Beer, Bikes, Books, and Good Eats

Otis Comes to America Part 2 - Leaving on a Jet Plane

2009-01-08T21:46:00.003Z

We left our hotel over four hours before our flight left not wanting to risk it with lots of luggage and a little baby. Remarkably the shuttle was incredibly fast and dropped us off right in front of Terminal 3. Even more incredible, the driver got off the shuttle, found two carts for us, and helped us load up all of our luggage. Some of the absolute best service we had during our stay in England and I had used up all of my pounds so had nothing to give him a tip with. Otis had fallen asleep during the bus ride and stayed asleep through the entire checking-in process. Because we had arrived so early, there were no lines and the woman at the counter was very patient with us as we had to repack two bags and then pay overweight charges on two of them. She even let us take a slightly overweight carry-on on the plane. Economy passengers are supposed to only have carry-ons that weigh 6kgs or under but our little Samsonite suitcase weighs over 6kgs empty so she let us take it on less than half full.

We took a little break before security to feed Otis and take off our extra layers and put them in said empty Samsonite carry-on. Otis then was a happy little wide-awake baby through security. Once through security we had a little breakfast and found a place to throw away Otis's car seat which we had no desire to cart around airports and on a plane. From there on, Otis just hung out in our arms or in the sling. On the plane, we sat in the bulkhead and Otis got a bassinet that strapped onto a shelf that folded down from the wall in front of us. He was buckled into a belt that attached to mine for the take-off and he just nursed and was perfectly happy. After we were up in the air and the pilot took off the seatbelt light we laid him down in his bassinet and rather amazingly, he fell right to sleep and then slept for three hours!!! Usually Otis doesn't nap for more than about 30 minutes during the day. The biggest moment of excitement during the flight was when the pilot turned on the fasten seat belt sign and I had to put Otis in my lap with his little belt on. No sooner than buckling him in, Otis pooped his pants. He hates sitting in his poop so I started nursing him. As time went on, he kept getting smellier and smellier and suddenly I started feeling something warm and moist on my hand that was resting underneath him. Gross. After what felt like an eternity but was probably closer to 15 minutes, the pilot finally turned off the light and Jake went to change Otis. He came back with a baby only in a diaper. Apparently the poop had shot out of the diaper and filled up Otis' onesie. Double gross. We had plenty of spare clothes so no one was worse for wear. Otis only got really fussy one other time during the flight and I put him in the sling and we just walked up and down the aisles. There were only about 50 people in economy so this was really easy. There was one little boy about half way back who was fascinated by the baby so we would stop and chat occasionally on our rounds and the stewardesses camped out at the rear of the plane oohed and aahed over him. Finally he went to sleep and I could sit down with him. When we got off the plane, we waited for everyone else to disembark and several people told us that Otis had been the best baby ever on a plane. Thank goodness!

In Chicago, we had to wait for all of our luggage including the oversized bike box which took forever. We waited at least twenty minutes after everyone including the flight staff had left. When we finally got to customs, they were confused about where we had come from and extra confused when they looked at our form which listed a screen and then at the bike box. We had to explain that we were not transporting an enormous screen but instead a computer screen that fit in a suitcase and a bike in a box. We were meeting my cousin, Justin, at the airport. Unfortunately, we landed just as a snow storm was descending on the Chicago area and Justin got caught in the traffic. Once we met up, we also had a long drive back to the house - the normally 45-minute trip took over two hours due to the snow. Otis was SOO hungry by the time we got to Justin's house. He spent most of the trip sucking on my thumb. We spent the night with Justin, Emily, and their 19-month old, Nikolas. It's hard to believe how fast they grow up! I had seen Nikolas when he was a little over three months and just learning to roll over - now he's walking and talking.

Otis had a hard first night in America - waking up every two hours and not wanting to sleep in his little crib. Finally at 5am, he couldn't take it any longer and just started screaming. We were so afraid that Otis would wake up Nikolas and we would be in big trouble. But as soon as we turned the light on Otis was happy. He was just ready to get up and couldn't figure out why we would want to sleep in so late. There's no reasoning with baby jet lag! So we all got up and saw the French's off to work and then hung out with Ginger, Justin and Emily's dog, before Emily came to take us to the train. But the train is a subject for another post!

Otis Comes to America Part 1 - Leaving Oxford

2009-01-01T23:00:00.006Z

Last month, our little family packed up three years worth of belongings and moved across the ocean to America. The trip took five days and we took a plane, train and automobile but we finally made it back to Partridge, Kansas! My dad came to watch Otis for 10 days before we left which greatly helped us get organized but when he left we still had lots of packing and all of our cleaning to do. It was a long weekend! Otis had gotten a little spoiled with Grandpa around and couldn't understand why suddenly there wasn't someone around all the time to hold him and sing him his favorite cowboy songs. I kept promising Otis that he would get all of our attention as soon as we got finished packing but he still didn't like being forced to sit in his little baby chair! After taking fourteen bags of trash to the next farm in two days and donations to lots of charity shops, we somehow got the whole house cleared and Jake headed up the cleaning with lots of scrubbing and vacuuming.

We decided to take a large taxi to the airport so we didn't have to coordinate our eight pieces of luggage, one bike box, and the three of us. We also went to a hotel at Heathrow on Monday night even though we flew out on Tuesday morning so we didn't have to do the finishing touches early in the morning before travelling to the airport. Leaving Oxford and our little carriage house on Lower Farm was definitely sad but it was made a little easier because we had two of our closest friends making the trip to the airport with us for a last night together. Anna and Ian helped us drink the bottle of champagne that the boys on Jake's football team gave us and we shared a nice meal in the lobby before they had to head back for Oxford. It was great to have this last night together but it made our departure even more bittersweet to know of the great friends that we made over our last three and some change years in Oxford.

Our Big Baby!

2008-11-14T09:52:00.004Z

The health visitor from Otis' doctor's office came out to the house on Wednesday. She weighed him and checked-up on both of us. Otis is now 10 lbs, 3 oz! Mommy and Daddy are getting strong arms and backs from carrying this little one around - especially since he only likes to take naps after being held and walked around for about 20 minutes. The picture above was taken after Otis went to his first Oxford lecture at the exam schools on Jeffersonian democracy. He slept through almost the whole thing in the sling. He did wake up once to burp and peep which got a couple of interested looks our way! The picture below is in the same outfit but the week after he was born. I can barely get the hat around his head now.

Getting Political

2008-11-12T16:02:00.002Z

I didn't stay up on election night - something about sleep when the baby sleeps and he seems to sleep best at night (luckily). But little baby Otis decided to wake up around 4:30am early Wednesday morning and by some miracle I got to change his nappy and nurse him back to sleep to Barack Obama's acceptance speech (at least until BBC4 decided to stop playing it around 5:10am and go to some weird montage and then the shipping report). I had tears in my eyes. To think I left America over three years ago at the start of another Bush administration, feeling disheartened with American political culture, and now I will return, proud to be a Democrat and of the hope that Obama restored in the political process.
I told Otis about our new president and this historic election. It's amazing that my child will grow up and not think it extraordinary for a non-white or a woman to run for the highest office in the land. Of course, now comes the difficult part - governing. And while I'm sure I won't always agree with every policy position, I look forward to the intelligent, thoughtful approach that President Obama and his team will bring to the White House.

Happy Halloween from our Little Angel

2008-11-03T22:19:00.003Z

For Halloween, Otis and I had a very busy day. We had lunch with my old co-workers from the Press and went around to meet and greet. In the evening, I went to the Google's annual Rhodes-Marshall party. This was my first time apart from Otis for more than an hour or so. While I heard recruitment speeches, ate a fancy meal, and sipped on sparkly aperitifs, Otis and daddy had a guys night in for Halloween. Otis had his first meals from bottles (I'd pumped for over a week to get enough to feed him) and quickly gobbled down his meals. Good thing he went to bed for a long night sleep before I came home or he might have run out of food! Otis didn't have a costume for Halloween but he did have this cute little outfit that we got from my cousin Joe and his wife Kasia (and new baby Anna).

A Chip off the Old Block

2008-10-29T18:47:00.007Z

For those of you who are curious which one of us Otis looks like as a baby, I've rounded up some baby photos of Jake and I. The Jake one's are as a toddler but I think it's still pretty obvious that Otis takes after his daddy more than his mommy!

OTIS

MOMMY

DADDY

Getting Bigger!

2008-10-23T12:06:00.003+01:00

Last week when the midwife came to visit Otis and I, he weighed in at 8 pounds, 2 ounces - putting him back up over his birth weight. This Tuesday a health visitor from his doctor's office came to visit and weighed him again. Now Otis weighs 8 pounds, 10 ounces! What a big, growing boy.

Becoming an American!

2008-10-19T12:05:00.007+01:00

Friday we made our way to London with a 12-day old baby to register his birth and apply for a passport. When we had gone online to set an appointment, the first available time was December 15. That seemed a little late since we have tickets to come home on December 9. Luckily we got an emergency appointment and took Otis into the embassy on Friday to become official.

Our friend, Anna, also had some business at the embassy so we agreed to watch each other's large bags and cell phones (not allowed in the embassy) while taking turns. Otis' appointment was at 8:45am so we caught a very early bus to London. We found a little cafe to set up camp in next to the embassy. Good thing it was never that busy because between our visit and Anna's, we were in the cafe around 3 hours. While Otis had an appointment, we think it was mostly just to queue outside in the security line because we still just stood in lines the whole time. I was a little nervous about Otis' passport photos. It's incredibly difficult to get a newborn baby to open his eyes, look straight at a camera, and not get any of mommy or daddy in the photo. Luckily one of the photos we took was acceptable. It even makes little Otis look like James Dean. Otis' application seemed more straightforward than lots of others at the embassy that day since both of his parents are American. Several lines, an hour of sitting, $150, and several oaths later, little Otis became an official American citizen! Now we just have to wait for the passport and social security card. Otis' passport photos (at nine days old) will be his valid photo for his first five years - a little silly along with the question asking his eye color and height. All of these things could quite likely change by December.

Afterwards, we went out into Grosvenor Gardens to catch some rays, look at the FDR statue, and change Otis' diaper. I'm sure all the guys in suits didn't care for the smell coming from the bench behind them but the park seemed a much nicer place to change a diaper than the small and nasty bathroom at the cafe. Since it was almost noon at this time, we decided that lunch in London was in order. It seemed only fitting that Otis' first meal as an American should be barbecue. Jake and I decided to take Otis and Anna to Bodean's BBQ in Soho which was a nice walk from the embassy. Bodean's is owned by a KU alum and former KC BBQ restaurant owner who now lives in London. They make some mean BBQ and great sides (I'll ignore the sweet pickles since no one can get that one right). By the time, we headed back to Oxford we were all exhausted and a little overwhelmed. We all slept on the bus and Otis had a little milk spit-up accident as we left the bus. What a day - I'm not sure if we're caught up on sleep and energy yet!

Oh the Places Otis will Go!

2008-10-15T18:40:00.009+01:00

Otis has gone on several outings on his first ten days in the world. Here are some of the highlights!

The White Hart pub

Otis actually made his first appearance at the White Hart in Headington the Friday before he was born. In an effort to encourage the light contractions I had that morning, Jake and mom had taken me walking to Headington to run errands and eat lunch. We went back on the Tuesday after Otis was born while taking another walk. The owners remembered us from the previous Friday and everyone came to look at the adorable little newborn. We had chips and cheese and ales while Otis had his favorite food - milk - while rejecting dad's efforts to get him to drink Guinness.

Wick Farm

The next day we walked over to Wick Farm to pick up our recycling box, admire the cows, and enjoy an unusually sunny day!

The Colleges

On Thursday, Anna had invited us into University College for lunch. So Otis got his first college hall experience. He still has a lot of work to do if he hopes to approximate his Uncle Tafadzwa's record for meals at different college halls! We went to the Merton MCR afterwards for tea with Anna and Jeni. Otis got hungry so he also got afternoon tea in the MCR. I also changed the little man on the college bar (on my changing mat of course). I like to think I'm bringing a little bit of a family atmosphere to the college!

Football Practice

Saturday was a really big day for all of us. Mom and I first took Otis up to the hospital for a check in visit with the midwives. He had a blood test and a weight check. He had only lost 140 grams since his birth which was really good since anything up to 360 grams is normal. We then went over to the Oriel College sports grounds where Jake's football team was practicing. Coach Jake's little man was introduced as part of the Cavalier family. We didn't tell his name since the head coach is organizing a raffle to guess his name. We then walked down Cowley Road to the farmers market and met up with Anna for the best kebabs in Oxford (at Bodrum's). We took Anna out with us to the shopping park on the ring road. Anna and Grandma had some shopping to do for Otis so we went to Mothercare and got a little chair, breast pump and accessories, and a cute little sweater that Grandma couldn't resist on the the sale rack. By the time we got to the grocery store, Otis was exhausted and all the people and new things were a little overwhelming so I took him to the car for a snack while my mom got to navigate through the supermarket! After that long day, we went home for lots of football although Otis, mom, and I were all out by 9pm. What an exhausting day!

Baby Otis has a middle name...

2008-10-10T15:03:00.004+01:00

Without any further ado, we would like to introduce Otis Jacob Hodson. Otis Jacob like lots of the same things as his daddy (his mommy, eating, sleeping, music, and most importantly right now - boobies) so Jacob seemed fitting!

He was registered at the county office today so all of his paperwork is official. Now we can go stand in line at the American embassy and attempt to get his birth registered with the American government and get a baby passport.

Welcome to the World Baby Otis!

2008-10-08T18:49:00.005+01:00

Early Sunday morning, Jake and I welcomed a little baby boy into the world! Otis J. (middle name to be determined) was born at 1:26am. He was 3.66 kg (8 lbs, 1 oz). He is wonderfully beautiful and very active!

Otis and I had terrific care in the midwife-led unit at the JR Hospital. He was born in a birthing pool. Mom and baby came home to the farm on Sunday afternoon and are both doing well! Dad has some time off from work and grandma French is here from Kansas. Our little family in England is being constantly amazed and delighted by our new addition!

Getting Ready for a BABY!

2008-09-24T21:35:00.005+01:00

The bag is packed. A baby car seat has been found. And as of this last weekend we now have a baby bed! Baby bed? You say, this looks more like a paper towel box covered in butcher paper and decorated. Well, you might be partly right but note the custom-sized mattress that fits perfectly in our box. And it's quite functional and very easy to move from room to room. This was our big weekend project while watching football. (Also getting rid of a nasty cold/allergies - hence the attractive roll of toilet paper in all the pictures.) A friend suggested making the box into a car because every kid likes a car bed. We went with a Jeep. Jake might not have his Jeep at home anymore but at least our little one can drive one around for the first couple of months! It's now all set-up in our baby area in our bedroom. We have basically everything we need to bring a baby home (which is good since that could happen any day!!).

A Busy Weekend!

2008-09-15T18:32:00.008+01:00

We're starting to count down the days till my due date. This weekend went especially fast because it was completely full!
On Friday night, we went to a concert with some of Jake's friends from his lab. We saw the band, Calexico, down at the big concert venue on Cowley Road. Calexico is an incredible live act with its mix of California and Mexican styles. The best part was the brass section which got everyone swinging to the mariachi-style sounds on several songs (check out some of their songs on their MySpace page). The only bad part is that people always misjudged how big my belly is getting and I got lots of belly bumps from drunk Brits.

Saturday was our class at the hospital. It was a pretty intense four hours but it allowed us to become familiar with the policies and facilities at the JR Hospital. Most of the books and magazines are written generically and the midwife was able to tell us what the JR's policies are for different things like breech babies, ventouse vs. forceps, etc. We learned about signs of labour and when to call the midwifes and actually come in to the hospital, we went through the different stages of labour and then talked about how things can go "pear-shaped" (not right) during each stage and what our options will be. We practiced a couple different positions for labour and how the partner can massage. The NHS encourages women in labour to move around lots and to stay out of the bed for most of the time. We also got a partial list of things to pack in our bag to bring to the hospital. Good thing since I hadn't packed a towel (apparently not provided for your shower after labour) or wipes (I had the diapers but didn't think about the rest of the stuff). Our final topic was breastfeeding where we used little dolls to learn how to hold the baby and discussed where extra resources are in the community if things get difficult. The most helpful bit of the day wasn't actually on the schedule. The hospital doesn't give tours of the maternity wards but after enough of the women kept asking the midwife she agreed to show us around two of the rooms (one with a birthing pool, one without). Not only did we get a really good idea of what resources each of the rooms have and where they are located at, but we got a MUCH better idea of how to be admitted to the birthing ward. While everything is pretty straightforward during working hours, after hours and on weekends you have to know to go to an unmarked door and push a call button and then a nurse will take you to an admission room. I can imagine being very confused and frantic had I not gotten the walk through.

On Sunday, our Oxford "family" through us a baby and parents party. No shower - both for reasons of luck (Jake's family waits till the baby is born to have a shower) and practicality (we have no need for lots of gift being showered at us when we will just have to find a way to move it all home in a couple of months). But that doesn't mean we don't want to celebrate the coming of a new addition to our family and to give thanks for all of our Oxford friends who have supported us through the pregnancy! Anna and Sarah organized the shin-dig and they put together an incredible spread of food including mini scones with clotted cream and jam, finger sandwiches, tomato and mozzarella salad, two kinds of quiche, fruit kebabs and lemon and raspberry cupcakes. We even had a pinata and played a Jake-and-Ruth Anne-themed game of Taboo. The girls made up all of the cards using words that were somehow related to us so we had Cowboy, Yale, Kansas, Partridge, Kris Kristofferson, Unicycle... Our gracious friends also took up a collection for our cloth diapers (see above photo) and changing gear. It was a really nice afternoon - perfect to catch up with friends we hadn't seen in a while, eat too much, and have a fun time!

Headington Beer Festival (and My Thoughts on Alcohol during Pregnancy)

2008-09-08T22:39:00.003+01:00

In between the MANY football games that Jake and I watched this weekend (all the way from high school football - Hutch High vs Rockhurst - to NFL), we took a little break and went up to the Masons Arms for their annual Beer Festival. We tried half pints of several different beers including my choices - the Dark Ruby Mild and the Station Porter. We had a nice time choosing between the 30-some beers and ciders and sitting and enjoying the atmosphere which included a game of Aunt Sally and a hog roast.

As may be apparent from the above picture, I haven't completely given up alcohol while pregnant. The British medical standards for alcohol during pregnancy are much more lenient than the American attitude. The medical guidelines recommend 1-2 units, 1-2 times per week. A unit is equal to a half pint or a small glass of wine. I actually drink much less than the guidelines, usually 1-2 units every two weeks or month, mostly because I often don't feel like drinking. Here are some of the general rules I have followed while pregnant:

1. I refuse to feel guilty about having a glass of celebratory champagne at special events (Jake's football players call this "wetting the baby's head" - not exactly sure what this means) or a small glass of wine or part of Jake's beer with dinner every once and a while.

2. I NEVER drink to the point where I feel tipsy or drunk.

3. I take my time and enjoy the small amount that I have (I avoid wasting my 1 unit on mediocre wine or bad beer) which also helps with #2.

4. I almost always have a glass of water with my alcohol to stay hydrated and often have something to eat at the same time to avoid the alcohol being the only thing in my tummy and blood stream (again see #2).

5. I was very careful during my first trimester while fetal development was progressing rapidly and basically completely avoided alcohol during this period.

Like many parts of the British approach to pregnancy and labor, I like this slightly more laid-back, common-sense approach. I still feel like the approach is cautious on this sensitive issue but without being overly preachy.

Boston

2008-09-02T21:55:00.002+01:00

As lots of you know, I went to Boston last week for a political science conference. I was presenting a paper based on the first part of my DPhil thesis. My supervisor had helped me put together the panel my paper was on and I got really good participants. I found this spring that our panel had been accepted as part of the final program. It was a really big deal since very few graduate students get to present their papers at the conference and get feedback from such a broad audience. Even professors get their paper and panel proposals turned down, so I was ecstatic to get to present. The conference has over 7000 attendees which gives you a little idea of the magnitude.
Of course, at this point in the spring I also had found out that I was pregnant. It took a little while for me to put two and two together and realize that there could be problems with me travelling with just over a month before my due date. Luckily, my due date got pushed back by five days because British Air would fly me up to 36 weeks and I flew home at the end of week 35. I still had to get a note from my doctor saying that I was having a single child with no complications and that I was fit to fly (i.e. not likely to give birth while in the air). So I really didn't know whether I would be able to make the journey until several days before my flight since I had to meet with my doctor for the note. Once I was OK'ed to fly, I also had to think about the possibility of giving birth in Boston if the baby was premature (I had plenty of women tell me how their children were five or six weeks early). Not only would it be a little frustrating to give birth so far from Jake, my house, and all my calculated plans, I did not have health insurance in America that covered pregnancy and birth. A very massive hospital bill was not very appealing when I could give birth in England basically for free. To cover against possible trip cancellation and premature labor, I bought extensive travel insurance designed for women late in their pregnancies. Due to the risk involved, only one company in the UK offers such policy but thankfully it wasn't exorbitant.
Well, I'm glad I made all the plans and took precautions but fortunately the trip itself went very smoothly. I presented my paper at the very first session and received some well-thought, helpful comments from the discussant. The other three papers on the panel were also well-written and interesting which made being part of it a delight. I also was encouraged by my discussant to work on the article and submit it to an academic journal that he edits. This is basically a grad students dream... The rest of the weekend actually went kind of slowly because I was sitting in on other panels all day long and I was ready to be home preparing for Baby French-Hodson. Sitting for extended periods of time has become increasingly uncomfortable and people probably kept wondering about me as I wiggled around from getting kicked and punched (the baby gets bored sitting around all day).
The one terrific thing about the conference being in Boston was that Jake and I have lots of friends in town since it's home of Harvard and MIT. I could to see our friend, Sabeel, present a paper at the same conference and had several nice meals with groups of friends. I was also able to crash in another friend's room while she was away at the Democratic convention. It's nice to have such good friends!!
Anyway, this is a very long post (without pictures which Jake says are the key to good blogs) just to let everyone know that I made it back from Boston safe and sound. Now the next month holds more writing on my thesis but also plenty of resting and preparing for the new addition to our family!! (Jake started preparing while I was away by getting the carpets cleaned.)

