Health knowledge made personal
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We were having a hard time figuring out where the church was once we exited from the Liverpool station. We stopped and asked a McDonald's worker handing out coupons if he knew where St. Helen's was and a random lady smoking a cigarette and holding a hula hoop came over to us and said "Are you looking for the church?" We said yes and she pointed us down the street and around a corner. We walked a pretty long way past a bustling market. As we were approaching it, it was about 10:35, so my roommate said "Even if this isn't it, we're still going to go to church here." I agreed and our adventure began.   It wasn't St. Helen's, it was Christ Church, but seeing as we had no other option, we attended their service anyway. It was quite a small congregation, but it was a really lovely service. The sermon was on humility. When we went in they were singing Be Thou My Vision, so it was pretty familiar. The band was really talented. All of the people sitting around us were so nice (at one point I did briefly wonder if we could have walked into a cult, because I've never met such friendly Europeans). A little old British man ran up to us at greeting time and asked what states we were from. We told him Tennessee and Texas and he said "My mother is from Boston! I'm half!" We loved him. We got pretty tickled during the service a few times. My roommate is very similar to me. The same kind of entertaining things happen to both of us. The one weird part about church was the fact that kids were allowed to run all over the building, laughing, screaming, whatever! My roommate and I both agreed that we'd never seen anything like that in church in America.  We had fun wandering the streets around the church for a bit afterwards. We were going to take a taxi home because it was so cold, but after walking through the market and seeing all the cute, packed restaurants around the area, we wanted to hold on to our money a little more to save it for a later visit to the market (after payday).  When we got home from church, I ate my first overnight oats in a jar in a long time! I had the end of a peanut butter jar with mixed in oats, water, 1/2 banana, and cinnamon. So good. I wore my new Nike Dri-Fit tee shirt to go run around.  Here was my second big mistake of the day. I used Map My Run to find a new running route around my area. We're about 5 minutes from the Thames river, so I ran down there and ran along the river (along with probably 100 other runners). I had a great run by myself. The dumb part was that on Map My Run I didn't realize my computer had automatically switched into kilometers. So I thought my route would be 4.27 miles. I was shocked when I finished in 26 minutes. I was thinking "There is no way I ran that fast!" Then when I got home and checked the route again, I realized it was only 4.27 kilometers not miles. Silly me. I love my new shirt though! I wore it to the gym again this morning. Don't judge. Doing laundry here is annoying without a dryer.  After Skyping with my parents, I set out for a big(ger) grocery store. It was about a 12 minute walk away. All of the stores in our neighborhood are small versions (Sainsbury's, Tesco Express, M&S), but down the block a mile or so past St. Paul's, there are much bigger versions. I went to Tesco Metro. My arms got so tired coming back with all this stuff! Fage yogurt, cottage cheese (only 96 pence), unsweetened almond milk (one thing that is definitely better than in the US to me at least), and eggs.  Three bag of veggies for 2.50. I chose two bags of brussel sprouts- they're so little here- and a bag of mixed stir fry veggies. Finally I got two packages of roast turkey, natural peanut butter, bananas for pre-exercise snacks or lows, two avocados (they say fresh and ready, but they are way too hard for at least probably another day), and sunflower seeds.  Last night's family intern dinner was the responsibility of my apartment. Our other roommate had to work all day, so it was up to me and my Texas roommate. The boys made spaghetti and garlic bread on their night to cook and then last week the other apartment of girls did frozen pizzas and salad. My roommate and I stood in Tesco Express for about 20 minutes trying to figure out something to buy and came up empty. Dinner was supposed to be in 20 minutes. We were about to buy frozen pizzas again and be lame, but then we realized Papa Johns was down the street, so we pulled up our hoods and ran over there (it was raining). Then once we got there we discovered that getting two pizzas would put us back $45 American bucks. No, thank you. So we went to the nearby Sainsbury's and I decided to heck with what normal people "don't like to eat." I let my roommate buy four frozen pizzas and I got a Mediterranean feast. I bought 3 packs (1 pound each!) of pita bread, 2 tubs of delicious hummus, 2 tubs of olives and feta, and a bag of carrots. I was a little nervous at how my selection would go over, but everyone loved it! The olives/feta, hummus, and carrots got totally eaten up! Two of the interns tried hummus for the first time and liked it. My dinner was just carrots, hummus, olives, feta, and the onions that my intern friend didn't want from his pizza. An hour later and I was 100. Third time this year for a 100 on my meter! After our family dinner we watched Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka. He's so creepy in that movie! I wanted to finish it, but I was so tired, so my roommate and I headed home. Then we ended up watching part of P.S. I Love You on TV back at our apartment. Why is it that you always wake back up so easily after you're so tired you think you're about to crash?! My running buddy and I are running a new route tomorrow morning. Better go, so I can get a good night's sleep. |
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I bundled up against the 29 degree weather by putting a black turtleneck underneath my green Anthro dress.