Two Days! Two Days!

Just a quick post because I am so excited that we will be back in Atlanta in 2 days! I can't wait to see everyone and drive and eat out and go shopping and get my hair cut! Oh, it is going to be great! I will post something once we land for our British friends to see.

Love you all,
A.

LG and Currys

I thought that everyone might enjoy seeing some pictures of my current job marketing for LG televisions. This coming weekend is my last one after 10 weeks and although I have really enjoyed meeting so many British people I am ready to move on. Basically, I go into a store called Currys which is pretty much modeled after Best Buy but smaller. There is an LG display wall with some of the larger Plasma and LCD models hanging on it. I stand there for 14 hours over 2 days and talk to people about the features on the new models and LG as a brand / company. Thankfully this Currys is one of the busiest in this area so I don't typically get too bored. As a side benefit I know WAY more about televisions and technology than I ever wanted to! :)

This is what Currys looks like from where I stand most days. What do you think - Best Buy or what? I have also learned a lot about aerials, DVD recorders, TV wall mounts, etc.

The LG wall. The bright light in the corner is the LG logo that lights up and doesn't photograph well apparently. Those TVs are 42" and 50" and look much bigger in person.

Another shot of the wall with the blinding light. If you can't read it the price on the 42" Plasma on top is 1199 GBP - appr. $2400!

This is the 42" LCD that I was initially in charge of working with primarily. They sold so well in the NE part of the country (where we are located) that LG had to cap the orders and has now discontinued the model. Currys sold the display model on Sunday afternoon after I took this picture.

Starbucks in Newcastle

Today while I was in Newcastle for my interview (went well but we probably won't know something until next week) I treated myself at Starbucks. It was so good! The first picture is of my Grande Peppermint Latte (yum!) and when you drink inside the Starbucks they give you a real cup and come and bus your table for you. The second picture is of the window at the Starbucks facing the Newcastle Train Station. The train station has awesome architecture that reminds me of Harry Potter a little bit. I had a great time in Newcastle and if I get this job I will be working there every day.

Around Durham

Today as I was walking back from the train station I took a couple of pictures of places I like in Durham. I took these with my camera phone so some of the quality is not perfect. You at least get the idea. It was a beautiful day here - freezing but the sun was shining!

The train station is up on a hill overlooking the City Centre of Durham where the Castle, Cathedral and University are located. This picture is of the Castle coming through the trees with some of the town buildings around it.

Another shot of the Cathedral taken from the bridge.

One more of the Upper City Centre. Sorry about the sun glare.

This is St. Cuthbert's Church. One of the oldest churches in Durham. They still hold weekly services here. There is a pretty extensive graveyard around the church building. Some of the graves date back hundreds of years.

This is the gate leading from the road to St. Cuthbert's Church. It is always open. You may not be able to read it but the inscription says, "Greater love hath no man than he lay his life down for a friend."

This is the Bridge Hotel and Pub one of our favorite places to eat. The food is so good and it is just a fun place to be. They rent out rooms on the top floor.

A street of row homes that I pass walking into Durham. This is pretty typical of most of the homes here in Durham. We see worker trucks outside a lot and think that the owners are probably updating the homes to be more modern.

This is St. Leonards, a housing development right in front of our apartment building. They most closely resemble townhomes with 2 or 3 per building. They sell for between 300,000 GBP and 400,000 GBP ($600,000 - $800,000) and are considered good homes for the thirty-something small family / couples demographic.

The back of one of the St. Leonards townhome buildings. You can somewhat see the way the small yards are layed out.

And finally, Keenan House, our building. There are close to 70 apartments in our building. We are on the back of the building facing the new hospital. It is nice because there is a little grassy area and then the hospital parking lot.

Thanks for looking at my daily walk. Hope you enjoyed it!

Rabbits...For Anslee

Okay, Ans, this post is special just for you.

Tonight we are up REALLY late and have our living room windows open. A few minutes ago Chris walked by the windows and started whispering for me to come over - there were 2 rabbits right outside eating grass. So cute! We tried to take a few pictures but it was just too dark and the flash wouldn't reach. Our windows back up to a small grassy area where we think they might live.

Anyway, I thought that I would post in honor of the Hagan family pet rabbits! :)

Chris Ferebee, Conductor

This is Chris's debut as a conductor! For one of his classes he had to conduct a piece for a professional brass band. The picture quality isn't fabulous but it is the only we got. The piece went really well and his professor thought he did a good job. It looks like after Christmas Chris might start conducting an ensemble on a regular basis.

On a side note I have a job interview tomorrow (Friday) with the Newcastle City Council. It is only part-time but could be a place to start.

We are in serious countdown mode until we are in Atlanta - 1 week, 5 days! We will see everyone soon! Early Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Day!

