A word from the Mom

Wow! My turn. I'm quite excited (in the American sense) to be writing the blog today. Margo's dad and I have been showing off the area to Margo and Mark. Again in the American sense, quite fun since we really like it here. Margo would prefer to think of herself as just a visitor, too, since she hasn't been here much in the last few years (even though she lived here full time for 10 years), so some stuff is new to her.

Thursday was P-town day. We started with a tour of the David Evans and Associates office. Mark and Margo met Dave Evans during the tour, and he practically offered them both jobs. We then met up with Brian (dad) and Aaron (bro), and did lunch at Stanfords, and afterwards hopped the streetcar down to the aerial tram (or, as some insist on saying, "ski lift"). At the top of the tram, Margo's bro patiently explained why it is technically a tram, then went back to work. We went back down to the waterfront on the tram, hopped back on the streetcar, then switched to MAX (P-town's light rail). We minded the gap without being told, but Mark almost fell out backwards when the door he was leaning against opened with no warning. As we were zipping along on MAX, we realized we were near the OSU Beavers fan store, so we got off and did a little shopping. Mark was quite pleased to find an OSU rugby shirt. Margo even bought an OSU tee to wear to the gym.

We then got back on MAX and went to the Rose Quarter Arena. Fortunately, it was open and free for people to come watch the NBA draft. We sat for a few minutes so Mark could soak up a little Americana (beer bellies, tatoos, piercings, and of course, beer drinking). Then we went to Powells to browse books and to the Bridgeport Brew Pub to sample beer and eat dinner. That was enough for day #1.

Day #2 was, unfortunately, a little rainy, as was the day before. We drove through the Columbia Gorge on the old highway, stopping at Crown Point Vista House and Multnomah Falls on our way to Hood River. We had lunch there at the Full Sail brewery, sampling more beer with lunch, and then taking the brew tour. We then traveled through the Hood River Valley, pointing out the fruit trees, and stopping for fresh cherries. The cherries were Vanns, and incredibly good.

Our next stop was Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. We had to just picture the top of the mountain because it was cloudy and raining. We then drove home, and Mark and Margo made us bangers, sweet potato mash, and peas for dinner. Oh, and we had more beer.

There was a Mariners game on TV, so the rest of the evening was spent explaining the game to Mark--the fundamentals, at least. Apparently there are 21 ways to get to first base. I think we covered 3.

Today's a sunny day, and Mark and Margo are going out shopping and eating--lots of stores and restaurants, and it's all tax free. Yes, P-town is a great place to live!

Pimms & Kittens

Two seemingly unrelated topics, but I assure you, well quite frankly they are totally unrelated.

I convinced my parents to go to the local liquor store and search for a bottle of Pimms, which they were luckily able to locate for cheaper than the same bottle would have cost me duty free at Gatwick. They had some cans of limonata on hand, so before dinner yesterday we mixed up a little Pimms and sort-of-lemonade. The parents were on board. I am doing my part to slowly anglify the Americans. Very, very slowly.

This morning, on the other hand, after noticing a new batch of kittens up on the Oregon Humane Society webpage, made a bee-line up to Northeast Portland and the parents ended up adopting two very cute little troublemakers that seem to think the litter box is the funnest toy of all. Little Lizzie and Edgar will be on show at the July 1st bbq for those who will be present. For those who are not, this is the closest thing I could get to a picture where you could see both of them. Lizzie has the pink collar and is playing with the toy, the other is Edgar. Both are nuts.

Why are there F-350s everywhere? Why must an F-250 be 'super duty' when it is clearly someone's commuting vehicle? Why don't they have this much light ice cream in England? And my was it toasty out there today! Did some shopping and got some respectable 'I work in Notting Hill' clothing for like, no money (well, it was no money, as my mom bought the stuff, thanks mom).

Anyways, enjoy kitten photo. Tomorrow shall include trips to both Canby and Seattle. I've jumped back on the American car-oriented band wagon with a vengeance.

Back in America

After an unnaturally long journey, I've made it back to America. Like, really long. Quite frankly, when I was being herded for the journey to Detroit from London, I was really not pleased with my co-patriots. They were annoying. They annoyed me in Detroit as well, even the overly American accented PA-announcer annoyed me. And then I was annoyed in Minneapolis. Then I recalled, despite the sleepiness which made me inclined to be annoyed anyways, that I didn't particularly like the Midwest anyways. Never have. And that the people there talk funny. This was a great relief. When I got to Seattle I still adored Seattle, and the people don't sound annoying. This I consider a very good thing.

