Good things about England v2

Following up on the previous post of good things about England (buskers) I bring you the latest installment: the British weather. I love the British weather. I know, it’s normally not something that gets complimented about this country. But let me try to explain. When I lived in the US, both in Minnesota and Virginia, I had to check the weather forecasts all the time. Daily. I had weather.com bookmarked, and I don’t have weather.co.uk bookmarked here. Why? I just don’t need to. It is relatively mild here year-round, and the daily changes don’t require nearly as much planning as the 20-30 degree swings I’m used to experiencing. I notice that it starts to get gradually colder as fall proceeds, but I don’t find myself in a dire situation if I haven’t been memorizing the five day forecast. I do try to keep an umbrella in my bag at all times for the infamous English rain, but I don’t otherwise think much about the weather. It’s one thing I can count on. And when it does get ‘cold’ here, it doesn’t get Minnesota cold. And with the rare exception (which this summer I missed, as I was in Singapore in the one week it was hot in England) it does not get Virginia hot here either. Overall it stays relatively mild and unchangeable. Which leads me to wonder, as ever, why the Brits are infamous for talking about the weather–talking about something that is reasonably uneventful and not worthy of the extra words. Kate Fox claims it’s just the universal ice-breaker here, but I can imagine better ones. Regardless, the weather is definitely one of my favorite things about my adopted country.

I need a costume for Hallowe’en

I have the most random of Hallowe’en plans, which is that I’m going to a party at the Australian embassy in Paris. Yep. That’s me; Ms. International. But it’s going to be hard to top the costumed performance of my sister last weekend. She lives in China, as some of you may know, and she has a bit of a ‘Mando-pop’ obsession. As do I, now that she’s been feeding me things to listen to. I love music that’s good no matter what the genre, and some Mando-pop certainly qualifies (Leehom anyone?)

Over the weekend, my dear sis went to a concert for the band ‘Sodagreen’ in Shanghai and apparently managed to attract more than just a bit of attention.

Sodagreen:

Now I can highly recommend Sodagreen as a band, as silly as the name sounds, it’s some of the most innovative music I’ve heard in a while–combining pop music with classical themes, and I’m hooked. Yes, I’m hooked on Chinese pop music. Welcome to expat life. It’s a bit random and global. But you can see the whole lime green hair thing. So then we have my sister at the concert:

These images were taken from a Chinese chat website or similar, where apparently my sister had become famous for wandering around Shanghai as an Anglo wearing a lime green wig. She tells me the comments are on the order of, “I spotted her on the subway” and she also appeared on the jumbo-tron during the bid for an encore, so clearly she became a ‘15 minutes of fame’ local celebrity in Shanghai. The full concert story is archived on a blog from her friend here, along with this photo:

Now two things are true. I have never been as creative as my sis, and I absolutely adore that she was wandering around Shanghai in this wig. And using it as part of a greater plan to be the lead singer of Sodagreen for Halloween. Second thing, I still don’t have a costume for Hallowe’en and I need help, being not as creative as my sis I’m a bit baffled at the moment.

Oh and maybe a third thing, I can’t wait until spring break when I’m going to China to see my sister’s life in person! Planning must commence immediately…

Time/Fall Back

UK daylight savings time (a.k.a. British Summer Time) ends this weekend, and I’m delighted. Why? Well, I love an extra hour. I could use one more often. “Fall Back” time has always been a happy time for me. But never so much as when I moved abroad. The first thing that is immediately noticeable is that the US does not switch at the same time, so there is a magical week of decreased time differences: 4 hours to the east coast instead of 5. Five to Minneapolis instead of 6. I love this. We get a few magical weeks each year in the spring and in the fall when this happens. I wish we could maintain the shorter time difference always, and I panic at the thought of the proposals to equalize the UK with European time and permanently move forward an hour, thus increasing the difference to 6 hours UK-east coast. Hopefully the UK-France animosity will prevent such an equalization and the Eurosceptics will prevail in this one small thing.

But this line of argument reflects the overall expat existence in some ways. I don’t live in British time. I live in some strange mid-Atlantic time-zone between here and there. The east coast is normally 5 hours, from me, the midwest 6, my colleagues in Colorado 7. I don’t seem to have many working relationships at 8 hours away in California, but I know it’s there. In general, these time differences are an automatic subtraction when I look at my watch and think about who I need to talk to and what I need to say. Fortunately I have a relatively flexible job in terms of the timing, and as a result I don’t normally book appointments before 10 am. And I often don’t “down tools” until 8 or 10 pm. I don’t religiously work a New York day, but I’m definitely closer to that than to a typical working day for those around me in the UK (although thank goodness 8 am starts are not the norm here, in that I do NOT miss Minnesota!)

