Wallstraville

Let those who will

2009-12-09T00:30:00.001Z

Let those who will buy lands and horde money. We will have our memories, glad memories of golden experiences together.

-From the 1920's journals of Margaret Gehrke regarding her visits to U.S. national parks, as quoted on Ken Burns' documentaries on that same subject

(Don't worry... we're not really "done" yet...)

the end

2009-12-09T00:00:00.005Z

So here we are.

Last week I heard someone on the local Michigan NPR station mention a program that would "help us understand our state better." I let the words pass over me as an outsider, as I've been doing for years, feeling only partially obligated or occasionally compelled by the concerns of my neighbors. It was quite literally with a start that I realized I was included in that statement. I was in that "us" and "our." I could listen, even let myself be affected, with a larger sense of future relationship with the place on topic, the place in which I reside. I could learn the names of my state representatives, consider school districts, and anticipate events happening beyond the immediate future.

So here we are. I began working at an architecture firm in Grand Rapids over a month ago, and Josh is following up on leads in youth work at churches in the area while he quite happily works with my father, helping the asparagus grow. So that's the end of the story. Grand Rapids. Full circle, nearly, for both of us.

We are looking at homes in Cherry Hill and Eastown and may well end up in one early next year. We look forward to seeing what's inside the un-opened vacuum cleaner box from our wedding. I think there are coasters in that closet somewhere, too, and a mixer and another set of plates. Such goodies. Such goodies we've had little trouble living without for six years.

It's been quite the journey, and this blog has helped us share it along the way. We can honestly say that it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun without your comments and followings. Almost. But not quite... everything is better shared, and these last few years are no exception. That being said, we don't entirely understand blogging without far-off adventures to chronicle or distant grandparents in need of updating, so we're calling it quits. It was never our intent to let our writing fizzle out, but as we kept waiting for our lives to settle down so that we could make our big exit, we were reminded that things rarely end as scripted.

The blog will remain for your vacation-research and our memory-jogging perusal as long as they let it.

Finally, it feels fitting to harken back to our very first post, dated February 6, 2006:

Now, as for the adventure itself... In brief, Josh and I quit our stable and decent-paying jobs in New York, NY at the end of 2006 to finally do what we had been talking and dreaming about since we got married. Our original excuse for "taking time off" was to get reacquainted with each other after living as two poor grad students in one of the most stressful cities in the world, but it's since grown into a whole lot of other reasons. From January to April, we are working as kids ski instructors in Colorado, using our days off to explore other ski resorts and to recover from days filled with I-want-my-mommy-syndrome and I-can't-get-up-disease. In April, we will be heading to Michigan and Texas for two weddings before flying off to SE Asia and India for about 5 months. Crazy? Yes. Terrifying? You bet. Exciting? Absolutely!

We could say so many things about the last three years, but as I'm already getting a bit too sentimental, I think we'll just call it at that.

Time of death: midnight 12.09.09

A new passport

2009-12-03T17:37:00.000Z

Got a new passport in the mail the other day... I feel a bit like I have to leave a dear, old friend at home next I travel. In honor of the well-worn and faithful thing, here are a few of my favorite pages. The new guy's got big shoes to fill.

Here's a few things we've been noticing lately.

2009-11-30T10:29:00.000Z

Here's a few things we've been noticing lately.

Some people in West Michigan have a very thick accent. It seems to be concentrated in the Jenison/Grandville area.

My, but customer service is good here. And my, but that fake niceness present in so many Midwestern phone calls, store greetings, and exchanged pleasantries is irritating.

I miss the train. Gas may be cheap here, and it sure is convenient to control your coming and going times, but driving in a semi-awake state in early morning traffic is frustrating for me and a waste of good mental energy.

Drip coffee = fantastic. And to think that nearly everyone has a coffee maker in their home!

People here/Michigan, generally women, put too many smiley faces in their emails. I know you're joking. People there/England, generally women, put too many xx's in their emails. I know you are sending a friendly email without a kiss by your name.

We really don't say please a whole lot here. Thank you is a must, but please is implied after a child turns about 14. Very curious.

Why is Grand Rapids too small a city for a subway/light rail system? I've heard this a few times and find it a strange logic.

In a small way, we miss the comraderie of holidays far away. When you have no family nearby and your friends have no family nearby either, you make family of each other, and it makes for awfully pleasant holidays. Of course, you are all (secretly or audibly) missing your family in one way or another. I think it just makes it more meaningful to finally be able to be here.

Fruit flies and time

2009-10-25T21:46:00.006Z

Every now and then (and I mean every now and then), Josh shares something very wise, drawing on an obscure knowledge of ancient religious sects or training in pastoral counseling. Last time, it was Koine Greek applied to fruit flies.

We were having a pint (or the somewhat lacking American version of one) at the Cottage Bar in Grand Rapids on Saturday evening when a few bothersome fruit flies fluttered around my face. As I fruitlessly (sorry, couldn't resist) swatted in the general direction of their drunken flight paths, I was instantly transported to the perpetually-fruit-fly-full Tilley's, my "work pub" in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, chatting with coworkers, drinking British ale (probably Deuchars IPA), enjoying the well-worn Englishness of it all. But I wasn't there, I was here, in a smoke-filled American bar, a New Holland amber in hand. My eyes smarted with tears.

And that frustrated me. It has been three days shy of seven months since I left England, so why should it still illicit these emotions, for both myself and Josh, as I soon discovered?

Now comes the wisdom. Josh told me about the two words for "time" in ancient Greek, chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to time as it passes, minute by minute, day by day. Kairos refers to time as it feels, event to event, change to change. We may have left England some chronos ago, and we may have traveled the Mediterranean, driven from South Dakota to New York City, visited a state fair, a holiday fireworks display, and a nephew's saturday morning soccer match, but not a whole lot has happened to progress our lives further, to push us into the next big thing. Kairos is moving awfully slow for us.

With that in mind, I now hope that recent life changes and those predicted for the weeks to come (we'll tell you more about that soon... sorry to be so cyberly absent lately) will do something to replace the heartache for the things we've left or lost. "In times of transition / there is an irresistible urge to look back...", writes Julie Chen in an exquisite book I saw recently. I think (hope?) that such urges lessen as transition comes to fruition.

Funny Photo Friday:

2009-10-16T03:49:00.002+01:00

Checking our UK bank accounts and moved the last of our savings to checking. We heard 'nil' used our whole time abroad, but this is the first time it's shown up in a bank account!

Funny Photo Friday: I think they are a little optimistic

2009-10-09T14:17:00.009+01:00

This is taken from from the owner's manual of our Citroen Saxo. Don't forget we are talking about a car with a 1.1 liter engine (maybe the size of a basketball), that didn't like going over 75 without overheating, and whose brakes worked just enough to avoid ramming the car in front of you.

I would have loved to see someone try it though.

Just another photo or two to give you a size comparison of the good ol' Saxo.

Missing England

2009-09-27T09:00:00.004+01:00

Some time ago, I wrote this about missing New York City:

Sometimes I miss New York as if it were a person. It's as if the city has its own character and disposition and certain things (scenes/actions/encounters/events) remind me of this. It feels very unlike how I miss "home" home (Michigan). It is neither nostalgic nor wistful nor vague but a distinct sadness that I forget until I am reminded of it.

The same is not true of Durham. England is too unobtrusive, too even-tempered and polite, to cause me to miss its personality. So how, then, do I describe this sense of loss I feel?

Perhaps Durham is for me like a lost hat or a favorite sweater now too worn to wear. It is warm and comfortable, familiar, an easy choice. When I catch myself in the mirror, I am, at times, taken aback by its presence about me. Other times, it fits so well that I forget it's there. Wistfully and with a certain measure of regret, I let it leave me (or let myself leave it), and I am surprised that such bittersweet feelings of tenderness, quite simply but aptly explained with a childish "I feel sad," could develop in a fraction of the time spent wearing other things.

Funny Photo Friday: what you won't find for sale in the paper

2009-09-25T14:57:00.006+01:00

We visited Megan's sister in NW Iowa this week and found a few strange things in her newspaper. Actually, we went to the Dairy Dandy and the entire experience was weird, but we didn't bring the camera with us. Too bad. It meant all we could do was laugh at the "Vegetable Burger" on the menu. Meant "for veggie lovers," it came with one beef patty, lettuce and tomato, with the option of making it a double...

We wondered if it meant the meat sandwiches slept around or just the meat...

The "noon lunch" is a little funny, but so are the fact that they serve "taverns" as food. Are there payment plans? (Jennie tells us these are like sloppy joes)

Funny Photo Friday: It means something else here, but still kind of funny...

2009-09-19T01:46:00.005+01:00

This one may only be funny to our English friends, but for those of you that aren't quite as up to speed on your British parlance, here is a refresher.

Funny Photo Friday: that's a lot of children to make happy

2009-09-04T09:10:00.001+01:00

So it was on the Avenue of Americas (6th), but seriously... seems an awful big title to fill for a park smaller than our old Manhattan apartment.

In NYC.

Funny Photo Friday: when a sweater is not enough

2009-08-28T23:59:00.000+01:00

Yup, they were on all four paws. This was most definitely taken in Manhattan.

Funny Photo Friday: American Sizes

2009-08-21T08:55:00.001+01:00

Well Starbucks has Tall, Grande, and Venti so why not?

From the Iowa State Fair

Funny Photo Friday

2009-08-14T09:01:00.000+01:00

My sister snapped this at a conference center. If only it were always that easy to find a girl, eh, men?

Funny Photo Friday: At Least They are Thorough

2009-08-07T00:12:00.000+01:00

Any Questions?

Postojna Cave National Park, Slovenia

Funny Photo Friday: so could this car go sideways?

2009-08-01T10:44:00.002+01:00

Oops. We missed last week's funny photo and now we're a day late on this week's. Tsk, tsk. I guess we've just been so incredibly busy discussing the Fate of the Blog, that we've lost track of time... Anyway, here's an old one from about March.

Not the best photos as they were taken from my phone... but the coincidence of where this van parked near my office in Newcastle was too good to pass up.

Some of our favo(u)rite 39 photos

2009-07-23T05:21:00.002+01:00

Sorry for the lag of posts as of late folks. We are finally feeling a little more setteled down (despite still being jobless and homeless) but there has been so many things to do as of late, portfolios to print (and endless fuss over), resumes to write, (and rewrite), and the glorious phone calls to potiental employers (I can think of little I like more than those).

Anyway, to get our mind off of those things here are a few of our favo(u)rite pictures from the most recent trip.

Istanbul, Turkey

Come on, you know you want to see the other 38...

Grand Bazzar, Istanbul, Turkey

Hagia Sohpia, Istanbul, Turkey

Blue Mosque, Istanbul Turkey (Sensing a theme here yet? Istanbul was surprisingly LOVELY!)

Nafplio, Greece

Bridge to Patras, Greece (This lil' bugger cost 11 euro!)

Metara, Italy

Pompeii, Italy

Alpine Mountain Field, Slovenia

Rome, Italy

Florence, Italy

Bled, Slovenia (The only lake in the country, but what a lake!)

Florence, Italy

Cinque Terra, Italy

Krka National Park, Croatia

Pisa, Italy

Random Roadside lunch break, Croatia

Dubrovnik, Croatia

I honestly have no idea, Europe

Cannes, France

Piran, Slovenia

Monaco, Monaco

The Only Campground in Albania, Albania

Along the road, Albania

Berat, Albania

Gjirokaster, Albania

Lunch, France

Vikos Gorge National Park, Greece

Chartes, France

Spice Bazzar, Istanbul, Turkey

Bosphorous River, Turkey

Volos, Greece

Vikos Gorge National Park, Greece

Meteora, Greece

Funny Photo Friday: At least he looks embarrased

2009-07-17T12:21:00.000+01:00

In Whistler Village, British Columbia Canada.

Funny Photo Friday: What was that?

2009-07-10T05:21:00.001+01:00

The inevitable translation photos...

Italy... and yes this is the English menu

Kotor, Montenegro- Estimated?!?

Carcasonne, France

A monestary in Northern Greece

Northern Greece

Our travelling companions 2

2009-07-08T18:49:00.002+01:00

We've written about the Saxo before, but we just thought we'd mention again that the first car of our married life (and Megan's first ever self-owned car) was a great one, all 1.1 litres of it. Despite its age, it managed between 35 and 45 miles per gallon on average and drove 7,540 miles altogether without incident. Our average gallon of gas cost $5.61, and the car's longest day (our second to last) was 542 miles, where it went about 125 kph (78mph) all day since 130 seemed to be directly linked to the overheating indicator light. A few times we wished for a camper van where we could just stretch out in warmth and dryness on those cold, rainy nights, but then when we look at our gas bills, think of driving through Rome, Monaco, and Athens, or remember the precariously narrow roads we drove on a daily basis... we sigh yet again and think about what a great car it was!

