I met a friend in Borough Market on Friday inbetween my in-town meetings for the day. We had a few minutes to kill before our lunch reservation at Roast, so while we were puttering in the market talking, we came across this. No words are needed:
And, as we all know and think about with great hope and (dare I say it?...) American Pride, Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the US on Tuesday. And for some reason, perfect strangers have taken the opportunity to strike up a chat with me about this over the past week; for lunch on Friday, my local kebab shop owner seemed to upgrade my 'small' combo to an 'american-size extra large' as we were talking about the (hopefully...) good things Obama will do-not only for the US, but for the world. A year ago, I would not have dared have this conversation with someone, and now, it's nice to be able to talk about the US (especially while not *in* the US) with a sense of pride.
Then, I get my paystub for January the other day and find that not only have I not had tax withheld, but I've also gotten a very fat refund-the net effect was a tripling of my normal 'after-tax' pay. woo. As I've been whinging about all this time...the British tax system seems to be even more bizarre than the US, and here is yet another example. Now that 'last years' tax return has been filed here, the HMRC *finally* recognizes that they're over-withholding my taxes. So, this is their lame attempt at fixing the situation. 9 months into the current tax year. Yeesh...
Lastly, the annual 'Amazon post-Christmas, Holiday bash' was last night. Yes..I know it's Janurary already, but in reality, December is too hectic for us to have our 'do' then, so even in the US, our party is in January. This isn't the British/odd part. Here comes the odd part...Apparently the UK version of these parties can only be described as the hook-up fest to end all hook-up fests. And though at first, I thought the rumors I had heard about last year were overblown, I can now say after what I saw last night...the rumors are actually true! Folks that are normally very buttoned up (and in some cases, very married...) suddenly-or at least for one night only-become these dancing, drinking, raging party animals on the lookout for, as the British best describe it, a good snogging; you could actually feel it in the air. I decided to be a good girl and left around 10.30p last night, and even though there were still several hours left in the party-and it was early, I could already see it going quickly downhill. It really was just amazing. Part of me wanted to just sit back and watch, and part of me was just so surprised, I couldn't believe it! Good times...
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