12/27/10: Pictures

Jessie and I by the Christmas tree!

Mr. Drea with Helga and Buzz.

Louisa, Jessie, and I.

Luke showing off his new hunting coat.

Mrs. Drea with her new crystal bottle for port. The only port she could find was left in the pantry by the previous owner of the house, so Mrs. Drea poured it into the bottle for show but said she was afraid it might be poisonous.

Reindeer tracks in the woods!

Snowy field at the Drea's yard.

The school!

The view from my bedroom on Christmas day!

Pumba!

12/26/10: MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas! For me, December 25th, 2010 was full of firsts: my first Christmas away from home; my first white Christmas; my first Christmas drinking alcohol legally; my first Christmas eating parsnips; my first Christmas with gifts from “Father Christmas” instead of good old Santa; my first Christmas with crackers on the table (I half expected a flowery bonnet to pop out of one like it does in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). What more could a girl ask for during her first Christmas in England?

I spent a good portion of the day sleeping because I have a terrible cold. Green tea and Emergen-C helped me feel a little better, and I managed to help my current adoptive mother, Mrs. Drea, make an English trifle. It was a bit of a disaster because, after layering shortbread and fruit on the bottom of a bowl, Mrs. Drea mixed boxed jello into a liquid and poured it into the bowl without firming it in the fridge first. It turned into a gooey mush, so we put it in the fridge to harden it up into a shortbread/fruit/jellow mixture instead of a layered trifle. We told everyone at dinner that it was a traditional American trifle. Luckily, I don't think they noticed how disastrous it was!

It was tough being away from my family at Christmas for the first time. I really miss them! On Christmas morning every year, when my brother, sister, and I are making our way down the stairs to open presents, my dad always makes us stop and smile for a picture. It always makes my siblings and I want to shoot him, but I have to admit when I walked downstairs on Christmas morning in England, I missed taking that picture just a little bit. Maybe I'll bring some British Christmas traditions home with me next year! Brussel sprouts, anyone? Or maybe parsnips?

12/22/10: The Frozen Tsunami

I must admit, dealing with the British weather is quite tough! I bought a very warm coat; Dubarry boots; an eskimo hat; and a pair of waterproof socks (literally the demonstrator stood in a bucket of water to prove that they work) at Olympia on Sunday, and my hands and feet are still in a constant ice cube state! I never want to get out of the shower because I always dread feeling the cold bathroom air. As Jessie said today, "the weather spoils everything... It's like a frozen tsunami!" I couldn't agree more. The school is too frozen to ride in again today, so we are hanging around the house and may do some Christmas shopping later. Luckily, on days like this when we have very little to do, we never run out of things to chat about! It turns out horse show drama is certainly not exclusive to the American show circuit.

On an exciting note, the Drea's 14th century house is being restored at the moment, and the bathroom outside my bedroom door is nearly finished! Luke informed me that he caught the nice, but somewhat creepy, builder named Kimberly (yes, a man named Kimberly...) peeking through the crack in my door this morning, so I will be very happy when the bathroom is finished and he evacuates the premises.

Just so you know for future reference, 14th century country houses are beautiful, but the central heating; electronic outlet; and toilet flushing situations can be problematic. I spent the first few days wearing five layers to bed until I found superb heater hiding in my closet. I absolutely love it, but the fact that my room has access to only one electronic outlet means I can't run my heater and charge my Blackberry at the same time. Wow, I sound like a stuck-up American princess! However, it is amazing how much one takes these simple pleasures for granted. Flushing the toilets has also proved to be challenging. The trick to flushing an old British toilet is a very short and quick press down on the handle. If one cannot master this technique, he or she might as well just give up on going to the "loo" at all.

Oh, the British! They call themselves English by the way... British is apparently just a term used by Americans. So confusing!

Pictures: 12/21/10

From left: Geoff Billington, Jessie Drea, and George Whitaker.

Jessie and I preparing for our take down of London!

Jessie's yard covered in snow!

The leader board during the H&M World Cup Qualifier.

The course for the H&M World Cup Qualifier.

The course for the Young Rider Championship.

The Christmastime specialty at the Bolney Stage, the classic British pub down the street from Jessie's yard!

12/21/10: Adventures At Olympia.

Jessie and I spent this past weekend at the Olympia Horse Show in London. It is an incredible show in downtown Kensington where many of the world's top riders compete. After unloading Jessie's horse Baloufina on the sidewalk next to the London Olympia Exhibition Center on Friday night, Jessie and I went back to our hotel to rest up. On Saturday morning, I went to Whole Foods (my very favorite grocery store) just down the street from the hotel. I got Jessie a smoothie for strength and picked up some organic snacks. I've been missing Whole Foods since I've been in England! The biggest grocery store in Horsham is called Tesco, and it is not quite in the same league.

