Swansea!

I did it! I got my visa and made it to the UK. I even met the Home Secretary at the consulate in NYC. She was the one who handed me my visa. I posted a link about that on my facebook page.

Bright and early on friday morning, my parents and I left for NY again. We arrived at my grandmother's house at noon and spent the next few hours with her. At 3 we drove to the airport and said our goodbyes. I then waited for my name to appear of the "cleared" list for stand-by and boarded the plane. The picture above was my seat. I flew business elite. It was unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I had a full 3 course meal including free alcohol and watched 3 free movies. I also had a fully reclining chair/bed and had a couple hours of sleep. I awoke in the morning to the sight of my complimentary breakfast.

Once I arrived in the UK, i moved quickly through immigration and customs and met up with Emma and her dad. We then drove down to Swansea and moved my stuff into the flat. We took a few trips out to get some more furniture, a library card and some food. We ended the night with a trip to the nearby pub and called it a night.

Emma's dad flew back to the USA early this morning and we had a long lie in. We arranged a few more things in the flat today and just relaxed. We've skyped with a few people back home in Virginia and a little further away. This week will be full of trips out to find bus routes, a bank, more shopping and a few walks down to school.

The timeline for the next few weeks is as follows:

Emma's dad returning: 17th

Emma's dad leaving: 19th

Class registration starts: 20th

Internet and phone installed: 22nd

Furniture arrives: 24th

Fresher's week starts the 27th

Classes start on the 4th

Skype, email and facebook are the best ways to contact us. I'll try and upload some pics of the flat to facebook in the next week or so

NYC

I'm currently sitting at a starbucks (free wifi yay!) in NYC so I figured this was a perfect time to update the blog. For those of you who knew our departure dates for the UK, you might be wondering why I'm in NYC and not Swansea. For those of you who didn't know my departure date, it was last Wednesday. Now let the filling in commence!

In the final days before my original flight, my visa stuff failed to come together as quickly as I hoped. We rushed as fast as we could but there was no way I was going to be able to fly last wednesday. Emma however, has been in the UK since last Thursday morning running around taking care of everything. We now have an apartment, furniture and a couple random necessities like a kettle. I have been spending my time wondering exactly how an immediate electronic transfer of money takes a week to clear. I love technology. I also got my fingerprints taken and made an appointment in NYC at the british consulate. The appointment is to sit face to face with a visa official and make sure every scrap of paper that I brought up here with me is in order. If they decide that it is and i'm not too shady looking, they should give me a visa this afternoon.

I took the train up here this morning (left at 4am) and walked from Penn Station up to the consulate which took me about an hour. My appointment is at 11:30 and I will be taking the train back to VA tonight (with visa in hand). Tomorrow will be spent making sure all my packing is completely done, canceling my cell phone and say my last goodbyes until next summer. If all goes well, I will be flying out of JFK friday night and will be in London early on Saturday.

If all goes well, my next post will be from Swansea. Until then...

The vacation comes to an end...finally

This post is in memory of Missy Woodward.

So we last left you in Texas waiting for my car to be repaired. I rented a car to help myself and Emma get around. Insurance was paying for it so I was fine to drive the Mitsubishi Galant even though it was automatic.

Our lives were forever changed when the news of a tremendous loss reached us. Missy Woodward was a beacon of love and affection in the world. The number of lives she touched was limitless and that became apparent in the following days. Margaret, Emma and I left from Houston for Alaska Tuesday night. After stops in Seattle and Anchorage, we arrived in Fairbanks Wednesday morning. The house rapidly filled up after a few more shuttle trips to the airport and before we knew it, we were swimming in people and food. All the visitors spread out around Fairbanks to numerous houses generously offered by friends in an attempt to prepare ourselves for the day to come.

Thursday was a hard day for everyone. It felt like the entire population of Fairbanks showed up to remember and celebrate the life of Missy. The church was filled to the brim and left standing room only. After sharing stories, memories, funny anecdotes and tears, a reception was held that generously fed all attending for hours. We then returned to the house to share more stories that help us laugh and remember Missy even more.

The following days filled with trips to Chena Hot Spring, the UAF Museum and Alaskaland. We even went on another canoeing adventure down the Chena and went blueberry picking before flying back to Texas. We returned to Houston Sunday morning, picked up another rental car, had lunch, did some repacking and hit the road. The autoshop was not open on Sundays so we stayed in a hotel in Baton Rouge after the 5 hour drive.

Monday morning started a little later than we expected but were able to get to the shop at 8:30 to pick up my car. We then continued to the rental car office to turn in the car. After an hour in the office dealing with Avis setting up the reservation wrong, we got another surprise: the car that had just been fixed wouldn't start...

The next part went like this: jumped car, drove back to shop, told to buy a new battery and they would put it in for free, bought battery, returned to shop, told there was an object puncturing back tire, went to tire & tread shop to get it fixed, told that the rear tires were in no condition to drive to VA, bought 2 new tires.

