Where's the chap stick?

Day 2 is turning out to be just about the same as day one. Nothing much eventful has happened, though I am not going to say that it is such a bad thing, since eventful can be not so hot. I woke up much later than I had intended this morning. I was going to try and get a head start on the morning but apparently hit my alarm one too many times and finally got out of bed sometime around 11 am. Oopse! Once I was dressed and finally headed out of my cupboard it was about 12. Prior to leaving I checked to make sure that the places that I wanted to go were actually open today, since it is Sunday and on previous travels I have found that, country depending of course, almost everything is closed on Sunday (remember Rome mom?). That, however, is not the case here in England; most things are open but open much later than usual hours. For example, Borders and Sainsbury's don't open until after 12 or close around 5 instead of 7 or 9, so it is a good thing that I didn't leave the house until I did.

I find England much more like home than I had intended, with the exception that I have a hard time finding simple things like Kitchen sponges and chap stick. Honestly, what do they do use their hands and have constantly dry lips, that is so not going to work for me. But! I have a remedy for the Chap Stick, and no Emery it does not have anything to do with buying a pair of chaps. If I strike out again tomorrow at the drug store around the corner I will just find some Vaseline and use that; far less tasty or glamorous but if it keeps my lips from being dry it will do nicely. Of course I have yet to see any of that either...hmm could be a problematic solution.

I found a Sainsbury's, which is like a Raley's, but it was very small. I am getting the impression that people here don't particularly like to cook or at least they don't do it very often and they like to go to many different stores to get what they need. Great if you have a car or a mo-pied not so hot if you are on foot. I actually found the Sainsbury's on accident when I was at Border's books! Yes, they do have Border's here! I didn't spend much time there but I am going to go back either tomorrow, on my way home from campus, or the next day when I don't have anything else to do. There are a lot of other books stores around too, but Border's is familiar so I think I will stick with that one for a while. So to sum up I got some groceries and some utensils to eat with hurray! Didn't buy any books, in fact didn't even make it to the upstairs portion but there is time for that.

After that adventure, I went home to put my groceries away and then ate some lunch. I headed out again around 3PM and made it back up to Wilkinson's, which if you remember, is like Target. I got some hand soap, a small note pad to keep track on my expenses, and some drain unclogger. I found that my shower doesn't drain well while I was in it this morning. I am not particularly fond of being ankle deep in water but, hopefully, that will be taken care of now. I was going to continue on with my excursions today after Wilkinson's but realized that I was not particularly sure where Millet's, which is a sports store, was (not real sure what to compare it to but probably a Sports Authority for their website). You see when you are a foreigner in a new city the last thing you want to do is get hopelessly lost and turned around. Sure, you could always ask for directions but I generally like to have a pretty good idea of where I am heading before I go and get lost. That way I don't feel so lost. It all makes sense, really it does. You just need to think about it a little bit harder.

Back to the story of my day though. So instead of heading out in the wrong direction I decided to check out the Bristol Mall. Let me tell you it looks like America exploded in there! There was a Supercuts, a Quicksilver, and a Body Shop (part of Bath & Body Works for those of you who are not familiar with it) among other things. Once I had made my way through the Mall, which, for its size (its three stories high), did not take any time at all surprisingly, I walked outside on the bottom floor to find myself in the middle of the outdoor section of the mall. There was an H&M, which is an American store as well. But, I figured that it was getting later, not really, though I read my watch incorrectly, I thought that it was coming up on 5PM when really I was an hour off, so technically I could still have perused the area for another hour or so before heading home. In any case, I walked home and hopefully fixed the drain in my shower, then set down to write all this out for all of you.

I have almost entirely unpacked, though I don't have enough storage for everything by any stretch of the imagination. I want to go to IKEA, but it is not within walking distance, which means that I would have to take the bus to get there and I not sure how that all works as of yet. I still need some essential things for my kitchen like pots and pans, knives, cutting board, and more stuff to eat, and hopefully a coffee pot but there are other difficulties that come with that which I am sure I will tell you about later. I also need to set up a bank account so that I don't have to keep telling the people at the check out that I have no "chip" in my card, which means that I hold everything up in the queue 'cuz I have to sign. I hope though that I will soon be on my feet and have everything sorted out. Tomorrow is Monday and so everything will be open and I can start taking care of some of these things that I have listed, among a laundry list of others. No church bells for the most part today, weird since its Sunday you would have thought that they would have been even more fastidious about ringing them than on Saturday, but I guess not. I am going to try to remember to take pictures for you as well so that I can post them up with the blogs but I am currently trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible, which apart from my style of non-girly dress is working out quiet well. I do wish that I had brought my "chucks" (all-stars) with me but alas I couldn't bring everything and there are a million and one shoe stores around here that I could step in any time and find some I am sure. Anyways, that's enough for now, hope to talk to some of you tonight (this morning for all of you). Love lots! Katie out.