Ok these are so dang cute....

I just couldn't help myself but to post these adorable pictures my mom sent me of our beloved budgie, Jeudi. As you can see, he is quite the little yellow piggy. My dad reports being bit for refusing to share his bread with the little tyrant!!

For those of you who don't know (which would be very few of you indeed) Ryan and I have a little bird who is pretty much our child. At least he thinks so. While we are in Scotland he is living with my parents, and apparently he is adjusting well to life with them. Though I must say he hasn't entirely forgotten us yet. On thanksgiving I talked over the phone to him and he went just about nuts trying to figure out where I was hiding. We most certainly miss him, bites and all.

Alletta's down and out!

Well not really. But I have had a lousy cold for the last three days and last night it reached its miserable zenith with a rather painful sinus headache. So far Ryan seems to be fine, but we'll see yet if it catches up with him. Due to sickness I have been off my running schedule which is no good at all! I am hoping to get better very soon so that I can get back into my schedule. I know that being off the training schedule for even a couple weeks can really set one back. Oh well.

Ryan and I had a very good thanksgiving. Friday night we attended a dinner with a bunch of Americans (+1 Scot and 1 Irish) at a friends house here in town. It was a very nice dinner and turned out to be pretty funny when we realized that almost everyone had lived in Eugene at one time, though they hadn't necessarily known each other then!! As usual, its a small world. A number of the attendees play on a softball team together in the summer and Ryan and I are considering joining up this next year. As is often the case with city league's the softball teams are not horribly competitive. The point is far more social than athletic. Anyhow, it sounds like a whole lot of fun. Then, last night we attended a second thanksgiving dinner, with a couple canadians, an irish, 2 brits, and 3 poles (persons from Poland, that is). For most of them it was their first thanksgiving experience, and so we had a lot of fun trying to explain the American myth of thanksgiving to them all. The potluck wasn't terribly well organized and so the funny thing was that we ended up with like 6 different desserts, following a dinner that was already incredibly rich. It was a bit masochistic to say the least, and in true American thanksgiving style we all dutifully ate ourselves into borderline illness. All in all a very good time, with plans already in the works for Christmas/Channakuh with our friends here in town. The holidays are actually a really fun time to be in Scotland, as there are many different kinds of parties and events going on all the time, with New Years as the biggest of all, fireworks included. It will be really fun to spend at least our first Christmas here and see everything that Scottish culture has to offer. Maybe we will even go to a Cedleigh (thats pronounced Kay-lee).
Ok then, we will be following up with pictures as soon as possible.
Hope you all had a very good turkey day!
Love, Alletta (and Ryan)

Praise the Gods of Gainful Employment!!!

Yes, it true I am now gainfully employed!!! After over two months of seeking employment I finally have gotten somewhere. My new employer is Betfred. A bookie and casino. I will be a cashier, which basically means that I will take bets and enter that information into a computer. I am starting out with part time, 16 hours a week but I will have the opportunity to get more hours as time goes by. Another plus is that the place where I will work is about two blocks from my flat.I will take bets on horse races, football games, and various other events.

I will go a head and say that I am more than a little excited about this. More because I know that I can hold on to a job. So I won't have go and look for one anymore. Okay, I am way to excited to talk more right now. More later. I start this Saturday!!

Happy thanksgiving!!!
I truly have much to be thankful for.


Peace, Ryan

It is cold out!!!

