Happy New Year's Eve!

Hi everyone,

Just sending a quick Happy New Year's Eve wish! We're heading over to our friend's Matt & Donna's for a dinner party and imbibing too much I'm sure. We thought about a night in London again, but were too slow on the plans, and everything (hotels, restaurants, shows) booked up already. Oh well, next year!

Have a great evening and have one for us!

K&B

Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day

This was the first year Brian and I have been away from home for Christmas. Well, actually that is not true. Brian spent his first year away from home last year while writing his dissertation. I was still able to be back in Minnesota/Iowa. It doesn't seem that long ago! So this was officially my first Christmas away from family. I'll admit, it was a bit tough on Christmas Eve not able to attend church and have dinner with everyone like I've done for 29 years! But if we had to spend Christmas abroad, Oxford was a pretty okay place to be!

Christmas Eve we kept busy enough. I actually had to work all day at my little shop, and Brian worked too. I was a bit sad all day, but we did all wear Santa hats, had treats in the shop and Christmas music on, so by the end of the day I was feeling more in the spirit. After we locked up, a few of the girls shared bottle of bubbly before we headed our separate ways. I came home to a nice vegetarian dinner made by my hubby, and we relaxed a bit before heading off to the midnight church service. We chose to go to Christ Church Cathedral again, since we enjoyed their Easter service, and because it's an amazing Cathedral and has a wonderful choir. We decided to walk into town, about a 30 minute walk. Mainly so we would stay awake and wanted to get there ahead of time. The service was very nice, but not as Christmasy as I was hoping. We only sang one Christmas song at the very end and only one of the lessons told the story of Jesus' birth. The rest of the service just seemed like a regular traditional service. But I suppose we're not familiar with the Church of England's annual service plans (or however I would call that) so it's always an experience if nothing else. Also, the Brits seem to really be into organized carol services held at churches and community centers leading up to Christmas. Usually they are free, but you have to get a ticket ahead of time for a seat. We didn't know this until after the fact, so next year we'll check it out. But sounds like at these services they sings lots of Christmas carols and alternate with Christmas readings and such. Our service also included communion, which I partaked in. Although I was surprised to see only about 50% of the attendees also did. It seemed all the same as we're used to, except that everyone drinks wine from the same goblet, and they just wipe it off. Kinda gave me the creeps and really wonder how that doesn't spread sick germs around. Oh, and the wine tasted much different than the Lutheran wine. We walked home and it was really amazing to be walking the streets of Oxford on Christmas Eve at 1 a.m.!


On Christmas morning, we opened a couple of Christmas crackers, and Brian donned on the paper hat from his cracker, and we played out the charades included. A cracker is a decorated paper tube with twisted ends, which you pull apart. When the cracker breaks, it "pops" and out tumbles a little hat, joke and trinket of some type. They are extremely popular here, and usually are pulled once you sit down for a proper Christmas meal. We had some great presents shipped to us from my family in the States. It was so great to have presents to open on Christmas morning! Also our good friends in Eugene, Jeannette and hubby Dave sent us some fun American treats as well. Thanks guys! Had a quick breakfast cause then we had to make an apple crumble for bringing to our Christmas dinner at Brian's advisor's house.

About 2 p.m. Brian's advisor Ian, picked us up as well as our other American neighbors Matt and Donna and their girls. I just realized this now, but I had wanted to watch the Queen's Christmas speech at 3 p.m. on the tellie, and I totally forgot to watch! Although now I guess she's technologically advance, and they are showing it on YouTube for the first year ever. So I'll look that in when I'm done blogging! Ian and his wife Katie, and their three kids, Alex, Nathaniel and Clair were the lovely hosts. As you've read before, we've actually been to their house now for three holidays. Easter, 4th of July and Christmas. It was so nice for us to have a place to go and relax and be merry for the day. We visited for a bit with drinks, and then sat for dinner about 4:30. And boy did we have a proper Christmas meal! We weren't officially done until about 8:30! We had about 5 courses and it was all wonderful. Especially since the main course was a huge roast beef from Scotland! I was in heaven.
Good thing there was a veggie option for Brian. :) But we had a starter of broccoli soup. Then the main including; roast beef, green salad, bread, green beans, roasted potatoes (they roast them instead of mashed, and properly cooked in goose fat) and a squash gratin. The next 2-3 courses we get confused about. Because there is pudding and there is dessert. Over here, they often call desserts - puddings. But we had sort of both, and don't know which was first. Let's just say the pudding was first. This was then the crumble I made and a trifle Donna made. Then we had tea and coffee after that. Then we had another very Christmasy treat over here called a Christmas Pudding. Think of sort of a really heavy fruit cake, that doesn't really taste all that great, but you have it anyway since it's traditional. And it's served with brandy butter. Major calories! Oh, and you pour brandy on the cake and light it on fire first. So fun for tradition. After that, we had dessert, which is a cheese platter, fruit and port. Lastly, we had more port and chocolates. Whew! We had to be rolled home. Good thing the kids there had a Wii, so we could play some video games and burn off a few of the calories! Not long after dinner it was time to head home so we could call our families back in the US.

