Happy Birthday to the USA

In honor of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Paul and I did what is required to be a good member of US society by going to our local 4th of July celebration at the Monroe County Fairgrounds. The AmVets post puts on an annual fireworks show here in Bloomington, and this was the first year it was at the fairgrounds rather than at the university stadium parking lot. The fireworks were to begin at 10pm, and living about a 10 minute drive away from the fairgrounds, we left at 8:45 in case there was traffic. Well, after an hour of being reminded of why we prefer living in the country to living in Chicago or another big city, we managed to get to the fairgrounds and park. Walking up to where the action was, we were treated to the aroma of fresh fried dough, kettle corn and BBQ.

Despite the long line of large and tattooed men, as well as pregnant women, already ahead of him, Paul, being Polish, could not resist stopping at the Polish Sausage cart (he's on the right in the dark).


Here he is with his prize - juicy polish sausage topped with "everything", which appeared to include sauerkraut and onions among other things. The glow of the yellow neon light from the cart adds to the ambiance of the dish.


Of course, Paul isn't the only one who enjoyed the bounty of the Polish Sausage cart. I was treated to something called a "potato blossom". I don't seem to recall such a delicacy being served in Poland, so this must be a New World creation. More convincing of its US origin is the fact that it's a potato (or probably several potatoes) cut into a spiral, deep fried and smothered with ketchup (or plain if you're too dainty for the red stuff). While the neon yellow glow is not the most flattering light on me, I did want to share the image of this fried treat, in all it's glory, with those who may not have seen it before .



As we enjoyed our rural fairground fare, an 80s cover band played such hits as Van Halen's "Jump" and other Hair Band classics. Finally, at around 10:30 the fireworks began. It was actually a much bigger pyrotechnic show that we expected. There were several times when the audience started clapping because they thought it was the grand finale, but then it would start up again. Pretty impressive, though the paper this morning said they spent $25,000 on the show and only raised $17.000 in donations. They've been short like that two years in a row. Whoops!

What was cool is that we were pretty close to the show, but not so close that we thought we might get hot ashes on us.


And finally, when the show had ended and the line for the Sugar Shack food cart (pictured in the background below) had died down, we ordered our dessert - FUNNEL CAKE! Does it get any better than funnel cake? We think not.


Let the French keep their baguettes. Real Americans take their bread fried and loaded with powdered sugar!

In other news, Indiana ranks 17th in the country for its 2010 level of obesity.

Overheard on Campus

Just had to share this conversation I overheard on campus a couple days ago:

Guy1: Oh man, John and I got so wasted last night. We split a bottle of Jager fifty-fifty.

Guy2: Dude, that's retarded. That stuff's NASTY!

Guy1: No it's not! It's freakin' awesome!

'Nuff said.

May Day in Oxford

Tomorrow is May Day in Oxford. It's one of those celebrations of spring that goes back ages. Currently, the city gets up at 6AM to hear a boys' choir performing at Brasenose College, followed by Morris dancers (looks like men in leiderhosen waving hankies and banging sticks together). I read a story about the Morris dancers a couple of weeks ago, and I guess membership is dwindling, so they're now bring women into it.

After much debate, Paul and I decided we'd rather have a good night's sleep than participate in this, especially since I've got a lot going on at work right now and I don't want to be wiped out by lunchtime. However, I found a great video on YouTube of the May Day festivities from last year:




Also, we did see some Morris dancers the other week. Here's some pictures of them...

Dancing with Sticks (also note the woman to the right of the dancers, in the black coat. You may notice she's about to step on what looks like a pothole in the pavement. It's actually there on purpose to mark the spot where Protestant Martyrs were burned alive back in the day. You can read more about that here.)


...and Dancing with Hankies


PS. We're going to Brussels on the train this weekend! Going through the chunnel, and arriving in just over 2 hours from London!

I went to Bath and got a Shower

As exams are coming up this week at the Business school, I and a bunch of my girlfriends who also have partners in the program decided we should go on a trip together to get away from the stress of studying. The group of us were a big international melting pot - there was Alka, Vinita and Bhakti from India, Nina from Denmark, Karen from Australia, Janick from France, Alina from Romania, Mikki and me from the USA. We all left after work so we still had a chance to go out for dinner on Friday night. Bath is just a 45 minute train ride from where I work near Didcot. We stayed in a B&B just to the west of the city center, which had a lot of English country charm and a nice hot breakfast. It rained the whole time, but that didn't stop us from having a great time! We're already excited to start planning another trip together.