Read the rest...

We watched it roll over to 100,000 miles...

...tried to treat it well, although sometimes bad conditions were inevitable...

...as were some roads...

...tried to keep it clean...

...and tried to take it to some fairly "foriegn" places.

It always started just fine (except for that one time...) and made it all 7,540 miles in one peice. I don't think it knew what exciting things we had in store for it!

Our travelling companions 1

2009-07-07T17:52:00.001+01:00

We are just about done with post-trip posts, but we thought we'd throw in just a few more with some photos since we limited ourselves to the postcards (mostly) before. We did our favorite photos from Asia, so we'll post those, too, but first, here are some photos of our constant companions. You know about this guy (the blue thing is an earplug that kept the mirror in place), but here are a few more:

Our camping equipment...
It all fit, barely, into the trunk and the back seat of our little car. By the end of the trip, we had the packing down to an artform.

The hatch also doubled as a cooking surface. Perhaps not entirely safe, but handy!

Other things thought our camping stuff was pretty interesting, too...

The tent...
A cheap tent from Tesco, it actually lasted (BARELY) the entire trip. The top looked like this after a few months, though, as two poles began cracking. Thank goodness for duct tape!

Unfortunately, we didn't always have sunny days, so the tent sometimes doubled as a blue mountain.

This campground was really, really wierd. Everyone had built permanent wood structures that left very few open spots. Our poor tent looked ridiculous.

And finally, I couldn't bear to part with it in March, so something else made the trip and ended in a bin in Slovenia instead of England. May it have ended its days in peace.

Funny Photo Friday: America

2009-07-03T08:46:00.000+01:00

In honor of the Fourth, here are a few photos from the last year of things taking some claim in American-ness...

Stories We Haven't Been Able to Tell: Car Battery

2009-07-01T12:22:00.003+01:00

Surely any road trip involving over 7,000 miles, a dozen countries, a number of mountains and a 14 year old car is bound to have some tales of mechanical woe, right? This is ours (the only one, oddly enough!).

So remember that noise most cars make when you leave the lights on? The noise in our Saxo is more of an optional set up, sometimes it plays a great little dance number (much more sophisticated than a simple beep), sometimes nothing, and never in response to the driver's door, only the passanger's. Even this isn't really a problem because you normally notice when your lights are on, so we weren't overly concerned about this. And then we started going to countries that require lights on all the time, like Albania.

Read the rest of the sad, sad tale...

What happened was this. We left our lights on one day during a stop at an Albanian town called Kruje. We had been out seeing what passed for a tourist destination in Albania (interesting but not the most worthwhile thing I've ever seen) and returned to a dead battery. Someone came over to demand money for parking where we'd parked, so we instead asked him for help. He only speaks Albania and recruits two other guys who look at me with bewilderment as I try to indicate in English, piecemeal italian, and alot of hand gestures that the battery is dead, and we need a jump. They recommend popping the clutch and even offer to do it for us. "Great!" we respond. One of the guys hops in the car and is ever so slowly gliding down the hill (at least the town was perched on a steep one). It is only then we realize that Meg's purse, which holds all our money and passports, is inside the car... leaving us with nothing.

After the longest 10 minutes of my life the guy finally returns without the car. Turns out he never got it to start because the road turned to a one-way the opposite direction, and it is now parked further down the street. So we all trudge down to see what there is to do, wherein a mechanic, dressed in full 70's mechanic get-up, is suddenly found who begins looking at the car, while I go back into my English/Italian/hand waving routine. We're still not sure why it took them so long to figure out that we were the idiots who caused the problem, and a fairly simple, straight-forward problem at that. At this point we've started to draw a small crowd, all of us watching the mechanic poke and prod the engine.

Eventually, a conversation begins, and the Albanians agree on what is to be done. When we try and inquire as to what is going to happen to our car battery that they are hastily removing (did we mention that Albania is a final destination for most stolen cars in Europe?), we are told to calm down, it'll all alright.

Eventually, they find a man dressed in a spotless white shirt and have him take out his battery. They use that battery to start our car and then swap ours back in after it's running. After it's all in and the car is finally working, they show us in Italian where the oil goes, how to meause it, where the windshield/windscreen fluid goes etc... all because we forgot to turn the lights off. It ended up not costing us anything and provided a nice little moment of theatre in an otherwise calm city... but it still had some moments of panic.

Funny Photo Friday: Don't you always feel short on outlets?

2009-06-26T11:30:00.002+01:00

From a work project in Newcastle. I think the electrical contractor went a little crazy here.

2009-06-25T02:26:00.002+01:00

OK, we've been busy lately mowing a lawn (not ours), painting a house (also not ours), and driving all over the middle of our Sweet Land of Liberty, so we failed to notice that a few of the posts weren't properly linked to their longer versions. Should all be fixed good and proper now, so feel free to go back and (re)check them out.

On not taking GPS/SatNav

2009-06-24T05:54:00.001+01:00

The idea for this trip has been several years in the making, beginning with the hope that it could serve as a follow up to our tour through Asia. We envisioned an American style road trip (whatever exactly that means), drifting from town to town along the Mediterranean coast, windows down, warm weather, wind in our hair; you know, that kind of thing. Anyway, in our shared vision of this trip a central part of the whole ordeal is a map.
Read the rest...
Shortly before Megan left Amsterdam at the beginning of our trip, her kindly cousin offered us the use of her GPS. It was a tempting and generous offer but one we felt obligated to decline because it would go against the nature of what we wanted our trip to be. The trip, we thought, should be a confusing venture, there should be detours, wrong turns, and having to stop and ask for directions. It should be a little painful; there is something to be said about navigating the roads ourselves. And besides, some of those side towns and out of the way places are exactly where we wanted to end up. This is to say nothing of our culture's incredible attachment to the Internet and connectivity. We felt that surely an adventure like this deserved to be done in the ways of our predecessors, no gadgets, nothing telling us which way to go (and to some extent what to do); just us, a rather poor map, and the good ol' Saxo.

And in the end, we are both still happy with our decision. It certainly did lead to more squabbling at times. Marital strife was running high as we got lost in dense and dirty Athens, for example, but we are glad we found our way as we went. We liked those moment when we discovered we were obviously not supposed to have turned down that road half a mile back and the following actions of staring at the map, debating, staring some more, and then going and asking the sheep herder for directions.

Albania was rife with these moments and was a great example of the pleasure gained when we simply stopped and asked someone for directions. You get an amazing response when you step out of your car with your (poor quality) map, asking about a town you can barely pronounce, all the while hoping you are on the right road based on the one sign you saw 23 miles ago. We were always impressed with and grateful for people's generosity in helping (and their surprising versatility in English) and left all the encounters feeling better about humanity.

So in the end we stand by our decision not to take GPS/SatNav, though there were times we kicked ourselves for not having it. It may not be the best thing for a relationship, but it does add a layer of authenticity and real interaction to the trip.

A Cornocopia of Videos

2009-06-22T05:29:00.002+01:00

These were taken through the trip, just thought we'd share; afterall who doesn't like other people's home movies?

When we discovered our Macro lens worked for videos too. On the confluence of the Black Sea and Bosphorous River, Turkey
(Between Paris and Normandy)

Vikos National Park, Greece

Josh climbing down a waterfall whilst Megan doesn't help but watches expitently for him to fall, forgive the sideway-ness. Vikos National Park, Greece

Papal Palace in Avigion, France

This is the Sea Organ. It waves from the sea force air through pipes creating a great and rather haunting sound. Zadar, Croatia

Metera, Italy

Another 'Welcoming Summer' video Istanbul, Turkey

Stories We Haven't Been Able to Tell: Always go back to ask what’s in the strawberry tart.

2009-06-20T05:50:00.001+01:00

On the 5th of May, we left an Istanbul bakery well satisfied and slightly enamored by the Turkish coffee, baklava and strawberry tart we’d just eaten. We were debating whether to ask the very friendly clerk what made the custard in their tart so unique, but he was busy helping someone. We hesitated in that way you do when deciding whether to ask for help or directions and finally took the easy path- we left. A few yards down the sidewalk, we turned around and decided to ask anyway, even if we had to wait. Along with an invitation to visit the store the next day while the pastry chef was present, the 20-something man asked us what we were doing that night and told us about a festival taking place not far from our hotel. It was Hidrellez, a traditional celebration of late spring, welcoming warm weather and light evenings.
Read the rest...
We followed the little map he’d drawn and headed for a park along the sea. It was packed with thousands of people, mostly families and young adults buying tickets for food from local, well-known restaurant booths (including the one we’d been to for dinner and the pastry shop we’d just left), drinking local beer, listening to live music, and basically hanging out. We found a tent with traditional folk music and spent a good hour entertained by all the people singing along at the top of their lungs and dancing steps and motions everyone seemed to know. We both felt a tinge of jealousy of their shared cultural experience, wishing the United States had old, well-known songs in which both young and old could so physically participate, and not in a half-embarrassed Chicken Song kinda way.

The festival was made even more interesting by all the “decorations.” Tradition calls for people to write down their biggest wishes for the coming year on little slips of paper to be tied to a special “wish tree.” Then, to make the wishes come true, you jumped over fire. We didn’t see much fire (just fireworks), but there were hundreds of people hanging wishes written on the backs of receipts, on colored paper, on sheets pulled from a ruled spiral notebook, on specially designed computer paper complete with printed pictures. All the ribbons and cloth and paper on the trees made the night seem even more magical.

This story has a lesson. We hadn’t seen (or noticed) any signs for the festival, and the actual event was not taking place on the route to anywhere. We saw very few tourists and felt part of something very uniquely Turkish. But we would’ve missed the whole thing if we hadn’t stuck our heads out, turned around, and gone back to ask what was in the strawberry tart. Kinda makes me wonder what else we’ve missed along the way…

Funny Photo Friday: More Road Signs

2009-06-19T04:39:00.000+01:00

Stories We Haven't Been Able to Tell: The Old Man in Kotor

2009-06-17T06:03:00.002+01:00

An old man slowly shuffles out to our small and battered tent with an unmarked bottle in hand. We've just arrived in another country, Montenegro this time, finally found a campsite next to the most gorgeous fjord I've ever seen, had dinner, and are watching the sunset as he approaches. Without words he simply holds up the bottle, a shot glass, and smiles. This is the guy who runs the campsite; what a place.
Read about the place...
We originally heard about the campground through some vague directions given to us by a very nice Belgian couple we met in Albania. After we told them we didn't have GPS, an intentional choice we only occasionally regretted, they figured they could still probably get us there, though they seemed a bit more skeptical. Turns out they had spent a few nights 'camping on this old man's lawn' outside the beautiful walled city of Kotor. 'It is a beautiful place, though there aren't really showers and only one toilet, and you are kind of just in the middle of his yard but it is beautiful,' the wife said. 'And cheap!,' the husband threw in for good measure.

So our first night in Montenegro we set off to find this place with little more than a village name and a rough description. We ended up passing the thing twice before we finally noticed an old abandoned trailer in corner of his property and saw that it really was just a front yard with a toilet and shower in the corner, but what a yard. It is set right on the edge of the Kotor Fjord and a ten minute drive to Kotor itself. There was only an outdoor shower, one working toilet, and our agreeable host. The man spoke no English (which we didn't expect he would) but he could get out a few phrases of broken Italian, to which we'd respond in Spanish. He showed us around, asked about our relationship and age (apparently we looked too young to be married), and then had a brief chat about politics (who knew there were McCain supporters in Montenegro) before we set up camp.

The rest of the our stay was rather pleasant and uneventful, we saw the sights of Kotor the next day, watched a wedding parade march by as we had lunch, and chatted with the old man again that night. In retrospect, this moment and place weren't that special, it did not change my life or lead to a divine epiphany but it did touch on an elusive sentiment. As we drank an unknown liquid with an 86 year old man watching the last bit of the sun dip behind the mountains I thought to myself, 'This is why we came here, this is why we travel.'

