The First Full Week

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Geo: 51.3287, 1.41078

Well we have been here over a week. We are finding our way around thanks to our TomTom. Steve is a pro at driving on the wrong side of the road. I am going to try to keep some kind of flow with these entries but I am sure to go off on crazy tangents as we are discovering new and crazy things by the minute.

Turkey day was Thursday. Initially we invited Beth and a guest of her choosing. By Monday our numbers had grown to six including ourselves. We extended an invite to our British friend Phil who we met while out here for our pre-decision and we invited D'andre and Andrea, two fellow Pfizer ex-pats. After spending most of Monday morning on the phone getting all of the utilities in our name we headed out for an adventure. We stopped at the bank. We received our debit cards (chip and pin) quite quickly (the next day) but our PINs had not arrived. Then we went to two of three local butchers. We must find a fresh turkey for Thanksgiving. The first place was great. Your typical European butcher. Steve was in heaven. They were able to get us a turkey that we could pick up Wednesday. How exciting! From there we went to our hang out the Belgian Café for some internet time. We got our first parking ticket! This ain't no Ann Arbor $15 ticket... try £30!!! We won't do that again. From there to Tesco Extra, this huge grocery near Westwood. OK, so I could go on and on about how messed up the organization of this grocery was. We spent I don't know how long trying to find the most average things. Their choice of where to put things makes no sense. Sugar is not with the baking goods, it's with the coffee. Chicken stock is not with the soups it's somewhere else. Confusing. However, I will say that the prepared foods in this country are amazing. They had pre-cooked rice!! We picked up some prepared pastas that were yummy. I can see myself growing in size if I don't watch myself. We have also been to our local grocery, Waitrose, and I find that place much more enjoyable. From Tesco we popped into Argo's. Think Service Merchandise. A room full of catalogs, you write down the catalog numbers of what you want, pay and they bring it out. It is very inexpensive and they have EVERYTHING. We picked up a few things for the house and we bought another air mattress. Our friend Spike was coming in for a visit so we needed a place for him to crash.

The evenings are quite boring without TV or internet. We are trying to keep ourselves busy by playing solitaire and spider (a more difficult version of solitaire) on the computer.

Spike arrived on Tuesday. We picked him up from the Ramsgate train station. It was nice to see a familiar face. His band, SSM, is touring Europe for a month. Talk about great timing. We went up to the Belgian Café and had dinner and drinks then back here for more drinks. It was a great time. The next day we received a call from his driver who was stuck in traffic asking us to bring Spike down to Dover so they could catch the ferry over to the mainland. It was nice to get out for a drive. Dover is about 30 minutes south. Once he was on his way we spent most of the day prepping for Thanksgiving.

We did drive to Chatham (almost London) to look at a car Wednesday night. Every day is costing us more money with this rental. We had found this car on Gumtree, a website much like Craigslist at home. The car is a Toyota Yaris Verso. Small and economical yet roomy enough to have passengers and luggage. The thing is so ugly it's kind of cute. Anyway, we liked the car so we left a deposit. We joined AA here, like AAA at home. They have a service where you can pay an objective mechanic from AA to inspect the car before buying it. Excellent. So Tuesday next week we have to drive back out to Chatham for the inspection. If all goes well we will be driving back in our car.

Turkey Day! Beth and D'andre took the Pfizer bus to my stop (Ramsgate Hospital). I walked over and picked them up. Andrea took the train so Steve and D'andre picked her up from the train station. Phil arrived later. We had snackies while Beth and Steve rocked Guitar Hero. For dinner we had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberries, corn, beans and then two pies: pecan and pumpkin. The turkey was no Butterball... it still had part of the scaly legs attached, it had more fat (according to Steve, I never touched the thing) and there were still quills in the skin. It was delicious. The whole meal was great.

Friday was internet day. Our internet equipment was due to arrive and we had to be here to receive it. The day was beautiful, sunny and a bit warmer. I did a bit of cleaning and then decided to go out on walkabout. Time to get to know what is around us. Before I left Steve received his internet stuff so he stayed home to set things up. Only to find out it could take up to 8 hours before it was active... customer service!!! I walked around the block to a great park and boardwalk along the cliffs. Then I went down toward town and into the pedestrian area. I had forgotten that on Friday and Saturday the street vendors come out. Meats, produce, seafood, clothes, plants and flowers. I caved and bought my first plant, a little orchid, let the games begin! Upon my return Steve had internet. YEAH!! No more boring solitaire and spider. Soon enough (tomorrow hopefully) we will have a WiFi phone that we can call the US for 1.25p per minute (that's £0.0125). Steve has spent about 2 hours on the phone to BT to find out that the phone takes 7 days to be connected. BT is a nightmare. We should have known when Locate offered to help us deal with them. Last night we went to see Neville Staple from the Specials. He was playing at the Sugar Lounge in Margate (due north of us in Thanet). Phil told us that the Sugar Lounge was a dump. I figured if we could manage a show at Harpo's in Detroit we could handle a dump in Margate. The show was great. Neville played all the great Specials tunes. See Steve's YouTube page for a sampling: http://youtube.com/user/sgskinny

