Old El Paso

While I was waiting for my immigration tribulations to be resolved, I had the opportunity to spend an extra week and a half in El Paso. My family was very happy to hear that I would be with them while my second visa application was reviewed!

Besides maintaining my normal work schedule and submitting my second visa application, I had two objectives in El Paso: 1) teach Elizabeth how to drive 2) put Otis on a diet

Teaching Elizabeth How to Drive

Elizabeth, my youngest sister, is learning to drive this summer. She recently finished the classroom part of driver’s-ed and is now out on the road with her permit. A few months ago while we were in South Carolina for Emily’s graduation, Elizabeth mentioned that she was taking driver’s-ed and I said, “You? Driving? Scary!” She said back to me, “I know!” That was not a good sign…

The first time David and I took her driving, we drove around our quiet neighborhood for about 15 minutes. Then I decided she should try something a little riskier. Bad idea. I wanted her to take a right out onto a busier street, change into the left lane, and then take a left at the intersection in front of my old high school. Well, Elizabeth got a little flustered changing lanes on a busier street. She was trying to concentrate on putting on her signal, checking her blind spot, and getting over at least 100 feet before the intersection. It didn’t work out quite that smoothly so she ended up changing lanes in the middle of the intersection. Oops! Then when she was taking a left at the second intersection in front of the high school, she became frozen with fear. Her hands were gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her wrists were resting on the horn. Honking her way through the entire turn, she made it but she freaked out even more thinking that the people around her were honking at her! Only after she had made the turn did I tell her it was HER that was honking! After that experience, David and I agreed that we are definitely not ready for kids yet. Babies are cute, but then they grow up and become teenagers, and teenagers are scary and stressful.  

Putting Otis on a Diet

Meanwhile, Kirby has been enjoying my parent’s backyard pool. He LOVES his new home, except for the rocks. In El Paso, water is hard to come by so most yards are grass-free. His poor little paws were pretty raw from running around the rocky yard after those first few days, but they have toughened up now. My dad works remotely for Coca-Cola, so he wakes up pretty early every morning to get on calls with the Atlanta IT team. Kirby has become very spoiled. Every morning he pops up around 6:30, ready for his walk with Dad, followed by his breakfast. In the evenings, once the sun has gone down and the temperature has dropped to a tolerable 85, we take him for his long walk with Otis.

Even with two walks and only a cup of dog food every day, Otis has still managed to pack on the pounds. That first evening in El Paso, David and I quickly discovered the culprit – MOM!

Mom is a total sucker when it comes to Otis. He has her wrapped around his little dewclaw. She feeds him scraps from the table and then puts leftovers in his dog bowl. As a result, Otis will not eat his dog food unless there is people food mixed in! Mom also caves in with the treats. That first evening, we found out that Otis learned how to open the cabinet door in the kitchen where his treats are kept. He’ll open the door, and then sit there staring at Mom. She claims he’s “staring into her soul” and she gives in!

So we began training Mom. It was hard at first. A few times she actually had to leave the kitchen to avoid Otis’s lovable gaze. About a week into the training program, we were questioning why Otis was so readily eating his dog-food dinner. Mom SWORE that she did not put any scraps in his dog bowl. “I don’t do that anymore!” she claimed. Elizabeth investigated, and sure enough she found some people food in Otis’s dog bowl. Mom finally confessed, arguing that it’s not fair Kirby gets scraps and Otis doesn’t. But Kirby burns off the calories by running around all day playing fetch and swimming in the pool. Otis wakes up, goes for his walk, eats his breakfast, and sleeps until 8 in the evening when it’s time for his dinner and second walk.

Otis doing what he does best - sleeping 

Today I leave El Paso and it is Day 17 of Otis’s diet. There is no noticeable change in his appearance, yet, but I am proud to say that Mom has indeed stopped giving him scraps and treats. Now if Mom could just train Dad….

Immigration Tribulations

So…. getting to the UK has not gone as smoothly as we hoped it would go.

My spousal visa application was denied by the British Consulate!!

First of all, I want to thank Dell for being so helpful. When David first came to me with the possibility of this move, I went to work the next day and spoke to the senior manager of the Dell expat program, as well as my own managers. My own managers immediately started looking for new roles in the UK for me. They sent out notes to their contacts, which landed me an interview and then a job with the Audit organization in the London office. The expat program lead started putting together a tax and visa package for me. Dell hired a Big 4 accounting firm to do our tax equalization and an immigration law firm to guide me through the visa process. Everything seemed to be running smoothly… until a couple of weeks ago.

