Just Like Christmas Eve

It feels like Christmas Eve tonight. We've each opened gifts, shoes for Chris and books for me (thanks John & Judy!). There are appetizers in the oven...a Kuckleburg family tradition, the only thing missing is oyster stew to make Chris feel like he backs in Springfield. I'm going to watch one of my favorite holiday movies, Love Actually, later tonight while Chris finishes reviewing a journal paper.

Tomorrow we fly to Barcelona and we return from Lisbon on New Year's Day. The forecast isn't quite as warm as I had hoped but it will be about 10-15 degrees warmer than here, so a bit better. Cold weather is hard to pack for when backpacks are your only form of luggage, as warm clothes are quite bulky. I think we'll end up needing to do laundry at some point during our 11 day trip. Planning and packing for this trip reminded me of why I love tours so much. Of course the biggest advantage is that they're the cheapest way to travel, but also they take much of the worry and stress out of traveling. Unfortunately we couldn't find a tour during the dates I have off work, so we have to do this trip on our own.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas! We're very much looking forward to being home next year to celebrate with friends and family. One more Christmas card to share with you...yet another brussel sprout card, which I still find bizarre. We've received lots of cards this year, partially due to my participation in a UK-Yankee (Americans living in the UK) card exchange :)

Christmas Cards and Music

I love Christmas cards, especially those that contain photos and/or long letters...you know the type that give highlights of the family's year. I suppose I'm most excited to see photos and read letters from people that don't keep blogs, aren't on Facebook, etc..


I've picked my favorite card of those that I've received so far and it is one that says..."Blimey! I went out to celebrate after work on Christmas Eve and got totally bladdered, yet this morning I don't seem to have a hangover," though Jackie, not realising it was now the 3rd of January.

No doubt you guessed it was from a British co-worker. The words they choose to use and their pronunciation of certain words never ceases to amuse me. One that makes me laugh everytime is the word controversy, here it's pronounced con.tra.va.see.

The strangest card I've received (also from a British co-worker) says...Give a sprout a home this Christmas (and has a picture of a brussel sprout).

Another aspect of Christmas that I love is the music. As I was riding the bus home tonight listening to Christmas songs on my MP3 player I was thinking about what I'd consider to be my favorite Christmas albums and songs. Here's what I came up with (it's a long boring bus ride)...

Favorite Albums -
Singers Unlimited
Martina McBride
Alabama Christmas (vol 1)

Favorite Songs -
River - Sarah McLachlan
It Could Happen Again - Collin Raye
God Bless The Child - Shania Twain

I miss having my binder of Christmas song lyrics which I created a few years ago so that I could sing along to every verse of my favorites (it's currently stored in my Mom's basement). I imagine that sounds quite lame, but I did have a lot of time on my hands when I worked at Weather Central :) The best was when I had one of my Mom's pianos in my apartment and I could play and sing my favorite songs!

Office Politics

My department at work shares office space with two other departments and like most offices, everyone does not always get along. The latest saga revolves around Christmas decorating. This morning my boss (who normally stays out of these things) came in with bags full of Christmas decorations because the other two departments had decked their areas last week and left us out. Due to our placement between them, if left our area looking quite bare, but my boss fixed that today with banners, garland, and a tree. I had to take a picture of what our department tree ended up looking like after my 3 male co-workers finished decorating it :)


People here seem to celebrate Christmas at work more so than I experienced in the States. In addition to Christmas decorations throughout the office, Christmas work parties are very popular and planned months in advance. Unfortunately they tend to be quite expensive because restaurants only offer set menus for work parties (kind of like dining out on New Year's Eve in the U.S.). Another example is that everyone exchanges cards. It reminds me of Valentine's Day school in elementary school :)

Shut Up and Sing

I watched a really interesting documentary tonight called Shut Up and Sing, which tells the story of The Dixie Chicks controversy. The Republican hubby had no interest in watching it with me. I didn't realize how bad things had gotten for them, until I saw the footage of their police escort into a Dallas concert due to death threats. One letter actually said the date and time that their lead singer Natalie would be shot to death.

Back in 2003 I didn't realize that Natalie's comments were made during a London concert. It's no surprise to me that she got a very supportive reaction after telling the crowd "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas." I have yet to meet a Brit who has anything good to say about Bush.

To date many radio stations south of the Mason-Dixon line still refuse to play Dixie Chicks music despite their most recent album debuting at number 1 on the charts. It would be quite an experience if Chris' job took us to one of those states. Either way, I just pray I'm home in time to vote in the next presidential election. After all, everyone knows overseas ballots have a way of disappearing :)

My favorite song from their recent album is "Not Ready to Make Nice", specifically the following verse...

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby

With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’

It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her

Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger

And how in the world can the words that I said

Send somebody so over the edge

That they’d write me a letter

Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing

Or my life will be over

UK Crisps

I always thought that flavors of chips (called crisps here) were quite odd in the UK, but my opinion was sealed today when I saw turkey & stuffing flavored chips! I brought them home for Chris to try who was shocked to discover that they did in fact taste exactly like turkey & stuffing.


I think part of what makes the flavors so strange is how many are meat related. For example, they have the following meat flavors...
lamb & mint
gammon (ham)
roast beef
BBQ rib
roast chicken
smoky bacon
steak & onion

Other flavors that I find odd include...
tomato ketchup
worcestershire sauce
prawn (shrimp) cocktail
marmite yeast extract

Brits love their crisps and there is an entire half aisle devoted to them at the store (the only item that has more shelf space at the grocery store is alcohol!).

Religion

This week at work I've been doing a lot of data entry, specifically student registration forms. One question on the form asks students to state their religion and the most common response is "No Religion". I wonder how many people in their twenties & thirties go to church anymore. I don't have any friends who attend church, other than a few services before their wedding and perhaps a few before the baptism of their child. Chris, on the other hand, has two very religious friends who speak of Jesus quite frequently in e-mails and blog postings. kk

On the Americans in the UK web forum I read, someone recently posted the question – "Is Thanksgiving a religious holiday?" No doubt asked after attempting to explain to British people what Thanksgiving is. What I found interesting were the varied responses, split between those who thought it was and those who thought it wasn't. Those who said it was argued – you say grace before you eat and churches hold services on Thanksgiving. Those who said it wasn't argued – the pilgrims wanted religious freedom and it's not a celebration of Jesus' birth or death, therefore it can't be a religious holiday. Oh and my favourite, a girl who's Jewish argued that as a Jew she celebrates Thanksgiving, therefore it can't be a religious holiday.

A quote from the forum that I find quite amusing -

"Thanksgiving is about the Indians and the pilgrims having a meal to celebrate the harvest. Yes, they thanked god but they weren't celebrating a religious event. Jesus didn't come down and show himself and give them a bounty."

Pub Culture

Last night we walked to the nearest pub (it's cold outside!) and had a bottle of wine, while people watching and discussing our plans to return to the U.S. Chris is in the process of sending out applications now and just about every corner of the U.S. in being covered in his job search. For example, he's applying for jobs at...

