Fine line between funny and offensive

So my colleagues are known for sending around funny emails to the whole company, I think it's part of the whole young, creative atmosphere. This week there were some emails floating around about a possible barbecue, and I replied and said, 'I'll be there! Americans never miss a good BBQ!'


Which someone then responded to with the picture below. You tell me:hilarious or offensive?

A Car-less Year

While we were out saving the earth the other day (read: going shopping in the city) we saw this add and thought it was a great starting point for a public transit post. We have been here one year and learned a great deal about what life and travel look like for those who can’t (or choose not to) own a car. When moving here, we were excited about the prospect of living in a European city and living “the simple life” car-free. We soon learned that England is much closer to America than Europe in its car ownership culture and basically everyone that can own a car, does. Central London seems like the exception, but for the most part, travel in England without a car is challenging.

Worried about the cost and difficulty of getting a UK licence (the test is ridiculous, with most people spending hundreds of pounds in lessons to pass) and owning a car, we have been happy to see this as what could likely be the one time in our lives where we don’t own a vehicle and try to experience it for what it is, taking in the good and the bad.

On the good side, we have really come to love train journeys, both for long trips and work commutes. The difference between fighting your way through rush hour traffic and sitting on a train reading to and from work is huge, and living on a train line that lets us both ride and walk to work has been a great experience. Over mid-length trips to cities, the train is hard to beat as well. We’ve visited Liverpool, Manchester, London, and even Paris by train, and would say they are far superior to cars both in the relaxing journey as well as the arrival. Pulling into the main train station in the heart of these cities and getting off on the busy central streets is a great first way to experience a place, contrasted with fighting traffic looking for a parking garage somewhere on the city outskirts.

While trains are great for regular commutes and intercity trips, they just don’t work for trips to the country, and can be very difficult if you want a stop on a different line. We have managed to fill in with busses, but these are painfully slow and still can require several transfers to get where you’re going. In short, public transit makes spontaneity difficult, and many areas are essentially off-limits without a car.

As our circle of friends here grows and we learn more about the places that we are missing just off our bus and train routes, we have realized that getting a cheap little car actually makes a lot of sense and will be working on that this fall. We’re glad that we did this year though, and learned a lot about life on the trains and busses from the experience. Our weekly hour-bus-rides to a friend’s house are real studies of British sociology, and the people who you meet on buses are incredibly varied and quite different to those we encounter in our professional lives. As transport solutions other than the personal auto become more of a hot topic, I feel like our car-less life has yielded some insight into the realities of public transit “on the ground.” Hopefully, like all of our experiences here, we’ll be able to file this away for whatever the future holds.

Until then, man is it going to be great to drive again. Do you think a bald eagle graphic on the hood would be too subtle? Maybe we need a flag too…

A Holland Holiday

Our latest trip out from this conveniently-placed island was a 4 day trip to the city on the Amstel: Amsterdam. We had an amazing time with Megs and Andrew, just exploring the city with them as they enjoyed their first visit to a non-English-speaking country. We loved the place, and decided that Amsterdam has a bit of PR problem, since for many just the name conjures up images of hippies, drugs, and the red light district. While these elements were present in small pockets, what this description misses is the 100km of beautiful tree-lined canals, the peaceful quiet of a city with very few cars, the great museums and galleries that we visited while there, and yes—it must be said—the hundreds of unique and ancient bridges that pepper the city (see our trip pictures here). Even the narrow, leaning buildings that line the canal streets are colorful and full of character. The houses were taxed on width, so most of them are 5-6 stories high and only 2-3 windows wide. Since the stairs are so narrow and small, each house has a hook hanging from a beam on top of the gable, which is used to lift furniture through windows into the house.

We had great weather there and managed to avoid any public transit until the last day: we just walked everywhere. We visited Anne Frank's house, the Van Gogh and Rembrandt museums, and the Heineken Brewery, as well as one of the famous parks and a clandestine church in an attic. Between a boat tour and renting a water-bike for the afternoon, we made good use of the canals and explored much of the city from the water. We also made a day trip out to see some working windmills and wooden clog-maker which was super-cool. We tried on some clogs and walked around the shop, but couldn't possibly think of any practical reason for owning a pair, so we had to appeal to reason and leave them behind.

