10 year anniversary

August 31st, 1997. A sad anniversary for many (especially here in the UK) – but for one (yes, me, as it’s all about me, remember?) it was the start of a new adventure, as I headed to BWI airport, excess baggage in tow, bound for Heathrow, London, and the great wide world outside of the US of A.

And now it’s 10 years later – who woulda thunk it, but I’m still here, and looks like for the duration. So – as I make the reverse journey, off to New York & my old DC neighbourhoods for a vacation, I thought a look back at stats from my 10 years could be interesting...

7 – mailing addresses
12 –flatmates
174 – issues of Heat Magazine read until the content became Big Brother, all the time and I became big bored, all the time
40 – percent increase in grey hair
100 – percent increase in cost of covering said hair
10 – new countries visited
2 - siblings-in-law (hi Jess! hi Amy!)
2 - niblings (hi Toby! hi Beruria!)
87 – work related UK train journeys
3 – irate letters to Virgin Trains to complain about UK train journeys
5 – extra hours wasted on the worst of those journeys; a 2 hour trip to Manchester that crawled into 7 hours total...
16 – extra days I got to spend in Tacoma, waiting for my work permit to be renewed after an administrative error
4 – hours I spent waiting in line to get my indefinite leave to remain status
£635 - cost of getting a UK passport, if I so decide
1392 – days of since my 2nd date with my first Match.com correspondent
1275 - days after that 2nd date, I turned that first Match.com correspondent into my...
...1 – husband (all together now – awww)

(note – some figures are estimates, though I think the husband figure is pretty accurate)