the NHS, Newcastle nites, and our upcoming party

Hello everyone,
Happy daylight savings! or "Fall back" or whatever. I know that in the US, you don't turn your clocks until next weekend, but here in Northeast England, we have eagerly turned them back today. It was wonderful sleeping in until 10, which was actually 9. To celebrate, I made Bret and myself some scrambled eggs and toast with some strawberries that I bought in the town market yesterday. I love doing Saturday shopping in town because all the vendors have their veggies and flowers and meats. There is a butcher in the indoor market, and I plan on buying some yummy cow hunks next weekend.
After our breakfast, I set out on a 30 minute run around the farms and hillsides. It's a gorgeous day (55 degrees and sunny), and so I put on my ipod, set it to some hardcore techno, and hit the hills. there was lots of horse poo along the trails, but it's beautiful anyway. Even though we live in a 'suburb,' there are lots of farms around. Right by our home, there is a horse and chicken farm, where they sell free range eggs. We will buy some soon because I used up the last of our Tesco eggs today.
So anyway, house updates: we have a gorgous couch that is very comfy and sleak. It is sitting right under the living room window, where I have 4 potted mini arecas and a bamboo shade rolled up half way. I also bought a fern for our donated bookshelf which is in the dining room. And I got 2 ivy plants for the top of the bookshelf (the leaves will drip down as the plants grow). We plan on spray-painting the bookshelf black because right now, it's just wood color. We are also really excited to put my mom's art on our downstairs walls, and Carmen Ruiz's art in our bedroom.

My herbs are doing phenomenally. the parsley and cilantro (coriander) came back to life, and the mint is going crazy. We are having a Halloween potluck party on Wednesday in which I will make lots of mojitos, hot apple cider, and a rice/chicken crockpot casserole. I'm still not sure what I will dress up as. I'm going for clever and creative because I can't afford a 'real' costume. So suggestions are very welcome.

Anyway, about a month ago, Bret and I went to Newcastle. We decided to go to Eldon Square because we saw that it was a hip shopping area. However, shopping around here closes at 5 so we just kind of roamed around deserted streets. We had eaten some gross sushi that had been going around in a conveyer belt, and then we went to go play pool at a bar where we were the only people over 17. We wondered why everyone raved about Newcastle. It seemed like a boring dirty town to us. With bad food. We were so disappointed.

But on Friday, we gave it another shot- this time with locals. We went out with Mark Norris, Shelly, and we met two other scientists: Gaz (nickname for Gareth) and Hugh. Together, we hit up a decent little Greek restaurant (I had vine leaves, Mousaka, and baklava, of course) in which we imbibed large quantities of red and white wine. Then we met up with Mark's middle brother, who is a beat bobby (steet cop) and Gaz's woman, Teresa at Revolution. It's a super hot bar with loud music, posh decor, and lots and lots of people. I had one of my usuals: a cosmo. After Revolution, we went over to Quayside, the absolute cooooolest part of Newcastle. it's right by the River Tyne. The bridges are all lit up, there are street performers, lots of ethnic restaurants, awesome bars, and crazy clubs. It was a gorgeous nite- cool, full moon, wispy clouds racing overhead. We went to two more bars, and exhausted, we asked middle Norris to drive us back to Durham. We crashed at 2 am and didn't wake up until 10:30. While we were not hungover, we were definitly lethargic. Bret was kind enough to make me some homemade oatmeal with maple syrup and cream.

So finally, we are starting to see the great parts of England. Not only is the nitelife way better than we thought it originally was, but there are aspects of the government which are great too. For starters, guns are illegal in this country, even for cops. That means virtually no gun violence exists (of course, they can be purchased illegally, but it's still quite uncommon to hear of such crimes, unlike the US). The death penalty is also illegal, and has been since the 60s, I believe. And of course, they have state health care. Believe me, I believe in business and profit. And I mistrust all governments, in general. But matters of health should not rest in the hands of profit-makers. Setting myself up with the NHS couldn't have been easier. They didn't even ask to see my passport. I just went to the health clinic, filled out a little form, and now I have an appointment for a check-up this thursday. Prescriptions are super cheap, too. So no copayments, no ridiculous costs. Just a few pounds and that's it.

Coronation House Photos

Here are some pics of our new digs. Hope they do it justice. Comments and decorating suggestions are most welcome. :)


Front door; note that the bushes have now been trimmed. Claudia is facing the street.


Our 2nd floor bedroom, pre-furnishings. Window faces street.