The Van Gogh Gallery was really neat because it followed the life of one artist, which lets you really get to understand his work and development, rather than jumping from artist to artist like in a large, general museum. Anne Frank’s house was really good to visit too, and a bit of the reality of what it would be like to hide from daylight behind thick curtains came through. They hid for over 2 years from the Nazis, and were found because of an anonymous tip. There were just a few months left in the war, but still 7 of the 8 hideaways died in camps. It did a good job conveying the terror of the time for Jews. The boat tour on our last full day was one of our favorite parts of the trip, and a great way to see Amsterdam and enjoy a sunny day.

Check out or trip pictures, and we’ll try to put some more up of the rest of our visit with Megan and Andrew soon!

Educational P.S.:

I work with a guy from the Netherlands, and I asked him what the correct term for the country was. I was surprised to hear that neither is really correct, though Netherlands is the official name, which means “lowlands” even though much of the country is not lowlands. Strictly speaking, “Holland” refers to the 3 (most prosperous) counties on the coast, though people in other counties will still say they are from Holland, and in national competitions like football their team is called Holland. It was funny to hear of their split identity, and I guess we take for granted the clarity of “United States of America.” That pretty much sums us up.

An Englishiversary: Reflections On....

Happy English-iversary to us!!! One year ago today we flew over from the States, completely unsure of what was in store. We had no friends, no money, nowhere to live, and only one of us was gainfully employed. It was a scary flight and an even scarier cab ride. One of our biggest fears was how we would get through the first few months financially. The cab driver who took us to the temporary housing we were staying at, when he found out Nick is a civil engineer, started laughing. ‘I make more than you!’ he said. ‘I hope you’re not planning on buying a house here, because you’ll NEVER be able to afford it!’ striking fear and dread into our nervous hearts!

We’ve come a long way from those first few cold, grey weeks of apartment-hunting and the growing pains of learning the ropes. In fact, there are days where we feel right at home here, happy and comfortable and content, and a little bit like we’ve been here all along. Then there are the days that we feel we’re back at square one, raging against the poor business hours, poor customer service, and poor weather, and spend the evening eating pancakes or BBQ and listening to country music.

We’ve been so busy with guests, though, that most days we just carry on with life, and don’t think too much about what country we’re in. We’ve done very little reflection on the journey, on what’s different or similar, and how we’re changing. The one-year mark seems like the perfect time to really reflect on the journey, while we can still remember what it’s like to be American. (just kidding – I’m sure we would still bleed red white and blue. Except that’s also the colors of the Union Jack, so it wouldn’t mean much!) I'm hoping to write a few posts on food, language and travel for starters, so stay posted.

Update: As a sign of just how far we've come, we actually celebrated the 'englishiversary' at work today! We had a proper 'English cream tea' with scones, jam and cream. After telling some real horror stories about my first four months (no friends, no job, no money, no reason to leave the flat for weeks at a time - I sounded like Debbie Downer!), I was told that I'd really earned the celebration! While we are enjoying our treat, someone asked me what the best and worst part of living here is. When I said the two best things were the work-life balance (ie number of holidays and number of hours worked per week), they were SHOCKED, because they see England as the hardest working country in Europe, and think they get a raw deal. I said the second best thing was the ability to travel to other countries so easily, and they found that funny: 'Oh yeah, because we go jetting across to the continent all the time!' Clearly not everyone has the same attitude to travel as us! They mostly agreed with me, though, when I said the worst thing was the cost of living, so at least we saw eye to eye on something.

I don't think we can add anything to this article in the newspaper this morning. It's clear that a general feeling of love and reconciliation has swept across Europe =).

Life as a Wedding Present

When our good college friends (and one of Nick's groomsmen) Kristian and Rae invited us to their wedding this September, we really felt the reality of how hard it is living an ocean away from our friends and family. When Kristian asked Nick to be a groomsman, telling him that we just couldn't make the trip was even worse. I was so disappointed to not be there for a friend who had stood up with me at my wedding. We tried to think of a way to make it work, but couldn't and resigned ourselves to missing the wedding.

