We'll always have Paris

Last week, we took the Eurostar under the Chunnel to meet my folks for a few days in Paris. (I also took the opportunity to meet some remote co-workers at the Amazon.fr office.) We had a wonderful time, and finally managed to edit most of the footage down to the following four segments:

Bus Tour

One thing that's worth doing in any big city is hopping onto one of those open-top buses and getting a quick introduction to what all's available, where things are in relation to each other, and what looks interesting enough to merit a closer visit on foot. The following is set to the credits score from the Bourne trilogy, which featured many a high-speed chase through the streets of Paris:

Be Our Guest

This is kind of a parody of all the pictures (and slides...endless slides!) that my Dad used to bring home from my parents' trips to Europe, in which my Mom nearly always happened to be snacking on some local delicacy. Since Paris is synonymous with grossfine cuisine, it seemed appropiate to document some of the highlights as we chewed our way across the capital:

Eiffel Tower

Well, you can hardly come to town and not visit this emblematic icon. Although we walked by and under it enroute to other stops, we didn't go up the elevator until our final morning in the city, before dragging our luggage back to the Gare du Nord. Note that, while it is fairly straightforward going up the tower, there are two elevators coming back down; the one we took terminates about halfway down, leaving you to navigate the stairs for the rest!

Lourve

We allocated one full day to exploring the famous musée of Paris, dutifully stopping to verify all the plot twists in Dan Brown's factually-challenged bestseller:

Of course, there is so much more to be said about Paris, and France and Europe in general, but that'll have to wait for another time :-)

Lyme Regis

DailyMotion allows me to use my original audio track, but the video quality is rather poor, even with "HQ" enabled:

Conversely, YouTube forced me to change the audiotrack (still processing, as the current version is silent), but clearly provides the best video quality:



I suppose that if this is the worst I have to complain about, I should count myself pretty fortunate :-)

Stonehenge

The kids got two weeks off from school for the Easter holidays, and we decided that we'd been "playing it safe" (keeping close to Maidenhead and it's immediate rail-accessible environs) long enough, so decided to strike out into the verdant verge for a 4day camping trip along England's "Jurassic Coast", down around Lyme Regis on the southern Atlantic coastline.

There are a lot of interesting points to visit between Berkshire and Dorset, but one that had long topped our hitlist was Stonehenge. A lot of the locals here shrug, "but it's just a bunch of rocks," typically to go on about how Avebury is both larger and less commercialized, if you go in for that sort of thing.

But that's not it at all. Stonehenge is more than a pile of rocks: it's a center of myth, legend, and folklore dating to before the time of wallpaper screensavers and forwarded emails with 3MB attachments showing precariously perched kittens and dancing babies. It's the primordial lodestone, a keynode of ley lines whose ferric poles pull at our cultural consciousness. Not to even get started about Seekers, Aspirants, Ovates, and your new-agey Hierophants!

"And their legacy remains...hewn, into the living rock of Stonehenge."

Pancake Day

In many parts of the world, Tuesday was Mardi Gras -- the big party before Lent begins and we all have to focus on being better people. In the Maidenhead and the rest of the United Kingdom, Pancake Day was celebrated. Why pancakes? Well, the tradition is that butter, eggs, sugar, and other tasty ingredients are forbidden during Lent, so people had to use up these ingredients before confession time on Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday) to prepare for Ash Wednesday. The legend is that one woman was so involved in making her pancakes that she didn't realize it was time for the church service. She hurried to church but forgot she still had the frying pan -- complete with pancake -- still in her hand. And so we have Pancake Day! (For US people, these pancakes will look a lot more like crepes than the type of thing that you get at IHOP, Denny's, or Waffle House. Even so, I bought a ham and cheese filled pancake at the booth before the race. Still delicious.)

On Pancake Day, many towns have Pancake Races. In Maidenhead, teams of two from local businesses had relay races down King Street. The first participant had to flip the pancake twice while running and hand off the skillet to a second participant, who also had to run and flip the pancake twice. If the pancake flipped out of the pan, the runner had to pick up the pancake before continuing. Fancy dress was optional, but one team earned an award for coming dressed as a sword-wielding pirate and a construction worker in a hardhat. Fifteen teams entered this year, including the defending champions from Saisbury's, a local grocery store and sponsor of the event. Unfortunately for them, on one flip, the pancake flopped out of the pan, and one of the Wargraves' teams sprinted to victory.

