Category Archives: At Home Abroad

Abroad, Adventures Abroad, At Home Abroad, everything

Adventuring in our new neck of the woods

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Here are a few snapshots of the fantastic adventures that car having has opened up for us: the Blowing Stone, the Uffington White Horse and Wayland’s Smithy.

From Wikipedia, The Blowing Stone is a giant piece of perforated sandstone, and the legend is as follows:

The stone is capable of producing a booming sound, when anyone with the required skill blows into one of the perforations in a particular way. This was, according to legend, the means whereby King Alfred summoned his Saxon troops, in readiness for the nearby Battle of Ashdown, against the Vikings. This legend reputedly gives rise to the village’s name, ‘King’s stone’, the Lisle suffix being a later addition.

Also, according to legend, a person who is capable of making the blowing stone sound a note that is audible atop Uffington White Horse Hill (where Victorian antiquarians thought King Alfred’s troops had camped) will be a future King of England.

In reality, it is a giant rock in a little fenced outcove directly behind someone’s front garden. It is hilariously anti-climactic to go see, and exactly the kind of small-town tourist trap thing you could possibly want to find in rural England. Matt was brave enough to try blowing into a few of the perforations, but I saw spiders and pretty much decided I didn’t need to defeat the Vikings that badly.

I’ve mentioned the Uffington White Horse on here before (it’s the prehistoric hill figure, carved out of the hilltop to reveal the white chalk that runs under the soil here), but I can now finally say I’ve seen it much closer and, much more spectacularly, the view from around it. The horse is carved very high up on a hill, surrounded by pasture land that overlooks the whole shire, or area we live, or whatever you want to call it. We took the dogs up to see it and walked through the surrounding sheep fields to admire the lovely views. The sheep were super not okay with the dogs, staring at us fervently and even slowly stalking us until we’d look back at them/or face them head on, while the dogs were absolutely thrilled to see the sheep, so that was entertaining to say the least.

Wayland’s Smithy is a Neolithic long barrow and chamber tomb. It is just off the Ridgeway (the oldest road in the world (, I think?) and is a really neat little surprise in the middle of nowhere. It’s not a lot to see, just some stones and some tiny rooms where the bodies used to be, but it does have a feeling history about it, it doesn’t look like anything else I’ve ever seen.

(Also from Wikipedia,) here’s the legend:

Wayland’s Smithy is one of many prehistoric sites associated with Wayland or Wolund, a Germanic smith-god. According to legend, a traveller whose horse has lost a shoe can leave the animal and a silver coin on the capstone at Wayland’s Smithy. When he returns next morning he will find that his horse has been re-shod and the money gone. It is conjectured that the invisible smith may have been linked to this site for many centuries before the Saxons recognized him as Wayland. 

Alright, more to come when I’ve got more time to type, but a break in the rain is calling us to venture out to the market now before we have to walk home in the rain…
Yeah, that’s right. We’re still being good and trying not to drive to run our in town errands unless we must, what’s the point of being within walking distance, if you don’t walk? Go us!

 

 

 

 

At Home Abroad

Lessons in Rage and Horror (or driving a manual in another country)

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We bought a car! It’s all very exciting and magical not to be solely dependent on riding the bus and having things delivered! The car is, funnily enough, also American, a Chrysler PT Cruiser and it’s a very bold sparkly red (I believe, the color is called ‘Inferno’). It’s a 2006, but not too many miles and overall it’s a good purchase. Or, so I’m told. Because I kind of hate it.

Now that we’ve purchased a car, Matt has the crazy idea that I should be able to drive the damn thing. So, driving it I’m trying. Here are the problems, in no particular order.

Everything about the car and the roads are backwards.

The car is too big for the roads.

Oh, yeah, and the car is a stick shift and it is impossible to learn to drive a stick shift because they are the cruellest thing to happen to humanity, maybe ever.

Yeah, hang nails, the Kardashians, genocide, all not as truly horrible as driving a stick shift. Or, at least, it’s close.

In all seriousness, I’m a few lessons in and (I’m told, repeatedly, though I don’t really agree, that) I’m doing okay; it’s really difficult, it’s incredibly stressful and there seems like no possible way that I’m going to ever get through this education process without running into something with the left side of the car or coping with traffic without screaming, but I’m working on it.

At Home Abroad

Serial Commas and Sentence Case. Or, settling in at work.

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I have had some really great jobs, and I have worked with some incredibly fantastic people. And, even when work has been hard to find, or I’ve taken a job I didn’t want, I’ve had support or it’s led to bigger and better things. I’ve been lucky, really.