We had a great Thanksgiving here in Durham! We decided to have dinner with our friends, Mike and Lisa. Lisa and I cooked a "traditional" Thanksgiving meal - turkey, cornbread dressing, gravy, corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, sweet potatoes (didn't turn out so well!) and pumpkin pie. Chris even made his famous Ferebee Cheese Dressing. We had a great time all day and a lot of leftovers.

There a couple of funny stories that happened but I think the best was when the fire alarm went off. We had just taken the macaroni and cheese out of the oven and put the pumpkin pies in when the oven started smoking really bad. We opened the windows to clear the smoke but while we are fanning smoke towards the window the fire alarm starts going off. This is not just a regular fire alarm that goes off just in the apartment - no, it goes off in the whole building and everyone has to evacuate, the fire department comes and it is a HUGE ordeal. We totally freaked out thinking that we were responsible for emptying out the whole building. As we are walking down the back stairs trying to figure out if this was our fault which we were pretty sure it was the alarm stops. Mike, Lisa and I went back to their apartment while Chris went down to see what was going on. It turns out that the alarm had accidentally been tripped by the alarm company and wasn't our fault. It was REALLY funny timing!!

Meme's Macaroni and Cheese, Green Beans and Pumpkin Pie.
Some of the big spread and Mike getting some hot mulled wine that was fabulous. Thank goodness it was hot because it was raining and freezing outside all day!

Dressing in the process. The maize meal cornbread turned out really good all things considered.

Turkey Pictures

Here are pictures of our turkey. It actually turned out really good - a little smaller than what we are used to but still quite tasty. It barely fit in my oven - this is not because the turkey is big but because the oven is quite small!

Thanksgiving Pictures Cont...

Me taking the Ferebee Speciality Cheese Dressing out of the oven. Cheese, bread and gravy - what is better than that?

Our friends Mike and Lisa who we spent Thanksgiving with. Lisa and I did most of the cooking at their apartment and we ate dinner there.

Pre-Dinner snacks - Cheese Sausuge Balls, Cream Cheese Hummus Dip with Pita Chips and Cider.
Lisa and Mike's apartment from the kitchen looking into the living room past the dining table. They just put up some Christmas lights for a festive mood without a Christmas tree.

Ready for Thanksgiving...

So we are all set for not only our first married Thanksgiving but also our first Thanksgiving away from home - while this is a little sad we are so excited about the new traditions we are starting! This year we are having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with our American friends, Mike and Lisa. Lisa and I spent most of the day shopping for groceries and serving dishes. I almost had a breakdown when I realized that nowhere in the NE UK can you buy cornmeal. Cornmeal is a pretty important part of cornbread which is a pretty important part of cornbread dressing! After a couple of hours of internet searching I found maize meal which is apparently a close substitute for cornmeal. To get this maize meal I had to take a bus 25 minutes away, ask a very nice English gentleman to help me in the store and then wait in the rain for a bus ride back home. What a memory! The cornbread looks good and that is what matters.

Mike and Lisa are from Michigan so there a couple of more northern dishes like mashed potatoes and regular green beans that we are having plus they are trying southern dressing, gravy and homemade macaroni and cheese which they have not had before.

On Friday night we are going to a potluck Thanksgiving diner with about 8 other American couples. Everyone is bringing 2 dishes for the others to try. This should be interesting as well since the majority of the couples are from either the north or the southwest. I am making cornbread dressing, gravy and sweet potatoes. I hope they eat it!

Lisa and I are planning to take a lot of pictures tomorrow so I will post those on Friday. I hope everyone has a fabulous Thanksgiving.

See you all in 4 weeks!
A.

PS - Thank you to Mom and Meme for the recipe help. So far everything is delicious!

Well, I have gotten trouble with Mr. Whisonant for not writing in the past couple of weeks so here is an update of nothing exciting! We have been sick with this awful cold thing that I think is made extra awful because it won't stop raining here. Thank goodness we brought some American medicine with us!

The last couple of weeks have been pretty non-eventful. Chris has continued with school and his classes are going well. They are almost to mid-term so he has a number of things going on this week and next. I continue to work on my cooking skills. I have to say that I think I am becoming quite talented. I guess when you don't have any other choice you better get a clue what you are doing! Chris seems to be healthy overall so unless he is sneaking food I don't know about then I think my cooking is serving its purpose.

Chris's mom sent us a box of goodies that we were missing (thanks, Cheryl!) and we have consumed an unbelievable amount of Snickers in the past couple of days! We have also enjoyed the Kraft Mac and Cheese since this can't be bought at our local store. We fly into Atlanta in 6 weeks and although we can't wait to see everyone we are very excited about the idea of Chick-Fil-A and Taco Bell. We have already decided what our first meal will be - Don't get between us and the Cracker Barrell!

