Beach Front

I am back in the US for a class. My hotel room is ocean front with a great view, which makes for a great start to a day. The photo above is what I wake up to. The photo below is what I come home to. Rough life, I know.

I was also able to take a few days on the front end of the trip to hang out with Jeralyn in New York. We did mostly that: hang out. One of the milestones we reached on that trip was making the right amount of food. In the past, we have had a lot of waste, mostly because I go a bit overboard. The secret to making the right amount of food is using the right sized mixing bowls. Waste not, want not, and so on.

Jeralyn recently had a birthday and she came down so that we could celebrate together. We were looking for as many cliche activities as possible and we ended up with the obligatory long walk on the beach (while stylishly dressed and complete with jumping dolphins!), seafood dinner (empty restaurant due to arriving really late and it being the off season for tourism), and sunrises over the ocean (from the warmth and comfort of a hotel room).

We also got to hang out with my old roommate from Hawaii, Ali, who is working on a project in the area. Incidentally, if it wasn't for Ali, Jeralyn and I wouldn't have met way back when.

We had a really good time this weekend, although her flight time snuck up on us a bit. There is never enough time, I suppose, but it felt like we were just getting into the swing of things. We have a couple of other potential weekend trips lined up while I am here as well as some potential plans for later on this spring back in the UK. Hopefully more exciting adventures are on the way!

Happy Christmas / New Year

Christmas this year was going to be spent working on the house, but I decided, somewhat last minute, to fly to Albuquerque to surprise Jeralyn at her sister's house.

There were a couple of issues that slowed me down. First off, I don't have very many vacation days left and I am hoping to take a long biking trip this summer with some friends. Secondly, Jeralyn wasn't sure whether or not she was going to go to her sister's house due to the cost of the flights steadily rising. I had to gently nudge her to buy her ticket without being too obvious about my intentions if the surprise was going to work.

She bought her ticket 5 days before her flight. I did the same. I had already been coordinating with her sister on how to get to the house and methods of surprising Jeralyn. Once tickets were purchased, I had to figure out a good reason as to why my phone would be off for the 20 or so hours it would take to get from the UK to New Mexico. In the end, I went with something along the lines of how I was going to bring my sleeping bag and get in my car and drive west in search of a white Christmas (there ended up being no snow in the UK, that I know of). I then had to mention how both Wales and the Lake District can have shoddy cell phone reception, thereby buying myself an excuse if she tried calling while I was in flight.

In the end, she figured me out before I got there. She could tell I was speaking around something and then connected the dots on the timeline and lack of phone reception. She asked her sister directly if I was planning on surprising her for Christmas and her sister sold me out instantly. Not only did she sell me out, but she was trying to get Jeralyn to work with her on a counter surprise (as Jeralyn pointed out, her sister really just wanted someone to be surprised).

When all was said and done, Jeralyn met me just outside of security at the Albuquerque airport. I was actually on the phone with her sister when I saw Jeralyn (her sister gave me no indication of selling me out), so I was a little confused at first as to why she was there.

It ended up working out well. She was happy to see me (despite it not being a surprise) and things were already fairly delayed due to a snowstorm. Due to delayed flights and closed roads, we didn't get to her sister's house until after 1:00am. It wasn't until after the fact we learned that Jeralyn was delayed in Atlanta and was supposed to be on the same flight as me to Albuquerque! We could have been hanging out in the airport for 4 hours and then on the 3 hour flight to Albuquerque together. Unfortunately, I didn't send my itinerary to her sister, just my arrival times, and Jeralyn talked to the customer service desk and got back on her original earlier flight.

As for Christmas in New Mexico, it was a lot of fun. Lots of talking, eating, and hanging out in scrubs. I got to meet a small portion of her large family. On a side note, my eyes were completely bloodshot the entire time and looking at photos from that day and a half make my eyes hurt. I didn't take too many pictures, but I did manage to snap a couple.

On the trip back, which was Christmas day, the flight back to England was only about 1/3 full. I ended up getting to take a middle row of 3 seats and lay down. I slept almost the entire flight, from the time the seat belt sign went off after take off until the seat-backs up announcement was made before landing.

New Year's was low key, but good. I went to some friends' house for a small get together. We made sushi and hung out while waiting for Big Ben to be lit up with fireworks at the stroke of midnight.

And now it is 2012. I think there are a couple of predictions for the end of the world this year, but, despite those, I think this is going to be a great year.

