A few quick hits

I don't have much time to write anything, so I've only got a couple of dealies to hold over the few that have been checking the site lately until I can hopefully put some better updates later. My flight leaves early tomorrow morning for England, and I'm dreading the early wake up.

• First, it's cold in England, even colder than here (it's been unusually cold here lately). It snowed all week and from what I see of the weather report it's probably going to snow some more this week. It really hasn't accumulated much, but now I can say that this won't be the first winter in my life to never see snow.
• Today was the start of the Fallas in Valencia. This really deserves its own post, but I'll have to write about it later. I went with my girlfriend today to see the first mascletá in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento and it was really cool. I'll explain it sometime in the near future, but basically a mascletá is a fireworks show at 2pm that they do daily until the end of the festival, March 19. Of course, it being in broad daylight, the point isn't about the visual spectacle like typical fireworks shows. The point is the noise. Imagine about 500 of those fireworks that just make a bright flash and a huge boom in about a 5-10 minute period, and that's a mascletá, more or less. It's really cool.
• It's nice working in England, since at least I don't have to struggle with a foreign language. I'd make a joke about struggling with the English language, but the truth is that I haven't found it to be that difficult to talk with those who speak the Queen's English. I've definitely noticed a lot of little differences, but they're not anything that makes it too hard to communicate. One thing I've noticed is that there is a multi-purpose word there that isn't used too much in the US. The word is "cheers," and it's used as a hello, goodbye and you're welcome. I've seen it as a salutation in emails, but not too much else before now. It's one of those words that I would feel completely awkward saying myself because it just doesn't seem natural.

Well, that's it. I'll update more later. Sorry for the long gaps in writing.