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.

a new day, a new look

andy left the house looking like this....


and returned like this.....

Return from the Baltics

Lake across from hotel, Helsinki

Sharing some knowledge - Estonia is one of the Baltics, with the others being Latvia and Lithuania. We had a good trip to Helsinki and Tallinn, extending our August Bank Holiday (basically, Labor Day a week early for you Americans) by two days. It was very nice to get away for more than just a long weekend. What was unexpected is the impact of a two hour time change. Seems pretty minimal, but makes for what feels like some early mornings and some late going to bed.

Anyway, on to the trip. We left Thursday afternoon for Helsinki on an airline we'd never heard of (Blue1?) that doesn't give away water, on a plane probably older than us. But we survived, got to the Helsinki airport, caught a cab, and found the hotel. We were staying just outside the downtown core so had a nice walk into town and caught some dinner - Italian. I know, I know, not at all authentic, but exactly what we needed - it was late, we were hungry, and we didn't feel like eating anything with "pickled" and "fish" in the same entree description.

Helsinki was a really pretty town. We wandered all over the city, seeing the harbor from multiple vantages points, crossing over to some islands. And the weather couldn't be beat. Twice we've been to Scandinavia, and twice we've had good weather. We don't question, just enjoy. Interestingly on the way in from the airport Katherine commented that it looked quite similar to the US, and the northwest in particular. They drive on the correct side of the road, new freeways, evergreens, and new construction. Off the freeway, they do have some really interesting architecture throughout town, with their homegrown architect Alvar Aalto well represented

We both left Helsinki feeling like it was a very comfortable and livable town. Walking and bike paths everywhere, lots of public transport, and a great community feel. Friday night there was a huge festival all over town - we walked down to the park across from our hotel and saw some fire dancing and music - surrounded by literally thousands of Fins. Very cool. The next morning we walked through the neighborhood behind our hotel and stumbled onto a local market where we had breakfast. All around us were locals meeting up with friends and family. It felt really nice. Monocle magazine recently ranked Helsinki #5 in their most liveable cities (Seattle, not ranked, Portland #25, Vancouver #8). I don't know how livable it is in the winter, but for the weekend we were there it definitely made sense.

Saturday afternoon we caught the jet boat hydrofoil thing over to Tallinn. I insisted that it was broken because we never took off (shouldn't a jet hydrofoil really move?) and thought we were going to be really late in getting there. I was, of course, wrong, and we arrived perfectly on time. Given the weather and proximity we walked the kilometer to the hotel. Hotel was good, modern design which I love (if you have a stone sink in a non-curved shape, I'm yours). Saturday was a good start, nice weather, did a preview of the Old Town to get us set for the next day. Unfortunately, the next day was raining, and windy, and totally miserable. It felt like an October day at 6pm all day long. After slogging around for a while, seeing some interesting church art, climbing the castle walls, and nailing the top 10 attractions according to our guide book, we retired for a bottle of wine and a movie on pay-per-view at the hotel.

I think that Tallinn was a bit disappointing for both of us. We gave it too much time (two full days), and the weather was not at all cooperative. Helsinki was nice, with good weather. So a bit of a mixed bag, but as always, just glad we have the opportunity to explore.

Russian Orthodox Church, Helsinki

The Harbor, Helsinki

Exploring Old Town, Tallinn

Gardens by the Presidents Palace, Tallinn

St Katharine Docks

Rich and Clara arrived in London 11th August, I have neglected to post about their visit here until now, the day after they left. Horrible, I know. It was great having them here, showing Clara the city, introducing them to our friends, shopping, sightseeing, etc.


On their last night we went to see our friend Neil's boat. He has recently moved it from Brighton to St Katharine Docks in the heart of London. Catherine and I made our way from our respective offices in The City to the boat, a quick journey by cab. It's an amazing location, right in The City, next to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge.