My work continues to go well. Everyone there loves how I say, "yes ma'am / sir" and "no ma'am / sir". I told them that was great as long as they bought an LG TV while I was in the store - this has actually worked a couple of times. That reminds me - LG sent me a company cell phone to use and it is one of the now somewhat new LG Chocolate phones and is pretty cool.

This week we experienced what the locals were talking about with the daylight. It now is completely dark by 5:30 in the afternoon. This is not especially fun when you are trying to walk in heels in the dark and trip over the cobblestones and look like an idiot to the people in the buses watching you - believe me I have had this experience recently!

I better run. See everyone in 6 weeks!
A.

Frost!

Oh my gosh! We woke up to frost on our windows this morning and I just checked outside and there is frost on the grass and our windows! I am afraid it is about to get VERY cold! We were told that it can be very cold from mid-October through April so I am afraid I might be entering my hibernation period soon.

I just realized that I haven't updated everyone on my job. I worked this past weekend and overall it went really well. I was basically on my feet for 14 hours spread out over 2 days. I am not sure that I would want to be an in-store rep for the rest of my life but we are hoping and praying that this might transition into another position with the marketing firm so we will have to wait and see. I was definitely a novelty as an American - I am afraid that I might have answered more questions about myself and life in the US than I did about LG. Can you believe that they tax here at 20%?! I mean I guess it pans out since you get healthcare pretty much free and they don't have sales tax on anything. I should clarify - the highest they can tax is 20% and for internationals like myself they start you out at the max and then you have to register for a NIN (basically a Social Sec. #) and they will adjust your tax and refund you what excess they took out. Apparantly, you never get a tax rate of less than 12% no matter what - which still seems like a lot.

I better run - Chris should be home any minute and I need to finish dinner. I know. How domesticated of me! Oh, I need to apologize to everyone. I know so many of you have emailed me and I haven't gotten back with you. I am working on it but I could literally answer email all day every day - so be patient! :)

Love you all.
A.

Thinking of Atlanta

I saw this on a website today and although I know it has been around for awhile it made me think of home so I had to post...Enjoy!

You Know Your From Atlanta When...

You give directions starting with, "Go down Peachtree" and include the phrase, "When you see the Waffle House."

You only know your way to work and your way home.

You only drink Coke or Diet Coke - drinking Pepsi is blasphemy.

You know to wear sneakers to Hartsfield Airport.

The 8:00 AM rush hour is from 6:30 to 10:30 AM. The 5:00 PM rush hour is from 3:00 to 7:30 PM. Friday's rush hour starts Thursday afternoon, and lasts through 2:00 AM Saturday.

You use "Sir" and "Ma'am" if there's a remote possibility that person you're talking to is least 30 minutes older than you are.

You can say Ponce De Leon Avenue correctly.

The falling of one rain drop causes all drivers to immediately forget all traffic rules.

If a single snowflake falls, the city is paralyzed for three days, and it's on all the channels as a news flash every 15 minutes for a month. All the grocery stores will be sold out of milk, bread, bottled water, toilet paper, and beer. If there is a remote chance of snow, and if it does snow, people will be on the corner selling "I survived the blizzard" tee-shirts, not to mention the fact that all schools will close at the slightest possible chance of snow.

If you are standing on a corner and a MARTA Bus stops, you're expected to get on and go somewhere.

Construction on Peachtree Street is a way of life and a permanent form of entertainment, especially when a water line is tapped and Atlanta's version of Old Faithful erupts.

Construction crews are not doing their jobs properly unless they close down all major streets during rush hour.

You never go 55 on "The Watermelon 500 or the Georgia 400.

You know you're not allergic to pollen, because if you were - you'd be dead already.

You've never gone around the block and ended up on the street you started on.

You haven't been downtown at night in years.

You've woken up at 4:30 am on workdays to beat the traffic to work, intending to leave work before 3 pm to compensate.

You know at least five different ways to get to work, none of them are ideal.

You know what "sunshine slowdown", "auto-flambe'", "topside" mean, and what color a H.E.R.O. is.

You know where PIB, JCB, FIB, MLK, PDK and "Grady curve" are, and you try to never go there during any of the nine hours of rush "hour".

You've thought about getting a blow-up companion for the front passenger seat.

You hope you are the one to spot the vehicle that is the subject of the latest "Amber Alert" which has been flashing for ten minutes on the DOT message board exactly 13.5 feet above the hood of your SUV.

You've been in traffic on 85, 75, 20 or 400 (choose one) - wondering if your fuel, your cell-phone battery and your bladder will make it to the next exit, just 1/2 mile ahead.

Love to all of our Atlanta friends. Hope you enjoy the traffic tomorrow morning!
A.