Snow Day!

The kids have missed school before due to plenty of Hurricane Days, but this is the first time we've ever had school called off on account of snow!

Trivial Pursuits

Our family celebrated New Year's by playing one of our favourite board-games: Trivial Pursuit, Extreme Geek Edition:


You play by taking one deck of questions apiece from other Trivia Pursuit editions (Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings in this case). Each move, you have to roll two dice: one to determine movement, and another to decide which type of question you'll receive. In this instance, we used a d8 for movement and d6 for category:

1-2: Harry Potter
3-4: Star Wars
5-6: Lord of the Rings

It's actually quite confusing as you try to swap the contents of 16 books and movies in and out of memory, especially as the films differed from the canonical text, and even some of the movies changed between theatrical, extended DVD, and "special edition" versions. It gets even better as you work your way through stocks of sherry and Hobgoblin, and you find yourself blinking at questions like, "Which Jedi Knight of Gondor drew forth the lightsaber Anduril from the Sorting Hat to slay the Rancor Nagini?"

One Candle

One of the many ways in which High Street Methodist welcomed us into their community was asking our family to perform the liturgy, reading, and lighting of the advent candle on Christmas Day. Laura led the responsive reading, I read from Isaiah (you say eye-say-uh, they say eyes-eye-uh), Jonathan completed the liturgy, and Christopher lit the candle (manfully sucking it up when he burned his palm :-)

Isaiah (however pronounced) is fun to read aloud, because it was "written" to be delivered viva voce with appropriate oratorial flair. Give it a try!

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
 on them
    light
has shined.

You have multiplied the nation,
you have  increased its joy;

they rejoice before you
  as with joy at the harvest,                  
  as people exult when dividing plunder.
             
For the yoke of their burden,
        and
    the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor,

you have
          broken
as on the day of Midian.

For all
       the boots of the tramping warriors
and all
       the garments rolled in blood
shall
   be
   burned
as fuel for the fire.

For a child
      has been born for us,
    a son
      given to us;

        authority rests
      upon his shoulders;

and he is named Wonderful Counselor,
                Mighty God,
                Everlasting Father,
                Prince of Peace.

His authority shall  grow   continually,
and there shall be endless peace
    for the throne of David
    and his kingdom.

  He will establish
      and uphold it
     with justice
 and with righteousness
from this time
          onward
      and forevermore.

The zeal
  of the Lord of hosts
  will do this.

Is.9:2-7 NRSV

Movie Monday

That has such better assonance than "Picture Monday", don't you think? And besides, it gives us a chance to play with the most-excellent new Flip camcorder my parents sent us for Christmas! The only editing software I had onhand was the iMovie freeware that came on my Macbook...okay for starters, but I can already see where I'll want to explore more powerful offerings later.

Because we found continuous-shot walkthroughs helpful ourselves when trying to remotely visualize distances and "ground truth" before our move, we started with this single-shot recording of a walk from High Street Methodist back to our house:

[UPDATE] YouTube apparently doesn't like 14min videos, so I'll just link this one directly for now :-)

A couple days later, we took my brother Scott on a 16,000-step hike (per our 2008 pickle present!) through London, including this tour through the Tower of London and across Tower Bridge:



Finally, I'm including the following video which we did not take, but which I found on YouTube, documenting Maidenhead's Christmas Light Switch-On from Jonathan's birthday; heck, we might even appear in some of the crowd shots :-)

Picture Monday

I guess we end up taking most of our pictures over the weekend, when we're able to do some things as a family (in the daytime!) Plus, until we get internet access at home, I end up uploading them from work on Monday morning. Maybe we should just make a tradition of "Picture Mondays"?

We had a specific reader request for "more shots of the house" (possibly by people trying to decide whether we could comfortably "put them up" for a cheap jaunt through London :-), so here you go:

http://zieg.com/pics/england/2008-12-21/

Christmas at Amazon

It turns out that Christmas is a rather fun time to join Amazon, especially in the U.K. There have been lots of neat activities scheduled around the workday, which help make it an even more enjoyable place to build a career. For instance, last week I got to contribute as a member of the department Quiz Team. About eighteen different teams competed in this annual event, with entrance fees and drink proceeds going to benefit a local charity. Each team comprised eight members, and teams came from all corners of the company: Catalog Logic (us), Human Resources, Business Development, etc. The quiz format was 10 sets of five related questions; a given question group might pertain to 80's television, or 90's pop tunes, or English sport (I didn't do very well at those!), or Amazon company history, etc. I was thrilled that at least two questions touched on personal interests of mine, including Gatchaman and Airwolf :-) Our team ended up dead in the middle of the pack, but even so it was a fun evening and a good way to get to know more of my new co-workers.

