Snow!

Thursday night it started snowing, and Friday morning was peacefully quiet. Normally Zac and I are woken up every morning to the soothing sounds of rush hour traffic from about 6 am to 9 am, so we knew it must have been a LOT of snow because we heard no cars at all. Zac estimates it was about 6 inches, but it was enough to keep everyone from leaving their houses. We didn't get any mail for 2 days, we got our little lightweight car with wimpy tires stuck 5 separate times (once by myself (Erica) but 4 guys appeared out of nowhere and helped me push my car out), and it took Zac 2 hours to get to work, normally a 15 minute drive. Other than that, it was absolutely beautiful! Saturday we went "sledding" at a nearby park on a flattened cardboard box (this same box helped us free the car twice) and on Sunday it was so clear and reasonably warm that I went for 2 long walks (Zac joined me for one of them). Today it is melting, so I'm sure we won't have a white Christmas. In fact, I'm hoping we don't because if we get snowed in it means our plans to drive 2 hours to Portsmouth for Christmas dinner with friends will turn into eating cold sandwiches together at home.

MA Graphic Design Semester 1

I've had many of you ask me about how my semester is going, and now that it's pretty much over I'm ready to answer that question.
First of all, my course is organized quite differently than what I undertook with my BA. I don't take different "classes", think of the entire 1 1/2 year as an extended class in 3 parts. In the first part, I had 2 different subjects being focused on, "Research Methodologies" and "Theory into Practice." I attended probably 10 lectures for each subject and I'm turning in different assignments for each, but they are assessed together to give me my first semester overall grade. For Theory into Practice I have four graphic design pieces that I'm turning in; they are hard to view on the computer because they are quite big but I am going to at least try to make a post of them when they're done, so you can all see what I've been up to! For Research Methodologies, I have a class notebook with notes and critical analyses and also the project proposal for my MA Thesis project. No finals!!!
Next semester is focusing strictly on the MA Thesis project, we're coming in 2 days a week, one day to keep learning design theories and the next day for group discussion about the progress of our project.
And now, how do I like it?
I love being an MA student! The pace is so much more doable than the BA was, and I like that we're focusing in on this one subject. The course is an equal emphasis on research and critical thinking and on creativity and design. This is really good for me (not having done graphic design before) because I've always been rather strong academically, especially after Moody. I have had to do some catching up on graphic design history (typical lecture consists of name-dropping hundreds of famous graphic designers, with a "you'll all know who (insert name) is...). I had assumed that I would be really behind my classmates as far as graphic design goes, but we seem to be all at about the same level, and my professors say I'm doing fine. Having to make designs with purpose and research behind them is a bit different from the need-it-right-now-make-it-pretty mentality, but I like the challenge!
Overall course satisfaction level: very high
Overall feeling about cost of program: very worth it
(the picture is one of my four projects. I was given two words and had to make two signs to illustrate them(the purple and blue ones). The other four pictures are other related words that might help you figure them out. Can you guess my words?)

We hit the kerb and our tyre went flat right in front of the gaol!

Some of the oddest British words are the ones that are pronounced the same , but spelled a different way. Some can really throw you off when you read them. Others will always look a bit odd.

Kerb--a stone or concrete edging to a street or path. (Curb)

Gaol--a place for the confinement of people accused or convicted of a crime. (Jail)

Tyre--a rubber covering, typically inflated or surrounding an inflated inner tube, placed around a wheel to form a flexible contact with the road. (Tire)

Foetus--an unborn offspring of a mammal, in particular an unborn human baby more than eight weeks after conception. (Fetus)

And one completely different...

Draughts--They don't call the game checkers over here, they call it draughts.

Wikipedia has a good list of these "Misspelled" words if you want to check out more.

Introductions

As Erica and I meet people a peculiar pattern emerges. It used to be odd, but now it's just plain weird. After they find out we're Americans the conversation looks like this, almost to the word;

Brit: So where in the States (never the U.S. or America, always "the States") are you from.

Us: Erica is from California, Zac is from Ohio.

Brit: A long pause. (Occasionally I intersperse "One of the small ones in the middle")

Brit: ...so where in California are you from? (Obviously having no clue where Ohio is)

Erica: Napa

Brit: Where?

Erica: The Napa Valley

(Often times) Brit: Oh! Napa Valley (emphasis on valley). How do you like the weather here? (Obviously we hate it since California is 70 degrees and sunny all the time, especially since the entire state is right on the beach)

Us: We don't mind it. It's actually similar to Napa's weather.

