"Thank you, Jesus"

I realize I haven’t responded to Piechnik’s question yet: I do believe I would have to put their accents under the uppity category, but that absolutely is no reflection on them, personally.

Two nights ago, after leaving my laptop on for a few hours, I came up to go to bed. Since it was already on, I thought I’d play some tunes while I got ready. To my absolute horror, the audio was not functioning. It was one of those "Oh, God, no!" moments. I restarted my computer…nothing…I turned off my computer hoping the morning might bring better results, but couldn’t help myself from trying once more before bed. I turned it back on when I got up to turn the light off after reading my devotions….I held my breath as I typed in my password, waiting for the introductory ditty that always greets me upon loading…."Thank you, Jesus!"…that melody never sounded so sweet. Call it a glitch, I don’t know, but it is now functioning normally to my unrestrained delight. I already knew how important it was to have my music with me, but this was quite a revelation; I would have cried. I already touched on this, actually, babbling on in my journal during the flight to keep myself occupied. I wrote about how I had been listening to Jason Mraz in my car that morning, thinking about how glad I was that I could bring him and all my other music along on my laptop; I was thinking about how music is home to me. I realize I used that same sentiment in my last post while mentioning my visit with the horses and this has led me to a rather sentimental and insightful conclusion: Home is not a place. It is simply when you’re surrounded by the things that you love; the things you’re passionate about…like being wrapped in a sort of a cocoon. I suppose, it’s about what brings you comfort. That’s my deep thought for the day.

This family has had 5 or 6 au pairs over the years and Catherine has been telling me her very own horror stories….stealing, sleeping until 3, dragging Tom across the floor by his arm. Besides the very first one (a Swedish girl), they haven’t been all that successful. I asked her why she even bothered try again and she told me she had sworn it off, but decided she just couldn’t face the summer holidays without one. Well, I’m happy to report she isn’t regretting that decision. Yesterday morning, she was telling me that she asked Jonathan the night before when she usually starts griping about the au pairs. He replied "The first day". She continued saying that she hadn’t griped about me yet and thanked me for that small and gracious luxury. She was telling me today, as well, that she had been going on to Tom’s teacher how "lovely" I was. I really don’t mean to boast, I’m just glad that they’re not unhappy with their decision to invite me here and I wanted to share that fact with all of you.

I realize this has turned into more of a general journal then a travel journal (considering I haven’t written in my actual journal since the night I got here), so bear with me. My first inclination was to apologize just now, but I’m not going to because I’m just enjoying it too much. At first, I was bothered because I love having a written journal, but writing all this down and then typing it out would be a ridiculous waste of time, so I’m just going to have to swallow that schmaltzy ideal. I suppose it’s because I haven’t done much traveling yet, that I’ve resorted to random anecdotes and even more random thoughts, but I’ll try and keep things interesting in the meantime.

Here’s one such anecdote: The other morning, a bottle of orange juice on the counter caught my eye…and I do love my orange juice. Mouth watering, I poured myself a small glass and took a healthy swig. My first thought was "Where’s the sink?" My second was "What the bloody…? Crazy British people; what kind of crap is this?" Needless to say, it was awful. I poured the rest down the sink and placed the bottle off to the side with no intention of ever touching it again. Well, yesterday I witnessed what turned into quite a revelation. Catherine put a small amount in the baby’s bottle and proceeded to fill the rest up with water. The light bulb went on. As soon as she left the kitchen, I went over to the bottle and slowly (and sheepishly) turned the front label away from me. There it was in clear English: 1 part juice, 4 parts water. I also realized then that, little did I know, Catherine had served this juice to me a number of times over the last couple days and it is actually quite good. Concentrated juice in a bottle, who ever thought of that anyways? "Marks & Spencer", that's who.