Stories We Haven't Been Able to Tell: Tag-along

2009-06-15T11:47:00.000+01:00

One morning in France, we noticed a lovely spider web had been constructed over our passenger (left) side mirror. The web blew away in the mighty winds of 90 kph driving (about 55 mph) that day, but remnants remained when we reached our afternoon destination. The next morning, we noticed another intricate web had replaced the one destroyed. The next day? Same thing. And the following? There it was again! Eventually we spotted the same set of spindly legs above the mirror every morning and realized we had a tag-along.

Each night for the next seven weeks, the same spider would build a web across the mirror, increasing the complexity and scope for each night spent in the same place, and then retreat to a secret home behind the mirror once we got moving again. The day the car headed back to England, the spider was still there, as was his most recent masterpiece. We’re hoping the British hedges and shiny cars don’t entice him to move. It’s a good time to refinance and stay put anyway.

Funny Photo Friday: A new kind of environmentalism

2009-06-12T15:40:00.002+01:00

the airport in Istnabul

Funny Photo Friday: Only the French...

2009-06-05T14:35:00.002+01:00

... would have a road side vending machine for freshly baked bread.
Mont St Michel, France

State of the Blog

2009-06-03T08:15:00.001+01:00

Today we fly from Amsterdam to Chicago to Grand Rapids, Michigan, officially closing the European chapter of our lives. It's tough to leave a place, even tougher to leave without one last glimpse of the place you are leaving. We both wish we were leaving from Durham/Newcastle instead of Amsterdam. We wish we could hear a Geordie accent again, steal a glance at the cathedral, and eat one last chicken bake (yes, Brits, pies have their place). Oh well. We will settle with today being the Big Day we leave Europe more generally and mourn our loss while looking forward to a summer of catching up with our American selves. (Beyond that: TBD.)

So where does that leave The Blog? Without a foreign subject, will it have enough substance to live on? We are hoping to post some favorite photos and stories from the European roadtrip in the next few weeks, interspersed with the funny photos we've gathered. Once that stream of thought has run its course... then who knows!

2009-06-01T09:54:00.000+01:00

2009-05-31T09:50:00.000+01:00

2009-05-30T09:44:00.002+01:00

Funny Photo Friday: Mmmmmm, sliced milk.

2009-05-29T12:00:00.000+01:00

Durham, England.
If you can't tell, there's nothing but meat in that refrigerator.

2009-05-28T09:16:00.000+01:00

2009-05-26T17:02:00.003+01:00

2009-05-23T11:19:00.000+01:00

Funny Photo Friday: Wonder if it floats...

2009-05-22T09:23:00.000+01:00

Somewhere in the mountains of Albania. For real.

2009-05-21T11:06:00.002+01:00

2009-05-19T10:52:00.002+01:00

2009-05-17T09:46:00.001+01:00

*This is late- not sure why it didn't post after Corinth. It also needs a few more photos, but we'll get those up at some other time!

Funny Photo Friday: So does that mean it could elect its own president?

2009-05-15T08:27:00.000+01:00

Not technically a photo but a 'printscreen' of our laptop. Trying to figure out how to top up our pay as you go mobile phone. Look at the 'country' highlighted under Afghanistan. I mean, really. I know it's remote, but...

2009-05-14T07:25:00.000+01:00

2009-05-11T09:06:00.000+01:00

Dıdn't know they were shıpped lıke that.

2009-05-10T09:14:00.001+01:00

You can't really get a postcard of a ferry boat, especıally not the 'hıgh qualıty' boat we took from Italy to Greece, but stıll quıte wortwhıleç

Our shıp, ın all ıts glory, had our cars on top of the deck.

A semı (lorry) was parked near us and we started to smell somethıng, so we went down to ınvestıgate.

Turns out someone was shıppıng cows over the sea and rıght next to our car!

We felt bad for the thıngs, couldn't be pleasent on deck all nıght; although we were quıte happy they were downwınd :)

Funny Photo Friday: party, party.

2009-05-08T09:29:00.000+01:00

It's time. It's time to post the hen party photos. It's actually a little late for this, having left the UK weeks ago, but I wanted to save them for a Friday.

I've mentioned them before, but HEN and STAG DOS are like American bachelor and bachelorette parties. With all the budget airlines in Europe, they often include a weekend away to Barcelona or Prague or something, but Newcastle is also a very common weekend drinking destination (and I got prime viewing of the arrivals when I went home via the train station on Friday afternoons). So here they are. Welcome to the celebration of marriage in Britain. :)

Here are some rules for the road:

1. Hen party participants tend to have matching shirts that identify them by wedding role. The colour pink is required.

2. Such items can be specially made, or plenty of shops sell handy, dandy little kits to make your own.

2b. More of such hen related items...

3. You can also just dress up generally.

3b. This can sometimes backfire, as people won’t be able to tell if you are actually on a hen do or just out for the night in ‘fancy dress’ (costumes).

3c. The veil is the key hint in this group.

3d. These girls, however, are just typically dressed for a blustery January night in Newcastle.

4. Stag dos can include matching shirts, but more typically involve dressing up the groom in fancy dress, like Fred Flintstone or an England fan at a Scottish rugby match. Some groups, however, choose to just go all out...

(I’ve stuck to back views, so hopefully no feelings were hurt in this informational post for Americans on British life.)

2009-05-07T08:58:00.000+01:00

2009-05-06T08:45:00.000+01:00

Our stop by the Trullıs was really just a sıdetrack after vısıtıng a place calld Matera. We could not fınd any postcards so a pıcture wıll have to do. :)

2009-05-04T15:20:00.004+01:00

2009-05-02T09:24:00.002+01:00

Funny Photo Friday: If only they were real

2009-05-01T10:36:00.002+01:00

From the roads in Corsica. (We failed to take a photo of the one with wings added to a jumping deer.)

2009-04-28T09:59:00.006+01:00

2009-04-27T09:31:00.002+01:00

2009-04-25T09:27:00.001+01:00

Funny Photo Friday

2009-04-24T22:37:00.000+01:00

Ah, parenting. I guess you pick your battles.

Clifford Tower, York

2009-04-22T17:12:00.005+01:00

2009-04-19T08:17:00.000+01:00

Funny Photo Friday

2009-04-17T22:35:00.000+01:00

In the Durham Cathedral bookshop. Perhaps not funny. But random? Yes!

2009-04-16T08:09:00.001+01:00

2009-04-14T09:15:00.001+01:00

Gone shopping

2009-04-13T08:39:00.000+01:00

(With plenty of other posting options, this post is a few weeks past its due date. It was supposed to have a photo from Michigan in it and that just never happened. Funny to write about Durham while no longer there. Oh well. One last one before we get to our European roadtrip. Read away!)

Other than a few years membership in a co-op where we obtained bulk goods in absurdly large quantities, my family did its grocery shopping at Huizenga's, the local grocery store on Main Street. It wasn't large by American standards, but certainly stocked almost everything a Michigander could want or need. Quite a few years ago now, it was bought by a chain, and although the name over the door changed, everything else primarily stayed the same. Then it was bought by another chain. And then that chain built a brand new store one and a half miles outside of town in one of those areas surrounded by beige look-alike 90's subdivisions with roads that curve for no reason and names like Sunset Meadows and Waverly Bluffs. And that was the end of Huizenga's. I was reminded of this fact when I saw the sad, empty building on our Christmas visit. A very small amount of interior partitioning has been done, and it looks like something strip mall-esque is on the books.

I recall feeling a nostolgic sadness when the store first closed. I fondly remembered the swans and ducks in the retaining pond next to the parking lot, the tall carts the teenagers used to carry out our groceries, and the lanky balding man, a store manager (owner even?), who always smiled through his neatly trimmed beard and said hello although I don't recall if he and my mother knew each other by name. Now, having been forced to change my shopping habits the last few years through non-car-ownership, city living, extreme budgeting, traveling, and the tiniest refridgerator you've ever seen, my sadness has grown into frustration and disbelief.

Read the rest...
Six thousand people live in my hometown of Zeeland. Yet I find it puzzling that a grocery store couldn't be supported in its lovely, walkable city center. My sister lives in downtown Zeeland and drives 5.3 miles to a grocery store that tends to be cheaper than the 1.7 mile option. I don't know that she would want to walk and then carry the food she needs to feed her family of six on a regular basis, but the option would be there. People all over the world do it daily. Speaking as someone who has lived in some drastically different places in the last few years, it's amazing what you get used to and what becomes normal.

Less you think this is solely an American dilemma, we have a similar situation here in Durham. There are two enormous grocery stores a few miles outside of Durham proper, while the one store in the city centre closed last August. Around the same time, a Tesco Express opened, Tesco being like Walmart and Express meaning a 7-11-size store jam-packed with all the essentials, all-be-they rather student-oriented ones. There is still the covered market where, along with an incredibly odd assortment of hair clips, overstocked make-up, cheap sweaters, and yarn, there still exists a butcher, a fishmonger, a cheese booth, and a green grocer. If one could find a more consistent place for bulk goods than the Weigh and Save, which has closed and reopened no less than five times since we've lived here, the city centre may provide enough to get by. As all these shops close promptly at 5pm, most employed people would have to save their shopping for the weekends.

What we do, though, is spend our £5 bus fare to the grocery stores on delivery instead. Order online and have your groceries delivered to your door. It's a fantastic luxury I thought only existed in New York. And since the food is delivered to and stored in warehouses, it's actually considered by many to be more efficient, greener one could say, than heading to the grocery store individually.

Now what's in downtown Zeeland that could provide such foodstuffs? There's a seed store, a jewelry shop, a few artsy gift shops and a floral shop. The coffee shop just closed, I hear, although the bakery, community restaurant, and diner could maybe get you by for a week if you chose to solely dine out. The lovely post office is still there and still small town-y. It just seems to me that cities exist to efficiently concentrate goods and services for those who live in them. They make things convenient. So what's with moving basic services to the peripheries of those cities and forcing everyone to transport themselves back out to find them? It all just seems silly, doesn't it?

Eastertide

2009-04-12T08:05:00.004+01:00

Last year we showed photos of the Easter eggs we bought, so this year we thought we'd post some photos of the available options. It is simply incredible how much stuff, sweets and toys in particular, is sold for Easter here; this is only one of two aisles.

Sheesh. Just give me a package of Brach's Chicks and Rabbits, and I'm happy.

Anyway, Easter is about celebrating something else entirely, so we're going to go break open the giant Cadbury egg that's been hogging space in the boot for the last few weeks, and see if we can locate an English-speaking church! Happy Easter!

Funny Photo Friday: Wouldn't you just spend your days praying for a fire drill?

2009-04-10T10:59:00.000+01:00

From Albert Dock in Liverpool.
OK, OK, it's probably for cargo, but still.

The Beginning of the End, kind of.

2009-04-07T18:40:00.003+01:00

So, here is the bit where we give a final preparatory announcement, Megan is already traveling and I'm leaving in about 30 minutes for the airport, and then this final leg of what has become a 2 year plus journey starts to draw to a close. In my head the times before we left doesn't feel that far ago but it isn't until I actually say the date do i realise the length of it, Dec of 2006 was a long time ago now.

But this begins the final leg, we'll share photos and stories we run across. We'll try not to enjoy the weather, food, or culture too much, but know that if you ever want to join us for a part we'll always have a seat in the car (you may have to share the space with a tent, but the seat is still there!). Also, I just wanted to say that if meg's email communication from the last week or so is an indicator or posting may be a little spotty at times, as Internet cafes aren't always abounding. But bear with us, we'll keep things updated as best we can. That's it, hope all is well and we really think you should join us somewhere, how about Greece? Greece is nice. So it's settled then, we'll plan on seeing you (y'all) in Greece, say early May?

P.S. I've been told the car is 'rather full' and to not bring much with me. As such this little backpack is all I'm taking with for a transatlantic flight.

Funny Photo Friday: I just don't even know where to start

2009-04-03T09:56:00.000+01:00

From the SE Asian store in Holland, Michigan.

If you can't read every comment, then zoom in and check it out. They're all class.

Movin' Movin' Movin

2009-04-02T06:29:00.002+01:00

So things have been busy since I've returned and recently as I was preparing to hit the road and feeling stressed about the drive I was trying to figure out why. Then I started to count the places I've been to since I've been back and it turns out in the 5 weeks I am back in the States I'll drive over 2,200 miles (most of that within a fortnight!) not to mention a round trip flight to Vancouver (there go another 4,000+ miles).

Sheesh, no wonder I'm tired of driving and moving! Hopefully though it'll serve as good training for this next little adventure, or at least that's what I tell myself on my 14+ hour drive home. Thank goodness someone created NPR.