Kristian was equally disappointed that we couldn't be there, and so his groomsman got to talking...and decided to give him a real-life Nick Burdette groomsman as a surprise present!!!

We couldn't believe they would spend their hard-earned money to fly us over. With generosity like that, Lauren and I had to do our best to live up to the surprise, and figured out something that the groomsman could give the happy couple at their combined party in July. Trying to say "The Brits will be there!!!" in pictures was challenging, but I think we pulled if off pretty well. Shawnee, PA, here we come!

The New Camera

Well, it finally arrived. It’s been a roller-coaster of emotion here in Acocks Green, from the low of our trusty digital camera lighting its last flash bulb in Paris, to the glorious arrival of its replacement: the Olympus SP-550 Ultra-Zoom. This attractive piece of glass and circuitry has all the features a travelling ex-pat could want in a surprisingly light case. With 18X optical zoom, we don’t even have to go anywhere anymore--we can just go up on a nearby hill and take pretty good shots of Mayan pyramids. So, if you see any future pics that look incredibly perilous—be cool—we were chilling miles away when we took that shot. This baby can store 1200 pictures on a single card, takes video, and even has a super-fast 15 frames-per-second bust mode to catch the typical “whale breaching” shot during fast action. It has a fully-manual mode too that I am learning so you can adjust “The big 3”: shutter-speed, aperture, and ISO to get the best exposure. In summary, look for sharper, professionaler, colourfuler, expensiver-looking travel pictures here from now on!

-Lauren (Ok, ok, you got me: it’s really Nick)

The 18x zoom in action at the Coventry Cathedral:

Great Tapestry from the back of the church

Great Tapestry at full zoom!

Taking a Bath

Nick spent a weekend recently with some work friends travelling down to the Roman town of Bath in southwestern England. Other than London, this has been our first foray into the south, though we have plans to start exploring that area of the country next. On the way down we saw this welcome sign on the highway, and it brought a tear to my eye for the sweet land of Penn’s woods. This English Pennsylvania doesn’t give beautiful PA, USA much competition, since as far as we could tell it consisted of 300 yards of road and a Shell gas station, but the sign was thrilling. I wonder if that Shell attendant appreciates what a well-named town he’s working in.

Bath on the other hand, was really nice, and thinking about it may have been the last weekend it didn’t rain here (2 months ago?!). It was the only time yet this summer that I needed sunglasses, but my cool new £4 H&M aviator glasses let me down like it was their job, with the metal frames staining my skin green. I had these green lines under my eyes that made me look like I got beat up by the Incredible Hulk.

Other than having a stained green face, it was a fun weekend of sightseeing and getting to know some friends from work better. The main attraction of the town is the ancient Roman Bath house, which still has hot water bubbling up into the main spring today. You can taste the water (which was HORRIBLE) at the “historic” pump house and it makes you really appreciate how far humanity has come: from drinking this awful warm brew of 50 minerals, to eating chewable Flintstones vitamins to get our nutrients today. I’ll take the Flintstones any day. Orange please.

Check out some pictures of our adventure in cleanliness here.

Horstmania: A Game-Playing Nation

Oh, is it ever! If you are not familiar with the quirkiness of my family, we call ourselves ‘Horstmania’ instead of the much more boring ‘Horstman family’. And if you don’t know that we border on obsession with games, then you don’t know my family at all, and might be reading the wrong blog! We are known for spending days going from game to game with amazing stamina. As soon as we grow tired of one game, someone asks, ‘So, what’s the next activity?’ and we are off again!

I’ve felt a bit deprived this year, as there have only been a few days or nights that we have convinced people to play games with us, and they were not all rousing successes. You may have heard us bemoaning our attempt to play Apples to Apples (can you believe they didn’t know who Lucille Ball is?) or heard the story of ‘the penny game,’ which is a bit too PG-13 for this blog.

