Happy Easter!

We have recently returned from another lovely meal at Brian's advisor's home here in Oxford (Ian and his wife Kate, and 3 kids). We were invited over for Easter dinner, along with Gina, and Ian's parents, their neighbor John and two of Kate's music students from the US, Chris and Ruth. It was a full table again, but so nice for us to have a warm and inviting home to go to for a holiday. We had a wonderful 4-course meal, which probably took 3-4 hours when all was said and done. Watercress soup with scallops for the first, lamb and roasted veg and potatoes for main, cheesecake for pudding, and cheese and fruit for dessert, with tea and coffee of course. There were chocolate bunnies and easter eggs of course, and even a bit of singing in Latin around the piano at the end of the evening. Oh, and our dinner prayer was said by Ian in Latin, but we're not really sure what we said. So hopefully it was appropriate!

Hope you're having a wonderful Easter Sunday and that your springtime is arriving shortly!

John & Marcy in Oxford to help celebrate . . .

My 3-0! Yikes! I'm definitely in denial and not wanting to leave my 20s! Although, many friends already past the threshold have assured me that it's not much different. :)

J&M arrived safely yesterday (Tuesday a.m. UK time) about 11:30. Dad took a nap and Ma was able to stay awake to meet me for our fave afternoon tea meeting at the Old Parsonage Hotel for tea and scones (the "o" pronounced like in "gone"). Once dad was up, we popped into the pub later on for a quick pint, some pizza for dinner at the flat, and then we put them to bed.

Today we shipped them off to Liverpool on their own so they can go live the life of their fave British Invasion band - the Beatles!

The past five weeks the weather has been pretty dry and in the 40s and 50s. Of course, now that they have arrived the monsoons are to open in the sky. Lovely.

For the Bday day, Ma and I have a big shopping day planned in London on Sat, and then the 4 of us are going to go out for an Indian meal and top it off by catching a show in the West End. I'm totally pumped. We're going to see Monty Python's Spamalot, one of the hottest tickets in town. With John Boy's disability, we can get the Handicap discount and also scored 2nd row seats - so should be fun!

They are here until next Tuesday, so a quick visit, but I'm so glad they made it over for support of the age transformation - ugh!

Girls trip to Cheltenham

Two Saturdays ago I went for a girls trip to a town in the center of the Cotswolds, about a two hour bus ride away from Oxford. It was the same trio of myself, Gina, who is a postdoc in Brian's lab, and Laura, another WAG, and significant other of Jeff, another postdoc in the lab.

We took the 9 a.m. coach to Cheltenham and had to head back on the 4 p.m. coach. In the morning, we went on a nice walking tour of the town to check it out. Then we found a local cafe and had lunch where all the 'ol bittys meet up for their lunch. :) The afternoon we spent shopping around, although we weren't quite so successful in our purchases this time. It was just fun to get out of town for a day and visit with girly friends!

Earthquake in England

I'm just finding out about the same time you are in the States - I guess we had an earthquake here last night! It was at 1 a.m. UK time, so Bri and I were sound asleep and didn't feel a thing. But people are talking about how it woke them up, and had no idea why! So no worries, I guess it wasn't too big, like a 4.7 on the rictor scale, and no serious damage, with only some small structural damage to select buildings throughout the UK. The last time an earthquake was this noticeable in the UK was back in 1984. So we're not too worried. There are many other more pressing issues I'd be more concerned with here, including; carbon output, terrorism and death by too much mayonnaise on everything. So there you have it!

The Brits

Have I told you we finally got a telly?! We have collected it the cheap way though, since it's a hand me down from our American friends who moved back to CA. And it was a hand me down to them! So it's the telly that's making the rounds. And it's totally an old school 13 inch screen box with rabbit ears! But I am excited nonetheless. And especially now since Brian's colleague had an extra Freeview box, which they gave us. This box allows us to receive up to 20 digital channels free, so we're not just stuck with the 5 basics. So last night we were really excited to watch . . . . American Idol!! Brian won't admit it of course, but it was such a great taste of home. :)

Last Wednesday were the Brit Awards, which is the UK version of the Grammys. The entire Osbourne family served as hosts, and actually they were pretty decent hosts. It was the rest of the presenters and award-winners who were doozies! I know the American awards shows offer plenty of booze for the celebs to inbibe, but in general, even if they are drunk, they try to pretend they aren't too bad off. Well at the Brits, everyone who got on stage to present or accept an award were extremely pissed (drunk!) and literally either couldn't remember what award they were presenting or couldn't even talk they were so drunk! And they would bring their drink on stage with them. At one point Sharon Osbourne is scolding them in the background and yelling for them to get off. It was a doozie of a show!