Our 2nd floor bathroom. Sexy candles now added to window sill. Window faces our yard.


Our yard.


Our first night sleeping arrangement. Kitchen in back at left and yard just outside window at right.


Our kitchen area; pre-furnishings.


Our Ikea bed.


Claudia in our office area. Bedroom in room behind her. Yard in front of her.


First dinner in dining room. Street behind her.

Reminiscings of our Honeymoon

We've now obtained internet at the Coronation House, where I have been coronated as king ... of the house. Anyways, I've decided to post a few pics from our honeymoon in NYC and Ireland. Pics of the Coronation House will follow.


New York City Skyline


Claudia on a water taxi (Empire State Building in the background)


Downtown Ireland


Claudia and I on the top of a double-decker bus


Jumping for joy in St. Stephen's Green


Guinness mustache in the Guinness factory


Napping on the way to Galway


Downtown Galway

the latest gossip from coronation station

So as it turns out, Bret has discovered a much unused gift: carpentry. He's a whiz putting furniture together, using tools, figuring out how things work, and installing. We have a new track light system in the office that we got for super cheap at B&Q (think Lowe's or Home Depot), and we're gonna get more. Today, after a another furious day of calling people and sending out my resume, I will go to B&Q to get a tree and some fresh soil. Unfortunately, my Parsley and Cilantro have died. But I am determined to develop a green thumb. I have placed 4 mini arecas on the living room window sill, and the mint and basil are still going strong.

We got the carpet steam cleaned yesterday because it was rotting, and the steam cleaner told me that the water was the color of our coffee table (the darkest, deepest brown you can imagine). I am not sure if the cigarette smell is gone, though, because now the house smells like dirty carpet chemicals. In any case, it looks much much better.

This weekend, we will install our blinds. We plan on doing thick venetians in our bedroom and the dining room, and bamboo in the living room. Soon, we hope to paint the walls, and in a few weeks we'll have our muted-chocolate couch from Argos.

I wanted to have a party for halloween, but the house will not be ready yet. So we're gonna wait and have a Thanksgiving party. We're calling it: "Making Peace with the Enemy" Party. We'll serve traditional thanksgiving food (I've already found an amazing Martha Stewart cranberry chutney) and invite all the Brits. In the meantime, we can only invite one couple at a time every weekend. This weekend, we hope to invite the Alexanders for some Butternut Squash soup, minty lamb lasagne, and poached pears for dessert.

I promise, pictures will be on the blog this weekend. You see, I write from the town library cuz our internet will not be working until tomorrow.

Notes from Neville's Cross

Well friends,
The letting agency has already taken the house off the site, so we'll have to post pics soon. Having our own place is AWESOME!! The house is quite shabby, old, and dirty, but it's got lots of potential. The carpet is burgandy and gross, the walls are mauve, the ceiling has this tacky white floral paper, and the light fixtures are medieval or something. So we hope to a. steam clean the carpet to get rid of the cigarette smell. We have tried deodorizing, vaccuuming over and over again, fabreeze, plug-ins. It's hopeless, the tar is embedded.
b. paint the walls white. It is a dark house, and the mauve doesn't help. White will surely freshen it up.
c. change the light fixtures. Chandeliers are a thing of the past. We are down light and track light people.
d. the ceiling we'll keep (yuck)
e. we hope to get rid of the gas fireplace. it's soooo ugly.

Aside from these minor house horrors, the kitchen and bath are new and lovely. And we have a small city garden in the back which we will fill with ivy and evergreens.

We have already put HHHerbs on our kitchen window. We have parseley, mint, basil, and coriander (cilantro for you non-UKers).

We have also received our first batch of essential furnishings. Ikea delivered our coffee table, dining room table and chairs, cutlery, plates, and pots, our bedding and bed and bedframe, and some other things that we are gonna return cuz we grabbed the wrong stuff at the store.

We now need our couch (there was a mix up about that), and lots of accessories, like fat white candles, paintings, bamboo shades, desks, and of course, plants.

It's so fun to fix up our home...unfortunately it will have to be bit by bit cuz we are soooo poor. For the first time in my life, I've had to ration how much I can spend on food.