Thankfully, six weeks with Aidan will put that right in a hurry! Friends in England would ask, ‘What are you doing tonight?’ and the answer was almost always the same: Games! Our favorites included:

• Pub quizzes – We’ve already posted some of our favourite questions from this, but it’s worth noting the sheer volume of pub quizzes we completed: over 240! We did quizzes all over Birmingham and Paris. We even became known at several coffee shops, where they would start making our drinks as soon as we walked in, and ask, ‘Do you have that book with you again?’ Man, are we crazy!
• Reverse Apples to Apples – this is a Horstmanian specialty, taking the roughly 500 ‘noun’ cards through multiple elimination rounds to find our favourite. There’s no good way to explain it, other than to say it is intense!
• Online quizzes and crosswords – Aidan and I would spend hours on these.
• And of course, 1950’s Wii! Buddy brought his Wii with him, and we had a blast trying it out, but unfortunately the video wouldn’t read completely correctly, so it was in black and white the whole time. At the beginning it really threw us off, but now I’m convinced that Wii’s were never meant to be played in color.

With Meggy and Andrew here, the games just continue! We spent both Sunday and Monday night sitting around playing cards, which becomes more and more fun as Andrew becomes more and more ridiculous.

It IS making me question our hosting skills, however, as in the middle of a game Andrew said, ‘This is just like camping!’ We clearly need to show them a better time – they can’t have flown all the way to England to do the same things we would do if we were sitting in the woods of Ohio!

It's a Family Affair

I have been completely spoiled with family this summer! After six weeks with my brother, my sister and her boyfriend, Megan (or Megs, Meggy, Lindsay, sis, sissy – all of the above apply!) flew in Friday morning. They have really brought ‘home’ to me, and have kept feelings of loneliness and homesickness at bay. I’m already sad that they are only here for a little over two weeks.

Unfortunately for Meggy and Andrew, Friday was the second-worst weather day we have had since we moved to England (second only to the one day of snow!) – torrential flooding that left many people stranded. In fact, the runways at the airport became completely inaccessible just a few hours after they landed. That would have made for a terrible first flight for Andrew, who had never flown before this trip but will fly 8 times before he’s back home! Thankfully, the worst we experienced was a very wet Friday and a long trip home by bus as all trains were cancelled, and a wet journey into Coventry on Saturday. And a bit of disappointment from Megs and Andrew, as they had foolishly packed for summer not realising that England has no such thing!

We had the weekend with the two of them before they headed up to Edinburgh today, and then on a backpacker’s tour that Nick and I did a few years ago with John, Eric and Scott, and that the Burdette Brothers did during their visit. They get back in Friday night, we’ll take a day-trip and then it’s off to Amsterdam for four days! We’re really looking forward to the time away with them to explore a new place, and I expect we will have plenty of great stories to tell.

Birmingham: The Hollywood of England

The eyes of the (rock) world turned to Birmingham last Friday as the prince of darkness (or what’s left of him) Ozzy Osbourne unveiled his inaugural star on the “Walk of Fame” along Broad street. It was a crazy train of emotion when Ozzy mumbled something into the microphone, had a mild seizure, and then posed as this brilliantly executed marketing move for Birmingham kicked off. You can see from the full article that the notoriety of Birmingham’s stars fall off pretty fast after Ozzy. His might be the only star on the nascent walk that anyone recognizes, but hey, a second-rate “Hollywood style” walk of fame is just another great reason to visit this city of the arts!

American Food: a Lucrative Commodity

Ever since we moved to England back in August we have been fairly convinced that compared to local cuisine American food is just…well…better. We thought a lot of this had to be subjective, since of course, you just like what you grow up with, but a recent trip to the upscale Selfridges department store in Birmingham proved our case once and for all. In a special section dedicated purely to American food (even decorated with stars and stripes) we found all of the classics: microware popcorn, fake macaroni and cheese, Reeces peanut butter cups, even Lucky Charms! It was a carefree wonderland of dancing, skipping joy until we realized how expensive they all were: converting to USD people here are willing to pay:

$4 – Small box of Kraft macaroni and cheese
$10 – Bag of Double Stuf Oreos
$12 – Jar of Skippy peanut butter
$14 – Box of Lucky Charms cereal

Unbelievable! We are thinking to quit our jobs and start importing macaroni and cheese, getting it for 20 cents in the US and selling it here. Now I know that Brits may say it is only crazy American expats who are buying this stuff, but basic economics tells us that these things must actually sell at these lucrative prices, PROVING their higher quality and general deliciousness. You can’t charge $10 for a bag of English tea biscuits.

