Our Notes from a Small Island

In the last five years my wife and I have moved from Seattle to Pasadena, and now to Manchester, England. When people ask us "how's life?" we usually talk about our moving and plans for the future. We do our best to make it sound interesting like everyone else does, but really we're just a couple of goof-balls trying to make it in life. I'm still a student studying theology. She's still the blessed woman who puts up with moving around the world to get me through school. Really it's the mundanity that is interesting for us.

 For instance, in England the English language is, well, very English. Braces are worn on your back, pants are worn under your trousers, and men wear jumpers. The first floor is the second floor, and if you don't know what food you're eating then it's probably pudding. It doesn't matter if its meat, sweet, or doughy, it's pudding. Also, the more food sounds like some sort of euphemism the better it is likely to taste - e.g. bangers and mash, or spotted dick. It's like their national dishes were named by teenaged boys. Pie is code for any sort of goulash with a crust. Crosswalk signals are advisory. If a local Mancunian crosses the street, follow at your own risk. Part of being a good Brit seems to be to risk your life in order to cheat red crosswalk signals out of thirty seconds of your time.

We've also learned to make warm thick English stews, along with various attempts to roast things for long periods of time so it all melts together in what we would guess would be referred to here as some sort of pudding. British people are thought to drink a lot of tea, which you'd think would mean you could get fantastic teas here, and you can, but many people tend to drink instant coffee and odd teas which make cream and sugar quite popular. It is nice being able to get Earl Grey tea with the seal and signature of the actual Earl on it. It's also kind of cool to get Breakfast tea, because to call it British Breakfast would be redundant.

Each day though, we find things that are really quite good. For instance regular grocery stores sell fresh mozzarella cheese that absolutely melts in your mouth. Also, lamb is on most menus and in every grocery store. They say that the Welsh economy has gone up since we've moved here. It's like you're whole life you are told there are four meats - chicken, beef, turkey and pork (which is the other white meat), and every other meat tastes like chicken except for fish which Catholics and some vegetarians aren't really sure is meat. In any case, nobody tells you about this other animal that people have been killing and eating since Cain and Abel days. You can get it in the States, and I guess it's becoming more popular, but not like here. It's a whole other meat and it's absolutely fantastic. Nothing better than a lamb shank roasted for days with mashed potatoes and gravy.

School's going well for both of us. My wife, as usual, got hired on the first job she applied for in one of the departments at the University, and is doing really well here just like she has in everything else she has ever done. She's a rock star. I study a lot, and write a lot. As you'd expect the education system is different in Britain, so rather than going to classes all the time you just meet every so often for an hour or so with the professor and then read and write. This year I've been writing on Barth and Postliberalism as well as the post-feminist aspects of the plotline in the movie Punch Drunk Love, the church's political role, a theology of cyberspatial icons, and the nature of God's omnipresence in light of the omnipresence of urban surveillance. We live about a thirty minute walk from campus, but the main road through university is literally the busiest bus route in all Europe, so it's just as easy to catch a bus up to campus each morning. We try to ride the bus together so that we can fill up a seat and avoid sitting next some weirdo who believes that showering - like cross walk signals - are optional.

In any case, we hope to visit the US again soon, but if you are in the Northwest of England please feel free to stop by for some tea and pudding.