University of Washington (Seattle)
University of Colorado (Denver)
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
University of Tulsa (Oklahoma)
Rice University (Texas)
University of Massachusetts (Boston)
Duke University (North Carolina)

Anyway, back to being at the pub. I've found that going to a pub here is quite different to going to a bar back home. What we've found most surprising is how many old people go out. Women in their 40s and 50s dressed like teenagers (revealing way too much flesh!). Also, men in their 50s and 60s looking and acting sleazy, attempting to pick up women half their age.

Pubs have various dress codes, the most typical is no tennis shoes and no football (soccer) jerseys. Last night we discovered a new one though. Another rule is no hoods, which my winter jacket has. The idea is that hoods are associated with "hoodies."

According to Wikipedia...
In the UK, hoodies have recently been the subject of much criticism: some shoplifters have used the hood to conceal their identities from CCTV cameras in shopping centres. Particularly when worn with a baseball cap, the hoodie has become a trademark of "chavs." Chav is a mainly derogatory slang term in the UK for a subcultural stereotype fixated on fashions derived from American hip hop such as imitation gold, poorly made jewellery and fake designer clothing, combined with elements of working class British street fashion.

I understand that the rules must apply to everyone, but being told I must remove my hooded winter jacket reminds me of being patted down at the airport to ensure I'm not an Islamic terrorist.

Taking Responsibility For Your World

Our friend Dario recently shared a blog posting with me that I now want to share with you. The author is a 24 year-old American guy.

November 14th, 2007

It always makes me laugh when people say they’re too busy or that they don’t have enough time.

Yes, many of us do have busy lives. But, there are 24 hours in each day, 168 hours in each week and 8,760 hours in each year (and an extra 24 in 2008)! Ultimately, we make the decision for how those hours are spent.

We may choose to spend 50 hours a week at work, or maybe we’ll choose 30 or 20. Many people will say that they have to work long work weeks to feed their family and pay their mortgage. Well, there are smaller mortgages and creating a family is a choice (even for straight folks).

Perhaps a $100,000 home would allow for more freedom than a $175,000 home. We all make choices, and how we spend our time is a consequence of those choices.

We have a tremendous amount of freedom, but we don’t always choose to see it. We are not slaves and the clock is not our master.

Ultimately, it comes down to priorities. We spend our time on the things that we decide are important.

Perhaps someone watches an hour of TV every day but claims that they are too busy for the gym. In reality, watching TV is more important to that person. And that’s fine. But it’s not because you’re too busy.

Perhaps another person spends 70 hours a week working but claims that they are too busy for a relationship. In reality, working (perhaps to maintain a large home, extravagant lifestyle or just to get ahead) is more important. And that’s fine too.

But we all have the time. And we have the freedom, through our choices, to spend it as we wish.

If we expand the picture, it’s not just about time. Our freedom doesn’t end there. We are so beautifully free. Every moment brings an infinite number of choices that we can take.

It’s all part of taking responsibility for our lives, and realizing the only brush painting our canvas is our own. We are the Michaelangelo of our own masterpiece.

Thanksgiving

It's cold, dark and rainy here tonight. Typical November weather I suppose. The sun is now setting around 4:00 and lately I feel as though I'm absolutely frozen while standing at the bus stop each night after work. I don't like riding the bus in general, but standing by myself in the dark leaves me hating the experience even more.

We're enjoying having our weekends free lately, as much as we do love to travel, it's nice to get caught up on life in between trips :) We're going to have a quiet Thanksgiving this year with just the two of us. We came close to having guests, which we were really excited about. Chris' cousin Margaret and her husband Carl recently moved to Belgium and planned to visit us, but Carl now has to be back in the U.S. to get his visa sorted, so they're unable to come. I'm so happy our visas were taken care of before we made the move! It sounds like Belgian laws are quite a bit stricter than UK laws. So anyway, we'll be having a Thanksgiving meal on that Saturday and we also plan to put up our Christmas tree :)


This is the first time that either of us has done Thanksgiving on our own and it's been interesting discussing what we should have to eat and what we should do that day (on the day we're celebrating). I want to watch the Macy's parade, which I'm sure I can find online, but Chris has absolutely no interest in that. He doesn't want cranberries and neither of us wants green bean casserole. His number one request is yams and mine is baking powder biscuits. He wants pumpkin pie. I'd prefer raspberry chiffon pie, but am unable to make it without our stand mixer (best wedding gift ever!), so we'll have pumpkin pie.

High School Reunion

Today is my 10th high school reunion at a bar in Madison. I'm not sure I'd attend even if I was living in Madison because I haven't really kept in touch with many of my classmates. Although I have quite enjoyed reconnecting with several people through Facebook (51 of my 422 classmates are on). It's such a great way to quickly see what people are up to.

Actually just looking through the replies to the Evite invitation was quite interesting because many people listed where they're living now. The most popular cities are Chicago, Twin Cities, Boston, NYC, Denver, Seattle and LA. A fair number still live in Madison as well. A few are living abroad in Japan, China, Italy, Poland and even another in England. I need to get in touch with her to see why she's here. The one location I found most intriguing though was Sioux Falls, SD. I've got to find out what made her move there! :)

Booze Cruises

According to Urban Dictionary, booze cruises are "A fun event where one takes a family car to a port in southern England, hops the channel by ferry or chunnel, loads up the car with alcohol and tobacco (which is much cheaper on the continent due to the lower tax), refuels the car (fuel again is cheaper), then heads home."

The first time I heard someone talk about doing this I thought it was quite strange to go through that much effort just to buy alcohol. However, it is substantially cheaper and you are free to return home with an unlimited amount of alcohol "provided it's for personal consumption." So it is possible to stock up and make the trip worthwhile.

In case you're curious what the alcohol-loving Brits deem a reasonable amount of alcohol...according to The Times, you won't be questioned if you keep it under 120 bottles of wine, 250 cans of beer, and 12 bottles of vodka.


You can even book a "tour" through a travel agent which involves riding a coach bus to the ferry crossing, for the sole purpose of purchasing alcohol.

Pumpkin Biscotti

Canned pumpkin is rare here, but there is one grocery store here that stocks it only in the fall. So last week I picked up five cans and Chris has gone crazy ever since trying recipes :) This past week he has made pumpkin cookies, muffins, biscotti and pie. Our favorite was definitely the pumpkin biscotti...in fact he used it as a crust for his pumpkin pie. Below is the recipe he found on the Simply Recipes website.


2 1/2 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
Pinch of ginger
Pinch of cloves
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup of pumpkin purée
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, and spices into a large bowl.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, pumpkin purée, and vanilla extract. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Give it a rough stir to generally incorporate the ingredients, the dough will be crumbly.

Flour your hands and a clean kitchen surface and lightly knead the dough. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper. Form the dough into a large log, roughly about 15-20 inches by 6-7 inches. The loaves should be relatively flat, only about 1/2 inch high. Bake for 22-30 minutes at 350 F, until the center is firm to the touch. (Feel free to also form two smaller logs for cute two-bite biscotti; just cut the baking time to 18-24 minutes.)