On the other end of the spectrum, John spotted the following item in the store when he was here, decidedly absent from American supermarkets:

If you click on the picture you should be able to read the package…hilarious! The best selling point is its “surprisingly delicious chocolatey taste” following directly after “picked and regurgitated by a weasel”. Mmmm…I love the smell of weasel coffee in the morning. This was displayed along with the traditional chocolate-covered ants, shots of liquor with a big, juicy worm, and tequila-flavored suckers with scorpions at the center (a bit different from what you find in a tootsie pop!). Equally impressively disgusting were the prices - $20 for one of these suckers!

An Americans in Paris

Last weekend we conquered England’s greatest defence. What has protected this island for thousands of years, what foiled Napoleon and Hitler alike was defeated with a single ticket purchase. The convenient strip of water that has insulated England from the world for human history, the English Channel, was crossed by three upbeat Americans laughing, reading, and playing games in the space of 20 minutes. What a great age we live in.

The three of us (Lauren, her brother Aidan, and Nick) set off Friday morning catching a train to London and then picking up the high-speed Eurostar train from London Waterloo staion. After an eventful trip through security, with Nick being forced to eat his lunch alone with the security guard since he made the mistake of going through the entrance and couldn’t leave, we were off to France at 190 mph! For parts of the trip we travelled next to the highway, and it was fun to fly past the cars in the fast lane like they were standing still. We made it to the “aromatic” subways of Paris by late afternoon and our hotel just before dinner. Our surprisingly affordable posh-pad was south of the river Seine, which cuts the city in half running roughly west-to-east.

After a dinner out where the waiter spoke like Donald Duck when Lauren ordered duck and flew a remote-controlled helicopter around the restaurant, we realized that Paris wouldn’t exactly match the stereotypes we had. We turned on the TV and found that we got channels in 7 languages, including a very frightening Russian talk show, and an equally frightening Japanese karaoke channel. The best though was the CRAZY show about America featuring interviews with the fringes of American culture including three guys drinking on a dark basement staircase telling the French “how it was” in America. We made it our goal to be the nice, friendly, “normal” kind of Americans for our time in Paris—ambassadors of awesome, if you will.

Over the next three days we saw and did a ton, including a riverboat tour of Paris, trips to the Louvre, Pompidou Center, Luxemburg Gardens, Notre Dame, a Parisian food market, and of course, the Eiffel Tower. You can see pictures of some of these here, but sadly, the 4th member of our team (our digital camera) died after years of exceptional service. Unfortunately, this means that Nick will be forced to get a nicer, new camera with lots of sweet features for the rest of our trips this summer. Too bad.

Generally we were impressed by how relaxed Paris was: the historic center is much smaller than London and the wide streets, cafes everywhere, and great parks make it easy to just lounge. The number of cafes is really amazing, I guess they are there to cope with the masses of tourists but it seems like Parisians must not cook much at home either. We spent an afternoon relaxing in a park, and enjoyed people watching, including a group of men hunched around a table playing speed chess in what seemed to be the “chess” section of the park. They had to tap this timer and games only lasted like 5 minutes, which was amazing - it looked like a highly choreographed 'hand dance'. We totally could have taken them.

The food market was a good experience too, and we had fun pointed at food and then making ridiculous hand-motions and sounds to try to explain how much cheese, or bread, or olives we wanted. English definitely didn’t get you too far in Paris, and we were reliant on Aidan’s French many times. We would point at some things, he would utter strange sounds and then we got those things…it was a good system. One of the best meals we had was our last lunch, on this cool island east of Notre Dame. We did a little walking tour of the island, checked out some of the shops and then found a little crepe restaurant off the main street. There was no English to be had there, but the owner was friendly and made great crepes. Like the rest of Paris, eating a meal there was a very leisurely activity, and our waitresses always seemed surprised when we wanted to pay and actually leave. Though the industrious American in me would find the pace hard to get use to, Paris is a great place to go for a vacation…it’s all just so relaxed. We had a great time taking it all in.