Here is a short list of things that I have seen/heard/noticed so far that I am finding bizarre:
- the amount of water in toilet bowls
- the plethora of paper towels in restrooms (this is good, my jeans stay dryer this way)
- the size of the average American automobile, especially between Tacoma and Vancouver
- the amount of ice given to you in cups (why must it be full of ice, WHY people)
- the willingness of normal people to dance like idiots at baseball games (again, this is good)
- the lack of coinage

I'm sleepy.

Travel Plans

When it came down to the final decision on which flight to take, Northwest Airlines made it very easy. Promptly replying to my email, they informed me that if I missed any part of my journey, the rest of the itinerary would be cancelled. Aka, if I didn't fly with them to Seattle, I couldn't fly with them back. I was not pleased with this development, mainly as this means the BA flight is lost to me. A perfectly good nonstop London-Seattle flight, and I can't use it. Theoretically I could pay $50 and reschedule it sometime before September 23rd, but I don't foresee myself being ablt to make a trip before then, so alas. Lost. All that perfectly good in-flight entertainment and no way to enjoy it.

But anyways, I must admit I am excited to go back to the US. I've been away for 9 months, which is a long time by my standards. And while it seems it's been a while, I envision myself 'reintegrating' within at most 24 hours. This involves a slight change of accent, a noticeable change in vocabulary, and considerable taco bell consumption. Oh, and looking at the money and thinking it's slightly funny looking, and figuring out which coin is which. By hitting the baseball game straight away on Sunday I feel like I will be diving right back into the deep end! Yay for baseball!

So after this, I suppose blog will be a bit odd, as I'll be back in the US. Hmm. We'll see how that goes.

A random poll

hey all i feel privileged that i am writing a blog entry on margo's blog !!!! the main reason for this is to ask people to vote.

WHICH FLIGHT SHOULD MARGO GET ON?

Option one

A Northwest Airlines flight (random airline ive never heard off) on saturday which leaves on 1330 GMT and gets in 2300 (Pacific). Now this flight is awesome margo would fly to Detroit (that great American city) and then get an internal flight to Seattle via Minneapolis - thus the whole journey would last around 18 hours. BUT she would get to go to a baseball game with her family....


Option Two

A British Airways (also a crappy airline in my opinion) to Seattle direct on Sunday which would arrive when the baseball game finishes - some would say good timing!!! This flight would last 11 hours.



Both flights are booked so the choice is yours. Margo has agreed to get on the flight with the most votes.....


Mark

Roundabout of Mystery

So I was in Oxfordshire on Friday and saw this thing and it freaked me out. I've been here working on an advanced degree in trasnportation and then they go and have one of these lying around in the middle of nowhere. It's a double mini-roundabout. I have a vague idea of what is supposed to go on, but I'm not sure if any of the people driving on it really did. It seemed to be some sort of moderately organized chaos. Quite frankly, there are a lot of bizarre things going on on English roads that completely baffle me. When people drive like crazy people along them it does not help my fear (I speak of no one I know, this is general terms).

In other Oxford news, I went over to the river there in Oxford and to try and figure out for the 27th time what punting was and why they did this in the river. Luckily there was a sign advertising punting. It's basically a gondola situation where the punter is the person with the big long stick pushing the boat along. If you're interested, its 12 pounds an hour if you do it yourself, 20 pounds if you get a guide to do the punting. There were not many people punting yesterday, but I did see a few people who had just finished their studies. They were easy to spot, as they were wearing their little 'I'm special I go to Oxford and wear a funny outfit to exams' outfits, plus they were covered by whipped cream/confetti/stupid grins. I guess you can't really blame them.

Please enjoy my double roundabout photo, alongside quaint English countryside photo. That's right, two photos. It's scary, I know, but I didn't really take enough for an album.

Things on toast

Being what I consider to be a normal human being, I have a fond regard for toast (and toast related products). Back in the homeland, I enjoy having toast with butter, jam, or the occasional cinnamon sugar. Here they take toast topping to a whole other level. And I encourage you to follow the lead. Well, kind of.

First there is the egg. You can have scrambled eggs on toast or fried egg on toast. I like this recipe because it is within my grasp. You make toast, you make a scrambled egg/fried egg, but egg on top of toast, and voila, a delicious meal with two entire food groups. I suppose you could put fancy things in your scrambled eggs in these circumstances, such as cheese and/or vegetables, but I have not attempted this.

In more signature English-ness, there is beans on toast. Which basically involves dumping a can of Heinz baked beans on otherwise perfectly delicious toast. I don't see the appeal of this. While it is not entirely untasty, it seems like beans just sort of bring things down. Plus it makes the toast a bit soggy. And in many ways the entire point of toast is that it is crisp.