A bit about Bath: It has been known for its hot spring baths since about 800BC when the Romans were in the area. They liked the springs so much that they built a whole complex for them. The Baths themselves still exist as both a tourist and an archaeological site. Archaeologists have found all kinds of items at the bottom of the pools, including over 13,000 coins! There's not much else for industry around there, though it seems the city was a stop on the way up the Avon River where boats could unload cargo into warehouses to be shipped to other areas of the country.

Friday night we went out for some Thai food, then went to a couple pubs. The first pub was called "Mole's Pub" and it was located in a cave-like basement with lots of little nooks and crannies to explore. Neat place!

Unfortunately they were at the end of their set, and the pub was closing (most bars close at 11pm in England) so we had to find another place to hang out! The city center was bustling at night, and unlike Oxford, you didn't see lots of cops and falling-over-drunk college students. I have been reading a lot about England's drinking problems, so it was nice to see that it's not always that way. Anyway, we had a blast at night and didn't get back to the B&B until about 12:30. Here's what the Bath Abbey looks like at night:


The next morning we had our breakfast and left for the city. Alka was nice enough to offer to take our luggage back to Oxford since she had driven to Bath. That meant we had more time to explore the city without lugging all of our overnight things around with us. Our first stop was to make sure we saw the old Roman Baths. Here is some of the group in front of the entrance (clockwise: Karen, Janick, Mikki, Alina, Bhakti, Nina; missing were Alka and Vinita, who had already seen the baths and went exploring the shops instead):


Here is part of an old temple wall that has been reconstructed after being found on the site:


And here's what I thought was really cool: old curses that people had written and thrown into the pool:


Here's a close-up of one of them:

Here's Karen, Nina and me in front of one of the drains at the baths:


And here's the main bath. It really is that green from all the algae and other creatures living in it. There were signs all around not to drink or even touch the water! You can see the steam rising up because of all the rain.


This is a piece of an old roof, which shows how the Romans used hollow bricks to make the arches more lightweight. Pretty clever stuff!


This was a weird part. This area was all dark, but when I looked in, I thought I saw what looked like big eggs all around. Turns out they're stalagmites! The sign in there reads "hypocaust" which is an old Roman term for "central heating" (thanks Wikipedia for that definition!) I'd suggest looking it up if you're interested, it's pretty neat! I heard from a tour guide there that they would have children cleaning out the ashes from the heating system because they were the only ones who could fit down there! Yuck!


After that experience, we needed to do something that wasn't so damp, so we went to the Jane Austen Center for Afternoon Tea. I'm not a big Jane Austen fan, but the place was really charming and put on a great tea. The sandwiches weren't the best (butter & cheese and butter & cucumber), but the sweets and the tea itself were delicious! Most of the girls had never been to Afternoon tea before, so it really was a treat - and a true English one at that! We all felt very English and very proper.


We spent the rest of the day poking around shops and seeing sights like the Royal Crescent:


The inside of the Bath Abbey, where the choir was practicing - so pretty!


And the outside of the Bath Abbey:


The Pulteney Bridge (apparently one of four in the world lined with shops on both sides)


And last, but not least, this handsome pig statue:

Why MBA students are not professional athletes

You might recognize someone (wearing red) in the Hertford M4 boat. Pictures here:
http://www.bigblade-photos.com/rowing/events/2008/ot08/rowingon/Hertford%20M4.html

NHS advice to wanna-be fathers

I was looking through the NHS website the other day, and came across this sound advice for any man who wants to become a father...

"make the decision to quit the fags today if you want to make a baby."
From:
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleId=1909

I think something was lost in the translation...for those of you who don't know, a "fag" is what the English call a cigarette! Sure sounds funny to an American!

Biking the Isis

There is a river that runs through Oxford. Before it enters Oxford, it is called the Thames. When it leaves Oxford, it is called the Thames. But in Oxford, it's called the Isis. Why that is, I'm not sure, beyond some sort of snobbery. Either way, it's a nice place to take a bike ride.

We decided to try biking down the river path a couple weekends ago, soon after flooding had become a problem around Oxfordshire. It was the first glimpse of sunshine we'd had in a whle, so we felt we had to take advantage. However, we only got about as far as Iffley because the field we were supposed to go through was flooded with about a foot of water!

