Happy Thanksgiving!!

We hope everyone enjoys all the yummy food and the long weekend!!

18 months

where does the time go? we've lived in london 18 months, it's almost december, i'm into my second trimester...it's amazing how fast time seems to go the older you get. people try to tell you that when you're young, but you don't believe them until it's too late!

another great six months living here, exploring the continent alone and with friends and good times showing visitors around the lovely city that is our home. since may we've been to stockholm with col and kev, went to nice, visited clay in dublin, rich and clara visted, went to helsinki & tallin, peter and christina visited, went to loire valley with my uncle and aunt and next weekend are off to celebrate thanksgiving with friends in luxembourg.

sadly (not all sad news, good news really) because of new developments in our life, i.e. baby coming, we won't be here for another six months. we will be back earlier than originally planned, depending on job developments, so that i can have the baby there. as you can imagine our lives are a bit crazy at the moment thinking about baby, moving, leaving london, coming back to seattle, happy and sad emotions all at the same time. it's very exciting, don't get me wrong, nothing but good things, but there's a bit of sadness about leaving. so far it's been such a great experience for us both. even the bad times ultimetly have been good. an amazing experience for andy and me on a number of different levels.

28th May 2009

Champagne Tasting, part II

You may remember that last year around this time there was a champagne tasting that was attended by about 1/2 the original members. Well, we bought our tickets 3 months ago, give or take, to this years event at Harrod's. And of course, about 1/2 the original members of the group were able to attend. But Alison, Hayder, and Sima made it, so we had a good crowd!

The space was about twice as big as last year, the number of champagne vendors was about the same (maybe a few more), and way more food. So, more space, better food, and a ton of space - good stuff.

Some of the favorites were:
Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame 1998
Sir Winston Churchill 1998 (a Pol Roger)
Piper Heidsieck Rare 1998 (no one else liked it, starting to taste kind of musty, delicious I think)
Harrods Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs 2002 (a reasonable 334.50!)
Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Rose 2003 (delicious, also £235/bottle)

Last year we were all loving the Salon. They were back this year with a 1997 and was not as good as the memories - but still cost £270/bottle. Also, the Dom Perignon 2000 soemwhat disappointing.

Any way you slice it, a great way to spend an evening, especially a school night! And, in case you're curious, no, there were no bottles purchased this evening :)

Arty Couple in London

Our new Art

Over the last couple of weekends, inspired by who knows what, we've done a few art-like things. First, we went to the Annie Leibovitz exhibit a the portrait gallery. It was really cool - it was a collection of pictures from 1990-2004 split between her professional photography (magazine shoots, etc - Demi Moore anyone?) and personal photography of her family - imagine the pressure of being in her family! Along the way we learned some interesting things, such as she had her first child at 51, which we all agree is quite an achievement.

The next art like activity resulted in the painting you see above. A friend of ours mentioned the Affordable Art Fair was in town. We have been hemming and hawing about buying some art for quite some time, and actually Katherine owed me an anniversary present that was supposed to be an art piece. So we thought, Affordable, seems good!

We headed down to Battersea to the exhibition centre where the fair was taking place. It was crazy! Tons of people, over 110 gallaries, and a definition of affordable that was less than £3,000 (which given the current exchange rate is only like $4500 but still!) (Editors Note - We did NOT spend $4500 on art - that was just the highest pricepoint they had on display! :). Anywho, we had a great wander around, eliminated a ton of stuff as not so nice, a few other things as too expensive, and narrowed down to a couple of things we were fans of. We circled back around and made our decision. It was cool - the artist was actually at the fair so we were able to chat with him for a while - he lives and works in Brighton, it's inspired by the coast down there, this piece took about 6 months. Very cool.

And now, love it or hate it, you will all get to see plenty of this over the years hanging over our fireplace!

Election rocks London

The above says it all, courtesy of the Seattle PI. By the looks of things people were quite excited all across the US yesterday, and Seattle looked to be one giant party. London had a similar vibe going on, just a few hours later.

Over the last month or so there have been a ton of questions about the election - how does it work, who will you vote for, is Palin an alien, etc. There was huge anticipation. And it was also a hot topic of conversation with our American friends as well here in the UK.

So last night, hundreds, probably thousands, of mostly ex-pats piled into a pub to watch coverage into the night. Things kicked off at 9pm, but didn't really get rolling until midnight. But once things got going you would have thought you were watching the Super Bowl from the winning team's sports bar. It was good times. Unfortunately, with everything on an 8 hour delay, it was also late times.

So, I am quite tired this morning, but also quite pleased. This seemed like a unique time for the world, and certainly for us, watching from across the pond. That said, next time, I'm looking forward to the polls still being open in Washington when they call the election for Obama.

Happy Halloween!

Ten years ago on Halloween Andy and I kissed for the first time! We had seen each other around campus, at parties, etc and spoken a few times (briefly, I must add) but it was Halloween 1998 that was the defining moment/day in bringing us together. I was a cat, he was a 'boy band member' - but I'm pretty sure he was the only member, no one else to my recollection was dressed up with him!

