Bob and Laura In London

Rounding Out the Blog

2010-02-01T16:01:00.003Z

I've gotten a lot of questions from people about whether I will continue this blog or even start a new one now that i'm in the Virgin Islands. The answer, simply, is no. I mainly used the blog to keep in touch with family and friends and, now that I have a US telephone number again, I think you all can just call me to see what's going on in my life.

Bobby is doing a blog where he posts one photo he takes from the islands every day, so you can follow our adventures somewhat there: www.usvidailyphoto.com

I do want to write one more post rounding out our stay in London, but haven't had the time to do that yet. Hopefully soon.

For now, goodbye, thanks for following all of our adventures over the last 2 years. They were amazing. I miss London already, but am confident that the VIs hold many new and exciting things for us.

Crazy Man

2009-12-01T16:13:00.004Z

As most of you know, whether to leave London or not has been a very difficult decision for me. I love this city, its vibrancy and beauty. I think that it is the single greatest city in the world and that I will never be as constantly stimulated by a place as I have been here. Every day, I go back and forth with myself as to whether i'm actually ready to leave.

A few nights ago, I was having one such argument with myself as I was walking some trash to the dumpster around 9:30 pm. As I was returning to our flat, a man on the street walked right up to me and spat in my face for no apparent reason. I stood there, stunned, before yelling a profanity. The man then started yelling even louder and more vulgar profanities, which made me realize that he could do a lot worse to me than spit in my face. I ran back to the flat and locked myself inside, shaken from the experience.

So, I would like to thank you, crazy Bangladeshi man on the street, for confirming that leaving London is the right decision. I now think that I am ready to leave. When i'm sitting on the beach in St. Thomas, my heart yearning for the hum of London, I will remember how much higher my risk of getting Tuberculosis from crazy people with a habit of spitting in unsuspecting victims mouths is in London and be happy I left.

Things I Love About London, Part X: The Sunday Roast

2009-11-24T14:42:00.005Z

A second blog about food I like in the UK? Well, yes, but I don’t think any of the food that is involved in a Sunday Roast (other than Yorkshire Pudding) is specifically British, so I’m not giving them credit for this one.

One of our favourite Sunday traditions while living in London has become sleeping in on a Sunday morning, only rousing ourselves around 2 or so that we can wander over to the pub and get a Sunday Roast. What is a Sunday Roast? Imagine a mini-Thanksgiving dinner once a week and you’ll be on the right track.

Traditionally, Sunday Roasts are served at pubs, but you can also get them at most restaurants and cafes. They’re generally served from about 12-5 on a Sunday afternoon and are perhaps the greatest hangover cure of all time.

A Sunday Roast usually consists of:

· Some sort of roasted hunk of meat (usually beef, chicken or lamb although we have found pork and vegetarian options in some places)
· Veggies (roasted or steamed carrots, broccoli, cabbage….)
· Yorkshire Pudding (*drool* see previous post)
· Gravy (enough said)
· Potatoes (mashed or “mash” as the Brits say or sometimes roasted)
· Pint of Beer (optional, but strongly encouraged)

After spending an hour or so at the pub eating your roast and watching a football (aka soccer) game, you’re just full enough to go home and go back to sleep- making your Sunday completely unproductive and incredibly perfect.

Things I Love About London, Part IX: Yorkshire Pudding

2009-11-18T11:48:00.002Z

Since my time in London is rapidly coming to an end (less than a month now), I figured I should do a few final frantic blog posts on things I love about London. I often feel that there are too many to count, but these are a few I have been meaning to blog about for awhile.

Things I Love About London, Part IX : Yorkshire Pudding

You may have noticed that quite a few of my Things I Miss About America blogs revolve around food, but very few of my Things I Love About London blogs do the same. That’s because, quite simply, I find British food horrible. Everything is rather flavourless, deep fried, and overcooked. Yesterday, I saw a sign outside a restaurant advertising boiled bacon. Only the British could manage to ruin something as amazingly delicious as bacon.

There is one huge exception to my dislike of British food. That is the little bit of heaven that is known as Yorkshire Pudding. Now, let me start off by explaining that in England, pudding can refer to either a sweet or savoury bread-based product. Also, in England, all desserts are referred to by the general term “pudding.” So, it can be a bit confusing. What we (the Americans) know as pudding (aka- the custard-like deliciousness that is always associated with Bill Cosby in my mind) doesn’t really exist here- much to my disdain.

In the case of Yorkshire Pudding, “pudding” refers to a savoury bread-like product that is served with the main part of a meal. It originated in the Yorshire region of England (hence the name) in the 1700s because cooks wanted to make use of the leftover meat-droppings at the bottom of the pan after cooking a roast. They combined these droppings with batter, and Yorshire Pudding was born.

As these cooks found out, and I now know, batter + animal fat/juices = AMAZING. Today, Yorkshire Pudding is most often served with a Sunday Roast (see future blog post). If you’re lucky, it will come in little bowl shapes and be filled with gravy (*drool*). I should have let bobby blog on this topic, because he has actually made Yorkshire Pudding for me from scratch on a number of occasions. How something can taste so amazingly delicious and buttery without actually using any butter is beyond me.

Yorkshire Pudding may be the only culinary import I bring back to America.

Things I Miss About America, Part X: No Butter on Sandwiches

2009-11-11T16:40:00.002Z

I first encountered butter on sandwiches when I was living in East Africa. The housegirl of the family I lived with in Nairobi would never let me do any of my own cooking, even if it was something as simple as a sandwich. So, when I asked her to make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (more accurately, when she kicked me out of the kitchen after attempting to make my own), it would be delivered to me as a peanut butter and jelly and regular butter sandwich. I thought this was a weird East African custom because, when I moved to Uganda, I found butter on sandwiches there as well. Upon my arrival in the UK, however, I learned that East Africa had actually adopted this odd habit from its colonizers.

In London, you’ll be hard pressed to find a sandwich without butter on it. Ham and Cheese? Nope. Ham and cheese and butter. Turkey? Nope. Turkey and butter. I guess I could understand butter on its own in sandwiches, but they’ll often start with butter and then add mayonnaise or mustard on top of it. I just don’t get it. To me, butter doesn’t have much of a taste, so what are you getting out of it (other than the obvious extra calories)?

I’m looking forward to moving back to the states where I can order a ham sandwich without having to say “no butter please”.

Things I Love About London, Part VIII: American Holidays

2009-11-02T17:59:00.002Z

This title may sound like a bit of a contradiction, but one of my absolute favourite things about London is celebrating American holidays here. I found that expats fall into basically two categories: 1- Those who have left the states, grow to feel more disillusioned by it, and plan on (or atleast say they plan on) never going back and 2- Those who have left the states, grow to feel more longing and love towards it, and definitely plan on going back (“once this whole European/African/Asian adventure is over”). I definitely fall into the ladder category. I have become a more proud and more defensive American than I ever thought possible while living in America.

One of the best ways I have found to express this new-found nationalism is to go all out on American holidays! This is great because, as it turns out, almost all the holidays we celebrate in America (save Christmas and New Years) are American Holidays. St. Patrick’s day- American holiday. Valentie’s day- American Holiday. 4th of July- well that one’s obvious. If the Brits don’t celebrate it, that means that the American expat community celebrates 10 times as hard.

Halloween is a great example of this (definitely an American holiday, as it turns out). The Brits have started to celebrate it a bit, but it’s still seen as a mostly American thing. So, this year we decided to go all out! Some friends and I went as the entire cast of the Wizard of Oz. I was the Wicked Witch (although I was trying to channel more of an Elphaba feel) and we had the Good Witch, a Cowardly Lion, a Tin Woodman, Dorothy, and a Scarecrow (bobby). We had a great time partying with other Americans and Brits who appreciate our festive sprit. We even won best group costume!!

I definitely see myself moving back to the states and becoming disillusioned by it again (Where’s the free healthcare??). But for now, it’s great to be patriotic.

Oktoberfest

2009-10-28T11:00:00.001Z

Did I forget to mention that we went to Oktoberfest? Oh yeah, we went to Oktoberfest (at the end of September, which is when Oktoberfest takes place- don't let the name fool you).

We flew into Munich on Friday Morning and left on Sunday afternoon.

I wish I could tell you all about it, but to be perfectly honest, I don't remember much of Friday and I was so miserably hungover on Saturday that I didn't have that much fun. Those beers are MASSIVE. I woke up Saturday morning having realized that I lost my cell phone and had a HUGE bump on my head that turned into a nice bruise later. I did, however, gain a much-coveted stolen beer stein (if they find you stealing one at Oktoberfest, you can get a fine and kicked out!) so I guess it wasn't all a loss.

From what I remember, Oktoberfest consists of sitting in large tents with lots of very friendly Germans, eating surprisingly delicious food (Ox meat, pickles, pretzels, chicken...), and drinking the LARGEST BEERS YOU HAVE EVER SEEN. You also sing Germans songs, the words to which we never actually learned- even after having our new german friends say them over and over again to us very slowly. We went all out and bought lederhosen and dirndls- everyone thought we were locals!

Enjoy the following pictures and help me try to piece together the weekend......

Us in our dirndls and lederhosen

To be a waitress at Oktoberfest, you have to be able to hold A LOT of those HUGE beers at once.

Inside and outside at Hofbrau Haus- one of the main tents at Oktoberfest.

We're Moving to the Virgin Islands!!!

2009-10-26T13:53:00.003Z

That’s right people, we’re abandoning Europe for the beautiful beaches of St. Thomas!! We plan on leaving London in mid-December, spending Christmas at home and being in the Virgin Islands for new years.

If you’ve every hung out with bobby, you’ve heard him talk about his best-friend/life partner, Jacob. Well, a few years ago Jacob started a computer company which he recently re-located to St. Thomas (for tax reasons). Jacob’s been trying to get Bobby to work with him for ages, but it took moving to a tropical paradise to entice us to leave London. Right now, the plan is to be in St. Thomas for 2-3 years. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing down there yet, any suggestions in that area are welcome.

Obviously, we’re super excited about living on St. Thomas. I’m looking forward to a much more laidback and healthier lifestyle. However, part of me is really sad to be leaving London. I adore this city and everything it has to offer. Hopefully we’ll be back some day.

We plan on getting a place big enough to have a guest room, so visitors welcome!!

The fate of the blog is, as of yet, unknown. Now that I’ll have a US telephone number again, I feel like it will be easier to keep in touch with people without it, but we’ll see how things go.

Laura Update

2009-10-24T15:55:00.002+01:00

I'm not sure how many people actually read this blog (you all are not great about commenting), but I've had a lot of people asking about how i'm doing so I thought I would give a little update.

I feel AMAZING!! The surgery went better than I could ever have hoped. I had a little bump in the road about a week after returning home from the hospital which landed me back there for a few days, but that was my own fault. I got a little excited and introduced new foods into my diet too quickly. I now have that back in control and am feeling great!! I'm already months ahead of where to doctors said I would be at this point. So yay!! If British people weren't so stand-offish and afraid to show emotion, I would give my surgeon and big hug and kiss next time I saw him.

Also, thanks to nationalized healthcare, it was all FREE!!

Bodies in Urban Spaces

2009-10-18T22:57:00.003+01:00

This weekend a performance came to London that was simply fantastic. A photography group I've joined alerted me to Bodies in Urban Spaces, a group of dancers that cavort around the city and form crazy sculptures with their bodies. There were probably 200-300 spectators that trailed behind the performers for about an hour as we walked along the south bank of the Thames.

I'll let the pictures below speak for themselves. I've uploaded a bunch to Flickr, so you can check the full list out if you want to see more.

Phantom of the Opera

2009-10-11T15:56:00.003+01:00

We finally got around to seeing Phantom of the Opera in London. I have little to say about it other than that it was FANTASTIC!!!! I mean, SPECTACULAR!! I'm listening to the soundtract as we speak and haven't stopped singing it for the last week. If you've never seen it, you must go!

I was really keen on seeing Phantom after seeing Wicked and being somewhat disappointed by it. Everyone said that Wicked was the best musical ever "next to Phantom of the Opera" so I thought that it may pull through for me where Wicked failed- and it did! We saw it performed at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End and it was the perfect experience. The theatre is actually quite small, which means that every seat gets the full spectacular experience. The cast was beyond words- their performance was truly perfection.

A big thanks to Kim for buying us the tickets! I would go back and see it again tonight if it weren't so darn expensive!!

I'm still a huge fan of Avenue Q, and it might actually remain my favourite musical, but if you want the true West-End experience, nothing beats Phantom!

Stonehenge

2009-10-10T17:43:00.003+01:00

Now that I’m home from the hospital and recuperating nicely, time to catch up on what we were doing for the few weeks leading up to my operation.

My friend Sarah (who I met in Kenya and subsequently worked with in DC) came out for a visit, so I was able to explore some new parts of England with her. She wanted to go to Stonehenge, a place I had yet to visit, so I was happy to join her for this day-trip from London.

We woke up early and took the train from London’s Waterloo station to Salisbury, about a 2 hour ride. Once we arrived in Salisbury, we paid to take have one of the touristy buses take us out to Stonehenge itself. The mystical monument is only about 25 minutes from the town of Salisbury, but a taxi will charge you £35 for the round-trip ride and doesn’t include the informative and mood-setting dialogue that the £17 tourist bus gave us, so I would definitely recommend the bus choice.

On the way to Stonehenge (“The most impressive stone circle in the world” according to the tour), we learned important information like the fact that it is super old, nobody knows why the hell it exists or who built it, and that its probably not as mystical as all the rumors and folk lore make it out to be. There is little information on Stonehenge not because of its mystical nature, but because its just too old for us to hazard a guess as to its use. I have to say, I was a little disappointed in this aspect of Stonehenge. I would have been much more impressed if they would have just played up to the fantastical rumors. Instead of “early people of England built this stone circle a long ass time ago probably for some boring purpose like a calendar,” I would have liked to have heard “we don’t know why this stone circle is here- it was probably aliens or some kind of druid human-sacrifice altar.” It may be historically inaccurate, but it would have been much more worth the £6 entry fee I paid.

I was also a little disappointed by the scale of Stonehenge. I mean, sure, those rocks are big. I mean, I couldn’t move them and according to our tour the biggest one weights as much as 25 elephants, but they didn’t actually look all that impressive in person. Maybe its because you can’t get that close to them (the circle is fenced off), but pictures I had seen of Stonehenge made them seem much bigger.

The thing I WAS impressed with from Stonehenge is the fact that the stones from the inner circle came from the mountains of Wales- 250 miles away. They managed to move stone pillars weighing nearly 6 tons 250 miles without the use of modern machinery. Historians are still not sure how they did it.

After we finished our tour of Stonehenge, we headed back to Salisbury to explore the town a bit. I would call it a fairly typical British town. One item of note is that the Salisbury Cathedral houses one of the few original copies of the Magna Carta.

So, would I go back to Stonehenge? No, probably not. In the end, it was just kind of underwhelming. I’m glad I saw it once, but that’s definitely all you need. If you have an extra day in London or if you’re driving by Salisbury anyways, it might be worth your trip, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it. There are much better day trips from London that I would recommend first.

LAURA IS HOME!

2009-10-07T21:39:00.001+01:00

Hooray!!!!

Recovery Update

2009-10-06T13:19:00.003+01:00

Hooray! Laura is feeling quite well and starting the road to recovery (and is even eating some food now).

