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you’d think I was the one taking the exams …

Thursday, January 10th, 2008

Yesterday Madeline had her first set of exams for secondary schools, but the way I'm feeling you'd think it were I who was under all the pressure.

OK - let me explain how this all went down yesterday:

Madeline and I walk down High street to get the car share car. The GPS is ready to go, we know the way, never mind I haven't driven here in over a month, but have driven all over the place in the States on the other side of the road all last month.
Traffic jams extraordinaire, misbehaving traffic lights, inattentive pedestrians leads to my running a red light while Madeline was on the phone with Sue. (See below to learn why that's a really stupid thing to do …)
Feeling a little too confident at one of the more nasty roundabouts, I missed my exit, hesitated, couldn't go around again, so took the next exit. I was immediately beeped at and flipped off by an angry Brit who couldn't get over the fact that I was … momentarily confused.
No worries, the GPS knew what to do, but sadly it didn't know it was going to put me on a road with a 1.5 mile, single lane, traffic jam. Luckily we left ourselves 3x what I thought we would to get there, because … it's me …
… except because it's me, we got close a little too early. So I tried to park in a park parking lot only to discover that once I went in, there was no going out the same way. A gate which lowered into the ground on the way in refused to lower again on the way out, so I had to go through a traditional gate on the other side to get out …
… but it wanted money and I wasn't in the mood! So I squeezed out the gate behind the other stupid car that was also in there, peering anxiously over my shoulders to make sure it wasn't going to come crashing down on me …
… only to go around the rather large block to discover that we were now at the end of a rather long line of cars and now in danger of being a little late…
… which didn't matter because there were a million cars behind us, too!

Naturally I was completely calm during all this. Just ask Madeline.

Madeline just turned 10, but I drove her to this place at 7:30 in the morning, to spend the day until 3pm taking 3 exams that will have a big impact on her future here in England. I and 400 other parents were dropping off girls, and I do mean dropping off. I am grateful I was allowed to the stop the car before a kindly gentleman opened the door and escorted Madeline to the front of the building where the older girls who had already been through this years in the past were waiting to take her in, make her feel comfortable and happy and relaxed. I didn't get to park and walk her in, there were too many people.

By the time I got home I needed a drink, but, I knew in a few hours I had to turn around and make the same trip all over again. This time I practically begged Sue to keep me company, which she did, and there was only one mishap involving getting on the M1 and being forced to drive 3 miles in the wrong direction before I could turn around.

I hate driving in the UK.

Madeline was all smiles when we picked her up at the end, feeling quite confident that she did pretty well in what is likely her most difficult exam.

Tomorrow morning I take her to what will be her most important exam because it's for a number of schools she has applied to (they share exam results for some schools) including her number one choice. So, we're keeping our fingers crossed. Madeline seems to excel under pressure though.

A Going-Back-Home-To-California Crisis

OK, the crisis has been averted but I was freaked out and depressed for weeks once I heard about this. To sum it up, out with the old:

and in with the new:

Yes, the butcher announced he was closing after 35 years here in Hampstead. When the butcher is closed, we go hungry … or we go out, and I routinely would run out to the butcher 10 minutes before closing time to grab something to eat. I really liked the place, even if it was insanely expensive.

The closing did not come without some drama, as clearly I was not the only devastated Hampsteadian in the neighborhood. Also, why didn't Mr. Steele hand down the establishment to his son, Barry, whom I had had many a happy conversation about MacBook Pros and accompanying software. Well, there are all sorts of theories to that one, but I don't want to go into them at this time, because I am not a gossip ;-)

Happily the new butcher is just as good, if not better, and also is cheaper than this one. The only bad news is that it's 1.3 miles down the hill and 1.3 miles up the hill so the days of last minute runs to the butcher are long gone. I am going to have to - oh my GOD! - plan ahead.

Espresso Madness

Just before we got on a plane for our 3 week trip to the States my trust little, cheapo, espresso maker died on me. Now despite the cheap price, this thing made an excellent espresso every time, and was a very capable steamer as well. It took just one lousy minute to warm up and had an infinitely supply of steam because of the clever way it produced it: one little squirt at a time. The thing produced 1 second tiny squirts of water into a clearly hot steamer producing steam instantly, once the machine was warmed up after just one little minute, and continuously produced steam until I was done. I loved my little machine (whose name I can't remember - but it was still love!).

