Letter 7: Dogs, Driving, and Dining...

This picture is actually taken in Aberdeen, but it was a good one of Alyson with Baxter (my dog). Baxter is our latest house guest in Edinburgh, and is certainly keeping me on my toes. His body clock is very regimented, and so every morning without fail we're up pretty early so that he can take care of business outside.

We have recently been to Aberdeen twice (so that I can follow my favourite football/soccer team). On our first trip we picked up Baxter as my parents were away on holiday with Sarah and her 2 kids. Alyson is coping relatively well with her allergies. Her allergies just seem to be lighter over here than when I've seen her in the US. That could be for a whole variety of reasons though, especially climate and humidity. She does really miss Angus though, and Baxter is the wrong species to provide a good substitute.

It has been a pretty busy time for me. I'm doing Company Law, Tax Law, and Family Law this semester. I have had 1 assignment for each course in the space of 2 weeks (each counting for roughly 50% of my overall mark). I'm currently working on assignment 2, with 1 more to go after that. The first 2 weeks of December will be finals for me - I can't say I'm looking forward to those much.

We are slowly but surely gearing up for our visit stateside this winter, plotting the various restaurants we want to get to. Safe to say Carls' Jr. is on my list! I'm also a sucker for Chicken Alfredo at Olive Garden. (Other places to visit will have to include Chick-fil-A, Alyson also wants to pay a trip to Cafe Rio, Yogurt Stop, the Cheesecake Factory, and Wingers). I suppose I should really start dieting now for all the weight I'm likely to put on visiting those places..! Oh, add Five Guys (in Bountiful) to that list too! They have some really good burgers. I might have to try a new steak house as well. I think I had better start saving too...We're looking forward to the big Cook gathering on the 28th, we have made sure to get flights in time to be there.

Alyson is continuing to learn how to drive a manual car, although we haven't quite gotten to the challenge of driving on the other side of the road. Our practices have been in car parks for now. The job hunt continues, although there are one or two prospects on the horizon which might work out quite well for us.

No movie reviews from me today, although Alyson went to see 2 films with my mum in the last couple of weeks (Life as We Know It, and RED - both of which were supposed to be quite good). We're looking forward to a couple more which have come out in the last week or so - especially "Despicable ME!"

That's all for now,

A bientot America!

Letter 6 - Money Never Sleeps

Well folks,

do we have a movie to recommend to you! Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps was our weekly watch from last night. It almost rivaled "Inception", in fact I personally think they are on par with each other. I would highly recommend it, and if you are only going to see a handful of movies this year, I would definitely make it a priority on your list.

Wednesdays are a busy day at the movie theaters in the UK. One of our cell phone companies (Orange - a French company now merged with the Germans T-mobile I believe) has a deal with most theaters, where you text the word "Film" to the number 241 and they send you a code. With this code (as the number suggests) you get 2 cinema tickets for the price of one. Now if you've been paying attention, you will remember that we have those unlimited cinema cards. The thing about the cards, is that you don't just wave them and then go in. You still have to go to the cashier and get them swiped (like a credit card) and then they print off your ticket for you. Now here's the really cool thing... Our friend Jon (in the previous blog letter) has a cell phone plan with orange. He gets the code, comes to the cashier with us, and gets his ticket, as a 2-for-1 on our cards. No-one pays a penny. Sweet deal huh? (Technically we could have 2 people come with us for free if we had 2 people with the same code).

Anyway, I thought I would give a brief intro to that. So Wednesdays are quite busy, and it's the first week Wall Street has been out - so the place was packed. I was a little apprehensive about seeing the movie having never watched the original Wall Street. (It has since been added to my "Must watch" list). Michael Douglas, Shia LeBeouf, and the rest of the cast give pretty convincing performances. The plot itself - for me- is genius, based on the true events that have taken us into today's "credit crunch". Alyson found the plot quite infuriating, but solely because she gets quite mad most times when listening to things about the bail outs etc... Whilst the movie doesn't have any intense scenes that necessarily require the big screen to make them what they are - it was cool to see it in the theater. Unlike "Inception" - where I think if you watch it on a regular TV, you might possibly do it a bit of injustice. The only unfortunate part is that I now want a power suit like Gordon Gekko. In my opinion there are quite a few good vs. evil undertones.

Anyway, I thought that film deserved a blog entry, it was quite immense!