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!