I consulted an English person. This is what he had to say "Beans on toast is a concept in of itself.
Scrambled egg on toast is mainly due to plate capacity issues, I feel. If im having a fry-up, eg. such as those available from the students union, then I become disgruntled at them pouring the beans on my toast. If i wanted beans on toast i would ask for them. Sog is only desirable if that was the point in the first place." (Thanks, Chris, for the words of wisdom).

So next time you are perhaps having breakfast involving eggs and toast, I recommend combining the two. The beans may only be for the truly adventurous. Oh, and a fry-up is a breakfast meal situation. Took me forever to figure out what they were talking about.

Return of the pub quiz

After many months of hibernation, the quiz team formerly known as Chesty Nips re-emerged as Chesty's Midnight Runners for a second appearance at the on-campus postgrad & mature student quiz night, held in the most under-utilised bar/food place on campus, also known as The Bridge. To be honest, I think we only really went because of the cheap drinks. It costs 50 pence per person, which then entitles you to either a free glass of wine or a free soft drink (I had lemonade and it was darn tasty). They then have 4-pint pitchers of not-that-great Carling for 5 pounds, which is a very, very good deal. The last quiz we actually partook in was one of these as well, and we did horribly so we didn't have high hopes. Luckily there weren't many people there, I think a grand total of 8 teams. Most were quite high on the nerdiness-looking scale, which to me implies knowledge of things that could possibly be asked in pub quizes, so again, I did not have high hopes. I could drag things out and discuss the questions and the different rounds and subject areas, but I'll just cut to the chase. We all figured we would finish squarely in the middle of the pack, but somehow dispite appearing relatively cool and having more than one pitcher of the beer, we won.

Now this is a special quiz as it's associated with the university, so technically each team is supposed to be from one school. This implies bragging rights are on the line. So, the prize for this quiz, aside from the takings of the entry frees (aka, a bucket with 18.60 in change and I really wish I had a pound key button on my laptop), but we get the school/department engraved on a plaque and we get to keep the plaque until the next quiz which won't be until the fall. We had quite a converstion with the folks about what to have put on the plaque. You see, it's not that big and couldn't possible fit 'civil engineering and the environment' (the name of the school) or 'transportation planning and engineering' (the name of the department) so we finally settled for 'transport'. We think the department folk will be pleased with us. Nothing would get done in that department if it weren't for chesty's midnight runners. We also have organised and now ordered department hoodies. They'll be available in 3 weeks time. So I'm afraid I won't be able to saunter about the US in my cool green Southampton Transportation Planning and Engineering hoodie in a couple weeks. This is everyone's loss, and I apologize.

A lady just tried to tell me no eating or drinking in the library. Which was fine because I was done with the food anyways, but water is totally allowed, lady.

My Summer Vacation

I'm officially, ummm, 5 days into my summer vacation. So far I have spent one day on a boat, eaten Thai food, made two trips to the gym, one trip to the grocery store, purchased numerous kitchen utensils, eaten 6 eggs, gone bowling, and spent two afternoons in the library doing very little work on my dissertation. Plus it's been really muggy! I can assure you that walking back from the gym in mug is no deal. Especially when you haven't been to the gym and the treadmill has made itself more difficult in your absence (plus it's a big muggy in the gym as well). Those treadmills are mean like that.

So the library is much less crowded now, believe it or not. I should be working on an outline for my dissertation to be submitted by Friday. However, the department folk are moving this week from the rather ugly Faraday Tower into the perhaps equally as ugly portakabin building on the lawn outside the library this week, meaning that we cannot go and see our dissertation supervisors this week, despite this Friday deadline. This seems quite silly to myself and to the others out there who don't really know what they are doing. Seems it will be a miracle if I am actually able to produce this thing.

In egg-related news, I made myself a sandwich in my new frying pan for lunch today. It was grilled cheese with some of England's tasty white cheddar, some onion leftover from a scramble I made the other day, and an egg. It was tasty, go me. I never make tasty things so this is quite an improvement for me. The only other thing worth noting is that I didn't bowl too horribly, in 3 games I bowled over 70 twice (70 is my goal score, I'm not that ambitious).

Less than two weeks until America times! Anyone have anything cute/tasty and English they want me to bring them?

"Boat"

After years of suspense, yesterday was the magical day in which I got to see Chris's parent's boat over by Portsmouth. It was a grand day. After a mid-day people round-up, we stopped at some sort of giant Tesco will lots on non-food items to stock up on lunch and snacks and somehow a cheesecake. The journy then continued until we arrived at the marina, at which point I was naturally quite excited. The momentum kept building until we finally got to see infamous boat! It was all white and shiny and clean and boat-like! Like the ones that require all the bridges to be raised in Seattle! Cool, no?

