Amnesty is Amazing!

I say Amnesty is amazing because this morning someone put up an ad on our 'intranet' saying they were going on holiday for two weeks and needed someone to housesit and watch their two cats. And their house is in Edinburgh! It was on a first come first serve basis... and... I was first! So end of June-early July, Matt and I are going to have a two week holiday in Edinburgh! Matt's already requested the time off, and I don't get paid so it doesn't matter for me. We're thinking of all kinds of things we can do, such as take daytrips out to go walking in beautiful, beautiful Scotland. If I could live anywhere in the world (other than Iowa of course) I would live in the Scottish Highlands. I've never seen the lowlands, but I will in Edinburgh. I'll also get to see all the things I missed when Mike and Rob came over to visit, because then I was stuck taking final exams for my master's. That includes Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle... some fancy house that they saw... Loch Ness! I can't think what else, we have to consult our Scotland book.

We'll also be on this holiday over our THIRD wedding anniversary, if you can believe it, so it will be very special and nice. Our first wedding anniversary was in India, and my relatives woke us up at midnight to wish us a happy anniversary and gave us a cake, which was really nice, but kind of strange procedurally. This was followed when we got home in August by a proper meal in Iowa City at Givannis, where I had a steak I still think about sometimes. (Givannis is also where we went for dinner on the night Matt proposed to me, so it's a good thing it has good food, because we're going back there as often as we can when we move back to IC.) Our second anniversary we were in London and Matt's parents said we should have a nice dinner on them, and we had an amazing dinner at one of Marco Pierre White's restaurants called L'Escargot, and I HAD l'escargot and they were tasty! After dinner we had a rare treat and got a taxi home! Such bliss!

We don't know what we'll do on the day this year, but we'll be doing a lot of walking in the country around Edinburgh and on the sea coast. Those are the kinds of trips we like these days, now that we've done the major European site-seeing. If anyone fancies a week or two in Edinburgh with two cats and no accommodation costs, let us know and we'll see what can be done.

UPDATE:
I forgot to mention that, yes, Matt did that 'Everything's coming up Clancy!' thing, only it was 'Looks like everything's coming up Clancy and Thommandru!'. I cannot get him to stop doing this.

UPDATE II:
Also, we got tickets to see Picard and Gandalf (Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan) perform "Waiting for Godot" in May, from one of Matt's coworkers! Also, sometime soon we will make a post about what it was like to see Judi Dench in a play.

Photo of the Week

From Photo of the Week

Chocolate chip banana bread muffins cooling off by the window in the kitchen.

I'm Irish

Today, I am a citizen of the European Union.

About a month ago, I was reading the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister)'s speech to the US Congress, and I particularly noticed he said Ireland was going to relax the rules for Americans to become Irish citizens through descent. This got me thinking of all the advantages Irish citizenry would have for someone living in the European Union, of which Ireland and the UK are member states (for example, you never have to worry about getting another visa to live and work in an EU member state, which is a complex, expensive and time-consuming affair). I started looking into it and found that, in fact, I was already eligible to be a citizen, by virtue of the fact that my Grandfather was born in Ireland.

I looked into it some more, and found that, if I claimed Irish citizenship, it would not mean I would have to give up my US citizenship. What's more, because I would be applying for citizenship through descent, and not by virtue of having lived in the country long enough to obtain residency, it was actually a really simple and inexpensive process. Much, much easier and cheaper than when Grace and I applied for work visas in February. For example, the form for a work visa is 50 pages long. The form to be a citizen of Ireland (through descent) is two pages.

I emailed my parents about it and, to my surprise, they moved super fast in getting together all the documents I needed, which were mostly birth certificates to show that I was indeed the grandchild of an Irish born Irish citizen. So, without delay, I went over to the Irish Embassy on April 16, and submitted my application. They said it would take 8 weeks to process, but today I got my certificate in the mail. I'm Irish!

The next step is to apply for an Irish passport. After that, we'll have the documents we need for Grace to apply for a UK residency card, which she can get as the spouse of an EU citizen (me). The residency card is really good, since, unlike a visa, it has no limitations on what you can do in the UK or how long you can stay and it never has to be renewed (I think). Also, it's free. After that, we're done with paperwork forever (well, nothing is forever).

It's a bit strange now to suddenly have a second citizenship. Unlike the image we have of the process to apply for US citizenship, there was no test on government, history or values to ensure I would be a loyal citizen. I didn't have to stand up and swear allegiance to anyone or anything. I just signed a form saying I did want to become a citizen and, bam, here I am. Suddenly an EU citizen, with just as much right to be here as anyone else.