She will be coming out of hospial on Wednesday, less than a week after going under the knife. I will be very happy to have her back at home and resting.

Surgery Complete

2009-10-01T21:18:00.003+01:00

Laura is out of surgery and recovering nicely. She's already been up walking around, but is (obviously) very tired after the ordeal.

Thanks for all of the warm wishes, I'll keep updating the blog as we progress.

Surgery Tomorrow!!

2009-09-30T16:46:00.003+01:00

So, this second surgery kinda snuck up on me. It's tomorrow!! I just had my pre-op appointment, and it looks like everything's a go. I should be under the knife around 11, so positive thoughts welcome at that time. As per last time, Bobby will be updating the blog with any post-surgery announcements. If everything goes according to plan, I hope to be home from the hospital on Monday!

Wish me luck!!

The Wizard of Oz

2009-09-28T21:51:00.007+01:00

Watching the original version of The Wizard of Oz, in all of it's Technicolor© glory, is quite a strange experience in your mid-twenties. Sure, I remember the story (wicked witch, crazy chick in a tornado, lots of little munchkins), but the details are both fascinating and kind of disturbing.

Last weekend, one of our first stay-in-London weekends in quite some time, we went to the Prince Charles' Cinema with some friends. In the "Upstairs" part of the theatre, they have new releases, while "Downstairs" they show lots of movies that aren't running elsewhere for super cheap.

There were a few general things that struck me while watching The Wizard of Oz. First, for a movie release in 1939, this film has some fantastic production value and staying power. Second, after having seen Wicked (but not read the book yet), my whole world view of The Wizard of Oz is completely skewed. And finally, a whole lot of this movie is quite campy - the theatre cracked up during the munchkins scene, and just about every time the Cowardly Lion opened his jaws.

The details that I had forgotten, or never saw in the first place, were what really stuck out watching on the big screen.

After the wizard demands that the group bring back the broomstick of the wicked witch, the scarecrow somehow comes up with a gun. A gun?!? What kind of message is that in a land 'over the rainbow'?
The Scarecrow - immediately after being granted his Diploma - states "The sum of the square of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square of the remaining side." WRONG! C'mon, we all know that the Pythagorean Theorem only applies to right triangles, not isosceles.
The cables holding up the Lion's tail, or carrying the flying monkeys, are something you really only see on the big screen. I'm sure the 'digitally remastered' version has photoshopped those out, but it carries a certain spark of realism and grounds the movie into the era in which it was made.

In any case, it was a lovely day out and a fun way to spend time on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

The Lake District

2009-09-21T11:10:00.009+01:00

For the final phase of our whirlwind UK tour with Kim and Ed, we headed to the English Lake District. A popular retreat for hikers and campers, it is famous for its lakes and its mountains (or fells), and its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth and the Lake Poets.

We decided to stay in a little town called Ambleside, which is just near the largest of the Lakes, Windermere. We lucked out and had fabulous weather the entire time we were in the Lake District, so we spent our time hiking around the mountains and even took a nice little boat ride out on lake Windermere. There are many pre-planned and well marked hiking paths, so we opted for one that was supposed to take about 4 hours and looped around to lake Windermere, a little town called Troutbeck, and back. The hike actually ended up taking us about 6 hours (maybe we’re slow walkers?) but it was some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve ever seen in the UK.

We stayed at a fabulous little B&B in Ambleside called 3 Cambridge Villas. We were treated to a full English breakfast every day (toast, eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes, roasted tomatoes, tea, coffee) and the owner Sue was simply fabulous.

After our jaunt in the Lake District, we headed back to London.

Scotland, Part II: Edinburgh and Stirling

2009-09-17T12:14:00.006+01:00

We arrived in Edinburgh to find that there were cops everywhere and that many of the streets were shut down (much to the chagrin of our driver, Bobby, and to the confusion of our TomTom navigation system that we named Sean). It turns out that there were so many street closures because we happened to arrive on the last day of the Edinburgh International Festival. I was kind of bummed that I hadn’t found this out beforehand because we might have attended a day or two of the festival if I had planned for it. We did, however get to catch the closing fireworks which were fantastic as a background for Edinburgh very gothic-feeling skyline.

The next day, we took one of the free walking tours that I’m always pimping out on this website. As per the usual, our guide was young and quirky and took us on a fun and informative tour of the city. We learned about the history of Edinburgh castle, the Stone of Destiny, some stuff about Harry Potter that I wasn’t especially interested in (I guess it was written in Edinburgh?).

I was, however, highly entertained by the history of witch trials in Edinburgh. I guess Scotland was at the forefront of witch-hunting in the middle ages. I don’t find this especially surprising; I just found it humorous that, according to our guide, witches were accused based on three characteristics - red hair, freckles, and a third nipple. If they had all three of these characteristics they were thrown into the Nor Loch (a lake that used to exist adjacent to Edinburgh but has since been drained) to see if they floated. If they did float, they were a witch. If they didn’t float, well, then they were just a dead regular human. I guess Monty Python is surprising historically accurate after all.

Once we finished our walking tour, we proceeded to do what is always my favourite activity in any new city/country we visit: test the local food!! In the case of Edinburgh, this consisted of three things:

1- Haggis: a dish containing sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours. This was surprisingly delicious! It ended up tasting like a spicy sausage and was served with mashed turnips and potatoes (“neeps and tatties”). I’ve learned from my Scottish co-worker that M&S sells a nice haggis in London, so I plan on buying more here!
2- Deep-Fried Mars Bar: um, the name kinda says it all. A mars bar is like a milkway bar. They dip it in some kind of batter and then deep-fry it. This was (unsurprisingly) AMAZING!!! It seems that the Scotts deep-fry everything. In the same shop that was selling the deep-fried mars bar, deep-fried haggis, hamburger patties, hot dogs and pizza was also being sold.
3- Irn-Bru: This is a soda produced in Scotland. It is of note that this soda outsells coke and pepsi COMBINED in Scotland- the only country in the world that can say this about one of its home products. It tasted like crème soda.

We spent the rest of the day stuffing ourselves full of local grub and tasting more whisky in bars around Edinburgh. The following morning we headed towards the English lakedistrict, taking a little detour to visit Stirling and its historic castle.

Major battles during the Wars of Scottish Independence took place at the Stirling Bridge in 1297 and at the nearby village of Bannockburn in 1314 involving Scottish freedom fighters William Wallace and Robert the Bruce respectively. Stirling is also home to the William Wallace National Monument. I really enjoyed Stirling. It was much more of a proper castle than Ballandoch and we were led on a wonderful tour that gave us a history of not only the castle itself, but also the fight for Scottish independence.

After Stirling, we headed onto the lakedistrict.

Scotland, Part 1: Inverness and Speyside

2009-09-15T17:03:00.008+01:00

Bobby’s mom Kim and step-dad Ed came out to visit us last week. We decided that we didn’t want to do anything too travel-intensive, so we opted to stay in the UK for this trip. We wanted to start the adventure with a train ride to Inverness, Scotland, but, after learning that it takes 8 hours on a train to get to Inverness, decided to fly instead.

Inverness is known as the gateway to the Scottish Highlands. Most people begin their journeys here and go on to explore northern Scotland and the Isle of Sky. It’s also very popular because it’s right next to Loch Ness! We opted to drive south after Inverness, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to drive around Loch Ness and look for its most famous inhabitant: Nessie. The weather didn’t really cooperate with us, but Inverness and Loch Ness were beautiful all the same.

Some pictures around Loch Ness

I found Nessie!

After Loch Ness, we decided to drive down to Edinburgh. We took a little detour along the way to visit Ballandoch Castle and the Speyside Whisky Trail.

As far as castles go, I didn’t find Ballandoch all that impressive. It was rather small and, well, just not very castle-y. It is still privately owned, which seemed awesome to me beforehand because the family still actually lives in the castle! However, once we were inside, the fact that it was still inhabited made it kind of creepy. There were family photographs everywhere and the furniture didn’t seem very historically accurate (because, really, who wants to actually sit on a 14th century sofa?). I felt like I was sneaking around someone’s house instead of exploring a castle- which I guess is exactly what I was doing.

To Ballandoch’s credit, however, it did have some very beautiful gardens!

After raiding the private home of a wealthy family for awhile, we continued on to the Speyside Whisky Trail. Ed wanted to visit Glenlivet, the only Scotch whisky distillery he’d every heard of, and that’s exactly where we ended up! We were led on a nice little free tour around the distillery by and elderly gentleman who obviously had no idea how much Ed, Kim and Bobby already knew about alcohol production. Bobby and I have visited quite a few breweries in our travels and Kim and Ed brew their own beer. I was excited because, while I find brewery tours HORRIBLY boring, this was a distillery, and maybe it was more exciting? Wrong. It turns out that whisky is made exactly the same way as beer (the first step to whisky is infact beer), you just distil it over and over until a lot of the water is gone. Or atleast I think that’s what the guy was saying, I don’t know, I zoned out due to too much standing and boredom.

However, whether it be brewery and distillery, you always put up with the tour because you know at the end there will be the magical prize of free booze. We were presented with 3 different “drams” of Glenlivet whisky at the end of the tour. A 12-year-old (the youngest they sell), an 18-year-old and a 16-year-old cask-strength (aka, not watered down at all). I grabbed my free glass, took a whiff, and realized in a moment of utter disappointment that there was no way I was ever going to be able to convince my body to swallow something that smelled like that. It turns out that Kim is also not a fan of whisky, so Ed and Bobby got to drink all of our free samples.

After Glenlivet, we headed south, leaving the highlands on our way to Edinburgh.

Tips from Part 1 of our trip:

Inverness is totally skipable. I guess you should go if you want to see Loch Ness and this is definitely the best jumping-off-point for the highlands, but as a city by itself, it doesn’t have much to offer.
If you’re going to try and do whisky distillery tours, don’t choose to do them on a Sunday. Most are either not open at all or close early.
I wouldn’t recommend Ballandoch castle- choose to visit a government owned castle or one held in trust instead. It’s the same price and you won’t feel like you’re invading someone’s privacy!

Norway

2009-09-02T14:00:00.011+01:00

Monday 31 August was a Bank Holiday in the UK, so that combined with my awesome flex schedule gave us a 4 day holiday! I searched RyanAir’s website for the cheapest flights I could find to anywhere and booked us onto flights to Oslo, Norway for £10 (about $16.50 right now) each way! I really wanted to visit Norway, and wanted to do it before it got too cold, so this seemed like the perfect time.

We flew into Oslo late Thursday evening and, because everyone told me that Oslo itself is completely skippable, only spent the night there before catching a train early the next morning to Flam.

The train ride itself was spectacular and alone would have made the trip to Norway worth it. We took the Bergen Railway as far as Myrdal and then the Flam railway from Myrdal to Flam. It took nearly 4.5 hours, so I brought a book along, but never picked it up since I couldn’t stop looking out the window!!

The Flam Railway was simply amazing. You climb down mountains and around waterfalls. Bobby and I positioned ourselves on either side of the train so that we could take pictures in each direction the entire time and not miss anything!!

We spent only an hour or two in Flam before getting on a ferry and heading to Balestrand, which was recommended to us by a friend. I really loved Balestrand. Just a small Norwegian town situated at the junction of the Sognefjord and Esefjord, there wasn’t much to do other thank soak in the amazing scenery. We visit St. Olaf’s Church, built in the Stave Church Norwegian style, but I think that may have been the town’s soul attraction.

Luckily, while it was by no means sunny on Saturday, it wasn’t really raining either, so we decided to take a hike up the mountain. This was my favourite part of the entire trip. The hike took us nearly 5 hours, but the view was amazing!! The owner of our hotel let us borrow some walking sticks which proved essential as the first 1.5 hours of the hike were nearly completely vertical and the last 2 hours were very muddy and slippery (I have the bruises to prove it).

On Saturday evening, we caught the ferry from Balestrand onto Bergen.

View from the ferry

I don’t have much to say about Bergen. It was nice, much bigger than Balestrand but not as big as Oslo, but I found it much less beautiful than the smaller Norwegian towns we visited and kind of boring. It also rained all day Sunday. I mean, it POURED all day- so that may be affecting my opinion. We did have a wonderful dinner of reindeer and elk though, so that was enjoyable.

Bergen

On Monday, we caught an early train for the 7.5 hour journey back to Oslo to catch our flight back to London.

I really enjoyed Norway. We had miserable weather the entire time and I still liked it, so I think that says a lot about what a fantastic place it is.

If you’re thinking of travelling to Norway, some things to consider:

It’s expensive. I mean REALLY expensive. I live in London, one of the priciest cities in the world, and I thought it was expensive. So, just keep that in mind when you’re budgeting for your trip.
I think Oslo and Bergen are both totally skippable. The train journey was spectacular and I would definitely recommend that, but I would only visit those cities again as a jumping-off point to explore the smaller towns and fjords of the area.
Retrospectively, I would have liked to have spent at least one entire day in Flam. We learned later that you can rent bikes and travel nearly the entire path of the Flam railway on them. I think this would have been so much fun (and given us a better view of the sights!)
If I were to go back, which I definitely hope to do one day, I’d go earlier in the summer. I hear that it rains less then and that the weather can actually be quite warm. I think swimming in the fjords would be fantastic.

UK Factoid of the Day

2009-08-27T14:49:00.002+01:00

Instead of asking if they can "pet" your dog, children in England ask if they can "stroke" it.

I want to get a dog only because of the endless humour I would find in having children run up to me and say "Excuse me, may I please stroke your dog" (insert adorabe british-child accent here). The 13-year-old boy in me thinks that this is very funny.

Things I Love About London, Part VII: Afternoon Tea

2009-08-25T14:03:00.007+01:00

My friend Nishant, who I actually met in London but now lives in America, came to visit this past weekend. And, because we needed lots of time to chat and catch up, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to try out one of London’s fabulous Afternoon Tea venues.

We went to The Goring which is a fancy privately-owned hotel near Victoria station, and I LOVED it. Despite my newfound love of tea, I wasn’t sure how I was going to respond to the whole afternoon tea concept. I mean, isn’t it just old ladies sitting around in fancy hats eating finger sandwiches? Well, yes, it is, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun. Nishant, Lynsey and I had a fabulous time despite the fact that we were the youngest people in the room by about 40 years.

The tea was amazing, the service spectacular, and the food, oh the food. Who would have guessed that scones and clotted cream could have been so fabulous! I must learn how to make my own. Perhaps Sarah's blog can help me? We opted, of course, for the Bollinger Afternoon Tea simply because it came with a glass of champagne, but I think even the Traditional Tea would have been superb.

If you get a chance to do an Afternoon Tea in London, I highly recommend it and would be happy to go with you!

Things I Miss About America, Part IX: Prudishness

2009-08-17T17:24:00.002+01:00

I have always considered myself a liberal-minded and forward thinking American. Legalize prostitution? Sure, that way we can regulate it and curb STIs and sex trafficking. Legalize marijuana? Sure, it has proven medical benefits and is only illegal because of movements by American uber powerful tobacco lobby anyways. Legalize same-sex marriage? Oh, don’t even get me started on how much I support that one.

