John & Marcy are here again!

My folks are visiting us for two weeks this summer and arrived this past Wednesday. They know the drill now, on how to travel from the airport in London to Oxford. The first day and a half are pretty chill for them, as they adjust to the time change. Then Mum and I went to the Cotswolds Friday for a girls day of shopping and tea rooms. Was lovely! Visited the villages of Burford and Whitney. Friday night was our regular trip to the pub with the Physics group, and they were all out, so many pints were consumed.

Saturday the four of us went punting on the Cherwell River and unbelievably we are having hot summer weather!! We punted (well Brian did the actual punting) up to the Victoria Arms pub, where we sat outside in the large garden along the river and enjoyed the sun and some pints. Went to our fave Greek restaurant for dinner and Mum and Dad really enjoyed that.

Sunday was another day of just hanging in Oxford. Mum and I went to one of the local Church of England's churches for their morning service. It was family focused, so all the little kids helped with the service. We then headed to Marston village, just a walk away, for my Canadian friend Lindsay's baby shower. Was fun for Ma to meet my NAG friends (North American Girls)! Had a relaxing dinner at the flat to allow Mom and Dad time to pack for their week trip to Scotland. They woke up really early this morning to catch the plane to Edinburgh. Looks like they are going to St Andrews tomorrow and on a bus tour through the highlands Wednesday. I warned them about trying Scottish food faves such as haggis or "neeps and tatties"!

Brian's Conference in Poland

My own husband doesn't even read our blog, but since he's living it all with me, I guess he is off the hook! I'm posting one of his latest emails, so you can hear more about his conference in Poland he recently returned home from.

From Bri guy:

"I just wanted to let you know that I made it back safe and sound from all my travels over the last month. I got in late Thursday night, and went straight to work yesterday morning. No rest for the wicked. . . Anyway, I just wanted to share a little of my trip to Poland with you. It was a fantastic trek. I was there for 10 days. Five of those, I spent at a conference in the southern mountain town of Zakopane, located at the edge of the Tatra mountains. The conference was called Quantum Optics VII (it's been ongoing since 1985 - before Poland was set free from the Iron Curtain). My grad school advisor, Mike Raymer, was there and has been attending since the early days. It was funny to "run into" him (and a former colleague of mine at Oregon, a current student of Mike's, Cody Leary). I met a lot of people whom I had known of, but not had the pleasure of meeting before. So that was fun. There was a birthday banquet for a longtime friend and collaborator of Mike's - Jan Mostowski (note, w's are pronounced like v's in Polish), which was good fun.

At the end of the conference I stuck around for an additional half-day to get up early (4AM) to hike from the town, to the top of Poland and climb a few of the highest peaks there. It snow, rained, and shined on my ascent and descent. I hiked for about 8 hours before arriving back to the hotel to pack up and head via taxi-bus-taxi to Krakow, Poland on the Vistula river. It's probably the largest city in southern Poland, and most visited. I spent two and a half days there. It was largely untouched by WWII, so there are many old buildings and historic sites still around. I really enjoyed seeing all the markets, squares, and having tea (herbata) at the cafes! I walked all over the city visiting its major sites (Wawel Hill, on which Wawel castle sits, which used to be the thrown of Poland back in the day), Market Square, and the Kazimier district (the old Jewish section of town). It was great to see so many people just enjoying themselves! I also came upon a Jewish wedding ceremony, which was great to see, since after WWII the population dropped to only 5000 in Krakow (from hundreds of thousands!) The second day in Krakow, I actually spent going to the Auschwitz-Birkenau site. It was something I will never forget.


I then made my way by train (8 hours!) to Torun, Poland located in the north central part of Poland also located on the Vistula river. This is the home to the Nicholas Copernicus (the guy who said the Earth goes around the sun, and not the other way around) University. It is rumored that Copernicus was born in Torun and lived there, although my hosts at the University say that it was in a small town nearby that this actually occurred. In any case, it was a delightful town with similar architecture to that of Krakow. Again, this city survived WWII with little damage. I visited the Quantum Optics groups there in Torun for a day and a half, with my evenings free to walk around the city and explore. I was able to enjoy several new foods. I must say I was scared at first having been told by a Polish colleague here in Oxford that Zakopane was famous in Poland for having good "man food," as she described it - lots of potatoes, sausages, and good meats and cheeses. Well I had no trouble finding plenty of good "vegetarian" options - like fish or chicken (apparently these are not considered meat there). Anyway, I found the perogies to be excellent (filled pasta), and they did a great breakfast spread - bread, cheeses, (and meat for those who like), tomato-cucumber-onion salad, and some kind of pickled vegetable (carrots, kraut, etc...).

Anyway, as I said, I made it back to Ox with no major issues. Kelly and I are enjoying a nice weekend together (first in a while) and are just doing our "regular" chores. I hope this note finds you all well and everything good in your lives. Take care and keep in touch!"

Rome!

We went to Rome in April - it was a bit of a last minute trip. Brian had to go for work, and I thought I'd tag along! It's actually our second time being over there, but can't complain about visiting one of the most amazing Italian cities again!








The first two days we had together over the weekend, and we were pretty lucky that the weather held out. We toured around the centuries-old Roman Forum, Palantine and the Colosseum. Had our early evening beer in front of the Pantheon and ate yummy Roman food for dinner outside by candlelight in a cobblestoned alleyway.










We also had to visit the Vatican (hi to the Pope!) and the beautiful Spanish Steps.






