Snowtrip

Dear all,

It's certainly been a hectic time since you last heard from us.      (Self-employed) work has been particularly busy, and concrete plans have begun to come together for our two month stay in Slovakia, where I will meet new colleagues and receive training for my new role in Washington.

We will leave for Europe (feels weird writing that!) on New Year's Day 2010, the start of a new decade. Wow! That one certainly snook up on me :-) Then in early March we will return at last to set up a place of our own in the USA and finally unpack all those boxes which - by then - will have spent 6 months in transit and storage.

Even though I'm very excited about all the opportunities the Slovakia trip will bring to experience new things and to explore, I am also very much looking forward to the day when we can put down some roots in Northern Virginia and really start to call this place home.

This weekend we drove up to New York to celebrate an early Christmas with Karen's extended family. The drive is about 300 miles - nothing too bad even by UK standards. Unfortunately, some moron had chosen Friday night to deposit 4 inches of snow on Virginia and much of the North East (!), so it was iffy for a while whether we would even go at all. In the end, the desire to see everyone again prevailed.


Initially, things were very quiet on the roads - it seems Virginians are just as hysterical and scared to death about snow as we are in England! Driving up through Maryland on deserted highways through dense, snow-covered trees was like a fairytale.

It's a funny experience driving in heavy snow. The normal rules somehow cease to apply. All of a sudden, a nice wide four-lane highway gets reduced down to one or two sets of tyre tracks in the snow, which usually have very little to do with the original lanes. This makes merging and getting in lane very interesting! The other unusual issue we suffered from, with temperatures well below zero, was that so much snow would freeze around the wiper blades that they regularly became totally useless, and we had to stop and break off the ice before we could see to continue.

Despite all these challenges, Karen handled the conditions well. Unfortunately the majority of drivers seemed determined to do about 20 MPH (even with a reduced limit of 40), so it was slow going. So slow, in fact, that it took us twelve and a half hours to get there, averaging less than 30 MPH!!!

I also took a turn driving, my first time behind the wheel in the US. Well if I can cope with that, the rest shouldn't be too much of a problem! I found the worst part was getting used to being on the left side of the car, which completely throws your perception of where you are in a lane. Other than that, it just felt a bit weird having an idle left leg when I've become so used to operating the clutch.

After these trials and tribulations, the rest of the weekend has been lovely, and it was really nice to see everyone again for the first time since the wedding - a whole two and a half years ago now! The stuff these guys cook up in the kitchen never ceases to amaze me - I think I married into the right family!

Well, I'm certain this will be my last post before Christmas, so I hope that all my lovely readers have a fun and relaxing festive season.

All the best,
Mark

- Posted from my self-promoting iPhone