I was recently reading my favourite fashion magazines, Grazia (I love it because they have just off the runway stuff side-by-side with stuff I can actually afford and throw in a bit of celebrity gossip and womens’ rights news to boot) when I happened upon a picture of Sharon Stone on the cover of the French magazine Match. You may have heard that on this cover she is topless. Now, I really wanted to not care. I really wanted to applaud her for being 50-something and looking fabulous. But, I didn’t feel that way- I actually felt uncomfortable and slightly offended. It actually made me think “gee, I wish I were in America where they would have censored out her nipples!” It’s not really that she’s topless; it’s that she’s topless in a pornographic way in a magazine that is no way pornographic. I find it offensive for the same reason I find the Page 3 (topless) girls in the Sun (a newspaper in London) offensive- because why do there need to be naked girls in a newspaper (where just any unsuspecting child or, in some cases, 25-year-old American girl can come by and pick it up)?!?!

So, if living in Europe for two years has taught me anything, it has taught me that, at my core, I’m puritanical and prudish. Believe me, I’ve tried to fight this. I oh so badly want to be European and not care that there are naked pictures of women printed in scandalous positions in even reputable publications. I really want to not care that every beach I go to is packed with completely naked French/Spanish/Greek men. I want to think that nude men standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square really is art. But, in the end, I can’t help it. I’m American. Nudity makes me uncomfortable and I find it inappropriate in most public circumstances. I don’t say anything to Europeans of course (because they would give me that “sad little American” look and toss their hand-rolled cigarette at me), but I still feel that way! I’m not British, I’m American. And even though our two societies are very similar in some ways, my country was still founded by puritans. So, my new outlook is to just embrace it.

Things I Love About London, Part VI: London at Nighttime

2009-08-11T10:35:00.004+01:00

Every time I walk around London in the evening, I fall more and more in love with this city. Bobby and I were taking the bus home from Kensington the other night, and passed Parliament, Big Ben, and St. Pauls- all of which were lit up in their full romantic-London-at-nighttime glory. My heart ached at the thought that I would one day leave this city. While London is horribly crowded, stressful and overwhelming during the day, at night all of the hordes of people disappear and you are left seemingly alone in the city- always a magical experience for me.

Tower Bridge at night as seen from Strada

I have gotten in the habit of taking our visitors to the Strada at Tower Bridge on their last evening in London. The food is not amazing, but I don’t go for the food- I go for the view! I love sitting there staring at Tower Bridge at night. I think it’s more beautiful in the nighttime than it is during the day. We often walk from Tower Bridge to St. Pauls after dinner, because those are my two favourite places at night in London. You can frequently make almost the entire walk without seeing another person on foot. I’m not sure why there aren’t more tourists out at night in London- I truly think that it is the best time to see the city- but, for now, I’m happy to think that London-at-nighttime is my little secret and appreciate the one-on-one time with my city.

St. Paul's at Night

Pictures from the Gentiles' Visit

2009-08-09T15:56:00.001+01:00

I've posted pictures from my family's visit. You can see them by clicking on the "pictures" link to the left.

Second Surgery

2009-08-06T11:56:00.003+01:00

The exciting news of today is that I FINALLY got a date for my second surgery. It will be on 1 October. Those of you I talk to on a regular basis know that this has been quite a frustrating wait for me. I was put on the waiting list on 19 June, which means that I will have been waiting for 3.5 months to have this operation (side note: this is less than the 4.5 months that they told me I would wait to have it! I guess my constant calling and nagging paid off!).

Americans often ask me about my experience with socialized healthcare. Having faced a serious health problem and the subsequent series of surgeries in the UK has only furthered my support of healthcare for all. While this recent wait has been frustrating (in America, I would have had the first surgery, waited 10 weeks, and then had the second- meaning that this whole horrible experience would already be over by now!), I am willing to wait my turn if it means that everyone has access to healthcare. Access to healthcare is a human right, not a privilege. My greatest disappointment in America is that so many people don't see this.

Don't get me wrong, things here are by no means perfect. If you can wait, you will wait. Private rooms would definitely be better than sitting on the ward with 9 other women and little to no privacy. Hospitals seem to be constantly facing funding issues. There is a hierarchy as to which drugs you can use based on their price. However, when I needed my first surgery urgently, I was dealt with right away by some of the best doctors in their field. When I wanted to stay in the hospital for a few extra days following my first operation, there was no insurance company to call for permission and the doctors were happy to let me do this. When I had a severe allergic reaction to one of the drugs I had started taking in the states (a reaction that is many times fatal) because my insurance company wouldn't pay for me to have the allergy test done in Virginia, I was told by my English doctors that the test is performed on everyone who takes that drug in the UK- no questions asked.

So, now, the only real question is, when will it happen in America?

Croatia with the Gentiles

2009-08-03T13:08:00.022+01:00

Last week, my family (well, everyone except for Chris) came out to visit. This trip was a belated graduation present for my sister, who requested that we go somewhere where she could “sit on the beach.” I had heard fabulous things about Croatia from my British friends and co-workers, so, after a few days in London, we headed over to Dubrovnik.

Let me start off by saying that Croatia is definitely in the top 3 (if not number 1) on my list of favourite places visited since moving to Europe. We had perfect weather the entire time (85 degrees and not a cloud in the sky), the water was the clearest of any I have ever seen (I dare you to go there and not automatically jump into the ocean- it beacons you) and I think that Croatia is still under the radar for most Americans (which appeals to my off-the-beaten-path spirit).

We rented an apartment very near Old Town Dubrovnik. I loved Old Town. Even though it was heavily bombed during the Croatian War for Independence against Yugoslavia in the early 90s, it has been completely restored and definitely retained its old-world feel.

Our apartment was just above Banje beach, which had a beautiful view of the Old Town and which is where we spent most of our time.

We took a day trip out to the island of Mljet- about an hour and a half up the coast form Dubrovnik. Mljet is famous for its two inland lakes and because a majority of the island is preserved as a national park. We hiked over to the lakes and took a ferry out to the centre of the larger one. Located in the centre of this lake was a small island which held an old monastery and little else. We spent the day lounging on the shores of the small island and swimming in the lakes crystal-clear and wonderfully warm waters.

We also took a day trip to Montenegro. I selfishly wanted to do this so that I could add another location to my “countries I have visited” list, but it turned out to be a really great experience. Picturing war-torn-former-Yugoslavia in my head, I packed a roll of toilet paper for the trip in preparation for squat toilets. The cities we visited, Kotor and Budva, were quite the opposite.

Settled between the towering mountains of the Montenegrin countryside and the tranquil bay of Kotor, the town of Kotor itself proved to be perhaps the most dramatic of our trip. It took us only 15 minutes to tour this small city (which consisted mostly of Serbian Orthodox churches and great homes of former wealthy families), but you were left with the impression that it was much grander. This is caused, perhaps, by the fact that the city walls contain not only the town itself, but a large section of the adjacent mountain. Our guide told us that it would take only 2 hours to climb the city walls, but, as your eyes strained to see the top-most tower and followed the 250 meters of zigzagged vertical climb, it seemed that it would take much longer. We could have spent the whole day in Kotor, and indeed I would have enjoyed atleast attempting to climb its intimidating city walls, but our tour guide hurried us on so that we could visit the city of Budva.

I have little to say on Budva other than the fact that it was unimpressive. The old town was nothing compared to Kotor or Dubrovnik and the beaches were horribly overcrowded. We did have some delicious lunch there (my octopus salad was perhaps the best food I had on our trip), but our culinary experience did not make up for the other downfalls of the city.

After Budva, we got back on the bus and headed back to Dubrovnik, enjoying the beautiful Croatian countryside on the way.

I would definitely go back to Croatia (I hear that its northern regions are beautiful as well) and would highly recommend it to any of you who might have the opportunity to go.

UK Factoid of the Day

2009-07-31T18:35:00.005+01:00

In the UK, what Americans call Fanny Packs are called Bum Packs/Bum Bags.

Now, you may be asking, why the hell did Laura just give me the British word for Fanny Pack? Who wears a Fanny Pack anymore? Well, first of all, you need to start following your fashion news, because then you would know that the Fanny Pack has been making a slow but steady comeback over the last few years.

But, the REAL reason I listed this little British-American language discrepancy is because, in the UK, the word fanny refers to a *cough* certain part of the *cough* female anatomy. You can thank me on your next trip to the UK when you want to complement someone on their ultra hip, just-off-the-runway Bum Bag without getting slapped in the face for yelling out "Nice Fanny!".

UK Factoid of the Day

2009-07-23T10:55:00.006+01:00

This post is in honour of Sarah, cupcake queen of HamptonRoads:

In the UK, what Americans call Cupcakes are called Fairy cakes.

Now, there is some debate here, amongst both my American ex-pat friends and the British themselves, as to whether cupcakes and fairy cakes are indeed the same thing. At most grocery stores, they sell desserts labeled both "cupcakes" and "fairy cakes" that appear to be nearly identical.

At first, we thought that "fairy cakes" were simply petite-sized cupcakes. But, this proved to be wrong.

British people have told me that fairy cakes are lighter in texture than cupcakes and that they are topped with "British icing" (aka, a light glaze of sugar or chocolate) instead of "American icing" (aka, a big wallop of butter cream). However, I have seen desserts labeled "fairy cakes" that look exactly like American cupcakes!

So, I'm going to go ahead and make it official (as official as this little blog can be) and say that Cupcakes and Fairy cakes are the same thing.

UK Factoid of the Day

2009-07-21T13:36:00.005+01:00

This curious looking item is called a Treasury Tag (or India Tag).

It is an office supply that is used to fasten pieces of paper together, or to a folder. It consists of two small metal bars connected by a piece of string. Treasury Tags are threaded through holes made by a hole-punch, like so:

I'm not exactly sure what the American equivalent of a treasury tag would be. Maybe a keyring?

(The first time I was asked to bind a stack of papers in my UK office, I was handed a hole-punch and a treasury tag. I stared at both of them helplessly for about 10 minutes before I finally asked someone how this was possibly supposed to work. It seemed obvious after they showed me. In my defense, I had thought of that option before asking for help, but had dismissed the idea because it didn't keep the papers very tightly bound. I still don't like them for this reason.)

Pamplona for San Fermin (Running of the Bulls)

2009-07-17T11:01:00.008+01:00

Following our wine-tasting jaunt in Bordeaux, we hired a bus to take us across the boarder into Spain to celebrate San Fermin (more commonly known as Running of the Bulls) in Pamplona.

San Fermin is the Spanish festival celebrating Saint Fermin (duh), who is the co-patron of the Navarre region of Spain (in which Pamplona is found). Nobody is really sure as to when it started, but the festival has been celebrated uninterrupted since 1592. As for the Running of the Bulls itself (which is just one part of the festival), it first originated with the need to move the bulls from the city corral, where they were placed until the day of their fight, to the plaza de toros. The town's youth would run with and through the herd as the animals progressed through the town square. In Pamplona, Saint Fermin (who was actually martyred at Amiens) is now sometimes said to have met his end by being dragged through the streets of Pamplona by bulls. The festival became famous to the English-speaking world thanks to Hemingway’s novel “The Sun Also Rises” in which it is discussed.

We arrived in time for the opening ceremony, which took place at noon on the 6th of July. I wish I could tell you more about this ceremony, but all I know is that about half a million people (no exaggeration) packed into the town square, some rockets were set off, and then everyone started spraying each other with champagne/ketchup/wine/whatever you had. It was an amazing experience and tons of fun, but I have to say that I’ve never before been so afraid for my life. The fact that I was not trampled in the chaos is a small miracle (or large one- depending on how you look at it).

A picture I stole off the internet of the opening ceremony- we're in there somewhere!!

After the opening ceremony, we joined the other hundreds of thousands of people who were in Pamplona for what I think may be the official pastime of San Fermin: Drinking. We partook of the official drink of Pamplona: Calimocho (50% Wine, 50% Coca-Cola- surprisingly tasty!!). At 5am and on no sleep, we headed down to the course that the bulls were to take to reserve our spot for the 8am running.

Me enjoying some Calimocho

I’m finding it difficult to find words to describe the actual Running of the Bulls itself. Chaos. Thrilling. Terrifying. Amazing. And I didn’t even run! There is virtually no order to the run at all. Anyone can just show up and stand in the street, if you’re there when the bulls are let out (signified by a rocket being launched), watch out! I was shocked at the number of people who participated in the run- it had to have been in the thousands!

After the first rocket is launched, 6 bulls are released into a barricaded path down center of Pamplona leading all the way to the bull-fighting arena on the outskirts of the city. Some runners choose to jump over the barricades and out of the way of the bulls almost instantly (before the bulls are even close to them), some choose to press themselves up against the side of the walls in hopes that the herd of bulls will pass them by unnoticed, the very brave run right alongside the bulls. It is considered good luck to touch a bull’s horn during the run.

The way we figured it, the run is actually pretty safe except for two things:
1) The people. When you have 2,000 people running for their lives down a narrow street, the changes of getting swept under the stampede are high.
2) A stray bull. As long as the bulls stay in their pack, there is little chance that one will attack you. However, if a bull gets separated (which happens often as they slip on the cobble-stoned streets), watch out! A lone bull will attack everything in sight. Someone was killed on one of the last days of the Running this year after a stray bull gored him through the neck.

After the running was over, we went back to our hotel and passed out for a few hours before waking up and doing it all over again!

Our group in Pamplona

Bobby and I didn’t run, but almost everyone else in our group did. Looking back on it, I kind of wish I would have done it. I doubt if I’ll ever go back to San Fermin, so that might have been my only chance! I highly recommend the experience (by far, the most insane thing I have every witnessed), but once was enough for me.

UK Factoid of the Day

2009-07-16T15:34:00.001+01:00

In the UK, what we call a Tank-Top is called a Vest, and what we call a Vest is called a Tank-Top.

Bordeaux

2009-07-13T11:30:00.006+01:00

Following out trip to Barcelona, we returned to London for a few days and then promptly got back on a plane and headed down to Bordeaux, France.

Bordeaux at night

As I’m sure you're all aware, Bordeaux is famous for its fantastic wines and most people visit this region of France purely for the wine tasting- and taste wine we did! I would say that the city of Bordeaux itself is completely skipable. While it did have some very nice parks in which you can sit and enjoy a fabulous picnic of French wine, cheese and bread (all of the best things about France), the city is otherwise not very interesting. I think most people just use the city as a home base for wine tasting- and rightly so! Just 15 minutes out of the city you find yourself in the heart of wine country. Vineyards and sunflower-filled fields span as far as the eye can see.

French picnic: Baguette, Brie, Jambon and Wine

We drove from Bordeaux to St. Emilion stopping at a few of the most famous vineyards along the way. They were so famous, that they didn’t let ordinary people like us in to taste the wine! Only wine experts and the super-rich allowed.

Chateau Cheval Blanc: Owned by the Louis Vuitton empire and too fancy to let us in!

Bottles of Petrus wine go for about 5,000 euro a bottle (about $7,000)

I adored St. Emilion, despite the fact that it was packed with tourists. A small mountain of a town, it is topped by a historic Catholic church and contains tiny, winding, cobble-stoned streets lined with shops and cafes all the way down to the surrounding vineyards. The St. Emilion region is said to have some of the best wine in the world.