In some ways, I feel a bit bad about it. While out with some friends two weekends ago, I met a girl from Ireland, and I mentioned I had applied to become an Irish citizen. She wasn't exactly thrilled or anything, though she wasn't rude. I guess it would seem strange to me if some foreigner with a weird accent (to my ear) mentioned they would be becoming a US citizen soon, even though though don't live in the US or even have that much intention to. And over here, in Britain and Ireland, I think a lot of people are unhappy about mass immigration into their countries. Historically Ireland and Britain, for example, haven't been known as melting pots. They were more the ingredients that got melted down in the American melting pot.

But, anyway, I'm not that weird about it. It's not like I'm some complete stranger to the country. Clearly, it's in my close ancestry. And Grace and I spent a great six months there in 2003. Grace, who will not be becoming an Irish citizen (you have to live in the country for years to get citizenship through the marriage route), has actually lived in the country for twice as long as me.

To close, here's a photo of Grace and I having a grand old time in my newly adopted second homeland.

Chicken Soup Makes Girl Mad

Superstition and belief in witchcraft/magic thrives in Africa and Matt frequently comes across articles such as the following. It is no joke, this is the real news in Liberia. I have highlighted key passages and made important notes.

From Matt and Grace

Now check out who the author is.

The 'net is back for now. So watch this space.

Double Photo of the Week

We've been without internet for awhile now, so here's a double helping of photo of the week.

From Photo of the Week

The newly finished 'stables' section of Camden market is decorated with lots of horse sculptures.

From Photo of the Week

In Bournemouth, visiting Grace's aunt and uncle, there was this little steam powered train.

Still no internet, quick update

We still have no internet at home, so I'm at the library. Here's a brief update on what we've been up to:

April 1--Madame de Sade, starring Judi Dench and Rosamund Pike, who played Jane Bennett in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice. It was good, gorgeous costumes as you might imagine, but we thought a bit dull, basically people talking to each other, which is very tricky to make interesting. Read some reviews afterward and it turns out a lot of London theatre critics also thought it was dull. That night I was also forced to see The Class with a bunch of our friends for Orange free movie night. It's that french film about, surprise, a class. Imagine being in a high school class which is required for graduation with a bunch of malcontents and wise-asses. Now imagine that in French.

April 10-13--We went to Bournemouth to visit my uncle for Easter, taking the bus.

I forgot March 30--I went to a talk given by Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and PM of Australia, Kevin Rudd. Kevin Rudd was pretty cool. The fact that I forgot I went gives you an indication of what it was like to see Gordon Brown in person. No one will do now but the man, the legend, President Obama.

April 14--Awesome, awesome, AWESOME is how I describe seeing the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing the soundtrack of Fellowship of the Ring live, while watching the movie in enormous Hi-Def. I have the soundtracks to all the movies and I love them, it was really cool to see the performance live and there were many times we preferred watching the musicians to watching the movie. They had all kind of crazy instruments we'd never seen or heard of before. Howard Shore, the composer, did a short talk beforehand and explained that one of the instruments he 'invented' to use for the Isengard theme was basically a grand piano with its guts ripped out, played by taking a gardening glove, sewing metal chains to it, and beating it against the piano strings to made discordant noises. It was cool.

In other news, in around 8 weeks Matt is going to be an Irish citizen! He is claiming his birthright as a grandchild of an Irish-born Irish citizen. Turns out his dad and aunts and uncles on that side have been Irish citizens all along without knowing it! At the very least, this will make it much easier to visit Ireland when we someday have some money.

An American friend of mine who was on the same programme as me last year and who had to leave when her visa ran out, as we were going to have to before we sorted something else out, has only just returned after nearly 2 months applying for her visa in the States. She's having a huge welcome back party.

We have been watching The Wire, which has been called, 'the best show on television, ever' and we are enjoying it very much.

That's all we've got.

No internet, landlords gone on vacation :(

Photo of the Week

From Photo of the Week

Near King's Cross, there is a building with garden walls.

Sorry this is up a day late, we didn't have internet last night.

London On Edge

A bit.

The G20 summit is coming here on Wednesday, and there are seven officially notified demonstrations taking place across the city on that day, maybe more that are being organised covertly. The newspapers are abuzz with internet chatter that a thousand hardcore anarchist activists have made their way into the country and are planning to run wild on April fool's day. The police are warning of an 'almost unprecedented level of activity.' The two things everyone is worried about is a repeat of the violent protests of the G8's 27th summit in Genoa, and Britain's own 'poll tax riots' in 1990, which brought down Margaret Thatcher.


