Dusting Off the Blogg

Right, so last month I dusted off my ScrapBlog... This month I'm dusting off this blog...  Yeah, it's been a while. Between moving and the emotional (not to mention physical!) chaos all that caused, I got out of the habit, and then stayed there. 

But I'll be better!

My sister asked if I'd drive with her to my parents' house. Funny, she didn't feel up to tackling a 10 hour drive with a 2 year old without backup. Can't imagine why... So of course I said yes. 

I know it sounds like weird timing, for her to go off to her dad's on Father's Day, and leave her husband all on his own, but the work schedule for my brother-in-law gives him every-other Friday off.  That means that he worked this past Friday.  So rather than be gone over one of his Off-Work Fridays, we were gone over Father's Day. Was awesome for us to spend Father's Day with our Dad, though!

Now, you've undoubtably realised by now that my family are a little nuts. Well, we just know how to have fun!

Yesterday we did a 2 Mile Family Fun Run (err... Mostly walk).  Papa (my nephew's word for Grandpa) and Auntie (that's me) ran with Munchkin, while Mommy and Grandma walked.  Munchkin RAN most of the way!  At least a mile and a half!!!  And walked another quarter mile!  He only had to be carried the last quarter mile!  Pretty good for a 2 year old!

He had SO much fun!  He does LOVE to run, so he loved running with Papa and Auntie. Afterwards, he's 3/4 asleep in his car seat, BEGGING to go more!

At home we worked on the Treehouse. Munchkin "helping" by bringing Papa "all the woods."  (Never mind that Papa was up the ladder with nuts and bolts, installing the Zipline!)

Then we went up to the Rimrock Park and hiked across all the boulders. Another huge hit with the Munchkin!  We walked more than a mile, and he was still wanting more!

We rounded the day off with Nerf Gun Wars!  

Yeah, he slept well last night!

Today was another spectacular day. After church (and naps... For everyone!) we went back out and played in the yard. We checked on the baby robins in their nest under the eave's, played chase with Papa and Auntie, spotted a deer walking through the yard! Got tossed between Auntie and Papa ("I'm a Rocket Ship!"), played hide-and-seek (with a "Boo!" when found) with Papa, played with shadows, and Grandma hooked up the baby swing to the Zipline!

Oh the squeals!!!  Joy. Rapture. Bliss. Just enough danger to be exciting. Such a hit!

And ice cream and Nerf Wars, then Mario Cart... And bed. I hope he's as tired as I am!

Here are a couple of photos from the past 2 days. 

Grandma Growls

So, my mom just got home from a 3 week trip to Egypt. She's sleeping on my sister's sofa. My nephew keeps running up to her and growling. We could not figure out what was triggering it.

All the sudden we heard my mom snore.... And Ethan growled back!

Dad, Lois, me, we all fell out laughing. Ethan looks up at us like, "What's so funny guys?" So of course, we laugh harder. He joins us in "social laughter", though he obviously had no clue what was so funny.

РОССИЯ (Part 2)

Sorry . . . got distracted. Queen Mary's term has started, so I've been kind of busy getting the administration end of the course I teach sorted.

The cruising bit of the trip was fine. I'm not much of a cruiser. I'm more of a hiker/swimmer/doer, if you know what I mean. However, I've been fighting this horrible sinus infection since June, so just sleeping most of the day was kind of nice. The touring bits of the day were, except for the first day, pretty much the same. Get off, go see a church. Go see another church. Go see another church. Go back to the boat. Yep. Loads of churches. And I have to admit, by the end of it, I was pretty churched out. I liked seeing all the spires all over the country side, but every single church had the same story: This church was built 800 (900, 600 pick a year) years ago. The frescos were damaged in a fire 200 years ago, but were restored. The Soviets wanted to knock it down, but turned it into a museum (storage space, office . . . pick the new use) instead. It's been returned to the Russian Orthodox church (or will be within the next 2 years). There's only so many times I want to hear the story, if you know what I mean. But, like I said, I really enjoyed seeing all the onion domes all over the country side. The whole country is peppered with them! And I can only imagine what it would have looked like before the Soviets. They tore down hundreds of churches! It's really quite amazing to think about! (Actually, there is a colour photographic record of Pre-Revolution Russia! See this link to the Library of Congress.)

Moscow was very different from what I imagined. When I think of Soviet architecture, I think of square, cement, austere, grey . . . very much what we saw in St Petersburg. Moscow, though, was nothing like that! And not because the Russian Federation has done anything about it. In fact, most of the coolest buildings were done in Stalin's time! He even had an architectural style named after him: Stalin Gothic. Yep. Crazy, eh? There are these 7 tower buildings (called the 7 sisters) -- originally meant to be 8, and an 8th has been built recently, but is not considered one of the sisters -- with spires and turrets and all sorts. They're gorgeous. They'd fit right in next to the Chrysler building in New York. Stalin commissioned them for the 800th Anniversary of something or other. And even the normal apartment buildings built during that time are pillared and statued and carved. Not at all what I had expected.

