Adventures in England: Dinner at Natalie's and our School Christmas Party

What a busy but fun past two days! On Wednesday night, Tooley and I went to Natalie's house to for a little dinner party, because she's going back to the University of Alabama next semester. She leaves Saturday! She lives in a UCLA professor's house (he only lives in Stratford-upon-Avon during the spring), so she has the perfect place to have a get-together. Tooley, me, Marfo, English Natalie, and Michelle enjoyed a feast of red beans and rice, stuffed mushrooms, Greek apple pie (from Marfo!), and Jello cookies and cream (thanks mom and dad!). The red beans and rice were WONDERFUL...Natalie brought a bunch of Zataran's boxes with her, so it tasted like it came straight from New Orleans. English Natalie and Michelle got to try their first Jello...they don't have it in England! It's hard to describe Jello to British people, because their words for jam, jelly, and pudding are different from our definitions of those words. They said it's similar to Angel Delight, whatever that is! Today (Thursday) was a beautiful day in Stratford! There were markets on nearly every street in town...it was great! I went to the library to do a little research, then came home to get ready for our school Christmas party. It was SO much fun! Everyone was decked out and festive, and there was a nice buffet with pizza, sandwiches with eggplant (or aubergines, as the English call them), chips (fries), and mini sausages. For dessert, we had mince pie and mini chocolate pies. Mince pie is really popular in England! It's a pie filled with fruit and jam...pretty good! At first I thought mince pies had meat in them, because they call ground beef "minced" meat. Thankfully, there is no meat to be found in mince pies...they're more of a dessert. After eating, we had a big dance party...it was SO much fun! Everyone was breaking it down, including my teachers, which was kind of funny. The British may have the reputation of being reserved and uptight, but they aren't scared to dance if there's good music playing. Emily even taught me a British dance similar to the Macarena. I've never had so much fun at this school! It reminded me a little of Chi O parties, which I miss! After the party, Michelle, English Natalie, Emily, Bryone (pronounced Bry-on-ee), Marfo, and I went to Celebrities, the dance club that we went to last weekend. It's so much fun! They played Outkast, Madonna, B-52s, all kinds of great dance songs. It was a great night! Tomorrow night, we're going out to eat for American Natalie's last night...sad!