February is a Huge Month

It's got my birthday in it, for one. Also Valentine's day.

The night before my birthday we got into the proper mood for great times with a special showing of the hit movie The Core. If you haven't seen it, I give it my highest reccomendation. We followed up the movie and accompanying beers with more alcoholic beverages at the college pub. You can buy a bottle of wine there for £3.60, which is about the price of a pint of real good beer. The barman calls it the "Cheap and Nasty" but we're not exactly wine connesieurs so no harm.

The barman at the Fitz bar is a good guy. He's always really polite and I think he likes us, maybe because we never get belligerently drunk. Anyway, he served me first before a bunch of Undergraduates who had been waiting for longer than me (take that!) and I took that as a sign of our developing relationship. So I asked him what beer he liked most and he told me he's never drank alcohol in his life, which was a bit of a surprise. He then told me the best beer on tap was the Heinekin, since it had no preservatives that would cause a bad hangover. I had ordered practically everything for the group except Heinekin, so I think that set our budding relationship a step back.

The next day was my actual birthday and I spent most of the day lounging around in shorts reading the NYTimes. Grace got me a bundle of presents and then we were off to a restaurant for some Thai food. At the restaurant we met our mates, and one of them, who also happens to be named Gareth, but is not the Gareth pictured and posted about below, told us all about his upcoming trip to Algeria. This guy, Gar for short, has the sweetest deal I've ever heard. He's a geology student and he's doing his PhD at Cambridge, despite the fact that he has no master's degree, or even a bachelor's degree for that matter. While he was in his third year at University he applied for this PhD program at Cambridge sponsored by the good people at BP ("beyond petroleum"). He got into the program even though he doesn't formally have his degree yet (he'll get it, just a matter of paperwork and bureaucracy). Anyway, despite their green slogan, BP is still pretty interested in petroleum and Gar is sort of in charge of North Africa and figuring out it's geology, presumably so BP can see if there's any chance of oil. Hence the trip to Algeria.

They've already sent him to Greece for a week or two and he's going to Egypt for the better part of month when he returns. Son of a gun. BP pays for everything of course - posh hotel, chartered jet, drivers, everything. Let me tell you kids - if you want a life of adventure get into one of the sciences that can't do it's work in a lab.

Incidentally, Gar is also a really accomplished rock climber (one of the best in the UK, I've been told by our friends, after a night of drinking). So, being in a field that studies rocks is an even better fit for him potentially.

Anyway, after some great Thai food we went bowling which was awesome.

For Valentine's Day Grace and I had a quiet night. I cleaned the whole house, taking out the Christmas tree (sitting by a dumpster, shhhhhh) and pulling down the decorations. We made Grace's famous Mushroom soup and watched a Marlon Brando movie ("I coulda been a contender!").

I was thinking about this, and Valentine's day seems like a much smaller holiday now that we're married. I think it's because it's been largely supplanted by our anniversary. Valentine's day is for anyone, even the kids who nobody likes in elementary school but get a card anyway because you have to make cards for everyone or no one. But our Anniversary is just for us, and it celebrates our wedding which is something much more concrete than love in the abstract. Still, I got Grace flowers, chocolate and a card. But the day just wasn't that big a deal.

The next night we went out to a pub quiz, which we lost. We're trying to keep busy since we all miss our mate (see below), which is one reason why we're going to London tomorrow. While I'm there I'll finally get my camera cord and, finally, I can put some pictures up.