We bought our plane tickets back in May to leave the US on Friday, July 2. However, I had to have a biometric test (fingerprint scan and photo to get on the grid) and the earliest appt I could make was Monday, June 28. David and I flew back into Austin on Sunday night from Scotland. I woke up Monday, gathered all of my documents together, obtained the biometric stamp, and then over-nighted everything to the British Consulate in NYC. Then we hopped in the car with Kirby for the 9-hour drive to El Paso to drop off my new car and the pup at my parent’s house. It usually takes about 24-48 hours to review a spousal visa so I was hoping the consulate would overnight my passport with the visa stamp back to me by Friday morning before our flight at noon. We knew this deadline would be tight, but we were hopeful.

The good news is that FedEx did overnight everything back to me on Friday morning. The bad news is I have a big red X in my passport stating my visa application has been denied. Thursday evening the lawyers called me and let me know the bad news. It turns out, when we were in Europe the week before, the customs agent in the UK stamped David’s passport with a “visitor” stamp instead of a “resident” stamp, thereby negating his residency. So if David was technically not a resident in the consulate’s eyes, I could not get a spousal visa.

The lawyers advised that I not travel to the UK on Friday because it would not only draw attention to David’s inaccurate stamp, but the customs agent may not believe I was going over as a visitor for a couple of weeks and then returning to the states to re-apply for a visa. If I wasn’t convincing enough, they would be forced to deport me. DEPORT ME! Can you imagine? The most ridiculous part of this story is that David is going to England to open up an office and provide jobs to the Brits. I am going over WITH A JOB to pay UK taxes and be a productive member of society. It’s not like we’re a couple of jobless, homeless, young adults wanting to travel the world to “find ourselves” or something. The UK should be welcoming us with open arms as far as I’m concerned.

Unfortunately the consulate did not see it this way. Luckily, David eventually did get to the UK on July 3 (after a 6 hour flight delay due to Hurricane Alex in Houston). The law firm had called the Chief Immigration Officer at Heathrow Airport to let her know the background of our situation. She was totally understanding and logged David’s issue into their record books. So when David walked through customs, he got his passport stamped with the resident stamp (how anybody can tell the difference between those stamps is beyond me, by the way). He visited the UK branch of the immigration law firm that Monday to get attorney-certified copies of his passports. The copies were then over-nighted to NYC. I had another biometric test last Tuesday, and then we waited...

Unfortunately, a second application takes twice as long as the 24-48 processing time of a first application. So the earliest I could get my passport back is today. And guess what?! I RECEIVED MY VISA TODAY!!!! YAY!!

I was so disappointed to not be organizing furniture with David at our flat and meeting my new team at the office last week, but it is also nice to spend quality time with my family and Kirby in El Paso. I won’t see my parents or Elizabeth again until next June when they come to London to visit and I will not see Kirby until he flies over to the UK to join us in November.

My new managers have all sent me notes of encouragement and told me not to worry about calling into meetings (which would be around 3AM El Paso time with the 7-hour time difference). They let me know that there would be plenty for me to do once I arrive, and to keep up the good attitude during this difficult process. It is a huge burden off my shoulders knowing I have a great work group in Europe. I cannot wait to meet everyone in person and thank them for their support!

Until then, I will continue to sleep in a little later than usual, check emails by the pool, cook yummy dinners with Mama, and take long walks with the dogs in the evenings.

Castles, Palaces, and Coastal Walks

On Thursday David and I started off the day by picking up some souvenirs and gifts, and then walked down to the beach to do the dreaded pier walk. It’s an old tradition to walk along the top part of the pier instead of the safer, wider part. We both started to experience vertigo with the water moving below us and the clouds above us, but we made it safe and sound to the end. We climbed down an old rusty ladder to the safe part of the pier, and then walked along the beach before heading back to the house for lunch.

Near the end of the pier   

After lunch, we left for Falkland Palace. The Renaissance palace was a hunting lodge for the Stuart kings. Also, the oldest tennis court in the world was built there in 1539 for King James V and it’s still in use today.

 Falkland Palace

1539 Tennis Court

We took our time walking through the orchards and the gardens. I climbed a tree. David took pictures. Then a pigeon pooped on my arm, but I got that pigeon back by having his friend for dinner later that night! Muahahaha! 