But, I’ve never loved really loved my work. I’ve never wanted to call the work I was doing my field, or my career. Until now.

I LOVE my new job. So, so much. It is amazing, and challenging, and interesting, and I still can’t believe I’m really here doing this.

Let’s be honest, I’m still in the honeymoon phase, and none of the irritations or problems I will phase have presented themselves yet, I also don’t have a full workload, so I know it’s only going to get harder and I will likely screw some stuff up as I go on, but I really think it’s going to feel worth it in a way that nothing has before.

And, I’m sure some of the current joy of it is also that I’m doing this job in England, surrounded by adorable Britishness, like accents (I’ve got a Scot and a ‘Brummy’ (whatever that is) on my team), funny words (faffy, ta, crikey), and tea breaks. Also, I work a 10 minute walk from an actual historical estate that could have come right out of Austen. So, yeah, the frosting isn’t hurting either.

But, it’s also just really that cool. I’m turning an MS into a book (not single handedly, obviously). But, I’m editing the form without having to be terrified that my penchant for run on sentences and faulty comma usage is going to screw anyone up, I’m coordinating cover design, I’m doing a bunch of other things I don’t even know about yet, because we haven’t gotten that far. And, whatever I’m not doing I still get to learn about because somebody else here is doing it and they believe in training!

I know I’ve kind of skipped over our Swedish excursion here, but I’ll try to get something up about it, soon.

And so, more to come.

– a

Abroad, Adventures Abroad, At Home Abroad

Employment!

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Well, I’m happy to report, though some what belatedly to this blog, that I’m now employed in the UK! As of June 1st, I will be starting as a Production Editor with Taylor & Francis publishing in Milton. Milton is a few towns passed Didcot and the RAL campus where Matt works, so we’ll now be traveling in about the same direction and for similar hours to boot! There are a lot of words for how excited and terrified I am about this development, but we’ll save those for later. Let’s start with the job hunt process and how extraordinarily similar and different it has been here.

I didn’t really start looking for work until April, I meant to in March, but I mostly just, didn’t. Then I did the usual update the resume/cv, update, revise, worry over the cover letter and then sent out various versions of each to innumerable jobs posted online. Actually, I probably only responded to about 10 postings, some administrative and many more in publishing. I was impressed with one of the posting at Oxford that said they would be offering interviews within a week or so of when the position posting date closed. I assumed they were unusually motivated, but it turns out, the hiring/search process does seem to move faster here than I’ve previously experienced. I’ve now heard back from every job I remember applying to, all of them responded one way or another within less than a month. And, the two interview processes I went through were both completed within about 2 weeks, so pretty darn quick! (Although, this is not true of Matt’s process at all, so grain of salt here, guys.)

Both positions I was in the running for had first and second interviews, separated by about a week. Both were with at least a couple of people and both included little tests/activities, which was only a problem because they never tell you how you did on the test and that’s just not a nice thing to do to a former honors program kid. The position I applied for at Oxford was with a great department, but (I very biase-ly think that) I was, if not over qualified for it, then at least overly experienced for it. And, so I was thrilled when they called me right before the last bank holiday to notify me that I got the job at T & F. I have zero experience and know almost nothing about the field, but I’m incredibly excited to figure it out. And, I can’t wait for the opportunity to get out of the house a bit more and participate in Britain in a more active way. Although, I know my having a salary will eventually lead to our having a car and I’m still not so on board with my having to learn to drive over here… *whimper*, but at least that commute will be with Matt everyday and we can be adorably grumpy morning commuters together, so how great is that?

And, as such, I’m sure there will be more to come…

– alaina

At Home Abroad, everything

money, money, money & Irish Beef

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As I have but rarely left the flat this week, I don’t really have much to report. But, here are the snippets worth printing.

I applied for about half a dozen jobs this week. The process is pretty similar over here, hours and hours retyping everything into little internet boxes and then uploading a resume/CV that is completely redundant because they already made you type it’s contents into the little webpage boxes… There is also the constant joy pf copy and pasting little bits of this cover letter and that cover letter and this employer name and that job title into a letter and then converting it to pdf and re-uploading it with a new specific title over and over and over again. Ugh. But, I am really excited about some of the positions I read about and put myself up for. Here’s hoping I get one of them, or at least a couple interviews out of it, because at least that would help preserve my fragile ego. And, as a bonus, it would also help justify the number of ‘work’ clothes I brought with me. Please note, in my defense, I brought exactly one pair of heels, my ‘interview heels’ that I hate (because I hate wearing heels, not because there is anything specifically wrong with them), but look so respectable that I wear them to basically every interview. All of the positions I’ve been looking at so far are actually in publishing, or atlas very close to the field, so that is incredibly exciting and it looks like there are a lot more of these type of opportunities here than I’ve seen before (in CO or LA), so I’m choosing to remain hopeful.