We enjoyed a fabulous meal by Neil, not sure how he cooks so well in such a tiny space...not only was this Rich and Clara's last night in London, it was also the night Andy and I said bye to Catherine. She's moving this weekend and we're heading off to Heksinki and Tallinn today so won't see her. Fortunately she'll be back in about a month for a long weekend!! And, we're trying to figure out a way to NYC in the near future ;)

catherine's leaving do...

our good friend catherine is moving to nyc in less than two weeks! it's going to be very sad when she goes. andy and i met her right when we moved over and we've seen each other almost every week since, apart from all the time that either andy and i or catherine are off traveling somewhere - taking that into consideration we've probably seen her about every other week ;)

about a month ago andy, catherine and i met up in west hampstead for lunch at la brocca, a place we went to often when before andy and i moved into our current flat.


saturday night was catherine's leaving do, we had a great time, met some new people and saw some others that because of everyones busy schedule we hadn't seen for a while.

she's a good friend and we'll stay friends, and it will be fab when we're all living in america at the same time and she can come visit seattle and the pacific northwest.

it's lame, i know, but i can't help it...

it's been tough for me to think of blog posts lately, as i'm sure is obvious. life here is just as it is. it's no longer interesting to me to post about funny, quirky daily goings on here. we/i are entrenched enough here with daily life and living that it's difficult to find things worthy of posting about when we're not traveling about. having said that, there were a few goals that i wanted to achieve when moving, 1. take up yoga/pilates 2. take the opportunity to do something different with my career 3. learn to knit. i feel very good and confident that i have achieved/ am working towards 1 & 3, 2 is still a sore point for me in my life and part of what makes posting difficult. i'm still very much working towards figuring out what i want to be when i grow up, which is harder and harder as i get older.


so, with this i post my second completed knitting project - a baby blanket. originally i thought i would give it to the next person i knew having a baby, that's why i made the neutral colour palate, but it was so time consuming, i might just keep it for when andy and i have babies down the road...

new bed

midnight turned three sometime in the last week or so - hard to say the exact date since we didn't get her until september 2005 - we say her birthday is the 18th though. we've never done anything to 'celebrate' it since she's a dog and doesn't know it from any other day, but this year we bought her a new doggie bed. she ate the one we brought over with us from seattle. by ate i mean destroyed it by tearing it apart with her teeth, i'm not sure she actually ingested any of it, but saying she ate it sounds better ;)

dublin

a few months ago i requested to have this past friday off from work. andy and i hadn't decided at that point where we were going to go for our july holiday, but knew this would be a good weekend based on other social obligations we already had. we started thinking about amsterdam, dublin, somewhere is scotland, etc. looking for somewhere that would be a quick flight. then we expanded our possible area to poland, northern spain, etc. through a series of events we decided on cornwall, an area of the south-western part of england. i know, going somewhere in england seems crazy! so crazy that through another series of events, after booking tickets, looking up hotel/restaurants to book at etc, we went to dublin!


i'm pretty confident in saying that we made the right choice. our friend clay from college lives there and was kind enough to put us up for 2 nights with only a week or so of notice. hopefully he'll have a chance to come visit us so we can return the hospitality.

view of dublin from the guinness bar

we left friday morning, slightly delayed because the radar was out at the dublin airport - not exactly sure how that happens or how it goes on for 5 days! we ended up arriving only about an hour late, made our way to clay's place and filled each other in on what's been going on the last few years - andy and i hadn't seen him since our wedding (almost 6 years ago). after a bit of relaxing we made our way to the guinness building, they teach you all about the brewing process and part of your entrance fee is a 'free' pint of guinness in a bar at the top of the building with 360 degree views of dublin.

howth shore

afterwards we wandered around the city to a pub, then another pub, found an italian place for dinner then one more stop before grabbing a taxi home.

temple bar

saturday we took the train to howth, a trip recommended to me by my irish co-worker. it was a quick journey right outside of the city. a really lovely little town, we had lunch and wandered around trying to get to the top of the hill. because of the off and on rain we never made it, turned back after walking for what felt like hours (probably 30 minutes or something more in that ball park!) after making our way back into dublin we met up with some of clay's friends for dinner and drinks, and drinks after dinner.


sunday was pretty relaxing, mostly just brunch and a bit more walking around the city with our tour guide.

yes, andy is drinking a coors light - in dublin of all places!

great weekend, probably a little too boozy, but it was dublin after all...

Happy 4th of July!

I hope that everyone has a great day today and an amazing long weekend. If you're reading this know that you're in our thoughts today. And when I say that, I mean mostly in a bad way since we've both been working all day today! But the weekend is here, the sun is shining, and we'll be tipping back a glass (or two) for American Independence.

not the best weather...

to knit, but what the heck! a month or so ago i was taught to knit and i just finished my first scarf. i made it for andy, and he graciously modeled it for me last night, even though it was about 80 degrees outside (and inside for that matter).

