Thursday, October 27, 2005

The Fat Lady Has Sung!

Well, they have done it. The Sox won their 4th straight game last night, making them the World Series Champions. It makes me laugh when they keep getting called the world champs, they haven't ever played a team from any other country!

This time we went to The Cubby Bear to watch. It was a bit strange. The place was pretty busy for the start of the game - all the tables were taken. But by the end a lot of people had left, so that only about half the numbers were still there. There was a lot of cheering and shouting when they won, but then almost everyone got up to leave within 10 minutes of the end. No-one seemed to be hanging around to celebrate. Out in the carpark there was more shouting, and one guy was running around waving a broom (because it had been a clean sweep!). But it was a lot different from what I was expecting. I had been in France when they won the football World Cup in 1996, and the atmosphere in the bars and on the streets that night was amazing. Everyone stayed out to party for a long time after the match was over. And in England any pub would have been packed to standing room only for such a big game, and again everyone would have hung around afterwards for as long as possible. On the TV they kept saying how long Chicago has been waiting for this day, the last time any Chicago team won it was 1917.

I saw the news today and it looked like Chicago itself had more celebrations, so at least someone was partying!

posted by Lorraine Kenmuir @ 3:01 pm 0 comments

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Sox Update ..... 3-0!

So far, so good. The Sox have won the first 3 games straight, and the first team to win 4 games is the overall winner, so keep your fingers crossed!

Last night's game was a record breaker. It was the longest game ever in the World Series timewise, lasting 5 hours 41 minutes, and tied longest on the number of innings, being 14 innings, when they normally only play 9 innings.

We had gone to a local sports bar to watch, and every screen in the place was devoted to the game. The place was busy, but not as much as you would get in an English pub for a big game. We stayed til around 12.30am, then left and caught the last little bit at home. By then pretty much everyone else in the whole place had left as well. When they got to the 9th inning, they were tied on 5-5, so have to keep going til someone wins. The score stayed the same til the 14th inning, when the Sox managed to pull off an extra 2 runs, and the Astros couldn't come back from that. They must have all been really tired by then, and have to play later today again! Normally a game lasts around 3 hours, so this was a real marathon.

posted by Lorraine Kenmuir @ 12:13 pm 0 comments

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Go Sox!

We have had to switch our baseball team allegiance for the time being. We usually support the Cubs, as they are based on the north side of Chicago, like us, and pretty much everyone around here supports them, but the White Sox, who are based on South side of Chicago, just won their league last weekend, and so are through to the World Series. Basically there are 2 baseball leagues, the American and the National, (even though those are the same thing!), and the Sox and Cubs are in opposing leagues. The winners of each league each year go on to play against each other in the World Series, (which is only American teams again!). The World Series is a best of 7 games. Their opponents for this will be the Houston Astros.

The Cubs got knocked out of their league ages ago, and this is the first time any Chicago team has made it to the World Series since 1959, so this is a huge thing for everyone round here, no matter which team you normally support. Now we are all one, rooting for Chicago.

Their first game is this Saturday, and the tickets have already sold out. They went on sale Tuesday and sold out in 18 minutes. They will play almost every evening over the following week, until someone has won four games.

So we are hosting a game party here Saturday night, then will watch some of the games in a local sports bar.

posted by Lorraine Kenmuir @ 2:45 pm 0 comments

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Door County

We just got back yesterday from a long weekend up into the northern wilds of Wisconsin. Door County is a tiny peninsula of Wisconsin that juts out into the lake. It was a 4 hour drive from home. It had been recommended to us as a beautiful place to see the fall colours. And it was true!

We got there Friday afternoon, and checked into the hotel in Sturgeon Bay, which is almost at the Southern most end of the peninsula. It had been quite an effort finding somewhere to stay, as this is apparently a very popular place at this time of year, and many places were already fully booked when I was looking 2 months earlier. But we found a Best Western so was clean, which is all that matters. Having done quite a bit of driving already that day, we decided to stay local for the afternoon. We had taken our bikes with us, so went cycling round Sturgeon Bay, which has some nice areas, but also some very steep hills! Then that evening Gordon had arranged for us to meet up with a guy called Mark, who also has a blog, and they read and comment on each others blogs so he had suggested we should meet him when we were there, as he happens to live in Sturgeon Bay. I had some reservations about meeting him, a total stranger who apparently spends a lot of time on a computer and invites strangers out for a drink, but I was pleasantly surprised to find he seemed normal, in fact nice, and there was not an axe or chain-saw in sight! Nor did we see him lurking outside our hotel the next morning ready to follow us!