Other than that, I made it through a couple more Harry Potter novels and finally finished the Friends series on Netflix. Who knew Friends was so terribly homophobic? I’m really sad to have discovered this, I never noticed it when just watching the occasional rerun, but rewatching the series has really driven it home. Also on a sad note, we applied for a forbearance on my student loans this month and for the next two months. It was really frustrating to admit we just can’t afford to pay them right now. We could have just reduced the payment plan, but as there is some debt outstanding from our move and we still have to find a way to transfer money back into the States without paying a huge fee or loosing a percentage in fees, this just made more sense. Hopefully, someone will snap me up for gainful employment within the next month and we wont end up needing the forbearance, but when has unemployment ever gone that well for me? Actually, last time I was unemployed I did get snapped back up pretty quick by USC, so optimism reengaged…

On a yummier note, we made our first traditional British dish this week, Shepherd’s Pie, and it was delicious! Matt claimed that the Irish Beef we used was too ‘gamey’ but, I didn’t get that, I just got the rosemary flavor and the overall deliciousness of the dish. I’m putting in the recipe below, in case anyone is interested. Also, to take up space and feel like I’m writing more than I actually am. 😉  Next, I’m hoping to try and make a traditional British dessert, like Treacle Tart, or I’ll be trying to make Clotted Cream and some scones.

Shepherd’s Pie

INGREDIENTS:
[FOR THE FILLING] OLIVE OIL (2 TBSP)
GROUND LAMB OR BEEF (ABOUT 1.5 LBS)
1 LARGE CARROT (GRATED)
1 LARGE ONION (GRATED)
FRESH ROSEMARY (to Taste)
FRESH THYME (to Taste)
MINCED GARLIC (About 4-6 CLOVES)
Plenty o’ SALT & PEPPER
WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE (SEVERAL SPLASHES)
TOMATO PUREE OR PASTE (NO MORE THAN A SMALL CAN)
RED WINE (SEVERAL GLUGS)
CHICKEN STOCK (ABOUT 1/4 CUP)

[FOR THE MASH] GOLDEN POTATOES (ABOUT 1.5 or 2 LBS)
HEAVY CREAM ( 1/4 CUP)
BUTTER (3 1/2 TBSP)
SALT & PEPPER
EGG YOLKS (2)
PARMESAN CHEESE (1/4 CUP, MINIMUM)

DIRECTIONS:
Boil water in large sauce pan, throw in salt and potatoes. Set timer for 15 minutes. Once timer goes off, drain your potatoes and return them to pan, or place in mixing bowl. Mash the potatoes with the cream, butter, salt and pepper, and egg yolks. KEEP WARM (YOUR FILLING SHOULD BE ABOUT DONE BY THIS POINT)

COOKING THE FILLING:
Pour Olive Oil into a hot, rather large pan, then add meat.
Stir meat as if your life depends on it for a few minutes so it’s nice and brown, and broken into very small pieces. Add your Rosemary, Thyme, and Garlic, then stir some more.
Quickly add your Carrot, and Onion, stir a little longer. The idea at this point is to get everything to a minced consistency.
Add Worcestershire Sauce, stir, add Tomato Puree, stir, add Red Wine and sweat down for a minute or two. Add chicken stock and cook for 3 more minutes then add the mixture to a casserole dish.
Spoon the mash over the top. Spread the mash over the top of the meat mixture. Sprinkle a generous portion of parmesan cheese over the top.
STICK IT IN THE OVEN AT 400 DEGREES FOR 18-20 MINUTES TO BROWN THE POTATOES AND SET THE PIE.

Today is Good Friday and the first day of Matt’s four day Easter holiday weekend, so I’m thrilled to have the long weekend with the hubs. Today, I taunted him into buying me Easter tulips (soooo pretty) and tomorrow we’re taking a walking tour of Oxford after we check out the Wantage Easter Market (which may or may not be the same as their every-other-Saturday-of-the-year-market).

So, more to come.

– alaina

Abroad, At Home Abroad, everything

A brief tour is in order.

