2008-09-17

Second Letter From England


Family and Friends-
Hello from across the pond. It's time for another email update from sunny England!
If long emails scare you - the way they do me - a brief summary is below followed by the long format further on. And if you're already thinking of hitting the "save for later" button, you can visit our London blog,
http://trojanlondon.blogspot.com/, at your leisure. Phew. We've thought of everything.

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The girls are doing wonderfully. No, Lucy isn't referring to pants as "trousers" or backpacks as "rucksacks" or boots as "wellies" yet but she is starting to get a little conflicted over Ellie's "nappies" instead of diapers and "biscuits" instead of crackers or cookies (or, to really keep her on her toes, in Italian, "pannolini" and "biscotti", respectively, by her slave driver dad). She has started pre-school which is held at a nearby cricket club. The school is called Jiminy Cricket. How cleva. Lucy is learning to ride a bicycle and is picking it up quite well. Her bike is pink with tassels on the handle bars and has "stabilisers" (training wheels) on the back. Lucy loves running, jumping, serving tea, playing with her dolls, and anything pink.

Ellie Jane is now starting to eat some solid food. Peas and carrots oh my! She's crawling, pulling up, and of course hamming it up whenever we put the camera in front of her. She's learning to tolerate her sister's affection (did somebody say rough-housing?) just a little bit more. She loves being held and making loud noises whenever mom and dad talk too much without giving her a turn. If you Skype us and she is nearby, you'll see what we mean. Needless to say, mom and dad are overjoyed watching them both grow and experience the world. They both miss their grandparents, cousins and friends.

Erin and I are getting along in our new home swimmingly. I guess you could say our initial adjustment period is over. Certainly we've stopped counting days (it's been three months), watching the currency exchange rate (1.79 USD to 1 GBP today), and thinking about the economics of VAT tax (17.5% in the UK) and Council tax (levied in tiers on renters. Ugh.). We're really getting to know our neighbors and to participate more in the goings on of our town and nearby church. Our small block has some nice Polish, Russian, Dutch and Indian couples, to say nothing of the Italians and Koreans we have yet to meet.

We speak often to some of you over IM, Skype, Facebook, Google Video and email - but perhaps you may still find the highlights below interesting. Or maybe you just need to procrastinate for something important by reading our blog. Anyway, check at the very bottom for a link to some fun pictures from London and Madrid.

Regards,
The Fam

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So blackberry season has ended. It was wonderful being able to pick berries whenever we took walks anywhere (which meant everywhere and all the time). Along the way we discovered that the fiendish Stinging Nettle, described in our last post, has an arch-rival plant called the dock leaf. If you get carried away in your hunt for the perfect juicy blackberry and get your legs all stung up, you can seek out the milky sap from the dock leaf plant, which, happily, grows right beside the nettle. Brilliant! As the Brits would say.

Our diet has changed a bit. In our last email we mentioned how our eyes had been opened to the joy of beans-on-toast. And in due course we have come to appreciate how a good crumpet just can't be beat, especially when accompanied by a strong cuppa English tea. Erin has taken this tradition to heart and is known to imbibe regularly of said beverage. This is evidenced by the fact that our purchase of a box containing 80 portions is very nearly empty. Truly good stuff! We are able to find good Indian food left, right and center, no big shocker to anyone. I myself have come to appreciate Marmite on toast (a spread which is a lot like vegemite if you remember the Men At Work song from the 80s. Go to mark 1:16) and having sweet, organic local berries with every dessert. What do we miss? Hands down: Qdoba Mexican burritos (admire one here. Ah, vicarious wonder). We missed them so much that we declared Mexican food day. We invited our fellow American neighbor over to feast on homemade black beans, pico de gallo, mexican rice, tortillas with ground beef and Coronas with lime. And to further that gastronomic urge, we then decided to celebrate the start of college football season by going to a friend's to cook cornbread and thick, spicy chili. Erin is cooking our neighbors into submission. Too bad the Horns game was delayed.

What are we up to? Well, somehow we managed to make it out for a Michael Franti concert. How cool to see an American artist raising the roof at a small London joint! (Thank you Maribel for the babysitting!!!) We spent a day ogling the medieval cathedral at Salisbury: 800 years old, grand arches and an impossibly high nave. We explored the Tate Modern Museum in London (a hit with Lucy). We met up with a high-school friend of Erin's who came from Paris by train. We've had various other small day trips. We're especially looking forward to a trip to NW England to see Hayfield where Erin's dad was born and hopefully catch up with relatives there.