Brit: (Look of incredulity; obviously they aren't actually from California)

We do like British people, and meeting them.

O Christmas Shrub, O Christmas Shrub!

We are now the proud owners of a Norway Spruce Christmas tree, purportedly "THE" traditional Christmas tree. I (Erica) was hoping for a soft, bushy pine, but alas! no such trees were to be found at Kingswood Tree Farm (just 5 minutes from our house). The Norway Spruce is not known for its needle-retention abilities, so we're hoping it makes it another 19+ days without collapsing into a pile of needles on our carpet. We didn't bring our lovely collection of ornaments from the US, so we decided to improvise/go cheap. The result: 15 baubles (that's British for bulbs) bought from the dollar store, a bag of miscellaneous ornaments from Freecycle, and some wooden stars that I (Erica) made using branches from the tree in our backyard. Add to this mix two units of Christmas lights, difficult to put up as are in a loop rather than a string, and voila! Christmas is here. Note in the photos above our fireplace are the 2 stockings I made from Zac's worn-out polos. Our tree may be a bit wonky, our stockings fragile, and our fireplace cold, but we are merry!

A Dickensian Christmas Festival

Rochester, about 30 minutes away, was the sometime home of Charles Dickens, which fact is made obvious by every shop or cafe naming itself after one of his characters/book titles/himself. We went there on Sunday because the town was having a Dickensian Christmas Festival. Wisely taking advantage of the city's free park-and-ride, we cruised into Rochester proper (a place we'd never been to until today) to see the streets packed with people, especially those festively dressed in Victorian costumes. For those of you that know of my (Erica's) passion for Victorian/otherwise costumes, I didn't wear a costume though I would have liked to if I had any with me. Especially adorable was the copious amounts of elderly British couples dressed together, walking hand in hand. That will be Zac and I someday!
On other notes, the city boasts a beautiful cathedral, the second one built in England after Canterbury Cathedral, and right next to it an old semi-ruined Norman castle. The cathedral and castle are right next to the high street, which was festively decked out with lights. The festival had food booths (including hot mulled wine and mince pies), some craft booths, some street entertainment, and a parade (Victorian people, Victorian firemen, and of course bagpipers. What would a parade be without bagpipers?) Zac and I both enjoyed a cup of mulled wine and shared a mince pie (sweet and with raisins, not made out of meat like both of us assumed).
See the photos here.

Our Loose Neighbors

So a nearby town has an unfortunate, but very humorous name; Loose. This presents numerous possibilities that fortunately the town embraces. Examples:

Loose Bowls Club (Bowls being a lawn sport similar to bocce)
Loose Women's Society
All Saints' Loose (The Parish Church)
and my personal favorite; Loose Baptist Church (As opposed to those rather strict Baptist churches)

Happy Thanking!

Zac's and my First Thanksgiving away from home was today, celebrated with Zac's sister Anna from Geneva. Determined not to let the size of the company to diminish the feast, I planned and bought food for at least 6, greedily anticipating next-day leftovers. The results:
A 4.5 chicken, which I repeatedly and mistakenly referred to as a turkey
A huge pot of mashed potatoes (delicious, though strangely sweet. Blame the variety of potatoes we bought)
A disproportionate amount of gravy (after we were satiated on potatoes and chicken, had barely eaten a quarter of the gravy)
Stuffing (unfortunately purchased 3 boxes of the cheapest stuffing Sainsbury had, with the result that after the feasting now have masses of what looks like gray-green soggy cat litter)
Mashed sweet potatoes, which were decidedly sweet even before Zac and Anna put sugar on theirs
Real cranberry sauce, which Zac once again boycotted because "it wasn't a smooth jellied form in the shape of a tin can"
Broccoli (for some reason repeatedly disparaged by Anna and Zac)
Cheese sauce (the redemption of broccoli)
Biscuits (ended up with a triple batch when Anna misread how much butter to put in)
Pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream (delicious, though contains only 70% pumpkin and 30% squash)
Apple Pie (with Bramley apples, excellent for cooking, horribly for eating)
Apple Cider (was going to be drunk warm, but we ended up so uncomfortably hot after all the cooking that we opted for cold apple juice instead)
With the exception of the stuffing, which will be tossed, we will be enjoying Thanksgiving, the sequel, tomorrow for lunch via the microwave.