Anyway, my little Briel (the name just came to me) basically burst at the seams and trying to fix a £120 machine just doesn't make sense.

Besides, one of our guests had put the bug of manual, Italian espresso machines into my head, something had been tempted by many a time buy couldn't justify the price. Well, ladies and gentleman, I have just justified the price:

(I take all my pictures with the iPhone now - scary)

So this puppy costs … an arm and a leg and it's a manual transmission so you really develop a relationship with this baby, as one should when making espresso. And the steam wand is much longer so I can steam enough for 4 or 6 or maybe more lattes at a time with this baby!

That's the good news.

The bad news is: I cannot steam milk to the proper consistency to save my life with this steam wand. And believe me, I am a professional. It has three holes at the bottom of the wand, but the wand cannot be placed in the absolute vertical position, so one of those holes is pointing higher than the other two … which causes splatter and too much air at the wrong time … oh, I am …

OK, time to stop whining. I am working on developing a new technique.

The espresso part is fine but I am not able to produce as reliable a shot as I used to with my old machine. Still, there's hope for that.

1984 in England

While in the States I received an email from Whizzgo, the car sharing company that we used to drive around from time to time, stating that I received a ticket while driving one of their cars. I didn't recognize it as something I could have done, because it sounded like it thought I was driving the wrong way on a one way street! So I wrote back a message saying, "I am not sure I had the car that day and I don't think I would have done anything like that because I am very conservative driving in the UK."

Then the Whizzgo guy sent me this (which he meant to send in the original message):

In picture #1 I can be seen sitting at the intersection all pleased with myself for finally having the guts to drive down such a narrow road near our house, but outraged when I found out that I couldn't make a right turn. Seconds go by until picture #2, where I clearly remember saying (after looking carefully for cops), "I don't think this is an issue, this seems perfectly all right to me, SCREW IT!" Picture #3 is a close-up of my license plate. Picture #4 is proof that I went through with it.

So I wrote back to Whizzgo and said, "Ohhhh - THAT intersection!" And that's £60 down the drain.

So now it's no longer OK to make a calculation along the lines of, "Can I do it safely and are there any cops around?" It's really just a question of, "Do I want another ticket?" I am fully expecting a ticket for my little red light mistake I made taking Madeline to school yesterday morning. This one might be more serious.

Posted in Clueless in the UK | No Comments »

Life goes on …

Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

I have three drafts that will never see the light of day. But writing blog entries is supposed to be easy. Plus, I am supposed to be writing them for myself (and the family) as a record of what is going on in our lives, etc. What's the matter with me?

It's been 2 1/2 months since I last wrote! Or longer, now! I just must get this stuff down before it disappears into my past.

NHS throwing me curveballs

So I got my appointment, met with a nice young lady who took one look at me and said, "You're too skinny to have sleep apnea." Not exactly like that but pretty much like that. I told her that I have already been diagnosed with it from Stanford. She was not impressed. She said, "Well, if that is in fact the case, then you are in the right place, unfortunately our sleep study appointments have an 18 month waiting list."

HAHA - I knew my right-wing nut case friends would have a field day with that, and I was resigned to going the private route, paying out of pocket if I have to. Because it is getting quite bad I am afraid.

(In good news, I have had more than one person say to me recently, "You look so relaxed!" People who know me might be quite impressed with that. Nobody has ever said that to me, ever.)

Then the NHS sends me a letter about 10 days later saying, "You're appointment for an at-home sleep study is in two weeks." Huh? So in I go to the sleep center, get wired up to look like a suicide bomber, and then get sent back home on public transportation with just a few wires showing …. They assured me nobody has ever been arrested or … killed … as a result of heading home all wired up like that. But, it was great, doing the sleep study in my own bed, where I would very comfortably not sleep very well.

It took about another 10 days before the next letter arrived saying, "Come in to the NHS to discuss your results." So - who knows?!?!? So far I am impressed with the service I have received for free.

And now, because this post is taking me forever to write, I have an appointment at the NHS to get a teeth impression made, so that I can get a mouth piece that might help me with my sleeping problems. I'd say this is amazing, methodical progress. If this mouth piece has any impact at all then I will look into a fancy machine and see if that helps more. If not, well, we'll have to see.