Pics forthcoming...promise. You will see the beauty unfold in the upcoming months.

we have a house

that's right, not a flat- a house!! well, the flat fell through, after 2 weeks of chasing after them, pushing them, crossing our arms and giving them the evil eye, we got sick of it, told them that we were interested in another property, and in 3 minutes, the deal was done.
we measure for furniture on thurs and move in fri.

if you want to see pictures of it, go to google and search 'lets rent robinsons,' which is the letting agency. then, find the property entitled "coronation house" (that's the name of our house). click and you can see pics.

and when you do, you'll notice that the carpets are burgundy. they really make this lovely house look a lot more drab than it is. that's the only downside, really. it's got a garden, a new kitchen and new bathroom, a nice master bedroom with closets, and a little room we can use for guests and an office.

a bus on route to our gym passes by our front door every half hour. and it should be a 10 minute bike ride to the station.

there is also free parking for guests (we can't even think about buying a car at this point)

ah, finally. we have waited quite a while for this.

Rowing Upstream from the River of Sorrow

Friends and Family,

This morning I went on a walk with my camera so I could take some picures to share. Claudia and myself have been slowly making the journey towards normalcy, despite not having a place that we can call home.

Actually, Claudia has been bouncing off the walls with joy because yesterday she was selected to interview (on Monday) for a position as a marketing assistant. Right now she is reviewing her interview strategy so that she is prepared for all kinds of questions. If you have any suggestions for Claudia, please comment!

Today, I went to Bannatyne's gym to sign Claudia and myself up for a membership. The gym is a 35 minute walk from Durham city centre and on a frequently-visited bus line. This is great, considering it's been roughly two months since we've had a stable gym and my muscle mass has begun to whither somewhat ... ahhh! Additionally Bannatyne's has free weights and machines, cardiovascular machines, exercise classes, a pool, steam room, sauna, restaurant, bar, squash courts, etc., etc...

After sculpting my guns, I met up with Claudia to go exploring in Durham city. We decided to head down to the River Wear and go for a row boat ride. This means I got to row the boat, while Claudia enjoyed the fresh air on this nice sunny day. If you're visiting Durham, I would recommend the row boats. It's a great way to see the surrounding area, while getting harrassed by local fishermen! To finish off our lovely evening, we ordered some paella, wine, and beer at the riverside restaurant "Hallathan's." For dessert was a delicious banoffee pie ... for those of you not familiar with banoffee, try it now! Fantastic!

So now, Claudia and I are going to take it easy and get a movie. We have high hopes for getting the "OK" to move into our flat this week, at which point we will be very busy decorating. Goodnight for now ...

Cheers,
-BDL

P.S. - Our potential flat is in one of the pictures above. The flat is above the Loyds bank.

A better day

Good evening friends! We have sorted out our financial woes! Goodness, moving to a foreign country is so complicated.

But it's no fun to write about our troubles, and I imagine that it's even worse to read about them. Let's talk fun times.

I have started running again because it's nice and cool (some days not so nice and really damn cold, but for the past few days the weather has been lovely). We get lots of exercise just living in Durham cuz we have to walk everywhere, and the hills are quite unforgiving, but we need purposeless exercise, too. I just listen to my running podcast and follow the instructions. It's pretty easy so far, interval run and walk, so I'm using it to build up my speed.

We have also been doing a bit of cooking here at temp house number two. They have a gorgeous modern kitchen, so it's a pleasure to concoct our culinary delights here. Last nite, Bret made Andouille sausage with Red beans. Tomorrow, I will make steak or lamb. I don't know about you all, but Bret and I love "hominess." While we love to go out to the pubs and have a good time at a fancy restaurant, it's so cosy to cook a good meal and listen to music. We really miss playing boardgames. And we are so excited to have potted plants. Bret's into herbs (pronounced HHHHerbs) and veggies, and I'm a flowers kinda woman. MMMM, soon enough we'll have a home.

And soon enough, we'll be writing about our travels. Once we settle into our home, we will start taking day trips around the country. And in several months time, we'll be able to hit up other countries. Our first stops will be York and Edinburgh. Oh, and London, of course. Harrods, here we come!

one day we'll have a happy post...but today is not the day

The situation is not getting any better. We keep calling the letting agency, but they don't return our call. The prob is that we had to pay 150 pounds to apply for the place. It is standard to have to pay an application fee when you rent a place. The thing is that if they do not want you to live there, you do not get your money back.

To make things even more complicated, the women who processed our account at HSBC totally effed us over (trying to keep it pg for the kids). We wrote US checks for our HSBC account and she told us that it would take 5-7 days. Well on day 8, I decided to find out why we still had zero in our account and the reason is because she made a mistake. For a large sum, it actually takes 8 weeks to get money into the account, not 5 days. big oops, and best of all, they do not want to deal with their mistake. We have to figure out a way to fix it. We are currently working on that.