A Texas Snow Day

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31 degrees this morning….Farenheit not Celsius. -1 in other words and raining. It is a little cold here this morning.

I slept in, a little bit by accident but I didn’t have any appointments this morning so it is fine and I feel good. I missed breakfast though at the hotel so I had to get some on campus. Food here is to say the least a tricky thing for me. There is intrinsically a great deal of Fat involved. So I’ve been eating waffles, fruit and coffee with fake creamer (therefore no milk….some advantages for the lactose intolerant like me).

The breakfast hostess Vivian is this amazing woman. Her husband was in special forces and her daughter just finished law school at University of Texas. Her grandmothers house used to be where Truett Seminary now sits. You can see the seminary from the breakfast room window! Really knowledgable in terms of history. Could even talk quite intelligently about Australia and the aboriginal community. That is fairly rare here in the US, hey it’s not that common in Australia.

It later got down to -10 today.....apparently about as cold as it ever gets here. It wasn't too bad. It felt like Canberra does in the middle of winter at night.

Had lunch at Panera Bread with Ginger, Bethany (different Bethany) and Ellen. This had REAL soup and bread. Portions are more normal human size as opposed to gorilla sized but i had given up even trying to eat all the food on my plate while in this country. Sometimes what mum taught you is not healthy.

Dinner at I-Hop (stands for the International House of Pancakes) - but i had beef and Vegetables - You have to work hard to eat properly in this country. Thankfully i find myself cravng vegetables, fruit and meat.

Tonight after dinner i went to a little gathering with Bethany and Evan, Mark, Jeff (professor in Greek and Latin at Baylor), Kristel and Yolanda (Ginger's roommate) at Bethany and Mark's place.

We ate freshly made almond cookies, drank tea and Sang Christmas carols. Jeff played Guitar well and Evan the violin. I was suprised that all but two of the carols were very familiar to me.

We talked about folklore and the mid west. Apparently Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree is taught as a song in Primary school. An example of the fascination Americans generally have with Australian culture. My accent goes down pretty well too.

I explained The hookaburra song to them and then also Waltzing Matilda which Jeff already knew the music for (?how i am not sure). It was rather amusing describing a swaggie and a coolibah tree and a billabong.

It was snowing when i got back to the hotel. I like this.

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Photos

Campus Police
The little golf cart looking thing is an example of the "Baylor Campus Police." These carts are everywhere on campus.

Lunch with the Girls
Ellen, Ginger and Me in the Grad student office that about 10 of the students share.

Christmas Carols_1
Christmas Carols at Evan and Bethany's.

Christmas Carols_2
In addition to Christmas Carols we sang some folk songs and i explained Waltzing Matilda to the group.