Someone

2009-04-01T06:19:00.001+01:00

When you spend your life in close proximity with someone it is disappointing to go through major things without them. I miss her in those comical moments of reverse culture shock, when I find myself saying please for everything, when I climb into bed and under the comforter and then realise I haven't gotten into the covers (or under the top sheet, depending on your country of preference). Sometimes, I miss her in those bizarrely surreal moments of state finals in girls basketball and small town choir recitals (located in a gym with authentic worn out American flag and scoreboard in the corner!) where the scene feels too American to be true. I want someone who has been through it with me, to remind me it all really happened.

Also, I need someone to help me figure out when my mobile becomes my cell again. When do realise, authorise, and progamme change back into the pumpkins of realize, authorize, and program? When do I need to stop saying 'Cheers' as a substitute for thanks?

Some things (read: most) are just so much better with someone else around.

Shotgun anyone?

2009-03-31T20:02:00.000+01:00

Let's just look a minute and admire. Parallel parking with no power steering (?!) on a manual drive with a tricky clutch and a right side British steering wheel right up to the c(k)erb in downtown Amsterdam on the first try. Not bad for a girl who grew up in Zeeland, Michigan.

Let me just also say that it is very, very strange to go from right hand drive to left hand drive to right hand drive with a left hand drive car. Oh dear. This could get interesting. (Yes, I'll be careful, Mom.)

Over the sea

2009-03-30T08:00:00.000+01:00

There's a very precise moment of departure when you leave a place over water. I remember being sad as we turned on the West Side Highway from 48th Street in New York, but I don't think there were tears in my eyes until our big, yellow moving van crossed the Hudson, and I could see the city skyline silhouetted in the sunrise behind me from the George Washington Bridge.

Two days ago, I stood on the deck of a ship sailing from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the Netherlands, and I couldn't stop a feeling of sad finality as I looked back at waves crashing over the piers of Tynemouth in the setting sun.
There was land,
and then there was water,
and that was the end of things.

And here I am, on my way, beginning what should be a fantastic journey before returning to the United States. I'll be driving south in a few days to Barcelona, making stops through Western France on my way. I'll pick up Josh and drop off the friend who is joining me through France at the airport and then off we go. The idea of it is wonderful, but unfortunately neither Josh nor I have had much time for ideas. We've been busy moving, packing, planning, coming, leaving, looking, going, and it's too early yet to force the excitement of a dream becoming reality to overcome the sadness of a reality becoming a memory. I will miss England. It's not a perfect place- no where is- but it's become dear, as have the friends we've made here. I mean there. The friends we made there...

Dreamy nights

2009-03-27T21:41:00.001Z

From: Megan Feenstrawall
Sent: 20 January 2009 08:41
To: 'jjfw'
Subject: Last night

Last night, I dreamed that you caught a small shark in our living room with a bin liner. Of course, then you turned into the shark, but by then it was a tiger.

-meg

.......

I assume that all people dream. I assume that all people have as strange and imaginative dreams as I do, as vivid and as real. I assume they simply forget them somewhere in that space just above a newly vacated pillow, where reality flutters between memory and awareness and watery thoughts slip through our brains' sleepy grasp.

My dreams slip away somewhere between the bed and the shower. Sometimes I can keep them with me, in words, moments, or colors, all the way until the first blast of steamy water washes them out of my head and down the drain along with the smell of my slumber. If I am lucky, I will retain a feeling or a shape. Colors, textures, sizes, scenes, these help me remember the dream as a general whole while I repeat lists of words, events and plot lines in my head- as if I were studying for an unusually tricky exam- until I can commit them to paper. I've been doing this recently, out of curiosity mostly, and also because in one week I dreamed in split screen and that I ate a human brain. The first was fascinating, but that second one was so real that it left me sick to my stomach all morning. I thought it needed recording, and I haven't been able to stop myself since.

Read the rest...
Sometimes the remembering of one dream will lead me to another, an old dream or a new one or not a dream at all. Sometimes I cannot decipher whether the new memory is imagined or borrowed, dreamed or reality. This is the stuff deja vu is made of. I've had unusual and remembered dreams since I was a child, yet I identify with those who tune out when others share their dreams. They're rarely interesting to anyone but the storyteller.

And yet.

That email I sent to Josh a few months ago inspired me, with a bit of prodding, to share snippets of some of the stranger ones. This is perhaps the longest thing I've ever posted. Yes, there are actually a lot more. And, no, I don’t really expect you to read them all. Just a nice diversion if you need it. Also, you might show up once or twice! (If you don’t, ask me; I edited for privacy.)

Again, feel free to skip this post if it's just not your thing. I certainly won't hold it against you (at least not while I'm awake...).

..............

26 February 2008: SPLIT SCREEN TIGER
Split screen dream divided down the middle into two scenes like on the TV program 24. One side shows co-worker W and some others being chased up a tree by a tiger in the middle of a dry African prairie. We were trying to tell them not to get down yet because a similar thing had happened not so long ago and ended badly. They wait until the tiger is away and then scramble down onto the top of their army-green jeep, which is parked under the tree, and drive away. Other side- same thing has happened but the guys (possibly the same people, more likely two other men) get down too soon and the tiger must have been waiting and watching the whole time because all you see is a trail of blood leading from the tree along the reddish dirt to a gully where there are two mangled bodies of people who had gotten out of the tree too soon. [I had not seen, heard, or read anything about wild cats or Africa in months. It may have been lions not tigers. Only time I've dreamed in split screen.]

1? March 2008: YUMMY, YUMMY, CANNIBALISM
I eat human flesh. I am in my mom's new kitchen standing at the sink with the base cabinet door open to where the garbage can is. I am holding a skull in one hand and there is a thin layer of squishy, whitish stuff that is not smooth but faintly bumpy in texture between the skin and the skull. Not brain, but something on the outside of the skull- a thin layer of about 1/4 inch. I eat some and we are discussing where to put the skull- the garbage can or the garbage that becomes compost. [In real life, I felt sick that whole morning after waking up and remembering this.]

27? March 2008: PERIOD DRAMA
First ever period dream. I am hair dresser to Kate Winslet and dressed in Victorian garb, dress and bonnet and all. Only then I am not just dressed in Victorian garb, I am alive in Victorian days, and I am not just Kate Winslet’s hairdresser, but a lady’s maid. There’s something about the driver as well. That’s all I remember.

July and August: ROUND ABOUT ROAD TRIP
We decide to take a road trip to Alaska via Ohio and Lake Michigan and Maine [!!!]. I can follow the trip as I go, as if I am both in the car and looking at a map simultaneously, even though the map is of adjacencies that don’t exist in real life. We are travelling and camping in a motor home. We make it to Ketchikan. At one point, it is terribly hilly, and there is a terrible flood, and we all almost drown. There’s also a tough decision about whether to try to make it all the way to the tip of the peninsula- the end of the road/land in Alaska. ?? This was a very vivid and colourful dream, full of excitement and contentment, but that’s all I can remember now.

17 July 2008 12:52: LET ME PREDICT THE SEX OF YOUR BABY
Hey Mel-
I just wanted to tell you that I had a really long dream with you and J last night. It was so strange! You were visiting us in the UK, but it was very India-like, dirty and hot and you had to catch a train to Bangalore that was all written in Hindi (which, ironically, they don't even speak in that part of India). We made reservations at a fairly expensive restaurant for your last night, and the food was horrible (you took a bite and refused to finish it) and the service awful... but we were all like, well, that's just restaurants in NE England for you. It was so strange! Also, your baby was going to be a girl in my dream!

[Her baby turned out to be a girl in real life.]

20 October 2008: SYMPHONY TRYOUTS AND PINK TROUSERS
Sitting in the back row of the symphony try-outs. We’d been invited somehow. Not enough chairs, so we had to take some from the people there to watch- it was an open rehearsal thing. Had to go get uniforms from the closets on the walls, but we had trouble finding the right sizes. One large middle aged man was changing right there on stage and he put on bright pink pinstriped trousers and a purple suitcoat type jacket and that was our uniform. He looked like he was in the circus. Probably a good thing to distract the audience since we never played once, but I had two flutes and co-worker M a clarinet, I think. Josh was in percussion, I think.

We also later on a bus and co-worker D and I had a conversation about how the Vietnamese view and watch United States presidential election debates...

28 October: GLACIERS
We are kayaking by glaciers.

3 December 2008: REPTILE FIGHT
We are on some sort of safari type thing, wading in knee deep water. Maybe, might have been on boats. But we saw the two biggest reptiles in that country (africa?) fighting. One looked like the underside of an alligator with white/creamish scales and huge thick body. The other was snake like, but still big and amphibious with legs. [I think they looked like a story that was in the news lately- a python ate an alligator in the Everglades last year and ended up killing itself, too. They found them both in the water, half exploded and no one could figure out exactly what had happened.] I was holding a friend’s baby, I think, so I said I should really get back since we were out in the open and really in danger. So we went back and into a chain linked fence area, only there were reptiles in there, too. We eventually went to this guest house...

5 December 2008: BOUNCY SHOES AND AN OHIO ADVENTURE
We were on a road trip of sorts. I think it was a youth convention. Not sure who all was there. There were these shoes you could put on outside of your own shoes, like those old fisherprice roller skates, only these had something like a rubber ball on the bottom of each of them, so that if you got it right, you could bounce along, hopping from one foot to the other. Everyone was falling over trying to do it, but I put them on and laced them up tight (ok, so not quite like the roller skates), and everyone said to put them on looser in case I fell over. But I didn't and went hopping away, much to everyone and my own surprise. Then we were packing up to go home...

We headed out but the rental company only had a pickup truck. I was driving with a boy M from elementary school and another girl R from elementary school... She was driving and then we stopped at a diner to eat. We had to keep moving because we were driving from somewhere out west and needed to get back all the way to Michigan. We also had to start the truck on a hill for some reason. Then M was driving and I got out with roller skates (not roller blades) on to drag behind the truck or somehow roller skate but keep up with it. But I let go and the truck took one fork in the road and I ended up on the other.

Since were heading to the next major highway, I figured I could meet them at the on-ramp, so I kept going. It was cornfields and flat. I met two gay guys on bikes and I caught up with them and asked for directions, saying we were driving from California to Michigan... They gave me all these convoluted directions, also saying we had to go through Columbus, which meant we were in Ohio. I was relieved since it meant we were closer to Michigan than I thought, which is odd, since you wouldn't drive through Ohio coming from California. Anyway, I barely kept up with them and followed them and got to an alleyway between buildings. They went into this old building that looked like an art gallery inside and I started to follow them in, when a man with a HUGE tiger on a leash walked out of one room and into another and they all chastised him because I might have seen the tiger. Which I did.

I went back out and to my left was a cool old abandoned building with nice mixtures of blues and oranges I thought Josh and I might enjoy photographing and back behind me to my left a petrol station. I kept going forward and left of the gallery next to the abandoned building and down a steep hill where the road I was on dead ended perpendicular to a much larger road [reading this now, it makes no sense, except I can still picture it]. As the road went down, a concrete wall to the right stayed at the same height, so at the bottom, it was about chest height. Sitting on the corner of it next to overgrown grass were a pile of photographs in their paper envelopes- probably 4-5 rolls of developed film. I took them and saw that they were ours and as I did, the truck came past me from the right to the left. I ran up and Josh was driving... I got out my cell phone so I could ask my parents if they could start driving south and meet us. We needed our plane tickets back to England, but they were at their house. The flight left from Chicago, so it would mean driving all the way up and then back down again, seeing that we were still in Ohio [??], making us miss our plane. I don't remember ever placing the call before waking up.

8 December 2008: DOLPHINS IN THE WEST WING
I was working at the White House but hadn't showered yet. I found an extra bedroom that was decorated in a nice 80's pastel decor and started to take a shower in the attached bathroom. Apparently I was in the residence, not the working part of the White House, and C.J. Craig, the press secretary in the tv show West Wing, came to tell me something. I wrapped a towel around me and noticed that right outside the window was a small lap pool, about the size of those that mechanically send the water through so that an olympic swimmer can train by just swimming in place. Only this one had a dolphin in it. There was another behind it with a second dolphin. Who knew the president had dolphins? The pools were quite tiny, but apparently they were just holding the dolphins temporarily, and one end of the pools could open to let them out into a large aquarium.

