Feb 8: Winter’s Finally Here

Snow! In England! Today we had what by English standards was a real blizzard: 7 cm of snow. People here are really in shock over it all. It has been the main news story for the week, trains were canceled, kids stayed home, and work was about 60% full. Though we don’t get snow days anymore, even work was buzzing with a child-like sense of mischief and fun. Above is a picture I took of the fields out behind the office. Everyone there pretty much just stared out the windows all morning, enthralled by the snow. I must have heard a dozen people say, “feel like home, Nick?”

The best for me—even better than the snowball fight we had at lunch and the snowman we made by the front door of the office—was seeing the reaction of several people on our team from southern India who had never seen snow before. It was amazing how a little snow could turn 40+ year old engineers into kids again. One guy I have been working with was late, not because of traffic, but because he spent half the morning taking pictures of his house, his car, the trees, his street, everything. It was great, he even started to walk around the office taking pictures out the windows, ignoring the strange looks he kept getting. He told me he was really surprised how “spongy” the snow was, and thought it would be like hard ice and hurt when you touched it. He saw us make our snowman and congratulated me on how we made it when I came in after lunch, like I had done a wonderful and miraculous thing. We then had a detailed discussion of what would now happen to the snowman: would he blow away, or get hard, or melt? He wanted to know how his stone eyes and mouth stuck to his face so well, and the best way to make a snowball.

It was really fun, and great to be reminded of how really and truly amazing the world is. Maybe tomorrow I’ll take this 40+ Sr. engineer out and have a good ol’ snowball fight with him.

Obviously I won’t throw my hardest.

Our street, snowified

Clothing Cultural Learnings for Make Benefit American Visitors

We are entering the season of international visitors! Laura is arriving this weekend, Mitri is in Manchester the weekend after that, then BJ & Katrina, and then Martha & Kevin! We've been doing loads of research on potential daytrips, etc, but we have neglected to properly prepare our visitors for some of the cultural differences they'll encounter.

Thankfully, Kevin is on the ball - he has done extensive research on how to fit in, and has purchased a wardrobe full of 'UK camouflage' for their trip. I think this research will be beneficial to everyone, so check it out here.

Royal Leamington Spa

Armed with spring-like weather and an insatiable American need to explore, we left the comforts and conveniences of city life behind on Saturday and made the long (45min) and arduous (reading on the train) trek to the rough-and-ready town of Leamington Spa (an old spa). Like the early American settlers taming the wild west, we boldly ventured into the great unknown (an extra train stop). The things we do for this blog (click here for pictures).

History: Leamington Spa was founded in the early 1800s when a few prospectors found mineral (salt) springs bubbling up near the river Leam. After wells and baths were built, the town really took off and became a major destination for Londoners and Brummies alike, as people went to ‘take the waters’. Doctors came to the town and set up practice to prescribe all kinds of crazy cures involving bathing or drinking the brackish mineral water at different temperatures. The town really hit its stride when a friend of the Queen who lived there asked if she would rename it ‘Royal Leamington Spa’. She did and business doubled overnight, now that people knew that this town had clearly passed a strict royal inspection. I guess this must have been best for the postmen, who could now tell people they delivered the Royal Mail to Royal Leamington Spa (by royal decree). People were just royal-crazy.

Anyway, the town started to get pretty crowded and even some poor people were coming to the wells, so it was high time for an upgrade. The gentry come to spas to get AWAY from their serfs, not to run into them at the pump house! The town launched a whole new development to the north of the old town, across the river Leam, where much nicer buildings, museums, and baths were built. This new town was the place to be for about 20 years, until better railways and the rise of coastal resorts in the 1860s took all of Leamington’s business elsewhere. The baths were still popular with the locals, however, as ‘Turkish spas’ until around the 1950’s.

We had a great time walking around the town and gardens, and it helped that it was sunny and 50 degrees (Fahrenheit – we still can’t think in Celsius). The main attraction now is the museum in the old Royal Pump Rooms, which gives a good background to spa life. Since people didn’t really bathe back then (Queen Victoria is famous for saying “I take a bath once a year, even when I don’t need it”) the baths were actually a very sanitary place and did help cure lots of diseases basically caused by being filthy. Cheltenham and Bath to the south are two other popular spa towns, with Bath being famous for the Roman baths built there.

From the Department of the Bleeding Obvious

So was the title of a news blurb in Friday's paper, which read as follows:

From the department of the bleeding obvious:
'People are more likely to binge on comfort food when they are sad than when they are happy'
- From a study by the University of Mississippi, University of Pittsburgh.

Ah, we're so proud of our alma mater for making international headlines!

Working In England

Since our post-Christmas life here has been mostly work and not so much exotic travel, I thought I would slip in a post here about my work. I brought our camera-phone along to work with me one day, and documented my commute, so you can all experience it and get a view of the area. It was funny snapping pictures like a tourist on my way to work, and I got plenty of looks. There are still lots of times that we stop during ‘regular’ things like commuting to work and think: is this really my life? I really live in England? Its strange how with time you get use to just about anything, even bazaar things you never dreamed you would be doing.

Right, so check out a picture documentary of my travel from Acocks Green to the Blythe Valley Business Park every day here. I also included a large image of a flier I scanned showing some views of my (Arup-designed) office and a little write up about it. Look for about Arup and my top-secret project later. I’ll have to write in code and send you each the code-breaking sheet.

All this talk of work is making me restless! Maybe we’ll go somewhere this weekend. Till then, God bless.