Glyndebourne Opera

2008-08-19T19:09:00.009+01:00

This last weekend, Jake and I had another first in life - we went to the opera! Not a lot of operas in Kansas but lots in England. And the opera at Glyndebourne is apparently a must-do while in England. Our friend, Ian, convinced us that a summer outing to the opera was in order. He selected, Of Love and Other Demons, which was based on the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. As my family knows, I am a huge fan of Marquez and had actually read the novel before coming to England. This was just the incentive I needed to sign up for the opera! Of course, it also helped that Glyndebourne runs a promotion for under-30s where tickets to shows are £30. These aren't just the worst seats either but the best seats available when you call to order. Considering that standing room seats are £75 and tickets go to £190 this was a really good deal.

So on Saturday we drove to Sussex, near Brighton, to go to the opera. The opera house is set on a large country estate. At the beginning of the twentieth century, owner, John Christie, who loved music, held amateur operas at his house. Christie and his wife, a professional opera singer, decided to start hosting an opera festival and built an auditorium and operations began in 1934. The present theatre was built in the 1980s. One of the most important parts of going to the opera at Glyndebourne is dining on the lawns (and people watching) during the hour and a half intermission. We came with a couple of picnic blankets but some groups had full tables, tablecloths, china, silver, candlesticks, vases with flowers, etc.

As far as the opera went, I was not incredibly impressed with the adaptation of Marquez to the stage. The lyrics were clunky and simplistic - I'm used to reading poetic, mystical translations of Marquez and the English lyrics just didn't live up to the potential. The production itself was impressive and there were several top-notch performers. The highlight of the night was our terrific picnic on the lawns with great friends. We had quite the spread with roast chicken, cured meats, cheeses, homemade hummus, bread, olives, grapes, strawberries, melon, Anna's amazing German potato salad, and of course selections from Ian's personal wine collection.

The Rest of Paris!

2008-08-07T07:42:00.012+01:00

Here's some of the highlights of the rest of the trip in photos:

1. Really tall model on a photo shoot

2. Climbing the stairs to the Sacre Coeur and then wandering through the Montmarte area

3. The Eiffel Tower

Paris Sewers

2008-08-02T18:09:00.012+01:00

When I asked Jake what he wanted to see in Paris, he immediately said the sewers. No Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, or Notre Dame for us. But the sewers - that's what fascinates a city engineer's son. Some quick searching revealed that there is in fact a sewer museum in Paris that is located in the working sewers under the city and includes an hour long tour. Apparently Jake would have fit in well in Victorian Paris since tours of the sewers were started not much after completion and included guided walks around the sewer and later boat trips (which were ended after several boats capsized). We got to see lots of machines and models of machines that have been used to clean out the sewers. The Paris sewer network was designed in 1850, borrowing from London with the characteristic French twist. Unlike most sewer networks, the Paris system does not use any pumps to move the water but instead relies completely on gravity to move the waste water from Paris to the outskirts of town where it is now treated (originally it was simply dumped back into the Seine downstream). The treatment plant is one of the largest in the world as it is able to treat more than 2 million cubic meters of sewage per day. We also learned that there are around 4 million rats in the Paris sewers which the engineers have determined is the proper number to help in cleaning the sewage but without breeding too much disease. Sewer rats are apparently also their own genus. The sewer system is made up of over 1300 miles of tunnels which if stretched end on end would reach from Paris to Istanbul. Another unique feature of the Paris sewer system is that all of the tunnels have street signs to correspond with the city above so that sewer workers do not get lost. We were able to locate where we were underground, by noting the street signs and looking for them above (the corner of Avenue Bosquet and Quai d'Orsay)! One final note on the museum is, yes, it does smell like a sewer.

More Paris highlights to come!

Tour de France - Take Three

2008-08-01T10:24:00.014+01:00

It's the time of year when the grown men dressed only in speedos (with the occasional cape) chase other men on bikes up some of the world's steepest mountain roads. It's the time of year when collapsible coolers get thrown by the roadside because the smell of three day old French cheese and sausages has so penetrated them that one's car smells like the armpits of a French whore. Crazy often takes on a new meaning about this time of year.

Last Saturday, Jake and I left the spandex, speedos, and car in England and took the much more luxurious Eurostar to Paris (in leisure class where we got endless booze, a meal, and lots of legroom). Now lest you think Jake and I have gotten a little less crazy in our old age, I give you the following scenario. Jake had decided that since we wanted to be up early to get the best spot on the course and since we're too cheap for a hotel room that we would simply camp on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. So we took the latest train to Paris and around midnight two excited Americans, one almost seven months pregnant, arrive on the Champs-Élysées with our two large travelling packs with chairs for the next day strapped on. We walk up and down part of the course to find the finish line and our ideal spot. Then we begin looking for a place to sleep. Now Jake and I forgot that the Champs-Élysées is one of the busiest streets in Paris and at 1am was still rocking with constant traffic and lots of people walking. We also thought there would be other people claiming spots and sleeping near the course but apparently everyone else are wimps that stay in hotels and just wake-up early. Fortunately there were lots of parks in the area we picked to watch the race the next day so now we went looking for a less well-lit corner of the park and possibly some benches. What I forgot to mention is that Jake had loaned out our tent to a friend so "camping" on the Champs-Élysées was a little more like "sleeping like homeless Parisians on benches". So we found a relatively secluded area and rolled out our bags and fell asleep. Now I slept for about an hour or so before Jake woke me up as he was getting eaten up by mosquitoes and bugs. Then we covered up a little more and fell back to sleep but for only a little bit because I realized that the park was filling up with Parisian youth who apparently think hanging out in the park at 3am is the best thing ever. Most of them seemed a little surprised and confused to see us on their benches, but mostly just ignored us. However, it was a little difficult to sleep with improv song and dance, screaming, and girl-chasing going on. At 4am like clockwork the whole group up and left leaving us in a slightly quieter park which was great - time for some serious sleep - until the bugs found us again with renewed ferocity. So about 5am Jake went to check on the Tour set-up and 6am on Sunday morning we wandered around looking for some breakfast but only really found groups just getting out of night clubs and heading home. But now I can tell our kid about how we all "camped out" in the middle of bustling Paris waiting for the Tour.

But the next morning we had a prime spot to watch the Tour! Another thing he hadn't thought about is how many rich big-wigs would want to watch the last day of the Tour as well. So the area close to the finish line and the podium was completely cordoned off for bleachers for those people. However, we had the next closest spot which also happened to get afternoon shade and had a terrific view of the jumbo-tron so we could see everything that was going on throughout the race. Great location but the only problem was that we were at the end of the day's stage so we hung out in our chair and stool from about 8am till the riders came through around 4pm. And by after lunch we were joined by several hundred of our new closest friends who wanted to be as near to our prime spot as possible. But when the riders came, it was all worth it. The riders make eight laps around the Champs-Élysées so we got to see them multiple times. The craziest part was when we saw Jens Voigt riding without his seat which busted off during the last lap. The best part, however, was how close we were to the podium at the end so we could see all of the presentations. It's a little amazing how many times they need to bring the winners up to podium. But we got to see everyone - Sastre, Kohl, the Schlecks, Freire, Chavanel. Sastre and Freire brought their adorable children on stage but by about the fourth time on stage, Sastre's little boy was getting antsy and swinging the little yellow jersey lion around by his tail and jumping around. We had a great time and now we can say we've seen the Tour make its final laps on the Champs-Élysées. But if we go back, I think we both agree that we enjoy camping and seeing the other stages much better - where only the true fans make it out and money can't buy you the best spot on the course.

By the time we got to our hotel for the night at about 7pm, we were pretty sun-baked, bug-bitten, and exhausted. After cold showers and some yummy French food, we fell into a deep sleep. I'll post what we did over our next two days in Paris this weekend.

Summer Happenings

2008-07-20T17:15:00.009+01:00

This is my last year on stipend and as a farewell from Rhodes House and (theoretically) from Oxford, the Trust holds a Going Down dinner for us at the end of term. We gathered on a slightly cloudy evening for pictures with our class and then for a last meal together in Rhodes House. Even though Jake and I are not leaving Oxford immediately, the evening was bittersweet. I have so many good memories with my fellow third-years. The biggest honor of winning the scholarship has been meeting so many wonderful people and creating close friendships with colleagues from across the world over the last three years. I already miss all of my friends who left last year but this seemed to mark the final breaking-up point. Luckily, Jake and I will still have some very close friends around when the baby comes in the fall.

After spending the night with friends reminiscing and celebrating at Going Down dinner, the next morning I caught a plane to Washington DC to conduct my archive research for my thesis. I spent two and half weeks in Washington DC at the Library of Congress and the National Archives looking through letters, committee records, and lots of microfilm. In my last week, I travelled to Haverford College on the outskirts of Philadelphia to do a day's work in the Quaker Collection at the college and then went to New York City for two days in the New York Historical Society library and the New York Public Library. On my last night, I went to New Brunswick to see my very good friend, Meghan Sullivan, for one evening before going to catch my plane in DC the next day.

It was a bit of a whirlwind trip and I got pretty homesick by the last week but the big highlight was that my mom, dad, brother, and his fiancee came to DC to visit me and see the sights over the 4th of July weekend. We got to see the monuments at night, attend the 4th festivities at the National Archives, wander around the Smithsonian Folk Festival, visit the Supreme Court and the Capitol, and walk through the National Botanic Gardens. Most importantly, I got a long weekend to catch up with my family and hang out. I miss seeing my family so much and it was great to spend so much time together. We had lots of good meals together including diner food at the Farmer's Market, seafood at an oyster bar, and the best being a meal my brother barbecued from things we found at the market.

In the meantime, I just keep getting bigger. I've gained almost 20 pounds over the last six and a half months but I'm staying in good shape and still ride my bike around Oxford. I seem to be getting around well even in DC with the heat so nothing to complain about on my side. The baby is kicking and moving lots now. Jake calls it our Kung-Fu baby.

Bump at the Ball

2008-05-11T20:24:00.004+01:00

Northern Ireland: Being Tourists

2008-03-24T09:31:00.015Z

We did get to spend some time sight-seeing around Northern Ireland. Here's a quick rundown of what we saw:

1. Derry - The second largest city in Northern Ireland has a decidedly different feel from Belfast - partly from its overwhelming Catholic majority and partly from its seventeenth century walls that remain intact around the city centre. Derry is also known as the site of the Bloody Sunday massacre where 13 Catholic civilians were killed by British paratroopers after a civil rights demonstration. We didn't get to spend as much time in Derry as we would have like since we had to get back for Trent's end-of-tour party that night but we enjoyed walking around the inner city (even if it rained on us most of the time) and driving through the neighborhoods to see more murals.

2. Northern Coast Road - On Sunday morning, we got up as early as we could manage in order to spend the day driving up to the Giant's Causeway by way of the gorgeous northern coast road which begins on the northeast side of the island. The road included magnificent cliffs on one side and the bright blue sea on the other. At several points we were able to make out Scotland to the east.

3. Giant's Causeway - This was our first coastal destination. The Giant's Causeway is a huge polygonal basalt rock formation with over 37,000 stone columns jut out from the earth - most are hexagons but there are even ten-sided columns. The amazing part is how the all fit together in a natural quilt pattern. The patterns and column were created by a subterranean explosion millions of years ago but legend has it that a giant that lived in the area built the causeway as a highway to visit his love in Scotland.

4. Dunluce Castle - This sixteenth-century castle has extensive ruins and looks almost a roof away from being livable. While the castle provided an excellent defensive position, its location on the north coast in the winds, rains and waves made it less than ideal for a house. When the ground gave way under the kitchen causing the room to fall from the cliff and kill several servants in 1639, the owners moved out for a more hospitable dwelling and the castle went vacant.
5. Bushmill's Distillery - Our final stop of the day was at the Bushmill's Irish Whiskey Distillery. We went on an hour long tour to see the distilling process and then had a tasting at the end. We both agreed that we enjoyed the complexity and depth of Scotch more but this was a lot of fun.

6. Downtime - At the end of the day, we were exhausted but luckily Jake had found us an amazing bed and breakfast on the coast. When we got there, Bob was waiting with homemade biscuits (ie cookies) and tea for us with a fire in the living room. Our room at the Whitepark House had a view of the sea and an enormous room. Bob directed us to a terrific local restaurant, The Nook, in a converted school house for dinner and then we enjoyed an terrific breakfast of Bob's own creation in the morning. I even snuck some raisin bread for the road it was so addictively good!

7. Belfast again and the Crown Liquor Saloon - Monday we had to leave fairly early to make it to the airport for our noontime flight. On the way we stopped at a bakery to get some soda bread to take home as well as some lunch for the plane. Upon arriving at the airport, I realized that I couldn't find my passport. After looking through all of our bags and the rental car, I asked lost and found and was pleased to know that the airport staff had decided to keep my passport safe for the weekend in a safe in a back room. On a not-so-lucky note, when we got in line we were informed that our flight had been cancelled and that we would have to wait for the 6pm flight. We took the opportunity to go back into Belfast for the afternoon. We did some wondering around the city but the highlight by far was getting to eat lunch at the Crown Liquor Saloon, a Victorian gin palace, where we got our own little snug - a closed-in booth with press-button service.

Northern Ireland: Old and New Friends

2008-03-21T09:43:00.008Z

After Belfast, we made the short 25-mile drive to Killyleagh in the south-east corner of Northern Ireland. Killyleagh is a relatively small town of around 1200 with one main street with the pub that Trent was playing at, the Dufferin Arms, and next door, our bed and breakfast, the Dufferin Coaching Inn. We had a little time to relax in our very spacious and super nice room before going next door for dinner. The bed and breakfast owner had booked us a table at the restaurant in the basement of the pub. The restaurant was relatively quiet for a Friday night but we were able to enjoy a delicious meal which included seafood chowder and venison wrapped in bacon wellington for me and venison pate and a steak for Jake. No room for dessert after such a big meal but as we were paying our waitress informed us that the band was just starting to set up upstairs. She was pretty astonished that we knew Trent when we were younger and had travelled to see him for the first time in about ten years. (As Jake would say, it took us ten years and over 3000 miles but we finally got to catch up!)

Lucky for us, when we got upstairs we were able to get the last empty table. Between tuning and warming up, Trent stopped by to say hello - I don't think that we were that hard to pick out in the small room (probably only held about 30 people) but Jake wore his Haven High letter jacket just in case. :) We were in for quite a treat that night. The concert was just incredible - both Trent and Jay Lapp play with such intensity and passion that it's hard to not to be pulled into the songs. Trent is also an amazing songwriter and much of the material that they played was off of their not-released yet in the US CD, Adrienna Valentine, which showcases Trent's talents. I'm especially in love with two Trent originals - Whistle Blows and Corrine. We also enjoyed some traditional folk favourites although Jake and I both noticed that Trent had definitely got into folk music while in college in the mining country of Virginia than in the plains of Kansas. The folk traditions of each region are reflected in their music and we were less familiar with traditional songs Trent sang compared to the folk music I had grown up on in Kansas. We were fortunate to get to see the guys at the Dufferin Arms because there is a real love of folk music in the area and the setting was small and intimate. The crowd was so in to the show and the locals at the bar who couldn't get a seat in side kept popping their heads in and asking about the band. We were treated to several encores as the crowd kept pushing for more and more. I was able to record one of the songs that evening and in fact it's a song that Trent wrote about Kansas. I'll warn you in advance that because of the lighting the video itself is really horrible but it's worth listening to for the commentary and song. On the side, you can also see related videos which include ones done by Trent and Jay which even feature some material from the new album. So enjoy Thundercloud Breaks live at the Dufferin Arms.

Everyone seemed very excited and impressed that we had looked up Trent and travelled to see him. Trent and Jay were being hosted and promoted by a local musician, Rodney Cordner, and his extended family. After the show, they invited Jake and I to come to the end of tour party at their house the next night. We had a wonderful time listening to a general jam session, discussing Northern Ireland politics, and having time to just catch up with Trent. We even were able to stay the night with Rodney and his wife, Jenny. It was a crazy night filled with slightly eccentric but incredibly hospitable North Irish family (although anyone staying with either of our families would probably say the same thing). We fell into bed exhausted at around 2:30am but were up bright and early to homemade breakfast and then a drive up to see more of the country. In the next post, I'll show you some of the beautiful areas we got to see in our short time.

Belfast

2008-03-17T10:16:00.015Z

At the end of January, Jake and I got to catch up with a high school friend, Jesse Crupper, who was in London visiting his girlfriend. We were showing him the website of another Haven High-er and folk musician, Trent Wagler, when we realized that Trent was going to be touring in Northern Ireland at the beginning of March. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to see a little bit of Northern Ireland, hear some great music, and see an old friend who we haven't seen for at least ten years.

So with little more than the tour information on the website, we booked plane tickets and a car for a long, four day weekend. Lucky for us, an email to Trent later confirmed he was going to be in Northern Ireland and updated us on the gig information. So last Friday, we flew from Heathrow to Belfast. We got into the Belfast airport before noon. Since we had till the evening to get to Trent's gig, we decided to run into Belfast quickly and see some of the major sites since we probably wouldn't make it back into the city during the trip. Because we were short on time, we decided to take one of the guided bus tours of the city. Despite a little confusion about the correct bus to be on, we made it on to a packed, two-hour long tour of the city. The tour itself was nothing spectacular with its watered-down commentary but we were able to see almost all of the major sites including Stormwall (the parliament building for Northern Ireland) and many of the neighborhoods that were the center of the Troubles. West Belfast is made up of working-class neighborhoods with little separation between the Catholic Falls Road and Protestant Shankill Road. Both sides use large murals to document the struggle and make their political case. The Troubles in Northern Ireland are much larger and deeper than the apparent religious divided and are rooted in a political struggle over the identity of Northern Ireland. For almost 200 years, all of Ireland was under British rule. However, by the end of the 19th century tensions were high and the Irish were pushing for independence. The movement for Home Rule reached its peak in the first two decades of the 20th century. After fierce fighting with the Irish Republican Army, Britain agreed to a truce in 1921 which would give the Republic independence. However, there was one major complication. In the 19th century, many Protestant, Scottish and English families had been settled In the northern in six counties around Belfast. These families were pro-British parliament and feared a loss of power if there counties were forced to integrate into the Irish Republic. They had also armed themselves to help the British fight the IRA in during the 1910s. These Unionists forced a concession in the truce which kept these predominantly Protestant counties as part of the United Kingdom while the rest of the country received independence. Over the next forty years, Unionists by majority rule controlled much of the state apparatus and used the police, housing, and other instruments to discriminate against and harass the Catholic minority. In 1968, the situation erupted in riots in violence in Belfast which brought British military occupation to the city and region. Over the following thirty years, paramilitary violence was conducted by both sides. The Good Friday Agreement in 1998 has established a cease-fire and Northern Ireland is now a safe place to travel although the hostility between the two sides is still felt as they grapple to find an adequate political solution. Of course, my quick history is a vast oversimplification and is definitely not a complete guide to the topic. But as Jake and I realized, some history is necessary to understand the region and help us interact with locals (who all assumed we knew much more than we did). The murals were particularly interesting because they provide they show how each side tells the story of the Troubles. We both found it interesting that each side actively compares their struggle to other international struggles. For example, both use the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to relate their struggles. The Protestants compare themselves to Israel - dealing with irrational terrorists; while the Catholics compare themselves to the Palestinians - being unfairly controlled by an outside power whose oppressive treatment and discrimination warrants resistance. The Palestinian murals also had many anti-imperial themes with George W. Bush figuring prominently in several. Besides the murals, we also the wall between the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Belfast. The "peace line" as its called was built in 1969 by British troops after the violence that broke out in 1968. The wall may have provided a physical separation but it did not eliminate the animosities or the violence. The barriers have gates that can be controlled electronically and while open during the day, the gates between the neighborhoods are closed at night. We weren't at a good vantage point to take pictures of the wall but you can see pictures here. The worst part of the tour was that it started to rain near the end and we all had to flee from the open top to the downstairs part. We thought we could tough it initially but we ended up below when it really started pouring.

Then it was time to head out of Belfast and down to Killyleagh to see Trent. As we were driving out of town, we noticed that some of the murals in other neighborhoods were less political. We saw one commemorating C.S. Lewis and the Narnia series since Lewis was born and raised in east Belfast. This mural show the importance of the Harland and Wolff shipyard to the local economy and development. The shipyard was responsible for building many ships including the Titanic. The company no longer makes ships but is involved in ship repair and bridge building. Of course, as with many stories in Northern Ireland, this one cannot be told without recognizing that because of the company's location in west Belfast the employees were historically almost all Protestants. So for a rather short part of our trip, a foray into Belfast, this ended up being a rather long post. But I promise more light-hearted posts on music, friends, and more sight-seeing soon.

