I Miss American Phad Thai

Today for lunch I went to this noodle bar called Umani. It is on Oxford Road a little past main campus and is quite popular with a lot of students. Its a little hard to find because it is down in the basement of the building but once you get there its nice. Its set up like picnic tables so you could end up sitting at a table with a bunch of random people. I ordered the Phad Thai and it was really good. This is the second time I've had Phad Thai in England now and it just isn't the same as back home...it is a completely different tasting noodle. Phad Thai here is very sweet and mixed with a lot of different veggies esp. onions. Still tasty... but in a different way.

My course load as picked up a little bit and I have been doing a lot of reading lately. My favorite classes are International Marketing and Language: The Individual and Society. I enjoy the Marketing class because it talks about so many cultural differences that I am learning first hand over here. One thing I noticed in England is that the people talk much closer to your face than back in the states. When I first met my mentor we were talking and I kept moving back a little because he was so close to my face...it just was kind of weird. By the end of the hour we had moved across the entire room because I kept moving back a little and he kept moving forward HA! In my Marketing class there was a chapter that talked about this exact phenomenon and how Americans tend to stay further away and Europeans closer! How amazing!! I have been enjoying my Language class because it has so many psychology aspects in it. Today the lecture was on child language acquisition. We learned about feral children, like kids raised by wolves or isolated and under what circumstances were they able to produce speech later in life. This depends on two things: 1. How early were they exposed to language? 2. Were they in a loving environment? In Helen Kellers case she was exposed to language up until she got her illness at 10 months. Even though she became blind and deaf she was soon able to produce and comprehend language even though she couldn't hear herself! amazing!!

Tonight I am considering going out with some girlfriends to Deansgate. Its raining out (as usual during the night time) and I'm not really in the mood but I may force myself because I haven't gone out in Manchester for like 2 weeks...maybe more. It's time to do a little socializing.

Lately, I have been getting used to Manchester food and haven't been noticing the nastiness as much. This week for desserts we had cheesecake, rhubarb pie and chocolate ice cream all which had either the milk pitcher or custard bowl next to it in order to submerge the dessert properly...I prefer my desserts as is.

Saturday morning I leave for Edinburgh, Scotland with the International Society. Edinburgh is pronounced "Ed-in-brah" here. Supposedly the city is supposed to be awesome!

Natalie