Wimbledon II

Trouble with pics, Catherine and I at Wimbledon

So, crazy story. We've been here long enough that we, or at least I, have traditions. The All England Club kicked off the oldest major in the professional tennis. Last year you may remember that we woke up at the crack of dawn and headed down for a day of rainy tennis, but an amazing experience. And now I can say comfortably that I go to Wimbledon every year. It's weird though, having been here long enough to start repeating activities.

This year, the more things stay the same, the more they change. I went with Catherine, except that it was our friend Catherine vs. the other half of the American Couple. Second, they've redone the queuing rules for the 1st t ime since 2001. You can camp in new spots :) And this year, instead of going at 530 am, we went down after work for 530 pm. We queued up as number 13457 and 8, and got into Wimbledon on the returned tickets. When people leave for the day, if you turn in your ticket they will resell it to people like us, and donate the second sale profits to charity. Pretty cool.

Saw a couple of great matches, had a quick beer, and called it a night. We saw an amazing 5 setter of mens tennis - the score says it all 4-6, 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 6-4. Last match going at Wimbledon last night. Good stuff.Courside, sweet!

Look at those readerboards - manual!

Hell of a serve...5 set match, 3 breaks total

This went 5 sets...

A visit to the Grand Duchy

I had a bit of a crazy week last week. In the course of 7 days I was in four countries. Which, when I say that, sounds pretty cool. As outlined in the previous post Katherine and I want to Nice and Monaco (lame). I was back in London Tuesday, and then flew to Luxembourg Wednesday morning, back Thursday afternoon. Last night, I fell asleep on the couch at something like 9pm.

As everyone knows (hehe) Luxembourg is a Grand Duchy - that is they have a monarch but they're not quite big enough to be a King, or even a principality like Monaco. That said, once you get into the airport you know something is going right in this dukedom. The airport has been open for 2 weeks and is running smoothly and makes sense. The airport is ~10 minutes from the middle of Luxembourg. And then there's the city. It feels almost like a Disneytown downtown because of all the old buildings, trees, the castle walls, etc. History there goes back to the1200's, you can still see castle walls and tar holes that go back to the 1400's. Part of it is a Unesco World Heritage site. It was very cool. And because they are a banking capital (good tax laws) they have a ton of money coming in the coffers so surrounding the old town is a lot of new, good looking buildings.

My companies headquarters are the nicest I've seen. They are way better than the ones here in the UK, and an incremental upgrade from those in the States. Right down in the valley in the middle of the old town, close to the river, a couple of good bars, and they even have their own garden with wireless access.

I was only there for 24 hours and didn't bring a camera. Hopefully Katherine and I will make it back to explore a bit more fully, visit some friends we have living there, and take some pictures!

sunny weekend away

me and andy

Early Friday morning Andy and I hopped on the bus, to the tube, to the train to arrive at the airport to set off to Nice...as we flew over the city towards the airport I was amazed at the blue, blue water! It was an absolutely amazing color, and looked just as amazing once we were walking along the promenade.

andy at sunset

We spent the weekend exploring the different ares of Nice, lounging on the beach, eating lovely food (fish, mussels, scallops, pizza, pastries, etc) and a glass of wine or two. Friday we spent getting oriented and used to the sun in the sky. We explored along the promenade and into old town a bit, called Ville Nice. Saturday we explored a bit more through old town, found a great market, and then headed for the beach! We went to a private beach so that we could get a lounger and towels, as well as food and drink service right to the lounger (they do a great job overall in having some private beach and then public beach all along the waterfront). Dinner that night was seafood all the way down in the port area.

me, working hard to avoid my skirt blowing up in the wind!

champagne on the beach

Sunday we took the 20 minute train ride up the coast to Monaco. I'm glad that we went, but it was not as glamorous or posh as I expected. It also wasn't that pretty of an area. Nice, and some of the small Riviera towns that we past through on the train, were much nicer. And speaking of glamor, Andy "gambled" away 20 euro's in 5 hands of video poker inside of THE casino in Monte Carlo. Very glamorous indeed.

monaco

The people, food and weather were all really, really lovely in Nice. Something else that was great was the wine - the wines of the area were cheap, but always really good. I wish we had gone for longer than 4 days, it's a place I would go back to. Even though I'm not a fan of swimming or water sports, I just adore the warm weather vacation at the beach (and thankfully, Andy's a fan too)! Next time we go, we'll bring Midnight along, I must have commented on all the cute dogs there about every 5 minutes, it was great!

little maltese on a shop counter

off in search of sunny weather......

will report back about Nice and Monte Carlo early next week....