This guy is ready

I think people expect this to be the moment when the undercurrent of popular frustration with the way the economy is going bursts onto the surface in a spasm of violence. The banks, who are hated here as much as AIG is in the states, are certainly taking the danger seriously. Lots of banks have issued memos to their staff to 'dress down' on Wednesday, lest they be an easily identifiable target to roaming mobs. Other banks have just told everyone to take the day off. My office isn't a bank, but they are located in the financial district, so they're locking the doors, and we're supposed to bring ID if we don't have our own key. Some offices are also turning out the lobby lights, to make it look like no one is home. Meanwhile, the government has cleared construction sites of 'loose debris' which could be used as projectiles and all police on leave for Wednesday have been called back to service.

On the other hand, at least some bankers are looking to fight back against what they perceive to be an unfair demonization of their occupation. A lot of these guys were apparently rugby players and boxers in college and are probably itching to hit back at society. There's one group that has pledged to wear three-piece suits and bowler hats to see if anyone has the guts to try them.


Me, I have the day off by coincidence. Grace and I are going to a matinee showing of a play. We meant to go on a weekend, but accidently bought non-refundable tickets for a Wednesday months ago. So we at least have a choice about whether to check things out or not. And we won't have to be wearing work clothes.

We'll see if the whole thing is as overblown as the Y2K bug soon enough...

Ecomoney

Matt and I are firmly of the opinion that the word 'economy' must have been incorrectly translated or transcribed at some point, as the word clearly should be 'ecomoney'. 'Eco' and 'money'--this makes perfect sense where as 'economy' clearly is just some word that someone made up.

Yorkshire Trip

I have titled this, and it will henceforth be known as, the Yorkshire Trip, because as it turned out, we saw more of Yorkshire than we even meant to.

Friday morning:

Woke up early and went to the train station with packed lunch in tow. We are very often to be seen out and about with a packed lunch. This one consisted of Cokes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples, plums and yogurts. A packed lunch is great for saving money, and is usually better than any sandwich you can buy on the road.

We made it to the train station (King's Cross, of Harry Potter fame) with plenty of time to spare. I get motion sick very easily, so I like to sit next to a window and always, ALWAYS, in the direction of travel. Luckily we purchased our tickets a month in advance (cheaper) and were able to get seats facing forward.

London to Leeds is a journey of about 170 miles, as the crow flies. We covered this distance in about two and a half hours. We've gotten pretty good at waltzing into any British town and figuring out where to go and what to do. We decided to go to the city art gallery and the National Armoury, where all the weapons of the realm are kept.

Then we met our friend Gareth (Philosophy Gareth, as opposed to Geology Gareth who lives in Cambridge) who drove us to his cottage in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales! We heard they, Gareth and his girlfriend Deb, lived in a cottage, but we didn't believe it until we saw it--it's actually a barn converted into a little modern house! And their landlords live on the land too and keep sheep (not as cattle, but as pets). This was real British country life! For the whole first day Matt and I were insanely jealous.

Saturday was a beautiful day. In Britain, the temperature in spring depends entirely on the presence of the sun: if the sky is clear and there is full sun, it is almost comfortable enough to wear shorts and tank tops. If there are clouds, you will still have to wear thermal underwear and winter coats. Saturday was a rare, completely cloudless day. We spent most of the day at a place called Fountains Abbey--it is an old monastic site which was plundered and destroyed during the English reformation, when Henry VIII ordered all the Catholic monasteries to be dissolved and created the Church of England. The ruins that are left now are absolutely spectacular, the best and biggest ruins Matt and I have ever seen. It is difficult to imagine the splendour and majesty of those buildings when they were intact, but it must have been a sight to behold.

Also on the grounds of this site (a National Heritage Site) was an old stately home, which has apparently fallen into disrepair since it was built and occupied, but the gardens and grounds attached to the house are still there and still kept up very well. So we took a long walk around the grounds and water gardens, then up to the deer park which is adjacent to the estate. One must remember that the British live to be outdoors and they love cultivating their environment to be the most beautiful it can be and the most conducive to full enjoyment by people. The grounds are criss-crossed with walking paths. And at one of the grounds was a little tea shop where we stopped for a cream tea! (I meant to take a picture of the cream tea, but I forgot--some day I will make a full post about cream tea, arguably the best meal to have originated in Britain. You will recall that there is stiff competition: Sunday lunch, full English breakfast, etc!)