Chewing on a sandwich on the way home and looking out the window as the French countryside sped by I was struck again by what an amazing opportunity this stint out of the US has been. Many things are close to the same…but vastly different as well. The fields looked similar to the ones I had driven through hundreds of times in the States, but I could look out the window as the 180 mph train blurred the heads of grain and imagine generations of farmers who worked these fields as the centuries stretch back. This was the edge of the known world at one time, and the site of so many lives and wars, feasts and funerals. These fields have seen so much, yet still they are here to yield food to the people of France today. The history in this part of the world is incredible, and reminds you how short our 3 score and 10 years walking on it are.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day! We hope that you are all celebrating with friends and family, eating lots of good food, and watching beautiful fireworks! We are missing everyone back home and celebrating by, er, working! I did bring in a cake to work and we all took a coffee break, ate cake and chatted about America, which then turned into a discussion of how hard it is to get through airport security in the USA, so that was both special AND patriotic! As I'm sure Tim can attest, since I now have co-workers who read the blog regularly (note to self: don't link to the company website if you don't want people from the company to find your blog. There goes an entire wealth of funny work stories that I won't be posting!). Also, Aidan is still here so maybe we will sing some 'America the Beautiful', 'Star Spangled Banner' and 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' tonight!

It is very strange to be outside of the States on the 4th. This is Nick's first 'foreign 4th', but it's actually my third: one in Mexico and one at sea. It is my first, though, without a group of Americans to celebrate with. And it does feel a bit sad and strange, lonely and isolated. It especially makes us think about all the things that make America special and home for us, such as the open, loving people we were surrounded by, the food, the weather (this was the wettest June on record!), shops being open past 6.....the list goes on and on!

We can't complain too much though - although we are working and isolated today, we did just spend a long weekend in Paris, with lots of good stories that we will have to write about soon.

Nick’s Award

Nick’s love of bridges was made a bit more public recently when he won a paper competition run by the Institute of Structural Engineering. The essay prompt was to write in 4 pages why structural engineers should want to design bridges. Since Nick’s career path has been like an after-school special about the kid who dreamed about making bridges ever since he was a little boy, he figured he had to enter. As the competition winner, Nick got to miss a day of work and go down to an IstructE meeting in London to give a presentation on his paper (in a ringing Yankee accent!) and accept his prize. His paper will be published in a future issue of the Institute magazine as well. To whet your whistle, here is the paper’s introduction below.

Bridges: they are a symbol, a metaphor, an icon, a sculpture, a monument, and a way to get from A to B. They are photographed, painted, eulogized, crossed, and climbed. But with bridges meaning many things to many people, what drives their creators? What draws structural engineers of all ages and backgrounds to these ancient and iconic structures? No doubt the drive of each bridge designer is unique, but rarely are structural engineers given more opportunity to overcome complex challenges and meet the needs of a growing society through such daring, elegant, and creative solutions. Because a bridge is not called to offer shelter or habitation like a building, its structural skeleton is not hidden by architectural additions that can distort space and proportion. Bridges are defined not by what is added to the essential load-bearing structure but by the simple purity of that structure itself. Bridge design provides a unique opportunity for structural engineers to prominently exhibit their creative skill in overcoming nature to provide human transport.

If that intro leaves you with an insatiable desire to read more, let Nick know--but remember, he is only human and may not be able to cope with the overwhelming demand =).

Travelogue Catch Up

I've been waiting to post on our late-May trips to Wales and Prague for awhile due to delusions of picture-labelling over-achievement but time is marching on and so is the blog. Better something than nothing. So…our most recent long term trips happened in late May when our friend John came to visit for the week of Memorial Day (coinciding with an uncreatively-named "May Bank Holiday" here).