So we were on the road 3 hours behind schedule and $1000 more on the credit card. It was a 10 hour drive to Knoxville, TN. We stopped for dinner 2 hours outside of Knoxville and decided we wanted to end this road trip early and just do it. We had 2 hours to Knoxville and another 8 to VA. With only stopping for gas, we made it to VA 8am Tuesday morning.

Now the packing lists are being made and deadlines set to prepare ourselves for the next adventure!

Stranded

Chris: The fun came to an end in Florida and the road trip continued to Gulfport, Mississippi. Gulfport is where I spent 3 weeks back in the summer of 2006 rebuilding after Katrina. The area has changed so much but the damage past is still recognizable in the trees especially. We stayed at a hotel off highway 49 and after a drive around and some dinner, got a good night's sleep.

After breakfast at Waffle House and Krispy Kreme, we set off towards Houston, Texas. We'd been driving for an hour and a half before we needed gas so we pulled off highway 12 in Livingston, LA which is where the festivities began.

It had been raining nonstop since we left Gulfport so the roads were extremely wet and slippery. At the end of the exit ramp, the car went into a skid and spun. On the shoulder, the gravel gave us some traction so we started to recover. It all started to go wrong when the car drove over an old tire. We lost control again and ended up in the ditch. An old, down, rotten tree was there to greet us. It hit the front passenger corner and busted the radiator. All other damage was purely cosmetic.

A car came by to see how we were and told us that his friend had a tow truck so a call was placed and my car was out of the ditch in no time. I placed a call to my sister in Houston and she agreed to drive the 5 hours to pick us up. While we were waiting, the tow truck driver took us to the fish fry he and his family were going to. It felt like the beginning to a bad horror movie but we went anyways. The food was FANTASTIC. We had fried catfish, fried corn, homemade hush puppies, homemade fries and good old fashioned Natty light. We did Louisiana right. After the fry, we went back to the tow truck driver's house and Margaret came to pick us up. The drive to Houston was uneventful and the fun continues.

Emma: Margaret had Monday and Tuesday off so we spent those day with her exploring a park downtown and helping put together the study. We've also introduced Chris to Doctor Who and are currently 3/4 of the way through series 1. Other than that there's not much to report other than the fact that the car repairs will take until the end of next week so our visit to Houston is extended from 2 days to 2 weeks! Hooray for extended visits, not so hooray for only 3 weeks in VA between the time we get and the time we move to Swansea =/

As always, pictures are on facebook

Fun in Florida

Chris: Ok I'll start this post with an apology. We have been in Orlando Florida for the past 2 weeks and haven't posted at all. Our days have started very early, ended very late and after long hot days at Parks, blogging is the last thing on our minds.

So the past 14 days have been filled with the following parks and activities:

Magic Kingdom

Animal Kingdom

Epcot

Hollywood Studios

Downtown Disney/Disney Quest

Typhoon Lagoon

Universal Studios

Islands of Adventure

SeaWorld

Eating and Sleeping (optional)

Visiting my grandmother in Hollywood, Florida

Lounging by the pool at the house

Emma: And so now we're sitting by the pool watching my parents play with noodles like 5-year-olds. As soon as I'm done with this we'll probably go and join in. It has been very very very very hot and I'm not sorry that the majority of our previous holidays here have been in October. We've been fairly lucky with storms and after almost constant rain on our first 2 days, we've got away with only 1 really heavy downpour with crazy strong winds yesterday in which the bins that were by the curb having been emptied decided to go on an adventure down the street. Dad decided to go and collect them and after 30 seconds came in looking like he'd jumped in the pool fully clothed.

I've had a lot of fun showing Chris all the stuff we used to do here when we were little as he barely remembers either of his previous trips to Disney and whilst I haven't been able to do too many rides with him, I've had fun being able to talk to him about them afterwards.

With the weeks passing and the time for our move coming ever closer, our hunt for somewhere to live continues and whilst we're thankful that Swansea is one of the most affordable places to live for a student, we haven't had any luck so far but we'll keep trying and something is bound to come up soon.

Now looking forward to our long days of driving and listening to Harry Potter audio books to keep ourselves entertained on our way to Houston and then back to Virginia.

For pictures of our Florida adventures, see Facebook (once we get around to uploading some)

And now for noodle-y fun...

Celebration in Savannah

Last night we set alarms for 4am in order the get on the road at 6am. We woke up at 7:20am having slept through all of our alarms and decided better late than never. With a brief stop at Starbucks, we were on 95 south by 8:30. Traffic was really bad until we hit Fredricksburg but was pretty smooth after that. The whole drive was uneventful with only 2 stops, one for food and one for gas.

We rolled into Savannah at 6pm, checked into the hotel and went for dinner at Cracker Barrel. The exciting part happened after we got back to the hotel. I checked my email and saw one from UCAS (the UK university application website) saying the status of my application changed. Guess what it was?

I GOT IN!!!

Now all I have to do is decide which of the 3 programs I was offered I want to accept.