Congratulations Jake!

2008-03-03T08:45:00.002Z

This week Jake received a massive promotion at work. He is now the Head Horticulturist for the Plant Science Department. The new post which starts this month means an incredible 40% raise (which is great for a couple trying to figure out how things will work out when my stipend ends in September). But more importantly it recognizes Jake for all the hard work and initiative that he has taken in the department over the last six months. The thing is Jake has actually been doing all of the responsibilities of the head horticulturist position since last fall because of staff shortages. He also has partial responsibilities in a lab and the professor in the lab has been very active in making sure Jake gets credit for all the work he does in the department. So a big CONGRATS to Jake!

Another Year Older

2008-02-24T23:03:00.006Z

Monday was my 26th birthday. The day itself was like most other days - write and go to the gym. But in the evening Jake took me out for dinner. We went to the Swan Inn in Islip, a little country pub which we've written about before, for Monday steak night. Monday steak night at the Swan is great. It's kind of like going to the dairy bar in Turon for steak night. You get either a sirloin, T-bone, or rump steak with french fries, onion rings, fried mushrooms, and a grilled tomato. All for under £8. We did add on pepper sauce for a little extra. After dinner we stopped for an ice cream sundae at our local ice cream parlour for a sundae with a brown as a base and chai ice cream to top. Finally, we went to one of our old haunts, the Chester Arms, for jazz night. Jazz night is several older gentleman who jam together every Monday night and are just wonderful. Several of our friends even joined us to enjoy the music and conversation.

This weekend my friends - Anna, Chauncy, and Ian - hosted a birthday party/3rd year reunion dinner on Saturday. We had a potluck meal that had no shortage of wonderful food including mushroom risotto, roast chicken with pancetta, apple, avocado, and cheese salad, bruschetta, cornbread, Sara's enchiladas, fried rice, caramelized onion quesadillas, and Swiss chocolates. I made enchiladas as well - mushroom and spinach in a green chili sauce and shredded chicken and green onion in a red chili sauce. (Jake and I kept back a couple of enchiladas at home as a midnight snack!) Anna even made an incredible chocolate and cranberry cake with an R on top in candles. The candle count on top also made me about four years younger which was nice because I'm having a hard time with this birthday. Fully into the second half of my 20s, I'm feeling a little old. :)

Politics

2008-02-07T20:07:00.000Z

This Tuesday I went and caucused for Hillary Clinton in the Democrats Abroad primary. My friend, Sarah, and I even made signs ahead of time. We are not particularly good with catchy slogans and phrases but we were the only ones with homemade signs. I was also asked when I arrived to give a speech about my support. I wished I had prepared a little more ahead of time but really enjoyed talking about why over the last couple of weeks I had come to support Clinton (I was originally planning on voting for John Edwards). Over the past several weeks, I have gotten really excited about Clinton's candidacy for many reasons but most importantly because I want someone with experience, know-how, and political savvy in the office from day one to start fixing the destructive policies of the previous eight years. I had a really good time at the caucus even if my side was a little underrepresented. It would have been nice to be back in Kansas - this might be the only time in my life where Kansas Democrats come out in such large numbers to discuss the future of the party. But maybe when I'm home next, I'll get to support Governor Sebelius for president!

I am also truly excited about both of the Democratic candidates and am ready to campaign for whoever is on the ticket in November. But for now I am quite proud to say I am a Hillary Clinton supporter!

A Typical Day

2008-01-30T16:33:00.000Z

I had a hard time thinking of what to write about this week. It seems like we're super busy but really nothing that exciting. But I was reminded of an email that I got last week from my really good friend, Alaina (Smith) Kaufman. She wanted to know what a typical day looked like around the French-Hodson house. Rather than just tell you about the crazy parties and trips we go on, I thought it might be nice to give everyone a feel for what I do 99% of the time. I'll see if Jake will post his typical day as well later this week.
6:30 - after hitting the snooze button for about 30 minutes (less time in the summer when the sun is already out) I get up around 6:30 and eat my wholegrain muesli (filled with dried fruit and nuts) with a couple of spoonfuls of yogurt and listen to the BBC4. I love the morning show on BBC4 (John Humphrys rocks my world). It's kind of like American NPR except more difficult questions on the issues of the day - rather than just reports the anchors interview relevant experts and politicians and grill them regardless of affiliation. If I am running late, sometimes I catch the Thought of the Day segment. BBC4 describes it as a "unique reflection from a faith perspective on topical issues and news events". It's a nice meditation on the bigger picture before I rush off to the day.
7:30ish - I cycle about 4 miles into town to my job at the Oxford English Dictionary. The cycle ride takes around 25 minutes. I then spend about four hours looking through online databases for quotations to fill in our entries for words. We try to show how the usage of words changes-and stays the same-over time. I just finished working on human and humanity. It was interesting to see how human as a word shifted in meaning from something degraded as compared to divine to some special feeling that homo sapiens are capable of that animals are not (more like humane). I imagine this shift would also map onto a larger philosophical discussion of man, the importance of religion, and the rise in more individualistic theories of politics and society. Right now I'm working on words right after "life". I learned that the origins of life-giving are not religious but almost all of the 18th century usages of this adjective refer to the Holy Spirit who is described as life-giving and coming before the Father and Son. I do specialist searching which means I look at databases of images of really old books-15th to 18th century. I've gotten pretty good at reading blackletter texts and understanding variant spellings in early English writing. Luckily I don't have to decipher any Old or Middle English texts.
12: I go to the gym for an hour or two over my lunch break. I really enjoy spinning (resistance bike training while being goaded on by an enthusiastic instructor) and pilates but do some weight training as well.
2: I go to the Politics department where I have a computer and desk and work on my thesis for hopefully about 4 hours. On Mondays and Fridays, I don't work at the OED so on those days I work all day at home or the department (with my usual lunch/gym break). I am working on first major chapter now. I'm working out a theoretical argument on the use of private-public partnerships in the American state. My first case study will be the command of American Indian reservations by religious organizations in the 1870s. So far I've written about 25 pages in my 300+ page book that will be my DPhil thesis. My friend, Anna, estimates that we will be finishing our theses in 2014 at our current pace.. Hopefully not!
6: Cycle home (in the dark right now since the sun is setting around 4:30). I make dinner for Jake and I. We still get our veg box so usually lots of great veggies in our meals. Last weeks menu included Crispy Cauliflower and Caper Pasta; Beef, Kale, and Mushroom Stirfry; and Pork Chops with Mushroom Sauce, Mascarpone Polenta, and Sauteed Cabbage. With what's left of the evening I read, catch up on episodes from the three American TV shows we watch (Grey's Anatomy, Heroes, and Californication) on the internet, or watch a movie (usually not enough time for this one though especially since I'm known for falling asleep during movies).

Tunisia - Part 2

2008-01-20T16:25:00.000Z

Leaving Tunis, we journeyed to one of Islam's most holy cities, Kairouan. Our first stop in the city was the Zaouia of Sidi Sahab. The zaouia houses the tomb of Abu Zama el-Belaoui, the barber of the Prophet Mohammed. There is also a mosque and several prayer rooms at the site. Visitors are not allowed into most rooms but can appreciate the site from the interior courtyards. We then went to the city's tourist center where we could get a good view of the city and the water system. When the French colonized Tunisia they assumed the system was Roman because of its sophistication. But the engineering actually dates from the Muslim era.

Our other main stop in Kairouan was the Great Mosque situated on the edge of the medina. The fort-like building is a prime example of Aghlabid design. The mosque is one of the most important holy sites in the country. The first section of the minaret is believed to be one of the first in the world dating from AD 730. The inside also has an interesting water filtering and collection system that feeds into its cistern. The decorative floor collects silt through small collection pools the size of a cup. These sift the silt from the rainwater as it flows across the Great Mosque as it runs into the cistern. One of the other interesting architectural points was the columns. Almost all of them had been scavenged from Roman sites and integrated into the mosque architecture. Very few of the columns matched each other. We also found the sundial at the top of a podium which indicates the time of day for the call to prayer.

From Kairouan we travelled to Sousse. After spending the night in a hotel in the medina, we woke on Christmas morning to the call to prayer from a nearby mosque. After a breakfast featuring Christmas carols, we visited the city's Great Mosque and the ribat. In the ribat, we climbed to the top of the tower to get views of the old and new cities as well as the beach. We also looked at how the ribat was fortified including the entrance which had two doors. The first door would be up while the enemy was storming the gates and then when enough filled the first chamber the second door fell behind them. Then rocks, boiling liquids, or spears could be hurled into the small chamber. These dead bodies would then act as an extra obstacle to the invading army.

From Sousse, we traveled in two separate taxis to Monastir. Unfortunately, the taxi in which mom, dad, and I were riding kept over-heating. We were stranded temporarily on the side of the road as the car cooled down before being reunited with Jake and Chauncy outside of the ribat. Amazingly, the boys' taxi driver had gone to look for us and then called a cousin who called a friend who knew our taxi driver and got ahold of us just as we sputtered up to the ribat in Monastir.

In Monastir, we saw the Bourguiba mausoleum and the ribat. The ribat has been the set of many movies including Monty Python's Life of Bryan. We enjoyed a Christmas afternoon at the sun in the ribat, climbing through the labyrinth of passageways and rooms all the way to the tower. We had a picnic lunch in the ribat with food Chauncy and I had found at a supermarket the night before including fresh baguettes, different salamis, a Tunisian cheese, clementines, paprika chips, and sweets that we had picked up the day before in Kairouan.

We spent Christmas evening in this coastal town. Mahdia was a stronghold for the Fatimids in the 10th century. We explored the coastal road around the city and saw the old port defenses which have now been torn down. There were also lots of fishermen out while we were walking around. We stopped at a little cafe for coffee after our walk and Chauncy went and found us playing cards which would be a staple of our time together for the rest of the trip! That evening we celebrated with several card games and a quiet fish dinner.

The next morning we moved on to El Jem. The coliseum at El Jem dominates the city but there is also an excellent museum in the town. The museum has some mosaics that are just as impressive as the ones at the Bardo museum. They also have recreated a wealthy person's house using original designs and materials to replicate how the mosaics and other pieces would have actually looked in a house. From there we went to the coliseum. It was build between AD 230 and 238. We climbed through the three tiers of seating (which would have held around 30,000 people) and explored the underground passages and cells which would have held the animals and gladiators before their entrance into the arena.

In our final two days, we moved quickly by louage across the country to Douz on the edge of the Sahara. We were lucky enough to get to the city during the annual International Festival of the Sahara so the city was filled full of visitors from around the country for the many competitions including camel racing and festivities including concerts. We did our own camel trekking. For almost five hours, we made our way through the "soft desert" surrounding the city. Afterwards, we quickly went to the market where Chauncy helped us bargain for SEVEN burnouses (long cloak of coarse woollen fabric with a hood). We had to skip most of the festivities in order to make it back to Tunis for our flight the next day.

You can see more of my pictures and my parent's pictures on Picasa. My pictures have captions to explain what's going on in them. Because I have very similar pictures to my parents, I didn't bother putting captions on theirs.

Tunisia

2008-01-14T07:19:00.000Z

In December, my parents came to visit us in Oxford. Over the week of Christmas, the whole group traveled to Tunisia to visit our friend, Chauncy Harris, in Tunisia where he was conducting archival research for his DPhil thesis. Over the next week they traveled across the country. It was a Christmas that none of us will forget.

We stayed for our first two days in the capital city of Tunis. On our first day, we explored the medina, saw government buildings, and then wandered through the streets at nightfall.

Our first morning, we took the city tram out to the Bardo Museum. The museum houses Tunisia's largest collection of Roman mosaics. The museum itself is located in Bardo, a suburb of Tunis, in the former palace of the Husseinite beys. The palace itself is an incredible architectural specimen. It was built originally in the 13th century but extensive renovation and expansion makes it a superb example of Arab-Moslem 17th and 18th century architecture. The ornately decorated vaulted ceilings, cupolas and woodwork captured our attention almost as much as the well preserved mosaics. Jake was especially impressed by the giant foot and head from a statue of Jupiter. It was estimated that the statue could have stood almost 25 feet tall.

A quick taxi ride took us acroos town to another Tunis suburb. Sidi Bou Saïd on the outskirts of Tunis abuts the ocean and provided us with views of the picturesque town of white and turquoise. Brightly colored bougainvilleas and ornate doors adorned the houses. The neighborhood is very wealthy. We visited a house that had been set up to show what a typical house would look like on the inside. We enjoyed seeing the two kitchens (one for the woman of the house and one for the maid/cook), prayer room, and extensive library before having tea in the courtyard. We walked through many of the winding streets and down steps to the beach before catching a tram to Carthage. Our stop in Carthage was brief since the sun was setting and the museum was closed.

On our second day, we took a day trip to the west of Tunis to see Dougga and Le Kef. Dougga is the country's most extensive and impressive Roman site. Built on a hilltop, it overlooks some of the country's most fertile fields which have made the area a bread-basket for many empires. The site was occupied by modern inhabitants until the 1950s when the archeologists took over cataloguing and preserving the site. The ruins are extensive and we spent almost four hours exploring and still didn't cover everything. We were all amazed by the access we had to look through the rooms, climb on remains, and walk on old mosaic floors. Some of the highlights from the extensive ruins include a theater and capitol building. The theater was built in AD 188 and has 19 tiers which can hold almost 3500 people. The capitol is a giant temple built in AD 166 with massive vertical stones and columns. The frieze on the top of the columns shows Emperor Antonius Pius being carried away by an eagle.

We stopped for a quick lunch at a roadside stand before catching a ride to Le Kef. We had griddled flat bread that was filled with harissa (a spicy chili paste found all across north Africa), mayonnaise, a chopped hard boiled egg, tuna, spreadable cheese and sliced beef salami. A little strange but very good. Then we made our way to the next stop, Le Kef. This fort city occupies a strategic position on the western edge of Tunisia. The kasbah at the top of the rocky spur provides an impressive view of the city and surrounding countryside. The gate keeper seemed to really appreciate that we had come to visit his town and was impressed with Chauncy's Arabic skills. He pointed out the different sites from the top of the fort and then let us into an unused portion where we saw old barracks from when a larger contingent of the Tunisian military was housed here. We took a rather small (and very full) bus back to Tunis in the evening.

The next morning we left Tunis and headed south for more adventures. Stayed tuned for the rest of our travels!

To Tunisia and Back

2007-12-30T17:12:00.000Z

We broke down a couple of times,

Took some alternative forms of transport,

Channeled our inner Romans

And all told we saw TWELVE different towns and made it back to England in time! More stories and pics to follow...

Happy Holidays from Us!

2007-12-20T19:17:00.000Z

In the midst of this holiday season, Jake and I wish you safe journeys and lots of happy times with family and friends. We are heading to Tunisia with my parents early tomorrow morning. We have taken a little road trip through the Cotswolds, had a Christmas lunch at the Press, seen the Golden Compass, and have wandered around Oxford (in the below freezing weather).

Jake and I made cookie baskets for friends, neighbors and co-workers. We would love to be able to give baskets of cookies to all of our friends and family around the world but we will just have to extend a virtual Christmas cookie basket! Our baskets included candy cane cookies, pumpkin biscotti, brownie bites, boozy truffles, coconut macaroons, oatmeal raisin cookies, iced sugar cookies, and mint chocolate chunk cookies (this recipe but with mint chocolate bars chunked up in place of chocolate chips). I even made enough cookies to finally use the very cool biscuit jar I got from my aunt and uncle for my birthday last year! Here are a some of our family recipes for the other cookies:

Candy Cane Cookies

1 c. butter, room temperature

1 c. sifted powder sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 t. almond flavoring

1 t. vanilla

2 1/2 c. flour

1 t. salt

1/2 t. red food coloring

Preheat the over to 375 degrees.
Cream the butter and powdered sugar. Mix in the egg, almond flavoring, and vanilla until incorporated.
Then add the flour and salt.
Separate half of the dough to a separate bowl and add the red food coloring to one half.
Roll dough of each colour into snakes three to five inches long and then twist snakes of each color into candy canes.
Place the cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until lightly browned - about 9 minutes.

Brownie Bites

6 T. butter, cut into 4 pieces

1 1/4 c. semisweet chocolate chips

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1/2 c. brown sugar

1/3 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 t. vanilla

1/2 c. flour

1/2 t. salt

Preheat over to 350 degrees.
Melt butter, unsweetened chocolate, and 1/2 c. chocolate chips.
Beat in the sugars until well combined. Add eggs one at a time and then the vanilla.
Mix in the flour and salt.
Fold in the remaining chocolate chips.
Put one overfilled tablespoon into lightly greased mini muffin cups. Bake 11-15 minutes at 350 degrees.

Food and Football - Part 2

2007-12-06T21:27:00.000Z

Week 13: KU vs. Mizzou - Jake and I couldn't miss the big rivalry game but staying up to watch it would require some sort of activity. So we made pumpkin donuts. They turned out much better than the game. We were a little anxious to get them made so instead of chilling them in the refrigerator, we put them in the freezer for about 15 minutes to make them manageable.

Week 14: Army vs. Navy, Tennessee vs. LSU - I got a Guide to Baking in my Guardian this Saturday so I decided to try out the Beef Dripping Pastry Recipe. I imagine it would be great with lard and maybe suet. The beef dripping and butter combo made a very flaky, flavorful pastry. Delish. I made a mushroom, roast, potato stew to fill the pastry up with. I would also suggest brushing the crust with an egg wash to get a beautiful golden color.

Food and Football - Part 1

2007-12-03T18:32:00.000Z

I know that my Uncle Rick would agree that good food goes hand in hand with football. To celebrate the end of the regular season of college football, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into some of the food that accompanied the weekly football parties at our house. While we couldn't tailgate at Memorial Stadium (or if Jake had his choice, the Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium), our house became a football refuge for those going through grid-iron withdrawal over the last several months. Here are some of the highlights:

Week 6: Red River Showdown and the Sunflower Showdown - For those of us missing both football and Mexican food (and Taco Bell in particular) we made our version of double stuffed tacos. A crispy corn shell was nestled into a (much) larger flour tortilla with a little refried beans as the glue. The corn shell was filled with taco meat, black beans, veggies, salsa, and sour cream before the flour tortilla was wrapped around it all. Very yummy with Spanish rice.

Week 10: KU vs. Nebraska, LSU vs. 'Bama, Florida State vs. Boston College - An Argentinian feast with roast beef tenderloin with chimichurri sauce; salad with a tomato, pepper, and onion vinaigrette; and alfajores. While everything was yummy (who can argue with medium rare tenderloin steaks accompanied by spicy, tangy chimichurri sauce from the Borough Market), the alfajores were the highlight of the evening. Crisp, thin, buttery wafer cookies with homemade dulce de leche sandwiched between them. Then the sandwich cookie was covered with melted dark chocolate and topped with shredded coconut. They were heavenly but eat more than one and your tummy ache punish your gluttony. Our friend, Jeremy, talked about eating alfajores when he and Lisa were living in Argentina so they seemed a fitting dessert for our Argentina theme night. I couldn't find one recipe that I really liked so used different recipes for the cookies, dulce de leche, and finished product. The cookies primary dry ingredient is corn starch which made them a slightly different consistency than other cookie dough I had worked with - I didn't have enough time to let them chill in the refrigerator but found that about 15 minutes in the freezer made the dough easy to work with. I made Alton Brown's dulce de leche recipe because he always seems to have reliable tips for tricky foods. The dulce de leche was terrific but be forewarned that it takes a full afternoon to simmer the milk down to wonderfully gooey caramel goodness. While I didn't really use any of the recipe from this column, the picture and wonderful story was enough to convince me that my alfajores needed to be coated in chocolate and sprinkled with coconut. They were well worth the effort and Jeremy and I had lots of fun putting them together.

Week 12: Ohio State vs. Michigan, Missouri vs. K-State, Kansas vs. Iowa State - Our final big football weekend with friends we ordered pizza but for dessert I made a carrot cake that I have been perfecting this fall. My cream cheese frosting recipe made LOTS of frosting so I did a little team spirit decorations. The cake is well spiced which is balanced out by the creamy frosting. The original recipe (adapted from Alton Brown again) is in ounces so I invested in a food scale to make the cake. The scale is actually very useful since all British recipes are done in weights. My oven is a little fickle so check the times on your oven. I have a digital thermometer that I use to check the internal temperature so usually I just cook the cake till it reaches the recommended temperature. Also make sure the butter is at room temperature when you start making the frosting or you will end up with little chunks of butter in frosting. Here's the recipe:

CARROT CAKE

12 ounces flour

12 ounces grated carrots

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice (terrific British spice with cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, clove, pimento, and ginger)

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

10 ounces sugar

2 ounces brown sugar

3 large eggs

6 ounces plain yogurt

6 ounces vegetable oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Butter and flour two 9-inch round cake pans. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Set aside.
3. Put the carrots into a large mixing bowl and set aside.
4. Put the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt in the bowl and whisk together. Add this mixture to the carrots and toss until they are well-coated with the flour.
5. Combine the sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and yogurt with a mixer. Drizzle in the vegetable oil while continuing to mix. Pour this mixture into the carrot mixture and stir until just combined. 6. Pour into the prepared cake pans and bake on the middle rack of the oven for 30 minutes. Reduce the heat to 325 degrees F and bake for another 20 minutes or until the cake reaches 205 to 210 degrees F in the center.
7. Remove the pan from the oven and allow cake to cool 15 minutes in the pan. After 15 minutes, turn the cake out onto a rack and allow cake to cool completely. Frost with cream cheese frosting after cake has cooled completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting

4 ounces butter (softened)

4 ounces cream cheese (softened)

1-1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add the sugar in slowly until smooth. Stir in the vanilla. Let sit in the fridge for ten minutes to make it easier to work with. Mix in colors if desired for decorating. I just use sandwich bags to decorate with - fill the bag with icing and then cut a small bit off one of the corners and use as a piping bag.