After a day of the usual visitor acclimation, we hit the road in our borrowed Honda Jazz once again, this time setting out west to the rolling hills and winding roads of Wales. All of the signs in Wales are in both Welsh and English, and so the words "SLOW" and "ARAF" are painted in big letters on the road as you go through towns. We enjoyed telling each other to araf down, and "araf your roll", so, basically you could say we speak Welsh. Our first stop was Devil's bridge, named this because people thought only the Devil himself could have built the original bridge in the 12th century. I was kind of disappointed, and I think the three of us could have done it in 3-4 days with hour lunch breaks. It is pretty interesting thought because now there are 3 bridges stacked on top of each other, plus there is a 90 foot waterfall nearby. After a hike down to the waterfall in the rain, we drove to the coast for lunch (Welsh Rarebit, which has no rabbit in it) and down to Hay-on-Wye, a town with the largest collection of used book stores in England.

Hay-on-Wye was packed with visitor since it was their annual book festival the weekend we were there—called “a Woodstock of the Mind”. After a rainy few hours browsing the musty shelves of many a bookstore and a few purchases, we left the crowds of Hay and headed to Abergavenny where we were staying at the Blacksheep Backpackers Hostel. We had a great dinner at the Bear Hotel on the way (some really good local ale and a Welsh black beef steak) and finally got into Abergavenny long after dark. Driving the streets was straight out of a horror film, with driving rain, no one around, and no sign of our hostel. I managed to understand enough of the thick Welsh accent of a gas station employee to make it in the direction of the hostel. John and I got out of the car in the driving rain to inquire at some pub that might be a hostel, and were met with three grizzled old men smoking cigars and drinking their closing pints on the small porch of the bar. "Yur a bit late for drinks! Closin time!" They managed as we approached. We had to push past them to get in anyway, so I asked if this was the black sheep hostel. They stared at each other long enough in silence that we just started in anyway, and as we were going through the door a light came in the mind of one of them who yelled: "BLACKSHEEP!!" in this hilarious scream of drunken recognition. On our way out to get our stuff they thought we might be their taxi. Thankfully it was the hostel and we locked the door to our room and slept in the safety of being separated from drunken Welshmen. The Welsh people are a merry bunch!

The next day we toured an amazing castle, then spent the afternoon in the Welsh capital of Cardiff before heading home for work the next day. It was a great trip (click here for pictures) and though it rained quite a bit we loved Wales and were impressed with the friendliness and warmth of the Welsh. It's crazy to have this "other country" just an hour west of Birmingham!
After a day back in the office we left Wednesday morning for the capital of the Czech Republic and the "Paris of the east": Prague! Coming into the city on the bus from the airport was really neat, the language is so different and harsh sounding, and it was a very industrial area near the airport, so it felt kind of 'Soviet'—just over 15 years ago this would have been behind the Iron Curtin.

The city was amazing and we couldn't believe how well preserved everything was even after Nazi occupation and 4 decades of communism. Because Prague was sort of between two fronts and not German home soil (thus not bombed by Allies) it was fairly unharmed. Apparently one of the (only) comical events of destruction during Nazi occupation involved statues of composers on top of the main music hall. Nazi soldiers were sent up to destroy the statue of Mendelssohn because of his Jewish background, but the statues were not labelled. Finally they picked the one they thought was him and destroyed it. The statue was actually one of Wagner, Hitler's favorite composer!

We enjoyed some fantastic Czech beer and sausage, took a river boat tour of the city on the Vlatava river, and made a train journey out to the county to see a castle there one day. Prague has some amazing architecture and a very medieval feel, maybe more than anywhere we've been yet. It is a great city for just walking around in, and we could have done that the whole time. Though it is getting more expensive, it's also a very cheap destination (for food and beer especially) and we were amazed how far our British Pounds went there. In no particular order, our pictures are posted here.

After 3 nights there, we drank out last Budvar and flew back to Birmingham, for a final night out with John. It was great to have him here and we had such a good time…and set quite a pace! We were ready for the relaxation of the work week after a holiday at that speed.

