July 27, 2003

Well, it certainly has been an event filled month since we last updated you. Lots to catch up on, so here goes. The fun began on Thursday, 26 June when Tom and I headed off towards London to spend the day at Wimbledon. There is a lottery system here to get tickets and we applied for them last November. We got lucky, and ended up with seats on Court 1 for day 4 of the competition. Tickets with assigned seats are needed for the bigger courts: Centre Court, Court 1, and Court 2. The rest of the courts (16 of them) are open to the public, assuming they can get in. There's a big queueing system where once all the tickets are sold you can wait in line and when someone leaves, if they donate their ticket, you can buy it for cheap. Somehow it raises money for charity. The smaller courts are amazingly small - I mean, you are sitting right there, courtside. Unbelievably close. And they have a big (huge) screen outside Court 1 where they show the games being played on Centre Court (so while we were watching our games we could here the crowds cheer every time Tim Henman did something good). The lawn was packed.

The occasional webcam

The atmosphere there was very civilized, very British. It was a gorgeous day, and people really were drinking champagne or Pimms and eating strawberries and cream. I might have gotten a Pimms if I'd known what it was. I did go for the strawberries.

Anyway, despite being in the 2nd to last row, our seats weren't that far away. We were at the long end of the court (behind a player) but had a great view. And we were covered - which meant that despite the glorious weather, we were actually cold at times. Oh well. So who did we see? Well, first we saw Nalbandian beat Sa. Than we got to see Agassi (whom I would have liked to see win the whole thing) beat Burgsmuller. Andre got a standing ovation when it was all over. Seems like he's been around forever-I can't believe he's only 33. After that match, we saw Serena Williams beat Callens (who held her own for a long time). And finally, at the last minute, they scheduled the Williams sisters' double match against Morariu and Stubbs on our court too. We only stayed for the first set, but the Williams sisters did end up winning that match. Pretty amazing. The only other person playing that day that I would have liked to have seen was Jennifer Capriati. The Brits were all over Tim Henman and we were rooting for him too because he's from Oxfordshire. While he won that day, he didn't go all the way.

Click on a photo to see the big version
Wimbledon ticket	Today at Wimbledon	Agassi serving	Agassi again
Watching the action on centre court on TV	One of the other courts, up close	Action on court 19	Strawberries and cream (I preferred yoghurt) at Wimbledon. Not fine china but still good!
	Serena in action	Williams sisters in action

At the end of the day, we headed off to an airport hotel as we had a very early flight the next day to Barcelona! We went for four days to meet up with Tom's brother Peter and his girlfriend Shelley and her son Laiken. Barcelona was different than any of the other cities we've been to so far. It's a big city with wide streets, beautiful architecture and a vitality that seems to run through it. Wide streets with pedestrian ways down the middle of them and intersections where the corner buildings all have flat faces that face into the intersection making them seem bigger. They eat lunch at 2pm (we'd wait in line for half an hour at that time) - during the afternoon siesta when all the stores shut down and then have dinner around 9:30 - 10pm. Bedtime? Don't really know what their bedtime is because we were never up that late.

Barcelona is also very pretty. It's a coastal city with a very large shipping port, beaches, waterfront stores and restaurants on one side and lovely mountains on another. It's beautiful everywhere you look.

It has a lot of architecture by Gaudi, which is really interesting to look at. Not a straight line anywhere to be found. People say you love it or you hate it. Among the Gaudi sites we saw were the Parc Guell - a Gaudi-designed park that was meant to become a place for rich people to build homes (it never took off). It's incredibly cool and one of my favorate places in Barcelona. It's on a hill side but it's easy to get around (no really steep steps) and there are sunny places, shady places, places you can be if it rains, funky Gaudi tile seats and structures (mosaics everywhere), stone seats…a little bit of everything. Except for all the tourists, it 's a great place just to hang out and read or something. Also, we toured the famous Sagrada Familia - a humongous cathedral started in the late 1800's and still being built - it'll probably take another 25 years anyway. Hopefully we can get back there to see when the inside is more complete. It's truly an amazing stucture. Unbelievable architecture - you can see some of it in the pics below. And finally, we went to Le Pedrera. An apartment building Gaudi built that is basically round with a garden in the middle. The apartments would take up a floor and would have windows on both sides and balconies. Very high ceilings and not a square room in the place. Really interesting and posh. We could easily have lived in one.

