The Professor's Wife: Is this a note from me at last?

I can hardly believe that the last time I added anything to my blog we were in New York City. It was December. Now it is spring.

And we are in London, England after spending a week in Barcelona.

April 21, 2015

I have not been a fan of Leanna's driveway for several month. Now it is on my hate list. I have backed up and scraped the car on their white wall. I was trying to be so careful today. I stayed far from the wall and instead my side mirror killed the mailbox.

Steve says Dad and I need to quit driving. I am having these feelings of being "Driving Miss Daisy." And I am Miss Daisy.

Steve, apparently I need you to come back to the US permanently so that you can drive me everywhere.

I just got back from the hardware store and buying a new mailbox.

Mailbox

I had to tape the box together so that we could have mail delivered. I wonder how long it will take for Eser to put up the new box that I bought to replace the one I slew. John, I did not even think about taking a picture. I will have to ask Leanna to do it.

Marg, I forgot to tell you that Eser will be sworn in as a US citizen tomorrow. Wow. John says he will probably go since he has to be in SLC later in the day.

I have not heard whether Eser has "planted" a new mail box in their yard or not. I do know that the little boys are sick again. I feel sad that they are ill.

April 24th

Have jet lag and am extremely grumpy. We arrived safely and ate our first fish and chips. We are in the basement of our hotel annex. It is okay and will do for the night. A woman at the BYU center (who is not in charge) told us that we will not be in the studio apartment because some one else was coming to live there. According to her we will have a bedroom only. Great. I was looking forward to having a kitchenette and a fridge.

Tomorrow is the Professor's conference and in the evening we fly to Barcelona, Spain.

I am using the hotel guest computer, so I will send a note when I can.

April 25th

We are on board the Norwegian airplane flying to Barcelona. Today was a better day then yesterday. However despite the fact that there were lots of reminders, I forgot to take my Chrome out of the bag. Duh. And I had a scissors in my small suitcase instead of my big one that was checked. The woman who checked my luggage was really considerate and pleasant though. That helped a lot. I didn't feel quite so stupid.

I thought the Professor's presentation went well. I was one of three people in the audience and there were three panelists and a moderator. Of course, it was held in the auditorium. It felt just a little empty.

Of course, the subject was Canada. The two women were both named Magdelena. One was from Lodz U and the other from Saint Paul in Krakow. I learned that Poland is the biggest exporter of apples. I don't know if that is from the EU or from the entire world. Putin decided that he would punish Poland for being part of the sanctions against Russia by refusing to allow Poland to export apples to Russia. Magdelena said that the motto in Poland has been "eat an apple for Putin." Most people in Poland have been taking two apples to work to eat every day.

I took some pictures of the Paddington Station sign.Of course I thought of watching the show with some of you.

I slept almost all of last night and fell asleep on a bench at the conference this afternoon. I was reading and was out like a light. Fortunately it was a bench in a sheltered corner of the building where maybe no one saw me dozing. The Professor is fast asleep on the plane beside me right now. I wish that I could sleep on the airplane. I have no trouble in the car...explain that to me.

That is about it for now. We had a continental breakfast this morning and sandwiches at the conference at 12:30 and sandwiches, potato chips and a drink for 3.99 pounds at the newspaper stand. Really exciting food.

Actually it definitely was. You know English sandwiches. One was hummus and cucumbers. Another was roasted chicken with stuffing in a sandwich. Breakfast all day long with bacon and fried eggs in the sandwich. One was made with cheese and roasted tomatoes. And of course that old standby, tuna with mayo and sweet corn kernels. Some very interesting possibilities. In Barcelona we are definitely going to eat Turkish food on the Rambla this time.

I think we have wifi at the hotel so I will let you know how it goes.

( May 2nd, By the way, we never did have Turkish food in Barcelona.)

April 26, 2015

The Professor and I got back from our wanderings just awhile ago. We discovered that the maid took our key to keep the lights on. The professor went to the front desk and retrieved that. Now he is going to see if he can get back the adapter that he left in the kitchen plug. Neither of us can recharge a computer without it. (We found the adapter later attached to a computer cord.)

Other than the fact that my feet are aching, we had a pretty good day. Of course, nothing is open today so no emergency groceries. We do have a tiny kitchenette. I have a bottle of water freezing so that I can use it to help with my plantar fasciitis.

We did not see the sea today but just wandered around the Rambla area. Lots of people enjoying Sunday strolling on the street. Not sure how many of them were tourists.

We stopped at a restaurant close to the hotel we stayed in last year. We had the special of the day. I lucked out and had a great tuna salad that I could have made in my own kitchen. The Professor had paella which had an unshelled shrimp and a few clams and oysters in the shell on it. I know he does not like tuna but he was a little envious of my good looking salad with lettuce, tomatoes, slices of pepper and onion and carrot topped with about half a can of tuna. I added vinegar and olive oil.

We both had garlic chicken and fries. It was okay but I am not that crazy about chicken legs and dark meat. That is what they were except that they had the small end of the leg chopped off. Gross! I am considering being a vegetarian.

I will have to use the Professor's computer to download pictures so I hope I will get to use it about once a week so that I can send our photographs.

We are staying "off the map" at a hotel far from downtown. Great price and really comfortable. The biggest king size bed I have ever seen.

I think we got the hang of taking the tram and then the metro today. The biggest challenge was that the Professor took only cash with him and the ticket machine would only take a credit card. Since it was Sunday it was difficult to find a news kiosk where tickets can be bought. Thank goodness we finally talked to someone who could direct us to one that was open today. Tickets bought. Ready to explore the city.