The countryside as seen from the top of St. Emilion
Me, St. Emilion

St. Emilion's winding streets

We spent an all-too-short hour or so in St. Emilion, just enough time to grab a sandwich and gawk at the rustic beauty, before heading on to château Clos de Madeline to do some wine tasting. We were greeted by the very friendly and exuberant owner who led our tasting, taught us the proper way to taste wine (“you must first warm it up in your hand, smell, swirl 6 times, smell, taste, swirl again”), taught us about the wine aging process and how to decant wine properly if you are trying to drink wine while it is “too young.” Our conversation often revolved around the effect of Global Warming on the French wine industry-something the château owner was very concerned about. He informed us that they were testing vines from the center of Africa to incorporate into their crop- as these vines would be more able to withstand the heat. He also informed us that some British wine-lovers are already beginning to plant vineyards on the southern coast of Great Britain, with the expectation that the weather will be the perfect temperature there in 10-20 years for wine. He told us, and I quote: “French people drinking British wine? Never! It will be world war three!!”

The Chateau owner

The countryside of Bordeaux was beautiful and the people extremely friendly- I would highly recommend a wine-tasting excursion here if you ever get the chance. Be forewarned, however, that unlike my wine-tasting experiences in California, vineyards truly expect you to buy wine after the tasting!! In fact, if you didn’t purchase wine after the tasting, they charged you 10 euro. This is understandable to me in the long run, but could become very expensive if you visited lots of châteauxs!!

After our visit to Clos de Madeline, we headed onto Pamplona, Spain for the San Fermin festival (aka Running of the Bulls) and the next leg of our journey!

<----------- Another New Blog Link

2009-07-13T10:36:00.005+01:00

I've added another new blog link to the left here. This is the blog of another friend i've had since highschool, Lara. Lara lives on a boat in Charleston, SC and has just quit her job to pursue her art career full time. Check out her blog to see her fabulous gallery of artwork (hopefully more to come now that that pesky other full-time job isn't in the way) and follow her life in Charleston and beyond.

One of Lara's paintings entitled "Cows in Field"

Barcelona

2009-07-10T10:56:00.006+01:00

As you may have noticed from our calendar on the left, it has been a hectic few weeks to say the least. So, let’s start at the beginning.

At the end of June, our friends Brian and Candace came out from the states. They spent a few days in London, but we also convinced them to travel with us to Barcelona, a city I have long wanted to visit.

We spent our first day in Barcelona walking up and down La Rambla, the city’s main shopping/people watching boulevard. We loved its restaurants filled with paella as well as all of the food markets.

Paella- yummy!

Food market on La Rambla

Next, we headed out to Gaudi’s famous church: La Sagrada Familia. From the outside, the Sagrada Familia reminded me of those sandcastles we used to make as kids by holding wet sand in our hands and letting it drop to the ground little clump by little clump until you have a lumpy looking mound. While the outside, to me, wasn’t very pretty, it was very interesting. The inside of la Sagrada Familia, however, was SPECTACULAR!!! It was like nothing I have ever seen before. Gaudi is said to have been inspired by a forest and wanted the cathedral to invoke the feeling of lying on the forest floor and looking up at the trees. I think he was successful. The stained-glass windows blew me away more than anything else. They were so modern looking and produced such amazing light. The cathedral has been under construction for 100 years and is not scheduled to be completed until 2040, but I would go back just to see what it looks like at the end!!!

La Sagrada Familia

Inside

The next day, we hopped on the train and headed 45 minutes south of Barcelona to the beach town of Sitges. Lined with old Spanish churches and courtyards, this town had a very wonderful old-world feel to it. However, once you delve into the town centre, you are instantly aware of why it is called one of Spain’s biggest party retreats. Bars line most streets and colourful drinks are aplenty!

Brian and Candace in Sitges

On our last day in Barcelona, we headed north of the city to Park Guell, which was also designed by Gaudi. It was originally planned as a city retreat for the wealthy, but was never really completed. It was wonderful to walk through the park and see all of Gaudi’s nature-inspired designs intertwined with the Spanish landscape.

Me and Bobby, Park Guell

Bobby squishing La Sagrada Familia from the top of Park Guell

If I were every to go back to Barcelona, I would definitely plan on staying in Sitges and making day trips into the City instead of the other way around. While Barcelona was fantastic, there wasn’t a lot to do there and it would have been nice to sit on Sitges’ beautiful beaches a while longer!

UK Factoid of the Day

2009-07-09T12:01:00.003+01:00

In the UK, the dance/song we call the Hokey Pokey is called the Hokey Cokey and the lyrics are as follows:

Put your left leg in
your left leg out
In
out
in
out
shake it all about

Do the Hokey-Cokey
and you turn around
That's what it's all about

I like Cokey
I like Cokey
I like Cokey

Knees bent
arms stretched
rah
rah
rah

UK Factoid of the Day

2009-07-02T17:47:00.002+01:00

In the UK, what we call Cotton Candy is called Candy Floss.

<------ New Blog Link

2009-07-01T09:48:00.006+01:00

I've added a link for my friend Sarah's blog to the left here. Sarah and I have been good friends since high school and this is a blog she shares with her husband, Ben (although, much like our blog, Sarah writes most of the entries).

Sarah and Ben are some of the greatest foodies I know. She reviews a lot of restaurants in the Norfolk/Hampton Roads area and beyond. I always look forward to going out to dinner with these two because I know that it will be FABULOUS. I have high aspirations for Sarah's blog becoming the next SmittenKitchen or for the two of them to open a fabulous bakery/restaurant of their own.

Sarah and me at her wedding in California last November.

Poetry/Quotes

2009-06-25T17:17:00.006+01:00

A while ago, in a style that I very much stole from one of my favorite things in the world: storypeople, I started writing down little poetry/quote infusions about our sometimes crazy but always amazing life over here. I decided that I would start putting a few up every now and then, so here goes:

"Don't you ever miss home?" I asked him. "No," he said, "the Beer is better here & that makes up for everything else."

(I bet you can guess who said/inspired this one)

A Day at the Races (x2)

2009-06-22T10:42:00.005+01:00

Its summertime in England which means, among other things, that its horse racing season! I’ve never been much into gambling, or horses either for that matter, but I am into wearing crazy looking hats, so I’ve been looking forward to the racing season for awhile.

Two weekends ago, we went up to York (2 hours north of London by train) to attend the races there. This being my first foray into betting on horses, I decided just to completely wing it and pay no attention to horses odds or statistics in any way. I chose the horse whose name I liked the best in each race and put £2 on it winning and £2 on it placing (£2 is the minimum bet). My system seemed to work because, at the end of the day, I came out £10 on top!

Winning ticket!

My hat for the York races

We stayed in York over night so that we could spend Sunday touring around the city. I was very impressed with York’s massive Cathedral, the largest north of the Alps.

York Minister Cathedral

This past weekend, we attended the Royal Ascot which is in Ascot (1 hour out of London by train). This is the motherload of all horseraces because the Ascot racecourse is the closest to London and therefore draws a crowd of tens of thousands of people (including celebrities and the Queen!). It is much more formal than the York races and many men were dressed up in top hats and tails. Financially, we weren’t as lucky at this race and ended up about £18 down at the end of the day, but we did get to see the Queen, so I guess it was worth it.

Hat for the Ascot

The Queen!!

Tube Strike Chaos

2009-06-16T11:45:00.003+01:00

As some of you may have heard on the news (if it made it over to America) the London Tube Workers Union staged a two day strike last week. Tube strikes are threatened on a fairly regular basis in this city, and, occasionally, a strike will close down a line or two. This strike, however, knocked out nearly the entire London Underground network.

While I normally side with Unions who are out to fight “the Man,” whether that Man be large corporations, governments, etc, this Tube strike annoyed me beyond words. Why? Well…..

1: In a time of world-wide recession when many people in London are thankful just to have a job, the Tube workers decided that they wanted a 5% pay raise for working few hours.

2: It has been reported that there was almost a settlement of the strike but, at the last minute, the Tube union added on a demand to rehire two workers who had been recently fired. One of these workers opened the wrong doors of the train when he stopped at Victoria station (instead of opening the doors onto the platform, he opened them onto the adjacent track and oncoming train traffic) and the second of whom was under investigation for theft. Are these really the people I want driving me to work every day?

3: One of the platforms London’s Mayor, Boris, ran on in his election last year was coming to a strike-free agreement with the Tube union. Due to the fact that Boris’ first major act in office was to outlaw drinking on the tube, I already dislike the man. His inability to come to some kind of strike-free agreement with the Tube union is just another reason to hate him.

4: I live in East London and work in West London. London is a large city. On a good day, a bus ride to work takes me nearly an hour. On a strike day, it turns out, a ride to work takes me nearly 2 hours and 15 minutes. If you were lucky enough to get on a bus (most were so crowded they just stopped letting people on), you stood in traffic most of the way. The ride home? Well, I never found out how long the ride home would take because traffic was at such a stand-still that I ended up walking almost the entire way. It took me nearly 3 hours. On day one of the strike, I spent 6 hours commuting- a trip that normally takes me an hour.

6 Million people use London's Tube every day. When there's a strike, it turns out, a large portion of these people move to the busses. Needless to say, lines at the stops were long...

Mad rush to get home Tuesday night before the Strike began.

I have mentioned my hatred for the London Underground, for various reasons, before. This Tube strike, however, brought my loathing to a whole new level.

3 Year Wedding Anniversary

2009-06-09T10:20:00.003+01:00

Today, Bobby and I celebrate our 3 Year Wedding Anniversary!

Can you believe it's been 3 years already?

A Testament to My Wanderlust…

2009-06-08T09:36:00.002+01:00

I was very excited when I realized I had both of these things:

1: A photograph of me standing on the equator in Uganda

2: A photograph of me standing on the Prime Meridian in Greenwich

Bobby says that he sees this as a testament to my ability to seek out and stand on "imaginary lines all over the world," but I see it as more of a testament to my adventuresome spirit.

Rocking the Weekends

2009-06-05T20:00:00.001+01:00

If you've looked at our calendar, you'll notice a very distinct acceleration in our weekend plans. Since the beginning of April, we've only had one or two weekends without an event.

Continuing that tradition, we packed in quite a bit over this past weekend. On Thursday (yes, we start weekends early here, at least when Laura gets every other Friday off at her job), Laura came up to Chester where I've been working for the past month. Typically I am there from Tuesday morning and then come home on Thursdays, but this time Laura came up so we could have a mini-adventure in the medieval city of Chester.

The Eastgate Clock - one of the most photographed in the world - built to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (whatever that is) in 1897

We rented a rowboat and I took Laura around on the River Dee

Chester's famous black and white architecture

On Saturday, we took the train back to London, then immediately ran off to Regent's Park for a wonderful performance of Much Ado About Nothing. They have a series of "Shakespeare in the Park" held in an outdoor theatre in the park. The theatre was fantastic, the cast was brilliant and the whole production was very well done. Not to mention we had perfect weather (and since the show goes on rain or shine, that was a definite plus).

Sunday brought yet another excursion, this time to Greenwich. We went with some friends, took a ferry from Westminster Pier and had a nice little picnic in Greenwich Park. We also got to step foot on the Prime Meridian, longitude 0, where time begins. I guess if you invent the system for measuring time at sea, you get to define where it all starts. It's a nice perk.

Greenwich

The gang hanging out in Greenwich Park

Laura's foot on the Prime Meridian

After Greenwich, I came home and passed out at about 6:30 - weekend adventures can be very tiring.

We're definitely looking forward to our next few weekends: horserace in York, the Royal Ascot, then on to Barcelona, Bordeaux and Pamplona. Definitely need to schedule in some nap-filled weekends soon.

Deconstruction of the Union Jack

2009-06-02T12:48:00.006+01:00

Most of you will recognize the flag below as the Union Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom.

It’s just recently, however, that I learned the origin of this flag. The Union Jack is actually a combination of the flags of England, Scotland, and North Ireland which makes sense since the United Kingdom consists of these three countries plus Wales (whose cool dragon is left out of the Union Jack).

English Flag (St. George's Cross)

Irish Flag (St. Patrick's Cross)

Scottish Flag (St. Andrew's Cross)

I could, here, go into the debate as to whether Scotland and North Ireland are actually Countries (a debate I had for about 2 hours with my co-workers last week), but then we open the whole can of worms of Country vs Nation, the lack of a true imperial throne, and too much English history for me to speak intelligently on. So, lets just stick with the flag.

Thought I would share this interesting tidbit with you!

2009 May Bank Holiday, Take Two

2009-05-28T16:07:00.008+01:00

Last weekend was the second bank holiday weekend in May (gotta love the lazy English summers). You may remember that for the last bank holiday, bobby and I spent our 3 day weekend in Bruges. This time, we decided to stick around London.

We spent what ended up being one of the prettiest Saturdays of the year in Victoria Park. This is a beautiful, enormous park not too far form our flat. I finally got to use the picnic basket (or picnic hamper as it’s called here) that bobby gave me as a “welcome home from the hospital” present. We spent the afternoon hanging out with friends, playing soccer, and making friends with squirrels.

Me in Victoria Park

Bobby's New Friend

Saturday night we went to a performance by a cabaret band called the “Tiger Lillies.” I bought the tickets because they were only £10 each (ridiculously cheap for London). It was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. The advertisement labelled it “black comedy cabaret” which I guess was a good description since all of the songs were about death. I actually found it quite entertaining and funny, but Bobby said he would have walked out if we had been on an aisle. I guess that’s what you get for £10?

We spent all day Sunday at a 7s rugby tournament in Twickenham. 7s rugby follows basically the same rules as regular rugby, except that there are only 7 people on each side (instead of 15) and they play 7 minute halves (instead of 40). This was our first sporting event in the UK, and we had a FABULOUS time. The atmosphere was unbeatable. The USA lost all but one game (to Georgia), but England won the whole tournament!!

Me and Bobby at Twickenham

Twickenham

On Monday, we went to a little town about an hour outside of London called Whitstable with some friends. Whitstable was a beautiful picturesque little beach town on the North Sea that I just adored. We spent the day walking along the shore, eating fish n chips, and watching some elderly people play English bowling. We had great weather until about 4:30pm, at which point it stormed, but it was still a great day! I would definitely go back to Whitstable to spend a quiet weekend and think it is a much better beach town than Brighton (even though I enjoyed Brighton as well).

Beach Shack in Whitstable

Whitstable

Dorthy and I in testing out the water

Watching some English bowling

Our next bank holiday isn’t until August, so I’m glad we got a lot in while we could!

Kuniyoshi Exhibit: Royal Academy Of Arts

2009-05-23T10:11:00.005+01:00

Last week at work, I began flexing again. That means that I work an extra hour each day and get every other Friday off! Before my surgery, since I found even simple every-day activities exhausting, I spent most of my flex days just napping around the house and recovering in general from the week. But now that i'm feeling healthy and energized again, i'm trying to take better advantage of London on my Fridays off.

This Friday, I headed down to the Kuniyoshi Exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts.

I took a class on Japanese Art in college (in the same semester I took a class on Japanese Cinema, it was a bit of a Japan overload) and really enjoyed it. While I find Western European art horribly boring until about the 19th century, Japanese art is interesting to me regardless of its age.

According to the Royal Academy: "Kuniyoshi was a major master of the ‘floating world’, or Ukiyo-e school of Japanese art, and, together with Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) and Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1864), dominated nineteenth century printmaking in Japan. Prolific and multitalented, Kuniyoshi considerably expanded the existing repertoire of the school, particularly with thousands of designs that brought vividly to life famous military exploits in Japan and China. Kuniyoshi developed an extraordinarily powerful and imaginative style in his prints, often spreading a scene dynamically across all three sheets of the traditional triptych format and linking the composition with one bold unifying element - a major artistic innovation."

This was my favourite Kuniyoshi print. The colors were much more vibrant in person.