I commented on them to CJ and we ended up walking outside, climbing through the windows that flanked the shower on two sides, and she showed me that on the other side of the pools there were large, gold-clad, elaborately decorated thrones from the 1700's. The chairs were actually on long sticks, so that 4-8 men could carry the person on the throne on their shoulders. There were a few other ones, too. I expressed surprise that the president of the United States would ever have used such royal-looking items, and CJ said, yeah, not many people know about it. Strange, huh? We walked back towards the bathroom shower and Jed Bartlett, the president on the same tv show, West Wing, came out, a little confused and offended that I would shower in the residence. He didn't seem to really mind, though, once CJ introduced me.

15 December 2008: CAR ACCIDENT
I was driving to meet my parents and a group of people somewhere, and the only vehicle available was the old turquoise blue minivan, the one with the constantly reclining passenger seat and nothing in the back [to make room for flower transportation], the one that smells like dirt. I groaned, but took it anyway. I hated it because the brakes were really bad. I would push them all the way down, but it would make no difference. I also think the dash was somehow in the way of my knee, making it even harder. I figured I’d have to use some combination of downshifting and standing on the brake. [even though it’s an automatic]

I was driving in the right hand lane of a very busy divided road, similar to Chicago Drive by the Brummels furniture store, when a girl came flying through the first lane of traffic, which was headed the same direction as mine, and out right in front of me. She skidded and slid over sideways, landing in a bloody heap in the middle of the lane. I panicked and slammed on my brakes, knowing they wouldn’t work well and fearing I wouldn’t be able to stop before I got to her. Luckily, there was just enough room on the grassy shoulder to my right between the road and a metal traffic barrier to slide to a stop over there. Somehow by the time I stopped, I was on the outside of the metal traffic barrier with a very steep grassy hill next to me. I was worried about leaving the car at such a tilt, but I needed to get back to the girl to make sure no one else hit her.

I ran back down the road and another woman had stopped behind the girl, somewhat blocking traffic. We ran out and helped get the girl out of the middle of the road as her only injuries appeared to be to her legs. One foot was mangled and bloody and the other was scratched. She appeared to be about 12 and was sheepish about having tried to cross such a busy road. We called an ambulance, and while waiting, the other woman, a 30-something west Michigan mom with a white sweatshirt on, told me to go check my car since I’d left the door wide open.

I went back and either the hill had gotten steeper or the car had slid some, but now it was practically sideways, the hill was so steep. I shut the drivers’ side door [which was on the left like a typical American car, so apparently I haven’t driven enough here in England to dream of left side driving], but didn’t know what to do. The hill was so steep, there was no way I was getting in it, much less be able to drive it off the hill- it would fall down into the lake that had appeared at the bottom of the steep slope. Watching this from lawnchairs up at the top of the hill and a few feet further down the road were some of the Nyenhuis kids and a few of their 20-something friends. They were laughing and saying there was definitely no way to save it... at least it was old.

3 January 2009: GREEN
Archeology, caves, green, nyenhuises and my family, motion detector lights, ruins covered in moss and grass, skiing.

January: SQUARE
Square in Turkey or Eastern Europe, Prague maybe? Dad and Mom are there or we’ve just met them there. Can see the image of it, although I can’t remember much else.

10 January: BOWLING BALLS
Bowling with co-workers

13 January: EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT
I am an Express clothing store employee somehow- it’s somewhat temporary, like I just moved to the area and only for a short time. There’s a huge line coming out of the office ‘showroom’ (of sorts), and I was told it was for an employee sale/discount on clothing/merchandise [similar to TV show Ugly Betty?]. ... It is an employee sale, but not for store merchandise. It was a form to fill out that looked like it came from the back of a bread bag- wrinkled thin printed plastic- and it was for things like sub sandwiches like a middle school band fundraiser. Annoyed. Almost ordered a dozen sandwiches for the low teens in dollars. Talked to a nice woman who said the shoe/boot sale was the day before, she’d missed it too, and I should talk to the person in charge of the employee sales about leaving the company (it was apparently my last day?) and not getting in on any of their sales. The woman was standing there with another exec, cream room, like a bad accountant’s waiting room, maybe. I explain I am architect, side job, no sales. The woman looked sympathetic but then said no.

14 January: DISAPPEARING AIRS (the only self-titled dream)
... Then we were in a bedroom- our bedroom? There were flies all over in the air, tiny little flies. Then someone spread a bunch of little seeds on the white bed spread and the flies flew to that. Josh and my dad were there.

Then we were in the car and my friend T was there with her parents, I think, and still Dad and Josh. And then there's something having to do with graduation or homecoming or some big event like that and she made a comment about sleeping with her boyfriend, that she would do it that night, which I thought was odd to say with her parents being there. Then she said something about it being the 6th time... and her parents were ok with that. It was really weird. Then we were on a terraced city street and T's sister L was there too. We had gotten out of the car and were standing in front of a store that sold odd old things like books and toy boxes and something with the word 'butt' on it. Then we were walking down the street like in Wizard of Oz with our elbows linked and skipping. Their sister J showed up and told us about working at a ski resort and being bored.

Then there was something about being back at my parents. There were people in the basement, some sort of wedding celebration... Then the people were gone and I was standing at the counter and Josh and Jennie were on the couch and T's dad came in and came behind me and started talking... he was upset about what T had said earlier. He then stuck his hands in my hoodie sweatshirt pockets and moved his hands over my boobs! I was horrified and yelled, Josh, hit him. Then my mom appeared and wanted to call the police, but we all knew it was because he was upset. And it actually wasn’t too big of a deal in the end.

Then I somehow, literally, skipped ahead a few pages (!) and T’s dad has left. Josh has a good excuse (for him?) and Jennie and I agree that it's a very creative, clever excuse and so I tell my mom Josh's excuse is called "Disappearing Airs”. I wake up with Disappearing Airs in my head as the name of the dream, the name of the very clever excuse. Only I am not entirely sure what the excuse is for anymore.

17 January: MICHIGAN TO ISTANBUL VIA TRAIN
We were taking the train from Michigan to Turkey on a business trip, so the train was heading south to Istanbul through Mexico, about 36 hours total. [!!] We had seats, but not a berth even though it was overnight. But our seats folded down. I got on separately from Josh because Matt was with Josh and Mom was talking to me. Mom went to go get something and the train pulled in. It barely stopped so I had to leave without saying goodbye. But then I almost freaked out because I didn't have the tickets or passports. Ends up Josh had gotten on too, though. He was making a very loud fuss because he couldn't find me, so I heard him and went up to the "cockpit" to tell them. Still ended up getting off the train early for some reason and then having to fly.

19 January: FIGHTING CACTI AND CREEKSIDE BOAT LAUNCHES
... Then we were on a boat going scuba diving. The boat’s front scooped under the water and began to sink. Then it came back afloat but I was still underwater. There was a huge shark, hammerhead, below me. Then I lost my diving "buddy" and came up. We then moved to a submarine like space full of foreigners and a Serbian thought they had the best diving in her country.

Then I was at a big conference room with lots of people and tables at the end with plants on them. There were cactus and one of them got bigger and leaned over the edge and started fighting with one on the floor. The one on the floor was actually a snake- and then both of them ended up being vipers fighting so people cleared out of the room. [yes, the cactus started fighting.]

I was outside and it looked a lot like the area by the grill at my parents' house. I was there with high school friends, and there was a big display case with dried stuff in little plastic bags- mostly tea and tobacco. They were talking about an dance party or something... We walked out past the garden to the barn where they were fixing it [which they are in real life]... There was also a huge addition to the South that had a smaller place inside it, maybe for a cash register, with an onion dome top. There was an office over the chicken coop and a playroom over that full of stuffed animals. We were walking back and I mentioned that the addition went right over the creek. Dad mentioned that maybe it wasn't the best place but he'd wanted to maybe keep sailboats in the creek and he'd need a boat launch. [yeah, the creek’s not very big.]

20 January: JOSH, THE TIGER, ER, UM, SHARK
I'm taking a shower in a highrise on the 30-something floor with a fantastic view of the beach. Then I am making a watery mess because the bathroom is so small. Then the building sinks and I am actually on the first floor and people can see in, which stinks because I usually liked to get out of the shower and walk into the living room naked in this particular apartment.

Then I am out of the shower, and there is an animal inside between the table and the fireplace in our Durham living room except that it's still the same building and near the beach. Josh catches the animal with a bin liner (plastic bag) and it's a small shark. Then it's not really a shark, and it's sort of a mangy dog, but it's very catlike. It scratches the 18 year old or so boy who's there, an intern of some sort. It ends up it's an old tiger that was used for photos (prom or graduation or something) at the local high school, somewhere near the beach. Then it's at the top of the stairs and Jennie is hugging it in the bin liner to keep it from getting out, and it's actually Josh. But it's still a tiger, too. [This is one of the weirdest ones in a long time.]

21 January: CHRISTMAS WITH THE DECEASED
... Then we are biking there or somewhere through busy streets and we are home and it's Christmas. We find out Grandpa and Grandma Artz are coming. [Strange since they passed away over 15 years ago.] We don't have gifts for them and Mom and I are frantically looking for something. Grandma is ill and uses a walker although we haven't seen her yet in the dream. Some Feenstras show up, and I realize it's a party for both sides. Move stuff off my old bed so that I could sleep on it that night. The bed is in my bedroom on an angle. I wonder if I should call Josh. We didn't realize so many relatives were going to be there, and he'd genuinely want to be there if he had known.

22 January: OUR LANDLORD
We are sitting at a table of older Brits. They are telling us about something or someone. We mention, yes, we know about that because we live with Prof. G. ‘Oh!’ they say... Most of them know him. One woman turns to the man next to her to try to describe our landlord. "He's..." she says. "Bumbling," I say! She laughs. ‘Exactly.’

23 January: MY MOM, THE PYROMANIAC
We are in my mom's kitchen. There is a refrigerator under the counter, very much like how they are here in England quite often. It's right next to a white plastic bin under the countertop. It's full of garbage and Mom lights a match and starts it on fire. She says they have no garbage pick up, so they were told to do this once a week instead... inside! The doorbell rings and it is "Irene" at the door. Irene actually looks a lot like Josh's Aunt Dorothy and she walks in with an older woman from my parents' church. They have come to ask for our Thanksgiving leftovers. My mom says no, as she quite likes leftovers from big meals. In fact, she says, the ones in our fridge now are leftovers from the Nyenhuises!

24 January 2009: ELEPHANTS
I work at an elephant preserve. The elephants like to be entertained. It's muddy and wet. Beth's kids are here, and we have to spend time with them... one at a time, I think, rather than all at once.

25 January: REPETITION
I was doing something again and again. Taking something across space, moving something maybe. But there were different ways of doing it and I am trying them all. And it's round with swirls of color. But a thick cylinder, not a sphere, in 3 dimensions, like a thick lollipop or an oversized clay bead maybe a foot in diameter. But that's not the thing I am moving, it is the dream itself. That's the shape and color of the dream. I can almost, but not quite, remember it all.

27 January 2009: SQUARE
The dream has lots of squares. Perhaps related to all the drawings I've been doing at work.

28 January: THE ISLAND
We have to go to the airport, but we are in a city that is on an island. You can go out across the island and then go the long way around the island, clockwise, in fact. There were some bridges over on that side. I can picture the map in my head. We are waiting at our house for Jennie's friend to come around the island and then pick us up on the way, but she took the wrong ferry and was late and we were getting nervous we'd miss our flight. I can see the island as a sort of slightly raised map and the ferries and it's rather green. I am in our room packing and have piles of clothes all over. I am looking for one thing in particular and can't find it. Finally my mom shows up with a minivan and we decide to go with her instead. I get in and Josh isn't with me because he's coming separately somehow. We pull out, being followed by Josh or someone like my cousin, and mom gets stuck in a parking spot and ends up hitting the front of a car. It's a funny shaped, boxy one like the Renault Megane. She just pulls away even though I tell her she's left scratches on the car. ‘Well, do you want to be late?’ she says. The person behind us comments on this, disgustedly, when we get to the airport.

A bunch of people are in an open space with our rooms or apts around it. It's comfortable and colorful. It looks almost like mushroom houses like in the Smurfs. D and W from work are there and working on a drawing or something. D is playing practical jokes and he hides in my closet inside one of my coats and jumps out when I come near. I act startled but I knew he was in there all along.