Now I see the enjoyment of Boxing Day, so you can walk off the calories from Christmas! Like I said before, everything is still closed on Boxing Day since it's a national holiday. So Brian and I slept in after a late night on the phone. Once we were up, Brian had made a yummy veggie egg tart for breakfast for something special and fun. Then we took a really nice long walk around North Oxford and along the canal. We baked some sugar cookies with a recipe from Grandma Anderson in Two Harbors and they were yummy! Then watched the classic American Christmas movie - A Christmas Story. Pretty good Boxing Day!

Christmas in London

Happy Christmas and New Year's everyone! It's December 27 now, so a couple days past the big day. But I wanted to tell you about what it's like celebrating Christmas over here in England and what we were up to.

Overall, Christmas in the UK is just like Christmas in the US. Everyone puts up Christmas trees, shops like crazy, and has a big turkey or goose dinner with their families and friends. The main difference I've noticed though, is that Christmas Eve isn't that big of a deal. Everyone still works and shops that day. But it's because they celebrate Boxing Day here on the 26th. I also know Canadians celebrate Boxing Day as well, and everything is closed and quiet on Boxing Day (and Christmas Day of course). Supposedly, Boxing Day was established a long time ago, for the servants of the house. Since they served their masters all day on Christmas Day, Boxing Day was the day for the servants to have a day off of work and celebrate with their families. Boxing Day is now also similar to the American "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving). It's when the popular UK stores slash prices and the Brits get in long queues for stores to open at 5 a.m.

Last Friday we went to London for the day to check out the lights and see how Londoners celebrate. It was a bit cold, but definitely nice and brisk (and not raining)! We took the train in and headed to Hyde Park first where we heard there was a Winter Wonderland festival going on. We just strolled through, checking out the German Market and the big ice skating rink. Seems like Londoners love to go ice skating for Christmas, so there were like 8 different huge rinks set up around the city. Sounded fun to do, but realized it was just packed with people and little kids who couldn't really skate. So not sure that it would have really been worth the money. :)

Next we walked down to Trafalgar Square where the Norwegian Spruce Christmas tree is up and decorated. I have to admit, I was expecting it to be larger and more impressive, but at night when all lit up it was prettier. The tree is a gift from Oslo, Norway ever year since the Second World War when the British supported the Norwegian resistance.


Then we went to Covent Garden to see their shops and decorations. Covent Garden always has some interesting street performers - and this time they had these "angels" flying around!


The main event of the late afternoon was to walk along the infamous Oxford Street in London. It's probably a mile or two long of high street retail stores and department stores. It was absolutely packed with Christmas shoppers, but also small groups playing music, loads of street lights and just festive cheer. Was fun to see the department store window displays and join in the crowds.

We hadn't really taken time for any proper food, so we just stopped in a Italian restaurant by Leicester Square for dinner. And after that, we roamed around a bit more, stopped for hot chocolate, and then headed home. No pub this time!!

Visit to Cambridge

We visited Cambridge at the end of October (yikes!). It was a beautiful sunny day and Cambridge looked golden and glowing on the old college buildings. We tagged along with our neighbors Magnus, Elin and Rebecka. They hadn't visited there yet either, and Magnus knew a past colleague living there and so wanted to visit.