Iceland

This Thanksgiving I was able to take a short trip to Iceland with my brother and some friends from work. It was a great trip and I look forward to going back someday to see more of what it has to offer.

A quick synopsis of the trip:

Thursday:

- Early morning drive to Glasgow, Scotland with 5 people crammed into my car. We ate Christmas sandwiches before the flight, which involves turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

- Flew to Keflavik. Got stuck on the airplane for 40 minutes because the skybridge/jetway was broken.

- Went straight to the Blue Lagoon, which is a geothermally heated pool (it also happens to be the waste water from a power plant). We hung out there for a few hours. Sitting in a super warm, giant pool of water during a snow storm is so great. Maybe one of the greatest ideas ever in the history of the world. I am going to have an outdoor hot tub some day. Mark my words!

- From there to Reykjavik to check into the hotel. The studio apartment that my brother and I were sharing had a broken pipe. We got upgraded to a two bedroom place with a 7 jet shower. Nice.

Friday:

- Up early for breakfast and a start to site seeing. We left the hotel over an hour before dawn. Of course, dawn was around 1000. During breakfast the fire alarm went off. We thought it would go off on its own. Turns out it was hooked up to the whole building. All of our neighbors were outside standing in the snow in pajamas while we ate eggs. The lady that came in to tell us we were messing things up for everyone ended up being from Chicago. She told us a bunch of great places to go to and see.

- We drove around the Golden Circle, hitting all of the major sites

- Geysir (the name of a hot water spout after which all others were named)

- Thingvellir rift valley (where the continental plates are ripping apart)

- A few churches

- The place where laws were debated and fought over way back when

- A giant waterfall called Gulfoss

- Ate at Fjorubordid, the most famous langoustine restaurant in Iceland, in a small town called Stokkseyri.

Saturday:

- Up early, breakfast, including Skyr; custard like yogurt.

- Drove in the wrong direction for almost an hour.

- Got back on track.

- Crossed over a mountain

- Saw some great waterfalls; Glugafoss and Skogarfoss

- Hiked a little, but didn't make it to the glacier we were hoping to see

- Saw Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano that caused all of the air travel delays a year and a half ago

- Accidentally ate some Icelandic horses (cheapest meat!)

Sunday:

- Left before 5am for the airport; streets were packed (everyone stays out until all hours on Friday and Saturday night)

- Flew home, followed by a long drive. So sleepy. I drove 1000 miles on that trip!

Iceland was beautiful. The people weren't necessarily the most friendly, but I definitely much prefer people who don't smile or wave than the ones who buddy up trying to sell you their not-so-sweet souvenirs.

England / Scotland / Morocco

Edinburgh

The last week has been an eventful one. Jeralyn came out for a bit and we did some traveling. There were a couple of formal events to attend to, but the majority of the time was spent seeing the sights around the local area, a day trip to Edinburgh, and a few days in Marrakech, Morocco.

The day trips in the local area were nice. Being able to go home every night is very convenient and means not having to lug anything around, which is also a bonus. It's funny, too, how one tends to not worry about pickpockets while in an area that is familiar. Maybe that has more to do with being in a place where you don't stand out.

Black Sheep Brewery

At any rate, we went to York, Hawes, Ripley, Ripon, and Masham while in England. The weather was really warm for this time of year and we avoided any rain. The sun wasn't shining as much as it could have while we were in England, but you can't have it all.

Edinburgh was lovely as always. The sun is always shining there, somehow. We ended up only going up for a day; train in the morning and then back again that night, but it was enough time to hit the major "must see" attractions (minus the scotch tour that looked like a Disney ride), eat some haggis, and explore the narrow passageways.

Walking through a 'close' in Edinburgh

Morocco was a little disappointing. I think a big part of the disappointment was that we had already done some trips in the UK and were accustomed to UK style traveling. Morocco was obviously a very different place, which is part of the attraction, but is also something that can take people off guard.

The most perfect tower in all of North Africa, allegedly.

Inside the Saadian Tombs. The only place I felt comfortable taking pictures was inside attractions that we had to pay to get into. If you stopped anywhere else, people were on you like stink on stank.

The thing that really threw me about Morocco was the aggressiveness of the touts and locals. It was to the point that we literally couldn't stop walking without being accosted. When we wanted to figure out which way to go, we would have to just pick a way and circle back if it was wrong. If we stopped to debate or consider, we were swarmed. I really got the feeling that everyone was doing everything they could to get as much money out of us as possible, by any means possible. Other than that, they were annoyed by our presence.

