Happy Thanksgiving!

Just in case you didn't already know, Thanksgiving is not a holiday in the UK, so bobby and I will be working. Last year, we went out for Fish and Chips on Thanksgiving. In the past year, however, we have managed to make hordes of American friends and are therefore having a proper (albeit slightly delayed) holiday meal on Saturday. Watch the blog for pictures to follow.



The thing i'll miss the most about American Thanksgiving (other than friends and family)? From-the-can cranberry sauce. What can I say? I love it.





What's your favourite part of a Thanksgiving meal?

Whirlwind North American Tour, Part III: Ben and Sarah's Wedding

Sarah is one of my best friends from York High so bobby and I were so excited to be able to help celebrate her marriage to Ben in Sacramento. They were married on Ben's Aunt's vineyard. The weekend was beautiful and there wasn't a dry eye in the house during the ceremony!!

Here are some pictures:

Whirlwind North American Tour, Part II: San Francisco

After leaving Canada, I met bobby on our mutual layover in Atlanta (at which point I began drinking as much unsweetened iced tea as I could find and did not stop for a solid week- I miss it so much in the UK!) and we headed on to San Francisco.

Upon checking into our somewhat sketchy hotel, we did what I think all American expats do upon returning home, ate a ridiculous amount of food. After stuffing ourselves with things we can't get in the UK (like club sandwiches, dill pickels and rootbeer), we headed on to take in the sights of San Francisco.

mmm.. dill pickel *drool*

Bobby, Rootbeer and American Flags- Welcome home!

First we hit up Chinatown, which, I have to say, I was a little disappointed in. It was just lots of chinese stores filled with cheaply-made chinese crap. There were some interesting grocery/herbal stores, but those were a little overwehlming. However, in order to get the true Chinatown experience, I did haggle on a "coral" necklace in one of the stores which i'm sure is not real coral and i'm sure I spent about $10 too much on.

Me in Chinatown

After Chinatown, we headed down to the water in seach of San Francisco's famous sea lions. Upon arriving at pier 39, which is where the sea lions hang out, I thought I was in for more disappointment when we didn't actually see any. However, after about 15 minutes of wandering around, finding more american food to devour, and listening for their honking, we did eventually find hordes of sea lions, all together in one tiny area. Things I learned: 1- sealions like to sleep all piled on top of one another 2- sealions are very mean 3- never ask german tourists to take your picture in front of some sort of attraction, or you'll end up with a super zoomed-in picture of your face and none of the attraction behind you. I also learned why the sealions were there, but I waited too long to blog and now i've forgotten. However, being the internet-savy blog reader that you are, i'm sure you can find it on wikipedia.

After pier 39, we headed back to the hotel and did what bobby and I do best on vacation: nap. Later that night, we met up with Lindsay, an old friend from highschool, and her fiance who now live in San Fran to watch the election results. Needless to say, as an HUGE Obama supporter, being in a uber liberal city like San Francisco for the election was amazing. We actually missed the results announcement because it was all over so fast (about 8pm west coast time) but we learned about it soon enough by all the people crying and hugging in the streets.

We started off our second day in San Fran by going in search of some much-missed Mexican Food. After about 40 minutes of wandering aimlessly, we happened upon a Chipotle-much to our extreme joy. Once again, we stuffed ourselves, and then we took a very long bus ride out to the beach. After introducing myself to the Pacific Ocean for the first time, we headed into Golden Gate Park. After wandering around the park for a bit, talking about how much we miss trees and space in london, and then realizing that the park is about 45 city blocks long, we got back on the bus the head up to the Japanese Tea Garden (which is still a park of Golden Gate Park). The Tea Garden was ok- we got some cool pictures, but you have to pay like $5 to get in, and that doesn't even include any tea!!

Us at Golden Gate Park

Japanese Tea Garden

The next day we checked out of the hotel and did a short car-tour of the rest of the major sites of San Francisco- mainly Lombard Street and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Golden Gate Bridge

We then got on the highway and headed towards Sacramento for Sarah's wedding.

Whirlwind North American Tour, Part 1: Canada

I'll go ahead and get this blog going by talking about my trip to Canada.

There's actually very little to say about this. I went to Canada (Niagara-on-the-Lake to be exact) to help run my work's Annual Meeting. For those of you who don't know, I work for an organization called the Global Leadership Foundation which is a network of former heads of state that are now retired from politics and work with us to help solve current governance issues using the lessons they learned in office. The Annual Meeting involved 4 days of me running around stressed out of my mind, hanging out with former heads of state, attempting to speak my bad french and only slightly better swahili, and leaving the hotel only twice: once to lead a tour to Niagara Falls and once to go to a $500-a-plate fundraising dinner.

The best part about my trip? The Hotel! The great thing about my job is that, when you travel with former heads of state, you travel in style! My hotel room was about twice the size of my flat in London and had a fireplace in it!! The hotel also had a supposedly amazing spa, which I did not get to use, but I did get a lot of use out of my jacuzzi tub!!

From what little I saw, Canada seemed nice and I hope to go back one day. However, maybe at a warmer time of the year.

Back from California

We're back in London town, but the effects of an 8 hour timezone shift make blogging very, very difficult.

Hopefully we'll have a post and some pictures up before our quick weekend in Bruges coming up.

Halloween and Holidays

So, yesterday was Halloween. Unfortunately Laura left early yesterday morning for Canada (work-related weekend), so she could not take part in the festivities.

It wasn't too much of a crazy night. However, in keeping with the Halloween spirit, I carved a pumpkin. I also dressed up as an out-of-work Dick Fuld (CEO of Lehman Brothers). My fake resume was pretty awesome, but I didn't get to hand out too many. Hopefully Jacob had better success with his version of the same costume.

In more exciting news, in two days I will be flying to California (and meeting Laura on her flight from Canada to Cali). We are going to be in San Francisco for 3 days and Sacramento for a wedding after that.

I could not be more excited for a little bit of America-time, and I know Laura feels the same. They have Dairy Queen in California, right? That's not just an east-coast thing I hope.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll have some super exciting adventures to share when we get back, but the blog will be pretty sparse until then.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween.