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(U) SID Around the World: Life in... Central Maryland??
FROM:
UK Liaison Officer for Production Operations
Run Date: 09/13/2006
(U//FOUO) Editor's note: The "SID Around the World" series has
taken readers to some exotic locations... But what about the
center of the US SIGINT universe -- Fort Meade and vicinity?
SIDtoday thought it would be interesting to get an "outsider's"
perspective on the area, and
of GCHQ was nice enough
to oblige...
(U) Well I guess you know how it feels for you, but what's life like
in central Maryland for a foreigner? As you will know, GCHQ
maintains a liaison office here, as well as sending quite a lot of
people to work in NSA offices as integrees. The standard tour
length is three years and most of us live in or close to Columbia.
(U//FOUO) Fort Meade
(U) My wife
and I first lived here in the early 80's. In those
olden days we lived in peaceful rural western Howard County and I
used to drive to work at Fort Meade along old Route 32, which was
then a single-carriageway country road: one of the most striking
things on our return was seeing the mass of four- and six-lane
highways everywhere. In England, we still do quite a lot of our
driving on smaller, narrow roads. We've brought with us a UK
vehicle with its steering wheel on the "wrong" side and this causes
frequent amusement when we draw up next to other cars at traffic
lights!
(U) Other observations about driving: because there's lots of multilane highways people generally drive faster than we would back
home (and also closer to the vehicle in front!) Lane discipline is
different: European highway lanes are slow/medium/fast and
drivers move to a faster lane to overtake, then return to the lane
that suits their speed. By contrast, lane discipline in the US is
......interesting (especially on the Beltway). Other delights for us:
cheap gasoline (around 8-9 dollars in UK); free parking almost
everywhere!
(U) Some aspects of everyday eating are very different from what
we are used to. In general, British foodstores sell a very large
variety of fresh fruit, vegetables, meats, poultry and game; this
encourages people to cook and eat well at home. Also, British
people can buy a very wide range of fresh ready-prepared meals
from the foodstores, providing a quick, high-quality eat-at-home
option. The huge number of places to eat in central Maryland
probably encourages people to eat out much more than they would
if they lived in England. Restaurant prices are much cheaper than
in England and the variety of types of food is very wide. When we
eat out, we're usually overwhelmed by the amount of food that is
served up - about twice as much as we are used to! Our favourite
SERIES:
(U) SID Around the
World '06 - '07
1. SID Around the
World : Sugar Grove,
West Virginia
2. SID Around the
World : Living in
Thailand -- A Single's
Perspective
3. SID Around the
World : A Glimpse of
Utah
4. SID Around the
World : Misawa and
Tokyo
5. SID Around the
World : Colorado
Springs
6. SID Around the
World : Life in...
Central Maryland??
7. SID Around the
World : Walking the
Streets of Turkey
8. SID Around the
World : Jumping Into
Yorkshire's Village
Life with Both Feet
foods: crab cakes!! Maryland crab soup!!
(U) Washington DC (Reuters)
(U) We love the Maryland climate! English weather, at least in the
last few decades, has tended to be fairly unexciting, with not much
difference between the seasons - never very hot nor very cold,
and, contrary to popular belief, not very wet! Here the weather
always has something to offer, from the bracing cold in the winter
to the very hot and humid in the summer: even the hottest days
can be attractive to us, particularly if we've been stuck in airconditioning for a while! There's also the excitement of summer
and winter storms.
(U) A major benefit of living in Maryland is that, compared to
England, there's still so much open space that's not been claimed
for building. We're keen on walking and biking, and only five
minutes from our home we can be on a trail in the untamed
woodlands along the Patuxent valley. The dramatic seasonal
changes deliver spectacular displays of fall colours, and with so
much woodland and forest in Maryland the scenery is magnificent.
It's also a great opportunity for us to see the rich variety of wildlife
in the area. The deer are particularly cute, though our American
friends seem to think they shouldn't be allowed to eat their way
through their flower beds! We love to sit on the deck on warm
evenings and listen to the sounds of the toads, peepers, cicadas
and other creatures we don't get to hear in England.
(U) We are fortunate to live among very friendly folks in a small
neighbourhood. There's many a time when we get a call from one
or other of the neighbours to say "we're having an impromptu,
come on round!", and a few minutes later several families are
sitting around, putting the world to rights and trying to figure out
why neither the USA nor England ever get to the soccer World Cup
final. I have to say, though, that it took us Brits to organise the
neighbourhood Independence Day barbeque and to get them
started on the first of several spirited renderings of the StarSpangled Banner. While on that subject, we think it's great to see
the Stars and Stripes - especially the huge ones flown in
commercial areas - in so many places as we travel around: this is
so different from the UK, where the Union Jack is infrequently
seen - in fact there used to be a law against its unauthorised
display I think.
(U) Being in central Maryland places us between the two great
cities of Washington and Baltimore, both of which are super places
to visit. In England we live a hundred miles from London, so we
don't have the same opportunities there as we have here to visit
national museums and monuments and great concert halls. We've
also sampled the delights of Orioles baseball (American cricket)
and Redskins football (American rugby). Then there's the
opportunity to explore the Chesapeake Bay region, Eastern Shore
and the ocean; and to the west the Appalachian Range. What more
could we ask for?
(U) Thanks for making us welcome!
(U) Baltimore-Washington International Airport (Jane's)
(U) See also the SID Around the World '05 series.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108