Click on a photo to see the big version (more pics below)
Buildings in Barcelona- notice how they have flat faces onto the intersection	More architecture	Peter, Laiken and Shelley in front of the gothic cathedral	At the Miro museum	Gaudi tower at Guell Park
Tom and Toby at Guell Park on a tile bench	A roof tile at Guell Park	Peter and Tom at the famous Gaudi lizard	La Pedrera another Gaudi building	Rooftop of La Pedrera
	Guadi streetlight with bench in Barcelona	Barcelona waterfront	Cured meats in the shop

We also went to a few museums: Picasso - interesting to see a lot of his earlier work which was more conventional and very good. Miro - his earlier stuff, like Picasso's, was more conventional and also very good - then he got weird. I didn't like / get a lot of his stuff but the later shape stuff is at least colorful and pretty. And Kandinsky (a temporary exhibit in the bottom floor of Gaudi's La Pedrera) - which I liked more of than Miro.

Other happenings included a lot of walking - down La Rambla (a main street leading down to the waterfront that has a big pedestrian way down the middle with street performers, and vendors), around the old gothic part of the city, along the waterfront…, taking a cable car ride up to Mont Juic, (site of an old castle/prison now a military museum), a two hour bus ride around the city so we could see more of the parts we missed (it's a big city), and chancing upon a folk music concert (competition?) of some sort on the waterfront. It was particularly cool for me since the performance we saw was what must have been a medley of old folk songs - including two I remembered from my junior high school Spanish days! Even better was the jazz bar we went to and heard some flamenco/fusion jazz. Very cool - I even bought the CD from the band!

We had the misfortune to be there during a Harley Davidson convention of some sort (even the Rolling Stones and Chrissy Hynde were there to perform) which mostly meant lots of leather and LOTS of noise (until all hours of the night). A friendly crowd, just very noisy. It was also about 95ºF and humid every day. It was so hot, we had to buy standing fans for our un-air conditioned hotel rooms. Man, they made all the difference. Our hotel was right on one of the main streets and had a balcony overlooking it. Nice hotel - inexpensive, clean, well-situated. The street had a big pedestrian median strip down the middle where we would sit every morning and eat breakfast.

It was great to see Peter and Shelley and Laiken (who skateboarded everywhere!) and to have traveling companions for a change. We took it easy but managed to see everything we wanted to. And, having Shelley there, who speaks fluent Spanish, was a big plus. I'm sure we would have gotten by, but having a native speaker makes a big difference.

Click on a photo to see the big version
Our street in Barcelona	National Palace	War and art atop Montjuic	Christopher Columbus pointing the way...	Casa Batllo (Gaudi)
Laiken and Shelley	Sagrada Familia from above	Looking out over Barcelona	Looking to the Sagrada Familia	Sagrada Familia
	Sagrada Familia	One facade closeup	Inside - under construction
	Another facade	That facade up close	More construction up high

A few days after our return from Barcelona, Tom headed off to the States for 2.5 weeks - some of you were lucky enough to have spent some time with him. I did manage to have some fun while he was gone, but I was very glad to have him come home.