Obviously Moscow's St Basil's Cathedral was the most important thing for Grandma and me to see. We'd only been talking about it for 18 years, after all! So, when we (finally! You've never seen traffic like in Moscow!!) got to Red Square ('red', by the way, is a slang term for 'pretty' or 'beautiful'. So the Soviets being 'Red' wasn't because of the colour, but because of the idea that it's a beautiful or cool idea.) we walked across the car park, behind the cathedral, and were crushed to discover that we couldn't get into the Square! Our guide took us around the side, up to the GUM (think Harrods in London or Watertower Place in Chicago. Major, expensive shopping centre.) where there was another entrance to the Square. And it was closed too! So Grandma and I sat down in the shopping centre and enjoyed a piece of cheese cake and a Diet Coke (well, a Coke Light). Eventually our guide took us back out of the GUM, and somehow managed to sweet talk one of the guards on the Square into letting us into the Square. See, this was the confusing thing: the Square itself wasn't closed. Just the 3 entrances we'd tried. However, there was one on the far side of the Square that was open. So, there were loads of people inside. So this guard let us cross the closed bit into the open bit. This meant, Grandma and I got our photo in front of St Basil's Cathedral! Hooray! We found out later that the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitriy Medvedev, had decided he needed to do a bit of shopping in the GUM, so he walked across Red Square from the Kremlin to the GUM. Umm . . . why, then, were we allowed into the GUM, but not Red Square? I'm so confused!







Well, that's most of it. Except . . . if you make it to Russia, I highly recommend seeing the National Russian Folk Dance Show at the Kosmos Hotel. It's about 2 hours of some of the worlds best dancers ever. It was gorgeous, well choreographed, exquisite costumes and some of the most amazingly executed dancing you've ever seen. Anywhere. Brilliant.

РОССИЯ (Part 1)

I just got home from a fabulous trip to Russia with my grandmother. This was the fulfillment of 18 years of dreaming. When I was 12, Grandma and I went on a tour of the Eastern United States. We started off in New York City, and in our very first hotel (the one right outside the Twin Towers . . . ) there was a convention of some sort for cooks. They'd had a gorgeous display of spun sugar confection buildings. But, we're not talking tiny little things. They were enormous! (Yes, that's me at 12.) So, we've been talking about seeing the real thing for a long time.

Our trip was a Uniworld Cruise from St Petersburg to Moscow on the ship ΛИТВИНОВ (Litvinov). When we got on board, we found our cabin. And Grandma took one look at it and said, 'um . . . no.' It was really tiny, but that wasn't the biggest problem. The beds were foam, but not very good or thick. And because of the lack of space (we couldn't even get our suitcases and ourselves into the room at the same time!) there was no room for a chair. Grandma's arthritis means she needs both a good mattress, and a good chair. So we upgraded to a larger room. She was much happier there, as there was ample room to sit and read, and the chairs were 'adequate' (her word). Now, we'd been warned that the accommodations would not be up to the European standards of luxury. However, we've not been terribly impressed with the standards even taking that into account, considering they were charging European prices! The consensus (between us and several other passengers) was, if you're looking to do a cruise in Russia, don't use Uniworld.

We started off with a tour of St Petersburg, hitting all the major sites. We saw the Church on the Blood, Peter and Paul Cathedral, the Hermitage/Imperial Winter Palace, Peterholf Gardens, St Isaak's Cathedral and all the canals and bridges of the city. However, it was a very fast tour. Just a jump off take a photo and drive on to the next site. we didn't actually go into any of the buildings. Later days we went into the Hermitage Museum (contained in the Winter Palace) and the gardens (didn't go, it was raining pretty hard!) and the cathedrals. I went to see the Church on the Spilt Blood (named for the site where one of the Czars was murdered. Alexander I, I think.) It's completely covered from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, in mosaics. Pretty impressive.

The Hermitage was amazing. It is unmatched in my experience in its opulence and over-the-top decor and everything guilded-ness, and really, it felt obscene and vulgar. I mean, it was beautiful, but the enormous split in quality of living between the Imperial Family/Court and the average person was disturbing. After wandering the halls of both it and the Catherine Palace (also called the Summer Palace), you could really see how Communism got started in Russia. And in fact, that is the reason these palaces have survived. The Soviets used them as propaganda museums. 'Come see how the Imperials trod on your fathers' sort of thing. And when you consider things like the Amber room in Catherine palace, you realise the amount of money and resources that went into this lifestyle. When it was recreated after WWII, they sorted through 6 tons of amber, and used 800 kg (a little less than 1 ton). That's an amazing amount of amber, when you think about how light it is! But possibly my favourite parts of both palaces were the floors. They were gorgeous! And all I could think of was how amazing they'd be to dance on . . . yeah, I'm a geek. A dance geek.

