Florida!

We had a really nice, relaxing time in Florida. Neither of us was looking forward to coming back to England. K had been there since the end of February and I was there from March 15th. Most of our time was spent taking in American culture, eating at our favorite places (like Pollo Tropical, Fernanda's, Taco Bell, The Cheesecake Factory, and others), doing work around the house, and generally "wasting" time. Hardly thought about work at all, except for dreading this coming Monday (it's going to be insanely busy for the first 5 weeks of term). Also read through K's PhD. It's very good! I had a red pen in hand, but I didn't need to use it much.

Last weekend, we drove up to the Tampa/St.Pete area to see my sister and her fiance. We had a great, low-key weekend doing the same things mentioned above. It was just nice to see them again. The St. Pete area is very intriguing.

My mom came back from Sweden this past Tuesday, so we got to spend a little time with her, too. She had a nice time seeing her family and only had to spend about a day in the Stockholm snow before being back in warm Florida.

It was comforting to be back in the US. I thought I would have had a bigger culture shock, but it wasn't too bad. And we quickly delved into the American consumer habits (driving around in an SUV and buying things). I'd like to think we weren't too extravagant, though. We were just buying food, some clothes (which we really needed), and a few other bits and pieces.

Now we're back in England. We left Friday on a 1.40 flight through Washington DC. Got to London Heathrow at 5.50 in the morning. It was a really short flight, so we must have had a hell of a tailwind. They had to get special permission to land at Heathrow during curfew (no flights before 6am). Took a National Express bus at 7.10 and arrived in Westbourne around 9.30 tired as hell and bleary-eyed. A nap was definitely in order! Then we went to M&S to get some food for the weekend. Since then we've been unpacking, checking email, and restarting our life over here. I'm so glad it's Sunday tomorrow so I have another day to unwind before going back to the salt mine on Monday.

Tonight Europe finally turns its clocks forward.