While the exhibit was very well done, I have to say, I didn't enjoy it very much. Not because of the prints themselves, which I enjoyed very much, but due the general atmosphere. First of all, I had to pay 9 pounds to get in. For some reason, I resent having to pay to go to museums. London, as do most cities, has some very good free ones, so why pay? Secondly, it was WAY too crowded. I thought I would be ok, as it was a weekday, but I was wrong. The exhibit was crammed into 4 smallish rooms and there were probably about 120 people trying to view it at the same time as me. This meant I wasn't able to follow the flow of the exhibit, but had to skip around to open sections to avoid the crowds. Lastly, even with a little bit of knowledge on Japanese Art, I didn't really understand most of what the descriptions were talking about. Maybe this is my fault? Maybe I should have done some research on this period of time in Japanese history before going? But they were just throwing names around like I should know who they were talking about. A little more background information would have been helpful.

I did enjoy Kuniyoshi's work, but I doubt if i'll be making a trip back to the Royal Academy of Arts on my next Flex Friday.

Beglium - Land of Waffles and Frites

2009-05-17T22:00:00.004+01:00

After much nagging, I've finally written about our travels to Belgium. The first weekend in may was the first Bank Holiday, a glorious tradition that means everyone will be traveling and often enjoying three of the rainiest days of the year (Murphy's law strikes again). Luckily, this long weekend was the exception to the rule and we had brilliant weather on our 3 day adventure across Belgium.

We took the Eurostar across to the continent and spent 2 days and nights in Bruges, then a final day in Brussels before coming back across the water. I had a previously traveled to Bruges, which was a lot of fun, despite being much colder. Laura has now determined that I should be doing recon missions prior to all of our trips so I know where everything is and what to do when we get there.

As it turns out, there are three major activities to do in Bruges:

Drink delicious Belgian beer
Eat the greatest street food in Europe - Waffles and Fries with mayo
Look at the medieval buildings all lit up at night

I can say with certainty, we accomplished each one of those activites with gusto. We did revisit my two favourite bars, 't Bruges Beertje and Cambrinus, each with hundreds of beers on their lists. Laura's pick of the weekend was a banana beer that was quite good.

In addition to copious drinking, we also indulged in the fantastic street food of waffles drenched in chocolate and frites (fries) covered in mayonaise.

Bruges has some fantastic canals (like a mini-Venice), so we took a canal tour on Sunday.

We also climed up the 366 steps to the top of the tower. Not a bad view from up there... but definitely not as good as it had been hyped. The fenced in view really put a damper on how beautiful a sight it could have been.

Our final day in Belgium, we woke up and took the train back into Brussels and planned on the whole day there. In hindsight, this was WAY too much time. Brussels has one main square, a cathedral or two, and some shopping streets, but otherwise is entirely skippable. Probably one of my least favourite cities. Part of that could be that we were pretty tired from two days of walking around Bruges, and just wanted to relax instead of sightsee. The other part could be that we didn't have a full guidebook for the city, just the few pages in our huge Europe guidebook.

Either way, I can't recommend Bruges highly enough. Make Brussels a very quick day-trip, but keep your sights on Bruges for any Belgian-based plans you have.

Here are some pictures from Bruges, as well as pictures from Brussels. Enjoy.

Things I Love About London- Part V: English Tea With Milk and Sugar

2009-05-14T09:24:00.009+01:00

It took a year and a half, but living in England has officially made me a dedicated tea drinker. Now, don't get me wrong, I've always had a love of tea. But, in the states, this adoration was mainly restricted to herbaly teas of the green and mint variety. Not being a coffee drinker, in London every morning I start off my day with what I now consider the perfect morning pick-me-up: English breakfast tea with milk and 2 splendas.

On this journey to tea dedication, I have learned some important lessons that most British people already know:

1- There are different types of tea for different times of the day

2- Different types of tea need different water temperatures

3- Water temperature DOES matter (boiling vs. just before boiling)
4- Milk in tea is AMAZING
5- Sugar type makes a difference (white vs. brown- I am a brown/unrefined sugar fan, but, due to obvious caloric issues, I have now switched to splenda)

6- Steeping time is very important and varies from tea to tea

I never really understood why hotelrooms the world over had tea and kettles in the room. I mean, who drinks that much tea? Well, thanks to living in London: I DO! Often, when bobby and I are travelling, we will arrive at a hotel, set down our luggage, and the first thing out of either of our mouths is "fancy a cup of tea?" (Yes, we do say "fancy," this is said half jokingly/mockingly and half seriously because I fear that the British version of that word has now legitimately infiltrated our vocabulary. If we were REALLY British, we would just say "fancy a cuppa," but I'll save the state of despair that is grammar in this country for another post.) We will then sit in the hotel room for 15 minutes or so enjoying our cup of tea before we go face whatever strange new place to which we have travelled.

My dedication to tea may be one of the few life-long impacts living in London has on me. I could see myself loving it forever (using the word "fancy" on the other hand, I hope to drop upon my return to America!).

Belgium

2009-05-13T08:56:00.002+01:00

We went to Belgium almost two weeks ago. It was amazing and we have some wonderful photographs. Bobby, however, is in charge of that blog which means nothing may be post for another month or so. If you speak with him, yell at him to blog on belgium. He's currently working in Chester (northern England) 3 days a week. What else does he have to do in his hotel room at night? He might as well be blogging.

oh yeah, we went to Dublin

2009-05-05T11:14:00.003+01:00

About a month ago, we went to Dublin for a weekend to celebrate one of my London friend's 25th birthdays. I won't go into much detail, as I've blogged about Dublin before, but here as the highlights:

Well, the biggest highlight of course is the fact that it was Lynsey's 25th birthday. She decided that she wanted to drink away her quarter-life-crisis (a life crisis that I think people drastically underestimate-i'm still dealing with mine), so Dublin seemed like the logical choice.

Lynsey and I out for her Birthday

Amid all of the drinking, we did actually fit in quite a bit of sight seeing. We took one of the fabulous free walking tours that i'm always raving about, and actually saw some major sites that Bobby and I had missed on our previous trip to Dublin.

Bobby and I at Crist's Church Cathedral

Bobby and I at Dublin Castle

Bobby at the Guinness Factory

Me at Hapenny Bridge

We had a great time, but, nonetheless, Dublin continues to be one of my least favourite cities in Europe. I ADORE the rest of Ireland, but Dublin as a city is just always kind of underwhelming to me.

Things I Miss About America- Part VIII: Not Living in a Constant State of Paranoia

2009-04-29T10:54:00.001+01:00

I think I have mentioned in this blog before that, even though I love it here, living in London has taught me that I am actually not a city person. Another illustration of this is how completely paranoid I become whenever something even remotely threatening happens due to the fact that I live in a large city.

Example 1: A month or so ago, I was on the tube platform at Oxford Circus (the huge, touristy, shopping area in London) waiting for the central line train when a voice came on over the intercom and said “due to an emergency, everyone must now evacuate the station.” In my head, this meant “a terrorist bombing of the station is imminent, run for your life.” I sprinted out of the station while the rest of the passengers exited at a leisurely stroll. I was shocked to see that people were standing still going up the escalators as I ran for my life. When I got to the station exit, I saw that all of the tube employees were lolling about, so I figured it must have been a drill, but if the same thing happened to me again tomorrow I’m sure I would react the same way. If I were living in Yorktown Virginia, I would never consider the possibility of looming death due to terrorist action when something slightly odd happened, but in London, anytime someone leaves a bag on the tube I’m convinced that it contains a bomb.

Example 2: Today, a lady sneezed on me on the tube and now I am convinced I have Swine Flu. Once again, if I were living in Yorktown Virginia, my fear of Swine Flu would be calmed due to the remoteness of my location. But I don’t live in Yorktown Virginia, I live in London, and, according to yesterday’s paper: “Swine Flu Has Arrived in London.” In a month or so, when this whole Swine Flu thing has blown over, I’m sure I’ll laugh at myself for going to the pharmacy to price surgical masks, but right now it seems like the prudent thing to do.

Maybe my paranoia will lessen with time. Maybe if I cut down the number of newspapers I read a day (currently at 4), this would help lessen my fears of death due to global pandemic. But, for how, I just have to endure it and be thankful that the positive aspects of living in London outweigh my fear of terrorist bombings.

Coming home!

2009-04-08T12:01:00.003+01:00

Bobby and I leave Friday for two wonderful weeks in Virginia! Originally, we thought we had to go home to get our new visas, but it turns out that we can get them here so this trip is kind of unnecessary. However, we will be doing important things like seeing friends/family, gorging ourselves on Mexican food, going to the DMV, and going to the dentist.

Our tentative schedule is:
April 11-17: Yorktown
April 18-26: DC

Let us know if you would like to get together!

Things I Love About London, Part IV: Crazy Flavoured Crisps

2009-04-01T15:57:00.004+01:00

If you’re not up to speed on the immense language differences between the UK and USA, then let me begin this post by explaining that by “Crisp,” I mean “Potato Chip.” If you order “Chips” here, you get “French Fries.” If you order “Fries” you get, um, ok, they don’t have anything called “Fries” here. Unless you’re in McDonalds where “Fries” still mean “French Fries.” Yes, it’s all very confusing.

If you’re an American, and I asked you what the craziest potato chip flavour you’ve ever eaten was, what would you say? “I think I had Thai Chilli Once.” “Salt and Vinegar is pretty out there.”

As a British resident, I can answer this question with the following answers:
*Cajun Squirrel
*Fish n Chips
*Onion Bahji

*Crispy Duck
*Builder’s Breakfast
*Chilli and Chocolate
*Prawn Cocktail
*Chicken

Granted, the first 5 I listed were part of a contest to choose a new Walkers crisp flavour (The Cajun Squirrel and Onion Bahji were surprisingly tasty, the Fish n Chips flavour was horrid), but even putting those aside, you can find flavours like Prawn Cocktail, Chicken, and Beef on a regular basis. Flavours I’m used to like Salt and Vinegar, BBQ, and Sour Cream and Onion (or Soured Cream and Chives as they would call it here) are harder to find- although they are becoming more prominent.

At first, I hated the British crisps flavours, but now I find the majority of them delicious and entertaining. I am finally starting to fit in with the people of this country who love their crisps and put a huge amount of pride in their crazy flavours.

Brighton

2009-03-27T11:23:00.005Z

One of my favourite things about living in London is the great day trip we can take to other parts of England. For Christmas last year, my mom bought me this great Frommer’s book on the “25 Best Day Trips from London” that we’re slowly but surely making our way through.

Last week, we enjoyed an unprecedented 7 straight sunny days in London. For a people who hadn’t seen sunlight for nearly 5 months, this was AMAZING. Wanting to fully take advantage of this weather, bobby and I decided to take a day trip down to the seaside town of Brighton.

Today, Brighton is famous not only for its beach, but for its young, fun, Bohemian scene. It originally became popular in the early 1800s when the King Regent George the IV made it his vacation home. There he built the Royal Pavilion.

Royal Pavilion, Brighton

Modern day Brightoners hate this former royal palace. Inspired by Indian architectural style, it is like no other palace I have seen in Europe. Unlike the townsfolk, I actually thought it was quite pretty from the outside. Once you enter the Palace, however, it’s like you’ve enter Chinatown. It turns out that this decorative style is called Chinoiserie (French for “Chinese-esque”). At the time of George the IV, this style was very popular in England. Very few people had ever been to China, so they decorated based on the few touristy souvenirs travellers brought back. The inside of the place was horribly ugly, but in an amazingly ornate and fascinating way. It was so ugly, that it was almost pretty.

(They don't let you take pictures inside the Royal Pavilion, so I stole these off of the Internet. They don't really do it justice, but I think you get the idea.)

After the Royal Pavilion, bobby and I headed down to the beach. Unfortunately, it was not quite warm enough to sit by the water for an extended period of time (although may Brits were doing it- they have thicker skin than I). However, we did enjoy some fabulous fish n chips and a nice walk along the pebbly shore to the Brighton Pier. The Pier has a very “Jersey shore” feel to it, and I used all of my 10p coins on the cheap little games (never take me to Vegas!!).

Feeling extremely exhausted, we walked through the collection of bohemian shoppes that make up “the Lanes” and caught a train for the hour-long ride back to London.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable day. We’ll have to head back to Brighton when it’s warm enough to sit on the beach and go swimming (my British friends say that this does happen, but I find that they have a different definition of what “warm” is than I).

Happy Anniversary!

2009-03-16T00:56:00.006Z

Bobby and I actually celebrate two anniversaries: Our wedding anniversary and the anniversary of when we began dating. I think most people stop celebrating their dating anniversary once they get married, but Bobby and I have been together for what I consider to be an impressively long amount of time, so I think it's important to recognize it. Also, who's going to argue with having another reason to go out to a fancy dinner?

Yesterday was mine and bobby's SEVEN YEAR anniversary. That is an amazingly long amount of time when you're 25. We went to a fancy french restaurant down the street i've always wanted to go to because it's decorated with things like full-sized taxodermied giraffes, purses hanging from the ceiling, and fake alligators wearing crowns. The atmosphere was AMAZING and the food was really good as well.

Here's to year eight!!

Avenue Q

2009-03-13T15:46:00.003Z

First there was Shakespeare, and then there was, um, someone after Shakespeare, and now, there is Avenue Q!

Bobby and I went to see this musical last night. It is widely described as “Sesame Street for adults,” and I think that description is pretty accurate. It’s a mixture of actors and puppets entertaining you for a HILARIOUS two hours.

Click here to listen to bobby’s favourite song from the show: Schadenfreude (I couldn’t find any decent video, so this is just the song).

If you find that Avenue Q is playing somewhere near you, I can really not recommend it enough. I live in the theatre capital of the world, and work only moments from West End, and I think that this is the greatest theatrical achievement of all time (this, along with me thinking that Mac n Cheese is the greatest culinary invention of all time, could say something about my level of taste, but we won’t go there now). Sure, Romeo and Juliet is great and very romantic, but give me something I can RELATE to- like Avenue Q’s theme of a 20-something lost in the world now that he’s graduated from college and realized that he has no purpose in his life and that most people never find that purpose.

Really, drop everything you’re doing and go now. You won’t regret it.

On a side note- I am having so much fun enjoying all of the aspects of London I have had to avoid for the last year and a half (like going to shows) because my health would not allow me to take pleasure in them!! So thankful to be feeling better!!

Things I Love About London, Part III: "Civilised" Office Parties

2009-03-10T18:13:00.001Z

A welcome-back party at my old office in DC would probably have consisted of:
- a cake (probably ice cream)
- paper cups and plates
- awkward conversations with my manager(s)
- everyone leaving after getting a piece of cake and spending the obligatory 10 minutes standing around and saying “welcome back”

A welcome-back party at my office in London consisted of:
- a welcome-back hamper filled with wine, cheese, and crackers
- “proper” wine glasses and plates
- my co-workers and I having a 2 hour debate about the morality of law
- everyone talking about what a “civilised” party it is

I really appreciate the classiness of the “civilised” London office party, but I have to say, I miss the ice cream cakes.

Things I Miss About America, Part VII: Drinking Soda Directly From A Can

2009-03-03T16:37:00.003Z

Ok, so this may seem like an odd thing to miss about the states, and to tell you the truth it's taken me nearly a year and a half to realize it, but no one drinks soda directly from the can here!!

