Summer 2010, Cont’d

We had a great time with all our OBU visitors, and our World Cup adventure was definitely one for the books. Our next adventure came a few days later when our friends Matt and Tiffani began their journeys to Cambridge. We’ve been planning their visit for a long time, and we were super excited for them to finally get here so that we could start our UK Road Trip Adventure 2010. We were receiving regular text message updates with the status of their travel progress. Tiff’s plane from LA to Chicago had a minor blip, which meant she had to be re-routed to St. Louis and await a flight to Chicago from there. Foolishly, we thought that this would be the end of the travel drama, and it was for the better anyway since Tiff and Matt were now in the same airport just a few gates away from each other. The next text message, however, was the kicker… from Tiffani: “Matt’s flights are all cancelled. All.”

This is a good time for a lesson in how airlines work. When a flight gets cancelled, the airline has to find the least disruptive way to re-route all its passengers. This ‘least disruptive’ strategy means that most of what you’ll hear when talking to the airline is, “I’m sorry… we can’t… there’s no way… it’s not possible.” As it turns out, what is ‘least disruptive’ for the airline is ‘most disruptive’ for the travelers. When Matt’s flights were cancelled, the airline began with the usual strategy of seeing how much this particular passenger was willing to be screwed. It went something like, “I’m sorry, we can’t get you on a flight to Chicago today at all, and there’s no way to get you to London for another two days. It’s just not possible.” Matt could’ve said, “okay,” and the airline would have won. Lesson #1: never give up, never surrender. When the Man tries to keep you down, you keep fighting until the Man gets you to London.

[Anxiously awaiting Matt’s arrival at Heathrow]

Matt was a champ, employing the “this is unacceptable” attitude until they finally said, “okay, fine, we’ll get you to London.” See, this is what really chaps my hide. The airline says, “I’m sorry, that’s not possible,” but I always feel like I’m being lied to when they say that. It doesn’t make sense to tell someone getting to London is impossible when there are thousands of other people going to London on different airlines that very night. In this case, the airline should’ve said something like, “well, we really don’t want to do anything about your situation, but if you complain enough, then we may just have to find a way to get you to London…” which is exactly what they did.

Visitors from Durham

While Sarah’s fiancée, Joel, was in town (see previous post), our friends Orrey and Kristi came down from Durham to visit for the weekend, and we had a mini OBU reunion (since me, Sarah, Joel, Orrey, and Kristi went to OBU). We had a fun-filled Saturday that began with punting down the Cam and then having a picnic on the lawn of Great St. Mary’s in the middle of town. And one of the highlights for me was having a true English World Cup experience. We went to a pub. It was packed, and when I say packed, everyone was standing so close to each other that every time I shifted my feet, the guy behind me put his hand on my shoulder to keep me from moving into his field of view… he was kind of jerk about it, but he was pretty short, so he could have been bitter about that. It was noisy, and when I say noisy, I mean it was painful not to have my ears covered during the chanting, singing, yelling, and cussing that flowed ceaselessly from the multitudes. We watched the game, and when I say game, I mean the most important sporting event in the history of England. In fact, the last time the US and England played in the world cup, I’m pretty sure it was in the 50’s, and the American team was a rag-tag bunch of factory workers who could barely afford uniforms, much less the plane fare to Brazil, and the England team was a group of world-class athletes bred from birth for this one purpose. America beat them, and the story goes that the next day the newspapers in London couldn’t believe the telegraphs that reported the result: England 0 USA 1. They assumed there was a typo, and some printed the score as England 10 USA 1. The game we watched was pretty fun… and the atmosphere made for an awesome experience, and a great way to top off a fun day. Happily, we tied with England, which means America didn’t care so much, but the British were really angry.

The next day we went to see Ely cathedral, which was really fun… Candice and I were excited:

We saw geese in the park, and I tried hypnotizing the goose with magical whistling… the others tried to help by staring intensely.

