London To Do List:

• attend football match- done
• attend cricket match
  
• Lake District
• more musicals and plays (so far Avenue Q - which doesn't really count since we saw it when we were here checking out London before we moved in March and Les Mis - just me, with Dave and Lisa, Andy was working)
  
• Scotland
• Paris - done
  
• France wine country
• Cyprus
• Croatia
• Italy, Tuscany region
• Columbia Market - done
  
• Eat at 15
• Eat at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant - done - x3, twice in London, once in Prague
  
• High Tea
• Dublin
• Barcelona - done
• Brighton - done - x2, want to go back in the Summer
• Bath
• Wine tasting at Harrods - done
• Sailing trip on Neil's boat - hopefully to Jersey (in the Channel Islands) to see our "personal banker" Nathan :) - I would like to think he'd have us to dinner but know that's far fetched!
  
• Eat on Brick Lane
• Borough Market - done
• Dubai
• Amsterdam
• Iceland
• St. Petersburg
• Luxemburg

And the list is never ending for places to visit. We are trying to get somewhere once a month - travel wise. Since July we have succeed and we're booked on places already for December and January, but at this rate we'll barely scratch the surface of places we want to get to...Andy suggested tonight we stay another year. Sadly, I don't think I will allow that! ;)

I'm feeling rather homesick at the moment, but like I said in my 6th month post, trying to look on the bright side of things and embrace being here for all that it has to offer...

updated 15/4/08

Mind the Gap - Fired!

London is famous for their Underground and the famous phrases that go along with it, such as "Mind the Gap." Something that we recently learned is that there is one woman, Emma Clarke, has been doing all the recording work for that and all the other announcements that get made on the Underground for the last 8 years. Pretty neat.

Interesting you say. But really so what? Well, the reason that we learned this is because that woman got fired this week. And it's gone viral. She has a blog Mind the Gap that has some amusing spoofs of the announcements that she's been making for years and years. She also said that she doesn't ride the tube, and that it was rubbish, to a newspaper, who then printed it - everyone talks some trash about their employers but typically a bad idea to do it in print. Here's a link to one of the many articles about it.

And here, because I love it, is the response from Transport for London:
Some of the spoof announcements are very funny. But Emma is a bit silly to go around slagging off her client's services. London Underground is sorry to have to announce that further contracts for Miss Clarke are experiencing severe delays.

six months

Tomorrow marks six months in London...seems hard to believe we've been here that long, even though it seems like a long time ago that we were packing up and leaving Seattle. I only speak for myself, but it still doesn't seem like home here. I don't feel like a stranger or total outsider, but definitely don't always feel like I belong here. So far it's been more good than bad moving here, but I gotta say I'm looking forward to moving back to Seattle. I'm really trying to stop thinking about moving back and enjoy being in London and all that it has to offer. I put together the collage here of things we've done, places we've gone and events that have happened since moving including Brighton, Brussels, Barcelona, Sicily, Seattle twice for weddings, Middy moving here, Tour de France, Wimbledon, Dave & Lisa visiting, Dad and Kathleen visiting, local sites, outings with friends here and much more. The next 18 months will bring more travel - Portugal and Budapest next - sightseeing in London, lots of visitors, my brother's wedding and whatever else this adventure brings us. I think about friends and family at home daily, but am trying to keep the fact that we are here for a limited time in perspective and have no regrets about missing out on something here when we leave.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

We hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving Holiday!

Champagne Tasting

Last night was the champagne tasting event at
Harrods. Andy found out about the event while my Dad and Kathleen were visiting us in September. They went to Harrods, a major tourist attraction in the form of an over-the-top department store, and while in the wine shop there they found out about the champagne event last night. For a entrance fee of £35 there were almost 70 champagnes available to taste. I wanted to taste champagnes I knew I would never actually buy - the REALLY expensive ones, so I set out for the ones with price tags over £100 a bottle - yes, it does say over £100 a bottle!! The most expensive bottle was £215, Charles Heidsieck 1981 and I have to say I didn't really care for it. It was very sweet, and almost syrupy. I found this of a few of the older champagnes. Another very expensive one that I did really like was Salon 1996 (£180 a bottle) - very nice taste. We probably tasted about 16, at the end they all were tasting very similar, and I felt pretty burnt out on champagne. It was a great night though, and I'm pleased to say there were no purchases made :)