Another charity fundraiser held the week before involved raffle tickets for some donated items, and our family won a variety-pack of DVDs! Of course, we haven't been able to watch most of them yet, because they're all Region 2 and we don't yet have a PAL/Reg-2 TV & DVD player setup, but at least the kids got a kick out of watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3 before we moved out of our flat :-) There was also a department contest where individuals were encouraged to create and decorate "faeries" for the department Christmas tree. I haven't researched this topic yet, and ended up not contributing (I was embroiled in my Innovation Week project at the time), but "faeries" seem to either refer to Christmas tree ornaments in general, or to the topmost spire traditionally reserved for an angel or star -- I'm not sure which. Anyway, many people brought in hand-crafted faeries displaying the creator's skill (or lack thereof!) with Elmer's glue, pipe-cleaners, styrofoam, and glitter; then some "independent" ladies came down from another department to judge the efforts. It was another fun interlude between rounds of ticket-resolving and fire-fighting :-)

Most companies I've been at host some sort of department Christmas dinner for the staff, and Amazon was no exception. This year the team reserved a room at the pub of a local inn (just outside Maidenhead, in fact). After a round of Guinness, we sat down to appetizers (mushroom gratin, soup, etc), main dish (turkey with all the fixings, salmon, roast pork, or vegan), and dessert (Christmas pudding, crumble, or cheesecake). Every place setting came with a traditional Christmas cracker (see our logo!), which when pulled would pop with a mild pyrotechnic, revealing a silly paper party hat, plastic child's toy, and sheet of jokes, riddles or fortunes. We had a very fun time at our table, where I got to sit with a young woman from Turkey, a gentlemen from Slovakia, another man from Russia, a friend from Canada who'd served as a Westminister choirboy, and a pair of recently-engaged lovebirds. It was a good meal, but the wonderful companionship made for a truly memorable outing.

The final story I can share about Christmas at Amazon has yet to unfold. Q4 represents a rather hectic time for Amazon's server farms, so for risk mitigation they don't normally make a lot of production code changes once the Christmas rush has begun. (It would be nice if someone explained that to Chancellor Darling and his last-minute VAT reduction! :-) Rather, what really needs getting done is: packing and wrapping boxes! Lots and LOTS of boxes. So many Amazonians, regardless of normal profession or expertise, get a chance to spend a rotation in the warehouses or fulfillment centers where the "important work" really transpires. My shift is scheduled for this week, so hopefully I'll have a fun time reliving memories of those summers spent working for the Osceola School District warehouse back in the '80s. At least, I REMEMBER it as a fun time...memories don't ever lie, do they?

Sunday Roast

Two weeks ago, we were invited by Jean and Bill, two of our new friends from High Street Methodist, to dinner at their home after church. This was our first introduction to the English custom of "Sunday Roast," and may I say were were quite taken by it! Apparently the British don't need to celebrate Thanksgiving once a year, because they get to do it EVERY WEEK! The table was decked out with roast chicken, stuffing, sausages, bacon, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, Brussels sprouts, carrots, swede (sp?), Yorkshire puddings, gravy, sherry plus your choice of white or red wine, coffee, and last but not least blackberry crumble. And this is two weeks after the fact, so I'm surely forgetting a few sides. WOW! What a magnificent feast...and this is apparently a regular custom -- one we may have to bring back to America someday :-)

Besides sumptious dinner, Jean and Bill were extremely pleasant and articulate hosts. Both received their degrees at Oxford: she in theology (she ministers at a local parish) and he in mechanical engineering. It turned out that he had worked on many British aircraft, both commercial and military, so we had some interesting room for discussion. Jean is a governor at a council school, so provided a wealth of information regarding local school options, enrollment and assessment procedures, etc.

Our boys enjoyed the day as well. Christopher beat everyone at checkers (they call it "draughts" here), repeated the trick at Connect-4, and finally taught Jean how to play Mexican Train with dominoes. Jonathan found some Tolkien in their copious library and curled up in a cozy chair to get down with some Hobbits.