Let biscotti cool for 15 minutes and then using a serrated knife cut into 1 inch wide pieces. Turn the oven to 300 F and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. Cool completely.

Biscotti may be still a tad moist and chewy, so if you prefer it crisp let it sit uncovered overnight in a dry space. Serve and enjoy.

Makes approximately 15 cookies.

Atonement

I saw the movie Atonement tonight with my friend Becky. It's done very well at the box office here and I can see why, as it's a really powerful movie. Extremely depressing, but still a good film. I was surprised to read online that it's not being released in the U.S. until December considering that we typically have to wait months after a U.S. release date.

http://www.atonementthemovie.co.uk/site/site.html

What To Wear?

I'm packing for our Ireland trip tonight (we leave tomorrow morning) and I realized that I wasn't sure what we should wear to a medieval banquet we're going to while there. So looking for more information online, I realized that I could search Flickr, a website which people share their photos on. Sure enough, I found recent pictures from the medieval banquet at Dunguaire Castle in Kinvara, Ireland. From a quick scan of various people's vacation pictures I determined that jeans were appropriate...you gotta love the worldwide web.

USB Flash Memory Car Adapter

We recently purchased a USB adapter for the car and I'm really happy with it! It might sound like a very silly purchase considering that we don't own a car, but it only cost 5 pounds ($10) and we rent cars often enough that we knew it'd come in handy. We tested it out this past weekend and we're surprised how excellent the sound quality is considering the cheap price.

It's really cool because it works with any USB flash drive, so I loaded up a 2GB one tonight with songs for our 5-day road trip through Ireland, which starts on Saturday. In case you haven't seen one of these before, below is the picture from Amazon where we purchased it. It plugs into the cigarette lighter and then you tune it to an unused radio frequency...much like a drive-in movie :)

Read It Swap It

I recently joined a free online group here in the U.K. called Read It Swap It and am really happy with it. The idea is simple - all members post books that they want to trade. If you see a book you like on someone's list you submit a request to trade with them. If they're interested in a book on your list, you swap books. Otherwise you just indicate you're not interested in any of their books.

So far I've traded 9 books and I love it because the only related cost is postage, and light books cost as little as 50 pence to ship. I only wish I had all my books being stored back home because I'll probably never re-read them and was only hanging onto them because I didn't know what else to do with them.

It's been especially convenient for travel books as we don't intend to return to anywhere we've been, with the exception of London and Paris. For example, I recently traded our Venice pocket map for a Barcelona guidebook.

I still get most of my books from the library, but it's not very convenient for us to get to the library, the loan periods are short, and you're limited as to how many items you can take out at a time. I really, really miss the Madison public library system, but being able to swap books online is a nice alternative.

The Questions Never End!

I'm enrolling students this week at work, approximately 150 each day, and I cannot believe how many students comment on my accent. I get so many questions from each that it literally takes me twice as long as my co-workers to process students.

They are the same old questions...
- You're not from here, are you?
- Where are you from? (when I answer Wisconsin, it's always met with a very blank look)
- Why did you move here?
- Do you like living in the U.K.?
- Do you want to move back home?
- And my favorite question...are you sure you're American? You sound Canadian.

I'm sure all these questions seem innocent enough but the enrollment process doesn't really allow time for chit chat, so it's become quite annoying. Especially when the men tell me they want to talk more with me and then ask where my office is located (there is no academic reason that they would need to get in contact me with after enrollment).

Oh and the students who think they're being funny end our conversations with "have a nice day." Something you would never hear a British person say except when trying to imitate an American.

One Year Left

Well, in just one year now I will officially be old. In the meantime, I'm going to live it up and travel as much as possible because we've decided to start trying for kids next summer and then our lives will completely change! I suppose it's all relative and that many, many people think 30 is really young, but it's one of those ages where you have to really start seriously thinking about having kids, buying a house, making sure your career is on track and that you're contributing to a 401K.

This past year living in the UK has been an adventure and I'm happy to say that we feel really settled now and are definitely enjoying living here. Chris is back to his old habits. He's just purchased an Axis & Allies board game and he's also doing his first triathlon in England in less than 3 weeks. We never thought triathlons would be a possibility for him due to not owning a bike. However, our Italian friend Dario really badly wanted to try doing a triathlon and didn't want to do it alone, so he had his Dad drive a bike over from Italy for Chris to use.

As much as we love living here, we're both looking forward to returning home...hopefully in 2009, if everything goes as planned. Chris will start job searching as early as next summer, so we could be back even sooner!

Thank you to everyone who called and sent birthday cards. I really enjoyed hearing from you.

The End of Summer

It's hard to believe that the summer is almost over. Although without warm weather it never really did feel like summer here. I'm dreading the long days of darkness and colder weather that lies ahead. Granted it doesn't get nearly as cold here as it does in Wisconsin, those are very brutal winters, but it's hard to remember that when standing at a bus stop for an hour waiting for an overdue bus.

Do you remember when I mentioned that Karis is a more popular name here? Well, not only is it a more common first name, but also a more common last name. We recently took a walk to see "the two towers" which inspired J.R.R. Tolkien and found ourselves near a Karis Medical Clinic. Birmingham is quite proud that Tolkien spent time here and offer city tours of the places he frequented.

Random

It's pouring rain and 55 degrees here on this Saturday afternoon, so needless to say I'm spending the day indoors. Chris isn't though, he's paintballing right now with some labmates and I imagine he'll come home a muddy mess :) I like having these weekends in between trips to relax, although I've been spending quite a bit of time today planning our Belgium trip next weekend. So anyway, a couple random topics to blog about...Clearing and Free Things.

Clearing-
This past week was the beginning of Clearing at work. Clearing is used by college applicants who have not yet been accepted to a University. Approximately 30,000 students in the U.K. obtain their place in college through Clearing, which amazes me because it gives them very little time to prepare for where they're going, as classes start September 17. The timing of Clearing is based on A level results, which are exams that UK students take after taking classes for 2 years (what would be the last two years of high school of US students). All college offers are conditional until the A level results are released and it is only then that students know whether or not they will actually be able to attend their first choice college. If their grades aren't high enough, they get rejected and their places is then offered to another student during Clearing. I'm learning quite a bit about the UK educational system, but it was still scary this past week to be offering advice to students over the phone regarding their educational future!

Oh, in case you're wondering as to why I was helping with Clearing, it's because my department works closely with the Admissions department. My day-to-day job is still boring statistics and database management. If it weren't for the great people I work with, I'd probably be more serious about finding a job that doesn't bore me to death. At least now I know what career I do not want to pursue when we return home to the States :)

Free Things-
I've found that things which I expect to pay for here are free and things I don't expect to pay for are not free. For example, checks are free. You simply ask for a new book of checks at the bank and they mail them to you. Also, birth control pills are free. You just need a prescription and then you can get them from any pharmacy. All other prescriptions cost £6.65 ($13) for everyone between the ages of 19-59 (all prescriptions are free for children and the elderly).

