My finals are finished. My room is nearly packed.
Upstairs my friend Rebekah is packing her own suitcases; she leaves tomorrow
afternoon for England.
Partially as a farewell, as partially as an
introduction to British tea, Rebekah hosted tea today in her room. She pulled
out her purple trunk and put a blanket on top of it, and she laid out scones, chocolate
cake, strawberry jam, whipped cream, and custard. Jennifer came and helped her
make the scones, and at five Hannah and I arrived in time to watch Jennifer
take the scones out of the oven. In doing this, we were able to see the girls
making all of the noise this semester: three girls in pyjamas, with an iPhone
and a speaker next to the window, jumping on the table and singing along with
the lyrics at the top of their lungs. Behind them were Abercrombie & Fitch bags,
with their shirtless men on them, taped to the walls. In the corner was a
Christmas tree. “I want a Christmas tree,” I said enviously to Hannah.
Whilst we waited for Jaime, the other American invited
to British Tea, and Sophie, the other Brit invited to British Tea, we talked
about the proper way to eat (and pronounce) scones. “You twist it in two, like
this,” Jennifer said, demonstrating over a bowl. After twisting the scone like
an Oreo, she proceeded to put strawberry jam on top of it, and follow that up
with whipped cream.
“You don’t put it back together?” I asked, when she
took a bite of one half of the scone.
“No,” she said. “Well, you do sometimes, if it’s just
jam, but the whipped cream will fall out if you make a sandwich of it.” Then
she looked over at Rebekah’s handiwork, and said, “Do you want any scone with
that jam?”
Rebekah continued putting lavish amounts of strawberry
jam on her scone. “I will, thanks.”
“I don’t think I can eat strawberry jam,” I said. “It
makes me think of that song—‘He landed on the runway like a blob of strawberry
jam...’”
Jaime and Sophie came up then, and we made more scones
for them. Sophie had brought milk, so we were able to have tea, although it was
not proper tea according to the list Jennifer drew up for us.
It’s a joke on the internet that British tea tastes
like a hug in a cup, but American tea tastes like harbour, and so we wanted to
learn the secret to making proper tea. We already know that the tea you order
at restaurants is nothing like the tea here, and Hannah and I are going to miss
tea very, very much. And if we can’t buy proper tea, we’re going to have to
make it. Jennifer was very patient, and went over the nine step list several
times with us.
1) Boil kettle.
2) Pour boiled water into teapot.
3) Boil more water.
4) Pour out water in teapot into the sink.
5) Pour new water into the warm teapot.
6) Steep tealeaves (loose leaf is preferred)
-DO
NOT STEW.
7) Pour into cups (using a strainer to catch the tea
leaves).
8) Add lemon/sugar/milk to taste.
9) Drink and sigh in happiness.
After spending a great deal of time on this list we
made our own tea, but it was made without the use of a teapot, warm mugs, of
loose leaf tea, and it still tasted very good. Then we chatted for a long time
about fainting and illnesses and terrible things that have happened to us in
our youth, and when conversation began to peter out Rebekah pulled out these
two fantastic games from her arsenal and we played the Dream Game and the
Bicycle Game. When this was finished, Hannah and Jaime taught us (or, at least,
everyone but me) to play Egyptian Rat Screw, and when that puttered out because
I couldn’t learn the rules and everyone else got vaguely bored, Jennifer taught
us to play Pig, which I also lost because I couldn’t learn the rules. My mother
has spent my entire life trying to teach me to play cards, and my grandpa used
to be a euchre champion, but the only card game I’ve ever learnt the rules to
was Go Fish. In this I am very much a disappointment to A) My grandfather, B)
My mother, C) My entire high school band class, and D) Hannah, who is really,
really good at card games.
We started talking about movies and trailers on the
internet, Shia LaBeauf being an actual cannibal, Slenderman, and drunk guys
playing videogames. Jennifer started trying to teach me British cuss words
(which, unfortunately, I already knew). Then Rebekah kicked us out to start
packing, and she got a puppy dog look on her face and wailed, “I’m not going to
see you ever again!”
Which was fairly depressing, but not as depressing as
what she said after: “Goodbye, my ginger-haired named-sharing friend!”