Today we are vegging. Spending quality time with the internet and watching US TV via Sage TV. Many thanks again go out to Bradly. He has a computer set up at his house that is connected to good ole American cable. We are able to watch live TV streaming or set up Sage TV to tape any program we choose. Fabulous. We are currently watching the Today show, granted it is 1:30pm here. Yeah, TV!!!

Now for some local info. Over the past week or so we have discovered some interesting bits about our surroundings that I thought I would share.

Our House: The house is great. It's quite empty but really nice. Our landlords live behind us in what I guess would be the main house. They used to live here but her Mother is getting old and has a hard time taking care of the big house. They are both very nice. He (Ken, her name is Debbie) did most of the work converting these buildings in homes. Apparently this used to be the stable with a grain store above. The heat is a bit confusing. We have hot water radiant heat... ya know with the big radiators. Well, it is not controlled by a thermostat, it is on a timer. So you can program when you want the furnace to go on and off but it is by time. You can adjust the temperature by turning the dials on the individual radiators. So the temperature kind of fluctuates. Locate said just leave it on all the time but this does not seem economical to us. The furnace would run constantly. Slowly we are adjusting the timing and leveling out the temp. We will probably have it sorted out in time for summer! Also, there are no plugs in the bathrooms. Apparently they don't trust GFI plugs. So you have to do your hair, trim beards, etc. in the bedroom. Strange. Our sea shipment is expected to arrive in London on Dec. 1st. Not soon enough. I miss my couch! Our yard is very nice. We have a small garden room on the back of the garage. It comes equipped with electric mower, garden tools and flower pots. There is a real well in the yard. Ken says it works he just needs to replace a gasket or something. Our garage is skinny but big enough to fit what we want to fit; car, scooter, etc. We have an electric opener but we must be careful to only use it when we know no one is walking by. Don't want to decapitate anyone.

Local Wildlife: So we have been warned by Ken and Debbie that foxes may get into the garbage. Foxes! We have yet to see any but D'andre and Angela have seen them in Canterbury. We also have lots of birds. Seagulls of course, being close to the water. Whenever I hear them all I can thing of is Finding Nemo, "mine, mine, mine". We also have the strangest thing... parrots!! This isn't Spain. Parrots in the UK!!! I did a search and found this article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3869815.stm). The funny thing is they look like Ringnecks. This is a cousin to Screech, Steve and I's crazy bird we used to have. I can't wait to put feeders out!! I have also seen several other types of birds I cannot identify. Need a book... Oh, and we have a few cats that turn up in our yard occasionally.

The Weather: Now this is a topic that is mystifying. We have seen the clouds moving in every possible direction since we arrived. North to south, south to north, east to west, west to east. Friday was beautiful. Blue skies and very few clouds. I was standing out on our patio and it suddenly started to rain. I looked up and there was blue sky. Where was the rain coming from? I have no idea. It really was the strangest thing. I thought Michigan weather was crazy. This stuff is well, mystifying. The averages for Ramsgate are as follows: July/August are warmest with highs about 70°F, January/February are coldest with highs in the low 40's and it barely hits freezing at night. The rainiest months are October/November. In the winter (now) the sun rises at about 7:30am and sets about 4:00pm... argh! But the in the summer the sun rises at about 4:30am (!!!) and sets at about 9:30pm.

Parking: Ok so when Steve and I first went to Rome we were amazed at how the residents tended to park wherever they pleased. They even parked in the middle of intersections. It is not that bad here however these people park wherever they want. They block roads, sidewalks, other cars. Some of the streets are so narrow that one car can barely fit then you have two cars parked opposite one another. Truly amazing. I am so happy we have a garage.

Ok. I think I am done. More next week. Love to all. Missing my tiny dog.

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Photos

May I stroke your pig?
Makes us think of the Graham's and The Dude.

Thanksgiving Group
Back row, left to right: Angela, Beth, Kim. Front row, left to right: Phil, D'andre, Steve

Park along cliffs.
For kite flying and dog running!

Beach at base of cliffs.
Doggy friendly!

High St. Ramsgate
Those are Christmas lights above.