Being right on the water, we couldn't resist eating seafood as much as possible. But it was nice to have Andrey as we had a few wee little problems with the scottish accent.


THIS... is 'haggis' (pronounced, huggies). Some sort of traditional scottish dealio. The real thing is supposed to be the meat (the middle layer... actually I don't think it's really meat... mostly innards) inside somebody's stomach.... sheep or cow, I think. On the top here it's 'nips' and the bottom is 'tatties'. Apparenly, that means parsnips and potatoes.


Mmm.... seafood.


 

Great trip!


 

Well, besides having a nice vacation and visiting Dasha's brother and sister-in-law, we've come to England for another reason....



This is why we won't be taking the bus home! 

We made it...

Well... we're sorry about pictures... the one at the top is our only shot from the trip. It was five in the morning in London. We had frequent stops on the bus, but in rest areas with nothing interesting to take pictures of... and usually just enough time for the bathroom and back on the bus. It was an adventure that Dasha and I were glad to have, but also one that we're glad is over and don't plan on taking again.

But now we are here in Kendal (northern England), at Dasha's brother and sister-in-law's house... we're sitting here enjoying the view of the english countryside (the picture below is the the view out the front window). That's all for now, and we promise to take more pictures as we go and post them while we're here since we have access to much faster internet than in Kyiv....


 

The Beginning

The Mother that Be made a request for a pre-blog of the forthcoming trip.

So... It is 1:44 A.M. in Ukraine and Dasha and I are leaving on a bus to England at 10:00 A.M.

We've packed a suitcase for the two of us and enough food to feed whoever else might be on the bus. Once we get there (on Sunday morning... two days of bus) Dasha's brother and sister-in-law will meet us there.

Let the mayhem begin...

English Camp

Where have we been for so long? Studying English! Here is a glimpse into our week at camp. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

P.S. I'm going with 'No Comment' for now as regards to the World Cup...



 

 

 

 

 

Back to World Cup

Quite a bit has happened since my last World Cup post...

Brazil is starting to look a little more like themselves. As soon as the pressure is turned up, they are always able to pull their game up a notch. Quite unfortunate for the competitors. Ronaldo now has the record for most world cup goals scored and he did quite nicely... there's nothing quite like setting a goalie on his rear before finishing. But Ghana did play well, and Brazil still has some big defensive problems to solve. With France picking up speed as well, their quarter-final match will be a great rematch of the 1998 finals.

Portugal 1 Holland 0. That was quite a game. Unfortunately for Holland, the only thing they had going for them were their cool flag-colored jerseys instead of their usual royal orange. I still don't think that the ref did as bad a job as everyone is saying he did. If the players break the rules, (intentional handballs, cheap shots, time wasting) he HAS to give them cards according to the RULES! Obviously there were some calls that he got wrong, but I could only tell after the replay.

Ukraine went nuts. I heard stories from what happened at 12:40 a.m. from the central square, outskirts of the city, villages, and from our own apartment when Rebrov scored the winning penalty. And how about two saves from the penalty spot for the keeper? Wow... Ukraine went nuts. Cars honking their horns everywhere, fireworks... in the village (where it is quieter than in the city) there was an audible general shout. We'll see how they do against Italy. Ukraine is in great company... Germany, Argentina, Italy, England, Portugal, France, Brazil..... and Ukraine. Before this World Cup, Ukraine was never mentioned in the same sentence with those teams. World Cup #1 for Ukraine is already a success.

WHAT?!

Hate to diverge attention away from the World Cup... but I just saw this article about a 20-year-old guy who spent 48 hours in a Wal-Mart. Apparently, this was a news grabbing event in the states...

"Skyler Bartels' 15 minutes of fame were supposed to be up a long time ago. Fifteen weeks later, the clock is still ticking.Pick up the June 26 edition of People magazine. There he is, standing before a row of TV screens, gripping a Slushee, taking up a full page...

Bartels, almost 21 now, is the young man who spent 41 hours of his spring vacation at the Windsor Heights Wal-Mart. He wanted to write about the experience."