Hello from Scotland. We are long overdue for a post and so I am stepping up to the plate finally to give you folks an update. All is well up here in Edinburgh. As you all know, I have been running regularly to train for the Belfast Marathon in May. Currently I am taking a week off because I hurt one of my ankles and seem to have been aggrivating it by running so much. Hopefully I will be better next week and I can start up again. My max milage is presently six miles and I am scheduled to do eight next but I might have to back off a little after taking some time off. Though it is surprising how responsive the body is to these kinds of stresses, how quickly it is able to get stronger, faster, etc.
For the most part the last couple of weeks have consisted of working on my reading for school but mostly on various sewing projects in order to avoid schoolwork. I just finished a rather stylish wool purse (a picture is coming soon). I bought too much fabric and so I will also be making a matching skirt. Hokey I know but oh well. I won't wear both at once!
We are going to be having thanksgiving here in Edinburgh. There is a large group of Marshalls who are organizing a group dinner in Oxford, but we decided to is just to far to go and not a good time to travel anyway. I will be going to London at the beginning of December for an event put on by the U of O and so I'd rather stay up north for now. We will be having a couple dinners here in town--one with an American couple who moved here from Eugene last year, and another with a group of Canadian (although their thanksgiving was a month ago), British (they're curious) and American friends. It will be interesting for sure because most of the participants are vegan. For our part I believe we will be contributing vegan sweet potato pudding and vegan stuffing (without the bird of course) with gravy. For the other dinner, with the American couple I am going to be trying my hand at a proper English bread pudding. This will be a practice run for the much more complicated plum pudding I am going to try and make for Christmas (it is a process that takes weeks in fact). If I get it all figured out properly I'll be coming back to the states with an expertise in bread puddings!
All around town all sorts of Christmas stuff is going up rather quickly. Every neighborhood has a large Christmas tree in the square with lights and decorations. Off Princes Street the Christmas fair and market is going up, with a farris wheel and everything. There are lights strung across the streets and all the stores are getting geared up. Once they get all the lights turned on (it will be a special ceremony in a couple weeks) we will take pictures of everything. Yesterday we went Christmas shopping and got several regional specialities to send home for the family to share. They'll be coming in the mail soon. For everyone else, we are sorry that we can't send you all special Scottish treats. We will have to throw a Scottish themed party next time we are home. (Next fall maybe??)
Saturday night was the first time it had gotten really cold here. It was down to 3 degrees (celsius) and so we had to really crank on the heat to stay warm. We sat around all day wrapped up in blankets and drinking a lot of tea to stay comfortable. As sad as it sounds, I am hoping those clouds will roll back in soon and get us warmed up again.

Alletta's running update

I am now up to six miles. Legs are a little tired but my asthma has never been better. Still no running shoes for Ryan; when they finally get here he will have a lot of catching up to do!

Victory!!

Hello all,
November 2006 seems to be the month of gifts. On the 7th we were given some change in Washington (See right). Further, I was given some good news as well.

For starters I had my first progress in dealing with a temp agency. I had made several other attempts to get registered with them but then it would go no further. Finally, a agency called by back and I went in and had a talk with her. I went in to her office and we had a nice little chat. She told me that, while she could likely get me a few jobs here and there that it would be unlikely that she could find me permanent work. Her agency deals with office support and various other fields. She also made it clear to me that I should not expect to make anything over £6.00 a hour. Which, even at part time would be more than enough. After our chat she had me take some skill tests. One was on using Microsoft word. The test was very frustrating because it had no room for error. It would ask you to one task and if you did not do exately as it wanted it counted as wrong. The other test was for data entry. I typed slow but had good accuracy. She said that she might have something for me in the next few weeks.

Later that same day Alletta found something very exciting on the University of Edinburgh's website. She was looking at the job vacancies for a possible research assistant job for winter break. What she found was a job titled "Waste & Recycling Assistant". This job was basically exactly the same as my old job in Eugene, which I held for over 3 years, except that it pays better and includes a little more responsibility. So needless to say I was a little excited about the whole thing.

So I spent the remainder of the evening writing up the application, which I then turned in the next day. The downside is that the job posting does not close until November 30th. So potentially I have to wait until then before I here back abut it. I don't wanna count my chickens before they hatch, but I really feel, like I've never before in applying for so many jobs here, that I am uber-qualified for this one.

So now I wait.

Yeah, November.

Be sure to send me many goods thoughts of employment.

Many thanks,

Ryan

update...

I just wanted to say that I ran 4.5 miles today and it was great.
love you guys,
Alletta

and some pictures...

And here, my dears are some pictures from our latest trip to London:

This first one is a row of rather mexican looking houses in central london. So cute I would even like to live there. Because its on a mews, which is like a little alleyway, it was a pretty quiet street too.















Here are some rather nice but kind of dutch looking houses.














And a tube station, being propped up since its neighboring building no longer there. You see a lot of these in London.