Sadly, the power smoothie didn't help Jessie win the Young Rider's class at Olympia. She had a great round with just a single rail at the B element of the triple combination and ended up sixth in the class. The class format stated that the top five horse/rider combinations from the first round would return for a jump off and carry forward any penalties they accumulated in the first round. Jemma Kirk, Matt Sampson, Mark Turnbull, Sam Hutton, and Tim Page all returned for the second round. After a speedy jump off, Jemma pulled out a second clear round with the fastest time to leave Matt; Sam; Mark; and Tim to finish second; third; fourth; and fifth, respectively.

The excitement continued for the rest of the weekend, with Britain's Michael Whitaker winning the H&M World Cup Qualifier on Saturday after an insanely fast jump off of fourteen horse/rider combinations. France's Penelope Leprevost triumphed in the Kingsland Olympia Grand Prix on Sunday, a class in which the famed Ellen Whitaker actually went off course. I think all of England was shocked!

Jessie and I had lots of exciting adventures over the weekend! We ate at the delicious sushi restaurant Nobu. It was terrible for our wallets, but I think the smoked salmon was worth it! We also met a famous English futbol player named Jermain Defoe (and got his number!); we went Christmas shopping at Harrod's, which was also pretty dangerous for our wallets; and we lost a little self-confidence watching the best riders in the world run faster than children's jumpers in jump offs! All in all, it was a great weekend. I am back in West Sussex now, but it was so snowy today that riding was not an option. Tomorrow we should be back in action!

Pictures: 12/16/10

The lovely Jessie Drea!

The Drea's lorrie.

A fence being built at the Drea's yard.

Marcus Beerbaum and his daughter!

Gotta wear a hat, scarf, and at least six layers in Europe!

The barn at the Warsteiner Brewery in Germany where Alois Pollman-Schweckhorst keeps his horses. I will start riding there at the end of January!

Christoffer Lindenberg from Denmark.

Lena Pollman-Schweckhorst riding.

Frances and I with Ger Poels.

12/16/10: ZED?!

So sorry I have been MIA! Turns out my computer doesn't get along well with the internet in the lovely English house where I currently reside. After spending a few days driving around Germany and Holland last week with my Dad and my sister Frances, we bundled all my luggage into four bags weighing a total of 60 kilograms; hopped on a RyanAir flight (which was about an hour late as usual. I don't think RyanAir pilots pride themselves on punctuality); and flew to England.

My dad and Frances drove me to a horse show where they handed me off to my new British family, the Drea's. I met Jessie Drea, a successful British Young Rider, at the Olympia Horse Show in London last December and we quickly bonded over our shared love of the movie Mean Girls. I plan on riding with the Drea family at their "yard" in West Sussex for six weeks.

Upon my arrival at the show, Jessie introduced me to her dad and I stayed the night in their lorrie. After Jessie competed in and won the meter 1.40 classic (the "Silver Tour Grand Prix" in British terms), we drove back to the Drea's yard where I met Jessie's mom and her brother, Luke. Along the way we hatched a plan for me to pretend I thought Luke's name was Lucy and yell "TA!" after every sentence while speaking to Mrs. Drea. The plans worked splendidly and Luke looked horrified when I said, "Isn't Luke short for Lucy? Lucy is a boy's name in America." Mrs. Drea also thought I belonged in a mental institution, but after about ten minutes she realized what was going on and accused Jessie, Mr. Drea, and I of making jokes.

Monday the 13th of December was my first day at the yard. Jessie and I feed, water, and muck out the stalls ("boxes" in British terms) starting around 8:00 am each day. After finishing, we go inside for breakfast and then head back into the cold to ride the horses. The Drea's have a varied collection of horses, including foals; green hunters (for fox hunting, not American style hunter riding!); and experienced show jumpers. I have been riding four horses each day and my favorite is a gray four year old mare named Garner. She is about 15.3 hh and a lot of fun to ride! All the horses have been great so far, and my biggest challenge is understanding Mr. Drea when he instructs me in the ring (the "school" in British terms). He is Irish and I find his accent supremely confusing.

One of my and Jessie's favorite pastimes is comparing British and American words. When Jessie told me the password to the internet connection in her house, we discovered we say different alphabets! While reading off the password, she said a few normal American letters and then, out of the blue, the word "zed." I was baffled and kept saying, "zed? what?" After a minute, I realized she was saying the letter "Z." ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY and zed... That's the alphabet according to the British! Sadly, only last week I wouldn't have passed kindergarden in England because I couldn't recite the alphabet.

Tomorrow Jessie and I are heading off to London where she will compete at the Olympia Horse Show. I'm so excited about a weekend in London! Jessie is riding in a Young Rider class on Saturday afternoon. Wish her luck and I will send updates!