Laura wanted to take us on a walk through the town and surrounding woods…. and through more woods… and more woods. Little did we know this walk would be a 2 mile trek. Somehow Amy and Jeff got the memo and wore tennis shoes. It was a fun walk though. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery including the old bridges and waterfalls. At one point we came to a dark tunnel. Jeff refused to walk through and climbed over the top instead. Amy waited inside to scare the rest of us, but David terrified us the most by performing his Sméagol impression.

After a foot massage from my sweet (but weird) husband back home, everyone got dressed up for dinner at The Seafood Restaurant, a swanky restaurant overlooking the bay and the famous rock. I am not the biggest fan of seafood, so as I mentioned above, I had pigeon. It was my first time eating pigeon and it was actually really delicious. It tasted like a really tender steak. It was served over a watermelon steak with lemon and goat cheese. All of the guys, including David, made fun of me. For the rest of the trip, every time we saw a dirty pigeon eating scraps off the ground, they had to remind me that I had one of those in my belly. My pigeon was raised on a Scottish farm, though, so I think his diet was much healthier than trashed sandwiches and half-eaten candy bars.

After dinner we went to a nightclub called the Lizard to dance to Euro-techno music. We would’ve totally fit in with some glow sticks…. I’m just kidding! After a while, they started playing normal music like Keisha and even some Journey!

Hanging out at The Lizard

Friday morning, we went on a 4-mile coastal hike around East Neuk, which is a string of pretty fishing villages along the eastern coast of Scotland near St. Andrews. We started off at a lighthouse in Elie. Our next stop along the trail was Lady Janet’s tower. A wealthy woman built the tower and a swimming grotto for her private use. Next was Ardross Castle, built in 1370 and now basically a pile of stones. We ended in St. Monans at Newark Castle. Newark is not a protected structure, so we were free to wander around inside. It was amazing to us how these castles are just there. Some of them are on farmland or campgrounds. Others are literally in the backyards of houses. Everything is so new in America. Even our oldest structures are still only a few hundred years old. David and I couldn’t imagine waking up every morning and looking out over a castle or church or other ancient building.

Laura on the trail in front of Newark Castle

We were pretty exhausted after our hike so we stopped in Anstruther at an award-winning fish n chips restaurant for lunch and then headed home to relax with the family. Later that night… that’s right, we watched the World Cup.

Our flight home from Europe left from Edinburgh so we spent Saturday there before heading out on Sunday. The first thing we did when we arrived in the city was to hike up the royal mile to see Edinburgh Castle.  The castle is a huge fortress that sits on top of an extinct volcano. We took an audio guided tour which showed us the crown jewels, the royal apartments where King James I was born to Mary, Queen of Scots, and St. Margaret’s chapel, the oldest building in Edinburgh. We also explored the dungeons, which later became home to prisoners of war during the American Revolution. There is a great War Memorial in the middle of the castle. At 1:00 each day a musician entertains the crowd with his bagpipes and then a member of the Scottish military fires off a cannon. 

 In front of the War Memorial

David posing next to the giant Mons Meg cannon

After the cannon was fired, we left the castle and headed down the street to the Scotch Whiskey Experience.  The whiskey museum reminded us a lot of the Heineken Experience, except instead of walking through the simulation, you get to ride in a whiskey barrel!  

On the whiskey barrel ride

At the end of the tour, you get a sample of scotch whiskey and you can take home your special glass, too. To decide on which samples we wanted, we watched a video on the different regions of Scotland. Each region has a unique whiskey flavor associated with it. David chose the smoky whiskey while I chose the fruity. But even the fruity tasted like rubbing alcohol to me, so David had both samples for himself. Then we saw the largest collection of scotch in the world. This room is filled with thousands of unopened bottles collected by a Brazilian millionaire.

That's a lot of Scotch Whiskey, and it's just one wall of the room!

We also ate lunch at the museum’s restaurant, Amber. This was in my guide book as an up-and-coming café acclaimed by both locals and tourists. It was soooo good! David and I both had Scotland’s version of French onion soup. Then David had a steak with a whiskey glaze and I had lamb. For dessert, I had my first-ever sticky toffee pudding. David couldn’t believe that after all the times I had been to the UK, I had never had sticky toffee pudding. I love rich food, but it was almost too rich even for me!

