Sunday, January 02, 2005

Happy New Year!

Also, Happy Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas since it's taken us so long to update this.

At Halloween, Aaron road-tripped south to Dublin, caught a ferry to Wales then drove across England to pick up a slightly shell shocked Haley. It only took a UN like negotiation with the London police and the airlines to pull it all off. He visited Bill and Linda Reynolds, who graciously took him to the airforce base where he stocked up on taco mix, Betty Crocker potatos, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Orville Redenbacher popcorn, Dr. Pepper and (drumroll) ten 24 packs of Mt. Dew! If I ration a mere 21 per month I should have enough to last the duration. What a great husband, crossing 4 regions in two countries to get my dog and 20 gallons of my favorite caffeinated beverage. Interestingly, back in the day the phrase "mountain dew" referred to moonshine in Ireland. I like to think of it as "nectar of the gods" and "breakfast of champions."

While Aaron was "across the water" I got a call from the University notifying me I had been awarded a full scholarship (tuition and living stipend) as the initial recipient had been unable to attend this year. Second place never felt so good. So we bought an inexpensive 12 year old BMW with 190,000 miles on it . Turns out mainly drug dealers drive these and they are popularly referred to as "BM's," which makes us laugh as we tell people what BM's are in our part of the world.

Patrick Larochelle was here in November from Charlottesville to bring us our Christmas decorations and haul some junk back for us. Oh, and also to see his girlfriend, Ana, from Spain. Patrick wanted to treat Ana to a homestyle Thanksgiving dinner, so he and Aaron whipped up a delectable feast and we were all able to enjoy a little turkey, stuffing, and fellowship after all.

A few weeks later we had some grad students over and Aaron made crunchy tacos. Our friend from N. Ireland had never had them. Glad we could be Ortega ambassadors. We sure miss authentic Mexican food, but there's lots of Indian curry and French food is finally affordable. Milkshakes here are heavy on the milk and light on the shake (no ice?)- my bum has more shake in it. Our most recent potato chip flavors include Thai Sweet Chili, Chargrilled Steak and Peppercorn, and Worcestshire Sauce. You can get potatoes as a topping on pizza and as a side dish instead of rice with Chinese food-I love it! You can get french fries with gravy on them, curry, nearly anything can be heaped atop them.

We'll have to exercise a little more in the Spring when the sun is up until 10:00 pm: now it is setting by 4 pm (which doesn't leave me much daylight when I sleep until noon). The wind has really picked up lately and HOWLS like it might blow the windows in. The Irish blessing "May the wind be always at your back..." has new meaning. At least their version of "Annie" has the hit song, "the Sun'll Come Out in Ten Minutes..." (of course this is usually after the unexpected downpour has nearly drowned us and the dog in the park, covered her in mud and made for a sloppy walk home!) I had a new experience this Fall that may be true in other cities. Wet, fallen leaves on pavement and sidewalks can be deadly. They're worse than black ice. Another aspect of city life we discovered was a rat infestation in a nearby student neighborhood with a bad reputation for being too rowdy. The students organized a protest to defend their reputations, a loud, rowdy protest to prove how civil they were. So at least undergrads around the world are pretty similar.

Aaron's been working all kinds of temporary jobs, traffic surveys, waiting tables, data entry, taking calls for the ambulance service. I can't wait to see what he'll get himself into in the New Year. He's also been playing basketball where he is usually the tallest and all the other players are shorter and run really fast. He's lately fallen in with a bunch of thirty somethings who used to play on the national team, so he's enjoying that as well as continuing to attempt to master Aikido.

We've been enjoying learning new phrases, sometimes in the most awkward ways. One night at dinner with the family that has taken us in, I turned to their 13 year old daughter and asked her if she was allowed to wear pants to school. She turned beet red and stammered, "W-w-w-hat?" So I rephrased and asked if if she was required to wear a skirt as her uniform. She giggled and explained that "pants" here refer only to "underpants;" the word I needed was "trousers."
As her parents left for the movies we told them not to sit in the back and make out, a phrase the teenagers were relieved not to recognize. Here that's called "snogging." Pronunciation is also fun, shower is "shar," Power is "par," and fire is "far," which is not too unlike White Oak come to think about it. Tuesday is "Chooseday," and tutor is "Chitter."