Airports

So much fun, aren't they? My gran came in this weekend. She was originally scheduled to land at 10.50 pm, Saturday. She rang Saturday morning to say, my flight's been delayed. Won't be leaving til 4.30 pm. Which put her getting into London Heathrow at 6.15 Sunday morning. Oh the joys. I ended up getting up so early I might as well have not gone to bed! We're more or less recovered (we were both in bed, asleep by 10 last night!) But this weekend we're off and . . . well, flying, not running . . . again. Destination? St Petersburg, Russia! So, I'll be away for a couple of weeks, but watch this space. When I get back, I'll be sure to post some photos. St. Petersburg - Moscow, cruising down the Volga River!

Dresden to Amsterdam

So, I spent my week between Munich and Amsterdam in Dresden, Saxony (the NorthEastern corner of Germany). It was completely destroyed during WWII, but they rebuilt all the historic public buildings, like the cathedral, etc. So, what you ended up with was buildings that look like they'er 500 years old, but have sharp corners, clean walls and smooth floors. You know, like they're new. Or, like they would have looked when they were new. We're so used to the 'old' look in our acitecutre that we forget that at some point in the past, it was new! That was really quite cool.

I spent Wednesday-Friday there, and on Saturday took the train cross country(s) to Amsterdam. That was actually kind of fun. I went to the Dresden train station and talked to a booking agent about getting to Amsterdam. She had several suggestions. The one I liked the best (overnight sleeper train) wouldn't work, though, because it didn't get me there til Monday, and I needed to be there Sunday! They had the trains running every night, but they were twice as expensive on Saturday. So instead, I ended up traveling all day Saturday. But, because I said yes I'd do 3 train changes, I got a 1st Class ticket for the price of a 2nd Class ticket! Yeay! 9 hours on the train? What's an additional 45 minutes? Seriously, that was the time difference. I was even more pleased when I ended up with an entire cubical to myself. :-) I slept a good portion of the way (which was good, because I'd been up til the wee hours of the morning talking to Lois!). In fact, I was so far asleep, the conductor had a difficult time waking me up to check my ticket. *blush*

Upon arrival in Amsterdam, I was reminded why I hate the city. Rediculously expensive! Stupidly expensive!! Insanely Expensive!!! I went from 25 Euros/Night
room to 125 Euros/Night room. And you know what? The 25 Euro room was nicer! Seriously, the room was shocking.

However, the 'room' I shared when I meet up with Mom and Grandma more than made up for the deprivations of the first place! I walked down from my place to the collection point for our shared place. What was exciting was, I didn't have a map. Or any real idea of where I was going. Shockingly, I made it without any problems! I had looked at it on Google Maps the night before, but I had no way of printing off a map. So I just wrote down all the streets. Unfortunately, I'd misremembered the tram system, and got off at a completely wrong spot . . . which also happened to be about 3 blocks from where I wanted to end up! I've got quite a good sense of direction, so, even though I didn't know where I was, I knew which direction I still needed to go. And after a couple of blocks, I saw a street sign I recognised. I'd found the corner of one of the streets I needed. And what was better? I was literally one block from the hotel! I rounded the corner of the final street, and just as I did, I looked to my right, and there was a crane (bird) on the roof of the car I was standing next to. And it was about 3 feet from my face! I was really shocked. And then I heard this laughter coming from across the street. Some tourists were sitting outside the hotel, and laughing at my surprised face. I said, 'I so wish I'd had a photo of that!' and they said, 'We wish we'd had had a photo of your face!' Ok, maybe you had to be there.

Anyway, back to the accommodation. I arrived first and asked if Mom and Grandma had checked in. I'd promised that if I got there first, I'd wait for them, but if they arrived first, they were to give them my name and go on to the flat. (We'd rented a flat instead of a suit in a hotel. It was cheaper.) They hadn't arrived, so I sat down to wait. The woman at reception said that the flat had two, very steep, flights of stairs. Since it was my grandmother coming, would we prefer a houseboat on one of the canals? Ummm.... yeah! So, we ended up with a houseboat! It was brilliant! Gorgeous inside (though less than stunning outside) with a spectacular view of the canal out the window. It was the perfect way to stay in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam via Munich, from London

So, I'm en rout to Amsterdam, Netherlands. So, naturally I leave London and fly to Munich, Germany! Clearly this is the logical rout to take. Ok, so maybe not. Why, you ask, am I navigating by such an indirect path? Well . . . Monday it's my friend Mark's 30th Birthday. He's an American, but used to live in Munich, and now lives in Ethiopia (with Nepal in between). So, Munich seemed the most central location for his festivities. He's rented a cabin in the mountains and invited people to come when they can, and stay for whatever amount of time they want. So several of us who've had to travel just to get to Germany are going to be there for the full weekend. Now, since I have to be in Amsterdam on Sunday to meet up with Grandma and Mom at the end of their cruize, I thought, what sense does it make to fly to Munich, fly back to London, just to turn around 3 days later and fly back to the continent? Yeah. It didn't. Especially since I don't have anything in England which requires my physical presense. Nice, eh? So, that's why Amsterdam via Munich.