The Free-Wheelin Freecycle

Even before we moved over here Erica and I were online looking at potential cars, homes, and household items. One thing that kept reoccuring was that people didn't seem to be selling that much used stuff online. The use of craigslist is nearly non-existent and a few of the links for the county of Kent hook up to Kent, Ohio. There are other sites such as gumtree.com, but we weren't too impressed. Well it seems the reason that we couldn't find anyone selling used stuff is because they tend to give it away for free! We joined an internet community known as freecycle and stuff has been pouring in. Freecycle was founded in Arizona and communities exist all over the world. The concept is pretty simple. If you have something you want to give away you set up a listing of the item and your general location. Then it goes on a message board where people who want the item can e-mail you. Someone e-mails you asks if you still have it and then you set up a time to have it picked up. All that we've accumulated more than makes up for the out-of-our-price range guest bed that we recently bought. In no particular order, our freecycle booty.

• A partial set of golf clubs with bag and push cart
• Motorized foot spa.
• Veggie Steamer
• 4 dining chairs
• An outdoor wicker chair
• Small dining table
• Ironing board
• Vacuu
• Clock Radio
• 2 Dozen French Novels
• Single mattress (though very poor condition)
• Assorted picture frames
• Bag of Christmas ornaments
• Microwave
• Juicer
• 8 wine glasses
• Moderately useless cleaning supplies
• Sewing machine (mostly works)
• Computer desk
• Man's bike (picking up on Friday)
  
• The following items were obtained for free but not through Freecyle: bookcase, mirror, double duvet, white curtains and pyrex baking dish.
  

Just some of the things we're thankful for.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Disconnected

The terrace house next door just went up for sale and our free (ghosted) internet disappeared as of Monday. Coincidence? Thus the lack of contact.

Disconnected: that's how we've feeling this week on a few fronts, yet on one front it is looking up.

We think we have settled on the large C.O.E. in Maidstone as our home church. We went on Sunday morning and Erica bit the bullet and introduced us to a trio of young people (Chantel, Faith, and Scott) who looked about our age. They were very receptive and we chatted with them for quite a bit. Chantel and Scott are engaged? and Chantel is a professional graphic designer at the creative agency that Erica drools at everytime we drive by. Scott is currently in university studying to be a P.E. teacher. He played basketball (semi-professionally?) in London for a few years and spent a summer in Columbus, Ohio (believe it or not) playing basketball. Faith is a youth-worker (a pseudo-youth pastor in the public schools) in maidstone and is one of those infectious personality types. We've been invited to join them for dinner Sunday night and it turns out that a guy (Daveo Ho) that went to Moody at the same time we did is originally from this church.

We went to a (young persons') small group on Wednesday that Faith invited us to. Out of the 13 normal people there were 5 including us, and we were the youngest by a good 20? years. We'll see how that goes.

The job at the sporting goods store is going well. I am getting more hours and am still doing well at it and gaining more responsibility there. Erica's classes are going well and we're looking forward to having Anna over from Switzerland for Thanksgiving. Other exciting news is that this summer we're going to be an aunt and uncle. Allie and Evan are expecting.

Sorry for the bare details version of this post. More exciting material to come later.

Cheers!

The Real Gunpowder Plot or The Legend Lives On From The Kentish On Down...

Today is a pretty important day in the UK; Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night. But there will be more of that later. The true Gunpowder Plot is an active threat that started just over sixty-five years ago. The SS Richard Montgomery is an American Liberty ship that was built during the middle of World War II. The Montgomery was on its way to France in August of 1944 when, during a storm, it became stuck in one of the many sandbars that dot the English Channel. After becoming lodged in the sand, a mile and a half from the town of Sheerness, the ship was bashed by the storm until it split into half under its own weight and sank. There were thousands of boats sunk during World War II. What makes this one noteworthy? Why is it a regular topic of conversation for Brits; especially the townspeople of Sheerness?

The SS Richard Montgomery is one of 2,710 hastily built a Liberty Ships that the U.S. military forces used to get supplies to the war fronts. The supplies that the Montgomery were carrying were 6,127 tons of munitions. After the ship began to break apart the munitions were attempted to be salvaged, and yet 1,400+ tons of munitions still remain on board! 1,400 Tons! Nearly, three-million pounds of explosives!

The decision to leave the remaining explosives on board was made in respect to another ship, the Kielce that sank off Folkstone in 1946. In 1967 an attempt was made to difuse the explosive cargo of the Kielce with the explosive result of the equivalent of a 4.5 magnitude earthquake. Currently the site of the wreck is cordoned off and is monitored visually and by RADAR. Although the wreck is in a percarious spot as it falls at the intersection of serveral major shipping lanes.