Cooling off after an extra hour or so of fumbling our way through the souks back to the riad.

The best example of that is when we asked a kid to point us to a street we couldn't find when we were lost in the souks (separate story: crazy complex alleys and roads). I asked a boy, about 12 or so, if he could point me to street. He walked us to it, which was nice of him, but there was an older boy, maybe late teens, that came along, as well. We went around a couple of twists and turns that we had circled a couple of times already and, two minutes later, we were back on track. We gave the older boy 10 dirham (about $1.25), but he looked at me with disgust and said, "10 dirham? This is nothing! Give me 50!" It's worth noting that most Moroccans make less than 80 dirham a day. When I turned away to ignore him, the younger boy took the money.

On the plus side, the streets and alleys were really neat. As long as you don't mind being lost (it's fun for a short while), you can come across a lot of things and interesting sites. It seems that the locals spent most of their time in these alleyways. It was mostly younger boys, but the girls were out and about, as well. A lot of the areas had the classic dude arc welding in sandals and no eye protection, people overloading vehicles of all sizes, and 20 people all giving their opinion in an argument that really only required the two primaries.

Jemma al Fna, the big, open square in the southern part of the Medina, was interesting, but we weren't there to shop, so we spent most of our time noticing how every shop had the exact same things. It really makes you wonder who the supplier is for all of them. It seems like every place you go that has all of the tourist trinkets must be supplied by one person or company. One interesting piece of that puzzle was the food stands that go up every night in Jemma al Fna. There are supposedly over 100. As we were walking around looking for a place to eat, the touts with the empty stands kept telling us, "it is all the same. Eat here or eat there, all the same; eat at ours, there is no wait." In the end, we went to a place that was packed with locals, but when we ordered a wide variety of items from the menu, we noticed that only one thing (the tangia; slow roasted mutton) actually came from that stand. Everything else, the bread, soup, salad, and eggplant, all came from somewhere else. Maybe even the food stalls have the same supplier...

Our riad

Although the place we stayed in was windowless to the outside world and pretty much impossible to find (we hired a local kid), we had a pretty nice stay in a riad, which is apparently the authentic Moroccan style guest house. Basically, it is a small place with a courtyard and a handful of rooms built around that. The place we stayed had 5 rooms. The staff didn't really speak very much English (and we didn't speak French), so that was a bit of a challenge, but it was nice to have something that wasn't crowded. There was a group of French travelers staying there who we would bump into at breakfast. We also randomly sat next to them at a restaurant on the other side of the city, which was odd.

Other than that, back to work, Thanksgiving coming up, and some more excitement (depending on how loosely you are willing to define that word) that I will write about as it happens.

Remember Remember

(I shamelessly copied this poem from Wikipedia:)

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent

To blow up the King and Parli'ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England's overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy*)

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

And what should we do with him? Burn him!

Today, the 5th of November, is Guy Fawkes Day, or bonfire night. Most of what I know of the event comes from one of my favorite movies, V for Vendetta. Basically, in 1605 a group of men wanted to blow up parliament and kill King James because of his poor treatment of the Catholics. One of the members of the group wrote a letter to a friend in parliament telling him not to go there on the 5th. The friend turned over the letter and a trap was set for Guy Fawkes, who was in the process of putting barrels upon barrels of gunpowder in the tunnels beneath the building.

In fine Olde Worlde tradition, he was tortured mercilessly and killed. Ever since then, on the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes is burned in effigy over huge bonfires while fireworks are set off. People watch while eating roasted chestnuts and candied apples.

Despite being here for the last couple of years, this was the first time I made it to a bonfire. It was a pretty good sized crowd and the bonfire was pretty impressive. I crashed a party beforehand, although I ended up more or less sleeping in the corner due to a combination of eating too much pizza and German food (it was an Oktoberfest themed party).

In other news, I have been reorganizing, decluttering, and cleaning my house in preparation for getting it on the market. On top of looking like a construction zone, it also looked like this for a while:

I am happy to say that I finally got it on the market today. The realtors went through and all should be official on Monday. Now I just have to keep it clean at all times so that strangers can walk through and judge me.

Here are some more photos of what the place looks like. Hopefully it sells. I meant to get it on the market in August. Better late than never, I suppose...