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23-3-2015

So, for those of you who are curious, I thought I’d offer you a brief tour of our place. Matt  came out here and – with only a couple weeks to find us a place and absolutely (okay, almost absolutely) nothing on the market that fit our criteria and would agree to take pets – managed to find us a place that hit our entire checklist (house or terrace house, 2 bedroom, fenced yard, not terrifyingly yicky) and was within our budget and in a great place. This feat continues to astound me. But, apparently our future landlord found a potential physicist tenant as seductive as I found him suitor… heheh.

Anyways, for those of you who saw it, the place is similar in layout to our townhouse in Fort Collins, except smaller in scale and without the 1/2 bath downstairs. We begin with a fully enclosed front porch, that is smaller than most shower stalls, you cannot actually stand 2 people in it and open and close the door. It also has strange ledges you must step over to enter or exit it. I’m pretty these exist solely to trip me, which they have, repeatedly. However, the mud stops on the porch and packages can be delivered there, as is the mail – through the letter slot – instead of elsewhere outside the home, so that’s nice. Because of the Yale lock, there is no doorknob on the door, which is funny looking once you notice it. The actual front door opens into a narrow hallway, with the stairs to the second floor located almost immediately to your left and the door way to the kitchen ahead on your right. There is a small closet under the stairs – EXACTLY like in Harry Potter.

The kitchen in small, with a ‘hob’ (I don’t actually know what this means) and a sink and washing machine. Oddly enough, it is carpeted. I have no idea if this is a British or Crazy Landlord thing… It’s not full on carpet, more like a fuzzy linoleum, which sounds weird, but I can’t think of a better description. There is unfortunately a decent amount of wasted space, you can tell it wasn’t renovated smartly over the years. But, it is functioning for us thus far, and we’ll continue to figure out how to best use the space for our cooking style. We’ll see what happens when I finally go to bake something… The stove top has electric burners, but they are enclosed under the cooktop surface, I don’t know what this is called – induction cooktop? Below, there are double ovens, one that is only tall enough for about 4 inches of food cooking, kind of like an enclosed warming tray or broiler size and one below that more typical oven size, if you like your oven 3/4 sized. The temperature settings are in celsius and for the most part I just take a guess and hope I’ve got the math right, because – have I mentioned, I don’t have the internet and cannot constantly ask siri to convert the degrees for me? The kitchen is a fully enclosed room, which is kind of weird, but nice when you run the washing machine, which is incredibly loud and incredibly slow. The average cycle is over an hour to run, and more intense cycles are as long as 90 minutes… Due to the limited space the refrigerator is located in the loving room, which is also a fully enclosed room at the end of the entry hallway… We moved the refrigerator to the end of the room nearest the kitchen, so even though it is technically 2 rooms away, it is only a few steps from the kitchen. 🙂 It took us over a week to get an extension cord so we could move the fridge and it was hilarious how used to walking from one end of the room to the other (which the fridge had been) we had gotten in such a short time, it took three days for us to stop walking past the fridge in it’s new home.

The living room is plenty large enough, and contains a dining set, a small tv/entertainment center, and hutch left over from the owner. It is also the room that opens into the back garden. The back garden is in tiers, the first is a large patio, and then there are a couple steps up to the second level, which is partially paved with large stones, but also has a few potential green spaces (though again we will have to plant them because it is all dirt right now) and a small shed. We’ve already sectioned off an area for grass and will do another after this one establishes. Crossing the yard are a couple long yellow cords for clothes drying, which has already helped despite the lack of sunny weather. Everybody dries their clothes where they can around here, you see things hung outside and in windows and door ways, pretty much wherever you look. I think we’ll love the backyard come later spring and summer. A small bbq and a few flowers will make it quite delightful. Hopefully come later spring and summer we’ll be settled enough to feel like doing a little gardening.

Upstairs, there is a small landing and the two bedrooms with the bathroom in between. The front landing is home to one of few easily accessible outlets in the house, let alone upstairs, so that’s where I get to do my hair when I’m so inclined. Luckily, the left a full length mirror attached to the wall there. The front bedroom is the smaller of the two and is painted a medium dark blue. It is a ridiculous color and is even more ridiculous when we notice that half of the room is done in a matte paint, and half in a nice, shiny version of the same color and you can see the roller marks on the walls where they overlap. Our bedroom is in the back of the house and is an equally bold shade of lavender, although at lease it is all the same finish. This room has a whole wall of built in cupboards and wardrobes as well as a vanity table, which is good as there is no storage in the bathroom – as well and no outlets. Seriously, not a single one.