Brighton - what the hell were we thinking

Today feels like officially the first day of winter. We have had a run of very cold but clear days, it's been really beautiful so far this fall, making up for summer I guess. Today, not so much. About 40 degrees (for all you Fahrenheit lovers out there) and windy and wet. So we of course decided to push on with our plan to visit Brighton, which is a resort town only an hour and a half from London, with a pier (actually two) and a ton of visitors during the summer. It's also very gay friendly, hosted the World Mustache Championships, and soon to be the home of one of our good friends here and his yacht. So off we went to explore.
It was a really amazing city. Right off of the train you are in the middle of the area you want to be hanging out in. There is a run of small streets with quirky shops, chain shops, cafe's, and of course pubs. It had the feel a bit of a college town based on the mix of shopping. We started to work our way slowly down to the water (got to see the water, right?) stopping in some shops, doing some browsing. Then it started to rain, and then pour. And get windy. And then windier. So we ran to a pub, had lunch and a bit of liquid fortification to help get us down to the water. From there, I'll just say we made it to the water, and back to the train and all we lost was an umbrella. And I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking (a few here, and more if you follow the link on the right). It was seriously a great day and adventure :)

Back to the Tate

This afternoon, as shown below, we went back to the Tate Modern. We initially visited the Tate with our friends Dave and Lisa while they were here, and then went back with Bob and Kathleen while they were visiting. On that second trip the main turbine hall was closed, so we thought we would go back and see what they had put in there.
First though, before we ever went inside was the art installation of Louise Bourgeois who is now 95 years old. She does the giant spider sculptures amongst other things (she's had a pretty long career). This is one is located right out front of the main entrance to the Tate, and you can see Saint Paul's Cathedral right underneath the body of the spider. Pretty cool.

Inside of the Tate Modern in the main hall is an exhibit called Shibboleth by the artist Doris Salcedo. What that actually looks like is a giant crack running the whole length of the hall. It is really cool. The main floor is concrete (or cement?) and does not have a crack in the general scheme of things. The artist has somehow created this crack in the concrete without the height of the main floor changing. It was cool to see, and a lot of fun to see how people reacted. Got a few couple of pictures below of The Crack from above, up close, and and of the hall as a whole.

Of course, in typical British fashion, there was these warnings signs about falling. I mean, come on, who would trip on that little crack?

what a big crack you have!

Andy and I headed to the Tate Modern this afternoon to check out its huge crack...and were we ever impressed!

New Iron Chef!

I came across a CNN article (and took this photo from it) announcing the new chef on Iron Chef America - Michael Symon! I read a Michael Ruhlman book a few years back that followed Michael Symon's career in Cleveland, from that book he seems very deserving of the title.

Now I need to see if there's a way to actually watch the show over here....in the meantime I'll rely on the internet and friends for updates.

Ocado - it's a good thing!

For at least the past two months we've been getting our groceries delivered to our flat. It took us a while to start shopping this way, but since we have it's been one of the best decisions we've made here so far. Before grocery delivery we would make a weekly trek of about a mile to the huge grocery store "near" our flat and then lug everything we bought home. By the time we were home we were exhausted and sore from the journey. We would set out on the trip trying to be very strategic about what heavy (aka. beer, wine, sparking water) items we bought knowing that we'd have to carry it all, but inevitably we would over-buy in this category and be cursing each other the whole way home. I don't know if we would order our groceries if we had a car, but without a car it's a great thing! We still end up going to the store as well for the things we forgot to order or when we've changed our minds about what sounds good for dinner, but all in all I'm a fan!

Are you ready for some Football, UK style?