Pub Quiz

As a lot of you already know, Aidan (Lauren's brother) is visiting us for six weeks during his summer vacation. He will be a senior in high school next year, so he has a nice, long summer break. We’re already having a great time: we celebrated his 18^th birthday, introduced him to our British ‘mates’, went to see Spamalot in London, going to Paris this weekend ….but we spend most of our time at home playing games in true Horstmania style! Our favorites have been Wii, Apples to Apples, and a book of ‘Pub Quizzes’ that we bought over here. Pub quizzes are quite the phenomenon, and most pubs have at least one Quiz Night a week. Questions cross a range of categories, and lots of the questions in this book are way too English-centric for us to even take an educated guess, like ‘who was the first Cricketer to score 1,000 wickets in international play?’ (I made that one up, but you can imagine!). Every once in a while, though, they ask a question on American-ese that we find hilarious. These include:

• What do American men put in their billfolds?
• Where do Americans put luggage in their cars?
• What do American babies wear on their bottoms?

And our favourite:

• On what day do Americans eat turkey?

Rooftop Transformation

Moving from Pittsburgh where there was no end to the number of landscaping and home improvement projects that friends needed help with to England has been hard for me, with few chances to “get my hands dirty” and build/fix something. For this reason I have been really excited about the coming of nicer weather and the chance to go to work on “Nick’s Project Space” as Lauren calls it: the rooftop right outside a door in our living room. As you can see below, the roof was not much to look at, with 2 power lines running across it and a junk yard (why!?) in what looks like it should be a residential plot next to us.

After some green outdoor carpeting from Ebay, plastic furniture, and a trip to the garden center, we ended up with this:

I am really happy with how it turned out, and am most proud of the tensile structure holding up the bamboo screening. I anchored some steel-core clothesline to the bricks, then using two “masts” made of wood and picnic umbrella stands, I rigged up a system of tight lines that I tightened with a turn buckle till you could play them like a guitar. The bamboo just hangs on these and I left a door that can roll shut or open for access to the uncivilized badlands outside our green paradise.

Our rooftop vegetable garden and scenic junkyard

During the brief periods without rain here we have enjoyed grilling and eating outside, and it’s even possible to forget you’re in the city on a letting agents roof for awhile. A little green (even the plastic kind) goes a long way.

Barbecuin’ in the Beer Garden

Nick has done an ‘absolutely fantastic’ (as we’re learning to call all things awesome here!) job converting the roof of the office beneath us into an outdoor wonderland. He can do a much better job explaining the vision and subsequent engineering feats to achieve said vision, but I can tell you the following things:

• We call it a ‘beer garden’
• There is a grill, table and seating for four, outdoor carpeting and bamboo screening
• Flours and potted herbs line the walls and there is a separate ‘vegetable garden’ outside the screening

It has completely opened up our flat, it’s like having an extra room! Plus, with it not getting dark until about 10 pm(!), we are able to spend the evening outside eating, reading and hanging out with friends.

We put that last one to the test last night with an International BBQ with friends – it was a little cozy, but it turned out well! Nick is friends with a guy from Poland and a guy from Malaysia, who offered to do an international potluck. Lucasz brought sausages back from Poland with him and grilled them, and Chris made us prawn friend noodles. Lucasz even brought us Polish vodka (not for the faint of heart – there is a picture of bison on the cover!), so all we had to provide was space, salad and dessert. Things got a bit tight in our hallway-like kitchen, but the two cooks didn’t mind. We should invite people over to cook with us more often!

Burdette Brother Attack

Nick’s brothers were the next set of visitors, and we had a great time doing the two extremes of England with them: the back-to-nature experience of camping in the Lake District Park, and the sheik urban style of London. When Eddie and Greg flew in, we gave them an hour or two to nap, then drove the 3 hours north to the Lakes, where we stayed in a simple cabin surrounded by sheep in a shepherd’s field our first night. We had a great time away from it all (including showers) and had a couple of great hikes when it wasn’t raining, and plenty of tea.

After a few days of work, we all went down to London for a long weekend and enjoyed doing the tourist thing for the time. We stayed at a great hostel near Hyde Park (I don’t know how the neighbours let a hostel operate there) spent the weekend popping out of tube stations like gophers. We saw the British Museum, the Odeon Cinema, the wax museum, walked the Thames at night, and had a proper full English breakfast before Eddie and Greg went to Scotland to 'ride out' the last leg of their journey.














It was awesome to have brothers here visiting, and we definitely miss their dry humor. Really all we can say is that you have as much love for us as you are showing in the picture below!