31 January 2009: E-VISAS TO SYRIA
Josh, myself, my mother and two sisters are in another country. We each have one or two suitcases. We get to an opening between buildings, lots of fences, concrete, but not dirty or scary or unhappy. We go into an office and say we'd like to go over the border to Syria. The man looks at our passports and asks us if we got a chance to send an email about getting the e-visas and if we have a copy of the reply, which is the visa, apparently. [Not bad- visa by email!] We didn't and don't have a visa and ask if we can go in anyway. We are just going for a day or two, no longer. My mom is especially insistent on this. We have a place to stay that she has booked but only for one night, so it's important that we go for at least one night, but we won't stay much longer. The man lets us through and we are in the country illegally but unworried. We are in a no-mans-land between border control and fence and have to walk through some fences to actually
be in Syria, but we stop and open up our suitcases. We are thinking about just taking a bit of our stuff with us and leaving the rest in the larger suitcases in the fenced-in area since we will be back through in a few days.

2 February: I CAN JUST BARELY NOT REMEMBER
Apartment
Josh was there
Warm
Clothes maybe?

3 February 2009: A PURPLE WEDDING
We are in a service, like a church service. I sit with my family and there are the Nyenhuises, family friends, on the other side of the aisle. I am watching C the entire service for some reason. Then I discover it's because we are going to C and K's wedding. There are two of them, as if they need to get married in two countries. One is more typical and the other is more of a reception. K has on jeans and I am surprised that she'd wear that to the reception. We have breakfast as a group, then lunch and then we are all standing in a big room that is decorated. There is an open space in the middle and the bridesmaids walk in one at a time really slowly as if they are walking down the aisle, only it's just a reception with a dance floor... and it is all purple. EVERYthing is purple, the girl's dresses, any flowers, even the lights are purple and cast a purple light on everything so that when K walks in, she is purple, too. Then we move through some glass doors into the room next door for dinner. It's fajitas, of all things. My mom and Jane are talking about AIDS or something. And then they are talking about pregnancy.

6 February 2009: JOSH’S ATTEMPT TO KILL HIS KIDS
Josh wants to take his youth group on a high ropes course, only this is actually a boat rigging thing instead on a huge ship on the sea. He shows me what we call a ‘rigging board’ which is a 2’x4’ piece of ply or cardboard covered with pins and then string going from pin to pin in a complicated pattern. There are bits of tape on it, some coming like flags from the pins. It’s a diagram of either where the kids will be or move or what they have to do with their rigging.

Josh is debating about whether they should do a drill that will help them learn how to escape if the boat or ship is capsized or sinking but may be extremely dangerous. It could kill some of the kids, but we both think it’s important since it will help them learn what to do in a dangerous situation and is just a standard part of the training.

Then I am at work, Nappers. I’m putting up a new shelf for the magazines that M has been saving...

Then I am on my parents’ front porch. They want to see the work we do at Nappers, and I find an article about the office in Time magazine. The magazine article has lots of nice pictures of Napper projects, including some glossy, glassy new [reading this now I don’t know what that means, but I wrote it first thing in the morning] and some historic preservation. One project looks like an excavated city almost, with walls of red brick extending into the distance with no roof and a viewing platform. It is mildly reminiscent of the Albert Dock in Liverpool. Then there is a picture of some guys, probably my bosses sitting on the roof of a boxcar or a roof of a very narrow building that has just been finished with hot tar. They are lounging, dressed in jeans and tank tops or t-shirts and maybe drinking, not sure. I imagine someone fairly good-looking and medium-young slouching in an old wooden chair, hands resting on knees, like a model. I am somehow looking at the picture and in it at the same time.

9 February 2009: CERVEZA
Josh and I are in my grandparents’ living room, old set-up with the big wooden entertainment center (back when all they held were tvs) in front of the window. Two of my cousins are there with us.

We move to the kitchen, Josh goes somewhere else. The kitchen is set up similarly to theirs, but a bit narrower. It changes as the dream goes on- narrower, different cupboards... I look in the fridge for something to drink. It’s an under the counter one. I find a bottle of beer in it and wonder if it’s actually a freezer since it’s so small... The beer is in a half size bottle and the label is either Corona or Pacifico, so when Josh walks in I say that it’s cerveza and he goes to look for another one.

I notice that there’s a lemon or lime slice in it which means that it could be already open and maybe spoiled. The cap comes off like the metal caps come off milk bottles here in the UK. Josh finds a bottle of cerveza as well. [Good grief. Has this country really made me dream of alcohol too?]

12 February 2009: MEGAN MAKES THINGS
Shopping for a wedding dress, even though I was already married still. It was as if I was married, but wouldn’t be soon. Not that Josh was going to die or divorce me... just that I needed a new dress for another wedding. I considered wearing my old one and everyone thought that was a viable option....

Then we were decorating a door or something and it was me and Liz and I made our names and cut them out and was then writing a few words that described us that started with the same letter, like Energetic for Erin and Makes things (??) for Megan. [I’m nice and clever in my dreams.]...

11 February : NAPKIN HOLDERS AND DONUT BUILDINGS
I am driving around a foreign place, possibly with other people. It’s like a road trip. I run out of gas somewhere and have to call my friend Q on her mobile phone. She is a bit exasperated. While I am waiting for gas from somewhere or someone, I am in a donut shaped building, more oval than round, and the car can drive in and around the loop of the donut. In the middle there are some white napkins on a table and on shelves on the other side of the car are napkin holders. They are white and somewhat simple, one straight and one with scalloped edges and pin pricks like lace or a valentine. They are plastic-y and thin and triangular. I have absolutely no idea how they’ll hold napkins, yet I feel compelled to buy one. I show the two I am deciding between to Q when she shows up, and she has no preference. I take the scalloped edge one and leave some money on the center table as there is still no one around. The money I leave is dollars, not pounds.

13 February : MARIJUANA
I am part of a group of adults chaperoning a big teen event. I am standing outside with my mom.

Then we are in a kid’s room and there is marijuana being offered, although I think it is a granular substance, maybe a powder that is on a table. [Shows how much I know about that sort of thing.] I try to leave but am forcefully told to stay by one teen or he is forcefully against the marijuana, I am not sure. But he is apparently autistic. I have no idea why I know that or how it affects the story but it’s just something I know or suspect.

New scene: I have a gift hanging from the wall near my desk for Josh. It is a dark-colored, patterned umbrella. He comes in to see me and suspects it is a gift, but I put him off the scent by telling him it is not mine. Sneaky.

14 February: SUNSHINE
A group of us are at the zoo. D from work is there, as are Katie from elementary school and some other unrelated people. It’s a really nice zoo and I am in the water part with D looking at the fish. We go out to find some food and D is no longer part of the dream. Katie and others and I find a cafe in the zoo and find out it is closing at 3:15, which is ten minutes away, but the waitress will still serve us. We sit at a round table and ask for water. We then decide to move outside to eat at a picnic table. It’s a beautiful day. I have my back to the sun and my neck gets sunburned. Outside, each person gets a different meal in a big, thin, metal tray like a take away container. We peal back the tops and the child (??) and Katie have macaroni and cheese. We discuss that for a bit. There is a table not far away that is a ski school table and I think of fond memories sitting at lunch with my ski school kids.

17 February: HUGH GRANT AND THE DREAM WITHIN A DREAM
We are at the Hilton Islington [where we stayed while visiting Emma and Gerard two weeks ago]. Josh and someone else and I are having lunch with my boss, G. He is hesitant about lunch there for some reason. H from work is there too, but he leaves because he doesn’t want to spend the money. Then G is not G but the actor Hugh Grant. Hugh is very hesitant because this is partly where he filmed Notting Hill and he doesn’t want to be recognized. We go up to our room and it is three of us, all girls, I think, and Hugh. We have three rooms, an L-shaped room with a big telly, an office attached to this room with glass French doors and then a kitchen. There is no bedroom but the couch in front of the TV folds down, as does another in the other leg of the room.

I am discussing with someone, my sister Beth, I think, about dreaming about these three rooms and we think that we actually dreamed the same dream. We describe them to each other, but in the end, our dreams are slightly different. [I dreamed in my dream!]

Hugh goes out. No, maybe the third woman goes out, who has worked with him, as if she’s Julia Roberts but someone we know. Hugh is strangely uncomfortable. The maid knocks to clean. I am still in my robe and answer and tell her that we don’t need cleaning today. The neighbours, a woman and her two sons, peak in and says, ‘oh, you have the same room as us.’ But then she realizes that it’s different. She asks if they can come over because they are bored and don’t have a TV. We say no problem as they are a nice family, and they come sit on our couch. I tell them that I have just bought the box set to a television program that is a cross between the Drew Carey show and Family Guy. I think it is animated and the main character is a teenager or young man with a strange shaped head or jaw line. I can recall in the dream picking it out of a bin at the store. We put that in to watch. I think Hugh is still there.

19 February 2009: ORANGE CITY
I was in a minivan or large vehicle with a bunch of 20-something people. I kinda knew them, although not much. We were on a road trip or something. We drove into Minneapolis or Denver, I am not sure which one, just as the sun was rising or setting, and to our left was a tall building that sloped in the middle like a can that someone had squeezed and to the right was the city with tall buildings all bathed in an orange glow from the sun. I reached into my bag to find my camera and discovered I'd forgotten it. I think the girl next to me lent me hers. [Ironic, as all week this week I've been taking pictures for Josh's youth Toast Cafe.]

Then we are with Aunt M and Uncle D and maybe Grandpa and Grandma. They just got off a train trip or we were on a train trip and they were complaining about the food or something.

22 February: INTRIGUE WITH FORTUNE COOKIES
I am in transit or something. I have my stuff in boxes or wardrobe-like things. It's an action-type dream where some people, two women mostly, think I have something they want- about 20 or so tiny little slips of paper about the size of fortune cookie fortunes- but they need to pretend that they are interested in helping me, not in getting these little slips of paper. They also aren't sure I have them. I do, though. I think I find them somewhere in my stuff or some woman gives them to me for safe keeping since I have the greatest chance of escaping with them. I am changing clothes or searching through my suitcases or something. I try to figure out where to hide them. I consider cutting a slit in the top hem of my underwear and slipping them in the quarter inch there'd be there, but I think they'd discover the cut. Instead I somehow end up getting to the other woman who staples them together various in groups. Apparently on these little slips of paper are code words written in pencil. There is more action, but it takes place around Zeeland Christian School and the dead end roads around the back, where we used to hang out as part of Gateway church.

24 February: CAT DELIVERY
A cat we find and adopt has TWELVE kittens. And not only that, but the cat has them ON our bed, between our pillows. At some point in the dream, one of the kittens dies because there are so many, and my mother puts it on the kitchen counter. [This is the day after we met the fisherman's cabin cat in Seaham in real life.]

27 February: ZOO SALESMAN
My job is to walk up to people on the street or call by phone and sell season passes to the zoo. Josh and I eventually go to this zoo (I hadn’t yet been), and we have to buy insurance in order to enter it. The insurance just ends up being a headlamp. Also, as an activity you can shoot birds, each shot costs $100. We miss the train on the way back that was to leave at 5:04.

5 March: NOT THAT BLANKY
I see someone with my childhood 'blanky'. It is a ratty, pink blanket and looks just like the one I had growing up, which has gone missing. I go ask the person about it, and she (I think it is a girl, not woman) insists that it is hers.

16 March: FLYING DISTILLERY
I am with my parents and maybe sister, Jennie, and some others touring around somewhere. We walk past a very big stone building, dark grey and cave-like on our right. It just keeps going and eventually it turns to open air and we discover that it is a distillery. We are going to take the tour. It is huge, with massive copper stills. We are walking above them on metal grate catwalks, and I am alone on one when it suddenly gets lifted up very, very quickly about five stories into the air. I drop down to my stomach and lie on it so that I don't fall off when it flies up. Then it lowers again to a new position- right in front of everyone else, all of whom are fairly impressed I didn't fall off.

17 March: THE FLIRT
I take driving lessons in order to pass the UK test and the instructor flirts with me. He is a large man and looks like Jack Black. Later, Josh thinks this is funny. Then we are on a train and there’s the most beautiful mountain view with a turquoise lake out the window.

19 March 2009: DUCK ON DUCK
I am at an office, sorta like mine here, and we are looking out the window. I see a huge duck on the roof of a building across the street. It looks exactly like a sitting duck you get carved in wood or like those little pencil sharpeners we got from Grandma when we were little [and like the one I saw today at a second hand shop]. It starts to move up and I think it's standing up. Only instead of it's legs, I see another duck and the top duck is actually sitting on the back of another duck. It's not standing up... the bottom duck is. Then they get up and fly away and as they do, I see that the lower one has huge white peacock feathers under its belly. A female coworker (who doesn't exist) tells me that is an extremely rare breed of bird and I should consider myself fortunate. I do.