One July 3rd, the day after Tom left, I went to the Newbury Racecourse with the sports and social club at work. The racetrack is about half an hour from work and about 20 of us went. From Finance, it was Jackie, Sue, Gail and me - see the photo. We had dinner in one of the halls and got to watch 7 races. The first race was a purebred Arabian race. I bet on the only American horse in the race who I think came in last. Nice way to start. Guilded Flyer, Bukit Fraser, Desert Opal and Look Here Now all won me some money, but I think I ended up down £8.50 for the night. Not too bad for a good amount of fun. With a minimum bet of £2, I couldn't do too much damage. The real exciting moment was when one of the horses didn't want to enter the gate so he lost his jockey and started running around loose in the middle of the track. He knocked down a fence before they could catch him. Great evening weather-wise too. I'm hoping to go back with Tom at some point.

Click on a photo to see the big version
A clubhouse at the racetrack	This horse didn't win :(	Runaway horse!	Looking out at the track
Race going by	Flying by, in a blur...	Toby, Jackie, Sue and Gail	Racetrack panorama (big)

On July 4th, I arrived at work to a decorated desk! There were red, white and blue balloons, flag streamer things, jelly beans, a laminated sign that said "Proud to be an American" and a fireworks display on my computer. Told you it was a great group of people I worked with. Plus, we had a bbq in the courtyard for lunch! All right, it wasn't strictly in honour of Independence Day (it was because we were updating our accounting software over the weekend and they had to shut it down at 11:00 on Friday), but they did hang out the red, white and blue streamers! And I brought American style hot dogs and watermelon. Interestingly, the thought of watermelon at a picnic was odd to the Brits. It wasn't like the 4th of July in Boston, but it meant a lot to me. Click the picture on the right to see my desk!

That night, I went to another bbq at Autumn and Trevor's. (Trevor being one of Sharon's best friends and Autumn being the American who came over and fell in love and now going to marry him next year! Autumn also worked at Akzo for a month when she first arrived so I know her pretty well.) It was great - the house had little flags everywhere (really, everywhere) and Autumn made little goody bags for us with American stuff in 'em like Reeses Cups, Peppermint Patties, Butterfingers, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (!), Fluff, etc… Very thoughtful. She's in the US Navy so she can get all sorts of US things here … For US prices! All sorts of American food and snacks were had while Jimmy Buffett played on the stereo. Even had a Duncan Hines cup cake. Yum. They had a revolutionary war chess board set up with most of the red coats fallen over. Pretty funny. It was really a good time - wish Tom could have been there.

Back to a normal week of work with our new SAP system - which went pretty smoothly - and then, the highlight of my 2.5 weeks without Tom. Sharon and Alex and Autumn and I took off Friday afternoon for a spa weekend. The plan was, the girls would go to the spa while the boys went sailing. Unfortunately, Tom's trip to CA came up after we had booked everything so he couldn't go sailing.

As for the spa, well if you are jealous of our lives already, I'll just tell you that there were flies in the building, duck poop in the gardens, somebody threw up in the Jacuzzi and the beds weren't that comfortable. Now skip to Tom's section on his trip home.

For the rest of you…the spa. Ohmygod. Talk about relaxation and self indulgence. I felt like a millionaire with time on my hands. I even felt like a girly girl. The health farm (as they call them here) was called Henlow Grange and is slightly north of London in Berkshire. It's a beautiful old building (recently renovated after a fire) in a gorgeous setting. There are treatments (facials, manicures, massages, body wraps, etc..), aerobics classes, a gym, a pool, a sauna and a steam room, lovely gardens by a river, a little waterfall, tennis courts, ducks all over (not shy ones either!), general pampering, etc… and you can do whatever you want. Plus they have baskets out everywhere with what Autumn called Snow White apples. Frankly, I didn't much care for them but they did look perfect.

Our package came with a one hour combo full body massage / facial and (for me) a back perfector (like a facial for your back). Heaven. Since I saw this as a once in a lifetime type thing, I figured I was going to enjoy it. So I splurged on three extra treatments: a wax bath (very warm, but way cool), a fruit and salt body scrub and wrap and detoxification (more heaven), and a detoxification floatation (even more heaven and probably the best massage). I had more scrubs and oils and lotions rubbed on me in two days…...and boy did I come home soft and smooth and silky. To no one, by the way, as Tom was still in CA for another week. The others got manicured and pedicured and Sharon and Alex got their eye lashes tinted whch made Autumn and I sorry we hadn't done it. It looked great. Maybe next time....

