I'm learning to knit...

and Scooter found a use for my first attempt...A nose warmer. (For those cold 4am study sessions he says.)

My Canadian friend Sarah is teaching me to knit. She is really good - the project she is working on that she brought to my house looked amazingly complicated. A hat was growing off of three knitting needles that formed a circle. She showed me how to do it and then sat patiently next to me. I would take me three tries and about 10 minutes to finish one row. She on the other hand could knit without looking at her needles, and she made an entire perfect washcloth in 30 minutes. I have a long way to go...

Phobias

Scooter and I found a great website the other day. It has a list of just about every phobia you could have. We found my dad's: selachophobia - fear of sharks. We were searching for Scooter's and while we looking for it he was hoping aloud that it would be a strange word. Well, he got his wish... kakorrhaphiophobia - fear of failure or defeat. He was THRILLED to find out that it was a strange word and celebrated for a few minutes - he even turned it into a song, which, luckily, he has finally stopped singing. We are still looking for mine - fear of awkward situations. Anyone else find theirs on the list? Please share!

Blonde Again! (Finally!)

So, I debated putting this picture online voluntarily, but I thought it would be of interest to my sisters.
Here is the before photo:
(gross huh?)






















Here is the after photo:



















I waited for such a long time because I couldn't bring myself to pay 100 pounds ($142) just to get my hair highlighted - not cut or anything, just colored! My sweet husband did some more research for me and found a nice salon that has apprentices. The apprentices take clients on Mondays and only charge half price so I got half a day off work, and went. The girl was really nervous and it took over four hours, but the girl was so sweet. I'm just so happy to be blonde again!

Happy Birthday Mum!

Happy birthday to the best and most beautiful mom (or should I say "mum"?) in the world! I should be giving her a great birthday present, but she is giving me one instead. She will be here for a visit in 7 days, 21 hours, and 43 minutes! I can hardly wait!

We are so weird...

As the activity part of Family Home Evening last night Scooter and I watched a surgeon perform a craniotomy on someone with a meningioma tumor. We found this great website that has videos of various surgeries. They broadcast these surgeries live to medical conferences and the physicians participating in the conference can asked the surgeon questions even though they may be across the country. It is really neat to watch for those that have extremely strong stomachs for these things - it is not for the queasy. We LOVED it and are planning on watching one every week from now on.

Driving Day 1 - December 14

We picked up a rental car in Porto in the morning. Driving was an adventure in Portugal - a direct quote from our guide book was, "Driving in Portugal should be avoided at all costs." Good thing that we take the advice of guide books with a grain of salt because having the rental car was one of the highlights of our trip. We drove to Coimbra first. We had planned to get there in time for church, but we grossly underestimated the time it would take to negotiate the unlabeled one-way streets and confusing roundabouts.

Maybe part of the reason we were missed church was because we were trying to use a map like this...
when we really needed one like this...

We visited the University of Coimbra. It must have been the end of exams or something, because some celebrating had obviously occurred. Next we drove to the Roman ruins at Conimbriga. They were extensive and fascinating. There was a plumbing system intact and many mosaics covering the ground and walls. The excavators even found a fountain which they restored to working order. You dropped a coin into a slot and it started working. We couldn't believe how old it was - it seemed so advanced, which I guess really says something about their culture. We we surprised as we drove around how many towns had castles. I would never have thought of Portugal as being a country of castles, but we saw so many as we drove down the coast. This was one that we passed at Montemo-o-Velho. We had our first adventure of arriving in a town without accommodation that night. We had been unable to find anything to book online, so we arrived in Leiria and walked around until we found a local youth hostel. During our wanderings we saw the most impressive display of parking skills that either of us has ever seen. This man was trying to park in an alley and he was so close to the wall that he had folded his mirror in and we were waiting for him to scrape the side of his car against it, but he didn't. We just stood there and watched him in amazement. When he was finished there was literally less than one inch between the wall and his car. He did it all in a manual car as well - amazing! Notice yet another castle on the hill.Amazing Christmas lights again.

We fell into bed exhausted, but the next morning noticed how amazingly nice everything was for a hostel. We decided to stay in more Portuguese hostels before we left.

This was the patio that was attached to our room that we didn't notice until morning.

Strange Behavior

Sometimes being married to a diagnostic imaging/future medical student is weird. The more medical papers Scooter reads the more big medical terms he uses. He has started saying things like "bifurcation," "contraindication," and "embolization." The other day I was sitting at the computer and he was reading his anatomy book, he came over and started poking my side. When I asked him what he was doing he said, "Just checking to make sure that you don't have an enlarged spleen. I don't think you do." Is he going to want to give me a checkup every night? What am I going to do? We have at least ten more years of medical training left!

Snow, Snow, Snow!