Stay tuned for pumpkin donuts and pasties!

Extracurriculars - Part 3

2007-11-22T18:58:00.000Z

London again!

The Friday after the Yale Law event, Jake and I were back in London for the annual (and infamous) Google recruitment party with fellow Rhodes and Marshall scholars. We learned more about Google and then enjoyed food, an open bar, lots of entertainment, and lots of dancing! Last year, we found ourselves stranded in Leicester Square last year at 3am when the Tube had stopped running and no taxi would stop for us and so we walked several miles back to the bus stop and got home around 6am. We were smarter this year and Jake found us a hotel room two blocks from the party that we shared with our good friends, Jeremy and Ian.

The next day we took advantage of being on the South Side of the river to go to the Borough Market. The Borough Market is London's oldest food market and features high quality produce, meats, and other food products. The market is open on all nights but Saturday night for wholesale trade for restaurants looking for the best seasonal produce. Jake and I had gone to the market our first year in England with Mary Klayder and our friend, Kristen. That time we had gone around noon and the market was bustling and we barely got a much sought after chorizo and rocket sandwich. This year we went early and got to peruse all of the stalls before the crowds arrived. I made it home with some chimichurri sauce, chipotle salsa, roasted potato bread (which I'm working on re-creating at home), and damson jam. We also enjoyed sausage and egg sandwiches, an apple turnover, hot cider, and lots of cheese samples!

After the Borough Market, we moved on to the Tate Modern to see the giant crack in the floor. The "installment" is by a Colombian artist that is meant to make the viewer question that values that western institutions (such as art museums) are built on. Jake was the only one smart enough to figure out the installation process after a little sleuthing. (He wisely pointed out to us that if a unilever had really been used to pry open the floor that the supporting columns would do no longer be straightly perpendicular to the floor but instead at the angle shifted by the floor.) We also had a quick look through the new installments before heading out of the museum. I spent a little time sitting in one of my favorite rooms in museum - the Rothko room - and meditating on his use of color and light. Very cool.

(Ian spent the next thirty minutes trying to track down the beautiful woman who took this picture - ahh, the ones that get away...)

After the Tate we walked down to the used book market under the Waterloo bridge and then we just sat by the Waterloo Bridge for almost thirty minutes enjoying each other's company and the busker playing the cello. It was a beautiful fall day and this was definitely a side of London I could love - none of the crazy tourist traps or people that line the bus stops to Oxford - Buckingham Palace Rd, Victoria tube stop, Marble Arch. I enjoyed the rhythm of the day so much I took a little video that gives you a taste of the sensory experience - the leaves crunching below the feet of Londoners, music in the background, the boats slowly swaying on the river. We then wandered up to the LSE area for a little lunch and a little foosball. Then up to the Bloomsbury area to the London Review of Books shop where Jake and I left the boys. Then it was back to Oxford for a night of college football. This Saturday in London had to be one of my highlights from the last two years in England. I had great company and stimulating conversations as well as great food, art, and a crisp autumn day.

Extracurriculars - Part 2

2007-11-10T15:41:00.000Z

London!
As most of you know, I have deferred a place at Yale Law School. So when I finish my DPhil in Oxford, I'm off for three more years of schooling. At the end of October, Yale Law held an alumni event in London and invited all admitted students along for the day. Jake and I decided to take the opportunity to see a little more of London and meet YLS alums and professors. We travelled in a day early since the day's activities started fairly early. In the evening we found the Texas Embassy restaurant which is owned and operated by an ex-pat Texan. When Texas was its own republic it did have an embassy in the area but sadly the restaurant is not in the same building. We enjoyed really good enchiladas, tacos, and chimichangas. I even got a margarita which I rarely get in the UK. Our friend, Nick, told us about the restaurant. He goes in during football season because the owner always plays the Texas-Texas A & M game on the upstairs TV.
In the morning we started the day at the Law Offices of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP where we had two panel sessions. The first was on US and International Law after Bush and the second on international dispute resolution. The highlight was a detailed presentation by the Dean of YLS, Harold Koh, on the complete change in both American foreign policy and constitutional vision in the executive branch taken by the administration of George W. Bush. Dean Koh is the former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in the Clinton administration. His concern for the United States as a promoter and visionary for freedom and democracy was evident from the presentation (no surprise to listeners of This I Believe). I was left thinking about how America's larger human rights agenda can avoid being subsumed in the war in terror.
Next we went to the Royal Courts of Justice to watch a short part of a case. The case we sat in on appeared to be some type of negligence or personal injury case. The Royal Courts of Justice are large, impressive, and apparently free and easy to enter. We saw an exhibit on legal dress and admired the internal architecture which was done by a cathedral architect. We had lunch at the Brick Court Chambers and listened to British barristers discuss their role in the legal system and changes in British and international law. The British have a split system of law where lawyers are either solicitors or barristers. Solicitors have more direct contact with clients and do most of the research and advising. Barristers are employed (often through solicitors) when a client needs representation in courts and when advise on a specialized piece of law is required.
The last part of the afternoon was a walking tour of legal London. We went back through the Royal Courts of Justice, the Inns of Court, and along the Strand to Parliament. The Inns of Court surround the Royal Courts of Justice. To an Oxonian, they seem like colleges for barristers. All barristers are required to belong to one of the Inns. They buildings are set up around large green quads and gardens with accommodation for all members, dining facilities, libraries, and in some cases chapels. For much of England's legal history, this was where barristers trained and practiced. Even today, much of the barristers' business occurs in the Inns but the growing profession has required expansion to offices outside the Inns occasionally.
We were supposed to go on a Thames cruise of London but unfortunately we had to miss it. The Dean wanted a chance to talk to the admitted students so we went to Starbucks instead (not quite as exciting). The real highlight of the day was going to the Jerusalem Tavern in Farringdon. The pub is tucked up in a mostly residential and business neighborhood that is strikingly different than the touristy parts of London that Jake and I usually see. The pub is in a eighteenth-century clock makers shop and has a great feel to it. Plus they only serve beer from St. Peter's Brewery, which is really good artisan beer. We had the Ruby Red Ale and Honey Porter while there. It was the perfect way to end a day walking around cold, damp London!

Extracurriculars - Part 1

2007-11-05T21:30:00.000Z

This term has been pretty busy work wise - academic, job, and volunteer projects - but somehow we've found time to do a little travelling and socializing. Probably not a huge surprise. One of the first get-togethers of term with old friends was a house-warming party. The theme of the party was Happy 82nd Birthday Maggie since it was Margaret Thatcher's birthday. We celebrated the Iron Lady in costume - I went as Maggie and Jake as a coal miner (because of Thatcher's attempt to break the labor unions and close down mines in the country). Here's a little celebration of Maggie, our fellow Oxford alum, and her way with words.

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

"I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it."

"If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman."

"Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth."

"This lady is not for turning."

"I owe nothing to Women's Lib."

The Merton Family Starts Its Third Year

2007-10-11T19:50:00.001+01:00

England Excitement

2007-10-05T19:52:00.000+01:00

During the few weeks between the start of term (and the arrival of Rhodies new and old to our fair city), Jake and I took a little time to explore two new parts of England - the Isle of Wight and Stratford-on-Avon.
As most of you are aware, we recently purchased a car with another couple with the view to see more of England in the next year. Our first trip of the fall was to the Isle of Wight. We chose the Isle without much forethought after deciding that our first choice, the Lake District, was too far of a drive for a Friday evening after work. Additionally, a quick perusal of the Isle of Wight's tourism site showed that there was a bicycle festival and car show the weekend we wanted to go. That was enough to entice us to book the ferry for the weekend. The drive to the coast was short enough that we decided to leave early Saturday morning. Two and a half hours later we were in Portsmouth and in line for our short, 40-minute ferry ride to the Isle of Wight. We started our journey in Newport, the island's capital and site of the bike festival and car show. We had brought our bikes to tour around the island on so we found a car park and biked down the quay (wharf) where the car show was happening. Turns out the bikes were just in the park beside the car show so we didn't really need our bikes to get around. I was able to register my bike in the National Theft Database. The best part of the bike fest was all of the old bikes that a local club had brought. We saw a bamboo bike, a paratrooper bike, lots of three while ladies bikes, and tall bikes. Some of the chains on the bikes were just massive. Jake talked to one of the owners and he said that they have to order almost 20 feet of chain at a time because it comes from an American country that makes chains for conveyor belts. We stayed around to watch a former mountain biker do an interactive stunt show with jumps and ramps and kids. A local shop had also set up a place where you could ride funny bikes so Jake tried out the trainer unicycle while the kids around him rode bikes with funny sized tires, off-center rims, and mini bikes.

After a little snack of watermelon (slightly disappointing - England weather isn't hot enough to get really sweet watermelon), we headed down to the car show. It was a pretty big show and the most old British and European cars that Jake and I had ever seen at a car show! Lots of the cars still seem to be people's everyday cars which was quite a bit different than American shows. There were a couple cool custom rigs including a guy who had turned a Jaguar into a pickup truck.

After making our way through the car show, we decided to head out and explore the Isle of Wight by car and find a camping spot for the evening. The afternoon did not start out well as the coastal road to the east of Newport was frustratingly confusing and un-scenic. I think I glimpsed the sea once through a hedge during the first hour of driving. But then we came to the southern coast with its sheer cliffs and green pastures looking out onto the ocean. We quickly found a nice camping spot for the night and parked the car. We got directions to a near-by pub from the campsite manager and headed off on our bikes for an early meal and a ride. We enjoyed a pub meal very heavy on the deep fried - deep fried Camembert, white bait (like little minnows), and breaded fish. It was a good thing we had ridden our bikes there! On the way back we stopped at a little local store to buy several beers that were brewed on the island and some small pots of local ice cream for our dessert at the campsite. We took our portable stools out on a little ledge and had beer and ice cream while watching the sun set over the ocean and then watching the large ferry lights going to and from France.

The next morning, Jake found a rope that we could scale down the ledge to get the beach (we think its used by fisherman to get down to the water). Adventure is my middle name so we headed down the ledge and then walked along the pebble beach which was very cool. You could see how the rocks get smaller and smaller as they get farther from the sea (and thus have been washed over by the water more often). Not so impressive was all of the trash that washes up on the beach from the ocean. There is obviously no beach clean-up effort on this stretch of the shore. Of course, not much farther down the beach we found steps that led us back up to the top of the ledge and negated the need to scale down the rope.

After packing up, we drove a little farther down the coast and parked the car in Freshwater and then got on our bikes again and headed up to the Needles, a series of chalk fingers rising out of the sea on the westernmost point on the isle. The location was also used during the Cold War as a testing ground for rockets. There has always been a strong military establishment on the island because it was one of the last lines of warning for a possible French attack. The bike ride up to the Needles was almost all uphill but we had a rather refreshing and fast descent to Freshwater on the way back! We headed on to catch our ferry in Yarmouth and by the afternoon colder, rainier weather had hit the island and it was time to leave the isle.

The next Friday, our friend, Chauncy, had thought it would be nice if our Merton family could go to Stratford to see The Twelfth Night performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford on Avon. We had a lovely drive through the Cotswolds in the early evening to get to Stratford. We didn't get to see much of the town but the theatre because of Jake's work. But the play itself was well worth the drive. The production of Twelfth Night that we saw featured a brilliantly dour and silly John Lithgow of Third Rock from the Sun fame. The highlight of the production was James Clyde as Feste, the fool (clown) for the two households. The use of a piano, song, and wit by the cigarette-smoking lounge musician was amazing way to tie the production together.

But now term has started. Tonight is the first formal hall of term - and the Merton family will be out in force. I learned about rugby (while watching England upset the heavily-favored Australian World Cup team) yesterday with my Aussie friends. I am (somewhat frantically) trying to find a research question to center my doctoral research. I am fighting off mid-term blues at the start of term (along with a nasty cold). I have been learning outside of my subject area in some early talks - one of Burma and the other on the legal defense for Guantanamo Bay prisoners. This year should be good - less of my friends are here but there is a real good core group of people that I love hanging out and learning from!

Back to Kansas (and then to Chicago)

2007-09-23T15:12:00.000+01:00

After our journey through New England, we flew back to Kansas for a very short four days with family and friends. We enjoyed lots of wonderful meals and more than a couple of beers while in our home state. On Sunday, Jake's sister and her family even brought out their corn wagon to roast us all fresh corn. It was awesome! One of the big reasons for going back to Kansas was to see our new god-son Gene Wendell Lilyhorn. G-Dub is the son of our high school friend, Jesse, and his wife, Sarah. He was born May 5 so we finally got to see him at 3 1/2 months. He is pretty adorable and was remarkably well-behaved as we took over his life for an entire weekend. By the end of the weekend, Jake and I had also started to figure out how to hold a baby!

Jake and Gene Wendell have a little man-to-man

Gene Wendell with Mom and Dad

One of the other exciting parts of our trip back to Kansas was a visit to the Underground Salt Museum in Hutchinson. The museum is part of a working salt mine, 650 feet below ground. Our journey started with a several minute pitch-black elevator ride to the mine. We then took a tram through the mine tunnels and heard stories about salt mining in the area and underground storage. Hutchinson is on the nation's largest salt reserve and three major salt companies still operate in the city - Morton, Cargill, and Carey Salt. The mine also houses an underground storage company which stores documents, film reels, and even costumes from Hollywood movies. The mines 68 degree constant temperature and 40% humidity is ideal for long-term storage. Jake especially liked the old machinery displays that were in the mine. All of the machinery had to be brought down one small elevator shaft so it was cut into pieces above ground and then put back together to work in the mines. Some of the pieces of equipment were huge and it showed the skill of the mine workers.

A tunnel clearer

After our four days in Hutchinson, Jake had used up all of his vacation days so he went back to Oxford. I had a political science conference in Chicago. I decided to take the Amtrak train to Chicago so I could see some of the country on my way there. My mom decided to make the trip with me so we could have a day or two more together. We spent most of our time in the observation car watching the country go by, talking about life, and listening to the conversations and guitar-playing of our fellow travellers. We met several interesting characters along the way including a Pennsylvania kid who came to custom cut over the summer and loved to square dance and a California hippie who was travelling to see her grandkids in Chicago. In Chicago, we met with my friend, Beth, who is now back in Iowa and who went to the conference with me. We did a day of sight-seeing around Chicago before my mom took the train back to Hutchinson. We got to see the parks, sculptures, and a very interesting peace exhibit at the Cultural Center. Mom and I even got to see a dance troupe in the big fountain. The rest of the week we spent at the conference going to seminars almost twelve hours a day. We got to stay with Jake's cousins, Jana and Al. They have a terrific house in La Grange and it was super convenient to get into Chicago. Al also has a boat that's docked downtown and he took Beth, Anna and I on a nighttime tour of Chicago by boat. We even got pizza delivered to the boat for dinner. It was an exhausting week of academic seminars and receptions. We did learn quite a bit and some of us (ie Beth) actually did a little bit of networking. Our last day we had a great brunch at Dick's Last Resort which has a Beatle's cover band for Sunday brunch every week. Beth and I got to see our friend, Peter, who was just about to start working for McKinsey downtown. Beth and I tried to help Peter outfit his new downtown apartment. We helped him try mattresses, perused sheet sets, and ogled flat screen TVs. But in the end all Peter bought was a shower curtain and rod. I'm not sure where he's sleeping but at least his bathroom floor will be dry. My last two days I went out to Fox River Grove and stayed with my cousins, Justin and Emily, and their four month old baby, Nikolas. Nikolas is so cute and really long. With all my baby holding practice, I hung out with Nikolas lots and waited to see him roll over (which he never did for me). It was so nice and relaxing to spend time with Justin and Emily.

Looking at the city through the "Bean"

America!

2007-09-09T15:37:00.000+01:00

After an incredibly eventful July (Tour de France, teaching, goodbyes to friends), we packed up for a trip back to the States for a tour of north-east law schools (and to see friends and the area since neither of us have ever been to New England), then to Kansas to see family and our new god-baby, and then I went on to Chicago without Jake for a political science conference. We are now back in Oxford for at least another year and a bit. Now I just have to write a doctoral thesis in that amount of time...

Here are some highlights of the East Coast portion of our trip back to the States (Kansas and Chicago later this week):

1. New York City - We spent a weekend in New York City with Jake's cousin, Jay Reed. Our friend and former Oxonian, Meghan Sullivan, came in from Rutgers University in New Jersey to hang out for most of the weekend. We stayed in a friend of Jay's writers loft within a couple of blocks of Central Park. Mostly we explored the city with our guides including an underground saki bar in the Village (with over a hundred different kinds of saki), a view of Central Park from Jay's office on Rockefeller Plaza, a huge street market downtown, Wall Street in the rain, a dive bar playing all classic country on the Upper East Side, and some fruitless shopping in Macy's. Coming from England, getting whatever we wanted at just about any time of day was pretty amazing. We came into NYC well after midnight without having had supper. Jay took us to a bar around the corner from our loft that served food all night - mini hamburgers for Jake and a hotdog with kraut for me. Plus a waitress came and took our order for drinks - amazing. NYC was always buzzing and happening. We were pretty exhausted after a long weekend.

2. New Haven - We left New York City on Monday morning to visit New Haven, Connecticut, where Yale University is located. Our friend and former Mertonian, Brian Finucane, picked us up at the train station. Brian is starting Yale Law this fall and was just getting settled into the city when we arrived. I will be heading to Yale Law after I finish the DPhil. Part of the purpose of the trip was to see Yale and New Haven to get to know the area and make sure it was a good fit for Jake and I. We knew that New Haven would be good immediately when Brian took us for lunch to an old lunch counter and ice cream bar. The city itself is a little strange because most of New Haven feels like a blue collar town but with a large, world-class university plopped down in the middle of it. The university doesn't seem to have much effect on the larger town (unlike KU and Lawrence) and so it has a little bit of an ivory tower feel. The law school itself is modeled on an English university quad and the buildings are gorgeous. The other great part about New Haven is that it is a moderate sized city so it's easy to get out into the country. The city is surrounded by cliffs and we hiked up one side with Brian for a view of the city and the harbor. The city is surrounded by national forests and farming communities.

3. Boston - Tuesday morning we left New Haven on the train for Boston to see several of our Oxford friends who have relocated to the area. We stayed with our friend, Sabeel, who is starting a PhD in Government this fall and is working as a tutor for one of the Harvard residential houses. He took us for a tour of Harvard and to a great hamburger joint on Harvard Square. In the evening, we went to Tafadzwa's white coat reception as he started Harvard Med School. It was great to see one of our close friends so excited about his path for the next several years! The next day we did a little bit of shopping, including finding a crazy fixie bike shop downtown, and then met up with Sabeel and Marissa for a tour around downtown Boston. Marissa was definitely the person to meet up with since she is a history buff and native of the area.

Tour de France

2007-07-13T09:05:00.000+01:00

It's July again which means our little household is consumed by the Tour de France. We have found several sites with live coverage and evening recaps so we've been able to watch much more of the race. But streaming video is not enough so we have already been to one stage and will be travelling to France today to catch two mountain stages.

Last Saturday, we travelled to London with several friends to watch the Prologue of the Tour de France which ran around all the central landmarks in central London. The event was an individual time trial and we watched individual riders pass us at over 30mph every minute for four straight hours. Of course, we were in London earlier to check out the course, watch the team staging areas (I got Jens Voigt's signature at the CSC area), find a decent spot to watch, and spend an hour cheering on the sponsors' caravan. By the time of the race, most spots along the 7.9-kilometer route were ten deep with spectators. BBC estimated well over a million people attended the event. Jake and I were both impressed by the number of people at this one sporting event. Even the next day watching the riders cycle from London to Canterbury there were people along the entire route with crowds four to five deep in the cities. Britain turned out for the Tour!

Today we leave for France in our new car to travel more than 12 hours across France to the Alps. We are picking our friend, Beth, up on the outskirts of Paris tomorrow morning. We are planning on watching Stages 8 and 9 of the tour which happen on Sunday and Tuesday. Jake says to watch for him running by El Diablo as the riders climb the Alps. If you can catch the tour on OLN or online, look out for a couple crazy Americans in the Alps! Then, we'll make a leisurely drive back across France to catch the Chunnel train on Friday around noon.

Academic

2007-07-02T19:46:00.000+01:00

Over two weeks ago, I finished my last exam. After Oxford exams, any finalists (denoted with a red carnation pinned to one's gown is allowed to exit the back doors onto Merton Street. Behind road barricades, one's friends wait to celebrate the conclusion of academic testing. If your friends are nice (like mine), they greet you with flower leis, sparkly confetti, and maybe even gifts and balloons. But among the undergraduates, finalists usually get a much rougher treatment with various food and drink being thrown or smeared all over - baked beans, custard trifle, mustard, ketchup, flour, eggs, champagne are some of the more pleasant while tuna, rotten milk, pickled octopuses, tar and feathers greet those with truly nasty friends. As you may imagine, all of this can make Merton Street (right in front of my college) a little crazy and smelly during exam time!