At my office, we have an unlimited free supply of coke and diet coke (very dangerous), so if one person is going to the kitchen, they will often bring back sodas for everyone. However, upon their return, they have brought not only a can of coke but also an accompanying glass. I always thought this was very nice but extremely unnecessary of them. I would open the coke, drinking directly from the can, and then put the glass to the side to be used for water later.

When I, however, was the one traveling to the kitchen to get cokes, I never brought anyone a glass. I just never saw it as a necessity. I've now realized that this was extremely rude of me, because British people seem to HATE drinking soda directly from the can.

If Bobby were here, he could tell you a nice little anecdote about the time he was traveling up the elevator to his office drinking a Coke directly from the can and a British woman scolded him, telling him that no one should drink from cans because of the amount of rat feces that accumulates on them over time. Now, i'm not sure if this is the belief of all British people (for example, my British friend has informed me that all British people know that a swan can break your arm and are therefore terrified of them) or just that of this one seemingly crazy lady, but regardless the aversion to drinking from a can seems to be country-wide.

I do not plan on beginning to use a glass any time soon (to tell you the truth, i've eaten things worse than rat feces in my life), but I will now be more thoughtful when getting sodas for others.

Back to the grind...

2009-02-25T15:22:00.002Z

Well, i've returned to work. This is surprisingly exciting considering the fact that I don't enjoy my job all that much. Its just nice to be back out in the world.

I'm going to stop posting updates on my recovery status now. I'm not back to 100%, but i'm far enough along that you can go ahead and assum i'm alright. In the future, look for only happy updates about mine and bobby's wild adventures and the crazy things british people say/do.

Once again, thanks for all of the love and support!!!

A Big Day for Laura

2009-02-22T09:40:00.003Z

Yesterday, two big things happened. First of all, I walked to the grocery store, completed my shopping, and walked home (doing some street-market shopping along the way) and only had to sit down once! This is huge considering a week ago I couldn't make it to the corner shop without taking about 5 breaks to sit down. I can't carry the groceries, so bobby still has to accompany me everywhere, but its a start!

More amazingly, however, is the fact that we went to the grocery store to buy items for a ...*dramatic pause*.... SALAD! This may not seem like a big deal to you, but I have been unable to eat raw vegetables for nearly 3 years, and have missed them horribly. Technically, i'm still not supposed to be eating raw vegetables, but they don't do me any actual harm and since I now have control over my bodily functions I figure its ok to bend the rules every once in awhile.

Here's a picture for your enjoyment. I ate about half of that salad and had a nasty stomach ache afterwards (my stomach is used to only protein and carbs), but it was worth it!!!

Laura Update

2009-02-15T18:09:00.004Z

Many people have been asking for an update on my post-surgery progress, sorry I haven't been blogging more often, but the truth is that there's not much to say.

I actually don't feel like i've made much progress since i've gotten home. I'm still AMAZINGLY tired all the time. Its hard for me to stand or walk for longer than about 2 minutes. I'm making progress on small things: for example, I can now get out of bed and off the couch by myself, even when i'm laying down completely (something I couldn't do when I got home from the hospital), also, I sleep less which I think might be a good sign.

We actually had a little scare last weekend when my wound decided to spontaneously burst open. Thankfully, bobby was home, because I just went into a state of complete shock. I think I said "oopsie" and then just stood there while stuff started flowing out of me. Bobby called 999 (aka 911) and after a quick trip by ambulance to the ER, I was all bandaged up and back home in about an hour. It turns out that this actually happens quite often (according to the ER surgeon) and isn't a big deal. And now, a nurse comes to my house every other day to change the bandages and clean the wound!! Gotta love that socialized healthcare. I do have to say however, and bobby agrees, that this was the single scariest experience of my life.

So, that whole incident set me back a bit (i'm in more pain now than I was before while my wound re-heals) but hopefully this week will bring me more forward progress.

I know its normal to have good days and bad days, and I know that recovery is a slow process, but I have to say that i'm getting very frustrated. I'm so ready to just be healthy and "normal" (as normal as I can be now) and get back into the world, and its hard to just sit here all day doing nothing. Luckily, my body is forcing me to take it slow since it's physically impossible for me to leave the flat!

If you have any good ideas for wasting hours every day, let me know! DVDs are getting boring, as is reading and i'm avoiding doing the work that my boss sent me!

Pretty New Blog Background

2009-02-13T20:29:00.003Z

Did you know that you can download cool backgrounds for blogger off of the internet? You probably did, but I didn't! I hope you enjoy the very london-y template I just installed (with bobby's help- I got stuck on something called "widget formatting")

I'm home!!

2009-02-03T18:26:00.005Z

Hi everyone!

It's a few days later than we had hoped, but i'm finally home from the hospital! I'm feeling amazingly well considering what my body has been through in the last 2 weeks.

Thanks for all the well wishes, cards, presents, and everyone who participated in the Wellness Brigade!!!! I can't even begin to describe how much these meant to me. I'll continue to look at them all over the next few weeks while i'm home finishing my recovery.

I still have a long road ahead of me, but for the first time in nearly 3 years i'm not in pain or worrying about going to the bathroom- and that is an AMAZING feeling.

Thanks again for all of your support- and especially to Bobby and my parents, without who's help I never would have been able to get through all of this. Even at 25, having them sit by my bed while I slept was amazingly comforting.

Snowday!

2009-02-02T19:36:00.005Z

Wow... we've just had the biggest snowfall in London in the past 18 years. I woke up this morning, ready to take the tube to the train station, then a train to the client's office... except the entire city was shutdown. The trains that were running were doing so very slowly, and the entire bus network was closed due to the fluffy white stuff all over the roads.

The view outside of the flat.

"Luckily" I was able to work from home today, and managed to trudge through the cold in my wellies to see Laura in the hospital this afternoon.

Also, I watched a group of electricians take a 10 minute snowball fight break while repairing the exterior lights across from the flat. Obviously they didn't get enough snow when they were a kid (and they were all rubbish at making snowballs).

Hopefully it doesn't freeze over tonight, but we've got a stocked fridge and pantry, so I think we'll survive.

(I was up early anyway, so I snapped a few pictures.)

Update - Close to the finish line

2009-02-01T21:38:00.002Z

Laura has been doing so well the past week. There were some minor issues, but she's taken it all day by day and is ready to get out of hospital and begin her recovery at home.

We're hoping that she'll be coming home on Monday or Tuesday.

I want to give a HUGE thank you to Laura's parents for coming out during the difficult past two weeks. They have been an enormous help, not only being there for Laura, but also helping me not go completely crazy while all of this has been going on.

Hopefully we'll have a final "Laura is out of hospital and watching Futurama episodes on the laptop in her own bed" post coming up in the next day or two.

Happy Birthday Laura

2009-01-26T23:00:00.002Z

Well, it may not be the most exciting venue, but today is Laura's birthday! I hope that she's enjoying her main birthday present of a newly healthy body.

We have already decided to postpone any major birthday celebrations until sometime in March, once Laura is recovered and ready to tackle the world again. We're considering a quick weekend holiday to Belgium as a nice post-recovery celebration.

On the recovery update side of things, Laura is doing very well. She was up and walking around without assistance today a number of times, which I think is amazing considering she had surgery just a few days ago!

Our new goal is to be out of hospital by Friday, so we'll see how close we can get to that.

Feel free to leave happy birthday messages in the comments, I know they will be well received.

Surgery Update: Recovery in Progress

2009-01-25T22:17:00.003Z

Laura has been doing very well in hospital since the surgery. There were a few rounds of pain management, but now that's all covered and she's been making great leaps forward.

It is really exciting to see her bright and full of excitement, ready to get healthy and out of that rather dreary place. Not only that, but the concept of no longer being sick is just starting to sink in. For someone who has dealt with this disease for so long, already having a day (even in a hospital bed) where she's no longer in pain is a monumental step towards being 100% again.

Thanks for everyone who's been supportive and sending in get well messages. If you haven't put up a picture on the Wellness Brigade, it's not too late. Send them my way and I'll be sure to get them up and ready for Laura to see.

Hopefully it'll be just a few more days before Laura is walking around and then on her way back home to recover in her own flat (with her own personal butler of course).

Surgery = Done!

2009-01-23T00:40:00.004Z

Laura is out of surgery and on the road to recovery.

It was a very long day of surgery, and a very long day of waiting to hear what was happening. I got to see Laura just after midnight tonight.

We've all had a very, very tiring day and are getting as much rest as we can (Laura included).

More to follow I'm sure. Thanks for all of the well wishes.

Wellness Brigade To The Rescue!

2009-01-21T21:22:00.002Z

Tomorrow is the big day. Laura's at hospital now and prepping for her surgery tomorrow morning. It'll be a long day of waiting around tomorrow, but in the end Laura will emerge victorious!

I'd just like to say thank you to everybody for sending get well messages her way. Along those lines, if you weren't part of the original email list, I'd like to announce the official launch of the Wellness Brigade (http://www.LauraWellnessBrigade.com).

(A special thanks to everyone who has already submitted pictures for the Wellness Brigade.)

This concept was born out of the brilliant mind of Jacob to help give Laura a taste of just how much her friends and family back home are thinking of her and wishing her well.

If you want to contribute, please email me (harwig [at] gmail [dot] com) with your submissions. As you can see from the site, you're welcome to string together multiple pictures into a super-get-well-soon message if you're feeling clever.

I will update again tomorrow evening after the surgery.

A Note from Laura

2009-01-13T08:52:00.002Z

As some of you already know, I have been battling a gastrointestinal disease for over 3 years now. I have finally decided to have surgery to take care of the problem once an for all. While it is a major operation and will mean tons of painful recovery time, I am very excited about the idea of feeling healthy again and getting my life back.

I saw my doctors last Thursday (the 8th) and they checked me into the hospital because I was experiencing some of the more severe side effects of my disease (like anemia). I was already in the process of planning my surgery, but it was not scheduled until March. While in the hospital, I met with the surgical team again and they decided that the date should be moved forward. I will now be having my operation next Thursday (the 22nd). After spending 5 days in the hospital (and getting my blood levels topped back up thanks to all the fabulous blood donors out there), the doctors decided that it would be alright for me to go back home and wait for the surgery (I was having a hard time dealing with being in the hospital emotionally and there wasn't really anything they could do for me there anyways other than watch me and wait).

So, I will be home until Tuesday the 20th at which point i'll go back for surgery prep and the actual operation. I should be in the hospital for 7-10 days post-op and then home from work for 4-6 weeks after that while I recover.

I am nervous about the operation, but I know its the right decision for me and I really have complete faith in my doctors.

Bobby has, of course, been amazing about all of this and by my side through the whole thing. My parents are also coming out to be here for the surgery and the week or so following, so I have lots of support.

Thanks to you for all of your love and well wishes. Bobby will put updates on the blog about how the surgery goes and my recovery.

Love you all!

Laura

Things I Love About London, Part III: New Traditions

2009-01-03T17:40:00.005Z

One fun part of living in the UK is learning about and then adopting British traditions into our holiday celebrations. If you read the blog/look at our pictures, you may notice that, around Christmas time, there are often pictures of Bobby and myself wearing rather silly looking paper crowns. These come from my favorite and henceforth adopted British Christmas tradition known as the Christmas Cracker.

Basically it's a little toilet-paper roll wrapped in Christmas paper. You and a partner each pull on one side (very wishbone-like) and the cracker makes a rather pleasant popping sound as prizes jump out. These prizes almost always include a paper crown, a ridiculously cheap toy of some kind and a joke or riddle.

I don't know why I enjoy the Christmas Cracker so much. I think its just a lot of fun to see everyone sitting around the dinner table in a ridiculous paper crown.

Christmas in the Country

2008-12-31T16:02:00.005Z

We had a lovely Christmas week out in the English countryside. There were a few things that Laura and I realised once we got settled out in the cottage for a few days.

First, having space is AMAZING. It wasn't just the wide open fields (filled with sheep!) and hilly farmland that surrounded the house, although that was pretty spectacular. More than that, it was having more than one chair to sit on and more than two rooms to be in that was so lovely.

Second, when left without the internet for a week, I turn into a super-reader. I burned through 5 books during the week we were there, and it was fantastic. Sitting in a comfy chair, feet up, next to a roaring fire, reading a good book. There are few things better than that.

Third, cottages in this area were apparently built before modern humans became normal sized. As you can see from this picture, the house is not appropriately "Bob-sized." I bumped my head on the beams, doorways and ceiling more times than I care to remember. Laura was perfectly contented to walk upright through the doorways and then laugh at my misfortune.

Fourth, proper footwear is important. When stomping about on the hillside chasing sheep, it is vital to wear waterproof shoes. Laura remembered to bring her wellies, but I did not have any, and didn't bring my hiking boots. Luckily, we went into the nearest "big" town on the second day and I bought a pair of wellies for £7 that worked wonders.

Laura, doing her best to catch a sheep

In any case, it was a great week to rest and do just about nothing. We're back in London now and enjoying our second week away from work and the craziness of the city (by staying in our flat and napping as much as possible).

Here are some pictures from our week in the cottage.

We wish you all a Happy New Year and hope 2009 is even better than 2008 has been.

Happy Christmas!

2008-12-16T17:05:00.004Z

We continue our streak of seeing how long I can go without a trip home while simultaneously suffering from severe homesickness by snubbing our friends and family and not coming back to VA for yet another important holiday. But really, how many times in my life will I be able to celebrate a British Christmas? Probably not many, so we’re trying to take advantage of it.

In that spirit, Bobby and I have rented a traditional British cottage out on the Welsh border for Christmas. The cottage fulfilled my two requirements for being “traditionally British:” 1) It has a fire place 2) There are lots of sheep around. It is, in fact, on a sheep farm. So bobby and I will be spending the week of Christmas sitting by the fire, reading some Dickens, going on walks through the Welsh hills, looking at sheep out the window, and trying to figure out what people do without internet.

We’ve rented a car to get out there, so wish us luck as we attempt to drive on the left (aka wrong) side of the road!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas (or Happy Christmas, as the Brits would say) and a wonderful new year.

PS- Thanks to my mom who sent us some canned cranberry sauce! I will save it for Christmas day.

Things I Love About London, Part II: Cadbury Eggs

2008-12-09T10:58:00.004Z

As i'm sure you're all well aware, you can buy Cadbury Eggs in the states as well. But one thing I love about London is the period of time during which I can buy this, my favourite of all candy, in this country. I believe that, perhaps only rivalled by Mac n Cheese, the Cadbury Egg is the single greatest culinary invention of mankind. This Sunday, December 7th, I bought my first Cadbury Egg of the season. I will be able to purchase them until well after Easter.

In the states, Cadbury Eggs are purely an Easter Candy and you can, therefore, only buy them for maybe two months of the year. In London, I get to enjoy them for nearly 6!! It has always bothered me that I cannot buy Cadbury Eggs year-round. Like Girlscout Cookies, I think that if they were always readily available, I would, infact, always be buying them. Hopefully one day the British will recognize this and start selling Cadbury Eggs for the additional 6 months of the year, but, until then, i'll appreciate the extra time I get to enjoy them here.

If you do not know what a Cadbury Egg is, shame on you. Please let me know and I will send you some.

Bruges

2008-12-07T20:00:00.000Z

So, in our long backlog of blog posts, I haven't mentioned a trip to Bruges a few weekends ago. It was a short trip, and the major focus was drinking delicious Belgian beer.

I hopped on the Eurostar Saturday morning with some work friends for Brussels, then a short inter-city train onwards to Bruges.