That said, I have the intrinsic tendency to be slightly nocturnal, and sometimes this does not help. The time zone shift provides me an excuse for not integrating into UK time as well as I should. When I have to do something at 8:30 am (as early as I’ve been asked to do when not travelling) I’m pissy and resentful, because you can bet I was not in bed before 1 am (8 pm on the east coast!) It’s a delicate balance. And I’m eager to hear from readers–on both sides of the pond–how they accommodate this moderate but not insignificant time difference. Is it a help or a hindrance? Is it better to be in China (as my sister is) and be completely shifted in the US, or is it good to have this evening window both in the US and UK where people can overlap in timing, as long as the US person gets home from work early and the UK person manages to stay awake late?

Expat Haircut Surprise!

First of all, if you live in the UK may I highly recommend the online booking facility available for Toni and Guy and Essensuals salons? This is so cool. You have to have been at the salon and be “in their system” to get registered, but then you can book haircuts online (and thus avoid the inevitable difficulties associated with accents and telephone calls… or is that just me?) So I did this and had my haircut today. Chopped. Hacked back to a chin-length bob from half-way down my back. I was tired of it taking so long to dry. My instructions to the lovely gentleman who cut my hair was to only leave it long enough to get the top half into a ponytail for the gym. Else it was going to have to go, and go it did. I left piles of hair on the floor of my local Essensuals, hooray!

So expat awesome surprise number one was that my randomly-selected hairdresser (that is, the one who was available for a cut after noon on a Saturday!) was an expat, he was from Vancouver. So North American bonding a-plenty. For once I actually enjoyed chatting while my hairs were falling to the ground; there was none of the stilted small-talk that I’ve experienced with the British girls who have cut my hair. And I suspect it’s both things–with one really important exception (Estetica in St. Paul, Minnesota) my best haircutters have always been men. And yes, nearly all of them were gay. And that brings us to expat awesome surprise number two; when chatting with the lovely Canuck about long term plans, he said “Well my husband is British so I’m here for the long haul” and I remembered “Woo-hoo, I live in a country where a gay man can say that!” Yesssssssss. Good things about England indeed. OK, fine, technically it’s civil partnerships but still…

Given this awesome experience (not to mention a pretty good haircut) I followed my lovely readers’ advice and left a generous (a.k.a. American-style) tip. Although the link URL reminds me why I needed a haircut so badly… has it really been seven months since I’ve had my locks shorn? No wonder I was looking such a right mess. Oh well, I’m sure now with the ability to book a haircut online, I’m actually more likely to go back. And look for my good Canadian friend.

There are no bumper stickers here and I just noticed

I have now passed my expativersary and thus have lived here more than three years. I do not own a car and I walk to work, to the gym, to the store, anyplace I need to go within my town. But somehow it had completely escaped my notice that the cars in England aren’t likely to have bumper stickers whereas many cars in America do. I certainly noticed lots of bumper stickers on my drive down towards the beach and back in August. And many of them were political, religious, or both. It was interesting at the time because I had forgotten that aspect of American culture–the proudly displaying one’s views on abortion on the back of one’s vehicle. And it took several weeks back in the UK for it to dawn on me that I don’t remember ever having seen a bumper sticker here. Or car art of any sort. No University stickers in the rear window, none of those silhouettes of barbie-figured girls on the back of trucks. Certainly no “OBX” stickers, which were on most cars heading in that direction. So clearly this is just something that has not caught on in the UK, the sticky things must not be available for sale the way they are in the US, with the end result that I spend very little time in the UK reading someone’s unsolicited views about abortion while stuck in traffic. And I have absolutely no clue if your kid made the junior high honor roll.

Coffee

Apparently, and I say apparently because I have no personal knowledge, Starbucks is marketing a new instant coffee called “Via” which is, clearly to those of us living in the UK, pure evil. Instant coffee = not an excuse for real coffee. Stop now. England is already full of people who do not know the taste of real coffee or the difference between real coffee and instant, so we do not need to play this game. Coffee? Yes, I’m a coffee nut and I’ll have a real coffee every time.

Flashback

I just returned from my local grocery store on one of those glamorous Tuesday night missions. The person in front of me in line at the grocery store had an assembly of items that looked remarkably familiar: a single white plate, a single white bowl, some pasta, some pre-made heat-and-eat pasta sauce. It was like looking at myself… three years ago this week. On the 8th of October, 2006, I got on the plane from Minnesota to (horror of horrors) Gatwick airport with two suitcases and a small carry-on bag. I arrived in the UK on the 9th of October. I struggled to get from Gatwick to my town, unaware at the time of the beauty of the car service that now lugs me back and forth to Heathrow whenever I need to travel. I stopped into my new workplace briefly, then went (with suitcases) out to my temporary furnished flat to pick up the keys. By this point it was nearing dinner time, and my suitcases contained things like bedding and clothes but no food or cooking items, and although my flat was furnished with furniture, it was not in possession of a fully-equipped kitchen. So back to the town center, to my (now) local grocery store, for some rudimentary food and the exact same single plate and bowl, along with some cheap cutlery and a coffee mug. I’m guessing I bought instant coffee at that time, since I had no other choice, and a cheap electric kettle (that I still have to this day). It was about four months before I was in my current flat, surrounded by boxes and furniture that was shipped over from the US.