THAT WAS OUR IDEA! WE COULD HAVE BEEN FAMOUS! About six years ago, camping out in a Wal-Mart was going to be a 'Mans With Plans' event. Jack, Jared, Matt, Ben, Noah, and I planned a Wal-Mart campout.

Now this kid is FAMOUS! Granted, I doubt any of us ever planned to write about it, but still. That was our idea!

I think it is also noteworthy to mention that the moms turned this idea down. I won't mention any names... because I'm pretty sure it was all of them. Oh well... we love them anyway.

Please tell me I'm not the only one that remembers this...

We were way ahead of our time.

This is the crowd (don't know how well you can see it, I was in a rush on my way to work) that gathered to watch Ukraine beat Tunisia 1-0 in the last game of the group stage on the big screen in the central square. Their parting gift from group H is a meeting with Switzerland on the 26th. Not too bad of a draw... although if they win, they'll be going up against Italy (most likely) or Australia.

The group stage is now over and the knockout round is already underway. Germany looked most confident out of everyone in the group stage and are already looking quite good in the knockout round. They've already booked a date in the quarter-finals with Argentina or Mexico (to be determined later this evening).

England was looking great in their last game against Sweden in the first half. It was the England that I fell in love with however many years ago. Joe Cole played extremely well (what a goal!). Ashley Cole was all over the place. But, the second half was another story... I hope it was in their strategy to rest and look pretty poor. Poor Michael Owen is finished for this World Cup. But he's not the only Englishman to be finished in Germany... Graham Poll, England's most famous match official is likely to be on a plane for home soon after giving Croatia's Josip Simunic THREE yellow cards before sending him off.

Poor USA... what else can I say. Four years, down the drain... but it's not like they would have gone all the way anyway.

The best is yet to come! 

Ukraine on Fire

Well, well, well...

Mrs. T appropriately noted after the first games that 'U' stands for underachiever... But after game 2, 'U' is for uber-elite.... (sorry, not a whole lot of good 'u' words). Ukraine pulled off an easy victory and did it looking pretty good.

France has turned to mush although they are still in it... Barthez says that everything is still in their hands. Togo shouldn't be a problem for them... but then again, Switzerland and South Korea shouldn't have been problems either. And considering that they are basically the same team from the last World Cup (only four years older) that didn't score a goal, there isn't much hope.

Brazil has won both their games but still look like mortal men. Which is odd considering that they are all soccer gods. There doesn't seem to be a single team that is really confident in themselves. Basically, whoever scores the first goal wins... mainly because the other team deflates like a balloon as soon as they see the ball in their own goal. No one has impressed me with being able to bounce back and fight (except the US against Italy).

Spain did well to come back from a 1-0 first half and showed that they were the better team... they would do better if they could figure out if they wanted to be the bull or the matador.

Ah, the Frenchies

'Collectively the sauce hasn't thickened yet.'

-Retired frenchman, Lizarazu, on his former teammates.

We'll see today whether the French thicken into a nice Rémoulade or just turn to mush....

WOW!!!

THAT was a team to be proud of. The amazing thing is not only did the hold Italy off for that long, but that they should have WON the game with that goal getting called back.

They surely silenced their critics (including the Ukrainian commentator who kept saying things about how the states just doesn't have the skills to play against Europe and how if Italy had a free kick like the US did they would have scored, etc. etc. etc.) By the end, the commentator said that Kasey Keller and Bruce Arena were absolute genius'.

Landon Donovan was incredible... Convey was great... Beasley did what he came on to do and got it stolen from him... Kasey Keller wasn't playing like the old bald man in goal against the Czech Republic... and Claudia Reyna did a good job at keeping everybody together.

The only thing I am afraid of is our tendency to play only as good as the other team... Ghana looked great today, but if the States play like they did today, they shouldn't be a problem.

Time will tell.

For Faith

 

Marriage Advice

To Pat and Jack:

Here are a few tid-bits that will make your life easier. Don't make the same mistakes I have!