The whole city felt so true to itself more than anything. There are some European (and American) cities that will play up their touristy areas: setting up a antiques market, restoring a castle or church, marking up food prices by 300%, etc. When we were walking through Bruges, the whole town simply felt old and inviting. There wasn't one part that was dressed up over the others, it just all seemed so uniformly perfect.

And then there's the beer!

I had researched a bar that was supposed to have 300 different beers available ('t Bruges Beertje ... which quickly became "The Bruges Beetle"), and we luckily stumbled that way early Saturday afternoon. We weren't quite ready to dive into all 300 just yet, so we had a few pints and then headed to dinner. After dinner we found another bar that served over 400 different beers! What luck.

Sunday was much more relaxed. We found the Brouwerij De Halve Maan, and went on a great tour of their brewing process. We ate lunch at the brewery, enjoyed some of their delicious liquid offerings, then headed for the Eurostar back home.

It was a very fun weekend, and a great excuse to get out of London for a short little trip to "the continent."

Here's the recap of pictures (I tried to take a picture of each beer I had, but that became more and more difficult as the night wore on).

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-25T16:58:00.004Z

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

2008-11-22T17:22:00.004Z

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

2008-11-18T12:59:00.006Z

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

2008-11-13T15:53:00.003Z

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

2008-11-12T22:36:00.002Z

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

2008-11-01T10:15:00.002Z

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.

Winter in London

2008-10-24T16:40:00.003+01:00

We turned on the heat in our flat yesterday and I busted out my long wool coat to wear to work today. Winter has officially arrived in London.

Finding Religion on the Underground

2008-10-20T11:09:00.000+01:00

I always wonder about people I see reading the Bible on the tube. It happens on a daily basis. Considering the fact that I find it hard to concentrate on my poppy-fiction books on the crowded underground, it seems hard to believe that anyone could really absorb what is surely one of the most difficult pieces of literature every written. Maybe the Bible is the only book they own? Maybe it makes them feel closer to God to just be holding the Bible, even though they're not really understanding it? Maybe they can find inspiration from this Book in even the most chaotic of situations?

Any enlightenment on this subject would be appreciated.

I do partially understand. I think there are only two places that could make a person grip onto religion so fervently: one's death bed and the London Underground at rush-hour (if there's a difference).

Budapest

2008-10-11T00:49:00.006+01:00

Rule #1 when travelling out of London: Never, ever, ever fly out of Luton airport. According to Wikipedia, it is the fourth largest airport serving London, but considering that London City airport (the fifth airport) is both easy to get to and has amazingly short security lines, there is no reason for anyone to fly out of Luton airport ever again.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let's talk about our trip. The reason for our newly discovered hatred for Luton airport is that we managed to miss our flight at 08:05 on Friday morning. Granted, we had started cutting our flights closer and closer in recent trips, so it was bound to happen eventually. But mostly, it's Luton's fault.

In order to get from our flat to the airport, we have to take the tube from Bethnal Green to St. Pancras International (via Liverpool Street). Then we have to catch a train from St. Pancras to Luton Airport Parkway station. THEN, we have to get on a shuttle bus to get to the actual airport. Miserable.

In any case, a series of events (not feeling very rushed as we left the flat, waiting 8 minutes for the tube, waiting 10 minutes for the shuttle to leave the station) caused us to arrive at the check-in desk at 07:28 for our 08:05 flight. No problem. We've only go hand luggage, they've only just started boarding, we'll breeze through security and hop right onboard, right?

Wrong.

"Check-in for WizzAir flights closes 40 minutes before departure."

C'mon, surely that's not the end of it. First, who closes a flight 40 minutes before departure. Second, we're only 3 minutes late, you must be able to do something. Third, why do we keep booking these damn discount airlines? (Answer: because they're sooooo cheap and our memories of the inevitable disaster are magically erased whenever we calculate the price difference to a "real" airline.)

To make a long story only slightly shorter, we missed the flight, resigned ourselves to paying more money to the bastards at WizzAir (to change to the next available flight), further resigned ourselves to never flying WizzAir again, and got on a plane at 2pm that afternoon.

We met our hostel owner (Jim at the August Hostel - highly recommended) and he gave us one of the more informative guides to any city I've ever heard. Sitting around a tourist map at his kitchen table, he proceeded to circle, highlight and label all of the best sights, cross out the ones that were too expensive or too boring, and generally pave the way for our city adventure.

As we were told by Jim many times, "Walking around Budapest is like walking onto the set of a Dracula movie." While we didn't see any caped figures with sharp fangs lurking about, the analogy definitely fits. Check out the pictures.

Budapest at night

The mood of the city is very dark, walking around you see very few people, and the ones you do see aren't all too friendly. Jim's fountain of information also informed us that "nobody comes to Budapest to live. You move to Budapest to write sad poetry for 3 years and then jump off a bridge." When I asked him how long he'd been there, I don't think he saw the humor of his answer of "4 years." Oh well, I guess there's an exception to his 3-year limit if you run a hostel instead of write poetry.

In contrast to the dark feeling, it is a very safe city. We had no issues walking around at night, even if the streets weren't too bright. We walked around the first night along the river that divides the city into the Buda side and the Pest side. The main attractions are all brilliantly lit up at night, as you can see below.

The infamous Chain Bridge, splendidly lit up every night.

The big problem with Budapest (as a result of our missed flight) is that it really is a "3-day city". Some cities you can walk around, hit the main sights, grab some good food, and be done with it in a quick weekend trip. Some cities can even be tackled in a single day. Budapest is not one of those cities. The sights are both beautiful and completely spread out. Bring some comfortable walking shoes, and make sure you get on the earliest flight for your 3-day weekend.

We did manage to see most of what the city had to offer, and also squeezed in a nice 3-4 hour nap on Saturday as well. (What else should a vacation be if not a great excuse to nap in the middle of the afternoon?)

We strolled along the river, wandered inside Saint Stephen's Basilica, saw the mummified Holy Right Hand of King Saint Stephen (he's a pretty big deal), enjoyed the thermal baths that the city is famous for, and went up to see Fisherman's Bastion and Matthias Church.

Saint Stephen's Basilica

Outdoor section of the baths, a very intellectual crowd

It is definitely a city that's been put back on our list to visit (a list which has not stopped growing for the past two years). There is simply too much to see for a two day trip.

Matthias Church & Fishermans Bastion

One thing you can count on: if we do go back, we'll be HOURS early for our flight, and it won't be out of Luton Airport.

Thanks Mom!!

2008-10-08T16:31:00.005+01:00

A big thanks to my mom who spent $30 to send us 3 boxes of Velveeta Shells and Cheese!

Best present ever!

My big plan for friday night is to try and find some hot dogs so that we can have the most fabulous American dinner ever. And some rootbeer. Man, rootbeer would be great.

Budapest

2008-10-08T16:31:00.002+01:00

We went to budapest this last weekend. Look for bobby's blog on the trip coming soon!

Vice Presidential Debate Preview

2008-10-02T22:01:00.004+01:00

In keeping with our political theme, I'm going to throw my punditry hat into the ring and give you my predictions for tonight's debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin.

Be warned, I have no experience in doing this and this post is likely to be completely biased and very long-winded (maybe I should be the VP candidate?).

I've been keeping up with the US Election pretty well from across the pond (YouTube is my friend), and from all the commentary, it seems that the tide has turned against Palin and McCain over the past few weeks.

There was the nonsense about "suspending the campaign" last week, single-handedly saving the economy, the absolute hilarity of the Palin/Couric interview clips, as well as the beautifully crafted SNL jabs from Tina Fey (here and here).

But what I think will happen is not a landslide victory for the Democrats, even though the McCain campaign seems to be imploding. Tonight, Biden may very well mop the floor with Palin's inexperience, her lack of foreign policy knowledge, and lack of any real substance in general. But I'm worried that's not how it's going to play out.

The expectations have been set so low for the Governor, that as long as she leaves the debate without having collapsed on the floor after exhaustively repeating the phrase "I can see Russia from my house", she'll be viewed as a winner. It's a sad state of affairs.

The other hand I expect what will get played out a lot during the debate is the question "Is Biden being condescending/paternalistic/mean?" You may have seen the clip from the last major debate between male and female VP candidates Bush and Feraro (thanks again YouTube). Anything Biden says tonight that calls into question Palins (obvious) lack of experience or knowledge is going to be twisted by the McCain campaign as "mean", "sexist" or "elitist".

Guess what people, it's not sexist if Palin doesn't know the answer to something. He's not beating up on her because she's a woman. I thought Hillary did a fine job over the past year of tackling the question of "Can a woman be president?" head-on. It's not because she's a woman that she doesn't know (I thought Hillary cleared up that misconception quite well over the past year). It's because she DOESN'T KNOW THE ANSWER.

It should be a no-contest debate. We have the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee (and 4-term senator) going up against someone who didn't get a passport (and hasn't been outside of North America) until last year. Biden is able to pull out years and years of foreign policy experience and extensive knowledge of how the world works, and Palin simply is not. There should be no point of contention. A more productive debate might be "Is the sky blue?" or "Does the Pope wear a funny hat?"

As an aside, the idea that labeling Obama/Biden as "elitist" is one of the funniest campaign techniques I've ever seen. Why do people seem to want their president to be "one of us"? I'm not smart enough to be president. Why would I possibly want you or me, or someone "like us", to run the biggest superpower in the world? I haven't got a clue how to run this country. I want the best educated, most internationally acclaimed, MOST elite person in the country to be president. I don't want my neighbor to have the job; they can hardly remember trash day, much less negotiate with dissenting world leaders. I want, and I think we need, somebody to bring America back into the fold of international politics, not keep them as a pariah.

So, here's my final prediction for what happens tonight.

Sarah Palin sticks to Republican talking points, gets flustered a few times in the back-and-forth, but general sticks to her message.
Biden stays calm through most of the debate, but then gets flustered and lashes out at Palin once or twice with real questions that she can't answer.
The media completely ignores the lack of substance coming from Palin and focuses all their energy on repeating the 10 second clip where Biden was "mean" to Palin.
Republicans view the whole night as a victory, blame the "liberal media" for taking jabs at Palin.
Democrats view the whole night as a victory, blame the "conservative media" for ignoring important questions about Palin's readiness.
Somebody says something about a pig or pitbull wearing lipstick.
The public, in desperate need of a debate about real issues, watches Dancing With the Stars instead.

Living abroad? Don't forget to vote!

2008-09-27T12:35:00.002+01:00

I'd like to thank our good friend Mike Roy for reminding all of us expats out there to register to vote absentee in the upcoming election.

I sent mine and bobby's absentee ballot request in a week ago. VA is looking to be very close this year, so it may actually count! If you're living abroad, please remember to register to vote, unless you're a republican- if so, um, please disregard this post.

If you need help requesting your absentee ballot, please visit this website: www.fvap.gov

Flextime!

2008-09-20T11:33:00.001+01:00

A few months ago, my boss (who is a former UK Ambassador to Spain) half jokingly/half seriously suggested that we adopt the Spanish tradition of summer hours. This would mean closing the office for a few hours each afternoon to take a siesta and then working later into the evening. Needless to say, because I have a 45-minute commute each way on the tube and going home during siesta would not be an option for me, I vetoed this idea.

I did suggest that we adopt the great American idea of flextime. He seemed very excited about this idea, but we never really followed through with it. The more I thought about it, however, the more I thought that this would be a really great schedule for me. For those of you who don’t know about flex time, basically you work an hour more each day and then you get every other Friday off. This is great for me for two reasons. 1: my commute to work is MISERABLE. The London tube at rush hour is just about the most miserable thing I’ve ever experienced. By leaving home half an hour earlier and coming back half an hour later, I avoid the worst of rush hour. 2: Three day weekends mean huge traveling possibilities. In three days, we could go to Spain, or France, or really anywhere.

So, I have now initiated flextime at my office. It’s fabulous. I had this Friday off and, while we didn’t travel anywhere, I did get some shopping done that is normally miserable to do on weekends (because, once again, London is overcrowded), watched a movie, and, most importantly, got to sleep in!

In two weeks, when I have another Friday off, we’re planning a trip to Budapest.

Mary's Wedding: Photos

2008-09-13T16:46:00.003+01:00

I finally got around to posting pictures from Mary's wedding on Picasa. You can see them by clicking on the "Pictures!" link to the right.

More Cycling Action

2008-09-10T07:30:00.000+01:00

The Tour of Britain started this past weekend, kicking off the first stage with a great course along the River Thames. But don't worry, this race was only an hour long, so I can probably only stretch this topic out into a two or three part series, not the full five. (Only kidding.)

I had managed to convince one of my coworkers to go with me on Saturday to watch and take pictures (since I knew Laura wasn't too keen on the idea). However, I failed to recognise that the race was on Sunday, not Saturday, so that ended up being a major failure in planning. A few pints of beer made up for my error in judgement, so we're friends again.

On the actual race day, I wandered from my flat down to the river and walked back and forth on the course to get some pictures. The race was 10 laps of a fairly quick circuit between the Tower of London to Westminster, so it provided plenty of opportunity to see the riders again and again.

Typically, the problem with watching a race like this is that you only get to see the cyclists for about 10 seconds as they fly past your spot on the course. It gets a little better on mountain stages, since they're going slower and usually the group breaks apart. The time trial stages are the best for seeing lots of cyclists over a long period of time, but you don't get the dynamism of watching the bunch race together that you do on "normal" stages.

For those reasons, the 10-lap format of this stage was perfect. Lots of chances to see riders combined and lots of chances to see them interacting with each other (breakaways, chases, etc).

Chris Sutton leading in the break.

Team Chipotle was out in force, with Chris Sutton in a breakaway for about 6-7 laps of the race. British champ David Millar didn't see much action, just tucked back in the pack staying safe and upright. After the breakaway was caught and the race came together around lap 8, Magnus Backstedt managed to squeeze through the bunch sprint and claim 3rd on the day.

The rain only came down for a few minutes, so it was a very enjoyable day of spectating. Here's a full showing of my pictures.

Things I Miss About America, Part VI: Mac n Cheese

2008-09-07T13:20:00.001+01:00

The closest thing i've been able to find here:

Thats right, "Macaroni Cheese" in a can. It's not Macaroni AND Cheese, it's just Macaroni Cheese. Who would try such a disgusting looking product, you ask? Why, me of course. And it was just as disgusting as you would have guessed. Oh, how I long for the blue box.

Why not just make my own Mac n Cheese from scratch? A) What do I look like, a chef? B) Is Mac n Cheese really Mac n Cheese if the cheese begins in its original block form? Give me the powder/goo over the block any day. C) If I could make it from scratch, you would be less tempted to send me care packages filled with boxes of Velveeta Shells n Cheese. Right?

Lagos, Portugal

2008-09-01T10:50:00.005+01:00

I have to admit, Portugal was the vacation I had been most looking forward to over the last few months (other than going home, of course). While travelling relentlessly around Europe is exciting, it is also exhausting. The continual seemingly obligatory task of trying to cram a week’s worth of sight-seeing into 2 or 3 days had really started to run me ragged. We never seem to have time to just RELAX on our vacations; we’re so busy trying to see everything. The solution: A week on the beaches of beautiful, sunny, Southern Portugal with nothing to do but work on my tan.