But there's more to life than sleep apnea

I started one of my three drafts with the subject "It's a great time to be alive and in London!" I was feeling particularly good. I think that particular time Sue and I had just come home from seeing President Bartlett's wife - I mean Stockard Channing - in a little play in Islington. Islington is down one branch of the Northern line and up the other, OR, about 50 feet to our east ;-) We were bordering on late so we had to walk very quickly, but it was 7 or 7:30pm, the streets were full of people, the side walks were Champs-Élysée wide, lots of bars and clubs, etc.

The small theatre was very cosy, the play was excellent, and the walk back to the TUBE was more relaxing. This time it was 10pm and it was still warm and people were eating on the side-walk cafes, etc, bustling with energy. I just thought it was fantastic. That evening put me in a good mood for two weeksat least!

And then a few weeks ago Sue and I went to watch King Lear with Sir Ian MacKellin. We were in row B. He and the whole team of actors were incredible. I mean, King Lear … and I stayed awake! I'll admit that I was struggling to stay awake for the usual reasons, and then Lear pulled up his shirt and pulled down his pants, and there he was in all his glory. That woke me up a little bit: he was incredible … and his acting was amazing, too!

All kidding aside, Ian MacKellin's performance was incredible. I was as exhausted watching him as he looked putting on the performance. And then in the end, after everyone took a bow, he came out to the front of the stage and gave a little speech about AIDS and how it is customary on this day each year to ask for donations from people in the theater on the way out.

In the battle of British X-men alumni, Ian MacKellin's performance in King Lear wins by a landslide over Patrick Stuart's performance in Antony and Cleopatra. They were both good but only one was amazing.

And then there was my birthday

I turned 43 this year. Sue took me to Greenwich Mean Time where I have a certificate showing I was standing on GMT and GMT + 1 at the same time on my birthday. Um - worth every pence I paid for it. The National Maritime Museum was an amazing place to visit. Here's a view of it from the bottom of the hill:

The four or five seaworthy clocks that John Harrison invented were all there in the museum, along with great demos of why standard pendulum clocks of the day couldn't cope with seas travel (rather obvious once you see it). Coincidentally, Madeline and I had just done a little geo-caching a week or so before that, and one of the items was to find John Harrison's grave stone at a church in Hampstead. I'd never heard of him until then …

I think we're pointing (the camera, that is) south, which would put Sue at GMT + 1 and me at GMT. But … I could have it backwards:

After, we ate at a pub where I had "something wonderful" for the second time in a couple weeks. I can't even remember what it is anymore, but there's a piece of ham as thick as a burger under the two eggs, peas, tomato and fries:

Aperitif Revisited

Our friends Bob and Sheila came out to stay with us on and off for a week or so. Bob's birthday was the day after mine, so we had a joint celebration at the Scene of the Great Aperitif Incident. Yup - we went back to the place where I was in over my head, but this time I was prepared, although a little anxious. When the waiter asked us if we wanted an aperitif I hesitated only as long as it took to wiggle my eyebrows at Bob to show him I knew what was going on.

We did the tasting menu again, like last time: 7 course meal. This time Bob and Sheila used fancy words involving wine with our "waiter with a strong French accent" and the next thing I know we had a different wine with all 7 courses!

Four hours of relaxing, fun, incredibly tasty, non-stop conversation. It was just the best, and worth every MIND-BOGGLING penny - I mean pence - of it ;-)

The restaurant, which I highly recommend BTW, is called The Greenhouse, and it's very good.

Out and About in London with Bob and Sheila

Bob and Sheila were of course a lot of fun. We did lots of things with them we maybe should have already done but I am bad …

We spent a day wandering along the Queen's Walk, hitting various sites along the way. We stopped in some sort of theater that I can't remember, which happened to have a photo display that was striking and depressing: it was pictures of a lot of the garbage going on in the world. I will never forget the one of the bride and groom, the saddest looking bride of an Iraq vet whose face was damaged beyond recognition, posing for their wedding photo together.