Here's Paul on his bike, with typical English winter weather in the background. We have a partly sunny day about once per week, and this was one of them.


This picture gives you an idea of what the bike path looks like as you head south from Oxford. You pass by a lot of cute villages and a few pubs!


At certain points along the river, there are lots of swans and ducks. Normally swans are territorial, but when children are regularly brought along to throw bread at them, they congregate and pay more attention to the good eats than they do to each other. Here we saw a family of swans (you can see the gray teenage ones).


And here's a neat house with a thatched roof that we saw in Iffley.


Also in Iffley is an old Norman church, built in 1170, called St Mary's. Neither of us had ever seen a Norman church before, and we had no idea it was anything all that special until we went home and googled it!


So that's kind of what it's like living around here. The more you wander around, the more random old things you find.

Ashmolean Adventure

So something pretty neat happened today that I totally didn't expect, and it could only happen in Oxford. Last night I received an e-mail from Amanda inviting me along to see the special prints collection at the Ashmolean Museum. I wasn't really sure what was involved, but figured a bit of culture wouldn't hurt. Apparently she and her mom (who's visiting from the States) went there a couple days ago and found out that if you book an appointment, they'll let you in to see these special collections for free.

I met up with Amanda and her mom at the museum, but on the way there I ran into some colleagues from work. The two of them are from central Russia and are working on our company database for a few months before they go back to Russia. I spotted them examining a map, and stopped to see if I could help them find where they wanted to go. Turns out they had just planned to walk around Oxford, so I invited them along to the museum in the off chance they'd let some extra people into the print room. I'm so glad I did, because 15 minutes later we were all in the print room looking at original sketches from Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael and (no not Donatello), Rembrandt. Pretty crazy! It was so cool to see their little doodles and sketches. I think the most impressive was Rembrandt's portrait of his father. It was just a sketch with a little color, but the detail was so lifelike! The woman running the place had to use special gloves to take each of the sketches out, and didn't want all of us looking at one picture at the same time since just breathing on them could damage them!

We could have stayed longer and looked through pretty much whatever we wanted to in the rest of the collections, but I think we all were ready to move on. I'm so glad Amanda invited me along because it's not the kind of thing I'd go looking for on my own, but it's really cool to see.

Good food in Vegas?

Overheard today - a British guy was talking excitedly about his upcoming "holiday" to Las Vegas with an Indian-British woman. She recommended some sort of Indian restaurant for him to try while he's in Vegas, to which he replied "I never think of there being good food like that in America - whenever you go into a restaurant it's always full of pasty white people."

And here I thought that England was the pasty white country with bad food!

On a related note, you can now take a direct flight from London to Las Vegas.

Christmas in London

For Christmas, my parents and grandmother came to visit us in England! First they spent a few days in Oxford and got to see our apartment as well as to meet some of our friends here. The Gotzs and the Flamms brought their little ones over, which definitely brightened up everyone's day. My grandmother had been eager to meet little Miss Millie Flamm because they share the same name! I had shown her Amanda's blog with little Millie singing when I was last home in the States, and even days later Grandma was still talking about how exciting it was to finally meet the other Millie.

We had a bit of an adventure getting to a suitable place to stay in London, as the place we were supposed to stay in, while it looked elegant on its website, turned out to be a real dump (to put it politely). So we stayed in a Best Western the first night, and then moved to the replacement flat, which turned out to be right around the corner from Harrods!


The weather was typical England, overcast and damp, but it wasn't brutally cold. Here's me at the Serpentine in Hyde Park enjoying some hot mulled wine

They had a little Winter festival set up in the park with rides and little gift vendors.


Here's Paul enjoying some poffertjes, a Dutch mini pancake that is absolutely delicious! He was nice enough to carry my backpack for us even though it's a "girl" color.


Most of the touristy stuff wasn't open on 24-26 December, but we at least got our pictures in front of some landmarks. See if you can guess where we are!





(that's Paul's silhouette!)


Touristy things we saw: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, BigBen, London Eye, Covent Garden, Hampton Court, the British Museum, Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London, and loads more stuff we walked by. It was Paul's first time in London, and I think we managed to see (albeit from the outside) most of the major tourist attractions.