All told, it was a wonderful day, and we are truly grateful to have found such a warm welcome by the community at High Street Methodist.

Big Birthday Celebration

Today we celebrated Jonathan's birthday with lights, fireworks, and an entire street festival complete with stilt walkers. O yeah, it was also the big "Switch On" of all the Christmas lights in Maidenhead. The actual decorations have been up for about two weeks, but they weren't turned on until the official opening ceremonies tonight.

Before we went to the official countdown, the whole family shivered into Marks & Spencer to pick up a new winter coat for Jonathan. He found a very well-insulated jacket with hood that he refused to take off; the cashier just pulled the bar code close and scanned the jacket, taking Jonathan with it! He didn't complain. Before I had finished paying for the jacket, Mark turned up at the check out with a new hat, which he needed, and a bottle of port, which perhaps he did not. Jonathan then passed his old blue fleece jacket on to Christopher, so everyone was better prepared to face the evening chill.

While waiting until six o'clock for the lighting of all the decorations, we listened to big band jazz (love the American import!), shivered along with everyone, and ate roasted chestnuts. The big band belted out jazz standards and Christmas songs just as merrily as any I'd ever heard. I hoped that the chestnuts would live up to all the press that they get in Christmas songs (you know, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire," and all the rest), but these nuts were not crunchy as I'd hoped. They were soft and sort of mealy, like "a baked baby potato," according to Mark. I'm not sure I liked eating them, but they were nice and warm in our hands!

And finally the moment came! Santa Claus (Yes, they called him Santa Claus -- another American import, I suppose) stepped onto the balcony of Maidenhead Town Hall with two children who had won a coloring contest. The announcer started the countdown, and Santa and the children pushed down the big plunger that turned on all the lights in town. Then the fireworks exploded from the roof of town hall. I was surprised they would have fireworks like that so close to the crowds, but I guess the neighboring roofs were damp from recent drizzle and the air was cold, so no one was concerned about a fire hazard. The entire crowd oohed and aahed with the explosions, hisses, and crackles.

Then we marched onward to KFC to celebrate Jonathan's thirteenth birthday. Well, we shuffled and tried to keep from getting separated on our way to KFC, truth be told. Fortunately, Mark is currently moving slower, so it was easier for the rest of us to keep up. The line snaked out the door to the dark sidewalk outside. We strained our necks to check the menu board for our favorite chicken in large, greasy, crispy quantities. Although the chicken was exactly where we expected it, the biscuits were missing! I didn't expect them to be called biscuits because that's the term used for cookies (sweet biscuits) or crackers (savoury biscuits). But there was not a single bread-like item on the menu. Also, there was no macaroni and cheese or mashed potatoes. I know, I can't expect everyone in the UK to adjust to my desires, but I have certain expectations for KFC! We recovered from our disappointment quickly enough to enjoy our hot, greasy chicken.

Shopping for Thanksgiving

If I were back in the USA, I'd be knee-deep in Thanksgiving leftovers (not a bad place to be) or battling my way through bargain shoppers at the mall. Of course, only American-ex-pats celebrate Thanksgiving, but dinner shopping was more difficult than I thought. To start with, I didn't see a single fresh turkey at my local Sainsbury's because any sensible local would know that turkey is for Christmas -- not the odd Thursday in November. The boys reminded me that they would really would prefer roasted chicken with stuffing. Ah well, it IS still a bird and less leftovers because we have fewer people eating them.

Cranberries! Yes, cranberries are available in the produce department, but I didn't see any of the canned cranberry sauce of past years. Again, the boys reminded me that they really didn't like cranberries, and Mark admitted that he really just tolerated them in honor of the day.

Then I looked around for a frozen pumpkin pie, giving in to the fact that I don't really have the right equipment to make a homemade pie. I couldn't find a single pumpkin pie, cake, muffin, cookie, tart... nothing! Pumpkin pie is one of my favorite parts of the meal, even if we usually have to wait about three hours for the rest of the meal to digest before we can even look at the first slice. In the end, I settled for toffee cheesecake, which was absolutely delicious, and comes in a lovely fall caramel color. Of course, the next time I see a can of Libby's pumpkin on either side of the ocean, I'm going to grab it!