We hit the Borough Market I believe, which was very impressive. They had everything and it all looked good, and there was plenty to taste:

We checked out one of the official yard measurements in Trafalgar Square (different day of course):

We saw the changing of the horse guard, which is obviously different from the normal changing of the guard, which we actually haven't managed to see in our 18 months here. How strange! Anyway, the horse guard was very cool in my humble opinion:

I tried to take a cool shot but it was dark and hard to keep everything still enough to have the right effect. Whatever. That's statue in the distance is … some dude … whose name escapes me:

Bob seemed … perplexed:

We managed to hit the Royal Stables (or Mews as they are often called):

then the Churchill Museum and the Cabinet War Rooms which was mind-boggling, and then ended up near Harrods at the end of a long day:

At the house we made potstickers, which is always fun. The family that wraps together, stays together, and we have been doing a lot of wrapping lately. It's fun to share. Here Bob has just made some wise-ass comment, which he tends to do, and Madeline couldn't get enough of it:

I'll admit I had more to drink that normal when Bob and Sheila were here, so the kids saw a side of me they weren't too used to: extremely happy and smiling a lot, and really laughing it up with Bob. Madeline was amused, as was Jason. After they left, Madeline and Jason started making cracks about my being a drunk, which I had to set the straight on. You know, out in public saying things like, "Dad are you going to get drunk again?!" Trust me - I talk up the pubs and school drop off perqs but I am just kidding … usually.

Drinking lots of Apple koolaid

I'll just come clean: I am now officially an Apple bigot. I laugh at people who continue to struggle with PCs, even as I continue to help them on a regular basis. Recently I did complete OS re-installs for two of my friends, and helped another with an obscure problem where typing stopped every 10 seconds for 5 seconds (turned out to be related to the size of their address book, if you can believe that).

The iPhone arrived in the UK and I had to have it. And it is, as I said the moment I saw Steve Jobs' keynote a year ago, The best product I have ever held in my hands. It is an amazing product and it is truly boggling to think about the changes, improvements, etc., they will be able to make to the existing hardware let alone when they upgrade the hardware in the next few years. It will be interesting to see if any of the imitations stand a chance, but I think they have an uphill battle.

Meanwhile, I upgraded to Leopard and have loved every minute of it. It's a vast improvement in a bunch of little ways over the previous release, which was everything I had hoped it would be and more. I enjoy my computer in a million little ways, and I look forward to making some deposits into the Apple bank in the coming year ;-)

The Great Secondary School Hunt

Sue is leading the effort in the great secondary school hunt. I may have mentioned this before: it's like looking for a college. And depending on how well you do in your tests can mean the difference between going to Harvard and going to community college in Alabama. These are the schools that Prince William and Harry went to, etc., and they are serious schools. When I was growing up my father used to say that the education we were getting in our posh little town in Massachusetts was horrible, vastly inferior to the one he received here in England. I used to take that as code words for "you're stupid and I'm not" but I have come to realize that he was probably right. The good secondary schools here in London are second to none as far as I can tell, and if Madeline gets into any of her first three choices she will be in good shape.

So stay tuned. Almost her entire year 6 (fifth grade) so far has been dedicated to preparing for the exams that are about to start in the next few weeks. Once they are over there will be a short wait, and then we will know what her options are.

Americans in Paris

We spent much of a week in Paris again this year, this time meeting some friends who came during their October break in the States. It was sooooo cold in Paris this time around, very cold, and I was sick the whole time.

We hit the Musee D'Orsay which was I think a great place for all, including the kids. A converted railway station, I love the old railway stations in Europe, although I've only seen a couple in Paris and a bunch in England so far:

See what I mean? Very cool.

The kids were fine listening in to the kids' versions of the descriptions of the paintings. I recommend without hesitation the audio tours for adults and kids wherever you go. Otherwise you walk around with a blank look on your face, having no idea what's going on:

Here, Daryoush and I are enjoying a beer in a little courtyard, while the kids were running around entertaining themselves and the moms were off doing a little shopping:

I love relaxing with a beer in strange places. Makes me feel cool.

We wandered through the Jardin du Luxemburg again on this trip, and the kids had fun in the playground while Sue and I sat and froze our butts off. They have the best playgrounds in Paris:

While we were sitting there we started chatting with a woman who had three kids who were speaking French and English. Our conversation was interrupted by a sudden yell followed by the sound of a woman's head hitting the pavement. Ouch!

