Big storm destruction

I contribute to the Central Park Conservancy every year and received this email from them. There was a really big storm here on Tuesday and it caused major damage in the park. Please see link and donate if you want to:

http://www.centralparknyc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=stormdamage_appeal

Twenty-eight, fourteen, seven, four, one

Twenty-eight days until school starts
Fourteen more days until I fly out
Seven more days of work
Four more weekend days
One day that is not a weekend or a work day, but the day I get on a plane and fly to Europe.

One (God willing!!!) visa appointment
Two going-away parties (they love me, they really love me!)
Three days at a lake in the Catskills

This has kind of been how I have been breaking things down inside my brain lately.

Two more Mad Men episodes (The image is my "Mad Men" avatar--very Joan.)

Edinburgh travel video

Hulu is now showing episodes from my old employer, Rick Steves. Here's the show on Edinburgh:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/88991/rick-steves-europe-edinburgh#x-0,vepisode,1

National Treasure III

This Tuesday I had an exciting morning at the National Archives. An experience a la Nicolas Cage...kind of. I did have in my hands a document lost to the world in a dusty back room. A document not recorded on any microfiche nor any heavy, hardbound index. A document that is also a key to the history of the 19th-century...or at least to the history of my family.

Okay, really it is a passenger list from the E. & E. Perkins which docked (we thought) in New York harbor on November 7, 1849. I thought I was just going in to take a look at the microfiche and print out a copy of the E. & E. Perkins passenger list for Erin. But it was not on the microfilm and not listed on any of the databases which get their information from the National Archives. One of the workers at the National Archives remembered that they had gotten boxes of documents from Castle Garden that had been organized by volunteers. (Castle Garden was the entry point for immigrants before Ellis Island.) She went to that database and found the ship name and the correct date. This box was pulled out. Digging gently through the box of delicate documents, we found the correct passenger list. How thrilling it was to carefully watch it being unfolded and then to be able to sit with the list and examine it! It was really touching to see the Ferguson names on there knowing they are my ancestors--and to think what is must have been like to pick up and move across an ocean! Pick up and move "one piano forte, nine boxes, and 2 bbls" according to the list...along with five children! (Matilda Ferguson is third name from the top and the others follow below.)

Right before I went to the Archives, I was 2 floors down in the same Federal building submitting my fingerprints for my UK visa application. I found the parellels between my upcoming trip and Matilda's past voyage a little bit eery and strangely cool. Here I was preparing to return to the place that my family left 150+ years ago. Getting ready for my own journey across the ocean.

Another article related to Scotland

I haven't actually read this yet, but thought I would include it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/opinion/07mcallsmith.html?em

NYT 36 hours in Glasgow

Oooo, I love some of the phrases this article uses to describe my future home. "Understatedly stylish". Nice! "Plentiful cultural and culinary options". Yes!! "Large green spaces" Whoopee!
Thanks to all who forwarded the article to me. And for those who haven't read it, enjoy the attached. http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/travel/02hours.html

Also here's a slideshow: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/08/02/travel/20090802-glasgow-slide-show_index.html