We arrived just in time for lunch, so found a popular UK lunch eatery called Cornwall Pasties. (Pasties is pronounced like you would start to say pasta, but with an "e" sound at the end.) I was the only one who had eaten there before, and they are really tasty. Basically they are shaped like a calzone, but with a thick pastry surrounding some sort of meat filling. Typically it consists of pieces of beef, carrots, onions and potatoes. Yum for me! Brian tried the chicken one of course. Also, Brian and I had brought along a couple of PB&J sandwiches in case we needed as a snack. We also knew that Elin and Magnus had never had PB&J! (Not very common in the UK or Europe at all! One of those things you think every kid grows up on, but we've learned it's VERY American!) So we shared our PB&J with them and Rebecka so they could give it a good taste. It went over okay, but they said they wouldn't make it for themselves! A required taste for sure!

After lunch, we visited the main Cambridge sites, starting with King's College, founded by King Henry VI in 1441. King's Chapel has impressive gothic architecture with the largest fan vaulted ceiling in the UK. It's huge and was built in 3 stages over 100 years. It's known at the symbol of Cambridge, and probably the most photographed building in town. Alongside the backside of the College is a huge green grass area and then leads to the River Cam. Punting is a huge pastime in Cambridge (even more so that in Oxford) and many punters were out. It's also because the boats glide along the "Backs" as it's known, which is not only the backside to King's College, but about 4-5 other colleges as well. It's an easy way to see right into the college grounds.


After King's, we walked up the road to see other colleges. In front of Trinity College is a true descent of Isaac Newton's apple tree from which he sat beneath and formulated the laws of gravity! So of course we had to get a photo of physicist Dr. Brian in front of that one!







And at St. John's College, we found the Bridge of Sighs, named after the Venice, Italy one, but not the same architecturally. It's a covered bridge over the River Cam and in the middle of the college grounds.











In the evening, E, M & R went to have dinner with their friends, and Bri and I went off in search of "the" Cambridge pub. Supposedly we found it just around the corner, called The Eagle. Seemed pretty much like a popular and old school University pub! Also then went to find the infamous Cambridge physics building, the Cavendish Laboratory, where in 1953 the first accurate model of DNA was developed. Over 29 Nobel Prize winners had come from the Cavendish lab - so obviously it's pretty amazing in the physical science world.

I have to say, our planned dinner options of finding the best Indian restaurant in town didn't work out, so we settled for mediocre chinese. But we had an amazing day, so can't complain too much!

November Recap

YIKES! I'm so lame and very far behind on the blog! My excuse is that we've been so busy doing things in November to tell you about, that I didn't have time to tell you about them! But our December is much more chill, so hopefully I can catch up for you.

I think I'm going to give an overview of events here and then try to pick a few for their own postings and give details there.

I'll start end of October/early November and go from there. I have to go grab my calendar to look back!

Okay, well I did blog about Halloween, as you've all seen probably way more times than you'd like. But about a week before that, we had visited Cambridge University with Magnus, Elin and Rebecka. It's about a 2.5 hour drive from Oxford (but like 5 hours on the bus!) so again, we were so blessed to have great neighbors willing to take us with them in the car. It was beautiful and sunny for our day trip. Very different looking University town than Oxford (and I hate to admit it, but a bit nicer looking too) but very similar in how the University works there. Supposedly, Cambridge is an old spin-off from Oxford (although they don't like that bit of history to come up).

So into November. November 5th every year is Guy Fawkes Day. The British usually celebrate it on the weekend before (this year was on Saturday, November 3rd). Guy Fawkes was a British revolutionary who basically tried to blow up the Parliament building back in 1605. He was unsuccessful, caught and burned at the stake. And even asking a number of locals why they celebrate his attempt to blow up Parliament, we don't get a straight answer. We can't tell if they now celebrate his attempt to blow it up, or his failure at blowing it up. Either way, it's cause for a large celebration of fireworks and bonfires here. So similar atmosphere to our July 4th, just much colder outside! Brian and I went to the large South Park in Oxford to see the fireworks, try some food (I had a pork roll which includes a large bun (bap they call it), thick slices of pork, and a smear of stuffing - actually really tasty!), see the carny rides and the big bon fire at the end. Actually, the bon fire was enormous, and once lit, was a towering inferno and really cool. But the morbid thing about celebrating Guy Fawkes, is that the bon fire represents burning him at the stake, and so the bon fire we saw had a scarecrow person at the top to burn up! Many other North American's we talked to about this thought it was a pretty old school, morbid thing to still be doing. But it's just what they do and have done for so long!