I’ll leave you with that last picture for now :)

Summer Extravaganza 2010

Our Summer Extravaganza 2010 has begun officially, hence the reduced frequency in blog updates due to busyness and awesomeness. Fear not, faithful readers, for there will be blogs-a-plenty on the horizon with all the exciting things we have planned. The fun kicked off last week when we had a surprise engagement party for our friends Sarah and Joel. Joel has been in Kenya while Sarah has been in Cambridge… being a continent away does not a happy engagement make. Nonetheless, Joel came to visit and we enjoyed getting to know him… we also enjoyed having an awesome party with them at the Red Bull pub just down the road. We were nervous about keeping it a surprise, especially since part of the plan was taking engagement pictures of them and then having them printed at the party. I thought they might get suspicious… but apparently I underestimated my powers of stealthy-ness and secrecy (… I never really underestimated my powers). The pictures turned out great, we got them to the pub on time and everyone was there to surprise them… success! Here’s some pictures :) – don’t they look like nice people… that’s because they are.

We’ll miss Sarah over the summer, but we’ll get to see both of them this fall when they return :). That’s all for now… more to come.

Today was interesting

1. Candice went to spin class this morning, and apparently there was almost a mutiny in the class when the psycho spin instructor said for the 30th time, “Turn that resistance up just a little more!”

2. We saw something interesting earlier when we were walking through the city centre. Amongst the various street performers who were playing music and singing, there was a man standing on a stool doing what sounded like street preaching. Except, what he was saying was very bizarre. He was reading a list, which contained the names and stories of various people who had been killed by a particular murderer. So when we walked by, he was saying something like, “And the twelfth person that so-and-so killed was named such-and-such. He shot her with a….” It was very strange, and we weren’t sure what the point was. Later, we walked by again; sure enough, he was preaching. Emphasizing the suddenness of death and yelling to everyone passing by, “You’re all going to die!” And what’s even worse, it was obvious that he was not British… he was American. Thanks for making us proud, random American death preacher dude. So much irony, so many jokes, so little time.

3. We went to Subway and got a sandwich to eat in Christ’s Pieces (a park nearby). Candice goes to Subway a lot, and there’s a guy that works there that goes to the same gym. I think he’s Russian, maybe Ukrainian… and he has a kind of intimidating accent… like if you ran into him on the street he would say, “Hallo girly-maan.” Last time we saw him, he said to Candice, “Hey, we go to the same gym.” Then he noticed me and said, “Is this your lazy-man husband who won’t go to the gym with you?” I would have taken it outside and recreated a Rocky vs. Ivan Drago type situation, but what can I say, the man makes a mean chicken pizziola sandwich. 

4. You know how it’s socially acceptable to let your kid run around naked if they’re under a certain age. I mean, you’re not going to raise a fuss if your two-year old girl is walking around with no shirt on outside, right? Then, at some point, you make your kids wear clothes because they need to look presentable for their first job interview. What I’m wondering is where is the cutoff? We went to a park today called “Llamas Land”… I think that’s a funny name for a green space. There were tons of people there, lots of kids around the wading pool, families cooking out on portable barbecues… and lots of no-clothes-kids. Let’s be honest, it’s just weird when they’re old enough to organize their own game of soccer together. The appropriate age for the no-clothes-kid in the UK is way passed whatever that age is in the states. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

For the benefit of others…

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to answer one question: How can I insure a car in the UK cheaply with a US license. The universal response to this question: “Impossible.” We’ll see about that...

Overview: I’ve learned that Henry (the name I’ve given to all insurance companies in the UK) does NOT trust you if you are from the US. Henry thinks you will wreck your car, and he communicates this to you in the form of very high premiums. Since I’ve spent so much time figuring out how to stick it to the man… I thought I’d pass along a little bit of information to help those who might be thinking about insuring a car in the UK.

1. First of all, let’s just get this out of the way: you make Henry nervous. There are people just sitting in a room right now getting paid to be nervous about Americans driving on the roads.

2. It is probably easier to get insurance in the UK than anywhere else I’ve lived (read: America). Henry will take your debit card number online and write you a policy for whatever you want. But don’t be fooled. The minute you try to make a claim, Henry will go over every inch of your policy to find out if there is ANYTHING at all that you were even remotely untruthful about (like whether you’ve had a UK license for 10 years or you’ve really had a US license and you’re just bending the truth). If Henry finds out, he voids your policy and keeps your premium. I heard about a guy who had his car stolen and Henry wouldn’t pay because the car was parked overnight at a location that was not listed in his policy as a possible location for overnight parking. The moral of the story: tell the truth. (Candice has been trying to tell me this for years.)