People generally refer to the NHS as providing free healthcare, but we've found that many things are not free including routine dental and eye examinations. We pay £30 ($60) for dental cleanings and £40 ($80) for eye exams. That's not to say that I dislike the idea of universal healthcare, but when such an enormous portion of my paycheck goes toward national insurance it kind of sucks to have additional healthcare related costs.

Americans

I came across a couple interesting things recently regarding Americans. The first is a blog and here's how it is described..."I've travelled around several inner London Boroughs with an English friend. She approached people, and asked them--whats the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of Americans? We then get their permission to take their picture and record what they say. These images and words make up the headings of the different posts here."

It's interesting to scroll through and see what words come to mind when describing Americans (it starts with the 31 May 2007 posting) - http://londoneyesamerica.blogspot.com/.

Something else I came across is a chart representing obesity and of course, America is #1 on the chart, but I found it fascinating to see who has simliar dietary habits to Americans.

Living Like Americans

We recently renewed our lease for another year, and we decided that we'd make our flat a bit more comfortable for the 2 additional years (maybe even more?) that we'll be here. So we purchased an additional small fridge, a condenser dryer, a microwave and vacuum. We've had our dryer just over 24 hours and I can't imagine ever going back to drying racks. It's so nice to be able to walk into our spare room and not have to navigate a maze of five drying racks. Not to mention having soft towels once again!

We weren't sure what a condenser dryer would be like, but it's not really any different then the vented dryers we're accustomed to. The only difference is that water needs to be removed from the machine after each cycle, which is easy to do. Below is a picture of the container the water collects in.



We purchased an additional fridge because things were constantly falling out of our tiny dorm size fridge. The fridge we have is a very common size here, in fact when I told my co-workers we were getting an additional fridge they were surprised that we'd need one with only two people. However, I think they are forgetting that one of us is an eating champion :) Below is a picture of our old fridge.


and then a picture of our new fridge...stocked with necessities like condiments and soda :) Chris had given up soda for awhile and was just drinking tea and coffee, but now he's back to drinking a 2 liter or so everyday.

Soon to be Smokefree

Very soon England will be smokefree...the last country within the UK to do so. Bans in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all went into effect within the past two years. It's a much more comprehensive ban than the one implemented in Madison back in July 2005. There are very few areas that smoking will be allowed. Even smoking in your home is now regulated in the sense that you are not allowed to smoke before someone like a repairman visits or a baby sitter comes over.


All of the bus shelters have recently been decorated with no smoking signs, which is a lovely idea but how in the world is that going to be enforced? Today, a co-worker who smokes was complaining that all of the outdoor ashtrays have been removed and "it's not even July 1st yet." There are now only two areas outside that people can smoke at work and that is inside ventilated smoking shelters, which are also required by the new law.

My New Favorite Website

Not having a TV here is very tolerable because we simply watch DVDs on our laptop instead. However there's an annoying delay between when shows are aired in the U.S. and when they are available on DVD here. So I was very excited when someone shared a website that allows me to watch any TV show at any time! Especially because I've recently become quite addicted to the show Grey's Anatomy.

The quality varies depending on what format the show is shared in and not every episode is available, but I still think it's a fantastic way to be able to watch TV without owning one :)

http://www3.alluc.org/alluc/tv-shows.html?letterselect=A

The Big Issue

I had never heard of The Big Issue until arriving here, but once I was here it didn't take long for me to be asked to buy one, as there are people everywhere thoughout the UK selling them.


According to the website...
"The Big Issue is an international organisation that works with homeless people all over the world, from the United Kingdom to South Africa and Japan. At the centre of our work is The Big Issue magazine, an award-winning news, arts and current affairs magazine that is produced by professional journalists and sold on the streets by homeless people. They buy the magazine from us and sell it on at a profit, which they keep. Although financial exclusion is one of the key reasons people remain homeless - and one of the core aims of The Big Issue is to give people a legal way of making a living - there are other benefits of becoming a vendor."

They are only allowed to sell them in certain areas and they aren't very aggressive, but it's still annoying to frequently be asked to buy one when shopping downtown. We've never bought one of their "award winning magazines" but people who have say it's a crap magazine and they'd rather just donate the money.

Another American's Perspective

I love reading blogs and one that I frequently read is called The Madison Packard. I don't actually know the author, he's the uncle of a former co-worker, however I enjoy his blog because he often writes about very familiar Madison places and events such as Rhythm and Booms, Taste of Madison, Farmer's Market and Badger games. His latest post intrigued me because he blogged about a recent trip to the UK! It was very interesting to read another American's perspective on the country that I'm living in.

I was particularly interested in 10 observations he posted at the end of his blog entry...below are those observations in blue and my comments about his observations in white. If anyone is really bored and wants to read all about his trip, here's the link to the full blog post...
http://themadisonpackard.blogspot.com/2007/05/julie-and-i-returned-on-friday-from-8.html

Before closing, I want to add a few comments and observations about our adventure and life in the UK.

1. People in the UK appear to be MUCH healthier than us Americans. We hardly saw any significantly overweight persons. Obesity is simply not an issue over there, probably because mass transit is so prevalent that persons actually get out and walk once in awhile.

While it’s true that they are not nearly as many obese people, there are still quite a few overweight people. Both men and women have beer bellies here.

2. While we were hiking in the Lake District - on some rather challenging trails - Julie and I figure that at least half of the hikers we saw were persons in their 60's, 70's, and 80's. I guess you're only as old as you feel and as old as you let yourself think you are.

I’ve noticed this as well. Older people do seem to be more active here.

3. TV in the UK sucks!! It's channel after channel of PBS-like documentaries about things like gardening and cooking. No wonder everyone is out walking and staying fit!

This is an interesting comment because of the five BBC channels one shows nothing but American programming. Also, I certainly wouldn’t say that people are out walking instead of watching TV. My co-workers talk at length about the shows they watch each night. In fact, TV series on DVD are very popular here as well. My co-workers are currently watching Ally McBeal, 24, Sex & the City and Friends on DVD.

4. People in the UK eat some pretty big and wild breakfasts. Here is the typical menu we encountered: toast, eggs, broiled tomatoes, mushrooms, Cumberland sausage, back bacon, and baked beans. And we saw a LOT of people eating this, all piled up on one freakin' plate. You know, I've heard many times that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and the British take that seriously.

This is like saying that Americans eat pancakes, eggs, bacon and sausage everyday for breakfast. The Brits I talk to eat cereal and toast just like us. When eating out I’m sure Brits are more likely to order the “English breakfast, “ just as we would order cooked breakfast fare.

5. Folks in the UK generally don't seem to cook very well, say compared to the French, Italians, or even the McDonalds. While we had some tasty meat pies, most of the breakfasts we ate were only so-so. And the best meals we had were at Italian restaurants. If you go to Britain, don't go for the food!

