it got confusing sometimes. I really liked Shepard’s Pie though. However, I was put off lamb after overindulging in it there. The girl’s mom was a really good cook, so I enjoyed all the meals. Ironically enough, I got to celebrate Independence Day with all the other people from America that came on the trip. (There weren’t that many of us.) We had a barbecue at the home of another host family. By the time I got comfortable with my surroundings (enough to cross the street on my own or figure out how much money to put out for an item), it was time to go home. On our last day there, the girl and her mom took me to a movie theater to see “Howard’s End.” Despite the fact that it was a boring movie, it was cool to experience a movie in a British theater. They have an intermission halfway through.

Overall, I had a great time and the memories of that trip still resonate with me enough to write a blog about it! I stayed in touch with the girl for a few years after my trip. Then we lost contact for a long time until I found her on Facebook. It’s great to be in contact with her again and to see that things are going well in her life. I’d love to go back to England again sometime, but mostly to check out more of London. It would be neat to pay a visit to my host family if it were accessible to make a trip to the Birmingham area. Staying with them was one of my favorite parts of the trip.