Nostalgia and other things we miss

Our days in London  are flying by.  Emily is interning in the communications department with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (oae.co.uk) and Brandon is interning in the Marketing, Outreach and Recruitment department at Goldsmiths.  Each of us work at these positions three days per week and our studies take up the other days.  Our days are slipping by quickly and our dissertations are due in only 5 months!

Living in Europe is nice, don't get us wrong, but there are a few things we miss. 


1. I miss my telescope (Brandon).  Back in Princeton our house was in a small town with a big backyard and a field behind it.  Light pollution was low and I had a fancy telescope.  I could take wonderful pictures like this.

(My version of the Orion nebula)

You can see with the below picture, astrophotography has come a long way (This photo is what spawned this blog post). 

(The first photo of the Orion Nebula (Left) and one taken by an iPhone (Right)!)

2. Food - Shrimp chips, Tacos, and all the things that are outlawed in the UK (like velveeta cheese, chex mix, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese...)  They are banned in the UK because of dangerous chemicals and such, but sometimes they just taste so good.  No tacos because that's a Tex-Mex thing, without the Mex (or the Tex) you just have  -  (Blank).  (However, we just found an oriental food store down the road from our flat that sells shrimp chips!)

3. Road trips - Road trips don't happen for us because we don't have a car.  Instead we have rail trips, but they aren't quite as fun (less work than driving, but also less fun).

4. Paper Crafts - Emily misses making cards and scrapbooking. For the past two Christmases we have created our own homemade Christmas cards to send to friends and family, however we could not do that this year, due to all of our supplies being left in Illinois.  We even sold some of our cards once at a craft fair and made over $100!! 

5. St. Matthews Church - Although we have found a good church to call home while in London, we really do miss our church family at St. Matthews.  (Emily especially misses the handbell choir and playing with the church praise band!!!)

6. Lastly, We miss our friends and family - We made new friends, but we have not forgotten our old friends.  Emily's parents have visited and Brandon's parents are getting ready for a trip over in May.

Stay tuned for our next post after we journey to Liverpool.