Happy 4th of July from England!

Tonight, Amanda and I are going to Ladies Night! Another one of the players is celebrating his 10th year with the team and it's customary for him to hold several events for it. There's a fancy dinner dance one, a golf day, a ladies night, etc.

So anyway, I decided to go shopping for something to wear last minute and while at the Trafford Centre, Selfridges (a department store) had a bunch of American food brands you don't normally find over here for the 4th of July! Steve tells me they always have this stuff at Selfridges (they just had it out on the front display for Independence Day) but I'm sure if I'd known that, I would have taken advantage of it before now!

On another happy note, Salford had a surprising win last night against St Helens - haven't had time to process the pics from it yet but for now, here's a picture of all the American foods I got at Selfridges (yes, that's our couch in the background). I'm now off to get ready for Ladies Night - hopefully I'm not too worse for wear tomorrow for webcam! lol

Liverpool ONE sucks...

We're definitely never going to the Liverpool ONE shopping center again! For starters, we didn't realize it was an outdoor shopping center and the whole reason we decided not to take a day trip to someplace like Chester was because the weather was forecast for rain today. I know what you're thinking: "Rain? In England?" Who would have thought, right? Well, it did rain and it was below 50 degrees! And I stupidly didn't wear my coat because I thought it was indoors and it's always warm inside malls. I was freezing the whole time.

On top of that, the shops were all the same as you'd find at the Trafford Centre (the big indoor shopping mall in Manchester) but not as many - the Trafford Centre is much bigger and more elaborately designed and decorated. If Liverpool ONE is really what they are calling "Liverpool's answer to Manchester's Trafford Centre" they have failed, big time.

I think Steve secretly enjoys going to Liverpool though - only because he gets to take punches at the scousers every chance he gets, lol. As we were leaving, he said "Once again, Liverpool never fails to disappoint!"

But we did eat at a restaurant themed as an American diner, which Steve loves. I got a new bikini for Jamaica which was only £16 ($24) and Steve picked up a book and a Derren Brown DVD at HMV. So it wasn't a total failure - but then again, we could have saved the 40 minute drive and walking in the cold rain and gotten the same stuff at the Trafford Centre! Hence why we won't be going back to Liverpool ONE.

Books

Finally! I recently finished reading "Memoirs of Cleopatra" by Margaret George, a historical fiction about Cleopatra VII. It wasn't a bad book but it was very long (about 1130 pages of small text) and wound up taking me over a year to read! I go through phases where I'm not in the mood to read for a while so that didn't help. Usually those phases occur inbetween books but this novel was so long, it occurred during it.

Anyway, since finally finishing "Cleopatra" I have taken up David Starkey's "Henry, Virtuous Prince", a history of Henry VIII early life. I was a little tentative about reading a history book rather than a historical novel. I was worried it would be dry and boring or that it would be written in some snobby intellectual way that I could not keep up with. But it's neither. It gives great insight into who and what from Henry's childhood and early life helped shaped the man and king and David Starkey is known for making history interesting, not boring. Let's just say it's going much faster than Margaret George's lengthy historical fictions, lol.

Of course I'm writing all this while watching a documentary on Helen of Troy in the background too - how obsessed with history am I? lol

Now for some hopefully less boring updates: tonight Steve and I are off to see Derren Brown, a performer who uses psychological tricks like subliminal messages on his audience to do "magic" and "mind reading". But he doesn't claim to be psychic, he's quite clear that they are all tricks and often reveals how he did them. It's very interesting to see how suggestive we all are to such psychological trickery. I just hope I'm not picked to take part!

On Sunday, we're going to the Didsbury Inn (yes, again!) but this time with some friends of Steve's.

We have off work on Monday for a bank holiday (May Day) so we're going to the new Liverpool shopping center - Liverpool One. I need to look for a dress and bathing suit for Jamaica!