This is SO true, but I think everyone already knows this fact :)

6. The UK is a lot farther north than I realized. We had daylight until 10 pm and the sun was coming up well before 5 am. I did some checking, and it turns out that the UK hovers around the 55th parallel of latitude. That puts it in-line with the middle of Canada. Wild, eh?

7. Gas in the UK is the exact same price as it was when we visited 7 years ago!!! It is 95 p (pence) a liter. Don't get me wrong -- it's expensive. When we visited in 2000, that 95 p equalled nearly 6 dollars a gallon. And with the weak US dollar, that 95 p now means that us Americans would be paying nearly 8 dollars per gallon. But for all of those UK-ers, it's the exact same 95 p that it's always been. Doesn't that make you wonder why the heck US gas prices fluctuate all over the place? Just who exactly is playing with us and why?

8. English people who speak English are somewhat difficult to understand. Scottish persons speaking English are nearly impossible to understand!!

Very, very true!

9. If you give soccer a chance, it can actually be a pretty exciting game. Julie and I watched the European Cup championship match between AC Milan and Liverpool, and found it to be quite enjoyable -- although we don't have a clue what some of the commentators said!

We haven’t been to a live game yet and we’ve only seen one match in the pub, but it sure doesn’t excite Chris or I.

10. Virtually everyone we encountered was very friendly and helpful. It was so nice to feel welcome in a foreign country.

This is true in general, however the one big exception is the service industry. Tipping is rare here, so people don’t need to be nearly as nice. I’ve found that hairdressers make small talk with each other instead of the client and service in restaurants can be very slow!

Photography

I've always liked photography and living here has given me so many opportunities to not only take photos but also see photo exhibits. The photos we saw at the Coventry art museum today were very inspiring! Below are three of my favorites from the exhibit.

Pension Scheme

I had heard that our pension scheme (very similar to 401Ks in the U.S.) at work was good, but hadn’t really considered joining since we’re here on a short-term basis. However, I had my meeting with the financial advisor today and was amazed at how good the plan is, so I signed up. I contribute 6% tax-free and the college matches 14%, for a total contribution each month of 20%! So in other words, £54 is taken out of my paycheck each month and then £234 goes into my pension.

Also, the government pension (what we would call social security) is a 2-part system here. One part has to remain as a government pension, however the other part can be designated into an employer pension. That amount will be £844 for my first year.

So between work contributions and the government contribution, the value of my pension should be quite good by the time I transfer it to my U.S. employer’s 401K. I asked about how difficult that will be to do and he said it just involves a phone call on my end, but lots of paperwork for him :)

Washington diary: Land of ideas

An interesting article written by a British BBC reporter living in the States...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6613861.stm

The Accent

Americans are fairly rare in Birmingham, but of the 200 employees at Newman College there is another one. She introduced herself to me yesterday. Noelle is from California and came here six years ago to do her PhD at the University of Birmingham, now she’s a History professor at Newman. It was quite interesting to talk with her because she commented on how cold it is here (she’s from LA) and I told her I thought it was quite mild :)

Because people in Birmingham don’t come in contact with Americans very often, it always seems to catch them by surprise. I can tell when I’ve lost someone because they get a glazed over look in their eyes and I know they’re completely focusing on the accent and not what I’m saying. It’s quite annoying when I’m trying to answer students’ questions because I often end up having to repeat myself. A common question I get after someone hears me talk is…”you’re not from Birmingham, are you?” For example, I got this question while standing in the line for taxis on Saturday night and the man who asked me thought it quite hilarious to tell my taxi driver that I wanted to be driven to Wisconsin.

Canals and Gondolas

Chris and I were walking the canal to downtown Birmingham yesterday when we saw a strange sight...a gondola! The canals are quite nice, but not nearly as picturesque as Venice. It just seemed so out of place.

Flowers in Stratford

We went to Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare's birthplace) this past weekend with my friend Becky and the flowers we saw there were really gorgeous. As soon as Chris finishes up his Italy commentary, you'll get to see more Stratford pictures on our shared blog :)

Facebook

A friend recently introduced me to Facebook. Before joining, I had assumed that sites like Facebook and MySpace were for high school age people, but after joining I found that quite a few of my high school classmates are registered (and we're 10 years out of high school as of this year). Not only can you search by the schools you attended and year you graduated, but there's also a cool feature that allows you to scan the contents of your e-mail address book to determine who's registered…that's how I discovered that my brother is on Facebook :)

I've also discovered that many of Chris' labmates are on Facebook. Today, one guy posted the picture below on his page, asking "Where's the peoples?" After seeing how many labmates are registered on Facebook, I would venture a guess that they're all too busy at their computers to be in lab working :)

A Likeable Republican?

Rick Steves' is by far our favorite travel guidebook author and he's recently started a blog, which I've enjoyed following. He's currently in Italy and I had to laugh when I read the following excerpt...

"I met John Mica, a congressman from Florida, while dodging a horse carriage under a Donatello statue. He called himself a "knuckle-dragging conservative on economic issues who believes in funding the arts." He and his wife sneak over here with no fanfare (so he doesn't have to mess with security or any protocol). He was enthusiastic about a new "open skies" initiative leading to more transatlantic flights...and some funky little trattorias he wanted me to check out for my guidebook. For some reason he reminded me of salt on fresh pineapple (one of my favorite things). Meeting a likable Republican (like meeting a Catholic priest who challenges my intellect) reminds me that there's more than one way to skin an idea."

Click the following link for the full blog entry - http://www.ricksteves.com/blog/index.cfm?CommentID=66

I can relate to Rick's comment because of my despise for both Republicans and Catholicism, however also because I definitely agree that it really helps to hear others' viewpoints, especially from those people that you assume you will disagree with. I like having my ideas challenged because it makes me think more deeply about my beliefs. I always enjoy hearing Chris' sister Tess speak about her beliefs because she can articulate so well the reasons behind her convictions. Chris, on the other hand, hasn't convinced me yet as to why he's both Catholic (albeit non-practicing) and a Republican :)

Guns vs. Knifes

There's nothing like a school shooting to bring out the Brits true feelings about America. It's been a popular topic of conversation here and I mostly hear about how scary it is to think that every American has their own gun. I guess if you've never visited the U.S. and only had news reports to go by it could seem like a scary place. The same would hold true for any country though. I pointed out to my co-workers how many knife attacks there are here and they agreed and said they are scared of getting knifed. In fact, I just read a newspaper article saying that new Kevlar lined sweatshirts have been designed for kids to wear who live in rough neighborhoods in England...particularly London, where it seems there's at least one report each day of a child being knifed to death, often gang related.

It was quite amusing to hear some of my co-workers suggestions as to how we can fix the gun problem in the U.S. I heard...change your Constitution, only allow farmers to own guns, ban hunting, and don't allow police to carry guns (as is the case here). I don't really know what to think about school shootings, but the British certainly have an interesting perspective. For a good movie on the topic, I'd recommend watching Bowling For Columbine, if you haven't already done so.