Tomorrow we drive the remaining 5 hours to Orlando to start 2 weeks of fun. More to come from while we're there... If we can find internet!

On an aeroplane

Emma: Whilst Chris is sound asleep next to me I thought I'd take the opportunity to make a post while we are on the plane from SeaTac to National. Wifi on the plane?! If only my laptop weren't almost out of charge it would be perfect. Technology never fails to amaze me.

Speaking of technology, the past week in Alaska has left both Chris and I intrigued with regard to the Kindle, whether I could bare to give up spending hours in a book shop looking for what I want I'm not sure - that's half the fun of it right?! Although it would be useful what with moving a lot and the storing the number of books we've accumulated. Plus, it's a gadget which are always fun. And it saves the trees. But is this the beginning of the end for bookstores? Perhaps. That makes me sad.

Anyways, they're about to bring me a cookie so I shall sign off for now - at an altitude of 35,000 feet! Eesh that gives me the heebie jeebies.

Summer Vacation Part 1

Chris: The journey started at 4am on Monday. Our flight left DC at 8am and we landed in Seattle at 11am. After taking the light rail into downtown Seattle, we met up with Eli and Becca and spent the day with them. We saw the big touristy sights (Pike Place Market, Space Needle, original Starbucks) and had a great time there. For pictures, see facebook. We made our way back to the airport and took off for Alaska at 9pm.

At midnight, we arrived in Fairbanks and immediately headed for the midnight sun baseball game (we arrived on solstice). Tuesday was day of relaxing and a little orientation of Fairbanks. We had a big dinner with Missy, Kes, Patricia, Daniel and Charles and prepared for the upcoming adventure.

Emma: Wednesday morning was dedicated to preparation for our stay at the cabin, we packed bedding, baked corn bread, prepared sandwich fillings and generally organised ourselves. Or rather we were organised by Missy. After a brief stop at Fred's for essentials (s'more ingredients and the new Janet Evanovich book) we were on our way to Chena River Cabin where we arrived to news from the park rangers that there were lots of moose travelling through the area and whilst no bears had yet been sighted, there was plenty of bear poop around. The rangers had also told us that if we crossed the slew that was right near our cabin, we could easily get to the river. Deciding that it would be fun to take a quick look at the Chena we donned our shoes and headed to the slew.

2 hours later we returned with sodden shoes, scratched legs and muddy shorts. What we thought would be a 10 minute stroll had turned into a much longer (and far more fun) ramble up the road, through the slew, through the trees, through the river and through the river again. After a dinner of chili and an evening learning how to play rummy we retired to our bunks.

Next up was a day at Chena hot springs. 1/4 of a mile up the road from the cabin was our first moose sighting, a mummy (pictured above) and a calf in one of the ponds on the side of the road, of course on the day I forget my camera but Chris had his so we managed to get some shots of them. Wondering what it would be like to swim in natural spring water my thought was 'it'll probably be like swimming in a warm pool.' Wrong. The springs are called 'hot' for a reason. After 15 minutes of soaking we couldn't stand it any longer and had to get into one of the hot tubs to cool off. The rest of the day was long and sleepy although napping was out of the question when there was Eqyptian Rat Screw to be played.

This morning we woke up early (although I couldn't tell it was early as my phone was turned off to conserve battery and the sun was - as always - up and shining), packed up the cars and said goodbye to the cabin. Whilst it was sad to leave it was fantastic to get home to a shower and soft couch, and having seen 6 moose in total we decided it wasn't too shabby of a trip.

For more pictures see our facebook pages.

These little bits - Emma and Chris

In an attempt to keep a log of our adventures and ensure everyone remains informed of what we're up to, we have decided to start a blog.

As it stands right now, we will be traveling to the UK in late August to study in Swansea with a month or so for visiting and getting settled before university starts at the end of September. Still in the process of finding somewhere to live, but we're in contact with a few people and have the names and numbers of some landlords so have faith that everything will work out. Fingers crossed. Also still waiting to hear back from Swansea re the criminology courses that Chris has applied for, another reason to cross your fingers for us.

We hope that these things will have started to resolve themselves within the next couple of weeks before our vacation month begins. On June 21st, we are flying to Alaska. That trip includes a 10hr layover in Seattle in which we are taking the train into downtown Seattle for a few hours and hopefully seeing Eli and Becca there. Once in Alaska we will be spending our time with Missy, Kes, Patricia and Daniel. As to what we're actually doing there, I cannot say. We return from Alaska on the 29th. We have a couple days to unpack, wash clothes, repack and head out again. Early on the 2nd, we depart for Florida by car. We are there with Emma's family until the 17th when we drive to Texas to see Margaret. After a few days in Texas, we'll start the long drive back to Virginia and plan to be home on the 22nd or 23rd.

Once we get back it'll be a case of deciding what to pack and what to leave behind to either catch up with us when people come visiting or to await our return.

And now to venture outside into the beautiful sunny afternoon before babysitting this evening.