Hooray

We have the internet at home. At last! It is maybe the most exciting thing that has happened since we moved in. This means I can email and do my research for The Lighthouse, but more importantly, I can finally figure out what else the cast of Bleak House has been in. It is driving me crazy.

Also, I guess this may make Christmas shopping easier, though I am not sure. Daniel and I are having a £5 Christmas this year: spending no more than £5 on presents for anyone. It's a great idea, but a $10 Christmas would be a better value: everything here is so expensive. The Dollar Store equivalent-the Pound Shop- is the classic example: there is all the same stuff that would be in a dollar store, but here it is twice as much! But I have seen some amazing things. I shall say no more, so as not to give away my gift ideas.

But it's not just that, food is more expensive too. The price of coffee is the most shocking to me. I miss my huge cans of Bustelo for $2.99 (on occasional sale for $2.50), here it is about $3.00 for 1/2 the amount. So sad. I have a feeling I am going to be bring back a ton of stuff when I come back after Christmas.

The one thing that is cheaper- oddly enough- is sliced bread. You can get a large loaf of decent bread (oatmeal, multi-grain) here for about 97p. That's pretty good. Bread at home always seemed strangely pricey. There is also a really nice bakery/cafe in our neighborhood where you can get nice loaves of bread and sandwiches and other organic/fair-trade stuff. It's really good and smells so nice when you go inside.

I do take my hat off to the British obsession with sandwiches. I really appreciate it. It seems that almost any store you go into sells sandwiches. Many of them I would not even think about eating, but you can find a pretty good sandwich almost anywhere. There is one chain that is specifically Irish. Very odd, it's like the Boston Pizzeria on Broadway in Astoria. Why? Who knows. What is so good about Irish sandwiches and Bostonian pizza? Who knows: the only pizza I ever had in Boston was hells nasty, so it's a mystery for the ages.

So, in conclusion: sandwiches = good, but crazy pricing = bad.