Wednesday, July 7, 2010

The Mystery of Cress (& other random musings)

I will be writing soon about my experience today at the British Museum and the British Museum's Archives (they will be my next official post), but I wanted to stick an informal little post in during the 30 minutes I have while my laundry's in the wash.
Anywho, while I was at the British Museum today, I began to get hungry. It was lunchtime, and I had been in there a couple of hours, but there was so much I still wanted to see! I didn't want to wander off in the neighborhood for lunch and miss the precious amount of time I had before my tour time--we're a large enough group and it's a small enough archive that we were split up into four groups. So I wandered over to the cafeteria in one corner of the great hall (which is amazing and huge, by the way), and joined the line. What's the first thing I see? An egg salad sandwich (made with mustard, not mayo) and CRESS. As someone who has read a lot of historical fiction and fiction that is actually from a historical period, I had read of cress I don't know how many times. Yet I still didn't actually know what it was! I decided that I had to try this very British sandwich. So, after I had grabbed something to drink, checked out, and managed to find somewhere to sit (no easy task), I opened up the sandwich container and took a bite. I liked it, I decided. Then I took a peek (the cress wasn't very visible from the side) to see what it looked like, and what did I find? Alfalfa sprouts! Something which I have had very many times and have enjoyed. So, evidently, cress is really the British word for alfalfa sprouts (done rather sparingly, I must say).
One of the more (admittedly trivial) things that had worried me when I was getting ready to come over here was music. Those who know my family know we're all musically inclined, to say the least, and I couldn't imagine living for a month without music. Those who are FaceBook friends with me might have seen a panicked status post asking how one charges an iPod in the UK --to which I think I have a solution, but am not going to try it if I don't have to. As it turns out, I have only used my iPod once so far, and not very much that one time, but I haven't had to live without music otherwise. I've simply had various random songs stuck in my head. Throughout the weekend there were several songs, including Feist's cover of the old jazz song "Tout Doucemont." Monday's theme was "[Is There] Life on Mars?" by David Bowie and Blondie's "Sunday Girl." Today I had a mental mix of Imogen Heap's "Little Bird," Feist's cover of "Sea Lion Woman," and a couple other great songs. I would post links to them on YouTube so that you may listen to them as well, but apparently this computer I'm on does not like YouTube. So, I will add the links in later, when I can.
Well, my time's up for now. I'll write more later, so keep on reading!

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