I have to admit, there are a number of extremely talented musicians from over here. But, there are not many of them. The ones who are though are great. Amy Winehouse performed and she's amazing, although extremely eccentric. Artists who performed and are popular British acts were; Mika, Mark Ronson, Adele, Kate Nash and Arctic Monkeys.

Now that I've lived over here for more than 1 year, it's hard for me to know if I'm keeping up with US music, or ahead of it, or probably a mix of both. So it's fun to be up with current music, but from another country.

Check out the link to the awards page if you're interested: www.brits.co.uk

Then Sir Paul McCartney ended the show with a 3-song set, which was pretty awesome. First song was something new from his current solo stuff. Second song was Live and Let Die and then he ended with a rocking version of Hey Jude, which was a blast.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm starting to feel deja vu! I think a year ago we blogged about our first Valentine's in England, and now we our second Valentine's is coming to a close. We already missed our "official" one-year mark of living in England. And honestly, I can't even remember the exact date we arrived last year, but was something like Feb. 3rd. This year we missed it because we were in Rome!!! We took a last minute weekend getaway for 5 days, so we could take advantage of some down time before Kelly started a new job. Yep, that's right, I'm back to the 9-5. I won't bore you with details, but so far I'm having a great experience working for the University of Oxford in the alumni department, connecting with overseas alumni (including good 'ol Americans!) and event planning. Lots to learn and get accustomed to working in an academic environment, but so far so good. And can't beat all the holidays and personal days you get off in the UK! So before I started working, we popped over to Rome and explored the sights. I plan on giving you a Rome recap on the blog, so hopefully I'll get my act together and do that sooner than later.

Anyway, we enjoyed a nice shrimp/veggie pasta, wine and cheese for our dinner. I received some beautiful yellow roses and Brian got a copy of the Economist. So romantic I know. :)

Thinking of all our friends and family and know we love and miss you to bits!

B&K

Formal Dinner at Hertford College

This past Friday night we were invited to attend formal dinner at Hertford College by one of Brian's colleagues. Pete is a Brit and just completed his PhD at Oxford this past term. He was an undergrad and grad student at Hertford College, and now will be a Post-doc with Brian's group for a short time. Pete's girlfriend is Gemma, and she's an undergrad with Hertford College. They are great people and are only a few of the Brits we know as friends.

Anyway, each college has a guest night maybe once a month during term (that's how we had dinner at St. Hilda's as well). We didn't sit at the Head Table this time like we did at St. Hilda's, but sat in the regular rows of tables and benches with the students. The dinner at Hertford was called Formal dinner, so it was black tie. Brian wore his tux, but I was a bit caught off guard on this dinner, and wasn't best prepared. So I wore a smart (albeit a bit too casual) dress and dressy boots.

We met Pete at the pub for a drink beforehand, and then met up with Gemma at the President's lodgings during the champagne reception. It's amazing the life these Oxford students have here. They have formal events with champagne receptions with the President. And this is normal for them during their collegiate careers! I remember late night snack night in the canteen at Gustavus during finals, where we're all wearing sweatpants and no makeup! I suppose our Banquets for sorority/fraternity stuff were the most formal we got in college. And that was only if you were in one or invited by someone in one. So here we're trying to act as proper as possible as you can see!

After the reception, everyone went into the dining hall and has to first stand by their place until the head table people (including the president) enters in the room to their seats. Then before we can all sit down, the President bangs a gavel on the table for silence, and says grace in Latin. This order is basically repeated at the end of dinner as well.


We had a nice 4-course meal starting with cream of mushroom soup. Then grilled salmon with mango salsa for 2nd course. Then filet mignon, potatoes and cabbage for main. (Of course Brian went with the veggie tart for veg option.) Dessert was a champagne and strawberry mousse tart thing. And we had to experience the "No Hands Dessert" at formal dinner. So we learned that even though you're at a formal dinner, students don't act very formal! So Brian and I gave No Hands Dessert a go!















After dinner, Pete, Gemma and Gemma's friends Jen and Corenza, gave us an inside tour of the college.They have a gorgeous chapel, simple but elegant, small library and the college bar. Of course we had to stop off at the bar for a quick one before heading back outside of the college and to the pub again.













I haven't even mentioned yet, but it was also Pete's birthday that day, so many other colleagues and friends of Pete's were at the pub and more partying continued. Gemma had baked a cake for all, which was a big hit. We stayed until pub closing time and I'll admit wasn't feeling too perky on Sat a.m. :)