The Great Drive -- Or, The Long Way Home (Pt 3)

So, on the 10th, we got through North Carolina, Tennessee, and we were in Kentucky, when I finally got a hold of my family to wish Mom a Happy Mother's Day. Lois was up visiting, and I was telling them about not feeling well, and we started comparing symptoms. We've got the same thing! And I found out where I got it! One of our other friends had it, and was round for 3 days at Lois' house. Both of us caught it from her, as did the husband of another friend. He went to the doctor, and was told, sorry. It's a virus. You'll just have to let it run its course. So, since I felt fine, if not able to swallow comfortably, we decided to revert to our original plan, which was going to be a heck of a lot more fun. So we headed northeast from Kentucky, skirting past Cincinnati, OH, stopping for the night about halfway between Cincinnati and Cleveland (better?!? I got told off by him for spelling it wrong earlier) for the night. Oh. My. Word. I've never had such a miserable excuse for air conditioning! It was constantly going on and off, really noisy and didn't ever really cool the room. I was up every 2 hours. It was horrible.

On the 11th we got up and drove the rest of the way to Niagara Falls, Ontario (through Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York). We decided to stop off there and see the falls on the 12th. I got up this morning and felt pretty rough. Much worse than I have done. But, at least had slept much better. So, dragged my feet and finally got out the door around noon. I felt miserable, though. Really poorly. Sitting in the restaurant waiting for lunch to arrive we were discussing the possibility of just heading straight home, possibly even today. I got a hold of Lois, and we re-compared notes on our symptoms. Seems like I do, in fact, have the same thing. It's just miserable. And, since I felt quite a lot better after lunch, we decided we'd see how I feel in the morning. If I'm really miserable, we can just pack it in and go home. If not, I can still get to my appointment on Thursday. I've also got an appointment with Grandma's doctor for Friday afternoon.

We also found a health food store that sells essential oils. Thyme and tea tree oils are both natural anti-viral/anti-bacterials, so I'd wanted to get some. They get absorbed directly into your skin, so if you put it straight over the lymph node, it gets to work in the most important spot! (You ought to mix thyme with something else, like grape seed oil -- my favourite -- or olive oil, because other wise the thyme is likely to feel a bit like it's burning your skin.) They also recommended this cool stuff called Lymphdiarral. It's specifically designed to drain the lymph system and reduce swelling in both acute and chronic lymph problems due to infection or injury. Well, that pretty well made my day! I've been using it all day, and I can feel a reduction in the swelling. I'm hoping I wake up and it's much better tomorrow.

We also walked around the Falls for a bit. Really pretty. But let's be honest . . . how long can you stand and look at a river? We spent about half an hour, then came back to the hotel. Just taking things easy today.

Just a couple of seconds of the roar of the water falling over the side.


We've got this really sweet little Australian Rosella Parakeet (a real parakeet, not a budgie that we just call a parakeet!) who lives in our hotel. Her name's Paris (since the Hampton chain is owned by Hilton. . .) She's a doll. Click on the video to see a short bit of her. You can hear her chirp. It's very sweet.

The Great Drive -- Or, The Long Way Home (Pt 2)

We drove from Savannah, GA straight on up to Asheville, NC. I'd never been to Georgia, South Carolina or North Carolina before, so we took a smaller road through part of South Carolina. It was a two-lane road that went through the centre of some very small towns. Kind of fun. And so green! And it smelled green . . . an observation that has earned me no little grief with him. *sigh* He doesn't realise that green can too be an odder!

The reason we were heading to Asheville was that my youngest cousin on my mom's side lives there. And, since this is my mom's mom that I'm traveling with, it only made sense to stop off and say hi to Daniel, and his girlfriend, Michelle. We arrived on the 8th, but we didn't bug them til the 9th. On the 9th we took Daniel out for breakfast. The most amazing waffles you've ever seen. And the Huevos Rancheros?!? Oh. My. Goodness. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was amazing. We dropped Daniel off for work, then we went on out to the Blue Ridge Parkway (which is also a National Park). We stopped off at the Centre for Folk Art. They were having a big special weekend highlighting various 'fiber crafts'. So there were people there spinning yarn, making bobbin lace (*wow*), crocheting, weaving beads . . . you name it, if it had to do with fibers, there was someone doing it! Amazing. And the live band was so much fun. Except, of course, I didn't have anyone to dance with! Such a waste of fabulous live Blues/Bluegrass music.