Funny Photo Friday

2009-03-27T09:53:00.000Z

Certainly didn't have to tell me my pre-packaged Mexican quarter pounder was a limited edition... they had me at the '0 to tasty' bit.

Man or monkey??

2009-03-25T08:33:00.000Z

He's after this:

Ode to Tray

2009-03-23T09:40:00.006Z

When we were new to the country and had no food due to ignorance of grocery store locations, lack of transportation, and downer of an exchange rate... you were there, holding free sausage rolls (what are these things?) in exchange for a few shy smiles and awkward conversations with other doe-eyed international students.

When we were faced with another tv and internet-less evening in our sparse, new home... you were there, holding a friendly offering of leftovers from the resident tutor and welcoming party planner who didn't fully understand the gift given.

When we had no cutlery, dishes, or anything else during our one week at Keenan House... you were there, as sole plate, baking tray, dish cover, and serving dish.

When we moved to Dunelm Mount... you were there because with nothing but clothes and a few picture frames, anything relating to "home goods" seemed worth saving, even carrying down the road to a new apartment, and your presence comforted us as something acquired here, not lugged across an ocean.

When we had no covers for our pots and pans on our wimpy stove, cousin to Easy Bake Ovens everywhere... you were there, shielding us from those irritating bits of red pasta sauce and curry that stick between the little bumpy bits of our white, textured wallpaper and perhaps saving our marriage from arguments about who was to clean them up once they were dried to the wall like they'd grown there.

When we had not a single plate large enough to carry kebabs out to our new little green barbecue and we were too lazy to go two flights down to ask our landlord to borrow one... you were there, carrying our food, albeit slightly shaky on this one, carrying not being your strong suit.

Now, this being the fourth Monday of the month, our last in this dear country, with greatest honour and deepest respect, we offer you, tray, to the blue bin of recycling. May you go in peace to end up in a park bench or as part of someone's can of peas.

Funny Photo Friday: What? Like the ozone?

2009-03-20T08:47:00.000Z

Bought my first ever paneer (Indian cheese).

Open space

2009-03-19T08:55:00.002Z

I still remember the very first time I was given a site plan at work here. As I peered down at the drawing, I struggled to make sense of it. It seemed odd, this unfamiliarity with something that should have been completely legible to me, but I simply could not figure out what boundaries the lines were denoting: what was built and what was not, where the street began and the pavement/sidewalk ended , which square was house and which was garden/lawn. Obviously, I knew that things were different here, with towns and villages, as well as houses, typically more closely spaced. But that this difference would make me a useless employee for a few days, I had no idea.

Read the rest...

Now, well over a year later, I can make sense of a line drawing of a British street. A glance and I know which line in which color, dashed, solid, or dotted, indicates house, street, pavement, wall. I now suspect my confusion was partially due to unfamiliar architectural notation, but, more so, to simple cultural differences in spatial configuration. It's not that neighborhoods are planned differently here; they just are different. A line indicating a property boundary is more than likely something physical like a fence or hedge. Two boxes next to each other are probably two buildings with one shared wall. In fact, the average English home will have a tiny front yard, a larger, completely fenced in back yard, and probably one or more party walls. I think semi-detacheds (what we might call a duplex) are more common than detacheds (what we might call a house).

And then there are the rows and rows of terraced houses, townhouses or rowhouses, I think we'd call them. (This image is of Newcastle.) Josh and I had been told our house was large before we first visited it, but new to the country, I was surprised to find a terraced house standing at the given address, surprised that a terraced house could be included in the “large” category. It can. Terraced houses can be massive or miniscule, and they are found in big cities, tiny villages and all densities of habitation in between. The English grew up in and around houses with shared walls, so they're just not as strange as they probably are to most Americans. One commonality between the British and the Americans, though, is the desire to own rather than rent a home. People at work talk about other Europeans as willing to live in apartments and/or rent houses, but the English would rather pay a mortgage on a house. I think the same is true in the United States... we just assume our mortgage buys us our own four walls.

Does this make an English street more friendly? Maybe. Maybe not. It still depends on the people and the houses. The home owners around here tend to build huge fences or grow 7 foot tall hedges between their front garden and the sidewalk, and I have yet to see a back yard that’s not fenced in (see photo taken in Liverpool). It feels very much like children staking out their own space- this side of the line is mine, that side is yours, and ne’er do we cross. The reason for these boundaries certainly seems deeply ingrained, but I wonder if it has more to do with human levels of comfort when living in close proximity than cultural norms. Or maybe it’s quite simply the very British desire for privacy. In any case, I'd rather walk down a street where the houses are more spread out but the home owners can actually see the street from their living room window. Josh and I have also gotten ourselves in some awkward situations in the last year by assuming we could take a short cut from one street to another. Not possible when fences block every unbuilt opening. It makes the large number of marked footpaths around Durham, often bounded on each side by a 6’ wooden fence, that much more explicable, although it doesn’t make the partitioning of space any less irritating.

With all the houses clustered together, the landscape simply looks different here. Habitation comes in clumps and clots, often allowing for more green space closer to the center of cities. Imagine a school gymnasium full of people who barely know each other. They’ll probably stay fairly spread out, perhaps like marbles on an even surface, and the gym will more or less feel full. Now make the surface a little less even by putting in, say, a few tables of food. The people will cluster around the tables just as marbles will bunch together in any dips and cracks, leaving more space feeling unoccupied. This satellite image of a part of Newcastle shows such uneven settlement with its semi-detached houses, terraced housing, some allotment gardens- the type where you get your own 10'x10' plot to tend- and cow pasture. I suppose I should note that open space in Britain does not mean wild space. The green here is still developed; it's just gardens or farmland. Josh has commented before on the lack of what we'd consider truly open space or wilderness.

Honestly, though, I think this makes the British countryside more interesting. Sameness has its beauty and its place, but diversity can be intriguing. Most people will choose a painting with a variety of colors and shapes over a monochromatic color field; there’s something about the push and pull, the tension of difference, that appeals to us.

American development tends to be more even and spreads out like people in the food-less gym. Perhaps if the British had more open space, they would have done the same. (I suppose they did; it’s called colonisation.) Thick and thin places still exist in the United States. You can see it here in my sister's town in Iowa or in a major urban center like the Rockaway peninsula in New York City. But I'd tend to say that most American landscapes don't maintain this same level of density/non-density. It’s also true that some more populated (than the Northeast) places we’ve visited here in the UK seemed to go on and on just as a New Jersey suburb might.

The car, you say? That’s the culprit? Perhaps. And perhaps Americans will never be happy sharing walls or giving up some private space for public use, but surely we can be sensible about what and where we build. Surely Americans are known for their ingenuity- we haven’t dug ourselves into a hole we can’t climb back out of or, at the very least, turn into a community swimming pool.

(I hate it when people point out problems or irritations without offering solutions. Sorry. This is a typically light-hearted blog, and the post has gone on long enough... so I will be my own pet peeve!)

'Ello! 'Ew alright?

2009-03-18T08:34:00.002Z

(I found this post of Josh's in our list of posts and thought I'd publish it even though it's a few months old now. Hopefully Josh doesn't mind... -megan)

I'm changing the way I talk. I know, it's kind of weird, BUT I do it intentionally, and mostly just on specific occasions.

What has happened as of late is that I find myself in front of groups of people, specifically in front of groups of people where we say the same thing together (normally these moments are prayers, seeing as how I do work for a church and this does happen in churches after all). In those moments I find myself switching the way I speak, partially intentionally partially not, to a BBC English accent.

Mind you this isn't just a vowel or two. It's also not like calling a 'bathroom' a 'loo' or a 'cell phone' a 'mobile.' This is me fully changing the way I speak during group readings so that I sound like everyone else. I'm still not sure why I do it, nor do I really mean to do it, it just happened one morning. I guess after a year of working in my current job and leading people in these prayers, it just happened (maybe the clash between the my accent and everyone else's just got to me).

So now I fake it. Whenever I have to talk in sync with others, out it comes, and suddenly I say 'Gawd' instead of 'God'... does this make me a horrible person?

What we've been up to lately.

2009-03-17T10:26:00.000Z

Here are a few photos of the madness you'd see around here if you happened to stop by...

On an American paradox that is hard to explain

2009-03-16T09:25:00.002Z

We've been trying to articulate the American paradox of violence for quite some time now and Megan recently found an article that puts it well. Worth a quick read if you've ever wondered about America and violence and a healthy alternative to 'US Crime Dramas.'

Funny Photo Friday

2009-03-13T09:00:00.000Z

Ever have that feeling that an organization spent ages coming up with a name to fit their acronym?
(Liverpool)

Close up:

The difference a letter can make

2009-03-12T14:50:00.005Z

I am presently back in the USA on some personal matters and this morning I woke up and the news said it was 6 degrees outside. Mildly groggily I thought to myself, 'Well that's not to bad, worlds warmer than what it was yesterday.'

Then I took a drink of coffee and did the conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit in my head... sigh.

Bits and Bobs and Odds and Sods 5

2009-03-12T09:00:00.001Z

When we first learned of the Great Switch to Digital, we were certain that the newly acquired (and just-as-awkward-and-heavy-as-it-looks) television sitting on an extra dresser in our flat wasn’t digital ready. It didn’t take us long to find out that the government was implementing the change in stages, beginning in the Borderlands, we assumed because there aren’t enough people who live there to raise a big stink if it didn’t work. County Durham, on the other hand, wasn’t going digital until 2012, plenty of time to ignore the inevitable and leave the country first.

This country, the size of my state, is taking four years to make the switch. Thus, you can imagine our amusement upon learning at Christmastime that the United States is going digital all at once. Here in the UK, those on disability or elderly pensioners can ring up to have their telly set up by someone. A service that is, quite frankly, very civil of them. Does such a provision exist in the USA? Given the extent of their public funding programs, perhaps they need the four years to set up all those appointments. Regardless, I like the idea that the United States is gung-ho enough to just have at it. What excitement! What potential for disaster!

(if disaster is a few days of snow on your television set, I’ll take it.)

Bits and Bobs and Odds and Sods 4

2009-03-11T09:00:00.001Z

Architectural terms can be odd anywhere. I don’t know if these are particularly British or not, but I haven’t seen them before. And they just sound funny...

Knob Shank: the cylindrical base of a door knob or lever which receives the spindle... or something x-rated?

Granolithic: a topping finish on concrete that contains cement, granite chippings and sand. Psychedelic, man.

Double Bullnose External Return On Edge or Bullnose Double Stretcher On Flat: special absurdly long named brick types. Not jumps in figure skating, fancy sandwiches or mixed drinks.

Spatter dash: Cement and sand in a very wet mix flicked onto walls in small blobs with an applicator. This is as opposed to pebble dash (pebbles), dry dash (aggregate), or the Hungarian 350 meter dash with hurdles (I just made that one up).

Valley Gutter: where two separate pieces of sloped roof join to form what I would just call a valley. Perhaps not that funny on its own, but I still remember the first time someone with a northern accent mentioned it at work. It sounded like Vah-ee-ger, and I thought it was a completely new word for me. Eventually I figured out it was just 'valley gutter' said very quickly and without the T’s. Valley Guh Er. Right.

Quantity Surveyor: a much fancier way of saying cost estimator.

Overlords: permissions, authorities, etc. Despite its insinuation that our work is influenced by dark forces beyond our control, this is in our file structure just like any old folder such as ‘construction’ or ‘meetings’ or 'drawing issue sheets'.

And for you American architects, a tender is a bid, a brief is a program and a program(me) is a construction schedule, but a schedule is a schedule (but probably pronounced shedule).

Finally, here are some phrases from emails I’ve received at work. Happy translating:

The City are happy for [Contractor A] to put in a price for the [project]. If they think it is good they may be able to proceed without having to go to tender – so tell them to be keen.
.....
As you can see from the email below, we may not have to tender the job – as long as you sharpen your pencil! How is your diary for a meeting Friday next?
....
Wording from quite simply the most polite tender/bid proposal I’ve ever seen:
We thank you for your kind enquiry and have much pleasure in quoting you BUDGET prices for the supply and delivery of the counters all as follows ....
We trust this is of interest to you and look forward to your valued order....
Assuring you of our best attention at all times....
Yours faithfully,

Bits and Bobs and Odds and Sods 3

2009-03-10T09:00:00.002Z

We’ve gotten beyond the American v. British English discussions for the most part. Lately, we’ve moved on to distinctly British phrases we find common, but grammatically puzzling (and strangely appealing). They may be northern and they may be technically incorrect- I make no claims other than that we hear them with some frequency. Here are a few worth mentioning:

I am told by my boss to do something at work, but if I have questions, ‘Give us a shout.’ That’s plural; he’s singular. Give us a ring. Give us a hand. These don’t always mean ‘us’. They may mean ‘me’. I don’t completely understand, but I’m glad I know about it.