In slightly more serious academic news, I found out last week that I will be teaching a class for undergraduate study abroad students from the University of Virginia. The course will be comparative US/UK politics. I am excited for the chance to teach again! Right now it's a little frantic though since I need to put together a syllabus, lesson plans, and assignments in about three weeks. To make matters a little more tense, Jake and I already had a trip planned to the French Alps to see the Tour de France when the job opened up. But in general the challenge is exciting and hopefully rewarding!

First Week of Freedom

2007-06-24T15:38:00.000+01:00

My first non-school week was pretty busy. I worked full days at work in order to make up for the time I took off studying. It's been fun getting back into the searching. I have been working on reap the noun and verb. My latest word is reaper, as death personified. The earliest quotation the OED had was mid-nineteenth century. I antedated the usage by over 200 years with a quote from a translated work of Jacob Bohme, a 17th century German mystic theologian who wrote about the Great Reaper who will take the errant branches to the fires of hell and the good herbs to the table of God.

Wednesday night I went to a BBQ potluck that some of my coursemates were hosting. As one of two Americans, I was recruited to start the fire and grill. So I do have some skills, even if I fail to get an Oxford degree! One of the Germans was impressed with my ability to grill a steak. I explained that I had plenty of practice grilling beef growing up on a cattle farm. Thursday night we went to go see Jimmy Carter speak at the Sheldonian Theatre. Carter is incredibly good shape and speak coherently and thoughtfully. He was speaking on the Middle East which was especially interesting since I recently visited Israel. Carter is convinced that the proposed swap of occuppied territory for peace and recognition (with some land swaps) is the way forward for peace.
We have been busy seeing friends before they head off for the summer. Friday Sarah Schulman made us dinner and then we met up with a group that had been at Going Down Dinner (Rhodes farewell dinner) for way more drinks. I ended up staying up till 7am Saturday morning drinking, talking, reminiscing. Saturday was a little more low-key although we had three friends over for dinner (salad, sauteed zucchini, roast garlic mashed potatoes, roast chicken, and apple pie). I was pretty exhausted by the time they left - so much so I fell asleep halfway through an episode of Heroes (which I never fall asleep during).
Jake and I bought half of a car with our friends, Ben and Jaci, this last week. Its a little light blue Peugeot. We got it this weekend and went for a morning trip out to the Vale of White Horse where we saw White Horse Hill, Uffington Castle (or rather the place where it used to be), and Dragon Hill. The White Horse Hill has a 374-foot-long chalk horse that probably dates to the first century BC. Recent research shows that the figure was made by digging trenches almost a metre deep and then filling them in with white chalk from a nearby hill. The significance of the figure is unknown. On the nearby flat-topped hill, Dragon Hill, St George supposedly slayed the dragon. The bare patch on the top was where the dragon fell and the channel down the side is where the dragon's blood trickled from his wounds. We then went into Woolstone to a fifteenth-century inn-pub for a decent Sunday roast (beef for Jake and lamb for me). Then a slightly scenic drive home. I thought of my Grandpa Terrill, although his country drives at this time of year would have been to look at harvest progress and how the milo was coming along.

Finally Done! (Here's Everything I Missed Blogging about while Studying)

2007-06-17T16:34:00.000+01:00

1. I FINISHED my exams. Except for one minor (week-long-across-the-continent) detour, I have been studying basically every day for the two exams I took last week over all the material covered this year. I even took off work this last week to make sure I was ready. I think the exams were straight-forward enough that I passed but I am still unsure enough about what's good on Oxford exams to make much of a prediction for scores. I celebrated with course mates after finishing - but no one threw eggs, flour, baked beans, or champagne at me. I am not quite done yet since I have to tie up a couple loose ends - I did find a DPhil supervisor on Friday and now just need to hand in my application which is due Monday (have I mentioned that I am planning on staying for the DPhil next year?!?).

2. Andrew - At the end on May, my brother, Andrew, flew to England to celebrate his college graduation. We went to the Summer Eights, the big inter-collegiate boat race at Oxford. Andrew got to meet some of our friends, eat steaks and funfetti cupcakes, and enjoy rainy British weather. Andrew then traveled with us to Italy.

3. Italy - We went to Italy for the weddings of two couples who are friends from KU (we met them through Andrew who met them when he worked at the Spencer Art Museum). The two brides are twin sisters. We were all in Italy because two of the members of the wedding parties were studying in Italy for their masters programs. Ten former Jayhawks converged from around the western hemisphere (Kansas, Indiana, Sweden, England, and Moldova) for an epic wedding week. We picked up Moldovan Dave in Rome and drove our rental car three hours to the flat we had rented in Florence. We spent the next day driving beautiful, curvy, mountainous coastal roads to get to the Cicque Terre region for the first of our weddings. Mike and Jacque were married on a look-out point over the city and the Mediterranean Sea with home-brewed Moldovan wine, impromptu speeches, and plenty of cleavage. The next day the whole party relocated to Florence. On Thursday, we somehow all made it to a winery, Castello di Verrazzano, about twenty miles outside of Florence for Joel and Jenny's wedding. Six of us squeezed into the rental car (Andrew was in the hatchback truck) and then Jake and I went to find the wedding couples who'd been dropped off a town over by the public bus. It was well worth the effort. Joel and Jenny got married rather quietly on the terrace between the tour and tasting (the vineyard forbids weddings). Then we enjoyed a five-course meal and wine tasting (tasting doesn't quite describe it since they replaced every bottle we emptied...). Rather tipsily we made it back to Florence (picking up a divine chocolate cake at a patisserie on the way back for a wedding cake) and hosted the wedding couples at our flat for lots of appetizers and drinks. Dave serenaded us most of the night except when he made us play a game that involved incorporating three random words into your own personal improv verse to a song. Friday and Saturday were sight-seeing in Florence (or for me, hanging out in the flat studying) and Sunday we went up to Fiesole on the outskirts of Florence for gelato, markets, and incredible views of Florence. Early Monday morning, we got back in the rental car to catch our morning flight back to London.

4. Rhodes Ball - Jake and I went to Rhodes Ball again this year. The theme was Lost in Paradise which allowed Jake to pull out a Hawaiian shirt and crazy neon green trainers for the occasion. I had found a vintage raw silk and sequined dress at a local thrift store for my outfit. I went to pre-ball pretty party complete with sparkling wine, strawberries, and chocolate before hand. Between the crazy blue pre-dinner cocktails, a great three course meal, and LOTS of dancing (and some more drinks), it was an amazing time. For all of us preparing for our final exams it was perfect stress release.

5. New Bikes - Our garage is getting almost completely filled with bikes and now they are almost all ours. Jake and Jeremy converted a found bike into a fixie for Jeremy. Jake was hooked and tracked down this retro lilac frame to make himself one - now he's working on finding all the other parts (like handlebars and wheels). I also made a new bike purchase. After being jealous of the boys and their weekend rides on the road bikes, I bought myself a little Italian beauty. The bike is a year old and rarely used. It's got great components (all Italian Campie of course). I went out for my first ride today - 35 miles. I still have some get-up-and-go but I need to get used to being on a road bike again (my back started hurting after 1.5 hours) and build some leg strength if I'm going to keep up with those boys!

6. Another new toy - For finishing the MPhil, my brother introduced me to the 21st century by getting me an iPod nano. Being iTunes phobic (and not wanting to transfer all my songs over), I traded it in for a very sweet Samsung T9 which also has FM radio, radio/voice recorder, bluetooth capabilities, picture and video viewer, all in a small, sleek package. I just got it today so I haven't used it yet but it should be handy for all the mindless hours in the library!

Israel Highlights - Tourist Version

2007-04-29T15:56:00.000+01:00

In the next couple of days, I'll put up a blog about the most meaningful learning experiences on the trip (after all, that's what the trip was about) but first here's a taste of a first-time traveller's impressions of Israel!

1. Walking around Tel Aviv - Our trip started in Tel Aviv, on the north-west coast of Israel. The city is very secular and was a great way to ease us into Israeli society. While near-by Jaffa is ancient, Tel-Aviv itself is very young with building starting less than one-hundred years ago. Israel, the nation, is an interesting mix of old and new. The roots of three major religions are in the small country. These ancient sites are part of the source of the area's conflict. However, the Israeli state is less than sixty years old (also a major source of tension). Tel Aviv/Jaffa captures this dichotomy.

2. Food - The food in Israel was amazing. My favorite supper was at a Bedouin tent restaurant. We had a massive feast with grilled chicken, lamb kebabs, stewed ox-tail (I think), grilled Bedouin flat bread, lots of dips, olives and salads. We also stopped one lunch at a roadside cafe where we had incredible pita sandwiches filled with grilled chicken, tomato-cucumber salad and hummus. Too bad American (or British) road-side food isn't this good!

3. The markets - Israel is a tiny nation - excluding the territories, the nation is a little over 8,000 square miles. In comparison, Kansas, my home state, is over 80,000 square miles. But almost all of the fruits and vegetables eaten in the country are grown within the nation. Talk about short food-miles. Lots of food is sold at local markets with individual stalls. Our tour guide told us that while the average Israeli would still do weekly shopping at a grocery store, they would use the market to pick up fresh food (especially produce) all week long. We ate the most amazing, juicy strawberries in Tel Aviv and I bought a bag full of spices in Jerusalem (including a bag of zatar).

4. Jerusalem - Jerusalem is a very international and multicultural city. We walked through the Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian sections of the city. While each different segment had part of the city where the population was overwhelmingly of the same religion (but by no means of the same backgrounds), the important sites are scattered throughout the city. Many of the stations of the cross are in the Muslim quarter. At the Western wall, some of the major sites for Muslims, Jews, and Christians are located right next to each other. The city's international and multicultural nature made it hard not to think of one's spirituality. Jerusalem was powerful, beautiful and vibrant.

5. The Dead Sea - I have mixed feelings for the Dead Sea. I floated in the water and plastered myself in mud. But while lying back in the waves (uncommon for the sea), one came over my head and while I closed my eyes, the intensely salty water dripped in my eyes. Oh, the pain! I somehow managed (blindly) to make it out of the sea and up to the showers where I flushed my eyes out and then washed my hair of all the sea salt which might drip back in my face. My eyes were still irritated for much of the day. However, I really enjoyed the morning we spent at the Dead Sea. By that point in the trip the intensity of the issues and people we were meeting had drained many of us, the pure fun of a half-day on the beach in the sun was enough to recharge me for the rest of the trip!

See more of my Israel photos and captions at

Israel

2007-04-26T20:48:00.000+01:00

AMSTERDAM!

When we traveled to Amsterdam a month ago, we realized that the city had much more to offer than the two P's (pot and prostitutes). Here are some of our favorite things:

1. Canals: The city is built on concentric canals which were largely developed in the 17th century, during the height of Dutch prosperity. There are three major canals in city center which are then are intersected by smaller canals. The waterways are an important navigation tool for exploring the city. Other streets in Amsterdam were once canals but have now been filled in for sanitation and transportation reasons.

2. Bicycles - For those of you who have visited Jake and I in Oxford, you know that bikes are an important and ubiquitous form of transportation in our city. But the number of bikes in Oxford comes nowhere close to that in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is one of the most bicycle friendly cities in the world and it is evidenced by the more than 700,000 bicycles in the city (the city's population is only 750,000). However, almost 80,000 are stolen yearly and 25,000 end up in canals. To make getting around easier, Amsterdam has over 400 kilometers of bike paths. The standard bike in Amsterdam has a heavy-frame with only a couple of gears and a hub-shifter. There are several custom-bike shops in town. Not only do they build some wild rides, but there custom-bike stands are pretty cool, too.

3. Pancakes - More specifically, we loved the Pannenkoekenhuis Upstairs (AKA Pancake-House Upstairs). The Dutch girl at Jake's work told us the best pancakes (what crepes are called in England and Europe) in the country could be found at this five-table, one-room restaurant which was up one narrow, steep staircase. The place was run by one man who did all of the cooking, order-taking and cleaning. He also spoke lots of different languages (all three groups while we were there spoke different languages and he had no trouble switching back and forth). We tried some incredible pancakes with the most exotic being bacon, apple and ginger. We topped the savoury and some sweet crepes with the Dutch syrup. The place was so good that Jeremy and Lisa went back the next day for a second visit.

4. The Rijksmuseum - One of the world's premier art museums which features the Dutch masters. We went during refurbishment so only one wing of the museum was open. However, it almost made the museum better because the museum had selected all the best pieces from throughout and put them together in a section that could be seen in a couple of hours.

5. The quirky Dutch sense of humor - For example, this dollhouse-style train depot restaurant serving local and organic lunches.

2007-04-22T19:01:00.000+01:00

Brussels Highlights

1. Moules frite - Our first meal on the continent. An enormous pot full of mussels steamed in wine, shallots, celery. Delicious. Accompanied by a basket of french fries with mayonnaise. And lots of really good beer...but more on that in the next point.

2. Beer - There are over 125 breweries in Belgium making over 500 types of beer ranging from fruity wheat beers to dark Trappist beers (which have to be brewed under the oversight of Trappist monks to get the title). We did our best to try many Belgian beers while in the Low Countries. Jake really liked the Chimay beers which go up to 9% ABV. We also had Kwak beer which was not only terrific but by far won the prize for most inventive beer mug.

3. Tintin - Belgium is the home of Tintin (not to be confused with Rin Tin Tin) and he graces surfaces across the nation. We saw him at the train station and on buildings. I love Tintin and read every book I could get ahold of as a child. I might have to read them again when I come home. His blond tuft of hair and faithful dog, Snowy, still resonate with readers around the world. Over 3 million Tintin books are sold a year, almost eighty years after their creation. When I got back from England, my brother told me that Spielberg is going to make a Tintin movie.

4. Manneken Pis - What's better than seeing a little man pee? Apparently, the Belgians don't get tired of it - they dress him for holidays and occasions. Next door you can buy a chocolate model of the little boy.

5. The Belgian love of the American West - We found an authentic western-wear store in downtown Brussels. You could buy Tony Lamas and Native Pride ball caps for twice the amount as in the states. Plus they had a wooden cigar-store Indian. The owner travels to the United States yearly to find authentic western-wear.

2007-03-11T10:48:00.000Z

Back from Brussels and Amsterdam!

Jake and I spent four days in Brussels and Amsterdam with our good friends, Jeremy and Lisa, at the end of this week. We got back late last night after a wonderfully, relaxing time shared with good company. I'm off to Israel this afternoon and won't be back until late next Monday. More photos and stories from both trips when I return!

2007-03-05T20:20:00.000Z

Travels with Flat Anna

When I returned to Oxford from the States in January, I brought another transatlantic passenger with me - my cousin Flat Anna. Flat Anna is a third grade school project for my cousin, Anna Brogden, who lives in Olathe, Kansas.

I have been taking Flat Anna around to show her where I live, work, and study in Oxford. We even went to get groceries one Saturday (a 3.5 mile bike ride). We also went to see my college, Merton, and to a dinner party at Rhodes House. She has also travelled with me to London to go to dinner and a musical. Flat Anna is travelling back to Kansas this week with pictures from her stay!

We went to go see Wicked the musical in London. The musical tells the true story of the wicked witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz. The production and the characters were amazing. The story itself worked out a little too perfectly for my liking but it was lots of fun!

2007-02-25T21:18:00.000Z

Trinity Term 2007

In case your asking yourself, what do these two do other than tell us about the weather and what they did several months ago - here's your answer! (Jake says blogs aren't good without lots of pictures so I apologize in advance for all the words and lack of images.)
1. I've been diligently writing my thesis. My goal is to have a rough draft (minus intro and conclusion) done by March 7. That date is quickly approaching. I've been finishing a chapter (roughly 6000 words or 20 pages) every two weeks for the past six weeks. The last two chapters (and the next one to come) have been the most time intensive because they are my case studies which require me to make all the primary research I did in the archives fit into a manageable, well-argued chapter. So far I've written on the creation of the Office of Indian Affairs in 1824 by John C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, and the transfer of the Office to the newly created Department of Interior in 1849. I find this type of political history plus political science analysis fascinating and could write lots more on nineteenth century public administration, patronage, Jacksonian Democrats, and crafty bureaucrats but that probably isn't what you want to hear about!
2. Jake has been very busy coaching defensive line for American football. Before Christmas break, they were 2-2 and hoping to make the play-offs with a strong spring performance. Since coming back after break they are 1-1-1 (with one game called a tie due to the massive snowstorm). This weekend the team is in Wales playing the University of Wales at Aberystwyth. They will find out this week whether they made the post-season playoffs.
3. We've been hosting a fortnightly (every other week for you Americans) movie night at our house. Jake is master party planner and takes the theme of the movie all out with party favors, decorations, and themed dinner and drinks. So far we've watched Scarface and Once Upon a Time in the West. To give you an idea of how this works, for Once Upon a Time in the West we drew a 5-foot long train that is still hanging on the wall along with a station sign, a Sweet Water sign that hung beside our front door, Italian food because this was the last of the spaghetti westerns (spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, salad with antipasto toppings, and tiramisu plus Italian beer and wine), Italian cigarillos (very rustic and slightly caustic), and cowboy hats, harmonicas, and toy guns as party favors.

4. Of course, we've also found plenty of time for socializing. Some of the highlights include: a black tie affair at Teddy Hall college, pancake night with Meghan for Shrove Tuesday (including American bacon and strawberry butter), a party at the Boathouse for Beth before she went to Rwanda, BBQ at the Institute with some amazing Nutella cookies, and an upcoming dinner party at Rhodes House.

5. We celebrated our anniversary with a trip to London for dinner and a show (more in an upcoming blog about travels with Flat Anna) and celebrated my birthday with a late dinner after our respective commitments (football game and Oxford Women in Politics meeting).

6. We are planning several trips for the upcoming months. We're going to Brussels and Amsterdam for several days starting March 7 with Jeremy and Lisa. Next, I'm travelling to Israel for a week for a seminar on Israel and Palestine. We're also hoping to go to Italy at the end of May for the wedding of several of our KU friends. Finally, I applied for law schools last fall and am beginning to hear back from them (two acceptances from top schools so far). While we are hoping to stay on in Oxford for another year for the doctorate, I need to choose a law school to defer to by May so we may be taking a whirlwind trip to the States in April to visit law schools.

7. Work has been busy for both of us. Jake has been busy with cleaning up old projects and potting for new projects. He also has been actively involved with a tomato experiment which has him collecting and cataloguing tomato leaves. I will finish race, noun and verb, this week which is a relief since I've been working on the word since December. The noun has seven sense and two of those sense had at least twenty separate subsenses and countless compounds (race-horse, race-track, race-record, race-riot, race-problem, etc., etc.). I'm not sure if my next assignment is that much better. I have ram, noun and verb.

2007-02-19T21:27:00.000Z

Girls' Weekend in Raleigh

It's almost the end of term and I'm finally getting to my last post from travels in the States over break. The next post will be a term update from both of us - although we're not very exciting this term.

My last weekend in the States (Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend) I took a roadtrip from Washington, DC to Raleigh, NC, to see two of my favorite Oxford friends who have moved on to bigger and better things this year. Lisa Hofler (far left) returned for her second year of medical school at Emory last fall. She's an all-star student, active in Med Students for Choice and definitely someone you want on your team if you play Trivial Pursuit. Kristen Chamberlain started a masters in accounting at North Carolina State (hence Raleigh) last fall with a fellowship through the school and her future employer.
I rented a car in DC and set off Saturday morning early while Lisa was leaving from Atlanta where we converged on Kristen's house in Raleigh. The drive was just two interstates so easy enough for someone who has never been in either Virginia or North Carolina. I was amazed that the interstates were surrounded by trees almost the entire drive. I began to feel a little claustrophobic - not my wide open I-70!
The drive was just under five hours and I got to Kristen's a little before noon. When Lisa arrived several hours later, we grabbed lunch and coffee at a local coffee shop. After an afternoon siesta, we went to downtown Raleigh for dinner and drinks. Lisa's only request for the weekend was to eat sushi so we went to a great place downtown and ate way too much sushi, drank martinis and beers, and promised to be each other's accountant, doctor, and lawyer. (We're a good group to know!) We were all pretty exhausted after our late dinner so we went home for a night-cap of pomegranate martinis.

Sunday morning we slept in and then decided to do some sight-seeing in Raleigh. We got on the Raleigh visitor's website and found the Exploris museum which promised to be the most amazing place EVER - "an interactive museum about the world". That's what I'm talking about! The gifted child in all three of us brought out the creative and competitive spirit throughout the museum. We started the museum with an exhibition on games from around the world. We got pretty good at the mini shuffleboard game and then fell in love with Mancala, an African count and capture game. Then it was upstairs to the can-struction exhibit where local architectural firms had built wonders of the world with packaged good including the Great Barrier Reef with Flavor-Ices as sea anemones. We, of course, had to try out our own architectural skills and built a model of the Eiffel Tour with some seriously used and abused cans!

Next we looked at commerce around the world, global culture and communication, a rather depressing look at the life of Anne Frank, and a section on hydrology (I thought of my mother as we tasted different types of water and took a water conservation quiz). After a full afternoon at the museum and a little downtown sight-seeing, we grabbed dinner at a terrific Mexican restaurant close to Kristen's and then stopped at Wal-Mart where we purchased Mancala and Scrabble. We had a marathon night of Mancala, Scrabble, Desperate Housewives, and a trip out for frozen custard. The next day was driving home day for Lisa and I. But before we left, we had one more Raleigh tradition to indulge in - North Carolina BBQ. Kristen's figured out the place to go was Ole Time Barbecue on the highway heading out of town. We had an amazingly terrific and filling meal of pulled pork, sweet potato fries (pureed sweet potatoes breaded and fried), coleslaw, onion rings, and real hush puppies (I didn't even recognize what they were since they don't resemble in shape or texture those abominations that come at LJS). The best part is the restaurant itself which is just a little roadside cafe smaller than Ruth's with a great atmosphere. The BBQ had to have been one of the top highlights from the trip and we all promised to come back.
I drove back to DC that afternoon and then flew back to my sweetie several days later. My weekend in Raleigh made me feel so fortunate to have such smart, sassy, and fun girlfriends. I miss having them here in Oxford with me. My girls' weekend was the perfect way to end an eventful break in the States!