Since that day a lot has happened with us. We have been married for over six years, lived together for 8 years, made two big moves together, Los Angeles and London. Put Andy through grad school, lived in seven apartments/houses/flats. Had too many jobs to count, mostly my jobs that make it hard to count, Andy has worked at two companies in that time! Traveled as much as we've been able to, especially the last 18 months. Had more fun times than bad times, especially with all our fabulous friends and family.

Sadly, I have no pictures from the college days to post, they are in storage in Seattle at the moment and even if I did have them here, we have no scanner to enable me to get them onto the computer! It's probably for the best though, we are much cuter today, if I do say so myself!

It's been a great ten years and I know it will only get better the longer we're together...

So apparently it's winter

It is October 28th and we got our first snowfall of the year here in London. It's been freezing all day. Then it started raining. And finally there forces combined. And now, I'm going to go walk the dog. Sometimes not having a back yard is really painful.


If you look closely, it's a car covered in snow...

And they're gone too!

Your may remember that recently we wrote of our good friend Catherine leaving the fair city of London for concrete pastures in New York City. Well, last week two more of our friends packed up and headed out.

Friday our good friends Kevin and Colleen left for Seattle. For them this will be the first time living in the States. I don't think they could have picked a better area, and we certainly hope they have a wonderful time, so they are still there when we move back!

However, for the time being, for those of us still in London, the city feels a little bit less fun. Colleen and Kevin are big proponents of games - especially if they can control the rules and and wreck havoc on those playing unawares. They were big proponents of any game involving wine, which always spells trouble. They also liked to play a little poker - which can lead to scenes like the below. They will be missed in London. Those of you in Seattle, consider yourself warned.

Starts off innocent...

Things get a little crazy...

And it's all down hill from there...

Also, for those of you from Seattle, for an interesting perspective on our city by people just moving there check out their blog on the blogroll down the left.

Dinner with Friends

So we do some great things living here like, I don't know, visit all the places that are listed down the side of our blog, or head out to a castle. But sometimes it's the things that we do here that we'd do anywhere else that are most enjoyable.

Last night we did one of those things. We got together for dinner with 4 of our good friends. We went to a restaurant called The Oak, which is an easy walk home for 1/2 of us, and quite a trek home for others (sorry Hayder!).

It was a lovely evening. Great company, good food, a couple of bottles of wine. Hayder was good enough to bring along his camera so we have a couple of snappy snaps. Sometimes the best thing about living in London is that it can be a heck of a lot like living in Seattle.

The ladies (Colleen, Katherine, Alison)

The gentlemen (Hayder, Andrew, Kevin)

The soon to be Seattleites

i voted!

Midnight is protecting my ballot until I'm able to post it back to the U.S. to be counted! I'm very glad I worked it out to vote while we're living over here, hopefully my votes will help for change.

weekend away

at my brother's wedding in march andy and i got to talking to my uncle buz (my dad's brother) about the trip they were planning in the fall to italy. he and his wife terry asked if we'd like to meet up with them for a few days of their trip. of course, we said yes, can't pass up italy - especially since i've only been to sicily. as the months passed their plans changed and we ended up flying to the loire valley in france on friday to meet up with them on saturday.

andy and i had big plans for friday afternoon, we would land, get our rental car, make our way to the cottage, then head out wine tasting and exploring in general, finding a nice place to eat dinner then make our way back to the cottage that evening. these plans all fell apart after we landed. we flew to tours, which has the smallest airport i've ever been in. one room, barely a luggage carousel and very unconcerned customs agents. we made our way to the 'car rental trailer' which housed all 4 car rental companies that operated out of the airport, and waited for our agent to show up. in the meantime i sat down as andy waited in line. we were slightly concerned at this point that we'd rented our car through a dodgy company, even though it was avis, since there wasn't anyone working. but later learned that there's only one flight into the tours airport and one flight out a day, hence why the person was late - they clearly work a very short shift. as i waited i realized i'd forgotten my driver's license. it's not something i ever have on me here as we don't have a car and i've never driven over here. i mentioned this to andy, his response was "no worries, i don't have mine either", this did worry me. i asked him how he thought we'd be able to rent the car then, he wasn't concerned, but did start to look for his in his bag. after looking for a few minutes he realized what i had said and that we wouldn't be able to get a car, but still did ask the agent who had turned up for work by this point. she said no as well. we sat there for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do now. the cottage we were staying in we knew wasn't really near anything, how were we going to get there, it was about 50km away.


after we got over our shock and stupidity we got a taxi to the tours train station. from there with some help of the station staff figured out which stop was the closest to where we were staying. we got the train to a town called montrichard which is about 10km from the cottage, we were making progress. from the train station there we walked to a little hotel and luckly the man working there could understand us enough to call us a taxi, while we waited we called the owners of the cottage who gave us better directions that we had and let us know we should get some food for the evening/morning because there wasn't anything within walking distance. they also spoke with the taxi driver and asked her to stop off at a market for us to get the food we needed. so, in the end, we made it to the cottage with food, wine, etc to get us through the afternoon/evening. we played scrabble, made great progress on a puzzle, cooked, ate, drank, etc. wasn't the day we planned for, but sometimes it's nice to be trapped somewhere with someone you love and that you enjoy spending time with.