Pumpkin Bread - UK Style

Today Lisa and I attempted to make Pumpkin Bread and it was quite an adventure! You apparently can't buy canned pumpkin here so we had to get an actual whole pumpkin, clean it out and roast it before we even began the bread making process. The bread actually turned out really good and we had a great time laughing about how crazy it was! I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Job Training in Newcastle

Hi everyone. I just got back from my new job training in Newcastle. Things went really well and I learned a lot more about the Marketing Firm and LG as a company. The best part was that I rode the train to Newcastle and back by myself without any problems! It is a very empowering feeling to figure out the train and bus systems and actually feel like you have a clue what is going on. I was really impressed with the Marketing Firm and how they handled the training session. I met with the LG account supervisor and we had a good discussion about future opportunities within the company - so who knows maybe that will go somewhere.

Chris had today off from classes so he spent his time at the library doing research for a new string piece he is working on. He has now been to all of his classes for the first time and has a pretty good idea of the expectations and schedule from here till Christmas.

It has rained 4 days out of the past 7, including all day today! I need some sunshine!

Love you all,

A.

Job Update

Well, I have a job! It is not anything glamorous but the hours are good and the pay is great. Basically, I sent in my resume to a Retail Marketing Research Firm (based in London) for a part-time position here in Durham on Friday, the guy emailed me on Monday afternoon saying that he was doing interviews in Durham today and could I meet with him, I met with him this afternoon at 3, at 5 he emailed me an offer and when Chris got home at 7 I accepted the offer.

RGM (the Retail Firm) has been contracted out by LG Technologies to promote their new LG Flat Panel TVs and to gather customer feedback on the product, LG as a company and customer service. RGM has hired me to be the rep here in Durham and partner with one of the stores here that will sell the LG TVs for in store promotions and working with the customer base. It is only part-time and involves weekend work since that is when most customers are shopping but this will give me the opportunity to spend time with Chris while he is not in class during the week and also continue looking for full-time work. I am not under contract so if something better were to come along more closely to my field than I could go that direction. Also, during the interview the guy said that a lot of times people start out in this position and then move up in the company.

I just wanted to update everyone.

Thanks!
A.

Market Day

Yesterday Chris and I went into the City Centre for Market Day. Every Saturday farmers and tradespeople from the area come into the City Centre and set up market booths. It kind of reminds me of a small flea market because not only is there fresh fruits, vegetables and meat but there is also candies (fudge!) and an assortment of some touristy things. The town is packed. We picked up some Bavarian apples (?) that are fabulous and some fudge that is really good.

Last night we went out with our new American friends, Mike and Lisa, to a pub inside of a small inn and the food was phenomenal! I had an awesome cheeseburger and chips (potato wedge fries) and Chris had Irish stew. We have decided that this is our new favorite place - everything was delicious and reasonably priced.

The weather here as been off and on - today is beautiful and cold but the past two days it has been rainy and dreary. Chris got caught in a rainstorm downtown a couple of days ago and he was soaked! When I say cold I mean it - last night when we were walking to dinner it was about mid-40s and the wind is almost constant and really cold. One of the locals at the university told Chris that we should get our first frost in a couple of weeks.

We signed up for a new telephone internet service called Skype (www.skype.com) that allows us to talk through the computer to other Skype members for free and to call non-Skype members for pennies per minute. We have only been using it for a few days but so far it is working out really well. Who knows - you might get a random call from one of us some day soon!

I better run for now.
Bye.
A.

Durham City Centre

This is the exact center of the city - a statue of the Earl of Durham - whoever he is?!? This is where the market on Saturdays is set up with fresh produce and stuff.
Another market shot. The building to the left with the work scaffolding is an old church where a couple of our friends have visited. We will probably give it a shot soon.
The River Wear. The river separates the "outskirts" of Durham from the City Centre, the University, the Castle and the Cathedral.
The entranceway to the Castle grounds.
Another shot of the City Centre from the opposite viewpoint. All the roads are cobblestone within the city. This was taken around lunchtime when it is busiest.

Pics of the University Grounds

Durham Castle Hill
Entrance to the Music School - across from the Cathedral
Durham Cathedral

The Cathedral is in the background and the Music School is the building on the right.

The University grounds are unbelievable! The Music School is literally in an ancient building with these gorgeous views of the Cathedral and the Castle. The Cathedral and the Castle form a quad with the Music School and University Libray on one side and some other buildings on the opposite side. There is a large grassy area in the middle. If you go to the outside of the quad you can see all of Durham proper and the countryside beyond. It really feels like you are in a fairy tale.

Campus Apartment Pictures 2

Our bedroom. Yes, everything is royal blue - even the duvet is blue plaid! We also have a second very small bedroom with a twin bed and another closet.
The shower and also where we hang our line to dry our clothes!
Entryway. We are already using our jackets - even in the day time it is prety cold. You can see into the second room here.
Us on our little blue Ikea sofa with the blue wall and the blue curtains. AGH!
The smallest sink I have ever seen in my life. And the hot and cold water come out of two separate faucets.