Walking the rest of the way through the garden we came across an exhibit showing the history of space flight since it began in the 50s or 60s, whenever it was. One picture per year for the most part. This is a picture of the Sombrero Galaxy, which is 40 million light years from the earth!!!

I love that three of the republican candidates think the earth is only 6000 years old, meanwhile we're looking at a galaxy that is at least 40 million years old just by how far it is from earth! Only in America… Anyway, maybe this shot gives you a feel for the size of the exhibition:

We also checked out Sainte-Chapelle this time:

Impressive, although not all the windows look this nice.

Oh, and this time we made sure to climb Notre Dame. I can't remember how many steps it was now! Maybe the kids remember. It's pretty cool up there:

And where I come from, that's a big bell:

No plans to move back to California

Something I said in onne of my previous posts must have been confusing, because my own mother was very excited about the fact that we were coming home. I think she thought we were moving back to the East Coast or something. Also another friend thought we were heading back to California after our one year here.

The truth is, we love it here and we have no plans at the moment to come home. It doesn't mean we won't come home some day, but it does mean we have no plans to do it any time soon. This is an amazing place to live and we're all getting a great education of a sort. This way of life is just right for us right now.

Jason keeps changing

Jason is really REALLY changing and growing, and it is a pleasure to see. I think it's hard on Madeline who has been used to the spotlight for far too long. Jason is smart, opinionated, good natured and quite funny. He is finally starting to remind me of how I remember myself: a wise-ass who has no idea when to stop. My mom and sisters might remember my dropping a plate of spaghetti on the floor growing up, and Jason is at that stage right now.

Anyway, in honor of Jason, I decided to resurrect an old photo of him that I think is one of my best shots ever (July 6th, 2006):

And here's one I took of him tonight:

I remember thinking Jason has really changed when he went with some school friends to a chess tournament, his first ever. Sue, Madeline and I happened to hop unexpectedly on the same train as he did, and when we finally noticed each other on the adjacent cars, it was quite fun. Then we got off before him and turned to watch the train go, and he smiled, ever-so-slightly uncertain as his train took off into downtown London without us.

Later that day I got calls from the head mistress of the school telling me all about his day at the chess tournament: he had won 2, lost 1 and tied 1. Amazing. I talked to him on the phone where he just told me what had happened, and then he said, "OK Dad, I am going to go back to playing with my friends." It was like, "What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys …" ;-) He sounded very different.

And on the flight from Missouri to New Jersey I let him go into the toilets on his own, since it was a very small jet, perhaps a 717 or something. He didn't know how to turn on the lights, but I showed him and that was fine. But then I thought to myself, He might not be able to figure out how to get out! And sure enough he started trying to get out but nothing happened … it was too loud in the plane for me to even hear if he was asking me for help, and I was unsure what to do to help him without causing a scene. And then suddenly the door opened and he came out saying, "I couldn't get out!"

Anyway, back in the seat he said to me, "You know, when I was stuck in the toilet, I started to get scared. But then I said to myself, 'If sit down and start crying I might never figure out how to get out!' so I just decided to stay calm and try to figure it out," shrugging his shoulders as he was saying it.

Awesome stuff, coming from a boy who … might have some genes in common with … me …

Posted in Clueless in the UK, NHS, travel | 1 Comment »

Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

While we were in Holland I received a letter one week after my initial visit with the NHS confirming that I have an appointment for October 11, which is about 1 1/2 months total wait.

That is not bad.

When I was given my time slot at the Stanford Sleep Clinic it was a much longer wait than that, on the order of 2 or 3 months if I remember correctly (but I never do remember correctly). I ended up not waiting long back then because I called and said, "I can come on short notice if somebody cancels!" and somebody always cancels.

Still, I'm ready to say: NHS 2, US 0. But the treatment is what counts…

Posted in Clueless in the UK, NHS | No Comments »

Well I’ll be amsterDAM’d!

Saturday, September 8th, 2007

Every trip is tiring but in the end every trip has been worth it, so I am grateful for yet another carefully and painstakingly planned trip by Sue, this time a trip planned to Holland motivated largely to see my old freshman year college roommate for the first time in 15 years.