2007-02-11T21:50:00.000Z

More Snow in Oxfordshire!

Last Wednesday, we got around 5 inches of snow. This was apparently the snow of the decade! Traffic was backed up, the schools were cancelled, and everyone from 3 to 80 years old was out making snowmen, sledding and having snowball fights. The next day it was almost 40 degrees Fahrenheit and it rained Thursday night and most of the day Friday so most of the snow was all gone by Friday evening. We still see some small piles where large snowmen once stood.

2007-02-04T17:13:00.000Z

Texas Bowl

After Christmas, we travelled to Houston to attend the Texas Bowl which featured our Kansas State Wildcats against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. Jake's dad, Kirk, got the tickets for us for Christmas and travelled with us to the game. We left Hutchinson on the 26th to make it to Houston on the 27th. We had all gotten KState purple for Christmas and my Grandma Terrill gave me my grandfather's old K-State hat to wear (Wearing it was like taking my two favorite KState alums with me!).

We drove to Fort Worth on the 26th. I slept almost the entire way there (except for the worst Taco Bell experience ever) trying to get over a nasty cold. In Fort Worth, we met up with our friend and fellow Rhodie, Nick Anthis, who was home over the holiday break. Nick took us to a Mexican restaurant that is a local legend, Joe T. Garcia's. The restaurant has no menu. You can guess what the drinks are - we picked safe bets, margaritas and Dos Equis. For dinner, we had the choice of enchiladas or fajitas (beef, chicken, or combo). The meals were served family-style with rice, beans, guacamole, pico de gillo, cheese covered crispy corn tortillas, and warm corn and flour tortillas. A live mariachi band played the night we were there! Afterwards we went to downtown Fort Worth for a beer before heading to bed early. We went to the Flying Saucer which had over a three hundred different beers with over 75 on tap.

We were up early in the morning to head to Houston. We still had five more hours of driving ahead of us before the game that evening. While I slept most of the drive the day before, the boys decided that it would be smart to have me drive the last hour or so into Houston during the noon hour. Despite this choice, we made it to the hotel safe and sound. We made a little sidetrip to the local REI for backpacks and bike helmets. We hit up Texas BBQ and then took a quick nap before heading to the stadium. (Check out the K-State ghost in our room!)

We got to the designated party zone several hours before the game. We were surprised by the amount of Rutger's fans already at the stadium. We were hoping that all the KState fans were just still tail-gating! Once we got into the stadium a little later, we realized that almost half of the attendance was in red! We figured that a team from New Jersey (a state that just realized that college football existed) wouldn't travel as well as our beloved purple pussies. I guess we forgot how many alumni Rutgers has.

We got to see the old Astrodome which still stands behind the new Reliant Stadium. We were all very impressed by Reliant, home of the Houston Texans. On each level of the stadium, there were inside lounges with big screen TVs and lots of beer stands and a bar. This alleviated everyone trying to get a beer at the end of quarters or during TV timeouts. It was easy to watch the game while inside standing in line. Some people even just stayed inside and sat on the leather couches to watch the game! As for the game, it didn't quite go like KState had planned. But we did get to see a really Rutgers team play. And you know the rest of the story. It was the journey not the destination!

On the way home, I did a little more driving. The boys thought it would be smart if I drove in the torrential rain (during the tornado alerts) and through Dallas-Fort Worth while they were sleeping. At least they are very trusting. It was a long drive back but we had a great time!

2007-01-27T11:18:00.000Z

Snow in Oxfordshire!

While we don't get much snow in England, it seems that about once a year we get snow that accumulates to more than a dusting. Of course, it's usually melted within a day but it is beautiful to wake up to. While snow is beautiful looking from one's warm, cozy house, it is less fun to ride one's bike through. Jake and I have been pretty lucky on our commute to town with only heavy rain (and one day of 45 mph winds) to deal with occassionally. This week we had to adjust to biking in snow and the slick patches where the melted snow refroze at night. Luckily we only had one accident between the two of us - resulting in a bruised knee, slightly torn trousers, and a slightly battered ego.

2007-01-24T10:07:00.000Z

Faces of Christmas Past

Jake and I were so happy to make it home for Christmas this year! Here are a couple pictures from our family-filled trip home in no particular order (I must have taken all the pictures because there aren't any of me, but there will be some in the next two posts).

2007-01-21T16:42:00.000Z

Back in the States

Chicago

After less than a week in DC, I flew to Chicago for a job interview. Lucky for me, my cousin, Justin, his wife, Emily, and their dog, Ginger, live in Chicago. Justin and Emily work for Quaker which has a large facility in Chicago. We went for a driving tour of the Northwestern suburbs along Lakefront Drive and around Northwestern University the first day. Probably the highlight of the afternoon was lunch where we had Chicago deep dish pizza. As deep as a pie, and filled with supreme pizza goodness and topped with sauce and cheese. One piece was definitely enough to fill me up!

Ends up that I came on the right weekend, because Saturday night was Justin and Emily's annual Christmas fondue party. My favorite parts were the veggie kebabs that we dipped in tempura batter and then fried in oil and the marshmallows covered in Oreo cookie crumbs and then dipped in melted chocolate.

Sunday afternoon, Justin and Emily took me on the train into town to go to my hotel. We hung out on the Chicago's Magnificent Mile and journeyed down to Navy Pier (despite the rather brisk wind). We went up to the top of the Hancock building for drinks and a great view of the city. We went to lunch at a great bar with a Beatles cover band and terrific hamburgers (I miss good hamburgers when I'm in England). I did a little shopping on the Magnificent Mile (mostly at Borders because it was the only place I could afford) before settling to prepare for the interview.

My interview was downtown the next morning. The interview was actually three seperate interviews so I was in the offices for over three hours. My friend, Peter, was actually interviewing the same morning. After the intense morning, we grabbed sandwiches for lunch and went to see some more Chicago sites, including the giant bean in Millenium Park. My time in Chicago was fairly short but I had a great time! Jake and I will have to come back for more sight-seeing and family visiting sometime soon.

2006-12-30T21:53:00.000Z

Back in the States

Research

I flew back to the United States at the beginning of December. I spent two weeks in Washington, D.C. conducting research for my master's thesis before I went home for Christmas and New Year's Day. My master's thesis examines the development of American bureaucracy in the nineteenth century through a case study of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Modern bureaucracy is widely studied in political science but very few of the theories are applied to early American political development. My thesis applies a particularly popular theory of bureaucracy, new institutional economics, to nineteenth century bureaucary. I am studying three time period in the development of the bureau - the creation, the shift of from the War Department to Interior, and the proposed shift back to the War Department.

The conventional wisdom is that bureaucratic politics did not exist in the nineteenth century; bureaucracy was simply an extension of partisan politics – a product of patronage, corruption, and limited powers and funding. Nineteenth century American politics may appear different from the modern bureaucracies to which the new institutional economics is normally applied. However, there is also the potential to find similar phenomena occurring in the political arena. By taking a most difficult case, the theory will be challenged. What is left standing will be a strengthened and more precise formulation of structural politics. Additionally, the comparison of nineteenth and twentieth century politics sheds light on what really is different and can point us toward the causes of the difference.

Much of the original research for my thesis is being done in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. I have spent time looking at correspondence and reports from the Office of Indian Affairs, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of Interior, and the Treasury Department. I have also gone through committee papers and Congressional records. While much of the material has been put on microfilm, I look through many of the original documents that relate to Congress which allows me to thumb through old letters, notes, and documents in the reading room at the Archives downtown.

2006-11-27T21:02:00.000Z

Wales with Friends!

For Thanksgiving, Jake and I traveled to Wales to meet our friends, Lisa and Jeremy. We met them in Laugharne where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death and where Jeremy and Lisa had rented a three-bedroom cabin overlooking the sea for a week. We joined them on Thanksgiving night and they had prepared a Thanksgiving meal for us with what they could find at the local convenience store - a roast chicken, potatoes and gravy, peas, rolls, and an apple and blackcurrant pie from the local bakery. We brought a bottle of our Moldovan wine for the dinner. It was a Cabernet from the 1980s that Dave's host mom snuck to us at the Mileştii Mici winery.

The next day we drove from Laugharne to Pembroke along a coastal road. We stopped in Pendine first. Pendine Sands was where the land-speed record was broken in February 1927 with a speed of 174mph. In March 1927, a man died while trying to beat the record. We climbed a big hill by the shore that Lisa and Jeremy had climber earlier in the week. We watched a tractor move along the sand and then back up into the ocean. We think he was waiting for the tide to go far enough out to rake clams but we're not sure.

We continued along our coastal road, stopping for a few moments to walk through tunnels in the cliffs along the beach. After a short walk through the caves, we continued in our trusty Vauxhall.

We visited the coastal town of Tenby next. Tenby is a resort town that also provides ferry access to an island monastery. We walked through the old city wall, past the pastel Victorian houses, and then out to the beach. On the beach, we found lots of small, blue, mysterious sea creatures. We don't know what they are but we would love some help! The little creatures are about as long as an index finger and have lots of little feelers on one side and a fin/rudder on the other side. After our walk on the beach, we decided to take a break in a pub to warm up. We tried to buy a Welsh beer but the bar didn't have any and the bartender didn't know where would.

After our beer we proceeded along the coastal road on our way to Pembroke. Jeremy and Ruth Anne convinced Jake and Lisa that we should investigate the Danger Zone on the map. So we made a small detour toward Stackpole down a long narrow road. Jeremy went exploring and we found a terrific view at the edge of the cliff.

Our last stop on the trip was Pembroke. We decided to visit the Pembroke Castle. The first structures in the castle were built in the 11th century. Significant additions were made in the 13th and 16th centuries. The castle was restored starting in the 1880s. The castle had many important residents including Henry VII. We were able to climb up the castle keep (where valuable were kept), down into a storage cavern that had been used since the iron ages, and saw the dungeon. There were several historical displays throughout the museum on life during the time of Henry VII. We finished just as it started to rain in Pembroke. We stopped at a pub for some Welsh beer and then made a late, late lunch/snack at a fish and chip shop before our trip back to Laugharne. After a little downtime, we explored more Welsh beer and ate some pub grub before falling soundly asleep.

Saturday was more relaxed as we made our way back to Oxford. We stopped in Brecon for the town's Christmas fayre. We watched every age of children sing carols in English and Welsh and a band play Christmas songs. We shopped through all of the different Christmas food and drink as well as local handicrafts. Jeremy had been eyeing an old Welsh Bible in Laugharne but we had to leave before the bookstore opened. We found him an 1890s Welsh New Testament in a Brecon used bookshop and I picked up a guide to Oxford from the 1940s. Our trip back took us through Welsh national parks, the Brecon Beacons, and the Cotswolds. Once we were back in Oxford, we were treated to a terrific Southern meal - fried chicken, potatoes, gravy, green beans, and biscuits - made by Jeremy's roommates. I even found time to make a sweet potato pie to complete the deal.

We had a wonderful time over Thanksgiving and spending time traveling with our friends was a reminder of what Thanksgiving is all about - spending quality time with people you care about. The best thing about the Rhodes scholarship is how the time has been enhanced by some very close friendships! It was especially sad (for us and Jeremy) to see Lisa leave to go back to finish up her med school term at Emory.

2006-10-26T20:47:00.000+01:00

Mobile Adventures and Good Food

Several weeks ago, Jake and I were cycling home at night and someone tried to call me. Feeling very dextrous on my bike, I decided to get my phone out of my zipped coat pocket and answer it while riding. I was able to get the phone out and even hit the answer button. But Jake, who was ahead of me, decided to stop to see what was going on. When I hit my brakes to slow down for him, the phone popped out of my hand, bounced once on the bridge we were riding over, and then splashed into the river and promptly sunk to the bottom. Luckily for us, I had answered the phone so the screen had lit up and our phone was glowing about two feet below the river's surface. Brave and daring Jake waded in for the phone and rescued it.
Of course, this occurred about a month after Jake had convinced me to discontinue our 10GBP a month phone insurance. The phone was so waterlogged that we were pretty sure it would never work again. I immediately took out the battery. When we got home, Jake disassembled the phone and tried to dry it out with compressed air. We then placed the phone in front of a fan to try to get everything dry. Unfortunately, when Jake put the phone back together not all of the main buttons worked and almost all of the internal keyboard was on the fritz. So then Jake pulled all of the buttons off to dry the contact plate and buff all the burn marks from when the phone shorted out. Luckily, I married someone so handy because after all this work my phone works like new!
Mostly we've been busy working, studying, running to classes, trying to find time for the gym, and attempting to see our friends who have been gone all summer. The highlight of the week, however, relates to food (I'm sure my family is not surprised). Box schemes are a big deal in England. These are boxes of vegetables with additional fruit if you like that are delivered to you weekly. Almost all of the box schemes that I've run across in the Oxford area are also all organic. After my friends who live in Marston (Beth, Marissa, Rachel, and Becca) got one last week, I decided I had to try it out. I got my first box of vegetables and bag of fruit from Riverford Organics today. I received a lovely box full of carrots, potatoes, onions, mushrooms, swiss chard, fall squash, pears, apples, and oranges.
We made a very yummy supper with our new supplies. From a Gourmet magazine I picked up in the Dulles airport, we had sausages with a caramelized pear and shallot reduction with roasted rosemary potatoes and carrots. The sausages came from our local specialty sausage shop, David John's, in the Covered Market. What a good way to end a day of running around (or more accurately, biking around)!

2006-10-05T14:15:00.000+01:00

Quick Notes

1. My aunt Melanie and uncle Mike are coming to visit for the next several days. We've got lots of Oxford adventures and a road-trip to Bath planned. Maybe we'll also get some stories from the rest of their travels through Ireland, Wales, and the Cotswolds.
2. Jake got promoted! Jake was notified last week that he had been promoted to basically running the greenhouses - which means almost double hours and a higher pay scale. Jake is also taking the test to get certified to spray in the UK. The only thing he's nervous about is out-thinking the test. Jake is also very busy as the official mechanic for Ferry Trade Cycles run by our friend, Tafadzwa, and for all of our friends who have come back from holiday to realize their bikes are still in crummy shape. Finally, American football has started back up. Jake is the offensive and defensive line coach. First practice Jake had them practicing walking.
3. I just returned from Nice on a program run by McKinsey to introduce non-business majors to the world of management consulting. As you may remember, I applied to McKinsey last year for a summer position. Coming in as a skeptic, I must say that they did their job in reconvincing me to consider the opportunity. Now I just have to make some decisions like Do I want a doctorate or work experience? Would working for McKinsey help me gain skills that I might need if Jake and I start our own business? Should I jump into something to help my communication and problem solving skills which have drastically declined since high school debate? Is it really as exciting as they make it out to be? On another note, I'm about to finally start classes again. I'm taking to elective courses this term - Politics of the USA and Theory of Voting.

More updates, pictures, and stories to come!

2006-09-26T19:49:00.000+01:00

Hadrian's Wall & Newcastle

One of the main things that Kirk wanted to see while they were in England was Hadrian's Wall. The wall was built by the Romans to mark the end of their territory and presumably to keep out those Scottish barbarians in AD122. There is now a county road and walking trail along much of the 84 miles that the wall runs (from coast to coast). We stopped and saw the point where you could see a section of the wall with both a newer thick portion and the old smaller wall. Several miles later, we stopped at one of the main forts that was built to house troops. The Corbridge site has the most extensive original remains on the trail. The fort even had a large bath with hot, cold, and warm rooms which were heated by fires under the floor.

In the evening, we found a bed and breakfast to stay at in a northern section of Newcastle, right along the beach. We had envisioned a quiet, quaint neighborhood but instead we ended up in the party area. There were over 25 bars in our two block area. Needless to say, we had no trouble having an exciting time in the evening. The only downside was that I managed to leave my wallet (with everything - money, credit cards, IDs, coffee punch cards) in the last bar we went to. But Newcastle will always be a great place in my mind, because the bartender found the wallet almost immediately when cleaning the table and called me the next morning and returned it intact! Oh so lucky...

The next morning, we had a wonderful full English breakfast and then headed to the local abbey and castle. The site is right at the mouth of the river and during the Napoleonic and First World War was used as a British military fortification. The juxtaposition of ancient tombstones and architecture with more recent usages reminded me of visiting the Edinburgh castle last December. We then travelled downtown to see the rest of Newcastle's sights including the ground-breaking foot bridge, a bridge by the same architects as the famous Sydney bridge, and the new concert hall. The image on the right shows the mechanism that tilts the new foot bridge when boats come through on the river. Of course, the guys can't help but investigate the engineering behind the bridge. We walked through the enormous glass and steel concert hall and down the outside river market before a quick snack at a pub.

Then it was on the road again. More stories from York, Blenheim Palace, and London to come!

2006-09-22T13:25:00.000+01:00

The Hodson's Holiday in England

On September 6, I landed at Heathrow airport returning from a two week trip to Washington, D.C. to conduct archival research for my thesis. At almost the same time, Kirk and Peggy landed at Gatwick airport at the beginning of their trip to see Jake and I as well as a little bit of England. Kirk and Peggy drove to our house to meet up with us. In the afternoon, we took them into Rhodes House where they would spend two nights. Since we were in the area, we checked out Rhodes House and gardens, the Plant Science department, and the Turf pub. Then, We left them to settle in and when we returned to our house, the mobile phone had 28 missed calls. Apparently in the time we were away, Jake's cousin, Jay Reed, wasn't allowed to board his flight to India at his connecting airport, Heathrow. So, Jay's employer and all of our mutual friend, Ian Desai, sent him to Oxford to find us. Unbeknownst to us, Jay was sitting in the Merton graduate housing at that moment. After we finally tracked him down, I picked up Jay and we all went to meet Kirk and Peggy for a pub meal at the Eagle and Child, the Inklings haunt. After bangers & mash, fish & chips, and surprise Kansas reunion, we sent Kirk and Peggy back to Rhodes House and took Jay back to our house to spend the night before trying to catch another plane to India the next day.
Thursday and Friday were spent hanging out in Oxford. We went to the covered market for lunch and shopping, several of the college grounds, and of course to Merton for our world famous lunch, tower climb, and Jake's informative and entertaining tour. The Hodson's and Jake even managed to sneak into the Oxford castle. We also introduced them to the joys of British pubs - the Turf, our old hang-out The Fir Tree, the Trout for dinner, and many more! We even weaned Peggy off Corona's in favor of Stella and Carling.
The weekend was spent seeing Hadrian's Wall, Newcastle, and York. Pictures and stories to come soon!

2006-09-15T16:49:00.000+01:00

Hello again! We've been out of regular internet access for about a month. Yesterday after many long conversations with BT we finally got internet. So that means it's time to catch up on blogging. Over a month ago, we went to the Mendip Hills to see Ebbor Gorge, Cheddar Gorge and the Wookey Hole. I only got to post about one of our days before the internet was gone. Here's a quick wrap-up of the final day:
We camped out in the Mendip Hills looking out over the countryside. We got up early and headed to the Wookey Hole to see the caves and, of course, the Witch of Wookey Hole! The caves are an amazing complex of around 18 chambers. Many of those chambers are underwater and have only been discovered by cave divers. We got to go in over 5 of the chambers each of which had magnificent rock structures and towering ceilings. The Wookey Hole is most famous for its witch. The story goes that during the Dark Ages a witch lived in the cave with her dog. The locals in Wookey wanted to get rid of the witch so they called the Abbot of Glastonbury to run her off. The abbot found her in the first chamber and chased her into a lower cave. She hid in the dark. As he fumbled around, he found the large underground lake. Being a holy man, he blessed the lake with his staff and began flinging the holy water around the cavern. Suddenly, he heard a hideous scream and he had turned the witch and her dog to stone with the holy water. We could see the visage of the witch in a stone as well as her little dog. The caves are pretty incredible although the tour is geared towards young children. There were plenty of sound effects and colored lights. The strangest part of the tour was the outside of the caves. The park has tacked on all kinds of additional attractions to keep people around including a fairy garden, enormous dinosaur and King Kong models, a nerf ball room, penny arcade, and a tour of the old paper mill that was the major industry at the turn of the century.

Up next - the Hodson's in the England and a DC review

2006-08-15T11:40:00.000+01:00

Ebbor Gorge

We arrived in the Mendip Hills in the late afternoon and headed first for the town of Wookey where the Wookey Hole was located. The Hole was closed for the afternoon but we stopped to stretch and plan our next adventure. Just several miles from the Wookey Hole was Ebbor Gorge. The Gorge was portrayed in our tour book as a wilder alternative to the Cheddar Gorge slightly further down the road. Taking some a single-track road up a hill (slightly scary) led us to a parking and picnicking area with access to hiking trails. We had come to see the Gorge so we chose the Gorge Scramble which was to take us into and through the Gorge with some warnings about slippery stones, steep trails, and footwear requirements. The trail started with a steep decline on a nice staired footpath. Once we got to the bottom we hiked a little further to the base of the gorge. The path was set up so we not only walked into the gorge but we climbed out via a small path through the rocks where water trickles down to the bottom of the gorge. This was a steep ascent on uneven stones. At the top we were able to look down into the gorge and across the countryside. Getting back to our car required climbing down the other side of the gorge hill and then climbing up the hill to our car. While the trail was only several kilometers all of the climbing left us pretty worn out!