Back Home

After being gone for a week, I'm just now catching up on the blogs I like to read. Jenn's is one of my favorites because she too is an American living in the UK. Her most recent entry (dated April 13) reflects on a topic that I have previously mentioned on my blog and that is the crazy system the UK has for rewarding single pregnant mothers. I found her perspective to be interesting - http://jennredd.typepad.com/

Chris and I had a very low-key weekend. He's been in lab catching up on work, while I sort through things at home. Laundry is always a tedious chore here due to not having a dryer, but being gone for a week really compounds the problem. We've been enjoying the weather here lately. Today was a record high...73 degrees. Keep in mind, this is a country where the temperature rarely rises above 60s even in the dead of summer. The warm weather, lack of rain and long daylight hours has been wonderful!

Drunk on Americana

I read an interesting editorial in today's paper regarding a recent report stating that Britian should consider raising the drinking age from 18 to 21...

"The latest expert report states that we should restrict drinking to over-21s, following the US model rather than the more mature European way where children grown up with a healthier attitude toward drinking. The reason that we have so many young people hooked on binge drinking is because our society has, for too long, followed the US model of culture, rather than looked to our close neighbors for inspiration, or indeed stayed true to our own long history. We have all but become the 51st state of America. It has become normal for us to have a daily dose of Yankee TV and films, a money-making obsession, long working hours, a shopping mall fixation, car dependence, infatuation with shallow US stars and violent rap music. We have replaced the British identity with a poor copy of the US one and are reaping the rewards with a disilluisioned and unhappy youth. Let's just hand Britian to George Bush and be done with it."

One of the things I've found most interesting about living here is to find out what stereotypes exist about Americans. For example, I've been told that I'm quieter, more polite and skinnier than most Americans. It wasn't until visiting London recently that I began to see what the British see. The American tourists were very easy to identify because they were often being loud and rude.

I have yet to meet anyone that thinks the US is a good place to live. Many people do like to visit and they love watching American TV shows and movies...but never has anyone said they'd actually like to live in the US, which I find fascinating.

Vacation Time

I just got news at work that our number of vacation days is increasing! I currently get 26 days vacation, plus 5 paid holidays and the entire time from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day off. That will all stay the same except instead of 26 days it will increase to 29 days on January 1, 2008, then to 32 days in 2009 and finally to 35 days in 2010. Unfortunately, I won't get the full benefit of this new deal since we're leaving in 2009, but it's still very cool.

Do you know anyone who has travel insurance? I didn't until we moved here. However, it's something we recently had to purchase because a group tour we're going on this summer mandates it. Luckily it's fairly cheap, 80 pounds for annual coverage, and it covers just about any emergency you may experience while traveling. I'm still amazed by the difference in how travel is regarded here. Obviously in the U.S. we simply don't get the time off work necessary to travel the way Europeans do, but travel just seems ingrained in the culture here. In addition to the typical places, you can buy travel insurance from the supermarket or post office. Also, at the post office you can exchange 35 different types of currency!

It is very common for students to take time to travel after finishing what we refer to as high school, before starting college...and to some pretty distant destinations like South America and South East Asia. I often feel as though I'm playing catch-up because not only have the Brits been to more places in Europe than I have, many have also been to more places in the U.S. than me!!

I Miss Our Stuff

With the exception of dish duty, I tend to stay out of the kitchen as Chris is by far the superior cook. With Chris gone for the weekend however, I decided to make some jam bars tonight and found that it was quite difficult to do without a pastry blender. My very nice Pampered Chef pastry blender is stored safely away in my Mom's basement, where it will stay until 2009 when Chris and I return to the United States. Of course, we came here to travel, not cook, so it's totally worth not having access to all the things we're accustom to having however there is everyday life in between our travels :)

Speaking of traveling, I came across a great website today for European tours called Budget Expeditions. These tours provide a very affordable way of seeing Europe because you stay at campsites as opposed to hotels. For Chris and I, who both enjoy camping, I think this will be an ideal way to travel. We learned the benefits of being part of a tour in Egypt, where our accomodation and transportation was all arranged for us. I like to tease Chris about being "old" but in the case of these tours he really is because the maximum age allowed is 35 (minimum age of 18).

Other items I miss not having are my scrapbook supplies, however I've found that photo books are a great alternative. I recently ordered one through Shutterfly, which Chris' parents kindly let me ship to their house and then brought with them to give to us (ordering from U.S. websites is so much cheaper!). I'm very impressed with the quality and it was really easy to do...much quicker than doing a scrapbook. Of course, it's not possible to include as many items in a photo book but I was able to add many of our Egypt mementos by simply scanning them.

Back in Birmingham

I'm back from our road trip, as I wimped out to avoid the 11 hour round-trip ride to Scotland which Chris and his parents embarked on this morning. The timing actually worked out quite well however as our fridge stopped working today. I can only imagine the smell and mess we would have come back to late Monday night if we had all gone. Turned out to be a cracked plug, which our landlord quickly and easily replaced. I know nothing about electronics but it doesn't seem as though that would be possible in the U.S. The plugs here are very strange. He simply took a screwdriver to the plug and removed the cracked portion which was keeping it from staying plugged in.

Our landlord, actually it's a young couple (mid 30s maybe?) named Jim and Stella, are really nice and incredibly responsive to any problems that we have. Jim is always full of energy and has crazy hair that sticks out in every direction...but in a way that you can tell he's done it on purpose. He's a cameraman for one of the BBC channels and a very interesting guy. We don't know his girlfriend Stella as well, but she did bring us a bottle of wine as a Christmas gift, so we like her :)

Daylight Savings Time

Just a quick post to let you know that while you all will soon start enjoying "longer" days we don't change our clocks until March 25, so there will be an hour less time difference during those two weeks.

I'm happy to report that Chris' parents arrived safe and sound early this morning. We're spending the weekend in Birmingham, then going to London, Stonehenge, Wells, Cheddar, Bath, Monmouth (Wales), and Edinburgh (Scotland) over an 8-day period returning on March 19.

The European Look

We bought new glasses for Chris today (to replace his broken ones) and he ended up going with what I refer to as the European look. Thick glasses, that would probably be associated with nerds in the 1950s, but they're all the rage nowadays...perhaps back in the U.S. as well, but definitely in Europe.

A Tasty Recipe

We tried something new for dinner tonight and it turned out quite well. It's funny because when we first arrived here we had trouble finding things we liked to eat. After a month or so, we had finally found a few meals we enjoyed...after six months here, we're tired of eating the same thing each week :)

So I bought a couple British recipe magazines and we're trying out some new dishes. Tonight was chicken with spinach and pea risotto. The recipe is pretty simple and it's fairly quick to prepare. I do apologize though because recipes here are crazy! Instead of measuring in volume (cups), everything is measured by weight. Luckily the exact measurements don't matter too much. Here's the recipe...