The treatment center was actually pretty funny. It's basically a big waiting room where everyone comes to get picked up for their treatment. So every ½ hour, the place was full of women in their bathrobes waiting for their name to be called. And then, women in white, nurse-like dresses (there were a few masseurs too) would come and stand at an entrance and call their next client's name. Within 5 minutes the place was empty again. It was really a funny thing to watch. Reminded me of the movie Defending Your Life, if you've seen it…

I also did a pilates class (much different than I thought it would be), a stretch and tone class (very much like yoga), and an All That Dance aerobics class where we did a routine to Saturday Night Fever. Silly, but fun.

It was a very relaxing, wonderful 2 days with some really nice people. The four of us had a great time and are trying to figure out when we can go back. My 40th? Autumn's hen do? (She's marrying Trevor next July.) Already saving those pences! It is truly an extravagance but sooo worth it.

(Tom) I left for the US on Wednesday, starting with a 3.5-day stop in Boston and surrounds. Got in a quick visit with the Littons, Rich, ESRI-Boston and Elon and Anna (and family) and then down to Plymouth to see my parents for 2 days. It was July 4th and as tradition would dictate, our family friend Marty was there. We spent some time fishing and hanging out and doing chores. Marty caught a humongous bass (at least it was humongous for our pond) - a picture on the right (click on it) - taken right before he let it go. Got to see Marty's family too - good to see Ruth and Cary and meet Samantha (age 16 months).

Onto California for me for the annual ESRI User Conference. This year there were about 11,000 people - that's big!! It was a good conference and I got to see old friends and colleagues and learn new stuff too. A quick weekend with the Weimans (north of L.A.) followed - fun to catch up with them - it's like I never left! They seem well and enjoying CA life. Perhaps you saw them on TV in 'Trading Places'? They and a neighbor each decorated a room in the other's house - pics of their before-and-after kitchen here. And finally, a week in Redlands at ESRI for a training course in the latest-and-greatest stuff.

I took advantage of being in the US and bought a few clothes - shirts, shoes, sandals, pants - all cheaper and easy to find. Not that I can't find stuff here, it's just more familiar there somehow. Toby keeps saying she would kill for a day in Filene's; well, I got that on my trip. (Tom likes to talk about all the things he bought just to make me jealous!)

I've now been back a week and I am just getting over the 8-hour time difference. Tougher than I thought.

Up and coming: Ginger comes for visit and Toby's new employee, Fiona, returns to work (we hope!).

Bits & Bobs:

• I saw an Acland Hospital ad in the Oxford paper advertising a summer sale. And I quote: "For patients who do not have medical insurance and want an operation, we're offering a 15% discount on our Fixed Price packages, which includes hospital charges, surgeon and anaesthetist fees. And for operations that do not fall under the Fixed Price Direct remit, we're offering a 15% discount off hospital costs." I don't know. Just seemed like a funny concept to me.
• Circumcision - not the norm here. (I just know, all right!)
• When doing the washing up, people here will wash their dishes and put them in the drying rack without necessarily giving them a good rinse. I.e., there could be soap still on them. "It drains off." Well, maybe. But I'm not a big fan of eating soap residue. Are you?
• They actually say "shed loads" here. I never realized that was a real expression - I always figured there was only the more vulgar version.
• Another bad tie - yes, it's the same guy, but we're still awed by his choice (and the fact that they let him go on t.v. like that).Click here or the picture.
• Sent Tom shopping this morning and he came home with a bottle of gin and some tonic water. (That's why I send him;-) Anyway, the bottle was labelled Indian Tonic Water, as opposed to just Tonic Water. Seems they all were. Same stuff, different name.

And there you have it for this report.

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