Today ended up being a busy day.  I wanted to do everything at once.  I have a whole list of things to do while I am here... maybe about 30 items long, and thought maybe I could do most of them all today.  First item for today however was for Alena and I to go help her friend move.  Really we were supposed to take her to the post office and then to the airport where she would then fly off to Hong Kong.  But it eventually was a lot more work than that.  The thing she wanted to mail at the post office ended up being three huge boxes that we didn't have enough money to send.  Also we didn't know what was in them so we had to lie on the customs declaration.  To summarize, what then happened was that she got to her flight 15 minutes before it was scheduled to leave, had too heavy of luggage and ended up giving me about 5 jars of Ro-Tel salsa that were weighing her bags down.  What was she going to do with all that salsa?  In the end she gave a us a check for $200 for helping her and to mail her last two boxes.  Bonus!

Our next trip was to my optometrist to get some sunglasses.  I forgot that it sometimes gets so sunny you can't even see.  Buying glasses is a boring task I know, but it's been so long since I've worn them in Leeds that I forgot where I put them, so now my old ones are lost.  Boy did I miss insurance when I had to pay for them. And then we went to the supermarket so Alena could do some real shopping, and so I could do my touristy play shopping.  Shopping for groceries is the thing about American culture that it probably most different than British culture.  First of all, the produce section of this supermarket is larger than my local H'ley Safeways. 

Here are some pictures of some conspicuous products I found today so I can laugh at them instead of buying them.  Sorry about the quality, I had to shoot from the hip.

the cap'n has evolved since I was last here

fizzes in your mouth!!  OK, I went back and picked up a box of these.  I mean, limited edition!

are kids still eating beanee weenees?

hi american snap crackle and pop

My favorite aisle at HEB.  Hispanic cookies, how pc.

Ritz weren't interesting enough before they were "smilin'".

It comes with a FREE PEZ, what should I do?

that's luxury that is

I'll have to put up more pictures later.  At this point Alena got a little bored of me sneaking around the supermarket.  Also, my digital camera is somehow broken, so I'll have to use the one attached to my laptop until I get it fixed.  Apparently my camera is the "european version" so I may have to wait until I get back to Europe.  Arrrgh.

Our next trip, after picking up Kersten, was to go the Krispy Kreme as we were all craving donuts.  When they opened up the Krispy Kreme in Austin they had to have police directing traffic around it because it was so crowded.  Oh the burdens of being a policeman at a donut shop.  I was pretty impressed with the KK, you could see the donuts being cut and glazed before your very eyes.  Wow.  When I noticed they were giving away little KK paper hats, I had to ask for one.  I went up to the man at the counter and asked for a hat with shyness that I might ask for a feminine product.

Me:  Sir, is it possible that I could have a ...

Krispy Kreme guy:  Yes, a hat, fine.   How many did you want?

I took three, which may have been pushing it, but you never know when I might need it.  I think I'll be a Krispy Kreme girl for Halloween this year if I stay in england for Halloween.  That could be fun.  Or maybe not.

We went to to visit Jacob at his other job at the video store afterwards.  Half the movies listed on the "new releases" board haven't been out in the cinema in Britain yet, or I'd never heard of them.  In fact I hadn't heard of most the things on the new releases shelf, so I picked up a few I'd been meaning to see that I have heard of.  The first film was Traffic, which was probably my favorite of the three.  I didn't like the racial stereotyping, and it was a little mainstream, but it wasn't bad.  And it had Benicio del Toro.  The second film I watched was Dancer in the Dark with Bjork, which I thought was unforgivable.  Some parts were visually interesting, but I was embarrassed at the lame plot and Bjork's accent. I thought it would be interesting to watch this movie with Alena who is a Czech Texan, but judging from Bjork's accent in this movie neither she nor Lars Von Trier have ever been to the Czech Republic or ever heard a Czech accent in their lives.  That was very hard for us to look past.   The last movie we watched was Bring It On , one of last year's cheerleading movies.  It wasn't a waste of time and was pretty cute.  Our favorite line from this movie: "My entire cheerleading career has been a lie!".

Then I watched a few minutes of TV before going to sleep.  The news specifically.  The stories were so weird.  Something about african dust in Austin, a local kid got struck by lightening, something about power outages in California, and then some guy in Europe did something.  The commercials were even stranger than I had remembered.  The first commercial was for a politician who was complaining about "liberals".  I couldn't believe that, I thought I'd heard it wrong until Alena confirmed it.  Then the pest control guy who keeps saying he wants to "kill your bugs!", and after that a truck commercial and a local celebrity introducing the news again.  I feel so foreign.

listening to:  austin radio stations