Thursday, October 06, 2005

Yorkshire Pudding...yum!

Well, last night was my first Rotary Club meeting to attend in England! My host club is the Coventry Phoenix Rotary Club, and they meet in a pub called The Woodhouse in Coventry. My host counselor, Mike, picked me up in Stratford-upon-Avon, and drove me back to his house in Birmingham, where I hung out with him and his wife, Judy. She fixed tea and yummy biscuits (cookies), and it was fun getting to know them better. Mike and I arrived at The Woodhouse around 7:30 p.m. Their club is smaller than the Madison/Ridgeland Rotary Club, and although many Rotary Clubs in England are still male-only, their club has three female members. However, none of the women were at the meeting, so it was just me and 20 men between the ages of 50 and 70! I had a lot of fun, though. Everyone was really nice and had a great sense of humor. The club president was out, and the vice-president was filling in, and everyone kept giving him a hard time, which was funny. We had a meal first, then the meeting started after everyone finished eating. The meal consisted of roast, new potatoes, cooked carrots, and...Yorkshire pudding! I've heard of it, but never had it before. I was envisioning a liquid, pudding-like desert, but in reality, Yorkshire pudding is bread! It looks like a roll, but it's made with something that tastes like pancake batter. No one could believe that I had never tasted it before. For desert, we had a yummy sweet roll with cream called a rumbaba. After the meal, everyone stood up, and toasted the queen ("To the Queen!"), took a sip of their ale or water, and we began the meeting. I just had to give a short introductory speech, so that was a good warm up for future presentations! The meeting lasted about 2 hours (including the meal), but I had a lot of fun. It was nice getting to ride in a car again...it's been awhile! It's a funny feeling riding in the passenger seat...I felt like I should be driving, because the English passenger seat is where the American driver's seat should be. Whenever I come home and start driving again, everyone look out, because I might be all over the place! (Just kidding!) I have class again this weekend, but a small conflict has developed...I'm supposed to attend a Rotary Club Welcome Meeting for all of the clubs in the district on Sunday, but I have class on Sunday. Mike and I talked about it, and decided there was nothing I could do, and I would be excused because of my class. However, the man in charge of the Ambassadorial Scholars just emailed me and said that I HAVE to come to the meeting, class is not an excuse. So, I have to find a way to tell my school! (There's a strict attendance policy). Everyone pray that it gets sorted out!

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ave, I really hope you said "Awe, thanks guys, that's so sweet..." after they toasted "To the Queen". ha! I miss you and love you soooo much!!!! laur-laur

5:23 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home