In some ways, those were halcyon days. I had a shower. I had very little in the way of “stuff”. In the months after arriving, but before the arrival of my American stuff, I accumulated more things: a single non-stick pot, a square baking dish, a loaf pan for bread, a plastic bowl and some measuring cups. I started to discover the local clothes shoppes and equipped myself with work clothes to supplement the few things that had accompanied me on my journey over. My flat was not exactly right by the grocery store, so I learned to shop nearly daily–a practice that I have maintained, thanks to life with a tiny dorm fridge. Perhaps that is not so bad.

I had not thought in a while about my early days here, not until I saw the woman–who could have been me three years ago–with her single plate and bowl. For four months, that was all I had–there were no dishes to accumulate and things had to be cleaned every day in order to eat again. And yes, it does make me look around at my small but stocked kitchen–the kitchen with a potato ricer that allows me to make gnocchi, the new flatware from last year’s “expat-iversary”, the Nespresso machine that makes coffee much better than the instant I suffered on early arrival. Suddenly it all starts to look like a pretty good life–albeit a little cluttered. So this weekend, for my expat-iversary round three, I will be purging. I will be trying to get back to my early, halcyon days in England when there was just not as much stuff in my local environment.

Second time is the charm…

Twice in the last two weeks I’ve had a recipe disaster convert to a recipe result by trying it a second time. The first was crab cakes; the first time I tried to make them I followed the recipe advice to fry them, but the second time I baked them and they were awesome instead of a disaster. I highly recommend baked crab cakes, the ingredients stood out well and the method was much simpler.

The second time I needed a re-do was more critical, I have long been obsessed with potato gnocchi. I had some in San Francisco when I was at a conference many years ago; they were so good they ruined me from appreciating other attempts. The risk is that one is too “noodle-y” and the gnocchi are tough and thick noodle-like morsels instead of soft, spongey pillows of goodness. I have tried many times over the years since 2002 when I sampled potato gnocchi brilliance in San Francisco. I have always erred on the side of being too noodle-y and have made a “dough” that looked like a home-made noodle dough; I have a pasta attachment on my Kitchenaid and have used it. But it did not result in good gnocchi.

So today I did the most amazing thing, I actually followed a recipe. I’m convinced now that any time that flour is involved, the quantities are crucial. My early attempts at home-made bread definitely involved too much flour and resulted in dense bread that was not like the modern ciabatta or any other modern bread. I’ve learned my lesson there. Similarly, the proportions associated with potato gnocchi are critical. A pound of mashed up potatoes (I used riced) to a single egg and a single cup of flour does it. The dough is like pie crust, it does not seem to be a dough proper but it works. Letting the dough rest is crucial. The results were delicious and totally worth the effort.

The sauce is a combination of a store-bought pesto with some cream and a bit of parmesan cheese.

Social Media and the Expat Life

I had a visitor over the summer, right before I left for America, with whom I had a lovely walk in the sunshine and a nice dinner before he succumbed to jetlag and went to bed early, leaving me to pack for my trip. We had an interesting discussion about expat life and the role of social media. I should preface this by saying that he’s an expat several times over, living now in a third country (and continent) from the one in which he was born and another in which he has lived. When it comes to social media and friends “in the computer” I’m a fan, he was not. I rely on my facebook and twitter peeps and bloggy friends to provide me with some structure. Although, as he noted, if the people are all in the computer, are they real people? Do you end up feeling MORE lonely instead of LESS since you don’t have the human connection that comes with “real” people in your life?

It was an interesting question, and one that I have pondered on more than one occasion since that discussion. Do I think of myself as lonely? I obviously have plenty of time to myself, and spend a great deal of that time sitting in front of the computer communicating with strangers. But I’m ready with my rebuttal now, a few months after the fact. Because the people stuck in my computer have, on more than one occasion, transmogrified into real people. In the last six months or so, I have met up with Kat from 3bedroombungalow, Mike from Postcards from Across the Pond (and Pond Parleys) and, most recently, Michelloui from Mid-Atlantic English. All American expats, all living here in the UK, all blogging about our collective experiences. And people who I can now consider friends “in real life” because they have crawled out of the computer and into the restaurants in my neighborhood. Pretty cool, that. So I will keep justifying my hours spent on social media, and thank my lucky stars for the fantastic friends I’ve met through this computer screen.

Ordinary world?

Came in from a rainy Thursday
On the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly

I turned on the lights, the TV
And the radio
Still I can’t escape the ghost of you

What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some are saying
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away

But I won’t cry for yesterday
There’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

We all have them, ghosts in our past.  And no matter how things have changed, how we all move on, it’s hard not to stop and have a good cry for the past when big things change, even if you’re not really actually sad about the end result and you definitely don’t wish for any other outcome.  So tonight, conveniently Friday night, I will raise a glass to my ex-husband and his new wife.  Cheers.