Andy came home with two gifts from work today......a balloon and champagne. I enjoyed both, the thought of him on the train/tube with the balloon makes me smile and the champagne will make me happy when we drink it. Both great for me!! Glad I can get enjoyment out of his gifts too ;)
Most of the group, a few hours in (Emma, Chappers, Drew, we missed you)
Amazon friends
The American Couple
Drink as much as you want, we're catching public transport!
Heading home with my presentsSo we are suckers for Gordon Ramsey. Or I am. Or whatever. He's entertaining, makes good TV, and find really good chef's to make good foot at his many restaurants. I am also a sucker for hanging out with good friends and family. Put the two together, and it is a good evening.
Gordon (to his friends) has recently gotten into the pub business, buying great but maybe a bit run down pubs, renovating them, and then reopening them. We went to The Warrington which is just a hop, skip, and a jump from our flat. Alison and Rich, and Colleen and Kevin, joined for dinner. The menu looked great, and the food did not disappoint. We had snails, oysters and clams for shared appetizers, great meals all around, and then split 6 (out of 7 possible) desserts. Good stuff. The service, well, let's just say it recently opened and maybe they're working out a few kinks.
It was a great evening with good friends (and family!). And can I say that I am thoroughly enjoying this whole turning 30 experience thus far. :)
Couple of pictures:
We had a lovely weekend away in Prague. It was an absolutely beautiful city. I think my 2nd favorite place we've visited since moving to London (behind Portugal - of course). The weekend was mostly spent wandering around the city checking out the amazing architecture, eating and drinking. What more do you need? The perfect weekend for Andy and me. The pictures are a little limiting because of my deleting 2/3 of them, but they still show how pretty the city is.
I would love to go back when it's not so cold, except for the fact that the city was packed with tourists in mid February when it was below 0 so I can only imagine what it's like there in the summer. Since being in Europe I haven't heard as many American accents besides the 2 trips I've made back to the US over the summer! I'm not sure where they all came from and how they were on holiday this time of year....
We had lots of good food while here, but certainly our Saturday night dinner took the cake. We went to Maze for Andy's birthday dinner. It was great. Lots of wonderful food and wine. I would recommend to anyone wanting a really nice dinner out to celebrate. Gotta love the Gordon Ramsey!
The view from our hotel room
The G&D all the way in Prague! We went in and checked it out, but it was about twice the price as anywhere else for a pint so we decided to wait for Seattle and the real G&D!
Andy eating a yummy muffin from a great bakery we happened upon
Astronomical Clock
Me, cold on the Charles Bridge - trying not to look like I might freeze and become one of the statues along the bridge at any moment
and downloaded the pictures from our prague trip onto the blog sidebar...will post more about what we did there in the next few days. unfortunately there aren't tons of pictures i somehow managed to clear the memory card this morning, so all the pics are from today. sadness. the trip was great though, lots of fun - good food and drink!
We forgot to bring the cord to our camera to allow us to post pics and blog in real time- as some of our friends like to do. However, I've found a picture that is mostly representative of what you will see when we do download our snaps. The high today was 1 degree. 1. Beats 0, but not by much...There's been a little bit of snow, and a ton of blue sky, and an amazingly beautiful city to explore thus far.
Tonight, we're off for an amazing meal, so long as we make it there! Fingers crossed. And never fear, you will hear more about it :)
working in a flower shop, this is a very busy time of year - and since it's mostly men placing orders, the majority have come in the past few days - nothing like waiting until the last minute ;) we have some "special" bouquets that were designed for valentines day, they have meanings like 'true love', 'everlasting love', etc. one is the eternity bouquet - 100 red roses. crazy, right? since i take a ton of the orders i asked my boss what i would get (besides my pay check) if i got someone to buy the 100 red roses. she initially said a glass of wine, then once others started asking upped it to a bottle of champagne! i've really be working it, but to no success (there's still a chance tomorrow). BUT, a guy from work did actually get someone to buy one today! and here's the kicker, it costs £ 495!!!!! and people, that's £, not $$.
We had yet to have anyone over for dinner since we moved to the UK. Didn't like our first place to have people for dinner -and just hadn't gotten around to it with our new place. Yesterday that changed as we had friends Colleen and Kevin over for some food and poker!
We started with 6 Nations Rugby and pints out (Wales beat Scotland). After some drink and a bit of lunch (and a little more drink) we headed back to ours for dinner. We decided to have homemade pizza's - those of you at my birthday last year would know them - so had some work to do to get things ready. It was a very good thing that we did all the prep work before going out for rugby because otherwise we would have had a little trouble getting things together when we got home :) But it all came together quite nicely with the pizza's disappearing as quickly as we turned them out. Yum!
Then things got serious with the cards and cash coming out. The level of play was high - I think any of us could have challenged at the World Series of Poker. Unfortunately there could only be one winner on this night - it was winner take all. Katherine went out first, then Kevin. A bold bet was made (All in!), the bet was matched, and the winner was crowned - Colleen.
We wrapped up the evening with a game of, well, no idea what it's called but it combines charades and 20 questions. We were very into it as demonstrated by the visit from our upstairs neighbor came down to ask us to quiet down. Oops.
A promising start...
but the ultimate champion 
Midnight looks thrilled...
When the sweat band comes out, you know the game is toughat work i spend a lot of the day talking to customers on the phone. because almost everyone that calls has an accent, that isn't american, it's difficult for me to understand a lot of what people are saying. and since i'm often taking down addresses for deliveries i need to make sure i'm writing down the correct information and have to ask people to spell words out for me to get them right. so, it's funny that twice in the past week when people have been spelling names out for me, they have commented that i must have already known how to spell that name because it's IRISH! both times i have been taken aback, i didn't really know what the person meant the first time it happened because i know i don't sound irish! there's an irish girl at work who will also tell anyone that asks that i don't sound irish in the slightest! she's thinks it's pretty amusing that someone would mistake my accent for an irish accent...she insists that english people are stupid and can't tell the difference between irish and american ;)
my favorite donuts in seattle are going nation wide!! i just love, love, love top pot donuts, obviously i don't ever eat them now, and when in seattle it was a rare treat - but they are the best. it's nice to see the small local seattle company is doing so well. i'm sure some would think it's bad they are getting successful via "evil-empire" starbucks, but i think it's great. can't wait until they start doing their donuts in starbucks over here ;) although those donuts are probably part of the reason i gained so much weight while working at the law firm.....glad i've lost it all now!!
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