That evening we took Daniel and Michelle out for this amazing South American food. It was called 'Tomato: Cocina Latina". The food was so fresh and wonderful. I had carne asada, Daniel had paella (which is technically a Spanish dish, not South American) and Grandma and Michelle had chili relleno. Every one of us enjoyed the food. It was great. Then Daniel took us past the house he's put an offer in on. So, it looks like they're in NC to stay! Grandma, of course, was jibing them about 'when are you going to get married?!?' Apparently they've decided they will it's just a matter of Daniel getting around to asking her. Come on, boy, once you've made the decision, get with it! She's too good of a catch to mess about and let get away!

The night of the 9th, I didn't sleep well at all. I'd been fighting this horrible virus that attacks your lymph nodes, and it was making me pretty miserable. And I woke up on the 10th with more swollen nodes, so we decided to alter our original plan. I'd made an appointment in Toronto at the Curly Hair Institute to get a haircut and learn their techniques for using their product. I've been wanting to do this for years, but it just never works out. But I was kind of worried about this virus. So we decided to drive straight north and get back to Michigan that night, and I could hit the doctor's office on Monday.

The Great Drive -- Or, The Long Way Home (Pt 1)

I arrived in Orlando, Florida on the 5th. I only had about 2 hours of sleep, but that was a sacrifice I was more than willing to make, and I'd make again in a heartbeat. A very fluttery heartbeat ;-) So, as a consequence, I pretty much went straight to bed on the 5th. The 6th, Grandma and I were supposed to stop off at Sea World and play for a bit. But it was so hot, well over 90'F, that we decided it just wasn't a good idea. I suffer from heat, but she really suffers, and at 80+ years, probably not a great idea to push it. So we just drove all day. We stopped off in St Augustin, FL.

St Augustin is the oldest continuously inhabited town in the United States. The area was the first place that Ponce De Leon landed in 1513 when he was searching for the fountain of youth. Eventually a colony was established in 1539 -- 42 years before Jamestown, VA and 55 years before the Mayflower arrived. Santa Fe, NM is the only other city which competes. There's some debate as to which city is actually 'oldest', but in any case, it's a very old town (for the United States). The whole town is covered in Spanish Moss. Really pretty, slightly eerie... But one of the avenues in particular is stunning. It's listed as one of the top 10 most beautiful streets in the US. It's lined on either side by Live Oak Trees, and they're covered in Spanish Moss.

The 7th we were planning on playing tourist all day, and staying the night again in St Augustin, but not at the same hotel (which was kind of a miserable place). We got up and jumped on the tourist tram and rode around for a bit. We got off at the old Fort, which is now a National Monument, run by the the National Park System. We explored it for a while, but it was just so hot out there, we decided we'd be better off just heading out for parts less hot. So instead of staying in St Augustine, FL, we ended up staying in Savannah, GA.

The MAin Event

Originally, way back in February, Mom's Birthday -- when I gave her my frequent flier miles to come over and visit -- we'd discussed when she could come, and the end result was, due to her teaching Kindergarten, she'd have to come in the summer. So I suggested she come for my MA Graduation. Now, you have to understand some things. Graduations have never meant much to me. I like the photos (this is me after all!) and having friends and family around, but the actual ceremony doesn't mean anything to me. Probably because I'm still working towards something higher, so it's not final. Added to that, it's my second Master's degree! It's really a bit of a 'Been There. Done That. Got The Hat.' I didn't go to my High School Graduation (I was in Greece with Grandma). I didn't go to my BA Graduation (I was in Hawai'i visiting Grandma, Grandpa with Lois). I did go to my Sheffield MA because I was not sure at that point if I'd go on for my PhD, and because my MA group only had 5 people in it, and they were all going to be there, so if I didn't attend, I'd be the only one, and it makes a difference, missing one. There is a similar rational for my attending this second MA graduation. We had quite a small group of MA Sociolinguistics students. And of those, I was particularly close with 3. Of those 3, only one has stayed here at Essex to do a PhD. One has gone off to London and forsaken Academia all together. One had a year out, but is off to York (where he'd done his undergrad) for a PhD. So it was going to be quite a reunion. Plus another friend coming back from Japan for the ceremony. It was definately going to be a reunion. In addition, the only other 2 PhD students Rebecca (my advisor) has were graduating. So I really wanted to be there to support them. (It's a bit lonely in the Data Sessions with just me!) Ok, long story short (Too late! -- Anyone know that quote?) I decided to Walk. When Grandma found out about it, she said she'd come out, too. She's never been able to come out for any of our (mine or Lois') graduations before (though only I've actually Walked before!) so she was quite excited about that, too. So that was another reason to participate in the Ceremony.

