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.

Our First Visitors

Our friends Chase and Megan Fly have been teaching English in China for the past few months. On their way back to States they decided to take the long way home and stop in Thailand, London, Oxford, Paris, southern France, and Dublin. They were our first visitors we have had since we moved here. We had such a good time with them. We stayed up WAY too late every night talking. It was so fun to hear about their experience. This never happens to me, but my throat was actually tired of talking after they left. We also took them to see some of the sights in Oxford. Somehow I forgot my camera, and we were really not very good at remembering to take photos. Here are the only photos we have courtesy of Chase and Megan. We hope that others will follow suit and decide to come visit!

Madrid, Spain - December 9-11

We took a four hour bus ride to Madrid from Valencia. Luckily, it seemed that we had left the rain on the coast in Valencia. We checked into our hotel which had our first private room, which was so wonderful - no more drunk roommates coming into our room at three am and talking really loudly for an hour and trying to compete with the room next door to see who could be louder (true story!). Notice our "double" bed. We decided to go to the LDS Madrid temple that evening. It was really easy to get to and we had a great time. On the way home we had more of those golden, warm, Spanish rings of deliciousness, a.k.a churros. By the way, they look very differently than the churros that you can buy at carnivals in America. They are much thinner and are in the shape of a ring. The next day we went to the Palacio Real de Madrid, which is the official residence of the king of Spain that is still used for formal events. It was forbidden to take photos inside the palace, so I only have photos of the exterior of the palace to share. There were a lot of peacocks wandering through the grounds. I always forget how beautiful peacocks are until I see them. They are gorgeous, and if you are science nerds like Scooter and I, it is fun to theorize about their evolution. Evolutionarily, they just don't make sense. Next we went to the Reina Sofía Museum, which holds a huge collection of contemporary art. It also holds the mural by Picasso which is arguably the most important work of modern art, Guernica. Then we went to another art museum called the Prado National Museum. It was another amazing museum, but I particularly liked the work by Velázquez called Las Meninas. We went and sampled that strange dry-cured uncooked ham that Spain is famous for called jamón. Scooter loved it, I didn't. Near the Prado museum there was one of the coolest buildings that we had ever seen. From the front it looked like a regular structure, but the side of it was totally covered in vegetation of various kinds. It was obvious that it had been planted in specific patterns. We are not sure how it grows, where the dirt is, etc., but it was visually stunning. We went to see the arena where the bull fights take place in summer. We were going to go inside, but a travelling circus had taken over the entire complex, so we didn't. That night we walked around and went to a Christmas market in the Plaza Mayor. The lights, like in Barcelona, were stunning. The people in Barcelona and Madrid stay up really late. They don't even eat dinner until around ten o'clock. Even the stores were open late, so even at midnight the streets were still packed with holiday shoppers. It was a huge contrast to England where everything except grocery stores close by six. The next day we went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in the morning. The entire collection was owned by one family, which is amazing to think about considering that it seemed like there were works by a few major artists from every time period. After that we took a day-trip to Toledo, which I will write about in the next post. When we got back to Madrid that night we just walked around enjoying the Christmas spirit. We came across this square that was full of these "blinking" eyes. They looked a bit too eerie to be Christmas lights.

Valencia, Spain - December 8

We left Barcelona early on Monday, December 8 and rode a bus to Valencia, which is about four hours away. We planned on having just one day in Valencia. Unfortunately, as soon as we arrived in Valencia it started pouring rain. We trudged through it from the bus station to our hostel. We tried to use our umbrellas and ponchos, but they were not very effective. Needless to say, by the time we got to our hostel we were soaked! Rain is a funny thing. When we were living in the States I never really noticed what a problem it is. Since I had a car in the States it was just a matter of running from the entrance of a building to my car and back. Other than those few moments you stay dry. Well, when you are budget travelling rain becomes much more of a problem. You have no car in which to seek shelter and get you from place to place. To go anywhere you have to be walking around in it, standing in it while looking at maps trying to figure out where you are, or trying to avoid having cars spray you with it as they pass you on the street. So, in the hostel we bravely made a plan for seeing some sights. The first stop was going to be a grocery store for some food. We walked for what seemed like hours. My shoes were soaked all the way through and my sopping wet socks were making my feet go numb. We passed dozens of stores, but none of them were open because it was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Tired and hungry we finally decided to splurge and go to McDonald's. Fourteen dollars later we decided that Mother Nature and the national holidays had conspired against us, so we gave up the ambitious sightseeing plans and decided that calling home, going to an Internet cafe, and watching a movie on our iPod was going to be all that was realistic to do. The bottom line is that we are going to need to back to Valencia some day and do it justice. Here are the only three pictures that I took when the rain let up enough for me to not be worried about ruining my camera.