Bringing puppy with us

Puppy is a recent addition to our family. Dan and I adopted her July 2007 and found ourselves happily revolving our lives around her. As of this post, she is 5 years old (but she will always be a puppy to us). She is sweet, well-behaved, funny, protective, always smiling and a great joy to both of us. So when we decided to move to Wales, there was never a question that she would be coming with us. The UK has implemented something called the Pet Travel Scheme or PETS to help us move her (I’m finding that there are a lot of “schemes” in the UK). It allows us to submit an application for her to enter without putting her into quarantine for 6 months. Considering the life of a dog is about 10 years, 6 months is way too long to be isolated in a kennel! Every detail of her application has to be perfect, otherwise she goes into quarantine. What are the details? It’s actually quite a complicated process! This process is for bringing any kind of pet to visit or immigrate to the UK. Here is a quick description of the steps but there is an official checklist:

1) She has to receive a European ISO-standard microchip (resQ is the one we used, $40).
2) Once her microchip has been implanted and properly read by a scanner, she gets an approved rabies vaccine, $18.
3) After 3 weeks, she has a blood draw sent overnight and on ice to an approved lab (there is only one in the US and it is in Kansas) to make sure the rabies antibodies are present, $250.
4) 6 months after the blood draw, she is allowed to get on a plane to the UK.
5) No less than 24 hours and no more than 48 hours before she boards a plane, she must get a tick and tapeworm treatment.
6) After she gets the tick and tapeworm treatment, all of her paperwork must be approved by a USDA veterinarian who certifies that she is ready to go. There is only one USDA vet per state and they are usually located in the state capital, $75.
7) She is only allowed to fly on an approved route to the UK, which are only on UK airlines (BMI, Virgin, and BA); she must be in an approved travel crate and fly in the cargo area; she must fly accompanied by one of us on the same flight, $780 min.

I tell people that we are going through this procedure for her, and I get a range of reactions. Most people note that this process is exponentially more complicated than bringing people into the UK. But we love her and can’t conceive of leaving her behind, so we’re doing it. We started as soon as we thought we might move to Wales but with the 6-month waiting period in Step 4, the soonest Puppy can travel is mid-October so Dan is going to hang out in IL to wait to accompany her. I would recommend getting started at least 8 months before your travel date to make sure you have time to do everything. There are companies that one can hire to do all this for us, but we decided to do it ourselves and hope that we have all of our i’s dotted and t’s crossed. We’ll let you know if Puppy makes it through!

Cultural differences

My first blog post will be about my exploration into how to fit into our new world. I have met very few Welsh-people in my life, and I have little knowledge about their ways. But the main reasons Dan and I are moving abroad are to learn about a new culture, meet new people, and for me, to acquire a new language. I decided to get a jump start on the culture goal by doing some summer reading. During our house-hunting trip, a colleague recommended that I read a book called “Watching the English” by Kate Fox. Fox is an English anthropologist and wrote this book to come up with a “grammar” of English behavior, excuse me, behavioUr. She is an insightful and witty writer, and I am thoroughly enjoying this book. I’m also told that despite the fact that it’s a book about the English, much of what I’m learning can also be loosely applied to the Welsh. I keep bugging Dan with bits that I’m learning (“That’s why nobody came to our table to take our order at the pub!”) and am trying to keep the mountains of rules straight in my head. I’m not necessarily trying to blend in so well that I can pass off as a Brit (not like our insidious neighbors to the north that come into American life and drop a “Sorry” bomb on us at the most unexpected times), but I do want to be aware enough to not offend anyone and to not be offended. The language stuff is the most fascinating to me, of course, and I’m learning how language is inextricably tied up with social class. Dan and I wonder if their obsession with social class and categorizing people by them is like Americans’ categorizing people by race; it mostly doesn’t impact the way you treat them, but you do it sort of unconsciously anyway. So far, Fox has told me that the English are very reserved private people who are obsessed with social class, use talking about the weather to break the ice, and are polite and put on the appearance of being egalitarian. HumoUr pervades much of their life and they like understatements and irony. The pub and drinking are pretty integral in their lives. I definitely recommend the book to anyone who is moving to the UK.

Heading to Wales this September…or October!

My partner (IAC) accepted a position in Wales on May 1st so we have had six weeks to let it sink in. Now that we are over the initial euphoria of our decision we are now having to face the daunting reality of actually moving ourselves, our things, and our dog (more on that later) a third of the way around the world! Due to the schedules of the three of us, IAC will be moving to the land of the Red Dragon by September 1st, and me and the pup will be following about six or seven weeks later.

We have been spending the last fortnight (they say that over there right?) reading about all these things that we should and should not bring with us from other US ex-pats in the UK. Who would’ve thought that our jelly roll pans wouldn’t fit in the ovens over there. Also, Aleve is a hot commodity among the Americans too.

The rest of the summer is filling up with a graduation, weddings (3), and trying to do everything in the Bay Area that we have put off (too many to count). So that leaves us with 83 days and counting until IAC leaves and I get to spend six weeks with the P’s back in Illinois.

Welcome to Craidd!

Croeso i Craidd! Welcome to Craidd! This blog chronicles the (mis-)adventures of an American mid-westerner living in mid-Wales. I hope to give insight into the lives of the Welsh through my unique lens and, in the process, hopefully provide a resource for Americans coming to the UK (and abroad) as well as give insight into the curious creature that is an American.

Since we are in the new digital age, feel free to leave comments.