Here, if you look closely is a 'wild' parrot in Hyde park, helping himself to some free lunch.

















A momument to Prince Albert (Queen Victoria's husband)















And Royal Albert Hall...














The Natural history Musem, which to me looks like a big church. Notice in the second picture where they are cleaning soot off the side. Lovely, huh?

remember, remember the 5th of november... and other news

Hello there everyone, as you may have noticed the blog has been pretty dang quiet the last couple of weeks. Ryan and I have been rather busy and so that is all the excuse I have. First of all, I have been writing two rather laborous papers lately that have taken up all my time and energy except for a few things.

First, last weekend Ryan and I made a little jaunt down to London for a big party hosted by Google. Apparently one of Google's big strategies right now is to buy up all the 'brains' it can before its competitors can hire them. In line with with this logic, Google hosted a mega party in London for all the Rhodes and Marshall scholars in the UK. I thought it was kind of funny that I would be invited to such a thing, having no experience or training in either business or computer-anything. But apparently they trust so much in our innate intellegence and ability to learn that they are willing to hire any of us and then find a place in the company where we can fit in and thrive. Nice idea, huh?

For the party, they rented out this swanky club near Leicester Square, where the interior has been modeled to look like the ballroom did on the Titanic. The evening started out with a dinner, and some talks by various reps from the company and all the free drinks one could want. Then, they turned down the lights and brought in a DJ for us. Throughout the evening they gave away free ipod nanos (no, we did not win one, boo...), and the end of the night they gave us all goodie bags with Google tee-shirts, notebooks, these really nice computer speakers and passes to a real exclusive nightclub. The whole thing was very nice and if I had any inclination to go into the business sector I probably would give their recruiter a call.

Other than that, it is definately always a good time to hang out with the other Marshalls. We stayed in London at the flat of a fellow Oregonian and her husband and had a very good time chatting about politics, academics, etc. All in all a very successful trip except that I ate some pasta with a bit of cheese and proschisto which ended up giving me a raging migraine for like two days, spoiling our attempt to go see the Victoria and Albert Museum. Oh well. Another time. We will have plenty of other opportunities to spend time in London while we are here.

As for events in Edinburgh, I have been continuing to run, doing about 3 miles and trying to increase my milage. Hopefully Ryan's shoes will arrive in the mail soon so that I can have some company! We went for a very nice hike and did some climbing at the Salisbury craigs on Friday. Next item on the agenda, to get back into the swing and start doing some cycling again. Been slowly discovering all the good off-the-road routes for cycling in town so hopefully we can take advantage of those this Sunday and do some exploring. Amazingly, the weather is actually pretty good here. We have been doing comparisons every day of the weather in good old Forest Grove and the weather here, and believe it or not, it rains a whole lot less in Scotland. In fact, it has even been warmer here too than in Oregon. No figure, huh?

Sadly, we did not do much for Halloween this year, except make a little Jack-o-lantern which we later made a great pumpkin bisque out of. I was too busy working on my papers for school to go to any of the parties going on. Halloween originates here in Britian and so it is a pretty big deal here. Maybe next year we will get to join in.

The next few weeks are going to be busy, with lots of guests coming through our door. Right now we have a Marshall named Dan staying with us. On monday, we will have another Marshall, Natalie, and her husband Eddie (the couple we stayed with in London), and then on thusday Elizabeth Turner will be swinging through. Ryan and I love to have guests so keep um coming!

And finally, tomorrow is the fifth of November, the day of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the English Parliment at Westminster. Here in Britian this day gets celebrated every year, which is kind of funny because you can't really tell whether they are celebrating the attempted revolt against the government, or (more likely I think,) the fact the plot was foiled and the government preserved. Anyhow, there are lots of big fireworks going on, and in London I understand they are burning Fawkes in effigy. lovely. One more holiday us Americans have never heard off, but a nice idea isn't it? Almost like an inverse of the 4th of july, when we Americans celebrate the success of a much bigger revolt.

Anyhow, thats all for now. Soon we hope to make a little weekend bike trip to St. Andrews and to see some castles. We let you know how it goes.
cheers,
Alletta