600 grams chicken stock
150 grams arborio rice
100 grams frozen peas (we used soya beans)
110 grams young leaf spinach (we used frozen)
4 skinless chicken breasts

Warm the chicken stock, and then add rice slowly, stirring between each addition so the rice absorbs the liquid. Then stir in the frozen peas. Season 4 chicken breasts and grill for 10 minutes on each side. Stir spinach into the rice and once it has wilted, serve the risotto with the chicken. (We also seasoned the risotto with salt, garlic and Italian seasoning as it was cooking).

Mothers on the Bus

A controversial topic in this country is the government's support of teenage mothers. Many view the system as rewarding women for becoming pregnant. It is quite interesting because women qualify for no benefits if they marry, however if they remain single they receive a council house (government paid housing) and they qualify for more spacious housing with each child they have. They also receive monthly stipends to cover food and other expenses, with no expectation for them to ever work…that is until their children reach a certain age and they are then given less benefits. From what I've been told this rule results in women just continuing to have children in order to avoid working.

I see these "benefit mothers" with their numerous children on the bus each morning. They seem to be a perfect example of how NOT to raise a child. For example, this morning I saw a mother feeding her daughter salt & vinegar chips and having her drink Lilt (similar to Mountain Dew) through a straw. It's sad to see any child having a breakfast like that, but it was even worse in this case because the child was only 2 or 3 years old. Another example were two little boys who appeared to be about five years old, discussing the movie Kill Bill which they had watched the night before. What parent lets their kids watch Kill Bill??

Shopping

It can be really hard to buy things here. Yesterday, Chris commented that he felt like we were in Russia as we looked for knives because there was one and only one choice. Granted the store we were shopping at was more similar to Home Depot than Bed, Bath and Beyond, but it's like that most everywhere here. Another frustrating thing is how many stores close on Sundays. I can never remember for certain which stores are open on the High Street (like Main Street) near us, so I went today and was disappointed to find that only one of three stores I was hoping to go to were open.

We end up purchasing quite a bit from Amazon.co.uk to avoid the hassle of trying to shop at stores here. Our most recent purchase is a 250GB external hard drive. I ordered it as soon as I realized our laptop hard drive was so full that I could no longer burn DVDs. Our new hard drive will now hold our 9,700 photos and 6,400 songs. It's the first UK product we've bought which will be coming back to the U.S. with us, which means we'll need to purchase a US outlet adapter before we come back.

Shrove Tuesday

Today is Shrove Tuesday, also known as Pancake Day, here in England. Of course, in the U.S. it is Mardi Gras that is celebrated on the day before Lent. We've learned that when the British say pancakes they actually mean crepes. They refer to our type of pancakes as American pancakes, which are not at all popular here. They would never have maple syrup on either type of pancake, although they do sell it here...next to the ice cream toppings.

There was lots of talk today at work about everyone having pancakes tonight (as dessert). Two women even bought new crepe pans for the occasion. Discussion of favorite toppings came up and the unanimous decision was lemon and sugar. There was even a Pancake Party tonight for students and staff at the college where I work.

This website has some interesting information on Shrove Tuesday...
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/shrove.html

Apparently, Pancake Day is also celebrated in the U.S. (at IHOP at least)...
http://ihop.com/tellafriend.php

Multilingual People

I am amazed by people who fluently speak multiple languages. I thought about this yesterday at work when helping two students from Belgium and Poland who spoke flawless English. I know that foreign language is taught earlier in schools in Europe, but even so I still think it's a remarkable skill. I'm reminded of our cab driver in Zurich who seamlessly switched between speaking English, Swiss German and French. In addition to those three languages, the flight attendants on Swiss Air also speak Italian. From talking with people here it seems as though England is more similar to the U.S., in that students take one foreign language beginning in secondary school and rarely reach the level of fluency.

We had coffee with Chris' Italian labmate Dario and his Mom today. Dario's Mom speaks Italian, French, German, Arabic and English (Arabic because she was born in Egypt). His Dad speaks Italian, French and German but not English, so it should be interesting trying to communicate with him when we stay at Dario's house in April. His Mom was so nice and is really looking forward to our visit. She shared a story with us of meeting a friend when she was 9 years old vacationing in Italy (she lived in Egypt at the time) and her friend was from Germany. They became pen pals (writing in German) and are still friends to this day. She's very happy that Dario is making "international friends" and I'm really happy that we're getting the chance to learn so much about other cultures.

Common Names

I find the names that are very common here to be interesting...more so for female names than male names. Probably because the popular males names tend to be the same as in the U.S. (Andy, Mike, Chris), but the female names are a bit different. The names Emma, Claire/Clare, Helen, Nicola, and Gemma/Jemma are incredibly popular here. There's also not a great variety in last names, so there end up being quite a few Nicola Adams, Helen Jones and Claire Edwards for example. I come across this everyday at work when researching information on students. Many times so many students share the same names that the only way to differentiate them is by their birthdates (middle names are less common here).

Perhaps one of the reasons I find this so fascinating is because my name is so unique. I've personally met only two other women named Karis. I worked at Famous Footwear with one, which was really weird because she not only shared my same name, but she was born one day before me. The name Karis is more popular here, although often spelled Charis, which I'm certainly glad is not the spelling of my name, as people already get me and Chris' names confused.

When talking about names for our kids, we've decided that we don't want to name our children anything that's too common, to avoid having them differentiated by a last initial...but also nothing too strange, because I can tell you it's a pain to have to constantly spell your first and last name. As you all know, switching from my maiden to married name didn't help with this either :) Of course, you never know what names will become common. I like the Social Security baby name website http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/ which tells you the most popular names for each year, that way you can ensure you're not giving your child a newly popular name.

Missing Madison

Days like today are one the few days that I don't miss Madison. When I brought up my Google homepage just now, it informed me that it's minus 11 degrees in Madison right now and 50 degrees in Birmingham (at 10:00am and 4:00pm respectively).

Not only is it fairly warm here, but it's also not raining! Yesterday, there was not a cloud in the sky, so we took advantage of the fantastic weather and walked downtown via the canal, which is something we haven't done in a long time (since October I think).

We go back and forth as to where we'd like to live after we leave England. Chris says he'd accept a job from UW in a heartbeat because he really liked living in Madison. However, yesterday we were kicking around the idea of the Oregon/Washington area, which has weather similar to here in the sense of rain and mild temperatures. I guess we won't know anything for certain until late '08/early '09, but it is fun to talk about where we might settle back in the U.S.

Bus Stop Etiquette

There's an inane unwritten rule here that the first person who arrives at the bus stop is the first person to get on the bus, which also gives that person the responsibility of flagging down the bus. I suppose the idea behind this is fine in theory, but it becomes complicated in reality because you don't know which bus each person is waiting for. The routine I see play out each morning at my bus stop is extremely comical.