We flew into Faro in Southern Portugal and then took a 2 hour train ride west to the beautiful (albeit somewhat touristy) town of Lagos. We were met there by some of our friends from London who had rented a beach flat for the week and with whom we would spend the first few days of our trip. Days one and two consisted almost entirely of the following: wake up, eat, nap on the beach, eat, nap by the pool, eat, enjoy Lagos’ night life, go to bed.

Train we took from Faro to Lagos

Me in Lagos

On day three, our friends returned to London and Bobby and I moved into a quaint little hostel which we learned, upon arrival, was actually just some little old lady’s house. The cute little Portuguese woman spoke no English, and bobby and I had only learned about 4 phrases in Portuguese, but the stay went surprisingly smoothly with the aid of a lot of grunting and hand gestures.

Beach in Lagos

Bobby and I on the beach

Day four included the part of the vacation Bobby was most looking forward to: scuba trip. Now, while we do have some super fun photos of us in full Scuba gear, this was, for me, the dive from hell. First of all, it turns out that the water in Portugal is not at all warm in August. Something about the currents pulling down cold water from the north makes the Atlantic in that region unbearably cold. Even when we were baking in the hot sun for hours on end on the beach, I would refuse to go into the water. The result: We ended up wearing the thickest wetsuits you can wear: 7mm. Now, I’m already what my scuba instructors call “a floater” meaning that I have to wear tons of weights to even get myself to the bottom, but when you add 7mm of neoprene on top of my already buoyant body, it becomes quite the task to get me to sink to the bottom (aka, the point of scuba diving). Because of this, I ended up wearing nearly 30 pounds of weights around my midsection on this dive. Since this was a shore dive (diving off land instead of a boat), this meant that I had to trek down the side of a cliff wearing all of my gear (probably 20 pounds) plus 30 pounds of weight. Not fun.

We did, eventually, get into the water. Upon reaching the bottom, things only went from bad to worse as all of my weights had miraculously shifted to my left side on the hike down and I now had to swim underwater, for an hour, with the left side of my body basically scraping along the bottom. Anyways, it was a disaster, I think I saw maybe one fish the whole time because I was so focused on trying to correct my body positioning, which ended up being impossible. According to bobby, everyone has bad dive experiences every once in awhile, but I threatened to never go diving again after that one. But, let’s get back to the rest of the vacation (which was fabulous).

After scuba disaster, I consoled myself by sitting on the beautiful beaches again for a few hours before we went out for what is always mine and bobby’s favourite part of vacations: delicious, authentic, local food. Needless to say, this area of Portugal is famous for its seafood. Everything we ate was amazing, and so fresh!!

On day five we had to head back to Faro to fly back to London, but overall it was a great trip! I’m not sure if I would go back to Portugal ( I like to swim when I go to the beach) but it was beautiful and everyone was so friendly!!

Portugal

2008-08-31T23:58:00.001+01:00

I'll let Laura go into more detail about our trip last week to Lagos, Portugal.

But in the meantime, you can check out pictures of our trip.

Also, added a new link to the sidebar so you can find our pictures anytime.

Mary's Wedding

2008-08-27T12:22:00.006+01:00

We're running a little behind on our blog here, lets see if we can't catch up.

A few weeks ago, I went home for a short but sweet visit for Mary Carroll's wedding. For those of you who don't know her, Mary is one of my oldest friends (from Freshman year in high school). She and I have had many adventures together (traveling around Europe as well as Alaska) not to mention the fact that I lived with her and her mom (aka, my second mom) for a few summers. I was so excited to come back to northern VA to be a part of her wedding.

Mary and Misha were married at St. Francis church in Triangle VA and the reception was at Potomic Point Winery. It was a beautiful wedding!!

Unfortunately, I only gave myself 4 days in the states which was not enough time to do everything I wanted to do/see everyone I wanted to see. I didn't even eat any mac n cheese!!!! Thanks to those of you who came up to visit me!! It was great to see you. And to those of you I didn't see this time around: i'll be sure to allow myself more time at home on my next visit (whenever that is).

So, congrats to Mary and Misha. May you find all the happiness in the world together. I love you both.

Here are some photos from the wedding weekend:

Before the bachelorette party. Our super cute shirts say "the girls are out to mingle for Mary's last night single"

Mary and Misha at the rehersal dinner in Clifton, VA.

Married!!

Me with the other awesome bridesmaids.

I'll upload the rest of the pictures to Picasa soon so that you can see them all.

Tour De France - Part 5

2008-08-20T20:00:00.002+01:00

Alright, seriously though, finish this drawn out series already, right?

Right then, just the time trial left. Our last adventure into le Tour de France and we went out strong.

It was a fairly easy 3-hour trip from Lyon to catch the time trial finish in Saint-Amand-Montrond. That means we only had to wake up at 5:30 on Saturday morning to get there "on time" (better known as "way too early"). We were rewarded with our early morning and punctuality with some fantastic weather.

At least the weather reminded me of home.

It was our first real case of bad weather on the trip, and the first point where I was glad I brought my rain jacket all this way.

We setup shop at the finish line, and started plotting our day.

Anytime you can take a picture with the devil, do it!

Our first real success was catching Will Frishkorn (my favorite Chipotle rider) at the finish line and snapping a picture or two. He event talked to us as we ran next to his bike (swoon). So I was super excited at this point, but only because we didn't realise was else was in store for us.

Frishkorn at the finish.

We re-grouped after seeing 'Korn, snagged some lunch (where my terrible French was ridiculed by some locals with no teeth), and then picked up the beer back at the car. We ran into some fellow Chipotle supporters from Oxford and invited them to drink with us (even though they've never tasted the deliciousness of a burrito the size of your face). At this point we started making our way back to the finish line and headed over to Team Chipotle's camper to see who we could find.

They'll be even bigger fans once they get a taste of Chipotle.

Our British companions were Team Garmin-Chipotle fans because the team managed to scoop up British National Champion David Millar at the beginning of the season. They were also really bummed out when we told them they missed Millar's ride down the course, he had passed by 20 minutes before they got to the race.

So, it was a fantastic surprise when we got to the team's camper and spotted a few of the guys relaxing after their races out back. Now, it's one thing to actually have the opportunity to meet some of the best cyclists in the world face to face. Then it's a completely different (and much more exciting) thing to drink a beer with them outside of their camper after they just finished posting some insanely fast times on the race course.

Danny Pate (left) and Trent Lowe recovering from their race.

Almost immediately upon walking around to the back side of the camper, Millar took a look at the case of beer in our hands and asked us if he could have a beer. It was our full intention to see if we could offer these great athletes a celebratory beer in order to gain their favor. But Millar took the words right out of my mouth when that (slightly warm) case of Kronenberg came into view.

We both gushed and immediately opened a bottle for him and Danny Pate (Trent Lowe wasn't down for any post-race refreshment). One bottled turned into two and we managed to chat with these guys for about 20 minutes. Just throwin' a few back with the boys after a hard ride. No big deal.

Just hangin' out with the boys.

Well, we ran out of beer, decided not to be "those guys" who just hang out with nothing left to say, so we thanked them profusely and moved back to the course to watch Christian Vande Velde come across the line.

The finish line of a time trial is basically a free-for-all. There are riders who, 15 meters ago, were pushing their bodies to the limit trying to edge out every last second they could. Now they're thrown into a crowd of people trying to shake their hand, pat them on the back, or (in the case of the 6 or 7 kids in front of us) snag a free water bottle. Absolute mayhem.

Vande Velde trying to make it past the finish line crowd.

We saw Vande Velde finish, the race was wrapping up for the most part (he was the 5th to last person to cross), but we had one more trick up our sleeve. We needed to get into the press area and meet the broadcasting legends of Phil Ligget, Paul Sherwen, and of course Bob Roll ("Tour DAY France").

A front-door approach wasn't going to work for this operation, obviously. We grabbed the remains of our bottle of wine and polished it off as we walked around the enclosed press section.

A plan was formed as we got to the back gate. We'd approach the guards, say that we talked to a producer on Versus ("Jim" was the oh-so-clever name we decided to drop), and that he wanted to get some film of Americans travelling with the Tour. It was genius. Of course they would let us right in. How could it fail?

Well, it failed. The security guard's broken English and my broken French were not working well and we went to the backup plan -- wait on the outside of the gate near the Versus TV truck.

It turned out that wasn't such a bad plan. We got to wave and chat with Bob Roll from the top of the truck where he was filming. Then, as Paul and Phil finished up their broadcast, we managed to wave just enough to look excited and not so much that we looked crazy. They both came over and talked for a minute and then posed for pictures with Jacob.

Jacob and Phil Liggett.

Jacob and Paul Sherwen

Hooray! Tour de France, mission accomplished! We may have only seen bikes on two days, but we certainly accomplished quite a bit on those two days. Drinking with the crazies on Alpe D'Huez, meeting our favorite team and enjoying a beer with them, meeting the guys we've watched for years on TV give us the play-by-play of the greatest event in all of cycling. Yeah, we did alright.

Pictures from the Time Trial.

The next day we packed up, drove back to Milan and then flew home to London. Jacob had one more day in the city and then headed back across the pond.

Now that we've had a taste, I just need to figure out how to convince Laura that the Vuelta d'Espana and the Giro d'Italia should be our next holiday destinations.

Wish me luck!

Tour De France - Part 4

2008-08-17T19:03:00.000+01:00

(I thought I could get it all in one final post, but it got too long... here's Lyon, the TT is up next.)

It's all come down to this. We had our fun on the shores of Lake Como, got drunk on the infamous Alpe D'Huez, and even abused the little Peugeot rental car on curvy alpine roads. But here we are, the final penultimate installment of an epic Tour de France journey.

First off, we had been planning on waking up early after Alpe D'Huez to catch the start of the next day's racing. For some reason, after getting in past 1 am the night before, that didn't sound like such a good plan.

Instead we pushed off at a leisurely pace and had a fun little drive to Lyon. We stopped in the town of La Mure along the way for lunch. Jacob got to experience his very first Croque Monsieur, and it was just as delicious as my Croque Madame. (Please don't read anything too deep into our sandwich selections, or the fact that our hotel in Lyon had the beds pushed together.)

Not sure why, but I thought this door in La Mure was cool.

La Mure was really just a way to kill time so that we didn't get caught in hours of traffic following road closures from the tour, which mostly worked. We only hit a minor hiccup on the roads to Lyon, and before we knew it we were horribly lost in yet another new city. Yes, GPS would have come in quite handy at this point. However, a quick stop at a random hotel to steal a map and we were all checked in and ready to hit the town.

Lyon is famous for a few things, but the best by far is the food. In the "old city" of Vieux Lyon, the street is littered with bouchons, authentic (and delicious) food. Over the course of a few nights, we sampled a couple of different bouchons around that part of town, and were rarely disappointed. (There was an incident where part of the restaurant next to us collapsed, but people just kept on eating, so I guess it wasn't a big deal.)

Jacob on top of Fourviere Hill.

In addition to a gastronomic adventure, we also took in some of the famous sites of Lyon. First and foremost is the Basilica Notre-Dame de Fourvière, an iconic white cathedral perched on top of the hill overlooking the rest of the city.

Basilica in the background, with a mini-tower nearby.

The second day in Lyon we spent walking around Croix-Rousse and Vieux Lyon, investigating (and getting lost amongst) the many traboules that provide cut-through access to the streets. They're also some of the longest and steep stairs I've seen in a while. If either Jacob or I had been in any sort of shape, I imagine a crew-practice-stadium type run would have ensued. Luckily, we decided to ignore those instincts and hit the bar instead.

One of the many cut-throughs (traboules) we tackled in Lyon.

Market in Croix-Rousse

We had a great time in Lyon. And aside from a slight language barrier at one lunch stop, we managed to navigate our way around the city with ease. More importantly, managed to successfully eat our way all over the town for 2 solid days. Delicious.

Here are the pictures from the city. Up next (hopefully without all the waiting) is the time trial.

Tour De France - Part 3

2008-08-06T14:20:00.001+01:00

(In what's turning into a much longer series than expected, we continue with Alpe D'Huez.)

The day had arrived, it was our first time seeing cyclists, and we jumped right into the deep end. People don't just casually check out Alpe D'Huez, it's more of a life experience. And somehow we decided that it would be a great spot to get our first taste of Tour de France spirit (not to mentions spirits!).

So, the plan was formed: wake up early and drive to Bourg d'Oisans (town at the base of the climb), pick up some beer and food in the town, pick out a low-key spot near the bottom, get drunk, cheer on Team Chipotle. Sounds simple enough.

We got to the town, followed the line of cars as we looked for parking, and then accidentally started driving right up the mountain. There was a lot of "oh crap, what do we do now?", "can we turn around?" and "this is CRAZY" going on in our car as we continued up and up the mountain.

It's not like we could just pull over and turn around to go back to Plan A. There were cyclists everywhere, cars everywhere, and drunk spectators everywhere (keep in mind, it's now 9:30 am). There's no going back to Plan A, definitely Plan B time. Our real worry was that Plan B (find somewhere to park NOW!) would turn into Plan C (can't find parking because people have been camping on this mountain for a week, driving over the top, end up somewhere back in Italy again), and we definitely wanted to avoid that.

Through some divine intervention, we managed to find a spot on the side of the road that wasn't taken up by a tent, car, motorhome, or group of drunk Germans, and pulled over. A very helpful cop informed us (in both French and through frantic hand gestures), that we had to turn the car around so that it was facing down the mountain (turned out to be a great idea when we were trying to get off the mountain later).

So, we were parked. Halfway up the mountain. With no beer.

We were in quite a dilemma, time for a big decision. We could walk back down the way we came, find a shop, and resume Plan A. Or we could walk up this mountain, find a shop, and resume the last half of Plan A (the drinking and cheering part). We decided it would be a waste to come all this way and let a silly thing like climbing a mountain get in our way. So we started up.

About 8 kilometers and 3 really long hours later, we made the summit. We picked up provisions at the top (baguettes, beer, wine... I knew bike jerseys were good for something). We then found our spot, just above the 3 km mark and began to enjoy the fantastic scenery of Alpe D'Huez.

A new plan to sew pockets like this into all of our shirts was hatched shortly after we realised how easy it is to carry bottles of alcohol in them.

The beer went a lot faster than we thought (stupid 250 ml bottles), but luckily the tour started to roll through just in time (for us to crack open the wine). The caravan came through about an hour before the first riders, and handed out loads of free schwag.

Luckily for us, our neighbors along the barrier had updates coming to their mobile and were giving us the heads up on what was happening down the mountain. Then the riders came through.

Carlos Sastre basically won the Tour at this exact moment

It was a fairly slow trickle of riders, all coming up alone or in groups of 2 or 3. The mountain had destroyed the main bunch and shattered them across all 23 switchbacks.

A slightly larger group makes it up the crazy, crazy mountain

At last, the peloton came rolling through (and probably still faster than I could ride on flat ground)

It was time to head back down the slopes. Along with a few tens of thousands of other fans. We met up with some fellow Chipotle supporters (Americans, but living in Switzerland now), who had been camping on Alpe D'Huez for a few days and they brought us down some shortcuts through all the switchbacks. We repaid the favor by giving them a (very slow) lift down the rest of the mountain.

All in all, it was a blast. Jacob got his picture on the Chipotle team website. We got to cheer on our team, and watch some fantastic cycling. Only a few hours later, and we made it out of the crowd and back to the hotel.

Check out the full Alpe D'Huez pictures.

Up next, the final part - Lyon and the Time Trial.