One has to choose whom to believe regarding the risk of explosion sixty-five years later. The governing authorities have always reported that it is better to leave the wreck alone rather than risk having anything occur while trying to alleviate the situation. According to them, any leaking explosives would be counteracted by the fridged Channel waters. Others however insist that the saltwater could corrode the casings of many of the exposives and eventually cause them to explode, they also are quick to point out that a significant portion of the munitions are TNT, and that TNT is not water solvable.

What could the detonation of the ship mean? According to the BBC, a report released by the British government shows that "a blast would hurl a 1,000ft wide column of water, mud, metal and munitions almost 10,000ft into the air. The shock of the blast would shatter almost every window in Sheerness and damage buildings. The explosion would also generate a 16ft high wave that could sink a small craft." Other not so optomistic folk forsee an explosion causing a tsunami and flooding large portions of the South East of England. Sheerness is just a little less than 15 miles from us, and the river Medway runs right through downtown Maidstone.

The wreck has been featured in various novels that usually depict nefarious groups planning on causing it to explode and thus create chaos for the surrounding areas. An enterprising soul has even claimed the domain name www.ssrichardmontgomery.com and has the domain name along with a movie script entitled "The Richard Montgomery Matter" for sale and one very interesting video is on youtube.

Is it California?

On our previous excursions to the Kentish coast, we have found only pebble beaches with little watery ripples, interesting as an oddity but not terribly pleasant to walk along. To a beach enthusiast such as myself, only soft, smooth sand with rolling waves truly satisfies me. Fortunately, just such a beach exists approximately one hour south of us in Sussex near the picturesque town of Rye. Camber Sands looks like it's a happening place in the summer, but on a late Sunday afternoon in October it was fairly sparse. Note the beachy grass that grows on the dunes: As I told Zac, you'd never guess you were in England and not in California. I know where to go when I'm homesick!
The beach parking lot is surrounded by rather junky arcades, fish bars (that's what they call places that sell fish and chips and other fried items), and souvenir shops. Won't be stopping for a bite to eat, but I will be back to walk along REAL SAND!
An added attraction: just five minutes away is the town of Rye, known for "high dress shops" and tons of antique shops. We didn't get a chance to go into any high dress shops (selling what looks like old costumes) because they were all closed, but we did come away a few pounds lighter monetarily and a few pounds heavier antiqueily (new word).
See the pictures of Camber Sands (just a few) here.

The British Two-Step

You know how when you are approaching a person who is walking towards you sometimes there is that awkward moment when you both head the same direction trying to get out of the way? Over here it happens exponentially more. I think I realized why. My instinct is to go right, their instinct is to go left: I've had this go on for four or five tries. I blame them driving on the wrong side of the road.

The George Inn

When Erica and I first decided to move to the UK, I immediately began thinking of a job that I might acquire. I decided that one of two criteria should be met for the job to be considered desirable. The first criterion was that the job would be one in which I had been trained for in my education (e.g. youth worker, associate pastor, working in the schools). The other criterion was that the job should be something distinctly British (e.g. chimney sweep or working at a castle). Well, as of now half of my jobs are distinctly British. There are two pubs in our little village, the one is just two doors down, and features a bar in the middle, a slot machine in the corner, and nothing else; pretty much a typical American bar. I am working in the other pub exactly a half-mile down the road from us. The George Inn, has been around for a good 350 some-odd years, and is still thriving. It is a pub, and more alcohol is served than food, but most of our customers are not in looking to drown their sorrows in pints of oranjeboom, but rather sharing a pint with friends on the way home from work, or on the weekend. I work behind the bar, but so far always with an experience member of staff. I make myself more useful serving food and clearing tables, until I get a little better at the art of bartending (n.b. a Gin & Tonic requires the use of actual tonic water, not soda water). The staff are all very nice, and my latest hobby is answering questions about where my accent comes from. Most people guess Canadian. I figure either they think they are being nice by not guessing Usonian, or they are accentually acute enough to pick-up the fact that I'm from a part of the country that is near to Canada. I actually had one guy insuate that that's what he thought. The guessing the accent game is the closest I have come to any real conversations with customers, but I am hoping to have more once I get to know the regulars a bit better.
The fact that I'm making a little bit more than minimum wage (plus tips), can walk to and from work, can chat with real British people, and can maybe have cricket finally explained to me all add up to a positive experience. And less anyone be concerned, I have not sampled any of the wares at the pub since I started working.

yet...