A friend recently "passed out" meaning "graduated" and when he was taking his exams told us to "touch wood" (like knock on wood), which we took a little differently. Zero is "naught," Z is "zed." Like "apples and oranges" is like "chalk and cheese" here. The police officer in London told us Haley would have a better chance getting in the country if she were "lumpy," i.e not lean but especially well fed so it would be obvious she wasn't a fighting dog. If Aaron and I keep eating fried starchy foods and potatos we're going to end up "lumpy." I went looking on the internet for therapeutic massage for my back but most of the websites were not for the kind of legal massage I was looking for.

A friend took us to Dublin in early December to go Christmas shopping and we asked him if people would be able to tell we were Americans just by how we were dressed. He jokingly said they would so we replied "well, at least we're not wearing fannie packs" as he was getting out of the car. He got back in the car and closed the door shaking his head, unsure whether or not to turn us loose on the unsupecting public. Turns out "fannie" here is quite vulgar (for a female body part) and does not mean bottom or a woman's name (like Fannies Lane on the way to Bel Plains). They call those bags "bum bags." Of course we've been exploiting it ever since as much as possible. It was all we could do not yell out his name across the crowded street in our most garrish American accents "Francis, get your fannie over here!"

My name often causes a bit of a stir as Dallas was quite popular here. One young man exclaimed, "Wow, I never thought I would ever meet someone who was actually named 'Suellen'." (thanks mom) I did enjoy a 1 am showing of "Gone with the Wind" on Christmas Eve which made me miss Southern ways. We had two female students over for Christmas lunch, one from New York and one from Chicago. The New Yorker said a female student had recently come into her dorm crying and she responded with 'What in the hell is wrong with you?" I told her in the South we would say, "There now, sit down and tell me all about it over a piece of pie."

For Christmas dinner the Blakes were gracious enough to have us over with two young ladies from Texas and Germany. We had flaming pudding for dessert (I'm not sure if it was "figgy pudding" however). It's not Bill Cosby's pudding, but more like fruitcake. That morning we awoke to the first white Christmas they've had here in 25 years. It was fantastic. Our Indian neighbors came out with their child in flip flops to see it. They didn't know to make the snow into balls, so they just scooped it up and threw it in handfulls. The N. Irish young folks in the apartment below us had people over and a few were out having cigarettes. From out of nowhere 10 other twenty somethings appeared and instigated a massive snowball fight. I have never seen a snowball fight where the participants were able to make and throw snowballs with one hand because they still had a drink in the other hand without dropping the cigarettes out of their mouths. It was quite a treat to watch all of this from our balcony. Then we went back to chasing Haley around with the remote controlled mini cooper I got for Christmas.

There was a 22 million GBP bank robbery (approx. $40 million dollars) here a few weeks ago-Merry Christmas Belfast! We attended several lesson and carol services, including one put on by the University where students read from the Bible, if you can believe it. We also participated in a lovely carol service at a local monastery. The church was one of the most beautiful we've ever seen and there must have been over a thousand people. When we left we were snapped back into reality as we realized the back of the church ended in concrete and barbed wire at the Peace Line, the barrier that divides Protestant and Catholic communities in the city.

One last note, I met a young neighbor and when I extended my hand to shake he grabbed it and pulled me over to kiss both of my cheeks. Aaron and I were both so caught off guard, the best I could muster was to stammer in a sheepish Southern accent, "Where are you from?" (thinking of course he must be French or Italian to be so affectionate with a newly met married woman). He's from N. Ireland of course. I've gone to hug women and they instead grab my hand and kiss my cheek. I'm not sure I'll ever get it figured out. Am I supposed to kiss them back?

After Haley arrived I was mired in class projects, papers, getting ready for Christmas and travelling immediately after Christmas. Now I'm studying for a politics exam on January 13th, then I have a semester break until Feb 1, so I have no good excuse for not updating this more regularly. Next installment in the coming few weeks will include pics from our trip to the South West, an Irish bride and groom, beautiful landscapes and tomfoolery and hijinks. There may even be a game with prizes if you're lucky. And of course the invitation to come visit us is still open to all of you (how else are we going to get all this stuff back home?)

Slainte agus Beannachtan!
(Health and Blessings!)

Aaron, Suellen, and Haley




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