Beyond day 1

Things are getting better. The gym is really nice and we were able to join without any problems and it is only a couple miles from our flat and 1 mile from my office.  We've gotten a lot done, including getting our internet service bumped up from January 29 to January 7. We are hoping and praying this goes off without any additional problems.

The slingbox (which allows us to watch our TV at my parents house via our computer over here) was a ROYAL PITA. My poor parents had to call Comcast about a hundred times and had to have them come to the house. But - it is working now. We can watch everything here that we watch back home. A HUGE THANK YOU to mom and dad!!!

What I neglected to mention in my last post is that whilst we were at Costco, we noticed some things that were much different: 1) there are hot dogs in the normal food aisle - meaning, not refrigerated, 2) milk - also in the room temperature aisle - meaning, not refrigerated, and 3) EGGS in the normal food aisle. WHAT ON EARTH? We managed to find both eggs and milk that were cold. We'll stick to the cold stuff.


James had his first set of meetings down in London on January 3 and 4. Like a mom with her kids leaving for the first day of kindergarten, I made him let me take his picture (below). Admittedly, he looks really good in that gray suit!

My first 3 days at work went well. It's quiet and an open space plan which does not bode well for my loud-talking self. Here's a picture of my desk (right). I really miss my office :-(

Speaking of things I miss:
1 - normal, soft, toilet paper. At work, the toilet paper dispenser dispenses ONE SQUARE at a time! It's like a tissue box of toilet paper. Who on earth only needs one square of toilet paper???? And it makes a lovely WHOOSH sound when you pull the toilet paper out so everyone knows just exactly how many squares you need in the bathroom. And it's not that soft. In addition, the toilets have hardly any water in them and rarely flush well.
2 - parking spaces that have more than 10 inches on either side of the car. Seriously, the parking spaces are beyond small. Not to mention, the parking garages have barely enough room to get in and out of the garage (see previous post).
3 - wide lane roads. The roads here are just not big enough.
4 - my blackberry. It randomly stopped working. A new one is on the way, but I do not like not having that work.
5 - Reduced fat Jif peanut butter. Actually, reduced fat just about anything. We were able to find one bag of reduced fat potato chips, but haven't had much success finding other stuff.
6 - Grape jelly. Grape jelly is not available in England (or at least not in any of the 5 stores we've gone to).

James misses good lunches. We are doing fine with dinners, but he isn't a cold sandwich guy and that's what is served and available when he's at universities or work meetings.

I'm getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road. It's an adjustment - a big one - but it's starting to become a little more natural. Every time I've ever had to drive sitting on the right side of the car, I have always had a manual. I think I've reached for the clutch a good 6 or 7 times forgetting that we have an automatic. And I've opened the left side door at least once to get in and drive. It's getting better though.

We ventured into Manchester on Saturday. We had no plan whatsoever and just decided to walk around. First, I found my favorite store in which I will never shop. It is called "Americandy" and for an obscene amount of money, you can get all your American Candy favorites. Lucky Charms is 7 pounds per box (that's about $11 USD). Total rip off, but it was so fun to see all the American candy I probably won't eat for a year.

A friend told us about a bar called Cloud 23 and we found that it is part of the Hilton in Manchester. It is on the 23rd floor with panoramic views of the city. It was a gorgeous day - sunny, about 50 degrees, no rain, barely any wind (totally atypical of every day leading up to this) - so we ventured up there just to look around. Very pretty, but we felt pressured to buy something so we jetted in a matter of minutes. As we were leaving, there was a guy who appeared to be paprazzi outside the hotel. We walked out and were figuring out where to go next when his shutter started going off. We, of course, had no idea who he was taking pictures of, but there was a big bus there so we figured it was a large group. James suggested it might be our new football team - Manchester City.

We decided to walk to the Man City stadium and as we walked up to the front of the stadium, sure enough, the same bus we saw at the hotel was parked out front and the players were walking out one by one. There was a large crowd out front and as each player walked off the bus, the crowd would cheer. We couldn't get close enough to get any pictures (and I'm guessing most of you wouldn't care about the players anyway), but it was pretty cool.

We ventured back to the city center and we were taken aback by the number of signs and changes that restaurants made on account of a football (soccer) game going on at home. Here are a few pictures. The last one is showing plastic cups. They will not serve drinks in glass pints during football games. Craziness.

   

Sadly, James leaves tomorrow (Monday) morning for trips to Belfast, Dublin, London, and Reading before returning home Thursday night. It's going to be a bit of a lonely week, probably for both of us. I will use this time to catch up on TV shows I missed when slingbox wasn't working for a week :-) We have definitely started to settle in and it is starting to feel like home. Here's a picture and a video with a brief shot of our town and view to our apartment. http://youtu.be/01aORvtwriQ

If anyone would like to skype with us, you can look me up by my email address (I think) or my skype name is dhheadley. To find James, try jamesrheadley. We still have spotty internet connection, but if we can talk, we will. It is so great to see friends and family. And, the door is always open if you ever want to come and visit.

Until next time........