3. After calling just about every Henry I could find on the internet, I had a list of premiums ranging from expensive to very expensive. Henry wouldn’t insure me on my US license, and didn’t even care that I’d been driving for over 10 years! I felt oppressed by ‘the man’, and in this case ‘the man’ had a British accent, a name like Vivian, and the tendency to repeat words like ‘we can’t’, ‘no’, or ‘I’m so very sorry.’ ‘So very sorry’ my toe, Vivian, give me my insurance before I start singing the 1-800-SAFE-AUTO jingle to you and it sticks in your head for the rest of your sweetly insured life. In conclusion, give Viv the ‘what for’ and move on.

4. After two weeks of frustration, I called GEICO. After all, a 15 minute call could save you 15% or more on your car insurance, right? Who cares where I am in the world… a promise is a promise, and they don’t say anything about having to be in the US to save the 15%. In the end, my hero (or heroine, as it happens) from GEICO was a woman named Kathy. Apparently, GEICO will give me insurance on my US license, will give me a discount based on how many years I’ve driven without any accidents in the US, and will do it so cheaply that Henry will have to start therapy to deal with the nervousness.

So, to sum it all up… you make Henry nervous, tell the truth, give Viv the finger, and call GEICO.

The speed camera demons

I’m usually not that picky when it comes to automobile features. Don’t get me wrong, when the drivers’ side window rolls all the way down without having to keep your finger on the button, that’s pretty cool, but it’s not something that I put in the ‘necessary’ column on my list of features. Being able to control the volume on the steering wheel? I guess that’s alright, but I typically just reach for the knob anyway. Most of these small features are designed to make your life easier in some way. I suppose if you added up the time in your life that you spent going back and forth between the steering wheel and the volume, or having your finger pressed on the window button, these features might save you a few minutes, right? Wrong… I’m thinking they have no noticeable impact on your life other than the brief satisfaction you get when you watch the window roll itself down while thinking, “Man, that never gets old.”

There is one feature, however, that I sorely miss when it’s absent and would put in my ‘must-have’ column: cruise control. When you’re on a long road trip, cruise control means the difference between simply relaxing and enjoying the ride on the one hand, and constantly having your foot on the pedal and checking and rechecking your speed on the other. If you are driving in the US, I will admit that this is less of a problem. There are highway patrolmen who could catch you, but they can be thwarted with radar detectors, are usually few and far between, and will not pull you over if you’re accidentally five miles over the speed limit. In the UK, however, there are no highway patrolmen… instead, there are speed cameras… everywhere… watching you… always. They aren’t hidden; they are brazenly labeled with signage that reminds you they are there… always… watching you. They don’t care if you’re only five miles over the speed limit; they will still mail you a ticket. You must stay vigilant all the time, keeping one eye on your speed at all times…. it’s so annoying.

I can already hear many of you trying to figure out how to beat the speed cameras… you could start by simply slowing down whenever you pass one. This would work sometimes, but, aside from being a major pain in the neck to slow down every two minutes, there are too many cameras for you to be 100% aware of them all the time. GPS systems are trying to help with this, by telling you when you’re over the speed limit and beeping at you when you’re nearing a speed camera. But even if you mastered all of these techniques, the Brits have discovered THE UNBEATABLE way to catch you at speeding, it’s called ‘Average Speed Check’. If you’re speeding through an area, you could slow down every time you saw a speed camera, but this won’t fool anyone, because the cameras have demons inside them with good memories and calculators, they remember your car and calculate how long it takes you to get from one camera to the next… if your average speed over that distance is too high, you get a ticket! It’s brilliant, it’s sneaky, it’s diabolical… it’s perfectly British!

You can imagine my relief last night when I got in my 1990 Honda Accord and saw a magical button staring back at me: cruise control. “I love you, Rosita,” I quietly whispered to my car. And I drove away in peace, not worried about my speed or the speed camera demons. With Rosita handling the speed, I was free to give my full attention and concentration to other more important things, like the radio.