The following week, Brian and I spent a day on the Southern coast of England in Southampton. Actually, Brian had work to do there at the University, so I had time to explore. When we visited the UK (in 2004?) we spent the first 5 days in Southampton. So it wasn't too new to either of us, but fun to return to. We took the train down, had a quick lunch together and then off he went to work. Southampton has a great big shopping mall area (much better shopping that in Oxford) so of course I hit that up. But not until after I did some touristy things - like visit the maritime museum, dockyards, old city walls and art museum.
Southampton is quite a historical port and especially for America. The Mayflower (our founding pilgrims) sailed to America from Southampton. Also the fateful Titanic cruise ship also left from Southampton. And, Southampton was a huge port for the British and American troops during WWII and shipped many soldiers and supplies to the northern coasts of France (across the England Channel) for D-Day invasion. And so far, the best pub we've found in England (and nothing else has come even close) is in Southampton called the Cow Herds. Yep, gotta love the English pub names. But it's got excellent food (definitely a big step up from standard fish and chips), warm and cozy atmosphere and great service. So instead of trying a new place, we just went back to our favorite! Was a great way to end the day.


Not long after Southampton, Brian and I took off for a 4-day weekend trip to Athens, Greece. We LOVED it! We had talked about getting away, just the two of us, and somewhere new. Looking back on all the traveling we've done, it was always with some friends or family, or going to meet them. Which we've loved of course, but realized we hadn't just taken a trip on our own yet. The weather was great (but not swimsuit weather) and definitely nicer than England weather in November! I'll definitely have to blog on this separately, so more to come on the trip. But let's just say, even Brian liked the food, and you know how picky he is!


After Athens, we had two of the busiest weeks coming up. We decided we would host Thanksgiving dinner at our flat - and what was started out with just the next door neighbors, became an 18 adult and 5 kids event! It was stressful enough just finding a turkey or two in town (obviously since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving), finding turkeys we could afford to buy (could have specially ordered from the butcher for a year's salary) and making sure the turkey would fit into our small British ovens! Luckily, the British Christmas dinner is very similar to American Thanksgiving (turkey will all the fixings) so just right before, some frozen turkeys arrived at our local Summertown Co-op supermarket and I sent Brian down a.s.a.p! We had to borrow Magnus & Elin's oven to cook a second turkey, but all worked out well. And everyone even fit in out flat (after we completely rearranged furniture and borrowed bunch of tables/chairs from more neighbors)!

In the middle of all of this, I was still working at the shop, attending Newcomer's coffee mornings and two different village trips with the club to see museums and do some shopping in the Cotswolds, and volunteering for a charity event I got involved with. So wasn't much time in between to do much else!

We had two black tie events during the same week at the end of November. Monday night was Brian's office/lab's Christmas party at Christ Church College. Christ Church dining hall is the famous Harry Potter Hall, but we couldn't have dinner there since it was still term time, so we were in a nice room next door. There is about 25 students/grad students/postdocs/visiting academics, etc., in his group. Plus significant others, so it was a nice group of around 50.

The second black tie event was the charity dinner I volunteered with. It was for a Dyslexia charity and I thought helping with some event planning and marketing for the dinner would be fun. It was posh event at a 5-star hotel and restaurant in Kensington, London. We were on the 10th floor and could overlook the London skyline. That was totally incredible! And also it was probably the best meal I've had in my life. The event was a dinner and auction and we raised some good money for the charity. I was so exhausted the day after this event, because it meant our events were done and we could slow back down a bit again.

And sadly, after our two crazy busy weeks, the first week of December we had to say goodbye to our new best friends and neighbors in Oxford. Magnus, Elin and Rebecka were heading home to Sweden for good. So that week, we helped out as much as we could for them. Including a full 12-hour day babysitting gig for Brian and I! And happy to report we did okay, Rebecka still liked us the next day, so that's a good thing. And I think it gave us a good taste of having a little one and thinking we could probably do that someday! (Definitely helps when they are completely sweet and adorable like Rebecka!) Magnus was leaving on Wednesday with their car and taking it back via the ferries. Elin and Rebecka were flying out on Thursday, but they all had to be checked out of their flat on Wed. So the girls spent the night with us Wed, and then I went down to the bus station with them the next day to see them off. I tell you that was not fun at all! We could barely croak out goodbyes between the tears. But we definitely know we'll be going to Sweden next year for a visit!