Speaking of the devil, the bathroom is the one room of the house that I have not yet found a way to make myself feel better about. I genuinely hate it. It makes me sad and frustrated – even now that we’ve managed to get the hot water/water pressure situation figured out. The toilet is large and old and looks filthy. The sink is broken and dingy. The ‘shower’ is actually a jury-rigged tub and shower head, which is fine, but it creaks like it is about to collapse around your feet and leave you and the bath water plunging downstairs to your death. Also, everything is a color that you’re probably supposed to identify as olive, but is actually watery baby crap green, there’s just no getting around that. And, the sherbet mint walls just exacerbate that enclosed in mucus type feeling. And, as a side benefit, the perfectly lovely sized medicine cabinet hangs on the wall 1/2 way above the bathtub, which is great if you wanted to submerge your medicine cabinet in steam and/or watch yourself shower in a protrusive little mirrored box everyday. That being said, we’re obviously not using it because of the mold/mildew concerns, and I just wish we could take it down until we leave, but no such luck, unfortunately.

The landlord had left a large piece of rosy carpet (which is used on one of the bedrooms) to cover the linoleum in the bathroom and removing that has improved the look/feel and smell in the room, and the drill bits to install toilet roll, towel holder, and soap tray arrived yesterday, so that will also improve functionality, but I’m not sure anything will ever be able to make me feel comfortable in that room, which is unfortunate. I mean it’s not like the bathroom should be anyones favorite room in their house, but it’s ice when they don’t make you feel dirty and anxious just entering it.

I probably shouldn’t have ended the vicarious tour with the worst room in the world, but oh well. The house has central heat through wall radiators and as a bonus they work pretty well for drying clothes and towels. Matt assures me it’ll never really get warm enough to have to worry about cooling the place, but if we need to there are pretty nice windows in almost every room, which is great for cross breeze and we’re also thrilled with the amount of light we get all day, it’s a great improvement to our place in Altadena, and maybe even the Tiny House. The carpets are also newer, which is nice, though the beige shows the dog fur with very disappointing prominence. All things considered, the place really is pretty great and we’re settling in nicely, having no stuff means we’re using some rather amusing make-shift solutions to things, but it’s been interesting, fun (as well as, frustrating) to watch the place come together. We still really need garbage cans, a floor lamp for the living room and a bookshelf or desk somewhere in the house. Oh, and a better guest bed set-up – the house came with one, but we’re not intending to subject anyone we love to that. Oh, and art: the walls are seriously lacking in personality around here (excluding the colors painted in the bedrooms, but that’s not a personality you want to pay much attention to).

Observations: Lace curtains seem to be the thing here in Wantage, rather than blinds or simple sheers, And, I’m grateful that our place in particular came with them (and regular curtains, no blinds to be found). It’s a nice change, now if only they all matched and were not various patterns and all almost equally hideous…

Along with the expected ‘rubbish’ and recycling cans, small food waste containers are provided here, which is great as we don’t have a garbage disposal, now if only we could get them to give us one.

 

More to come.

– alaina

At Home Abroad

titling things is hard

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16-3-2015

Well, it is Internet day, and as yet (4:30pm), no internet is to be found. Can’t say I’m surprised, there seems to be a certain amount of slowness or negligence surrounding getting much done around here. I can definitely feel the American ‘now isn’t soon enough’ mindset that we American’s are known to have being challenged. I can’t imagine how frustrating it will be if we were to ever apply for a license or loan or anything of that sort here. While being held hostage to being technology-less, I’ve accomplished some reading, a little crafting, and rewatching the same movie twice in one day (three times)… Yeah, I know, accomplishment isn’t exactly the right word there.

As the money transfer service decided to take our money hostage on Friday, rather than transferring it quickly (as they have always done before). We had to abandon our weekend plans of going to London and to the British Museum and a traditional tea service at St. Martin of the Fields’ Cafe in the Crypt. Maybe next weekend will work out for it, we’re more likely to have our discount train tickets by that point anyway. Instead, we spent Saturday shopping, dog walking and starting a puzzle of an antique map of Great Britain. We then spent Sunday doing all of the same things, except in a different order and instead of getting started on the puzzled we got far enough to get stymied by what remains of it. We shall see how much more progress we will make on it before one or both of us gives up.