The second two days, Brian had to work, so I was on my own for the daytime. Of course, shopping was on the order, and I did enjoy finding some Italian boutiques. I also had some pizza and wine at an outdoor cafe while reading a good book. Not too shabby! It did start to rain though, so I had to trek back in the pouring rain - taking my sandals off and running the streets of Rome in my bare feet!

The coolest and yet most disturbing place we discovered this trip was the capucin crypt in the bottom of one of the Catholic churches. The monks who used to live there, decorated the 6 rooms with the bones of their own dead, and made these decorative designs out of the human bones. Totally freaky!

US vs UK - Spectator Sports

Just thought you might find this article a fun example of cultural differences between the US and the UK/Europe. How fans like to watch their fave sports- baseball (US) and football (soccer - UK/Europe).

Wall Street Journal Europe

The Cotswolds

Yesterday I enjoyed a girls day out with a trip into the English Cotswolds. Since it's a long holiday weekend, Bettina and I talked about a girls day out in her car. We invited Gina too, since she is leaving the UK soon and still has lots to see before she goes. It wasn't exactly warm and super sunny, but it wasn't cold and rainy either. In fact, the sun did peak out throughout the day and we kept on the move to keep warm.


The Cotswolds is an area not far from Oxford, where it's a large cluster of towns and small villages with a certain type of architecture and stone used for their homes. I believe it's a type of sandstone that they call Cotswold stone and makes this beautiful honey color. Many of the homes also still have the traditional thatched roofs. This time of year especially is beautiful in the villages with all of the blossoms, lilacs, wisteria, tulips etc.

We started off with a stop in the town called Morton-in-Marsh and had a little stroll. We had coffee and breakfast at one of the Tea Rooms and luckily they had a table in the back garden in the sun. Lovely!

Next was the most picturesque town in the Cotswolds - Chipping Campden. Chipping means "Market" in Old English. So there are other "Chipping" towns in England - Chipping Norton for example. Here we walked along the gorgeous buildings, around the church yard, the Old Market Stall, into some shops and then another Tea Room/Eatery for lunch. Since it was Sunday, the proper English thing to do is have Sunday Roast. Usually it's served between 12-3 in the pubs. I ordered the beef roast and Gina the lamb. It includes a nice slab of your choice of meat, roasted potatoes, yorkshire pudding (which is a savory fried bread), gravy, roasted parsnips (yum!) and steamed (or roasted) veggies. I thought there was no way I would eat it all, and of course I did! In more than two years living here - I've never had Sunday roast since the hubby isn't too fond of that!

Our last stop was Bourton-on-the-Water, which I've been to before. It's very small, but very quaint and cute. There is a large square, where a large creek runs through the middle and little bridges cross over from each side. We also visited the model village of the village, which was pretty funny. Gina got some shopping in for gifts before she leaves and I considered some Cotswold cream ice cream, but was still too full!

We drove home on some back roads, where you can really get a sense of the English countryside. It's absolutely beautiful - especially right now with all of the green grass, little lambs and yellow rapeseed growing everywhere. This is when I miss having a car, so you can get out in the open space and drive around. I was living in Iowa and Oregon for goodness sake with all of that gorgeous and spacious farmland and greenery!

I also realized that in England, one must be well off to be able to live in the country. You would need a car, and to own that much land and a stand alone home, it costs a lot of money. And I couldn't imagine the heating and maintenance bills on those gorgeous, but really old and cold stone homes!

Easter in Oxford

Yes, Easter was almost a month ago now, but as I'm catching up, just thought I'd post a quick mention on how we celebrated Easter this year. The past two years, we've gone to Brian's advisor's home and had a nice lamb roast with his family. As things were really crazy busy for them this year, we stayed home and invited our friend and Brian's colleague Gina over for a meal. I've mentioned Gina before, she's one of the few women in the physics group over here, and she's American. Gina came over to Oxford about the same time we did. So it's been a pleasure getting to know her and hanging out. She's actually landed an associate professor job at the University of Delaware for this autumn. So she's leaving Oxford at the end of this month. We will be sad to see her go!

But back to Easter - Gina invited me to join her for the Easter church service, at the local church she attends in Oxford. I've actually only been to services at the big Christ Church - so it was really nice to attend a smaller local church. By no means is it any more modern, all the churches here are extremely old and traditional. But I did notice that the parishioners didn't really dress up for the service, as I expected them to. Looks like they are following the similar American church clothing style these days - pretty casual! It's a protestant church with a really nice service with the pastor in his thick British accent. This church also burns incense where someone carries the metal ball around the church throughout the service. They also inducted a new choir member, a young girl, which was really cute. We enjoyed coffee afterwards and Gina introduced me to her many friends she's made there.

In the meantime, Brian was home working hard on our turkey dinner! I say that with emphasis because as you know we don't get to cook a whole turkey very often. Frozen full turkeys are hard to come by. Somehow, I had found out from a supermarket that was closing and it was really cheap for over here (probably around 14 USD). Gina came over, we showed her our Singapore pics, had a relaxing afternoon and then a nice turkey meal. We took a stroll around the neighborhood afterwards and once Gina went home, I think we all slept well after that tryptophan!

Early May Bank Holiday

It gets harder and harder to try and blog on a regular basis! But we've done some fun things again in the last few weeks, so I'll try to catch up a bit today. We don't have work today, since it's a public holiday called Early May Bank Holiday. It doesn't really have anything to do with the banks, it's just what they English call a public holiday. We still have another one at the end of May, Late May Bank Holiday. It's the same day as Memorial Day in the US.