After the walk, we went to Gaz and Deb's local pub, which was a proper old English pub with dead animals mounted on the walls and eight different kinds of ale. In the evening we went to the nearest village and got a curry, then went to a pub. (A theme is perhaps emerging.)

On Sunday we did some proper hill walking in the dales--this is what we'd come to Yorkshire to see and it did not disappoint. The land is beautiful. It's quite hilly so it's mostly used for sheep grazing. It's not quite lambing season, but lots of lambs seemed to have come early. They were frolicking around with their siblings and cousins, and were curious about the newcomers to their paddocks, but when we tried to walk up and pet them, they scampered off to their mothers.

Monday came around and Gaz and Deb had to go to work, so we decided to take a train to York, a city about an hour north. York was very interesting--after walking around for a few hours, we started thinking of it as 'Cambridge, only better'. It is also bigger, and surrounded by a huge ancient defensive wall which you can walk all around on. For lunch there, we ate at a restaurant offering an irresistible recession deal: half price on all food! So we even got a dessert.

After our day in York, we took the express train down to Leeds to catch our train back to London.

It was a really nice weekend and so nice to get out into the country. We saw a good chunk of the impossibly large county of Yorkshire and saw our friends Gaz and Deb.

As an aside, this weekend, Gaz's mom is being made (and here is the official title) a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire! MBE for short. For her voluntary work. She gets to meet the Queen, who awards the honours personally!

Photo(s) of the Week

Grace and I went up north this weekend for four days to see our friends who live in Leeds. We'll make another post about the trip soon, but for now, here is a photo album of the trip...

Up North

Absence

Hey all, we returned from Leeds on Monday night, but only just got our internet connection back. If it's still around after work, we'll post some photos and stuff from the trip.

Mutant Passport

I hit a traveler's milestone this year. Between my student visa, my visa for when Grace was a student, my India visa and my work visa, plus all my stamps for coming in and out of the US and UK, plus a few more stamps, I was running short of passport pages. My book was down to two blank pages, and when you get below four, you can apply for extra passport pages. Which I did.

I got my new and improved passport back today. It's a mutant.

Inside my passport, they have grafted 24 new pages onto the original 24. However, since my passport was issued in 2003, they've changed the design of them. My passport looked like this (without the stamps):

The new ones are much more glamorous, depicting great scenes of America on each page. Here's an example:


So now I have a half blue and business passport, half George Bush cowboy passport. The pages are different sizes too, so even glancing at the thing you can clearly see it's got half pages of one size, half of another. It's my new mutant passport.

Photo of the Week

From Photo of the Week

Flying kites on Kite Hill, in Hampstead Heath.

Good Times Coming Up

I don't have to work a full five day week for the next five weeks. Ahhhhhh.

This weekend we're taking off Friday and Monday to go visit our friends in Leeds.

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We've been looking forward to walking in the Yorkshire Dales, touring the gardens of a mansion house, and generally being outdoors. However, the BBC was recently forecasting sub-zero temperatures across Britain this weekend, in contrast to the 60+ degrees we're enjoying now. They seem to have changed their minds though, and are now forecasting temperatures in the upper 40s and lower 50s. If its cold, there will be a lot more time spent inside pubs I think.

So that means this is a four-day work week, and next week is one as well. The following week, I've taken off Wednesday to go see a play, Madame de Sade starring Judi Dench, with Grace. We were planning to go on a weekend, but Grace mistakenly bought tickets for a weekday matinee. No worries, we thought. We'll just change the ticket date. Turns out you can't. The best you can hope for is to return the tickets, with no guaranteed refund unless the show sells out and someone buys up your tickets. Great. So instead, we decided to both just take the day off and have a nice weekday in London, going to see a matinee play.

So, again, a four day week. The next week, has Good Friday, which is a public holiday. Easter Monday is as well. So we're going down to Bournemouth to spend time with Grace's relatives down there.


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When we get back from our trip to Bournemouth, we have another event. We're going to see the movie "The Fellowship of the Rings" at the Royal Albert Music Hall, with the soundtrack provided by the London Symphony Orchestra! Plus a choir. No Enya though.

So that's a busy few weeks! Then, we're into May, which has two bank holidays (so many!), so that's another two weeks in May that I'm only working four days. I feel positively French.