1. Go on NO special trips

2. Buy NO clothes for her

3. Do NO laundry

'Why?', you may ask? Because when you go on that special trip, buy her a special WHITE souvenier T-shirt and then put it in the washing machine with your BLUE jeans... it sure is a pain getting the blue out.

Well, there wasn't much to shout about for Ukraine or the US. It's actually been a long time since I have since the US do NOTHING worthwile for 90 minutes. There was NOTHING good about that game...

Ukraine got beat partly by the weather (90+ temperatures definitely favor Spain), partly by the refs (the red card being the worst call so far in this World Cup) but mostly by the fact that Spain is actually a pretty good team.

Anyway... those who care watched the games and saw it for themselves... this post is mainly for the picture.

Something Fishy

I've been trying to post for a while now... but I can't get pictures to load. Oh well... you're stuck with words.

But hey... the World cup has started and tonight is the big opener for the U S of A. It's nice being so close to Germany... I've watched all or some of every single game this year. So that's been nice... But you can't really consider any World Cup 'open' until they bring out the big guns... Tomorrow the hot rivalry of South Korea and Togo will be taking center stage.

I have enjoyed some of this year's headlines though. Including: "First chance to shine for Ghana's Black Stars". Who knew that capital letters could make such a difference? "Iran aim to leave with more than honor"... fine with me, as long as they're not aiming with a nuclear weapon. "Serbians are strong in tackle and spirit"... too bad they're not fishing. "Switzerland's international bright young things"... I have no idea what that is about.

Anyway...

USA! USA! USA!

The Da Vinci Code

I haven't read the book or seen the movie, but I thought this was entertaining:

"To their credit the director and his screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman (who collaborated with Mr. Howard on Cinderella Man and A Beautiful Mind, have streamlined Mr. Brown's story and refrained from trying to capture his, um, prose style. 'Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair.' Such language — note the exquisite 'almost' and the fastidious tucking of the 'which' after the preposition — can live only on the page."

"But thank the deity of your choice for Ian McKellen, who shows up just in time to give "The Da Vinci Code" a jolt of mischievous life. He plays a wealthy and eccentric British scholar named Leigh Teabing. (I will give Mr. Brown this much: he's good at names. If I ever have twins or French poodles, I'm calling them Bezu and Teabing for sure.)"

Read the full review at http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/movies/18code.html?8dpc.

Ok, so I've seen a lot of pictures... and I am thankful for that... But how about a 'play-by-play'? I haven't read anything about how it went. A picture may say a thousand words, but the right words can show many more pictures.... HAVE AT IT!

(By the way, that picture IS hinting that Jack and Stacey are on their way to their Ukrainian reception...)

One More

 

Photoshop Marriage

It's just not quite the same... Thank you (especially Jared and Hannah) for the pictures. Everything looked like a lot of fun. 

OUTRAGE!

Dasha and I are OUTRAGED by the fact that it is already SUNDAY EVENING and there are no wedding pictures up. Someone must have had a camera!!!

Oh, Happy Day!

Congratulations to BEST FRIEND JACK AND STACEY! Obviously they won't be reading this, so someone should probably go ahead and congratulate them for Dasha and me.

Wishing we could be there
Wishing we could see you
Wishing we could give a toast
Wishing that someone puts up some pictures TONIGHT!
Wishing you the best.

Jamie and Dasha

P.S. Were they registered? I never got that info!

Good Ol' Salisbury

May 02 5:41 PM US

SALISBURY, Md.

A 20-year-old was found by a Wal-Mart employee in the bathroom Sunday night after he sat down and was glued to the toilet seat.

The man, whose name was not released by police, was taken to the hospital late Sunday night, said Lt. Cheryl Rantz of the Salisbury Police Department.

"The man had gone into the bathroom and sat down," she said. "He was banging on the wall when the employee came in."

Rantz said the man was treated and released.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/02/D8HBT4CO1.html

American troops have complained that a new armoured body suit designed to be worn in Iraq makes them look "goofy".