We had a Christmas eve dinner of a beef roast, and a turkey dinner for Christmas day. It was so nice to be staying in a flat so we had use of a full kitchen and dining room. I had made pepparkakor beforehand so we could have some Swedish cookies for dessert. We also tried the local Christmas specialties: mince pies and Christmas pudding with brandy sauce from Marks & Spenser's. I can't say I'd order those over chocolate cake, but it was nice to try the traditional food.

Also on Christmas Eve, we attended a midnight mass at an Anglican church down the street. It was tough being our first Christmas without Grandpa, but it was nice to be able to go to church as a family and to remember the blessings that we do have. Paul and I know that our lives aren't going to stop changing nor slowing down any time soon, and it's important that we remember how much we love our families and try to spend time with them whenever we can. Christmas is an emotional time, and I know it was especially so for my Grandmother. We are so happy she could spend this Christmas with us, traveling all the way from Rhode Island to be here.

On the way back from London, Paul and I stopped at a little French cafe in Paddington Station- guess what the name of the cafe was!

Employed!

Today I started my first day at my new job! My official title is Senior Market Research Executive, and I'm working at a company that does survey market research for pharmaceutical and other health care companies. It's sort of a start-up company that's really started to take off. My boss is great; I can tell he really wants me to succeed in this position. Everyone else at the company has been extremely welcoming, and offered to help with anything I need.

While the company claims they have "no benefits", I'm getting 25 paid vacation days, 2 weeks of paid sick days, discounted gym membership, nearly free shuttle from the train station, my own laptop (which means I can work from home if needed), a generous bonus scheme, and all the coffee I want to drink all day - and TWO dishwashers in the employee kitchen! Maybe to the English who have national health care and great public transportation that sounds like "no benefits", but to someone who's worked a job with 5 vacation days in the first year, or one where sick days were deducted form vacation time, these benefits are incredible. Nevermind that I really believe in the company and think it's going to continue to offer me all kinds of career growth opportunities.

And did I mention I get paid in pounds sterling? (haha)

Winter Light: White Night Oxford

Last night I went out with a group of friends to check out the Winter Light: White Night event in Oxford. It's an annual event where some stores stay open late (7pm!) and museums and art galleries open their doors for free.

I met up with Janick, Karen and Kaori at Gloucester Green, where some artists were setting up for an art sale. We went to the Ashmolean Museum first to check out some harpsichord music. Here we are in front of the museum.


Later we met up with Nina and Vinita for dinner by Oxford Castle. There were some neat ice carvings out, and we even saw one ice carver in action!


Here are some of the finished ice sculptures:


Then we went and checked out the Broad Street area where they had some kind of giant light-up inflatable cones on display. There was weird music/sounds playing from underneath each of the cones, and they changed color from red to green, yellow and blue. We weren't really sure what to think of them, but I suppose it was something to see!

We ended our night at the Museum of Natural History, with a glass of "hot squash", which we found out is half juice and half hot water. It's not bad, especially if you've been walking around the the cold for a while! The museum had some really great stuff on display, so I'd like to go back when it's not so crowded!

This is going to be a tough week for everyone, as it is exam time! All of the students are pretty stressed out, especially since most of them have been away from school for a while and aren't used to taking exams. Everyone I have talked to has said their husband or boyfriend has started growing a beard because they are spending so much time studying!

Thanksgiving in England

No, the English do not celebrate Thanksgiving. And you can't buy canned (or as they call it "tinned") pumpkin here to make pumpkin pies. But, despite these setbacks, we celebrated a legitimate Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings. A big thanks goes to our friends Brady & Amanda for hosting the event at their fancypants non-student apartment (no Brillo pad rugs there!).


While our husbands were in school, Amanda, Danalisa and I prepared the turkey. Somehow I got the job of cleaning out the turkey, which was an adventure! Jodi had some friends visiting, so she missed out on the turkey experience.


We managed to have a great spread; Danalisa & Steve did mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, Jodi made green beans & stuffing, I made cranberry sauce and corn bread pudding, and Amanda managed to acquire some canned pumpkin from her mother-in-law when she visited, so she made homemade pumpkin pie for us all! Yum!

I think the two most remarkable things that happened that night were 1) Brady solved a Rubik's cube in 2.5 minutes, and 2) Millie (who's 2 years old) liked the olives I brought so much that she stuck one on each finger and showed them off to everyone!

Paul and I have a lot to be thankful for this year, for our marriage, our families, and our old friends and our new friends here in Oxford!