People don’t have names. They are called something. I used this yesterday at work- ‘I spoke to an engineer called Dillon’- and felt weird. No one noticed.

There’s a particular sentence type that is commonly used, but not by us. It ends in ‘do’ and doesn’t always make complete sense as far as verb to verb agreement goes. Here's a few I've heard this week:
Will you be joining us for drinks? Well, I would do, but I’m not sure I have time.
Can we make a schedule for that? We should do.
Does this folder have a home? It will do.
But what if they refuse it? Oh, they won’t do.
Are you going to wear a jumper? I will do.
Who will take this rubbish home? I can do, but obviously I’d rather not do.
Josh and I are currently in the midst of an informal contest to see who can do this the most, getting it in whenever we can. Who’s gonna win? I will do! Hm. It doesn’t sound right there.

There are 'How are you' and 'What are you up to' and 'How’s it going'. There’s also ‘Are you alright?’ here. Despite its frequency as a first greeting, it catches me off guard every time. It almost seems rude, as if I’m doing something wrong and the inquisitor is trying to head me off before it gets worse or maybe as if I look a mess and the concerned party wants to make sure I’m not dying. What’s even stranger is that I’ve heard ‘fine, thanks’ as a response. But it’s a yes or no question!

Finally, another undeclared contest for Josh and I. Demonstrative adverbs (yes, I had to look that up) commonly go at the end of sentences for simple, exclamatory phrases. This is brilliant, this. Good one, them. Nice steak and ale pie, that. Then and though can also get tacked onto the end of sentences or questions. I’ve gotten an email with this exact sentence: Good one them though. On a side note, a then on the end of a question can easily turn it from American to British in inflection. Shall we get food? Ending high: American. Shall we get food then? Said the same but with the then lowered: British. In fact, when Josh reads this, I just know he’ll say, ‘Good one, that. Should I write the next one then?’

Bits and Bobs and Odds and Sods 2

2009-03-09T09:00:00.000Z

Let’s say you order something online. You enter in your name and address and there you go. But a few things that make me smile every time I have to do it over here, so let me share them with you.

First, titles are very important. Every time Megan calls for something, to top up her phone, to talk to a dentist, they insist on knowing whether she is a Mrs or a Miss. Who really cares? What’s even funnier are the options in title drop down menus. Here are a sample:
Ms
Mrs
Ms
Mr
Dr
Prof
Rev
Sir
Sister
Father
Lady
Lord
RH

(Side note: This reminds me of when I was strongly reprimanded by our department secretary for calling someone Dr. Soandso and not Prof. Soandso. Anyone with a PhD can be a doctor, but a Professor earns that title only once appointed as a named chair. This is very different from our American understanding of the word/title!)

Second, post codes matter. Posts codes, the equivalent of an American zip code, don’t seem to cover as much area here, so you often enter your post code FIRST. Then your house number. Yup, that’s enough to place you. It’s brilliant and a little unsettling that they seem to know where you live with so little information. The best part is that the field for a house number is usually titled thus: Enter your house NAME or number. House name as a valid postal identifier = Awesome.

Bits and Bobs and Odds and Sods 1

2009-03-08T09:00:00.000Z

In honour of Josh's recent departure from the UK, we've decided to create a week-long series of random British-y things we find worthy of note but have not yet noted. So check back in tomorrow. I'm sure it will all be completely useful stuff.

........
As a starter, here's a list of funny, real addresses we've seen here in the UK:

5-13 The Side
Quayside
Newcastle Upon Tyne
...
St Nicholas Church
The Market Square
Durham
(This is the extent of the address. It reminds me of friends whose Indian address included the line 'Near Petrol Bank'...)
...
6 The Avenue
Durham
...
Flat X Lennox House
Clarence Parade
Southsea
(where is the address here?!)

Irony

2009-03-07T12:26:00.003Z

Purchased on my last day in England. See here for context.

Funny Photo Fridays: Notice we still spell our posts with a PH

2009-03-06T10:32:00.000Z

In Liverpool.

First of all, when is fried chicken not crunchy?

Second, 'Krunchy'? Really? Is the font and the acronym really enough to fool people?

Third, this reminded us of the Tokyo Fried Chicken in Rangoon, Myanmar, which was, quite simply, hilarious.

Kew Gardens (with the additional feature Name That Bird)

2009-03-05T16:20:00.000Z

I just can't resist posting some more photos. While in London a few weeks ago, we visited Kew Gardens with our friends (and their lovely, new daughter!). Although I've forgotten most of the information from my countless hours of research, I once wrote a paper on glass and iron architecture, and these Victorian glasshouses got their own section. Needless to say, I had a wonderful time finally seeing them in person!

Also, name that bird! You'll know the one when you get to it. We have no idea what it is. Josh thinks a quail cross bred with a turkey...

See the rest...

British Snowmen

2009-03-05T07:56:00.000Z

Remember how we were sorta snickering behind our hands at the British reaction to the snow a few weeks ago? OK, maybe we were outright laughing, but we were also willing to admit that something is a big deal when it doesn't happen for 15 years.

Anyway, we were in London the weekend after that Monday snow storm and took some photos of a fantastic sight- a huge, green park field littered with great, big, dirty snowballs. And that was all. While we assumed they were the remnants of snowmen, our friends who lived there said that they never really got much beyond the first ball stage. Not sure what that says about British stick-to-it-iveness or arm strength or even memory, but the twenty or so snowballs that remained were certainly a sight.

The Plan

2009-03-03T21:57:00.003Z

OK here's the plan:
1. Josh leaves.
2. Megan stays.
3. Megan's friend visits, staving off loneliness for a few more days.
4. Josh interviews, skis, weeds asparagus.
5. Megan works, buys tent.
6. Megan heads to the Netherlands (ferry) and then to Spain (car). Road trip, anyone?
7. Josh flies back to Europe and joins Megan.
8. Josh and Megan drive around Europe for a while.
9. Josh and Megan fly back to the USA, loaded down with as much luggage as they can carry, never to return. (Or at least for a little while. Sigh.)
10. Josh and Megan attempt normal-ish lives somewhere in America. Where? TBD.

Number one is complete. This morning Josh safely and a bit regretfully left what has been our home for the last year and a half. Alas. I am alone.

Normal

2009-03-01T08:07:00.000Z

Recently, I've had a few conversations about places and homes, and I'd share bits of my growing up, which I thought were normal, only to be told by others that my experiences probably weren't. I'm still not sure if I think of my good ol' small town of Reed City as normal or not, but it was interesting. I remember it as a small place, fairly isolated and remote, surrounded by trees (and often snow) and filled with good small town people... and a couple of rednecks thrown in for fun. Since then I've lived in a medium sized city, a large city, a small mountain town, and a fairly middle class medieval town. None of these reflect the town I grew up in and lately there have been a variety of things that have brought up my youth. In my head it's still unique, mildly isolated, and full of character. But I wonder if it was really as odd as I remember it sometimes, so I've started a list of things that make it different from the other places I've lived...

For example:

- I've seen it snow 9 month in one year.
- I've seen snow every month of the year except for July and August.
- The piles of snow cleared from the streets were often around until the middle of June.
- I went to school with people who built large sections of their vehicles. I've seen a car that was composed of the front and back of two separate cars and a mid-sized truck with a reconstructed bed (made out of 4x4 boards) and semi-exhaust pipe.
- I've seen sod houses and houses where the bed was a board that folded out of the wall.
- I always had the first day of deer hunting season off school.
- I was one of a hand full of boys who didn't take the hunter's safety class in Jr. High.
- A boaters safety course was taught to us during school in 6th grade.
- A nearby school had rules specifying 'no driving tractors or snowmobiles to school'.
- I had a friend who used a quad for transportation around town for two years.
- We, not just my friends but a decent number of people I knew, rated town size based on the number and kind of stoplights it had. The smallest was 'no light' followed by 'blinking yellow light in four directions' then 'half blinking yellow, half blinking red' and then finally one that 'changed color.' Needless to say, the more complex the color, the larger the town.

Its funny how 'normal' changes and the idea of most of these things feels... well, mildly ridiculous. Also, now you see the dilemma in trying to explain Reed City to someone from posh, well to do, Durham England!

Funny Photo Friday

2009-02-27T09:00:00.000Z

Philharmonic Pub, Liverpool

Enter: The Car

2009-02-26T12:50:00.003Z

So, we've now reached another milestone in our marriage... we own a car. This post has been long in coming, seeing as how our car isn't that new in any sense of word, but still is worth while. We've known that we would need a car to drive our Europe trip (get it? Clever eh?) and have been passively looking for a while. We figured that we would just break down and actively look to buy one after Christmas when suddenly a friend asked if we were still looking and gave me a number.

Read more about el coche!!!

Turns out a friend of his was going back to Canada (in particular Saskatchewan; who's from Saskatchewan?), and they were going to scrap their car. I talked to the guy and was told it runs fine, just needs some work to pass its MOT (a road readiness test), and we could have it. So, shortly before Christmas, we bought a car for 20 quid.

Look at that massive 1.1 Liter engine! I left my glove on the block for reference

After Christmas, we finally picked it up from the shop and have been happily using it since. It does have some quirks, and it is 14 years old, but it runs just fine! It actually must have been a pretty decent car back in the day, as its state of the art tape deck and theft deterrent (in order for the engine to start you need to enter numbers into a keypad that is mounted in the car!) demonstrate. That being said, it also comes with a sunroof, which I'm sure is great for those many and oppressive hot English days...

Ahhh, the glorious sunroof. Took me three days of owning the car to realise that it existed; needless to say I was quite excited when I saw it, a little less excited when I realised it only opened 2/3 of the way.

In general though, it's a great little thing. So what if the temperature light kicks on when we drive any length of time of 75 (or at 70 going up a hill) or that occasionally all the lights on the dash (of which there are a total of FOUR) turn on? I'm sure it'll be fine. So far it's gotten us down to Chester and Liverpool, not to mention trips around the area, so in comparison, what's a little jaunt down to Greece and back?

The family we bought it from even threw in a child seat and a frisbee. Glad to know that Canadians still conform to their national law of 'Canadians abroad must have a Canadian emblem on display at all times.'

And I'll end with my favorite bit of the car, the dash. You can see from the photo below all the gauges and indicators we have, but my favorite gauge (of our two) is the one to the right of the speedometer. At first I couldn't figure out what it was, and then it dawned on me: it's a clock.

Typos

2009-02-25T06:08:00.000Z

I'm looking for work back in the states at present and so far both schools I have applied to (as of yet) have had typos in their job descriptions.

I love when other people, and especially institutions, make those simple mistakes as well. It reinforces the idea that, despite what my wife thinks, we are all flawed and most of us don't excel at grammar.

Every now and then

2009-02-23T12:23:00.000Z

Every now and then, my co-workers remind me that they are European, through talk of a stag do (bachelor party) in Leipzig or mention of an EU regulation in an uncharacteristically positive tone, and I feel a thrill of amazement at them and at me. Often Europe is regarded as an other here, a summer holiday destination or an intrusive regulatory body, and I forget our inclusion. It's charming enough that they are British, but then suddenly my co-workers are something else- they're European. I, American. Not of the United States, but of the Americas. They, of the 'mother land'. We are a world apart!

Funny Photo Friday (Revised after not having a photo to upload!)

2009-02-20T10:18:00.001Z

Funny what you put up with when you know you're leaving soon...

Email of Josh's posted below.

from: jjfw
to: megan feenstra wall
date: 29 January 2009 17:32

I officially hate our measuring cup. I was just measuring some
sticky rice (yum) for tea and held the thing up to see where the level
was at when it split in two, sending rice everyewhere.

I pause.

I looked at 1/2 a cup of rice on the floor.

I then laughed... and sighed.

I decided to write this email, enroute to the vaccum cleaner, still smiling.

Tomorrow I may just buy a new damn measuring cup if I see one around. :)