In graduate school, I made friends with Karyn by offering her my campus map after she mentioned feeling lost – she did all the work after that, and I suppose it is ridiculous as well as lazy to hope that making friends will ever again be that easy. Of our time spent out and about in Wantage, people have been polite and friendly, but also not terribly open to starting a conversation. I suppose that is the stereotypical British reserve you hear about, but I do hope we find a way around it and a way to make friends here, beyond the couple of nice neighbors we’ve met – who, don’t get me wrong, are lovely – but are not going to be game-night or pub-going companions. Perhaps Matt will make friends through work, and despite the commuting to different cities each night, there will be some hope for a social circle. And, perhaps once the damn internet is in place I can look for more social activities, as well as work, in the area. Either way, I just hope we don’t end up as isolated as we were in California. Somehow it’s so much easier to make friends when you’re in school… Or just in Fort Collins, perhaps… Must be something in the Poudre. ;P

In book news, I’ve just finished Shadow of Night, the second in the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness, this afternoon and while I await a used copy of book three to arrive I’m going to work on some crafting (we need some art in this house, particularly to cover the lavender room walls) and tackle Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States – one of only 5 physical books I brought with me on move. I’ve had it since the Book Bin and never read it – because, obviously, non-fiction – but now seemed like the perfect time for it.

Observations: Fairtrade is a big thing here, but also very commonplace, they don’t make huge deal about it, like they do about organic or gluten free in the States. I think it is more prevalent than Organic or Local, as far a consumer catchphrases go.

More to come.

– alaina

At Home Abroad

this post might be as bland as my tea. Sorry.

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11-3-2015 <— Please note, British dating practices. I must get used to this, I keep getting confused when anyone asks me to date things!

Well, the sheep knuckles were a bust, I think I found the building, but no such luck on the actual courtyard where they are supposedly used in the paving. I’m quite disappointed about this. It started to rain after my failed adventure and I headed home for goat cheese and crackers for lunch – so at least there were farm animals one way or another. Our neighbor, Greg (a nickname), who rescued me on my lock out adventure when I first arrived here, invited me over for tea yesterday afternoon, she thought I might want some company, as I’m home alone all day, which was sweet and definitely true. I listened with absolutely no clue when she and another neighbor, Roseanne, discussed British and Wantage politics and then nervously debated what to say when she turned and asked me, “Well, what do you think of Obama?” I think it was a Royal You type situation and I hope I gave a decent answer on behalf of all-of-the-Americans. But, I’m not holding my breath. She also waxed on again about how much we need a car, because being out in the country like this it’s the only way we’re going to effectively see much – I wasn’t sure she was right the first time she said this (a couple weeks ago), but I’m starting to come around to it now, although I’d even settle for a bike, there’s only so far that I’m going to meander carrying what all on my back. Oh well, we’re getting there, the life accoutrement is coming along, so I guess it’s just a ‘be patient’ situation for now. Tomorrow, I’m going to take the dogs for a walk just on the edge of Wantage, Matt said the field views are gorgeous from the rise behind our little close. Close is something akin to neighborhood, subdivision, cul de sac (FYI).

I’m back in the coffee shop this morning and every single person sitting around me has a tray with tea service in front of them. Why? You may not be asking, but I’m gonna tell you anyway. The ‘coffee boiler’ is being serviced and tea and food are the only things they can still serve until they get it fixed. And, many people are leaving because they don’t want tea. I felt rude continuing to use their wifi without buying something, so I bought tea and the most amazing almond goo filled croissant that has ever happened. The farmers market is in full swing in the market square, which is just outside the window from me and I’m going to go check it out again when I leave here, and the charity shops, and the hardware store (if it is open, I’ve walked passed it three times and it has never been open). It’s a little errand kind of day today as we keep finding little things that we hadn’t noticed we needed until now, drill bits, a can opener, envelopes, etc. It’s weird the everyday items that you can go ages not needing and then be totally stymied without. I don’t imagine we’ll ever again do such a start-from-scratch move as this one has been, but I’m glad we did, it’s really interesting (also annoying and challenging, but you…) to be constantly on the back foot reassembling working order in our daily lives. Like, I’ve had the same credit card since I was 18 and now we can’t have one based over here for another couple months because we don’t have enough English credit history or something. And, I no longer know what the political parties are or what they’re about here, so in conversation, when Greg said, “Here’s my problem with he conservatives…” I had no frame of reference for what that meant. It was also ridiculously hard to assemble enchiladas the other night because Mexican food is non-existant here, I’m going to have to order enchilada sauce over the internet if I want to make chile verde at all while we’re here. That would have been unfathomable to me before we got here. But, somethings have proved universal – the Post Office may be just a counter inside a convenience store here, but the lines are still ridiculously long. We moved into another rental that did not come with a toilet paper or hand towel holder in the bathroom. There is nothing on the television worth watching… Please note, I don’t actually know this, I was informed of it by our next door neighbor, Iver, an older gentleman who approves of technology in general but has no use for it personally. I just needed a third universal thing…