So, on the 16th I turned up at the University around 9.00 to meet up with Jenny and get our robes. We bumped into our returning friends Nicholas and Sarah, and we all went to get our photos taken. Following the portraits, we of course had to rearrange the robes, and re-pin them. Unlike the US robes, these are open fronted. That means that they slide all over the place. In addition to that, there's that big hood which constantly pulls back and flops all over. So safety pins are a must. Eventually I managed to meet up with Grandma and Mom. We all went over to the 'Tin Can' or 'Baked Bean Tin' or whatever you want to call it. It's this big, round, silver building. When they first finished it, someone took a photo of it and photoshoped a 'Tesco Value' label on it. (Tescos is a major grocery store. Their Value range is the cheapest you can get.) It said, 'Tesco Value: Stuents in Brine' So funny! Anyway, we headed in there for the ceremony. It was more or less what you'd expect. A lot of sitting and clapping and wishing it were over. Eventually it was. Yeay! We were asked to process out in formation, and just as we were coming down the stairs . . . tragedy struck. I caught my heel and went cartwheeling down the stairs, head first. My robes flying, my hat flew off. I bounced off my friend Nicholas, who was just in front of me, and my friend Sarah tried to catch me (she was just behind me) but I was just too far gone. But between the two of them, they managed to keep me from having any serious injury. Someone collected my mortor board and passed it over, I climbed to my feet, straightened my robes, and finished the procession out. Now, everyone was terribly impressed that I didn't burst into tears out of embaressment, or something, but honestly, I wasn't embaressed! It hurt (in fact, a month later you can still see the bruise on my left shin) and was not exactly fun, but it was an accedent. Nothing to be embaressed about.

Anyway, when we made it out onto Square 5 I finally got the chanse to inspect the wounds. I'd scraped all the skin off my left knee, done a fair job on my left shin and right foot, and just scraped my right knee and palm of my right hand. Nothing too bad, but definately could use a plaster. Jenny (Miss 'Don't Worry, I've Got Everything!') had a marvelous one which got me patched up and no longer bleeding.

After reuniting with our respective family units, we made our way up to the marque that the department had set up for our use. We were given lovely finger foods and drinks (a total blessing because it was quite warm!) and the students who'd earned awards were introduced. Then we had to go out and take at least a million photos (as if we hadn't been doing so all along). The best photos were, of course, the ones where we got to throw the hats. Now, over here PhD's don't have mortor boards. They have squishy round hats called Bonnets. They make excellent frizbees! Hee hee hee . . . 2 more years and it's my turn :D

Eventually we made our way out of the tent and home. I had some of my friends (I'd invited a bunch more, but not all could make it) for a barbeque. It was good fun, and the weather held! Which, at that point in July, was quite an accomplishment.

Now, whilst I've always been a bit reluctant to walk, I love photographs. So I've always gotten the robes for some pictures. At BYU I got this fabulous photo of me sitting on the Cougar (our mascot). When I graduated from Sheffield, Lois and I drove to Tintern Abby (a ruins) for some quintisentially British photos. So this time I decided to go to Dedham. It's a charming town, with a gorgeous church. And it was in the Church I took the photos. So, that's where those other photos came from. They were not taken on the same day as the graduation ceremony.

Projects

My Mom arrived on the 6th of July. I'd been to the Rugby match the day before, so Jenny and I had stayed over at her aunt and uncle's house. That meant I didn't have to leave at a quarter past early to collect Mom. Yeay! Got her and we all traipsed back to Essex. Mom and I both really needed a nap, so we had a brief sleep. Well . . . I had a brief kip. Mom slept for a couple hours. She was good and jetlagged. When she got up we started planning our two projects.

The first project is what my Dad termed The Great Wall of China in Colchester. My office has been in desperate need of a spruce-up since I moved in. I painted the walls white originally, and haven't done anything with them since. So Mom and I discussed what we'd do with it. We decided on an Oriental Theme. Something of a cross between China and Japan. The design is a Chinese/Japanese woman who stands slightly to the left of the centre of the wall. To the right of the centre, and up a bit, is a Dragon. We decided the mythology behind it is that the woman is Mother Nature, and she's bringing in Spring. The Dragon is bringing the warmth of spring with his firy breath. There's a band of flowers flowing between Mother Nature and the Dragon, which, when breathed on, change into butterflies. There are different Oriental Medalian designs in each courner, and the colours fade from a dark teal in the upper right, to a dark red/pink in the lower left. It's a marvelous murial. Took us a whole week of solid work. Well . . . when I say 'us' I really mean 'Mom'. But it looks fabulous!

