Barcelona

Andy and I are sitting in an internet cafe in Barcelona. We arrived here Friday evening after our flight was delayed for over 2 hours in London. We passed the extra time we had in the airport with a few beers in the lovely airport bar alongside a man dressed as wonderwoman on his way to Barcelona for his stag-do (bachelor party) with a huge group of his friends.

The holiday has been great so far, today is our last day, but we´re not heading to the airport until around 730 tonight so still have plenty of time to do more exploring. We´re staying with friends here, Brian and Clara. They have been great this weekend showing us all around the city. Once we´re back in London and have internet up and running in the new flat I will post pictures of the trip. With the speed that internet is hooked up in London it might be a little while, but in the meantime we will head to the local pub that has free wireless and post from there.

We've Moved!

We are in the process of moving to our new flat today! I will post pictures and more info once we have internet all set up at the new place. I'm excited and feeling good about the flat and neighborhood. It will be a good change and nice to explore a different area of the city.

Best and Worst Places to Live in the UK

My favorite TV program here is called Location, Location (or Relocation, Relocation not too sure what the difference is?). It's a show with 2 presenters (Phil and Kristie) that try to help people relocate within the UK or to mainland Europe (often helping them find a place in both the UK and Europe! - how these people can afford it I'm really not sure). I've been into house shows of any sort for quite a while and was excited to discover this show when we moved.
Tonight they counted down the 20 Best and Worst places to live in the UK - on live TV. Allowing viewers to send text messages in giving their opinions of the places as they listed them off. People are very into the text message here and were very excited about letting the hosts know what they thought of their home town being listed poorly on the list!

Worst Place to Live: Middlesbrough in North East England. It's considered the worst place because of poor health - smoking, binge drinking, lack of exercise, crime more than twice the UK average. They are trying to turn the area around through re-generation and fighting crime. I don't know that Andy and I will be visiting...

Best Place to Live: Edinburgh in Scotland. It has the best lifestyle options, bars, shops, museums, low crime (5 times less than average), good education, strongest economy outside London in the UK. I think we'll add Edinburgh to our list of places to visit :)

Luckily the area of London we live in didn't make either list!

Come on England!

My last post about rugby was titled "Eng-a-land, Eng-a-land!" I now stand corrected. That is the wrong chant when cheering on your rugby team. It should be "Come on England!" To clarify:
Rugby World Cup: Come on England!
Football World Cup (or Eurocup): Eng-a-land, Eng-a-land!

And in exciting news, we English get to use that chant for one more weekend. Improbably, impossibly, the man with the Golden Boot, Little Jonny Wilkinson blew multiple kicks again. And yet, he came through when it counted most and England is going to The World Cup Finals! As a bonus, not only did the English make the finals, they beat the hated French, which adds to the satisfaction. I get the sense that at this point, with victories over Australia and the French, in the minds of most of us English, they've already won the World Cup, no matter what happens next weekend.

Pipes Bursting

I downloaded these images from the bbc website after reading about pipes bursting in our hopefully - soon to be new neighborhood of maida vale this morning. According to the article I read, the water was 6 in deep and people were wading through it holding their pant legs up and holding their shoes and socks, all the while being drenched by water from the passing cars! I think I would have stayed home if I went outside in the morning and was greeted by that much standing water. But maybe that's just me....

3rd times a charm...hopefully

I've been in a bit of a funk lately - which is part of the reason for the lack of posts. Haven't really had much to post about. We have been actively looking for a new flat to rent since the middle of August. Most of what we've seen, probably over 30 at this point, has been crap. When you have a doggie here most places that will allow you are not nice. As a landlord in the States, I understand why people wouldn't want a dog in their property, but it's still hard being on this end. I don't want to live in a sh-thole because of Middy. It's a real reality check and very humbling going from owning a nice, good sized home to paying more to rent a small sh-thole - all just to be able to live in London.

Anyway, we are turning in a contract tomorrow for the 3rd place we've found that I'm willing to live in :) and, that will be an improvement from where we are currently. I'm really hopeful that this one won't fall through and we will move in with no real issues. It's in a new neighborhood, and actually the neighborhood we set out to live in when we originally moved here but felt we couldn't afford it. We will be in Maida Vale, I'm excited for the new location - to be able to really explore a new area.

If all goes well, we'll be moving next weekend. The following weekend we'll be off to Barcelona to visit friends and relax from the rough move, from 2nd floor to 1st floor - up and down stairs. Andy says he'll do it all himself and I'm having a hard time not taking him up on the offer!

Eng-a-land, Eng-a-land, Eng-a-land!

England vs. Australia. Conqueror vs. Colony. Standing World Cup Champion vs. one of the favorites. The quarter finals of the World Cup kicked off today, and it featured the biggest upset of the tournament, England vs. Australia. Australia was favored to win easily by pretty much everyone and glide into the semi-finals.. Little Jonny Wilkinson however, was not about to let that happen. He nailed 3 penalties and a drop goal and England won, 12-10.

We watched it in a pub with a few of our friends, the crowd was split 50/50 England and Australia fans. It was an awesome atmosphere. If I can't watch the baseball playoffs, this is not a bad substitute.

Working again......

I started work today, eased into it - only working a 1/2 day. Ordinarily I won't work Mondays at all, just Tuesday through Friday. Pretty good schedule in my opinion - three day weekends are a dream! (Andy is a little upset by this, jealous really). I think this job will be good. Better than my last attempt at working here in London. I will be learning more about flower design, running a business and will be the personal assistant to a well known flower designer in the UK.

The pictures above are more of the arrangements I made in my flower class.