Observations: Wantage is adorable, but nothing here opens until after 9 or even 10, this wont usually be a problem for me, but was inconvenient this morning when I was actually out early. Also, everything closes by 6. British people (at least in the small towns) definitely must be head-straight-home-after-work types. Because nothing but a few pubs stay open.

It’s also really not diverse here, which is an adjustment after LA. I kind of miss the challenge of diversity and the opportunities it forces on you.

More to come.

– alaina

Adventures Abroad, At Home Abroad

Sheep Knuckles (hopefully)

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3-9-15

Could I go back to working food service? Not like food-food, but at a coffee shop? I’m not sure, I think I may have gotten too unwilling-to-take-other-peoples-crap for it… But there is a really nice coffee shop in downtown that is hiring and I’m tempted. It’s exactly the part-time, low pressure employment I was considering. Hmmm…

We spent another weekend enjoying Wantage this weekend, we meant to get out and do something tourist-y, but didn’t quite make it happen. Having to arrange things without the internet and in correlation to distance walking and bus travel times makes it a bit more difficult to get things going. But, perhaps next weekend. Our current touristing front runners are the Uffington White Horse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffington_White_Horse) and going to Wales for the day to see Cardiff Castle again (again for me, new to Matt). Cardiff Castle’s Arab Room ceiling is perhaps my very favorite thing I saw during my study abroad time here, and if it’s not number one, it’s easily top three. The Uffington White Horse is a prehistoric hill figure created by carved out deep trenches into the underlying white chalk of the hills (according to the wikipedia page). It’s been maintained since it was carved out, for something like 3,000 years. It is the reason that our area is called the Vale of the White Horse and I’m super excited to go see it and to eventually participate in weeding it – which is a local tradition and required if the white horse is to remain for another 3,000 years. How cool is that? We learned about the horse and some other local historical hot spots during our tour of the Wantage and Downland Museum on Saturday. Apparently there is also a place in town (Robert Stiles Almshouses) where the sidewalk is paved in sheep knuckles. Because EEEEW. Or because this has been an agricultural and industrial town for a very long time and they really wanted to find uses for everything… And, they meant EVERYTHING. Seriously though, I’m dying of morbid curiosity to see the knuckle sidewalk. I think that’ll be my little adventure after I leave the coffeeshop I’m camped out in at the moment.

This weekend, we also accomplished getting a sofa, going on a major grocery shopping trip, visiting the Saturday farmers market in the village square and learning that coriander is the stand in for cilantro here, and is essentially the same thing. We also established that cooking Mexican food here is going to be almost as difficult as finding it in a restaurant. There is seriously nothing here to work with – I’m not sure Matt will survive.

Laptop battery is dying, so I guess I’ll go knuckle searching now and then there is a sink full of dishes waiting for me at home (oh, the romance of life abroad… I miss our dishwasher (and our dryer)).

Observations: There is a lot more coffee available over here than you’d expect, it’s just that too much of it is instant. Eew. But, at least you can get free wifi in the coffeeshops and the pubs, so you can do morning coffee and afternoon beer and be covered all day long. Also, overly hydrated. hehe

Why don’t they have two outlets per socket? Seriously? Why do the English hate plugging things in?!?

More to come.

– alaina

Abroad, At Home Abroad

Settling In

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3-2-15

My first weekend with Matt in the UK – it was lovely. It was nice to have him home during hours where we could accomplish things, though we didn’t quite make it through all of what we had planned. And, I missed the company last week, more than I realized. I let myself get pretty isolated last week, when I really didn’t have to, I mean I had a good excuse – fear of freezing to death in your shower is a viable reason not to do it often and not going out in public when you are greasy and grouchy is also not a completely invalid excuse, but I will have to do better this week.