So aside from the shiny white exterior, boat had a nice little seating area on the back with benches and collapsable little table for eating lunch. There is also an inside bit with striped cushions and a little kitchen and a little toilet that you flush by hand (well, not hand in that sense, but you do the pumping) and three entire bedrooms. It was quite the situation, needless to say. It was nice and sunny, but not too sunny and a bit warm but not too warm. And there weren't many people around so it made for a peaceful sit on a boat and munch sort of afternoon. We did not attempt to move the boat. I feel like we were enough of a liability just being allowed to touch things. So aside from that, there was much sitting and pretending to be a boat person. Chris is actually a boat person so he did it the best. There are numerous, numerous photos of boat and all things boat-related on picasa for viewing enjoyment.

In related news, I had thai food for dinner last night. First time I've had thai food since I've been in this land. It was good. Yummy, really.

Accepting the offer

Yesterday was a bit of a wary day. I posted a letter accepting the offer for the job in Notting Hill. And I spoke with the HR lady on the phone telling her I accepted it as well (they called to check up on me, you see). And FYI, HR lady is like, the nicest person ever. She's a gem. Probably perfect for that job. So the writing of the acceptance letter was a daunting task completed on Tuesday, but it turned out to be rather easy as I just got someone else to write it for me (I watched!). I'm not quite up to speed when it comes to my English-professional-style letter writing. Quite frankly, I didn't even know what to write on the envelope (no return address!!). After a good old journey to the post office, where I spent 48 pence to send a letter sized envelope to London and 78 pence to send a regular sized envelope to Seattle, I realized that I would be having a 'first day of work' in September. And not only a first day of work, which can be scary enough as it is, but one that will involve me taking the tube. This sounds very scary! And then at the end of the first day, I'll have to take the tube again. And every day after that for the foreseeable future! I'm going to be a London tube commuter. Who would have thought!

In related news, my last exam is in approximately 45 minutes. And I feel like I should be worried and/or concerned, but I'm really not. Bring it on, stats, bring it on. Oh, so I'll be done in 2 hours and 45 minutes. And then I just have that little thing called a dissertation to write. But we won't worry about that again until Monday... And I think I get to go see Chris' (hi Chris) alleged boat tomorrow. I'll take photos to prove its existence, if it does exist, of course.

The bank

I had to go to the bank to deposit a cheque the other day. It was terrifying. Even the task of getting out cash, excuse me, 'drawing out money' can be a bit odd. For one think, there are no drive-thru ATMs, although as I don't have a car this is probably for the best. You have to walk up to the cashpoint to get the funds from your 'current account'. And these 'cashpoints' don't generally let you deposit money. So in the rare occurence that people choose to give you some, you have to actually walk inside. I can honestly say that without complete guidance, I would have failed miserably at this task. Luckily Chris (hi Chris) is a co-Lloyds bank user and was able to tell me exactly what to do. Basically, I had to go into the bank, find the right kind of slip, fill it out with the name of my branch, my sort code and account code and all those codes, and then take my unsigned cheque up the teller and tell him something. I forget what exactly, but I just shoved the cheque and my debit card at him anyways, despite my guidance. After a brief delay as the teller tried to convince me to invest in a llama farm in Slovenia or something like that, I walked away with the vague hope that the money actually made it's way into my account. I'm actually still not completely sure it did.

I had a minor moment of panic on Saturday. At the grocery store I was taking the cart to the cart return, only instead of being the cart return it said 'trolley bay' in big letter painted on the asphalt, and I was just like 'what the heck am I doing here?'.

Coming to America...

I'm not booked on flights to and from Seattle in the next few weeks. I find this very appealling. While it seems odd to be making this journey via Detroit, it ended up being by far the cheapest (and I assure you this was a very long and arduous task!). So I'll be rolling into Seatac kind of late on the 23rd, then jetting down to Portland on the 24th, back to Seattle on the 27th to pick up English friend (who from this point on will be available for poking/proding/general-accent-giggling-at), then back to Portland until the 3rd, then up to Seattle until flying out on the 10th. My time shall be spent visiting people, places and food groups last seen in September. Needless to say, I am pumped. Plus I get to shove random things at the token anglo and see how it feels to have the shoe on the other foot. It'll be my turn to laugh at the silly foreigner. Oh, and please don't embarass me!

I think what will be especially bizarre is not so much visiting Seattle and Portland, but the fact that at the end of it all I'll be back on a flight to London, not as a tourist, but because London is like, my local airport. How bizarre is that? Really bizarre, I assure you. Don't think it's quite sunk in yet.

In news along those lines, I'm getting ready to sign my contract and send it away. Of course before I do I will read it thoroughly, as I haven't really done that yet. And I'm not that stupid. Or so I like to think!