The funny thing is, prior to 15 years ago, I saw him once 17 or 18 years ago, and HE FORGOT ABOUT THAT, and then before that, it was freshman year in college, in 1984. So after we arrived in Amsterdam last week, planning to drive to Delft the following day, Sue said, "So what can you tell me about Coenraad? What has been up to? How long has he been married?" I suddenly started wondering what I was doing going all the way to Holland to visit a friend I knew 23 years ago for one year! I started to break out into a cold sweat, since I had pretty much committed us to two almost full days of our vacation time with him …

Turns out, all was well. It's like we stayed in constant touch the whole time. It was great to see him and meet his family for the first time. Weird, huh?

If I had a 24 year old picture I would include it here, just to show how we've not turned into a couple of old farts, that we've always looked this good ;-)

But back to Amsterdam, where we spent the first day. First of all, don't rent a car if you are going to stay there. We made one false turn and it took us 30 minutes to go around the block to try again. Then it cost us £40/day to park the car there! Wait - not £'s but … €'s. Wow - how do I type that on a keyboard? Still prohibitively expensive!

Instead of cars, this is what they use:

If you are not careful you will be hit by impatient bicyclists who are on a mission and you better not be in the way! They take it very seriously. Amsterdam is a great city to have a bike in I think, but so was everywhere else we visited in Holland.

Amsterdam is a city of streets with lots of canals. Venice is a city of canals with lots of streets. One of these scenarios makes a lot more sense to me, and so I thought Amsterdam was a great place.

A one hour canal boat tour was recommended to us for Amsterdam, and it was one of the better boat tours we have had I'd say. Amsterdam is interesting and pretty and pretty mellow. OK - I am not sure why we liked it so much. We just did.

Kinderdijk

After one night in Amsterdam, we jumped into the car and let our GPS to the talking. I love this thing:

This thing never lies, at least not to us, not yet. But at one point we were driving along, minding our own business, when we rounded a corner and were faced with nothing but water. Luckily we figured out that even though there was no road there, there was a ferry service:

It was the only way across this body of water we could see on the GPS for many many miles so off we went. We were trying to get to the windmills in Kinderdijk, where we wanted to do the Dutch thing of riding around on bikes admiring windmills:

Funny thing is, less than a month ago I was riding on the back of a bike just like Jason is here, with my arms lovingly wrapped arou … ok, never mind.

Jason wasn't big enough to get a bike for himself, but we decided to give him a go on the large bike. Pretty quickly he figured out how to get on and off the bike without killing himself, even though his feet were 6 inches from the ground when sitting on the seat. He loved it.

The windmills were awe-inspiring in a number of ways. The power is incredible. My friend Coenraad told me that people get whacked by them regularly and it's basically game over, and here you can see why:

As you can see, we're dwarfed by this thing, and the blades are moving very fast. This shot was slowed down on purpose to show you the blur: 1/15 seconds. Wow - it took me a long time to remember how to convert .0666666667 seconds into a fraction. Scary.

Inside the windmill we got to see the whole mechanism from top to bottom, although not too up-close and personal because there's no much opportunity to basically die inside there if you get too close to the wrong moving part. The two things which blew me away were: the thing is made of wood, the size of the vertical axis going down the height of the tower: probably 2 feet by 2 feet, or maybe more. Just a huge hunk of wood. The thing is loud!

I wish I had taken a photo of the little cupboard bedroom we saw in there. Reminded us of Harry Potter's room under the stairs … tiny.

Delft

Coenraad lives in Delft where we stayed for three days. It's a really nice, small town. The first morning there was a small fair being set up. Very small but everything was free. Madeline went straight to the top:

I like the church in the background there. But what is it with Holland and church bells? That thing rang every 15 minutes all day and into the evening, finally stopping at (I think) 11pm and then picking up again at 4am. Wow.

One night I was woken up at 3 in the morning by the sound of people singing Billy Joel songs at the top of their lungs from a bar that was … frankly not that close! "Up Town Girl".

The Dutch are very friendly, and when I asked 'Do you speak English?' they always said, "Of Course!" as if I were stupid for asking. Finally I stopped asking IF and just said "CAN".