Lille

So, our grand adventure to the Continent this weekend was slightly diminished by our missing the ferry on Saturday morning due to the fact that we had forgotten to pack our passports. Thus, we had to go Sunday morning instead. Saturday we were supposed to spend in Bruges with cousin Ardas and her friends and then Zac and I were going to stay the night at a b&b in Bruges, but that didn't happen. Belgium will have to wait for another weekend adventure (see another post for what we did instead!).
However, Lille was fantastic! My (Erica's) cousin lives there as an au pair and let us stay with her. We saw the old town and went into an old stock exchange building that is now a book market (of great appeal to Zac and I). Besides books you could buy old photographs, maps, stamps, coins, old postcards, etc. I did buy a few old coins including a franc from 1938.
From there we walked down the cobblestone streets to Meert, a famous waffle place with unusual storefront and interior decor, and got their signature waffles (2 very thin soft wafers with vanilla creme between) and to a bakery to buy (of course) French bread. Other food items purchased: Camembert (fantastically delicious cheese similar to brie), some Bordeaux wine from 2005 (purportedly a good year) and some little mints that Ardas said were "very French."
After this, we went to an exhibition hall with live music, story-telling and art displays, walked through a park and ate French fries (highly recommended).
The weather was lovely, the food good, and it was great to see cousin Ardas!
See our pictures here.

BritBars: Cadbury Twirl

We went to the Contenent this weekend. A post with more details and to follow. Here and now is my first installment of BritBars where I write about differnt kinds of British candy bars.

Many of the candy bars in the UK are made and or distributed by Cadbury UK. The Twirl is similar in shape to a Twix bar back in the states. Inside the milk chocolate coating however instead of being crispy is more milk chocolate in a wavy layer. Upon biting into it, I was expecting a crispness similar to a Twix, and was a little perplexed that all it was was more chocolate. The tag line for the bar is "The Intense Chocolate Hit" and that is what it is.

If you have any criteria for judging a candy bar feel free to give me it. I was thinking choclatiness, difference from US candy bars, overall taste, any others would be great.

As for now, I'm going to give the Twirl an overall ranking of 5 out of ten.

British Words Of The Day

For your benefit and enjoyment, may I present the first installment of British Words Of The Day.

Lor•ry ˈlôrē noun (American: Semi) as in "These lorries will crush our Micra"

Wick•ed ˈwikid adjective informal excellent, awesome as in "You will work for minimum wage? Wicked!"

Camp kamp adjective (American: Metrosexual) as in "Look at that scarf, that guy is pretty camp"

Pet•rol ˈpetrəl noun (American: Gasoline) as in "Can you believe petrol is almost a pound ten a liter?"

Gar•den ˈgärdn noun (American: back yard, property, lot) as in "Your apartment comes with a paved garden"

Footpaths in Leeds: A Verbal and Pictorial Mapping

I've been trying to make a habit of taking a daily walk (which so far is only about every other day) along the footpaths in our area. We've decided to name the four paths we've discovered in our area as Burgess Hall South, Burgess Hall North, (these border the edges of a housing development by that name) the Field Path and the Woods Path. Burgess Hall North is absolute rubbish, but the other three are quite excellent. Today I walked along the Field path, which goes between 2 VERY large fields and makes you feel like you are in Kansas. You can follow it straight across a lane and it connects with several other footpaths, or you can turn to the left and take it to a wooded area where it connects with the Woods Path. This wooded area can only properly be described as a glade and was probably inhabited by Robin Hood and his Merry Men by the looks of it (so Zac and I think). The Woods Path takes you into the playing field and from there up the street to our house.
Pictures are the village as seen from across the playing field, the Field Path, and the Woods Path (not that you can see a discernible path).

What To Look Forward To

My O so very observant sister pointed out that a blog not blogged is likely not to be read. Our current internet situation is poor. We have a pay as you go mobile connection, but live in a dip that seems to avoid contact with the outside world (especially via wi-fi signals). When we do have a good connection we tend to use it for things we really have to do. Thus the blog has been left to rot thus far.
What you can look forward to though from this blog is an update of how the Neubauers are doing job wise, school wise, ministry wise, etc. We'll have plenty of pictures. Like from our trip to Bruges this weekend, and other goodies, such as my search for the best fish n' chips in the UK, and my systematic experimentation of British candy bars. We'll also throw in odds and ends, like driving on the "wrong" side of the road, and other cultural peculiarities.
Hope you'll stay in touch.
Zac & Erica