The second project was a scrapbook of the Morocco photos for my Grandma's Birthday. In fact, this took us the full time Grandma was here to complete. I finished the last page at 3.00 in the morning the day she was due to leave my house! But we got all the photos aranged on the pages for the actual birth day (25 July). We worked very hard at it till Grandma arrived (15th) and then after that we worked every evening on it, and any day we weren't doing anything else. It was exhausting, but we made it in the nick of time. We were up till 3 or so on the morning of the 25th to get it all done, then back at work on it by 10.00. The only things that weren't done when we wrapped it up were the titles/words on the second half of the book. Actually, the words usually take more time to do than arranging the photos does! It turned out to be totally worth it, though! Not only did the book turn out lovely, Grandma was absolutely wild about it. When we gave it to her, she sat and looked at it for over an hour! And the first thing she wanted to do when she got back that afternoon? Look at it some more. That usually means we done good :) I took it home that night and continued to work on the words. As I said before, it took me right up to the very last night to finish. Looked pretty spectacular when it was done, though!

Ok, So It's 6 Months Late . . .

For Lois' birthday, I promised I'd make a scrapbook for her of t he Morocco photos. So I'm already starting off to a bad start, since her birthday's in January, and we didn't go to Morocco till the end of March, and didn't get home till have way through April. Then I didn't do anything with them till the other week. I've now done several pages for her. Here's the best couple (so far):
Lucky me, though. As soon as I finish it off, I get to start over again. I'm also going to do one for my Grandmother. It's her birthday present, too.

Morocco Part 6

After we left Taroudant we spent 9 days hopping from point to point. The first stop was a town in the Anti Atlas Mountains, called Tafrout. It was this little tiny town, only about 6 thousand people, surrounded by these gorgeous red granite rocks. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing the only full day we had there. So we didn't get to see most of what surrounded us. That was a real shame, because the day we left the wind had calmed and the rocks were gorgeous! But our one day there we took a drive up into a canyon. Actually we didn't know that's what we were going to do. Our driver, Youseef, decided we were going to see this gorge. This happened a lot of the time. I kind of wanted to go take a hike out to see the petroglyphs. But that was clearly not on Youseef's agenda. The staff at this Auberge didn't speak much English. Youseef didn't speak much English. I don't speak much French, and even less Arabic. So we had kind of a hard time communicating our various thoughts on what should be happening. Especially right at the beginning of our 9 day tour. We got out into the middle of this gorge and Youseef stops and we get out for a few minutes. He then got on his mobile phone and made a call. Then he turns to me and hands me the phone to do . . . something. I don't speak French, remember! Eventually I figure out that I'm supposed to order food. I think I'm ordering dinner. We got the order done in a very odd mixture of French, English, Spanish and Arabic. Youseef, Grandma and Lois were all standing around laughing at me. They wouldn't have found it so amusing if it had been THEM trying to get the message across! Eventually I finished ordering, and we got back in the car and headed home. Seriously, we drove out there, ordered food, got back in the car and came home. Very odd.

Anyway, on the way back to the Auberge we had Youseef stop off at Tafrout and we got some bread and cheese for lunch. We'd had so many enormous meals by this point that we didn't want anything but a little bit of bread and cheese. I was also quite exhausted. Translation duties are never easy, but when you really don't speak the language, they're even worse! So when we first got back to the Auberge, I lay down for a nap. Got woken up about 30 minutes later when there was a knock on Lois' and my door. Youseef was there! He clearly was trying to say something, and Lois wasn't getting it, so she made me get up to figure it out. Something about a drink. The bar. Umm . . . Oh! He was inviting us to the bar for a drink before lunch. Ok. We can go have a drink with you. We collected Grandma on the way to the bar, but when we got to the bar, we realised Youseef had ordered a bottle of wine. All the sudden my brain registered the word he'd used at the room: apéritif. Ooops! That's an alcoholic pre-food drink! I knew that! So we managed to explain that we don't drink alcohol, and got some Diet Coke. As we were sitting there attempting to converse with Youseef, the waiter came over and said that lunch was ready. Lunch? What lunch? We hadn't ordered lunch! Oh wait. Was that what was going on back at the canyon? Yep! We'd ordered lunch, not dinner! I don't speak French, remember? So we had lunch!

After lunch we split back up into our rooms (me and Lois in one, Grandma in another). It was too windy and cold to sit outside and enjoy it, so we went back to our rooms to read/sleep. We'd arranged with the Auberge owner, Elizabeth (a Dutch woman), to meet at 4.00 for a 'easy hike'. We = me and Lois. Not Grandma. So at 4.00 Lois and I set out with Elizabeth to do this 'easy' hike. In truth it was not a hard hike. We crossed the . . . I'm not really sure what to call them. They were bigger than hills, but smaller than mountains. I'll stick with Rocks, I guess! So, I wouldn't have called it easy, either. Good fun, though! We hiked for two hours, up the side of the rocks. The rocks were gorgeous. Really reminded me of the colours of Brice Canyon in southern Utah. And, like the southern region of Utah, it ached to be climbed. If I were to go back to Morocco, this is where I'd come. With my gear! As it was, it was a fun scramble (yes, that is a technical term, thank you!)