Jason was into the basketball, and this little silly shot went straight in:

The Dutch are very liberal. You can smoke pot, drink in public, have sex with women in windows, everyone has health insurance, they even allow men to get pregnant:

and in the zoo they encourage zebras and donkeys to get married and have children:

The neighborhood Coenraad lives in is very typical, he says, where the houses are laid out with tall brick walls and narrow paths between them, which is perfect for little kids to ride around on:

Here we all are enjoying a dinner at Coenraad's house taken with my lovely camera and my extremely handy, portable tri-pod, which was a recent gift from a friend who came to visit us here in London at the beginning of the summer:

I hope a few more pictures of Coenraad and his family are OK. I want to share them with some of our old friends from college. His kids are very cute, but whose kids aren't?!?

Madeline took about 200 pictures on her own. Some of them were good, like that one of Simon above, and this one below is kinda cool as well:

We went to the zoom in Rotterdam and it was an excellent zoo, with a small aquarium and a nice little playground as well:

Madeline and Jason were jumping off the swings. I was reminded of one of my first times jumping off the swing, where I let go too late and landed right on my back, knocking the wind out of me for the first time in my life:

In this one, Maddie's feet are also off the ground:

Anne Frank

Back and Amsterdam we did the van Gogh museum, which I didn't remember at all from the last time I was there in 1989. OK - it appears that it's pronounced either "Hoff" or "Goff" where the "ff" is pronounced with a sound not unlike when you're going to hauk a loogie. I'd like to know the correct way to pronounce it. Most Americans pronounce it as "Gough" rhymes with dough, which I never heard once while there.

I think even the kids liked the van Gogh. I liked his work from 1888 to the end the most. I found his story to be sad, moving, etc. Sue and I are considering buying some of the paintings we saw to hang them on our mostly bare wall so we can maintain that depressed feeling ;-)

We also did the Anne Frank house, which I highly recommend. The little tour in the house was very well done, you can easily spend an hour in there watching the occasional video, reading all the notes and excerpts, and checking out the many rooms. The story, of course, is sad and horrible. It's a good reminder of what went on, sort of the ultimate, old-fashioned blog, complete with pictures.

The site of the Anne Frank statue with a swastika painted on it is a perfect example of why we need the Anne Frank house, even if some people choose not to believe what is undeniable. I was very moved.

Here's the church right near the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam:

Here's the bird trying to get a drink nearby:

and here's Jason doing the same:

EasyJet

Let me just throw in a plug for EasyJet. Leading up to this trip I was feeling more anxious than usual because we were going with a low-cost airline for the first time. The one-way tickets to Amsterdam were something like £5/each, which is obviously mind-boggling. Even more so is in the end the whole cost of flying to and from was about £200, the rest being taxes.

I was worried that we were flying on an airline with 30 year old, unmaintained, because-how-else-can-they-afford-to-fly-us-for-£5, airplanes. The night before we left I did a little research (without telling Sue, who planned the trip) to see what was the deal with them. I found out, among other things, that they have the youngest fleet of planes in the industry: average of 2.5 years old. Sue, it turns out, did all this research planning the trip.

Arriving at Gatwick, which is 50+ miles from where we live, we were greeted by an entirely orderly process, a professional airline, early boarding, effortless travel. I really quite enjoyed the whole thing and was blown away.

Also, 50+ miles away seems far, but we took a train to Victoria and then an express train to Gatwick. Pretty easy and not that expensive. Highly recommended, both EasyJet and Gatwick (as opposed to Heathrow).

Posted in Clueless in the UK, travel | 1 Comment »

The Ambien Adventure

Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

Well, thanks to those of you who asked if I survived my ambien test: all one of you.

I will say that I did not survive without incident, although minor. First of all, I didn't sleep all night like I was hoping, just a little bit better. The first day after, I felt super good but I think it was all in my head, as I felt pretty much normal the other days, after better-than-average but still sucky nights.

But one night Sue and I were talking in bed about really deep stuff, I mean really deep, only married couples stuff, and finally she said, "Are you awake?" I said, "Yes, I am awake, but it's hard to hear you with all the other people talking to me …" Wow.

I have one Ambien left and I am saving it for a special occasion.

In the meantime, I am waiting for a letter from the NHS to make me feel good about socialized medicine.

And while I wait I keep running into more people who seem completely normal on the outside, but turn out to have apnea on the inside! I have received encouraging news from those into surgery (I might almost have to be dead before I go that route, however) and those who are big on non-surgical solutions. I am optimistic that there is … you know … hope.

Posted in Clueless in the UK | 3 Comments »

Clueless in the UK