As many of you may know from the news, we have been having record-breaking snow here the past week. It has been interesting to watch how the country has dealt with it. It is really only a few inches, but basically everything has been affected. Schools have been closed for between two and four days this past week, shops have been closed, and some buses haven't been running. Much of this is understandable considering that they don't have snow plows (or "ploughs" for our English friends) here in Oxford. It has still been slightly amusing to compare our last winter (which we spent in Provo) to this winter. Four inches of snow in three days wouldn't have even fazed Utahans. I would never have considering calling my work to tell them I wouldn't be able to make it in. It has also been interesting to see the reactions of the very multicultural community. For some of our friends here it is their first time ever being in snow - for some they feel like they are back at home. For us, it has just been another adventure. I have never had to walk quite a distance across icy sidewalks in my "wellies", wait for twenty minutes in the snow until a bus finally comes, ride to the grocery store, push my "trolley" through the three inches of snow in the "car park" and do it all over again to get home with my hands full of five heavy grocery bags. It makes me miss my car!

I have provided links to some interesting articles for those of you that have some time.

Click here to see a week in photos from the BBC.
Click for BBC Oxford snow photos.
Click here to read how UK businesses have been impacted.
Click here for the report on the biggest cold snap in 20 years.
Click here for a report of the closure of schools in our area.
Click here for a report of the fifth day of chaos.
Click here for an update from Monday.
Click here for an update from Wednesday.
Click here for another update from Wednesday.
Click here for a report from Thursday.

This is in the front quad of Scooter's college.

This is Lincoln college's chapel quad.

The bikers here are fearless! Check out the guy on the left. No snowstorm could stop him.

This is another quad at Scooter's college. I love the many unfinished snowmen. Apparently the students' study conciences got to them before they could finish their projects.

These are the buses we ride everyday.

On my day off on Friday I was walking on Cornmarket Street past my work and noticed that all of the lights were off...

Porto, Portugal - December 12-13

We flew from Madrid to Porto, Portugal on December 12. Scooter had been excited to speak Portuguese since the trip was in the planning stages, so we were thrilled to get to Portugal. We were not disappointed. Before we even got out of the airport we knew that we loved it there. The people at passport control were so excited that Scooter spoke Portuguese that they kept us there for ten minutes giving us all kinds of advice about where to go, what to see, what to eat, etc. One of the ladies even hugged me before we left! The people were so genuine and friendly. A man on the metro helped us when he saw us having trouble buying metro tickets in the automated machine (this happened all the time - a tip for fellow travellers, take as many debit and credit cards as possible because inevitably some will not work and you will have to try others). He not only helped us purchase our tickets but then walked us the correct platform and insisted on waiting with us until our train came. Everywhere we went in Portugal the people were like that. It was wonderful. Porto is in the north of Portugal and the city is built on the banks of a river. Like Toledo it was a great city for exploring. We climbed up and down the city. You have to say climbed because the city is built on such steep riverbanks that you can't really walk - you have to climb. It was also more affordable in Porto than it had been in Spain, which was great. We were able to eat our first "real meal" in weeks - a pork roast all to ourselves (we ate the whole thing!) The second day that we were there it rained, so Scooter was generous enough to buy me some galoshes. It was nice to not have sopping wet socks all day. While it was raining we took advantage of the ppor weather and spent quite a bit of time in an Internet cafe (besides the breaks we had to take for fresh air because so many people were smoking in there) trying to book hostels/hotels, etc for the rest of our trip. We got to video chat with my sister Rachelle for a while, but as you can see from the picture something about the screen made her look like she had red eyes... The Christmas lights were also amazing in Porto as you can see. On Sunday, December 14 we rented a car and began our trip down the west coast of Portugal.The huge bell made of Christmas lights was my favorite. If you look closely (as usual, you may click on the pictures to enlarge them) you can see me inside it - it must have been 60 feet tall! It was in one of the main squares and was visible from many blocks away. This is a sticky and delectable rabanada. It is only made at Christmastime in Portugal. I need to learn to make these. We ate one and then promptly ordered another.


This was the view from our hotel room window. The church is covered in azulejos which are the tiles that are glazed blue. Many buildings are covered with them. They are not just for decoration, but usually also depict a historic or religious scene. Tons of churches, homes, train stations, buildings, and walls all over Portugal are covered in these .

Toledo, Spain - December 11

Toledo is a beautiful hilltop town that is about an hour and a half outside of Madrid, which is close enough that we were able to visit as a day trip. Most of the cobblestone streets in Toledo were too small for cars, so they were more like little alleys winding around the town. It was a perfect day - warm, relaxing, and involved exploring. We had no real itinerary - we basically just started walking around and tried to get lost. We came across this beautiful church on our explorations. Our favorite thing about it was how light it was inside. It also had a bell tower which we climbed and had a great view of the tiled rooftops. We also found a river and walked along it for a while. We went to the Christmas market and bought some cheesecake, which is Scooter's favorite dessert, from a really nice Brazilian lady. Maybe I should explain about Christmas markets. All over Europe at Christmastime each city has a fair where you can buy crafts and food. We love them! When it got dark we rode the bus back to Madrid. It was a perfect day.