A walk on the heath

This weekend we had very little planned other than doing work (Matt) and applying for jobs (Grace). Saturday was a very nice sunny day in the 50's so we decided to take a walk in Hampstead Heath. It was not quite warm enough to laze on our picnic blanket, and we needed to get used to our hiking boots and prepare a bit for next weekend, when we are going to visit our friends who live outside of Leeds, in the heart of Yorkshire Dales. The Yorkshire Dales are a national park and 'region of scenic beauty'. The word 'dale' means 'valley'. This is just south of the region of barren heather moors made famous in such books as Wuthering Heights. We plan on doing a lot of hill walking that weekend, so we were trying to train up a bit.

Everything was fine but one of the first things we did when we got to the Heath was try to ford a small stream which turned out to have banks of very wet mud. Matt with his long legs was able to jump right over all this. I ended up with my boots and jeans sunk 4 inches deep in wet sucking mud. Here's what it looked like after stopping at a public restroom to attempt to clean up a bit:



Here's how I felt about the situation:



Other than that we had a nice little walk. The Heath is very hilly, so good preparation for the Yorkshire Dales. We went up to the top of 'Kite Hill' which is where everyone comes with their kites on a windy day. There were some very high-techy kites flown by adults and they were taking up most of the space. This left some of the smaller kids, on the edges of the hill where the wind was not as strong, in a stream of tears because their kites would not fly.

Early in the morning we had made pancakes as a Saturday morning treat and we had lots of leftovers, so we brought them to have lunch in the park. We sat on a tree stump and ate plain pancakes with our fingers and drank a Coke. Not the healthiest lunch, I suppose. Matt kept joking that he wished we would run into someone we knew, so he could say, 'Hey, how're you doing? Want a pancake?'

By this time I think we were very dehydrated and we both had a touch of a headache from being in the bright sunlight. We thought we should probably head home, drink plenty of water and take a nap. But instead we went to the pub and had a pint and a plate of chips/fries. It was a very carby day--pancakes for breakfast, pancakes and Coke for lunch, chips/fries and beer.

Photo of the Week

From Photo of the Week

There's a construction company around where I work called Clancy Dock workers. Their logo appears to be my family's crest!

In which I pull yet ANOTHER object out of Matt

I noticed that in the last year, I have had to pull a lot of things out of Matt. Too many things.

Last year when we went to Scotland, we did a lot of country walking, and one night before going to bed, Matt realized he had a tick stuck in his shoulder! The shoulder is an awkward place from which to try to remove a tick by yourself, so who had to do it? Me, by tying a piece of my very own hair to the body of the tick and pulling it out. Needless to say, this was disgusting.

Now in the last two weeks, I have had to pull glass out of Matt's foot twice. We dropped a bowl a few weeks ago and thought we had picked up all the pieces, but of course you can never really be sure. I always wear socks or shoes when I go into the kitchen now. However, Matt refused to, on the rather pig-headed principle that a man should not have to wear socks in his own home!

The first time he got a piece of glass in his foot it wasn't very big so it wasn't too big a deal. It was on the bottom of his foot though, and I had to pull it out because he couldn't see it.

The second time, he got a much bigger piece of glass in his foot, and it started bleeding. I had to take it out, this time with my tweezers! And it was a pretty big piece of glass. Matt took a picture of the bloody shard, next to a fingernail clipper for scale, but I have decided that it is too disgusting to put up.

After the second time Matt decided to wear socks in the kitchen though.

Fire Hazard

Grace and I have a gas oven that we light with matches, as well as a space heater which is on a lot (no central heat in this place for two weeks, but its supposedly going to be fixed tomorrow), but the closest we've ever come to starting a fire was due to a mirror on Monday morning.

I have to get to work earlier than Grace this week since she's going to observe a big human rights case at the Houses of Parliament for work (!), and on Monday morning, Grace woke up to the smell of burning plastic. She went to investigate and found my backpack was smoking! The culprit? Her make-up mirror, with the Sun as an accomplice (and it is a rare thing to have a bright sun in England). Using my artist skills and physics degree, I will now diagram what happened.



The mirror is concave, to use the technical term, which means it's curved inward. This makes your face look bigger in the mirror, but it means the mirror can also act like a magnifying glass, which is what happened here. Anyway, good thing Grace woke up when she did. Also, my tough little backpack, which has lasted years, now has had it's mesh lining completely burnt through, and also had some plastic part on the outer shell melt. Fortunately, it's still structurally intact and watertight!

Maybe we can find a way to use the mirror as a heatray now, driving away potential robbers...