Looking up into the gorge

Tafadzwa taking a break

Jake climbing up the gorge

Jake at the top

Jake and Ruth at the top

At the end!

2006-08-13T10:39:00.000+01:00

Hodson

After a frantic morning of cleaning, packing, moving, and cinnamon roll baking, we started our road trip last Saturday around noon. We picked up our friends, Meghan and Tafadzwa, and went to the supermarket before hitting the road for our first destination: Hodson. Jake had found the little town of Hodson on our map and it happened to be only a few miles off of our planned route. Hodson is actually a beautiful quaint village tucked into a forest on top of a hill. There is a nice cozy pub with large outside beer garden where we enjoyed a pint before making a picnic lunch on the side of the road. We hit the major highways heading for Bristol and then south to Wells. Cheddar, and Glastonbury.

Stay tuned for more stories and pictures. If you want a different perspective on the trip, check out Meghan's account.

2006-08-09T16:42:00.000+01:00

Moving!

Jake and I moved into a new place last Friday. We rented a car in order to move all of our stuff. We did lots of moving and cleaning on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and for 32 hours in the middle we took a road trip with two of our friends.
Our new place is a converted carriage house on a farm on the outskirts of town. We now have two bedrooms (one of which will be an office), a living room (with a couch!!), a large kitchen(with a washing machine!!!), bathroom (with medicine cabinet!!!), a garage, and insulated attic. We have cows in a pasture right outside of our window as well. Our bike trip to work takes less than thirty minutes with only one big hill each way. Hopefully our friends will continue to visit us even when they have a long bike or bus ride!

2006-08-01T20:32:00.000+01:00

Beer and Bikes

This weekend Jake and I rode our bikes out about four miles to the village of Islip. The Swan Pub in the village was having a beer festival and barbecue. The pub had a great little event hall in the back where the different guest ales were held at. There were ten different real ales on tap as well as two different ciders. While the beer wasn't incredible deal, there was a good selection of summer beers. We tried half pints of seven of the different beers and had some barbecue before we headed back home. We even got to meet the friendly pub cat. We're planning to return some Monday night for steak night - two steak dinners with all the fixings (onion rings, grilled tomatoes, and mushrooms) for 10GBP.

The weekend was pretty quiet otherwise. We've been packing to move to our new flat that's out in around Headington. We're excited to move but a little sad about having to leave our very affordable and centrally located college housing. We're renting a car to move and then plan on taking a weekend trip to the Wookey Hole, Cheddar Gorge, and maybe Glastonbury.

I've been spending my mornings at the OED and my afternoons working on my thesis research. The thesis research is going to be taking me to Washington D.C. at the end of the month to go through BIA files from the 1800s. Jake's excited about the Tour of Britain, a professional cycling race that he's hoping to go watch a stage of.

2006-07-21T21:22:00.000+01:00

France Wrap-Up

We got up fairly early on Monday morning so we figured that we could drive back to Paris on a very leisurely route. We drove along the Brittany coast and countryside and then into the Loire valley where the vineyards were abundant. We ended up on the scenic route which took us several hundred kilometers right along the Loire River, across fantastic bridges and by interesting parks. A little after 3, we realized that we were over 2 hours from Paris on the interstate and who knows how long on our scenic route. Because we were supposed to be back to the car rental agency by 6 we hit the interstate and coughed up another 20 euros. We got to our hostel downtown which had a private room and then made another picnic supper. The best part was dessert which were pudding cups from the supermarket. They tasted just like homemade cocoa pudding and were even in small glass jars.
Jake tried to convince me that we were really close to the Eiffel Tower. Having walked in Paris before, I was quick to point out that we were probably at least 2-3 miles away. So instead we decided to walk to the Notre Dame Cathedral. Lucky, since it was well over a mile away from our hostel. The river was peaceful and romantic at night. We saw some kids who had put up their tent in a little patch of grass near the river so maybe we could have saved ourselves 70 euros. There were amateur fire-jugglers outside the cathedral and they entertained us for a while.
The next day we spent almost entirely on the bus. It was miserable. Especially, the two hours where we moved less than a half mile outside of London. I have never been so ready to get off of a bus. The one highlight was getting to see the ocean and the white cliffs of Dover on the ferry.

2006-07-20T19:56:00.000+01:00

The Brittany Beaches

After the race finished on Sunday, Jake and I decided to see some of the coast since we were within 20 miles of the ocean. It was a sunny afternoon and everyone was enjoying a little time on the water before the World Cup game in the evening. We even ran into a World Cup pre-parade. The highway took us right along the water for much of the drive. We decided to head down a long peninsula with one highway towards Quiberon. Along the side of the highway were beautiful white beaches with surfers, swimmers, and families. We even saw one guy on a surf board who was moving across the water using a giant kite.

We decided to keep driving along the coast because it was still late afternoon. Unfortunately, the other beaches that we saw were not as beautiful. We had planned on camping by the ocean but all the campgrounds we found were off the coast and were packed full of RVs and tents in a fenced in area. Not incredibly appealing. We remembered that there were public campgrounds back on the Quiberon peninsula so we headed back to the first beach. The public camping was just like the previous campgrounds we had seen but through a park ranger who spoke terrific English, we found out that we could camp anywhere on the beach for free but that it just wasn't as safe, or as she told Jake, "You could get raped." We decided to risk it and headed across the road to the beach. We had another picnic with wine on the beach. Because of the importance of the port, there was also military fortification along the beach. It appears that Germany controlled the area until after D-Day. We took a walk to see the fortification and then just strolled on the beach.

One of the old underground bunkers

We found a dead jellyfish.

We watched the sunset which didn't occur till almost 10pm.

We put our tent right on the beach about 10 feet from high tide. The waves were loud but bearable at 11pm when we're going to sleep but at about 3am when the tide was at its highest it sounded like the ocean was surrounding us. The night was otherwise quiet except for one fisher and some early morning surfers. The worst part about the whole night is that we had put our tent up on a slope and the sand kept sliding out from underneath us until we were sleeping at what seemed a fairly steep angle. Next time we'll work a little harder to level off a camp site.

2006-07-17T13:59:00.000+01:00

The Final Stage of Our Trip

During our night of camping on the soccer field, it rained. Luckily, we had put our tent on a thick mat of grass. We wandered around the little village for a little bit but most of the morning was spent sitting in the car and reading our books while it rained. Around noon, we had a quick lunch of sandwiches, chips, and wine before heading up the hill to watch the day's stage. Right as we were leaving the car, the sun came out and stayed out for the rest of the afternoon.

We found a terrific place to watch at the top of a long climb. After around an hour of waiting, the caravan of sponsors began. Apparently we should have been on the other side if we wanted lots of free stuff because there were less spectators on that side. Most of the free stuff I got required some knowledge of French - a newspaper, two comic books, and a magazine on French cyclists. While we were waiting, El Diablo made his way down the hill to talk to the spectators. El Diablo was in a soccer mood because of the evening's World Cup game.

Not much after the caravan finished, there was a group of motorcycles heading up the hill. It wasn't until the group reached us that we realized that there was a cyclist in the midst. Sylvain Calzati, a Frenchman, was able to stay ahead of the pelaton and won the stage by over 2 minutes ahead of the rest of the racers. There was a second break-away group that included American, Dave Zabriskie, that was slowly being chased down by the pelaton. And then the pelaton climbed the hill. Unlike the individual cyclists, the cyclists in the pelaton looked as if they were putting out virtually no effort and just moving forward like one large snake. Because we had chosen a hill, we got to see the pelaton for a little longer than we had at the final sprint. After the pelaton went by, we noticed a Discovery Channel water bottle on the other side of the road. Unfortunately, so did a Frenchman on that side and when the final team cars passed, he scrambled out and took the bottle. Jake was pretty sad that he didn't get the bottle. We hiked back down the hill to a little bar to watch the end of the stage on a TV. I attempted to order Jake and I beers but somehow we got Bailey's on ice. Very strange.

2006-07-16T12:14:00.000+01:00

The Cyclism

We woke up on Saturday morning in our little car and had our breakfast of bread, peanut butter, and dry granola. The walk to the course wasn't far and along the way we found the hotel where the Quickstep and Gerolsteiner teams were staying. We got to see the mechanics getting the time trial bikes ready for the day. The first bike in front of the Quickstep trailer is Tom Boonen's TT bike, the man wearing the yellow jersey that day. We felt the limitations of speaking virtually no French because all the other onlookers were talking and joking with the mechanics. Right before the start we saw El Diablo's van. El Diablo follows the race every year and is most memorable in the mountain stages when he runs along side the riders in his red devil suit with his pitchfork.
We made it to the time trial beginning almost two hours early. We found a place to watch that was 100 meters from the starting line. We arrived at about the time the caravan started. Again, everyone was very excited for the cheap, free stuff that the caravan throws out to the crowds. Rather amusingly, when the caravans stopped around an hour before the race start quite a few of the French also left. Jake and I were able to move closer to the start at that point. We watched an hour worth of starts. We actually watched quite a few starts during this period because there was a start every two minutes. We were hoping to see one of the Discovery riders start but apparently they were high enough in the general classification to be later in the day.

We decided to leave the start fairly early because we knew that it was a decent walk to the finish line. All of the teams had warm-up areas set up behind the start line. We watched several riders warming up. Unfortunately, the Discovery Channel team had their riders much more isolated than the rest of the teams and all we could see were the mechanics and a rider getting into the bus. If we had VIP passes, we could have walked into the warm-up areas and chatted with the different teams.

The walk to the finish line was quite a bit longer than we had anticipated. After walking close to a mile, we found the course heading into town and we were right at the 4 km point. We decided to walk along the course, because we knew that it would eventually lead us to the end. We stopped every several minutes to cheer a rider heading toward the finish or encourage a rider who was about to pass the rider who started before him.

We finally made it to the finish line and immediately started looking for some Porta-Potties. When we found them, we just had to laugh. The toilets were in a trailer that also contained showers (which were being used) and the men's urinal was just a large green stand outside.

We were at the finish line with everyone else. We couldn't get right up against the barriers but we were able to see the jumbo-tron and since we were on the curb we could see over the heads of the French to watch the cyclists ride in. The saddest part of the day was when Bobby Julich, an American rider for CSC, crashed on a turn at the start of the race and broke his wrist. He was unable to get back on and had to drop out of the race. The finish was pretty exciting. We got to see strong performances by Floyd Landis, Dave Zabriskie, and almost the entire T-Mobile team. Unfortunately, Discovery Channel's team leader, George Hincapie, had a very disappointing ride.

After the the last riders, Tom Boonen and Robbie McEwen, hit the finish, we immediately started back toward our car. We knew the 5 km walk wouldn't be short and we needed to get groceries and scope out the next day's course. We were so thirsty after walking back to the car so it was fortunate that we found a hypermarche right on our way to Lorient. The French seem to love giant grocery stores. The grocery store was similar to a Super Wal-Mart but it was in a mall like complex that had lots of other little shops, a gas station, and huge parking lot. We stocked up on lots of water, wine, bread, meat, cheese, and mustard. All the essentials.

We hit the route a little outside of Lorient and started driving it backwards. We found a hill with a 5% grade which seemed like a good place to watch. Unfortunately, El Diablo had the only decent parking space on the hill. We descended into the city and found a parking lots set up for campers with a soccer field behind where we set up our tent. The town was having a carnival because the Tour was coming to town so fell asleep to a fireworks show lighting up the night sky.

2006-07-13T21:13:00.000+01:00

Following the Tour de France

On Thursday, the 6th of July, Jake and I travelled to London to catch an overnight bus to Paris. We immediately got a taste of what travelling in France would be like since our bus driver only spoke French and left us confused most of the time. The bus took the ferry between Dover and France so we got to see the white cliffs of Dover at night. We all had to get off the bus when it was in the boat hold. We spent an hour and a half on the boat and around 8 hours. When we arrived in Paris, it was off to the car rental agency to pick up our very small Citroen which we chose for its affordability and the fact that it got 68 mpg. We named the car Francois and he served us well for the 1100 kms that we drove across France.

We immediately started driving towards the final city of Stage 6, Vitre. In Vitre, we found a parking spot near city centre and walked in to meet up with the course. We walked around 2 kms to make it to the finish line and stood at the 150 m mark. We got there in time to see the sponsors' caravan roll into town. The sponsors all have vehicles that travel the entire course an hour ahead of the riders. Lots of the sponsors give out free stuff to the crowds - lots of hats, inflatable noise makers, newspapers, pens, food, and even coffee beans. The French love the free stuff, especially the old men who pushed their way to the front everytime another free stuff came our way.

We were able to stand so we could watch the jumbotron which showed the riders' journey into Vitre. The pelaton roared into town and blurred by us. Robbie McEwen broke away from the sprint for the win. We rushed to the winners' podium to watch the winners' jerseys handed out. We could barely see and Jake had to hold me up to watch the green jersey presentation. After the race ends, the crews are immediately taking apart the course in order to transport it to the next location.

Immediately after a quick snack in the car, we were off to Rennes to drive the next day's course. We had a hard time finding the course in town because our map didn't have terrific in town street locations. We finally found both the beginning and the end. There was a business park near the beginning line where we decided to park the car and spend the night. It rained all night and luckily no one came to kick us out of the parking lot!

2006-07-12T08:28:00.000+01:00

We're Back!

After 13 hours travelling yesterday, we're finally home. I'll post more later but here is the Tour in a nutshell:

1. We saw a lots of cyclists

2. We camped in some interesting places

3. And we ate lots of picnic meals out of our rental car

2006-07-06T13:29:00.000+01:00

Le Tour de France

Jake and I are leaving this afternoon for Paris, France. We will be renting a car and following the Tour de France for three days. During this time, the Tour is in the Brittany region of France so we'll see some beautiful countryside and seashores. We'll post more stories from the French family visit and our French adventures when we return on Tuesday night. I also figured out how to upload more pics to my previous post even though Blogger was acting up so check out more animals and family pics.

2006-07-05T21:27:00.000+01:00

The French Family Visits Great Britain!

Two weeks ago right after I finished my exams, my parents and brother arrived in England for two weeks of traveling and hanging out.

There were good times:

There were bad times:

But hopefully they want to come back for more! I haven't been particularly prompt with posting and now that I've started I've decided to give recaps in no particular order. So first to the Royal Highland Show in Scotland!

After staying in Oxford for several days, it was off to Edinburgh, Scotland, to see the Royal Highland Show, an annual agricultural show. Just like the state fair, the trade show was right at the entrance and we discussed combines and hay forks with a salesman from Claas. He told us about his son's job custom cutting in Australia and his agricultural tourism trips to the States. We made our way to the International Visitors Center. Mom had registered us as international visitors which entitled us to a seating in a room overlooking the show grounds, tea and coffee, pastries, lots of free stuff, and access to the Member's Only pavilion.

We stopped along the way to watch a demonstration by the Welsh lumberjacks who compete internationally and the forging competition. We all made friends with the animals in the barns and got to watch the Clydesdales getting groomed for their show. I found the most interesting food vendor for lunch - porridge with all kinds of add ons. I went for porridge with whiskey and honey. Sticks to the bones! In the afternoon, the boys watched falconry, retrieving dogs, and a Land Rover 4X4 exhibition. Mom and I hit up the food tent and learned about Scotland's push for local and seasonal foods. We tasted lots of samples including whiskey, cheese, chutneys, strawberries, oat cakes, and beer. The best part was sitting on the front row of a cooking demonstration of a chef stressing local, seasonal food because we got to taste all of his dishes! We were exhausted by the end of the day but the show was well worth the trip.

The forging competition

Pssst...Mom...I don't think it's a real cow...

Me and a very cute Highland calf

Dad with a Highland bull

A Belgian Blue butt, bred to be double muscled

2006-06-25T08:39:00.000+01:00

The French Family Comes to England

(posted by guest blogger, LJF)

Andrew, Lisa and Jim arrived in Oxford exactly a week ago. We are wishing that we brought pedometers because we have racked up the miles walking in Oxford, Edinburgh, and the Yorkshire Dales. I don't think we are losing any weight with the increased activity however because we are making up for it with pub stops to try another sausage, meat pie, or fish and chips all washed down with a pint of ale.

We have seen a zillion cobblestones and old buildings

- in fact, the word "old" is almost useless here since nearly everything is old - older than most anything in my daily life in Kansas. You start using words like "ancient", "medieval", "12th century", etc. Our great tour guides (Ruth, Jake, Chauncey, Peter Warren, and Peter from Blackstones) have regaled us with stories to go with the buildings and the cobblestones.

Along with the history we have also enjoyed checking out some of the more mundane aspects of Oxford life such as stopping at Tescos to see what a British grocery store is like. (Lots of really delicious cheese and chocolate, crowds of people with fewer items, credit cards that have a chip instead of our swipe, and many odd ball items such as meat flavored potato chips. Anyone for "prawn cocktail crisps" or "Lamb and Mint crisps"?)

Wednesday we rented a car and drove to Edinburgh. Contrary to my firm belief that we would all die before the designated drivers adjusted to driving on the left and entering clockwise roundabouts, we arrived with nary a scratch on the Opel Vectra wagon. (Jim said, "But you know, I keep worrying about this ghost car on the right that I'm accounting for." Indeed the people sitting on the left side of the car were doing a lot of hollering until he got the feel for the proper amount of space needed when turning into a parking lot - I mean a car park.) Opal, as we came to call the car, was a great traveling companion since she came equipped with GPS. We could program in an address or street and she would cheerfully announce each turn and upcoming round about. (Except the time when Jim missed the proper turn and she rather sternly asked him to "Please make a U-turn if possible".)

Edinburgh cannot be described so I will not try. You will all need to go there and see it for yourselves. Ruth Anne and Jake will become expert tour guides there as well. Highlights for us - the Halfway House pub that is halfway up a narrow alley staircase, the Royal Highland Show, the unexpected parade of one of the last seven Scottish regiments along Princes Street to the castle, our bed and breakfast with a full Scottish breakfast including haggis, tomatoes, porridge, rasher bacon, sausages, baked beans, mushrooms, and Scottish cheddar.

Friday night and Saturday we were in the Yorkshire Dales - Skipton, Giggleswick, and Malham. We hiked and ate and watched the narrow boats. And saw old stuff. Much like the earlier part of the week but different.

(Guest blogger - JMF)

Before returning to Oxford on Saturday, we tested Ruth Anne's nickname -- the "little mountain goat." Sure enough, we found the appelation true to her genetics. Starting at the small Dale's village of Malham, Ruth Anne, Jake, Lisa, and Jim (Andrew was taking some time to sleep off a bad cold) marched up the trail to a series of sites. Going first through a series of smallish sheep and cattle paddocks bordered by rock fences, we followed a stream valley up into the high land.

Along the walk we noted the plastic sheeted round bales of harvested grass for winter feeding. These usually sat beside very old, but very functional small stone barns with slate roofs. One of the barns displayed the date 1775. Jake and I remarked on the straightness of the walls and the lack of overall deterioration. The building looked as if it could easily go another couple of centuries.

After the paddocks, the valley was wooded and we came to Janet's Foss, with water falling 30 or more feet into a clear pool. In earlier days, Dale shepherds would bring the flock to the pool for a June dipping before shearing started.

From the waterfall, we hiked up the valley to Gordale Scar, a large limestone gorge formed by glacial runoff along the Middle Craven Fault line. A series of falls moved through the gorge which was closely bordered by sheer granite walls. Jake and I scaled to the top of one of the scar falls -- feeling quite energetic until our eyes caught a slight woman scaling the rock face beside us. Using only bare hands and flexible climbing shoes to find slight indentions and cracks, she moved up and positioned pitons every ten feet or so to secure the safety ropes that her male partner on the ground managed. Most impressive was the fact that the rock face was not completely perpindicular -- in general it slanted inward toward the gorge.

From Malham we proceeded back south and west through rock fence bordered roads to Settle where we rewarded our days hike with pints of local ale and some tasty pub food. The highlights here at the Golden Lion, were Ruth Anne's slab of roast pork, Andrew's sausages, and Jim's Lincolnshire cheese salad with generous wedges of local white cheese, beets, crispy bacon and greens.

(For some reason, the blog is not accepting our photos. We'll try to add them later.)

2006-06-11T15:33:00.000+01:00

Rhodes Ball 2006

In May, Jake and I attended the Rhodes Charity Ball. The event, which was themed Alice in Wonderland, included pre-dinner drinks, a three course meal, a swing band, and DJ. And not to mention, the open bar!
Enjoy a taste of the evening through our pictures!

Due to the trouble the slideshow was causing on some people's computers, I've taken it off. I'll try to put up the pictures again later.