Today we had our first experience going to a football match in the UK. It was a ton of fun. We went with friends Barry and Angela to a Tottenham Hotspur game, known as the Spurs and the team we were pulling for. They were playing Wigan Athletic. They are a Premier League team but Tottenham has not had a good season so far. Fortunately, Wigan has not been very strong this year at all and recently fired their coach. So with the stage set, we had a couple of pints before the game and headed in. Note that we had a couple of pints before the game - once you are in there are no beer vendors (or really vendors of any type) and no drinking at all during the game. They open a bar at half time, but only for 15 minutes, so it is pretty much a dry event. With good reason - the fans are crazy and intense enough as is.
The experience was great. Every seat was filled in the 35,000 seat stadium, it felt super intimate, we were 8 rows back behind the goal so saw some great shots and scoring. And there was singing, lots of singing. For the team, for specific players after good plays, and for the goal keeper, Paul Robinson, who is currently the #1 keeper for the England national team. They like him a lot, and for good reason. He totally played along with the fans, and the game was a shut out. As the game progressed, and Tottenham began scoring goals, Katherine started making friends with the gentleman next to her. After the second goal, and each one thereafter, he would grab her and shake her like a rag doll. He was pretty excited to introduce a cute American to the beautiful game, as they call it.
Final score - Tottenham 4-0 Wigan, and two new football fans.
A few pictures from the game:

we made the papers!

By we, I mean Washington State. There are two free evening "papers" here - they have some news, some sports and loads of gossip. Washington State was mentioned yesterday in a column called funny old world. Because of the poor quality of my photo, here's what it says:

UNITED STATES
Michigan couple Charles and Linda Everson escaped death when a 600lb cow fell 200ft from a cliff and landed on their moving vehicle. The couple, who were unhurt, were driving through Washington State to celebrate their first wedding anniversary when the cow landed.

Don't know if this is true, but I couldn't help sharing that our great state had made the local papers over here!

fortune-cookie fortunes....

This past Friday night Andy and I found ourselves at Dim T with our friend Catherine for dinner. It's a good place to eat, they have random asian delights and dim sum. It's a great value (or, value for money - as people say here). The best part of this particular meal was the fortunes in the fortune cookies.

Mine said: Never take a job where winter winds can blow up your trousers.

Andy's said: Look behind you.

I don't usually like to add "in bed" at the end of my fortunes, but I know that a lot of people enjoy that, and for these particular fortunes it really makes them better!

fireworks

This weekend London was celebrating Guy Fawkes Day a bit early (it's officially today, I believe). There were fireworks all over the city constantly being set off. Some big displays, other were backyard displays. We were set to meet some friends Saturday night to watch the fireworks, but due to the fact that the bus never seemed to want to arrive to take us there, we skipped it and instead went to a pub about 10 minutes from our house and had some good, very inexpensive beer, and thai food. We did see some fireworks on the way to the pub...enough to satisfy me :)

Barcelona Redux

As Katherine already mentioned last Monday, we had an amazing trip to Barcelona, arriving Friday and leaving Monday evening (probably a little bit too late). We stayed with friends which was awesome (Brian and Clara), and they had another friend there, Mary Beth, which was very cool. The more the merrier, and it really was.
Pretty much every night we went out Barcelona style - Tapas for dinner at 1030, after dinner drink, then a drink somewhere else, then maybe too a club. And even with all that, the real Barcelonians keep on trucking - we got made fun of for going home so early, at after 3.
The city was great - nice weather, very cool architecture, great people, and good shopping (so cheap :)
Here are a few pictures from the trip: Mary Beth, Clara, me, and Brian; The Market, Not the Ramblas, famous Gaudi buildings, and La Sagrada Familia.

We've Moved, And we kind of have internet!

Whew. It's been a while since I've done a post, and since we've been able to both post, and get to pictures at the same time. We are currently picking up an unsecured wifi network from our new flat, so going to post quick! We'll be back online and with Vonage come the end of the week. Very exciting stuff. Here are a few pictures of our new flat and neighborhood, Maida Vale.
Some pictures of our flat - Outside of the building, the reception room, our bedroom, and the spare room that still needs some furniture.