February 17, 2002

Wow! We've been bad - it's been over a week since our last update. And so much has happened in the last week that we can't put it all into one update or you'll get tired of reading it. So we'll start now and promise to update again in just a few days. Really.

It's been a good, but busy week. Not only have we moved to Oxford, but we've now had 6 straight days without rain - a record since we've been here! The days have actually been beautiful, with the exception of one fairly cold day (relatively speaking).

Last Saturday was our move from the corporate flat in Aylesbury to our more permanent home in Oxford - where we have finally unpacked (well almost, Tom is not a good unpacker. In his defense, Toby did take all the hangers). It's a nice feeling to know that we are 'home', and can start getting to know our new life.

It took two trips to bring everything over and was, in general, a much easier move than our last one! We didn't go over any weight limits this time. After unloading from the first trip, we had lunch at The Plough - a local pub about 50 meters from our flat. Good beer, so-so chicken burgers (more like chicken patties). Very convenient. (Dad - that's where you and Tom can settle your bet!)

Just after getting in the car for the 2nd trip back to Oxford, Tom noticed that both of our headlights were out! We had one sidelight (parking light) working on the left side which helped only slightly. Despite the time and the impending darkness, (it was about 4:30) we took off with our fingers crossed. We did use our brights a few times, but all in all there was just enough street light and moonlight to get us home. Not enough to go food shopping, however, so it was dinner at the Plough! There is a nice restaurant in part of the pub if you want more than a burger. It's nice, and fairly reasonable. Lots of character and English charm.

The flat is nice - fairly modern, clean, and nicely furnished. It is a split level flat with the living room / eating area (not really a dining room) and kitchen on the first floor and two bedrooms and a bath on the 2nd. There is also a small balcony off the back overlooking the common garden. We have our own entrance, and when you open the front door you have to walk up a flight of stairs. So really, the flat is on the 2nd and 3rd floor (or would be in the States, here they call the 2nd floor the 1st floor).

It is furnished with just about all the basics. Most importantly, there is a tea kettle (electric) - present in every English home - which boils water in about 10 seconds. Truly amazing. Puts American electric kettles to shame. The fridge is decent sized - we can now do weekly in instead of almost daily shoppings. We will need to get some new pots and pans as the ones here aren't quite up to snuff. We also had to get a comforter and some towels which were not furnished, and this week we also bought a used TV - so now we can watch the Olympics. Go USA. No, go GBR. Uh oh.

The flat comes with one of the ever popular small washer/dryer combo units. I've done two loads so far. The wash cycle works just fine, but the dryer takes a long time, say, 3+ hours to dry a load of underwear. We may be hanging things over the radiators in the future. It's really kind of absurd and we are hoping that it is busted and can be fixed. Hard to believe they are meant to work this way.

We have what they call a 'power shower', which is great. Good pressure. And we have a gas hob (stove) which is a bonus - not too common around here. More importantly, Kathy and Rich (who had the flat before us, and Tom's job, if you remember!) left a small boom box here, so we can play the 100 or so cd's we brought.

The flat also comes with a garage (sort of rhymes with marriage) which is barely big enough for the car. Tom has learned to maneuver the car in quite well (once the side mirrors are folded in), but it's not easy. Especially since we have the last garage in the row, the one next to the wall.

The flat overlooks Wolvercote Green (a big field where 'Freemen' are allowed to graze their cattle and horses). It's a nice view - makes us feel like we are in the country even though we are just 3 miles from Oxford city center. There is also a convenience store around the corner with a post office inside. They've got just about anything you could want on short notice.

On Sunday, we did our first big shopping in 3 weeks! We went to a supermarket in the next town and boy do we have a lot to learn. Luckily, we were on a time constraint. Otherwise we could have spent hours in there (well Toby, anyway) reading all the labels to see what everything was and trying to decide what brands to buy. (Possibly one of my tasks for this week - spend 2 hours in the supermarket reading labels.) For now, we are sticking with mostly supermarket brand stuff. Tastes good to us.

After shopping, we went to Radlett (slightly north of London) to have a proper tea at Kevin's (Tom's British brother-in-law's) brother and sister-in-law's house (hi Sarah, Anthony, Harry, Gideon and Katie!). Their best friends Mel and Lawrence were there also along with a combined total of 5 kids! We felt very at home there and had a very enjoyable afternoon. It was nice to hang out with family. I had my second cup of tea with milk and am finding it delicious.

I must say, however, that we went over expecting to be part of our first British afternoon tea (scones, crumpets, that sort of thing). And really what it was was our first Jewish British afternoon tea - complete with lox and cream cheese sandwiches, fish balls, pickles and cucumber sandwiches! There was Marmite for the kids (blech!), but aside from that, I wasn't feeling particularly British!

After tea, we went to visit some old (long-time) family friends of the Goldbergs (hello to the Wantmans) who, by coincidence, live just around the corner in Radlett! So we stopped by for an hour to say hi and had a nice visit. We are really feeling like we have a lot of family here. It's really nice and helps us feel more connected to all of you.

This week, Tom has been commuting to work and I have been home, car-less. On Tuesday (it rained on Monday), I ventured downtown on the bus. Although I am a pro now, I will admit that when I got onto my first bus, I did cause the bus driver to say 'the lady doesn't know what she's doing'. But that's all I'm gonna say. The bus picks me up just around the corner and drops me off back here at the pub. It runs every 15 minutes and goes straight downtown. Not bad.

You must be bored by now, so we're going to sign off.

• Skeleton keys: what's with them? Almost every front door has a skeleton key that is actively used. It seems to be the 'extra' lock, i.e. it is only locked at night or when no one is home, but what a pain to carry around! This apartment has two - one for the front door, and one for the inside door.
• So far, about 60% of the time, they seem to actively look at the signature on your credit card to see if it matches what you've signed. We are impressed.
• Television tax: who'd have thought the annual tax on having one or more TVs in your home would cost more than the used TV we just bought? Tax is approx. $150, TV was $130 (remember the tax is every year). We knew it was here, just didn't let ourselves think about it until now. I guess it is like a mandatory contribution to PBS of sorts. They actually have vans that go around 'sniffing' for a TV signal to find non-payers.
• They seem to have the salt and pepper shakers reversed. One hole for salt, many holes for pepper. Perhaps Americans are salt happy, but as far as we're concerned it's still backwards. And yes, we have peppered our chips (fries) by mistake.

We miss you all.