David and I had to walk off the 3,000 calories we had just consumed for dessert, so we headed back down the royal mile to Holyrood Palace. This is the official summer residence of the Queen of England when she visits Scotland and it is closed for tours while she’s there. Fortunately for us, she hadn’t arrived yet for her big garden party the first week of July. Much of the grounds were already covered in big white tents, though, in preparation for the festivities. We picked the perfect time to tour the palace. The entry gates close at 5:00 and all visitors must leave by 6:00. We arrived at 4:30 and the tour took exactly 90 minutes. So for much of the tour, we were the only ones there (which made for some GREAT pictures).

In the palace gardens outside Holyrood Abbey

That night… yes, you guessed it! We watched the World Cup. I guess the Scots don’t like Americans very much because EVERYONE at the pub was rooting for Ghana. Unfortunately for us, Ghana won the game and we were forced to leave in shame.

The US defeat, quickly followed by England’s defeat on our flight home Sunday, did nothing to dampen our spirits. The whole trip was amazing! We had so much fun visiting family and discovering Scotland together! Congratulations, Laura! We’ll see you again very, very soon!

Kilts, Bagpipes, and Diplomas

After a fun weekend in Amsterdam, last Monday David and I arrived in Scotland. We flew into the capital city of Edinburgh and drove about an hour north to the small coastal village of St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf and home to St. Andrews University.  Awaiting our arrival were David’s parents Karen and Larry, his sisters Amy and Laura, his brother Jeff…. and David’s favorite meal – his mom’s lasagna. We enjoyed a nice evening at the home Karen had rented for the week catching up over a delicious dinner.

Our home for the week

Tuesday morning we headed down the road to the graduation ceremonies. It was very Harry Potter-esque. All of the students were asked to dress in dark pants and a white shirt. The men from Scotland were asked to dress in their native formal wear, the kilt. Yes! I was hoping I would get to see some men in kilts and Scotland did not disappoint. I didn’t realize how much goes into the kilt outfit. Around the waist hangs a little purse-thing with fur on it. The more fur, the closer to royalty. The different colors of the kilt signify the family you belong to, and in their stockings the men carry daggers. The “graduands” don black robes and then get “caped” as they become graduates. When their name is called, the graduand walks across the stage, kneels before the school president, and then a cape gets draped over their head. Then the president taps them on the head with a cloth supposedly from John Knox’s pants (which we learned during one of the graduation speeches is impossible because the tradition started before John Knox was even born). After a few speeches and some singing, we headed out to the courtyard to take some family photos.

Later that afternoon, we had a picnic at Laura’s flat and were then invited to a garden party back at the university. This is where David was star-struck by a celebrity from our childhood. We actually saw a couple of celebrities on this trip. As we were going through UK customs, Pharrell Williams from N.E.R.D and his entourage were waiting for their work visas to clear in line in front of us. David recognized him immediately as “that guy with the song from Band Hero we love!” Anyway, Laura had mentioned to us that one of her roommates and best friends at St. Andrews used to play Morgan on Boy Meets World (the young Morgan, not the annoying one they replaced her with – according to David). She also played the girl at the beginning of The Negotiator. David LOVES Boy Meets World so he couldn’t wait to meet her. Lily just thought it was hilarious that someone wanted a picture with her.

Celebrity Watching - Morgan from 'Boy Meets World'

That night we met Laura’s boyfriend and had a scrumptious dinner at a local Indian restaurant. On Wednesday Laura took us on a tour of St. Andrews. We started off at the golf course, which is closed in preparation for the upcoming British Open but you are allowed to walk around the fairways and greens. Near the course there’s a rock out in the bay that David’s family took pictures on years ago when they visited St. Andrews. So we had to take updated pictures on “THE FAMOUS ROCK.” David and I wore our cute Scotland outfits (argyll and plaid caps) and posed for some photos.

Then we toured the ruined St. Andrews castle and learned all about the corrupt archbishops, Cardinal Beaton’s murder, and the sieges that partially destroyed the fortress.

David's "artsy" photo of St. Andrews Castle

We kept walking along the coast through the campus towards the old cathedral. Some of the gravestones in the churchyard date back to the 1500s but they are kept in a separate space indoors for conservation purposes. David and I climbed over 100 feet up the church tower to get a better view of the area.

Us at the top of the tower

Then we headed back down and to a pub called The Rule to watch the England World Cup game. In case you haven’t noticed, the World Cup schedule often determined our own schedule. Luckily both the US and England won their games so everyone was in a great mood! We had taco night at home and then made a late-night run to the market for some yummy British desserts. After watching more World Cup, we turned in to get some rest before another day of sight-seeing Thursday.