So we left, and I was very upset, even though I am
going to see the other three girls tomorrow, and as I was waiting for Hannah to
walk with me to the Treehouse to print something out, I ran into the Northern
Irish Rebecca, who said, “Have youse seen the cake we bought you?”
Chelsea, Jenny, and Rebecca bought us a chocolate cake
to say farewell. They included hand-drawn pictures, and swarmed around us,
taking pictures. They were all dressed up, wearing lovely perfume, and carrying
tall high heels in their hands. Our kitchenette was full of Smirnoff bottles
and energy drinks, and as Hannah and I sat down to enjoy their cake they had us
sniff whatever it was they were drinking. It smelt strongly of lime.
They whisked off, telling us to enjoy and save some
cake for them. It’s Thursday night, after all. The Northern Irish are going out
celebrating. The Americans are going to watch the midnight premiere of The
Hobbit. I went out and had proper British tea, with chocolate cake doused in
custard, and scones covered with strawberry jam and whipped cream. Tomorrow
night is my last movie night, and to celebrate, Nikola is bringing us Darby O’Gill
and the Little People, in honour of the leprechaun museum we visited on
Saturday. This is momentous as Sophie, who does not watch Disney movies, is
going to be cultured in the art of Disney films.
This was not, however, the first good-bye; nor is it
to be the last. At lunch today Hannah and I said good-bye to Jolien, our
Belgium friend who went to Londonderry/Derry with us, as well as to Giant’s
Causeway and other excursions. Yesterday we said good-bye to Fletcher, a
Northern Irish student in origami club and archery club, who took us to see
Breaking Dawn Part 2 with Victoria. We sat in the Treehouse and made origami
together, and I got to celebrate my last days of being able to drink alcohol by
buying it—to my surprise, I was not carded, which was both amazing and
seriously depressing. (Thankfully, I will be illegal again in two days!) On
Tuesday I had to say good-bye to Shannon, an amazing writer from my Creative
Writing class. Tomorrow I’ll say good-bye to Katie, and Hannah and I will have
to say good-bye to Sophie and Jennifer and Jaime, as they all leave for England
and the States on Saturday. And on Saturday we will have to make the hardest
good-bye: The good-bye to Victoria.
Victoria, in case any of you were wondering where she
has gone, was not at the tea party tonight because her parents have flown in
for the week and are staying nearby. She has been showing them the sights, and
I am very happy for her, but it makes me miss my family. I keep wanting to take
Emily and show her around Belfast, but I’ve bought her a ton of presents and
have prepared myself to spoil her rotten this Christmas.
I’m quite worried about returning home. I am hoping
and praying that the flight goes smoothly, and that it is not delayed, and that
my ears don’t go entirely loopy, as they are wont to do. Once the technical
details are over, though, I will have to readjust to life in the States
immediately. Bath & Body Works needs Christmas workers, after all. I will
have to overcome my jet lag quickly, and remind myself how American money—and tax!—works.
And then I will once again be swept up into Madonna—working at the Writing
Center, meeting old friends again and making new ones. Lots of things have
changed at Madonna this year, I’ve heard. But that’s a good thing. I’ve changed
this year too.
Sophie asked me tonight if I am going to continue
blogging when I return to the States, and my initial response was to say, No. I
do not think I will blog when I return to the States. This upset Hannah, who
wants me to continue talking about the craic we have at Madonna, but once
Christmas is over I am going to consider this blog finished. I’ve tried to
depict my life in Belfast and Northern Ireland accurately, and I have loved
this place very much, even if my initial response was depressing. But my time
causing scandals in Belfast is almost at an end. I will probably blog again on Saturday, because something cool is going to
happen on Saturday, and once more when I return home, but after that Scandal in
Belfast will be at an end. I want to thank everyone who read this blog
faithfully (and by ‘faithfully’ I mean both reading every time I put up a post,
hoarding everything until you have a spare moment, skimming, or even just
noticing that I’m still alive and blogging). You helped make the scandals
happen (I’m not sure how, actually. But I feel like that’s something I ought to
say.). If I do decide to continue blogging about my life and adventures in the
States, I will let everyone know on facebook, but I will not be using this blog
any longer unless I feel it is warranted.
Thank you for reading, and I will rejoin you all
(hopefully) at 8.00 Michigan time Sunday night!
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