After we got to the top of the rocks, we saw two nomad families! Elizabeth, our guide, said that the first family had been there at least 3 years. The other family, though, had just arrived. They had these little kids (as in young goats), and the kids were out playing. They were so adorable. Chasing each other around the tent. Was great proof that kids are kids, no matter the species. And if the species doesn't matter, why should the language or race amongst our own species?!? They were fun to watch. Elizabeth told us if we wanted to go over, they'd host us and give us mint tea (of course!) But we didn't want to impose on the families. Would have been kind of fun, though. Never mind.

At the end of our hike, we arrived at the town of Tafrout. Not much to say about the town except that it exists. We had a 4 km hike back in front of us when, all the sudden, the manager of the hotel showed up with the car. He had an errand to run in town, so Elizabeth had arranged to have him come in when we were ready to go home. So we got a lift home! Lois and I spent a little time by the pool before facing up to an enormous (and rather surprising) dinner. Why was dinner surprising? Well, I'd attempted to order one pizza for the 3 of us. What happened? Yeah, 3 pizzas! We canceled everything else.

And, as always happens when I travel abroad, I collected another admirer. One of the staff has decided that the sun rises and sets with me. *sigh* Now, I'd like a boyfriend. But I want one who at least speaks English! This guy speaks just enough to be a nuisance. He gave me a note:

When you look at the sky if
you see the falling stars
Don't wonder why, just make
a wishes, it be come true.
Believe me?!
I like to Talk to you,
I Find you nice and very Beautifull
I want to know you more and
to Tell me about you?

Tu Mi gusta mucho
(That's slightly wrong Spanish for, I like you very much)

Reproduced as he scribed it on the paper.

Below the note/poem thing he included his email and phone. Why is it that I go abroad and the men come out of the woodwork, but at home I can't even get a single date? Where's the justice? So I avoided him for the rest of the day, and was relieved that we were only there for two days. The guide book says that most western women feel that they've met the entirety of the single male population of Morocco by the time they go home. Oh is it true! That's exactly how I feel! Apparently because they don't have much contact with females (other than mothers and sisters, I guess) before they get married, they find western women, who are not bound by Islamic/Moroccan law, exciting and exotic. Kind of odd thinking of myself as exotic!

Morocco Part 4

The Argon Forest, outside Taroudant, was once a space teaming with life, and overflowing with vegetation. 5 years of drought and centuries of overgrazing, however, has left it a collection of scraggly trees. As a result, the locals have developed an alternate form of grazing for their goats. They get their goats up into the trees! And not just into the lowest bits. Right up into the top! It was the most amazing thing! Funnily enough, about two weeks before I went I saw an HSBC advert about "What do trees mean to you". One of the responses was, "Grazing". I totally thought it was fake! And then, one of the very first things I saw upon arrival in Morroco was . . . Goats in trees! Totally cool.

The Argon Tree is very interesting. It produces a nut which kind of looks like a rounded Almond on the outside. However, when you break it open, it's got two sides, with a husk dividing it in the middle. Naturally Morocco has helped several groups of women start a couple of different cottage industries and co-ops. In this case, it's a women's co-op to extract and process Argon oil. The ladies sit on the floor in a tiny little room, cracking the nuts. They put the nut end up on an anvil stone. Then they take a rounded oblong stone and smack it on the nut. This results in the nut splitting open. So then they pick out the meat from the husk, flip the meat into the waiting basket, brush the husk off, grab the next nut, and begin again. And they're so fast at it! They invited me to have a go, so I sat down next to one of the ladies. Just about crushed my finger the first time! But after a few tries, I more or less got the hang of it. No where near as fast as those ladies, though. Lois had a try after me, and she did a very credible job. She's the better nutcracker, apparently. Must be all that time doing fiddly sewing bits!

After our visit to the Argon Oil Co-Op we headed out to a Palmery in an Oasis to have lunch. The oasis is just a green blip in the middle of the desert. The Palmery refers to the area right by the water where families have an allotment for a bit of a garden. Many of them actually have Palms! However, mostly they grow barley and alfalfa. They can get 5 crops of alfalfa out of one planting! It's quite amazing, really.

I discovered that if you sit next to the irrigation river, in the shade, it's really quite cool and pleasant. Our guide took us up to the old Kasbah that's been redone now, opened as a big restaurant (we didn't eat there, just went up for the view.)