A word on Madrid. We spent a few days in downtown Madrid for a work trip of mine. We all agreed (Ellie and Lucy included) that we dig the Spanish lifestyle: wake up late, eat lunch late, eat dinner late, stay out late, and finish it off with some nice warm chocolate milk. The Spanish really like their chocolate! (and Iberian ham)  Again, brilliant! It provided a much needed refresher to be in such a hot and sunny place, if only for a few days.

We've taken to listening to BBC on the radio. At home we would occasionally listen to BBC World Service which would give international news highlights. Here, however you can get filled to the brim with hearty BBC programming. You can catch broadcasts in all sorts of English accents and eras covering the likes of Mr Darcy! in Pride and Prejudice to a faaabulous rendition of "Valerius Terminus of the Interpretation of Nature" - all on the FM dial. Hopefully you're chuckling right now because that is right in line with subtle, sharp British humor. Quite clever I say. Indeed Mr Wandsworth, indeed! Also on the radio and media here we see frequent coverage of the US presidential election. I would hazard a guess that much of Europe is watching rather closely.

I'm looking for a segue into the next topic, but try as I might, the point is eluding me. Ah yes, British standards. You can't miss'em. There are many little details to keep track of on this front: electrical plugs here have a very complicated though sturdy design; sink nozzles always produce the hot water from a separate tube within the faucet; the definition of a two-way street is perplexing at times; houses have names. For example, what do "In Time", "Tigger Heath", "Little Cottage", "Brickyard" and "Verity" have in common? Absolutely nothing save that they are all nearby houses. It's really odd: these houses really do not have numbers. It's not like "Little Cottage" over in NW Woking is otherwise known as "23 Temple Bar Road". That would be too easy. How does the postal service do it's job?

On the topic of postal workers (this one's for you Aunt Sandy), in Woking anyway, the Royal Mail rides red bicycles to deliver the day's parcel. Our home happens to be at the top of a small hill, so I'm curious what will happen in winter when the mail load is heavy, the weather is rotten, and we're at the end of the route. Let's just say that if we don't receive every letter from the US, we won't be surprised. Another interesting tidbit is how the mail carriers share the road. Here is a informative illustration of Woking's idea of a two-way street (a little ASCII art for Jeremy):
|   | xxx|
|     xxx|
|   | xxx|
|        |
|   | xxx|
|     xxx|
|   | xxx|

where parked cars - the "xxx" blobs - occupy the road, often on both sides, while bikes, buses and other cars travel by. So if a parked car is precisely "xxx" wide and the lane is "____" wide and a bus coming the opposite direction is "xxxx" wide, and you leave point A at 12:03 traveling at 5 mph but Marge leaves point B traveling in a straight line at 12:06 traveling at 8 mph...

oh, sorry, a little off track there (the answer is D, all of the above).
Frankly it's a miracle that anyone gets anywhere. It's like tetris meets frogger.

Lastly we'll leave you with, as before, some random observations about our area.
  • When you first get a driver's license here, you have to display a 6"x6" card on your dash or rear window, "L" for learner driver. What a [insert qualifier here: brilliant|great|clever] idea, especially considering the rigors or learning the windy roads.
  • It's not called "drunk driving" here, rather "drink driving". Much more optimistic don't you think?
  • Marleen, Euro fashion sense is alive and well. Er, well, to my eye, it is alive, but not always well. It can range from Brittany look-a-likes to sharp pinstripe suits (complete with Captain Kirk pants and boots), to droopy, tight at the ankle grunge jeans. One thing seems to hold true: clothes are just a wee-bit tighter.
  • Familiar US stores seem to have British alter egos: "TK Max" instead of "TJ Max", "Home Base" instead of "Home Depot", and in a reversal of fortune, it is Starbucks stores that are dirty and messy inside but BurgerKing and McD's that are squeaky clean. Who knew?
  • Certain words are very, very popular. If you haven't gathered that already from the post, you're not paying attention. For instance, if you are clever (pronounced "CLE-va"), you could have just done any number of things, some certifiably quick-witted, others having little at all to do with the word. Here's an example: Lucy is a clever girl when she stands on the step ladder to place something high up on the fridge. Ah, but she is also very clever when she greets adults in a sweet voice. Brilliant!

Okay, that's all. We wish you all the best. You're brave for reading this far.
As a small reward, some pictures of Madrid: Kodak Gallery Madrid
Or visit:
http://www.trojanovich.com/erinmatt

Cheers,
Matthew, Erin, Lucy and Ellie Jane Trojanovich