the following day buz and terry turned up from paris, with a car and we were saved! we drove to the town of amboise and toured a chateau d'amboise as well as leonardo da vinci's last house - clos luce. that evening we had a nice bbq at the cottage with meat from a local butcher and corn from the fields across from the cottage. sunday morning we had to leave shortly after breakfast to make our flight. buz and terry were kind enough to give us a ride on their way to wine tasting that afternoon. they tried to convince us to skip out on work and stay a few more days, they are there all week. sadly, we couldn't. we never made it wine tasting, or as much exploring as we had intended, but it was a really lovely, relaxing weekend.

anyone know anyone...

that might want to rent our house for around 6 months, starting around november??

random london pictures

i thought i would share some pictures of places in london and around that andy and i enjoy. i've said it before, but i'm having a hard time coming up with interesting things to blog about. now that i'm only working 2 days a week, you'd think i'd have more exciting things so say, but sadly i spend most of the other 3 days during the week studying, preparing my application, baking, exercising, etc. nothing all that 'interesting'. this weekend we're off to the loire valley in france for some wine tasting with my uncle and aunt. we are both looking forward to it, seems like forever since we last left london ;)

Regents Park

West Hampstead

Southend

Kew Gardens

Brighton

two more finished projects

the past few days it has been really obvious that the weather is turning. we didn't have very much sun this summer, but enough to see the change, the nip in the air, it's getting darker a bit earlier, drizzles more - if that's even possible. i've been busy preparing for cold weather with fun knitting projects to keep myself a little warmer in the coming months. it's been a really nice way to spend my spare time. i like feeling productive and finishing a project that you can actually see and hold is great.

more hairy updates...

wednesday night peter helped christina transform from this:
to this:
i guess she has been wanting to cut her hair off for a while, but wanted to wait until after their wedding, in march, and wednesday was the day! when we were out and about that day we say a few ladies that inspired her and that evening i got out the clippers and peter went to town! it looks great and christina seems very happy with her decision ;)

Peter and Christina arrived!

early this morning peter and christina arrived from san francisco. to keep them awake for as long as we could we headed east to an area of london that has tons of markets on sundays. we wanted to make them walk around as much as possible and today was an absolutely beautiful day for it. we went to brick lane for salt beef bagels, to columbia road for the flower market, and through a few others just browsing. then wandered through the 'city of london' to the river. hopefully the weather holds for the rest of their trip...

Anniversary Dinner

Last Saturday we went out to dinner to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. We decided we would not do anything else this year for the anniversary- trips, gifts, etc. - and just go out for a very nice dinner. We spent a lot of time debating restaurants, reviewing menu's and chefs and locations and finally narrowed it down to The Greenhouse. It was a great space, in a Mews setting, with an excellent chef, in the heart of Mayfair (which is for someone else's money probably the nicest neighborhood in London).

We had both decided before we got there that we would have the tasting menu so ordering food was quick. We had hoped they would have a matching wine course but no such luck. Instead we spoke with Sommelier about wines we could pair with the courses and he made, I think, excellent recommendations.

The meal started with an amouse that was a beet tube filled with cheese of some sort, and then a very light, very miniature tomato soup with mozzarella. We had that with a a glass of Billecart-Salmon NV Champagne.

Then dinner kicked in:
Devon Crab and Salmon Parfait - The crab was as expected, the salmon parfait was so light and unexpected but with such good flavor. We had Petite Arvine white wine from Northern Italy with this, and the next course.
Diver caught Scallop - Scallops are delicious, truffle is delicious. Excellent combination.
Pan fried foie gras with fig - say what you will, I love me some foie gras. Katherine and I shared a glass of Molino Moscatel with this.
Grilled Seabass - Probably the most plain course of the meal, but very well prepared and tasty. With this we switched over to a German Pinot Noir - Meyer Naekel
Anjou Pigeon - I'm hoping this wasn't caught in Trafalgar Square. Cooked extremely rare and came with fava beans that were delicious.
Pinapple sorbet with a white chocolate mousse and basil - The contrast of flavors were refreshing, not too rich.
Chocolate and toffee tart - Right, this was the rich one. The perfect way to wrap up the meal.
Except for the plate of chocolates they gave us after that

After that, we were finally done :)

It was an amazing meal, very well served (so many different people, but they all know exactly where we are in the meal and what we need now). And the American Couple called it a night.

Looking good

when good things go wrong

when waiting for our flight in the tallinn airport i started knitting my first hat. when clara was here visiting she helped me pick out a lovely shade of green yarn, especially nice since it would really highlight my green eyes when i'm wearing the hat.

here comes the problem...i knit it way too tight, using 1/2 the yarn the pattern called for, therefore creating the perfect hat for midnight - as seen below! after my model was done posing with the hat i promptly took it apart, am going to start again tomorrow trying not to knit to tightly.

6 years

andy and i are celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary today. a nice low-key evening at home with a bottle of champagne. saturday night we're heading out to a fancy dinner for the real celebration.

i feel very lucky to be married to andy, i couldn't ask for a better husband! and a special thanks to everyone who has supported us over the years.