Saturday, our landlord came over and helped us figure out the issue with our water pressure and temperature. Which means… wait for it… HOT WATER AND REAL SHOWERS! If this person were not a stranger I probably would have kissed her. I am so over the moon about it. She’s a nice woman, young and energetic, she seems a little spacey, and it’ll be interesting having a landlord who is more homeowner, less property manager, I haven’t seen that before. She doesn’t seem too precious about anything though, so that’s good. She did put a no down on us repainting the bedrooms, so that was both a relief (it was going to be a lot of work) and a disappointment (just wait until you see the color). Atleast she is very responsive to inquiries thus far. After she fixed the shower, Matt went to use the facilities, so to speak and discovered that upon flushing water began to pour out of the lid of the toilet tank and continued to do so until the bowl had refilled itself, which is not quick (it’s a weird old bathroom, lots o’ quirky (quirky is a euphemism for weird and a little awful) elements). We put down a huge bucket (luckily, they had left one in the house, because the only large container we had of our own was my dutch oven – and LIKE HELL – was that going to happen) an emailed her to get some one out to fix it asap.

We spent the rest of Saturday doing some really serious shopping. We walked through a lot of Wantage, stopped at a lot of charity and regular stores and did pretty well for fitting up the place. Charity stores are all the rage over here, they’re like really tiny Goodwill’s, mostly clothes, shoes, textiles and maybe some bric-a-brac and each run by a different charitable organization. We saw one called Debra, whose tagline was, ‘for people whose skin doesn’t work, we do’… I love that one and in no way understand what they are referring to. Skin cancer? Albinism? Roseacea? Anyways, we stopped in a local pub with free wi-fi and had a pint, then we did a load more shopping at the strip mall of discount/generic stores near the grocery. By the end of the day we had way more than we could carry and had to buy one of those roll-y shopping carts to get home. I’m going to use it to pick up a few more heavy things today – hello wine! Also, but less exciting, dog food.

Wantage really is as lovely and charming as Matt said, we had a lot of fun walking around the town square and I’m going to make myself go hang out there and be out of the house in it more often. Especially with our still playing the waiting game for wifi and furniture, it’ll be a nice break from the house. I think parts of the town are really quite old, particularly in the town center, while other areas are much newer, I know some of the developments on our end of town are only a few years old, though we think ours is likely at least from the 60s or 70s, if the bathroom is any indication. It is somehow sort of surreal walking around a place that looks more like a movie set from something I would totally watch than a place that makes visual sense in my everyday life. Does that make sense? It’s a wonderful sort of surreal though, and it doesn’t last too long, as there is a lot of new out there that strikes a much more ‘normal’ chord.

Sunday morning a father and son duo delivered a dresser that we purchased from them on Gumtree (UK’s version of Craigslist). We then spent a lot of the afternoon traveling by bus and by foot to view a few sofas posted online and to make arrangements for internet and cellphone. We got lucky and one couple agreed to deliver their couch to us on Friday as they are already renting a van to move (that’s why they’re selling the couch) and we’re on the way! SO, in 5 days and for a small extra fee we will finally have a sofa! And, as a ridiculous bonus for Matt it is leather. And, it reclines!

Days like yesterday make me really wish we had a car, I definitely wore the wrong shoes for as much walking as we did, but fortune was with us and we didn’t miss any of the not-as-frequent-as-you’d-hope busses, so I suppose I can’t complain. Except about the bus prices – holy crap – they are high. You’re often looking at 5+ lbs for a round trip ticket anywhere nearby and maybe much more if you’re going a few more towns over. Also, there are multiple bus companies that service any given area (we’re not sure what if any affiliation they have with the government) and they do not honor each others passes, so even if you buy the day pass for one company, it doesn’t work if you need to use another company’s bus, because say they have more regular trips to the town where the cellphone store is and the store closes by 4pm. Matt is lucky he’ll be getting a pretty great discount on his annual pass through RAL, because it’s like a 10 lbs. commute each day right now. Not to say nice things about LA or anything crazy like that, but spending a day with the transit system here makes me much better appreciate how awesome LA’s metro/bus system really was. Although, I can’t picture anyone getting into a fist fight on the busses here.

Observations: Everything here is lovely or brilliant, nothing is great or good.

I’ve now been asked more than once, ‘Canadian or American?’ Apparently they can’t pick up the difference, but I kind of like the opportunity to lie and go Canadian… Fun, ay?

Altogether, we’ve been very lucky so far with the kindness of the Brits towards us, they’ve agreed to deliver things, or they’ve helped us with questions, confusions, etc., or they’ve just been very nice to us so far. Thus far, it’s been a really great experience here in that regard and I am grateful for it, we would definitely be suffering a bit without it as the logistics of this move have not been easy.

More to come.

– alaina