Saturday and Sunday were spent driving round the county, stopping at various lighthouses and towns along the way. The towns all have lovely little craft and gift shops, although after looking at a few, you notice that they are all the same really. We even went paddling in the lake at a beach. The water was freezing, but us hardy Brits can handle that! We had some lovely food, but never got round to trying the local speciality, which is a fish boil. Apparently they get a huge pot, fill it with water and loads of vegetables, then put some fish in and boil it up. It sounds pretty boring, even to me who loves fish, but everyone said it is delicious. We will have to do that another time. I did have some cherry pie though, which is another of their specialities. We drove home Monday after doing a tour of a Door County winery, and tasting some of their wares. The weather held out for us very well, just coming up with some rain as we were leaving Monday morning. So a great weekend all in all.

posted by Lorraine Kenmuir @ 9:06 pm 1 comments

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

2 bedrooms and a walk-in wardrobe!

We have moved, all the way to the very next-door apartment! We had only taken a 6 month lease on our original 1 bedroom apartment, and then this one became available as the guy originally in here moved out a couple of weeks ago. We knew he was thinking about going, and decided to take it as it has 2 bedrooms, a walk-in wardrobe and quite a bit of extra closet space. And, of course, we know the neighbours are pretty quiet, especially now that the lady upstairs with the 3 yappy dogs on the balcony have moved out! So Gordon took the day off Friday, and we spent 2 days wheeling and carrying everything along the corridor to next door. It has to be one of the easiest house moves ever! There are still some things to put away properly, but generally everything is in and we are up and running. And we went and bought some Halloween decorations and have done up the balcony and windows. I will put some photos of those on a future blog posting, once I have asked Gordon to remind me how to do that!

This weekend we are off to Door County in Wisconsin, which I reckon is about 3 hours drive north of here, to see some of the local fall colours, if the leaves haven’t all dropped already due to lack of rain this year. Either way, there are plenty of lighthouses to see as well.

posted by Lorraine Kenmuir @ 4:37 pm 0 comments

Thursday, October 06, 2005

My UK Trip and all the Bureaucracy

I just got back a couple of days ago from almost a month in England. My initial visa for the US was only issued for 6 months, so I had to do something to renew it. We could have applied by post for an extension, but decided I should go home for a trip so I could also book our wedding there at the same time. I had done all the ground work for it before leaving here. I had spoken with register offices both in England and Scotland to suss out exactly what was needed, and had explained exactly our situation regarding living in US but being originally from UK and wanting to marry in the UK, but only myself would be coming over on this occasion to organise it. England have a law that says both parties must appear in person at least 15 days before the date of the wedding to post the notice of intent to wed. You should post the notice either at the office you are getting married at, or at the office local to where you live. But as Gordon was not coming over, he was going to register his address as in Scotland, where his family are, as Scotland are a lot more liberated about these things and will accept the paperwork by post or online. Over the phone, this all seemed OK by both English and Scottish register offices, and everyone was happy it could be organised like that. So I booked my flight, and arranged an appointment with the local register office. But when I actually got there, they said that as we were planning on getting married in England, they would require the Scottish register office to comply with English law and have Gordon turn up in person to post the notice there, even though Scotland themselves are happy about taking it by post! After an hour spent with the registrar, going over various ideas and options, the end result was that we can’t get married in the UK without both of us going back there almost a month before the wedding date to fulfil the legal requirements and file the necessary paperwork, and then hang around waiting for the wedding. Even the registrar ended up saying it would be easier in our situation to get married in America. So that is what we will now have to do. But it means that after a couple of months of planning a wedding in England, speaking to various restaurants, hotels, etc, I am now back to square one. It seems that we are citizens of nowhere right now, we are no longer counted as citizens of the UK, and we are certainly not citizens of the US.

At least it meant I got to see all my friends and family while I was over there, and got to eat some of the foods I had been missing most – Indian, fish and chips, and Chinese! And a friend gave birth while I was there as well, so that was very exciting.

Coming back here, I had slightly hoped that I might get longer than 6 months this time on my visa, as according to all the advice from both a visa lawyer and the INS website, if I could prove that I still had property and money back home, (so had something to go back to), and that I am only a second named person on Gordon’s bank account rather than having my own one here, they might let me stay longer, as being dependant on the main person with the work visa. However, you are always in the hands of the immigration officer on the desk when you get off the plane, and I lucked out there. I thought getting a woman would help, as she may be more sympathetic to someone wanting to be here with their boyfriend, but I don’t think sympathy or a sense of humour are allowed in that job. She gave me 6 months again, but said that was being generous as she was in a good mood (if she hadn’t told me I would never have known from looking!). It seems that the advice I got is not at all the same as the training that the immigration officers are given. She said the US does not recognise or make any allowances for couples living together who are not married.

On the bright side, the weather was really hot for the first couple of days I was back, in the high 80s, and the pool was still open. I had expected it to be long since closed, as the official closing date was the first weekend in September. So I got to use it again once more. But today is much colder, can you believe the temperature dropped 30 degrees from one day to the next! I think this may be the start of Autumn now.

posted by Lorraine Kenmuir @ 3:19 pm 1 comments