2006-06-03T17:47:00.000+01:00

A Very Busy Past Two Weeks

An update on three fronts: exams, thesis design, work

Exam
The Oxford system has frustrated me in the past several terms. I'm never sure what classes are available, how I should sign up for them, and most importantly how I am being assessed. I seem to muddle through with all of my American classmates. However, the last several weeks have been a nightmare even for Oxford standards.
For our program, one of the main measures of assessment (for continuation in the program and final degree) is a Qualifying Exam which covers three terms worth of material. We were told in the Notes of Guidance (the supposed last word for program requirements) that the test would take place in 7th or 8th week of this term. The Examination Regulations also indicate that students will receive five weeks notification of the date of the exam. Several weeks ago, 4th week rolled around and we still did not have a date for our examination. I was getting a little nervous since my family is coming to visit in 9th week. Sure enough, at the end of 4th week, we got notification from the department that our exam had been scheduled for the Wednesday of 9th week, the day I was planning on traveling to Edinburgh with my family. We quickly worked out travel arrangements in line with my exam. I was one of the lucky members of my class. I had classmates who paid as much as $450 to switch plane tickets which were scheduled for 9th week.
None of us were very pleased with the Department but on the bright side we would now have more time to study for an exam which was important considering the massive workload this term (I turned in three papers on Friday which totaled over 11,000 words, one of which was my thesis research design which is crucial for my standing in the program). All of this came crashing down six days later when the department let us know that the Proctor's had decided to move our exam forward nine days to fit within the date range originally given to us. At this point, all hell broke loose. People had rearranged their schedules and planned their studying based on the 9th week date. The notification of the exam week came with two and a half weeks before the test. This was far less than the preferred five week notification and even short of the three week emergency notification requirement.
Many letters of protest were sent to the Proctors by students in the masters in Politics. Then on Thursday, the latest development in the exam saga occurred. We were notified that we have a choice of two sittings: either Monday or Friday of 8th week. The resolution of the matter has eased my level of stress because I now have adequate preparation time and I can see my family when they get to England. However, the whole episode has made me very cynical about the procedural requirements in the University and department. The stress of not knowing and frustration over seemingly invisible forces has made this term in my program almost a nightmare!

Thesis
On Friday, I turned in a thesis design essay which lays out my proposed thesis topic and methodology for research. I am planning on studying the creation and development of the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1824 to 1949. I will be spending time in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., going through the records of the BIA, congressional committees, and relevant presidents. My thesis must be around 30,000 words which works out to close to 100 pages. I will only have two classes next year and the rest of the time will be spent researching and writing my thesis.

Work
Last term, I applied for a job as a research assistant at the Oxford English Dictionary at the Oxford University Press. Over the break, I was notified that I had made it through the first cut and was sent a test to take. The test covered what would be day to day activities at the dictionary. First, there was an entry for the verb, to key, and a list of quotations using the word. I had to identify which sense of the word corresponded with the quotation. For the quotations that did not fit a sense of the word, I had to write a dictionary definition. The second section of the test was a section of prose from which I was supposed to pick out verbs (and label as passive/active, transitive/intransitive), nouns, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions. I was then asked to make a guess of the setting of the passage and provide evidence from the passage. The third and final component of the test was to go through a section of 18th century literature and write up quotations with sources. I had a lot of fun working through the test because it was like a problem solving exercise.
As this term started, I was notified that I had been short-listed for an interview. I went to my interview right before I went to the States. The interview didn't go horribly but I went out of it thinking that I was not very well suited for the job. On one of the quote identifications from my take-home test, the interviewers asked me if I noticed anything wrong. I stared at it for thirty seconds then asked if I had picked the wrong sense to which they responded that the error was something more grammatical. I looked at it for what seemed an eternity and then a light turned on and I noticed that the quotation used key not as a verb but as a noun. I figured that automatically disqualified me even though I eventually figured it out.
However, the day I got back to Oxford from Kansas I got a call from the OED saying that I had got the job. I agreed to start working this week because I assumed I would have plenty of time since my exam would be in 9th week. That proved to be a faulty assumption. So I've worked every day this week except for Monday and really enjoy my job. I search online databases such as Lexis-Nexis, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, the London Times, and Literature Online for usages of a particular word. When I find quotations that are in a time period not yet represented in the dictionary, I key in the quotation along with the bibliographic information. My additions and notes then go to the editors who will decide what is used and published. So coming soon could my additions for such words as puppetism and puppet-mover! (I'm working on compounds of puppet right now.) I work 15 hours a work on a flexible schedule. There were three other assistants hired with me and we just coordinate for desk space.

2006-05-23T12:44:00.000+01:00

SURPRISE!

Sorry for the long delay in posts. I have been busy writing a thesis proposal, preparing for exams, and finishing assignments. But somehow in the midst of all this, I made it to the States to surprise my parents for their birthdays and respective parenting days.

I had got the flight because I am working for a international affairs journal. I was going to conduct an interview with a professor of constitutionalism at the University of Texas. So my flight was paid for by the organization and I got to spend the weekend in the Midwest. I flew to Kansas City on the 11th of May via Paris and Atlanta. I started the day by making it to the airport with a mere 45 minutes before my flight took off. I felt pretty lucky to get on the flight considering that the airline closed check-in 30 minutes before take off.

I arrived in Kansas City at 10:45 at night. But before I could go visit friends and family, I had a job to complete. Now my interview was in Austin, Texas, and I was in Kansas City, Missouri. Not only was this a long drive (around 750 miles) but I had to be there by 10:30am the next morning. I had called Andrew the previous weekend and convinced him that a road trip would be a great way to spend his stop day. He picked me up at the airport with a carafe of coffee and plenty of energy. And then we started driving. We took around three hour shifts that corresponded with states (Andrew drove Kansas and Texas while I drove through Oklahoma). When the sun began to rise on Friday morning, we were almost to the Oklahoma-Texas border. We hit Dallas-Fort Worth at the beginning of morning rush hour but we're pretty sure that we missed the worst of it in the morning. We were still cutting things close as we were approaching Austin. We ended up pulling into the parking garage at 10:30 and getting to the professor's office around five minutes late. The interview went well and should fit well into the journal's treatment of the role of courts and constitutions in mediating hate and conflict. Being in Texas, we decided that our best lunch option would be to look for a local Mexican restaurant. Professor Jacobsohn took us on a slightly wandering tour of campus and eventually to a great local restaurant, El Mercado. We enjoyed enchiladas with different sauces (green chili for Andrew and chipotle for me) and frozen margaritas for lunch. We enjoyed our lunch knowing that as soon as we were done it was back on the road to Kansas. We did drive through campus to see the law school which looks much more unique than the rest of campus.

Andrew changing in the parking lot - Oh look, a car!

Andrew was gracious enough to drive most of the night and to give me a little time to nap in Texas (I had slept just a couple hours in over 36 hours of being awake). So on the way back, I took the wheel for Texas and let Andrew have a nap. The traffic was constant immediately but at least it kept moving. But when we got close to Fort Worth, the traffic slowed to a crawl. It took us over an hour to make it around Fort Worth and get back up to speed. I let Andrew take over in Oklahoma and he drove the other half of the trip to Wichita.

We had arranged to meet Jake's mom in Wichita where she was spending the night in order to go to Lib's graduation the next day. After finally tracking Mary down in the bar, we caught up over cocktails and then up to the very nice beds at the Hyatt. We were up early the next morning to go meet my parents and grandmothers for breakfast at Carriage Crossing. Andrew had arranged to meet everyone for breakfast but we hadn't told them that I was going to be there. While mom claims she was slightly suspicious, dad and grandma French were positively stunned. We had a terrific breakfast and conversation.

After breakfast, I was off to my next family event: Jake's sister's graduation. Libertee graduated from Newman University with a bachelor's degree in counseling. I made it in time for almost all of the ceremony and got to see Lib walk across the stage. After graduation, Mark took us all to On the Border to celebrate. We had a great time celebrating with Lib and sharing all kinds of stories. Congratulations Libertee!

Mary and Lib

Kirk and Brad

After lunch, I did a little shopping. I enjoy shopping a little more in a place where my pound goes much farther. I met Jenilee for supper. We got to celebrate her graduation from grad school and her upcoming wedding. I was sad about having to miss both of those days so it was a thrill to get to come back and share a little time together. We met Jesse and Sara Lilyhorn afterwards and got to hear about their jobs and new house. I was exhausted by the end of the day!

After church the next day, Chris had graciously organized a BBQ for my family. We had some terrific food. I miss all the great Kansas home cooking and my family makes some of the best - pork roast, baked beans, salad, banana cake, chocolate cake, and some London inspired ginger and honey ice cream. I even got to talk to Cassie on the phone while there. Before heading back to Lawrence with Andrew, I stopped by Mary's house with mother's day greetings and gifts.

My brother and parents making salad

Jamie and Grandma Terrill on the garden tour

Andrew, my dad, and my aunt Susan

Mother and daughter

Andrew had finals on Monday so we left early and Andrew studied the entire way home. In my short time in Lawrence, I met up with several of my professors and ate at some of my favorite restaurants. We even enjoyed Free State beer before heading to the airport on Monday afternoon to put me on the plane. Andrew accompanied me almost the entire weekend and the trip could not have been pulled off without him. I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful, sweet, and reliable brother! It was terrific to get to catch up with him on our many drives and it made me really miss living in the same town as him. But I had to leave this time but maybe sometime in the future... On the way home, I had stops in Cincinnati and Paris before finally making it back to London after 11am the next morning. And now it's back to Oxford with plenty of work to keep me busy till my family comes to visit at the end of June.

2006-05-04T20:29:00.000+01:00

Transylvania in a Day

After two hours of sleep (and less for me since I didn't have a pillow), Jake and I decided to figure out how to get to Bran Castle which is supposedly Dracula's Castle. Jake had been talking about going to the castle ever since he realized that we were flying in and out of Romania. He thought that the Dracula stuff was pretty interesting so we HAD to go (kind of like we HAD to go to Transnistria). We got instructions from the staff which involved taking a bus from the square to one of the bus stations and then finding the bus to the Bran. This would have worked a little better if we would have gotten on the bus going the correct direction but instead we just got an extended tour of the town! After getting to the bus station, we realized that we might not have enough money so we wandered around trying to find a working ATM. We got back to the bus station just in time to catch the bus to Bran.
While we were riding on the bus, we had to keep asking the guy beside us if we were in Bran because the windows were dirty and foggy because of the rain. When we got to the castle, we walked down to the river to get a better view. We noticed a strange looking monument in the nearby mountain while we were crossing the river. It turned out to be the tomb of Queen Maria who had lived at Bran Castle in the early 1900s and who we would soon find out much more about while at the castle! We walked up to the castle and went through the tourist market that occupies much of the surrounding area. There were lots of peasant clothing, Dracula souvenirs, and other trinkets. It turns out that the tourist stands were about all of Dracula that we would see throughout the day.

Queen Maria's Tomb

We walked up a long set of stairs up to the castle. The castle had an incredible view of the city and surrounding countryside. The castle was mainly a history of the time when Queen Maria lived there. The rooms had been redone and furnished as they thought she had lived. Queen Maria loved to have pictures taken of her, her daughters, and their guests at the castle so there is ample evidence for this restoration. There was nothing inside about Dracula. From our own research, it appears that Dracula never lived in the castle but that he did terrorize the Transylvania area when he was looking for additional territory. The story of Dracula appears to have little backing and Romanians actually sometimes tell stories of Dracula as a vampire slayer. The castle itself had very interesting architecture and was built around an inside courtyard. We enjoyed the hidden staircases, great views, and interesting furnishings. After going through the castle, we walked around the surrounding area including through the forest, down by a man-made pond, and into a village showing different Transylvanian houses from the past. We also caught a woman going to the bathroom in a replica outdoor kiln which was pretty gross.

A dining area at the castle

Walking up the hidden staircase

Another dining area/sitting room

Looking into the courtyard

Looking down a set of stairs

Standing inside the courtyard

Looking at the castle from the courtyard

The old town wall

The secret ground floor door

It was early afternoon by this point so we went to find some lunch. We chose a hotel restaurant because we thought they might be friendly to English speaking tourists. Unfortunately, we picked a place where no one spoke any English and the menus were only in Romanian. We figured out enough of the menu to make a reasonable guess for lunch. I ended up with pork medallions topped with pork liver and then smothered in cheese with a side of potatoes and mamaliga. Jake had pork medallions on toast that were then covered with a tomato sauce. While we had no idea what we were getting except that it was pork, each meal turned out to be tasty and an introduction to Transylvanian food.

After lunch, we caught the bus back to Brasov and then the bus that took us to the hostel. We had a tourist map/guide to Brasov so we started in the old town part that was closest to our hostel. St. Nicholas Church was actually right at the base of the hill that our hostel was on. The church dates from at least the 13th century which makes it almost as old as things in Oxford. Next we saw sections of the town wall and gate. The oldest remaining section was built in the late 16th century but much of the wall has been updated due to damage and town modernization. Next we walked to two of the old lookout towers for the town: the Black and White Towers. The Black Tower is no longer black. It had been scorched by fire but has now been cleaned and topped with a glass roof. The views across the city were pretty spectacular but it was a little dizzying walking down the steps to street level. One of the main attractions in Brasov is the Black Cathedral which is the largest Gothic cathedral. It got its name from its fire blackened walls from a fire in 1689. Unfortunately, the cathedral was closed when we got to it so we had to settle for walking around the outside. Close by was the alleged narrowest street in Europe, Strada Sforii, which is around 3.64 feet wide. We're not exactly sure what makes something a street since this just looked like a passageway which we might see in England.

A synagogue in the historic section of town

Part of the town wall and one of the most used gates

The Black Tower

The White Tower

Looking down from the White Tower

Walking down the steps from the White Tower

The Black Church

Strada Sforii, the narrowest street in Europe

After seeing the historic sites, we walked down the main drag through lots of shops, restaurants, and bars. We decided to rest our feet at the very interestingly named Harley Saloon. We first walked in the bar side and tried to order the wonderful Silva Black that we had our first day in Romania and that we saw in the refrigerators behind the bar. We were informed that Peroni beer sponsored the bar so you could only buy Peroni beer on that side so we had to go into the restaurant to get our Silva. The restaurant also had one of the nicest toilet facilities that we saw on the trip. The women's restroom had toilet paper, the big/little flush that we have in England, automatic soap dispenser, and a hand dryer. Fancy schmancy!

We decided to take it easy in the evening so we headed back to our hostel and ordered pizza from a local pizza place. I ran out and got beer for the meal. The closest place to get beer ended up being almost 15 minutes away so Jake was a little worried that I got kidnapped by the Romanian mafia by the time that I finally got back. We relaxed for the rest of the evening and enjoyed the great view we had from our hostel.

2006-04-28T10:26:00.000+01:00

Our Last Day in Moldova

Friday was our last day in Moldova. I got up early and started trying to pack all our belonging. We only had one small bag between the two of us. We had a small knapsack but had accidentally left it at our hotel in Chisinau. Our belongings would have fit easily back in the bag except for the fact that we had acquired six bottles of wine to bring back to England with us. We headed out to the market to see if we could find some sort of bag to pack our overflow into. We bought a bag that everyone in Romania seems to have. These bags are woven with a plastic threads (kind of like baling twine) and are very sturdy but not especially fashionable (we called them baba bags).
We were heading to Brasov, Romania, in the evening and hadn't done any research about where to stay so we decided to try to track down internet access in Criuleni. We started at the internet cafe that had just opened up near Dave's apartment. Unfortunately, the internet was down at the internet cafe. There were lots of kids playing Grand Theft Auto at the computers. We then walked over to the Telecom Centre which had internet. The woman even switched the keyboard so we could type with the English letters and not the Russian or Romanian letters. All of the programs were in Russian but being Microsoft it was pretty easy to find the Internet Explorer. After quickly jotting down some hostel addresses, it was off for a quick walk before we were to meet with Dave for the opening of the town's new teen center.

This little dog sat in front of Dave's apartment building every day and every day Jake told him to go get a job

The teen center was a huge project for the area and was built in large part with funds from the Soros Foundation, UNICEF, and some matching government funding. A project this size doesn't occur very often in Moldova. Additionally, the presence of government funding in the project was also groundbreaking. Because so many organizations were involved in the creation of the center, there were lots of people at the opening and even a news crew from Chisinau. The opening began with Eastern Orthodox priests blessing the building and the director. We were all blessed with holy water which was sprinkled on the walls. Oil crosses were painted near all the doors.

The head priest blessing the director of the center

There were lots of speeches by all of the gathered dignitaries. It seemed like everyone in the room spoke about the hope and promise of the center. The speeches were broke up with entertainment including some adorable children who danced and sang traditional songs and recited poetry for the group. The little girls were especially sassy. One of them even asked the regional president to come dance with her while singing! The children were one of the highlights of the morning. Who doesn't think young children are adorable? The news camera focused on the little girls throughout much of the program. Probably unwisely, Jake and I were standing right behind the little girls so we were probably on Moldovan television that night!

The boys in traditional dance outfits

In our completely unbiased opinion, the best part of the program was the guitar playing American! Dave sang two songs for the crowd. The first was a Moldovan pop song that was especially popular at the time of Moldovan independence. The song holds special significance for all Moldovans and the crowd sang along. His second song was Blueberry Hill which was pretty rocking and Jake and I sung along. After Dave sang, the director pointed out Dave's American friends. We declined to give a speech even though it seemed to be the popular thing to do. Then the ribbon was cut by the regional head of government. Jake and I even got a little piece of the ribbon to take back with us! The director asked to stay for the lunch that was prepared for the event. We were afraid that we would miss our rutiera to Chisinau (and thus our bus to Brasov) so we declined the offer. Instead of just wishing us well, the director went back inside and found us a ride to Chisinau with the UNICEF team in their large van. We quickly ran back to the apartment and got our bags. The lunch was incredible - cured meats, cheeses, lots of salads (crab and corn, beet, mushroom, and carrot), placinta, candy and lots of wine. It was a terrific last meal with Dave. We said our farewells and thanked everyone for the incredible hospitality we received in Moldova.

Then it was off with UNICEF team for the quickest ride to Chisinau we had taken. They dropped us right off by Hotel Turist. Since we were there, I decided to drop in and see if they found the Edinburgh Cycle knapsack that I had left behind a week earlier. There was a slight language barrier between the desk clerk and I but after ten minutes and the use of an English to Romanian dictionary I had my bag back! We had a little time to kill before we needed to be at the bus stations so we decided to try to find one of the winery's stores. When we were at Milestii Mici earlier in the week, we were stunned to find that they had no shop on site. After going through the tour, you couldn't buy a bottle of wine or any other souvenirs. For being one of Moldova's main attraction, the winery was not set up to exploit the tourist trade. We had heard there were shops in town. We never found a Milestii Mici store but we found a Cricova (the other major winery) store. We decided to buy a bottle of white wine since our wine from Milestii Mici was all red or sparkling wine. We first picked out a mid-range bottle of wine that ran us a little less than $10. Then Jake decided that we needed a really nice souvenir and that I deserved a present (maybe for braving Transnistria with him) and he used his euros to buy us a 1975 Muscat for 30euros. Because Moldova was a Soviet satellite at the time, the bottle is all in Russian and very ancient looking. We'll have to pick a very special occasion to enjoy this bottle of wine!

On our way to the train station, we stopped and picked up provisions at a grocery store. Then we jumped on a very crowded and stood squished in with our luggage and thirty of our new closest friends. We got to the bus station at the south edge of the town with around 2 hours before our bus left so we hung out in a little cafe for drinks. Before we got on the bus, we both hit the WC. The women's bathroom was especially interesting because you walk up two stairs into the stall and as you squat over the hole in the ground the partition only comes half way up your chest so you can watch everyone else squatting over their holes. Very discomforting.

We were taking the 7:30 bus from Chisinau to Brasov which was supposed to last around 12 hours. Luckily, our bus was actually fairly nice - think older Greyhound. Dave got us seats at the very front of the bus so we could see out the front window the whole way. This was good to see nice views but kind of scary when the bus was hurtling down a hill right towards an old couple walking their horse and wagon filled ten feet high with sticks. Somehow the bus driver managed not to kill anyone!

We arrived at the Moldovan border a little before midnight. The bus stopped about 50 yards before the border at a rest stop. Jake decided that he really had to poop so he took the toilet paper into the bathroom. Not much after he left, the bus driver honked the horn, started the bus, and pulled away. I wasn't sure what to do, my husband was in the middle of some serious business but I wasn't sure if I should get frantic. As all these thoughts are flying through my head, another woman came out of the restroom and the driver didn't let her on. Apparently, we were just moving up the 50 yards to the border. Jake had to jog to get back on the bus but luckily we didn't leave him in a Moldovan rest stop at midnight! Again, the Moldovan border guard took all of our passports and looked at the luggage. The border agents had to enter all of our information into a computer so the process took a long time but we eventually made it through. When the guard brought the passports back, she just gave the whole stack to one of the passenger to hand back. The girl got to an American passport and just automatically gave it to us (I guess we stick out). It turned out not to be ours and that there was another American on the bus! On the Romanian side of the border, we had to get off the bus and take our baggage through a luggage check. They also thoroughly inspected the bus including all of the compartments. The Romanian border seemed much more stringent than the Moldovan border. We think it's because Romania is working to join the EU and they probably have to meet certain border control standards if they're going to be the eastern border of the EU. After crossing the Romanian border, we were in the mountains on our way to Transylvania and Brasov. We both tried to sleep with limited success. At 5am, we pulled into Brasov two hours early. Now usually being ahead of schedule is good but it's not as good when nothing is open and none of the buses are running. We finally found a map and realized that the hostels were a long, long ways away. About that time, the other American found us and asked us about getting to the hostel. We decided to just share a taxi to get to the hostel. When we showed up at the reception at 5:30am, the girl seemed very confused but found us a room for us to crash for a couple of hours. The only downside was that the Chinese girls that were also in the room had put a chair in front of the door so we made lots of noise coming in and someone had taken my pillow so I got very little sleep. However, after the long night a little R & R was much appreciated!