Several people have asked about “culture shock” upon returning home, and for me at least there really hasn’t been much (I’ll let WeatherGirl and Sub-Evil speak for themselves). One thing that has been really amazing, though, is the peace and quiet here.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The photo above is from a few years ago, but it’s representative of what it’s been like being back. The roads (and sky) are wide and quiet, and peddling my bike down a big empty street seems kind of otherworldly after a year in a much more crowded part of the world:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The other huge difference is the damn mosquitoes. Didn’t really miss them while we were gone, and wasn’t too thrilled to see them again (in vast quantities) upon our return.<\/p>\n

Oh, and burritos are much<\/em> better in Minnesota than in the UK (and much better in Texas than Minnesota). Really. Much<\/em> better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several people have asked about “culture shock” upon returning home, and for me at least there really hasn’t been much (I’ll let WeatherGirl and Sub-Evil speak for themselves). One thing that has been really amazing, though, is the peace and quiet here. The photo above is from a few years ago, but it’s representative of … Continue reading “There are a few<\/em> differences”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,25,20,27,19],"tags":[224,46,76,247,65,875,38],"class_list":["post-855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-family","category-photography","category-sabbatical","category-travels","tag-britain","tag-colchester","tag-culture","tag-morris","tag-my-photography","tag-sabbatical","tag-travel"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-dN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":845,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/06\/12\/at-a-loss-for-words-at-the-alhambra\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":0},"title":"At a loss for words (At the Alhambra)","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"12 Jun 08","format":false,"excerpt":"Today we spent a wonderful, exhausting day at the Alhambra in Granada, and it's every bit as cool as the books, etc., made out. Which is good, since that's a key reason for this entire trip to Spain! I frankly don't have any idea where to begin. I took over\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":722,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/11\/26\/short-cut-road\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":1},"title":"Short Cut Road","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"26 Nov 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Gotta love cool street names. This is in an area just north of the Colchester City Centre called the Dutch Quarter (see map).","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":706,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/11\/20\/with-joy-shall-ye-draw-water\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":2},"title":"With joy shall ye draw water","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"20 Nov 07","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a detail of an old public water fountain set in the wall of a \"great house\" here in Colchester. Apparently something like 9 houses were destroyed to make room for this monster, so perhaps the fountain was an attempt to assuage some guilt? For those who would like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":757,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/12\/18\/happy-14th\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":3},"title":"Happy 14th!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"18 Dec 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Today Sub-Evil Boy celebrates 14 years of being, well, less than evil. For this his parents are extremely grateful :-) ! To celebrate the event I decided to (I'm guessing) annoy him mightily by fishing up an old shot from out last sabbatical. Here he's 6.5 years old at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":819,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/03\/23\/no-snow-for-xmas-but-we-got-a-white-easter\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":4},"title":"No snow for Xmas, but we got a white Easter!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"23 Mar 08","format":false,"excerpt":"We've dodged a fairly serious winter back in Minnesota while on sabbatical this year, and we've had no snow and very little cold weather over here in Colchester. In a fit of weird timing, however, we had something like an inch of big Bing Crosby stuff today. I've not actually\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":843,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/06\/05\/more-photos-from-toledo\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":5},"title":"More photos from Toledo","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"5 Jun 08","format":false,"excerpt":"You should definitely check out the combined family blogstream at ThomasMcPhee.com as both WeatherGirl and Sub-Evil Boy are actually posting words and things that carry information :-). In the meantime I'll annoy you with some more photos. Again, clicking on a photo will jump to Flickr, where there may be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"In celebration (but I'm not sure what of)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3262\/2548411687_6bd2600500.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}