In my mind, it's very easy to tell when a bus is approaching that someone is waiting for because they start moving toward the front of the bus stop (the spot where you flag the bus down). So if no one is moving, it's a very safe assumption that no one else is waiting for that bus and therefore you need to flag the bus down yourself. However, it seems that some people are so nervous about going first and potentially offending that they will wait until the very last minute to move, and by then the bus has passed by. I know they've missed their bus, because they then get on the same number bus that next arrives. It's so crazy that they'll take the chance of missing their bus!!

There are probably times that I've cut ahead of someone unitentionally, but I'm certainly not ever going to miss my bus because someone doesn't move when they see their bus coming. I know it's my bus and I'm getting on it :) Riding the bus is definitely an adventure. There always seems to be a faint smell of urine and I've had some of the strangest people sit down next to me and strike up a conversation. However, it's definitely worth it to not deal with the hassles and cost of owning a car here!

We'll be renting our first car here in March for Chris' parents visit and I'm anxious to see how it goes because neither of us has ever driven here (only Chris and his Dad will attempt to...I'm not brave enough yet, especially because it will be a manual tranmission car). We have quite an ambitious itinerary. We'll be gone six days and we plan to drive through South-West England (Stonehenge, Bath, Cheddar), then north through Wales, and finally spend 3 days in Scotland near Edinburgh.

Oriental Food Fair Disappointment

Chris and I are trying to save money for our upcoming travels, so we planned just one fun event this weekend....at least we thought it'd be fun. Chris' Japanese labmate Jun invited us to attend an Oriental Food Fair on campus. Chris was immediately interested upon hearing that it was an all-you-can-eat buffet for only 5 pounds.

The event was suppose to start at noon, but as we patiently waited in line, we were passed by an endless stream of Asian people who were bringing food to the event. Once we got inside the room around 12:30, we discovered the food was being served in a really small space and it certainly didn't help that the event was incredibly popular and there were people everywhere! There was nowhere to sit and people tended to just eat standing in front of the tables where the food was being served, which made it very difficult to actually get any food. Have you ever tried eating that type of food standing up? It was challenging to say the least. The concept was interesting though. There were five tables, each with a flag behind them representing the Asian country which the food was native of and it was all homemade by students from those countries.
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Chris' Canadian labmate Yotis comically pointed out that the three of us looked like giants among the sea of Asian people who were all a head shorter than us. Just when we thought it couldn't get worse, a very strange man heard Chris' accent and asked where he was from. Turns out the guy spent the last 8 years working in Iowa and just moved to Birmingham 3 months ago (he's originally from India). He asked Chris if he'd like to get a beer sometime and the two exchanged e-mail addresses. I thought the guy seemed strange, but wasn't sure what Chris thought until we were talking after we left and he said he wanted to kick himself for giving the guy his real e-mail address :)

Snow

I've found that the British react to snow the way Texans do...with awe and trepidation. Some parts of the country saw their first snowfall of the year this week. A newspaper article today stated that there was "travel chaos after 25mm of snow fell in the South-East overnight." For you non-metric people (I'm one of them) that is about one inch of snow.

Last night a co-worker and I were working late, when she advised that we should leave after looking out the window because it was starting to snow and we might be trapped overnight. When I looked outside all I saw was a slushy type rain...certainly nothing was accumulating and it wasn't even cold enough to freeze, but she was dead serious. Of course, you can't blame the Brits for reacting to snow (or something resembling snow) this way because they don't have the proper equipment to deal with a true snowfall. There are only a few salt trucks (called grit lorries here) for the entire county we live in. Nevertheless, I'm still amused by it :)

Work, Wine and Dinner Parties

I'm finally feeling better and work is still going really well! For the first time at work today, I got asked if I was American. It struck me as odd actually that I don't get asked this more frequently because it seems that Brits are always anxious to differentiate between Americans and Canadians. Anyway, I was helping a student today when he asked me and his reply was "very nice!" Perhaps he has a thing for American women :) It reminded me of a time in Egypt when we were sleepily waiting for our 3:30am convoy ride, and overheard two people talking in what sounded like British accents. Chris asked them if they were British and where they were from. We were shocked to hear, "Yes, we're from Birmingham." They live in a village just a few miles away from us!

How old do I look? I'd occasionally get carded at home, but that seemed reasonable considering I was only a few years older than the legal drinking age, but yesterday I got carded buying wine at the grocery store and the drinking age here is 18!! Luckily, we're waiting a few years to have kids otherwise I might get disapproving looks from people thinking I was a teenage mother.

I was buying wine because we're having a guest for dinner tomorrow night. My friend Becky who I met while temping is coming over to hear about our adventures in Egypt and tell me the tales of her latest temping gig. Our unofficial New Year's resolution is to invite people over more often because we now feel settled here and Chris enjoys cooking, so it makes sense to start hosting dinner parties. Our next party is what has been deemed the "foreigner party" because no British guests were invited, instead our guests come from France, Iraq, Japan, Italy and Canada. It's a group of people that Chris and I really enjoy socializing with (they all work in his lab). I think it's because we can all relate to being foreign here. We're not leaving out the Brits though :) Two weeks after that party, we're having two British couples over (the women work in Chris' lab).

We just found out that Chris' parents will be visiting us from March 8-20, which we're very excited about! I submitted a request for 5 days off during that time, which is in addition to 4 days that I had already requested off for our trip to Italy in April. I absolutely love the number of vacation days workers get here. At home, my vacation time would be almost entirely used up by requesting 9 days off (I got 11 days total at Famous Footwear). However, here I still have 15 more vacation days, in addition to 8 paid holidays and the entire time from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day off.

I Need A Vacation!

Ok, I know I just returned from Egypt and technically I had off from December 23 to January 7, but there was nothing relaxing about being in Egypt and I've been sick ever since we returned. Luckily I've been able to rest all weekend. It's really nice not having any commitments right now, which is so different than the hectic nature of our life last month...although I guess the holidays are always like that. Literally the next thing on our calendar is our trip to Italy over Easter in early April...so that leaves over two months to relax! I love travelling and it's what we came here to do, but it's tiring and takes a lot of work. Especially when visiting non-English speaking countries. I've been trying hard to make hotel reservations for Venice, but it's proving to be very dificult. Some hotels require a minimum 4 night stay over Easter, some don't have staff which speak English, and others are just incredibly expensive (starting at $300 per night).

So I started my new job this past week and I really like it. Being sick was a horrible way to start, but I made it in Monday through Thursday and just took Friday off. My co-workers seem great, I like the area I work in (lots of windows), and my work is interesting. One of the biggest perks is vacation time. Right now I get 28 days of vacation, however there's a deal being negotiated to raise it to 35 days, which HR told me should be implemented some time this year. Pay was negotiated last year and a 13.1% increase over 2 years was implemented. So every four months, I'll receive a pay increase. Another bonus, is that the admissions office which I work in operates on flexi-time, which means I need to be at work during the core hours of 10:00-4:00, but other than that I can keep my schedule flexible. So I can come in at 8:00 one morning, and 10:00 the next. If I work more than 37 hours in a week, that time accrues and I can use it as vacation time.

It's 11:00am here right now and I've been up long enough, it's time for a nap :)