Britishland!

There will be a lot more pictures of this
beautiful cathedral

We did make it here.   3 planes, 13 hours of flying time, 8 time zones, and 1 hour bus ride and we are HERE!  We have to admit we weren't that excited when we got here because we were SO tired.  Jet lag is almost gone now, but we do still stay up slightly later than we would at home, wake up slightly later, and eat slightly later.  I don't think it will be long before we are on the appropriate British schedule.

The rooms are more spacious than we imagined they would be, and the bathroom is thankfully larger too (though a little quirky by our standards). On the first day we arrived at our rooms we quickly noticed that one was practically empty.  These are supposed to be furnished rooms.  We politely asked if there was supposed to be a couch in our living room and the porter took one look and said "Oh my, is that all you got?" and quickly brought a small dining table, two wooden chairs, two cushioned office chairs, one armchair, one love seat, and a coffee table.  I guess we were missing quite a lot of furniture.  I was pretty pleased with their prompt response.  We then asked when the carpets would be cleaned (they were filthy) and the porter took one look and decided that he would REPLACE the carpets.  We moved out of our room to a university provided guest room while they ripped out the ugly, disgusting, filthy, vile carpet and replaced it with lovely linoleum printed to look like hardwood.  It made a HUGE difference in the room.  We really appreciate all the work they did to fix up our room for us.  It should be a nice flat to live in for a year.


So, a few tidbits (or "bits and bobs") from our first week....

Flying out.  A nearby elderly couple was delighted
by this photo and lent Sam a pair of glasses for this
picture.  They couldn't stop laughing, and neither
could we. 

Our first week here we were pretty confused in general.  We didn't really know where to get food, what a good price should be, where to go, or even what timezone we were in.  We found it difficult to sleep at the proper time and woke up several nights in a row around 2 in the morning and couldn't sleep for a few hours.  That has righted itself.   We found new ways to embarrass ourselves at the grocery store as we couldn't understand the cashier, then found that we couldn't understand how our credit card operated in the UK.  Here it is inserted into the checkout machine, and then after signing the receipt the cashier must see the back of the credit card to ensure the signature matches.  However, "chip and signature" (as they call our kind of credit card) isn't that common here, so the cashiers don't always know what to the do with the card.  We found out quickly that daily visits to the store, or visits every other day, are fairly normal.  The closest store is 30 minutes away on foot, so it does take a bit of time to secure goodies to eat.  Expiration dates also seem to come a lot quicker.  Perishables actually do perish here.

In the first week we did go out on the Wear River (pronounced like "we're") in a rowboat, and climbed 325 steps to the top of the Cathedral tower.  As well as walked around on various scenic walking paths. And in the first week Sam and was in a Matriculation ceremony to formally welcome him into the University.  The ceremony was held in the Cathedral and full of the expected pomp and circumstance.

Second week.

By now we have met and made friends with everyone on our floor.  There is one other couple and three single students.  Three are from Britain, two are from China.  The two Chinese students have been extremely kind to us and have offered us a bit of Chinese soup and a dumpling.  It must be a cultural thing to share their food because the two students arrived at different times, but both independently offered to cook us dinner as soon as they met us.  The Chinese dinner will be tomorrow, and everyone is looking forward to it. We'll have to host Thanksgiving to reciprocate.

This week Sam met some of his professors and some of his fellow students.  There seems to be about 7-8 students in his Early Modern History program.  The first class was yesterday, and Sam reports that it was very good.  He's presently away at his second class.

We think we are finally settled into our room.  It seems we have continually found things that were necessary to buy (a pot, a spatula, a drying rack, some rags, some bedding....)  I think we should be just about done trying to buy things for our room.

Also in this last week we celebrated Sam's birthday!  I usually have something fun and exciting planned for Sam's birthday, but my plans this year were a little nonexistent.  Sam actually picked out the restaurant to go to on his own birthday.  We went to "The Cellar Door" which was fantastic.  If you are coming to visit us we will take you there.  They had the best burger I have ever eaten.  

Birthday burger in lieu of cake

See?  He's pretty happy about it!

So, now that we are all caught up, please email us and let us know what you are up to!

Anniversary Surprises Part II and Major Catch up Post

A lot of time has passed since my last post... and a lot of things have happened.  I will start where I promised.

Sam's surprise:

I knew it was almost certainly going to be a hike or a backpacking trip.  Originally Sam had requested that we leave at 2pm, but the nasty weather had him reconsider his plan.  We left the next day, drove for about 3 hours and ended up at Three Fingered Jack!  It was a LOVELY day, and the hike was fabulous.  Sam packed all our favorite munchies.  He picked this hike because we had actually hiked it on our honeymoon the year before.  This time though (its a loop) we went the opposite way on the trail.  Thousands of beargrass were majorly in bloom (each plant only blooms every other year) giving the whole scene a very different appearance.

             

Major highlights of the remainder of summer:
1) I had the privilege to attend Luke and Jerusha's wedding.  Luke was a groomsman at our wedding.  It was truly a beautiful day! Congratulations!

2) We hiked South Sister (another weather delay caused us to go a week later than initially planned) It was difficult, but not nearly as hard as I expected.  To compare: I did a 25 mile bike ride earlier in the summer and the bike ride was more difficult during the event, but South Sister was more painful afterward.  It was SO worth it though.  I loved the whole experience.

At the top of South Sister

3) Another wonderful friend, Tommy, got married in Dallas.  I was again able to attend. Yay! Unfortunately it appears I don't have any pictures of this happy event.

4) We hiked Jefferson Park.  Last year we hiked the park at about the same time and saw amazing displays of wildflowers.  This year was hotter, so it appeared that we missed the peak season for wildflowers.  The hike was still rather enjoyable but for some reason both years my legs strongly protested this hike (despite the fact it is a LOT easier than South Sister)

5) Just a few weeks before our scheduled departure to Britain, Lucille (our wonderful red car) developed problems with the clutch and timing belt that would cost more than she was worth.  Couldn't have been better timed though.  We sold the car to our mechanic who has intentions to fix and sell Lucille, and we know that somewhere around Salem she lives on.

6) We mashed, crammed, stuffed, vacuumed and squished and sometimes quietly cussed our too many possessions into our too few bags and headed to England.  I still have no idea how Sam and mom managed to fit the violin in our bag, because no amount of coaxing or bribery would convince it to come back out.  Sam magicked it out when I wasn't looking.  It arrived all in one piece and in very good condition.  We may owe Aunt Barb a new case for it though as its better days certainly occurred before a flight to England.  The two weeks before departure were certainly a highlight as we saw LOTS of friends, saw every family member possible, and managed to go out to the beach in Florence before we left.