Settling In

People have often told me that "children need routine". However, it is clear from the past 10 days on the road that it isn't the kids that need the routine......its mums and dads. Adam and Soph have charged through all the late nights and early mornings, different bedrooms, meals in restaurants and cars, numerous house viewings etc without any real problem other than slightly more blanky sniffing and the occasional need to crash out at inopportune moments. Me and Shaz on the other hand have been craving regular meals, our old bed and lazy evenings with a bottle of vin rouge and a movie.

Anyway....despite our middle-aged reticence, we are having a blast. Pittsburgh is charming in the spring. It is the greenest city I have ever visited and all the trees and flowers explode into blossom within a couple of weeks. How convenient that we were delayed just the right amount of time so that our arrival coincided with this splendour! Remind me to thank GW! We went to the Pittsburgh Zoo on Wednesday. 100 bucks (50 quid) bought a 1 year membership for the four of us allowing admission as often as we like and 10 guest passes (so start booking your flights!). It is fab! The children were focused on seeing the aquarium which was great.....complete with copulating penguins. Sharon, Adam and Soph have also been regular visitors at the Carnegie Museum and other local attractions while I have been doing the rounds on campus.

Thursday night we had dinner with Leo and Joe Stefano (our surrogate family in the US) and last night we had a barby at David and Judy Finegold's place. David is a colleague and old buddy who in addition to being lovably bonkers is the only person I know who has a shorter attention span than me (with the possible exception of Dave Berg...Hi Dave). Makes for interesting conversation. This morning we went for pancakes with our host Rob. He said he enjoys having us around as house guests but then immediately left town in his Porsche Boxster (very cool!) for a weekend in DC. It's nice to have so many friends here! And there!

Burgh!

Guess what! We are in Pittsburgh. Hard to believe and definitely surreal.

We drove down to Heathrow, staying en route in the delightful Hemel Hemstead Holiday Inn ("don't say I never take you anywhere nice" I said to Shaz). My dad came to bid us farewell at the airport and we caught a night flight to Toronto for two days of R and R in a posh spa hotel in Niagara on the Lake. I have decided to retire there! It was fab!

I was hoping for some ammunition to continue my ranting against US immigration procedure but the officer at the border was delightful...refering to me as "doc" and welcoming me as the great hope for US research science. I quickly realized that this was a very astute man and felt reassured that the federal government is recruiting the best talent.

So...we are staying with Mad Rob O'Doherty from Dublin in the villagy Shadyside district of the Burgh. Think Lark Lane without the dog turds. We spent Monday at the Science Centre with the kids. This is a huge publicly funded activity centre designed to turn kids onto science. We took Adam there 12 months ago and true to form he remembered all the coolest exhibits. Today was spent shaking hands with the entire executive staff of the Magee Women's Research Institute (my new employer) and looking for a house to buy/rent.

Will try and get some pics posted soon. Love to all.

The Big Farewell

Last night was our a capella quartet "Mainstreet's" last gathering so we took the opportunity to invite some friends and family over for a soiree. Unfortunately we were both so bladdered after a whole week's packing that the whole thing flew by in a bit of a daze.

However, the famous Mainstreet sang a few old favourites and you can catch a listen here...and here......
Thanks to Steve (Bass) and Ed (Baritone) (AND vocal supremos) for helping us have so much fun with this stuff over the past few months.

The highlight of the show was Adam accompanying us on the inflatable guitar. Rock on!