Coffee Culture

As I poured my morning brew today, I realized I haven't written anything about the state of coffee in the UK. I could have been terribly shocked when I arrived here and shopped for coffee, but I had been sort of prepared on our honeymoon. When we stayed with Paul's grandparents in Poland we probably had coffee every day, however it was never made in a coffee pot. Everyone seemed to be using instant coffee, which I thought was really strange, but I thought maybe they weren't big coffee drinkers and just kept the instant stuff around for a picky guest.

Well, a couple of months later, we're in England and shopping for coffee. While in the US, there are maybe 2 brands of instant coffee, in the Sainsbury grocery store the instant coffee section is as big, if not bigger than the ground coffee section. We decided that rather than buy a coffee maker, we'd just get one of those french presses (cafetiere) and an electric teakettle since Paul loves tea. But, cleaning out those cafetiere things is a real pain! So after 2 months here, we've made the change to instant coffee, for the most part. It's actually quite tasty! I read somewhere that the world's largest freeze-dried coffee manufacturer is located just outside of Oxford, which made me think, when coffee is freeze-dried, it's probably done when the coffee is at its peak flavor. Where ground beans may be sitting in your fridge for weeks at a time, freeze-dried is kept at its most robust, almost creamy state. It's kind of like how canned vegetables are better for you and tastier than fresh; they've been preserved at their peak.

But, I know that as soon as Paul & I have a more permanent residence, we'll get a legitimate coffee maker. The freeze-dried stuff is good, but it's still not the same.

Bodleian Library Tour

On Thursday I went on a tour of the Bodleian Library with Danalisa & Jodi as part of the Newcomer's Club. I've heard several accounts as to the exact status of the library. It may be the world's oldest English language library. It also may be one of the oldest libraries in the world, or one of the oldest in Europe. Regardless, it was first built in the 1400s as Duke Humfrey's Library. The first floor took over 50 years to build, as the master craftsman who built it was very particular and took his time building the first 3 walls of the building - so much so that he died before finishing the job. Today, you can see where he left off - the side where you walk in near the information desk is much less ornate than the rest. However, after the original builder died, there was no money left to continue construction of the building and so Thomas Kemp, Bishop of London acted as a fundraiser for the building, ensuring that its construction would be completed. Thus, the impressive vaulted ceiling is not only beautiful, but also acts as a record of donors - the family crests of donors adorn the peaks of the ceiling (Kemp's wheat sheaf theme is all over the place). The building was used as the examination room for centuries. Two students were examined orally at the same time, in latin, and the public was invited to watch - talk about pressure!

You can see a really neat virtual tour of the room here:
http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/oxfordtour/panoofweek/divinityschool2-360.html

So why is the library called Bodleian? The original library established by Duke Humfrey went into great decline, but was later expanded by Sir Thomas Bodley around 1600. Bodley was a collector of books, and collected over 3,000 books from around the world with which to stock the library. So Duke Humfrey still gets credit for one room (no photography allowed), and Bodley gets credit for the whole shebang. The Humfrey library is really interesting to see. As the library was built well before electricity, and open flames were not permitted in the building, the bookshelves are arranged so that each is next to a window. So why wouldn't students just go take the books to a sunny corner to read? Well, the wood-covered books were chained to the shelf! And I thought that having the Business school library close at 11pm was bad! Many of the original books are there - I saw one from 1532!


Another interesting room we saw was the Convocation House, where traditionally convocation has taken place. The room has a really beautiful fan ceiling (see picture on left). Parliament at Westminster was modeled after this room, just scaled up to fit more people. The two sides of seats are separated by "one arm, one sword and six inches" to the center of the room. This is because the men who would meet here brought swords with them, and should any attempt to take a jab at the opposing side, a safe distance was kept. I made sure before I left to get a picture of me sitting in the chair where the king would have sat long ago. The podium in front of the chair swivels forward on a spring so that a fat king would be able to get in and out of the fancy chair easily.

The rest of the tour was in the Radcliffe Camera (a round library) and through underground shelf/storage areas for the Bodleian. The camera building used to be open on the first floor. Students would enter from the bottom of the building, then climb up the stairs to the actual library - the books were kept upstairs to avoid the damp found on the ground floor. I highly recommend taking a guided tour of the Bodleian library if you find yourself in Oxford. While the buildings are beautiful, the history is fascinating - I've only recalled a small portion of what I was told on my tour!