Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Wicked!
Went and saw Wicked tonight, what a crazy and funny story. Who came up with this back story honestly? Loved all the tie-ins to the original movie and how it all "made sense". :) Jim and I established that we are truly not musical people but was definitely something I was glad to have finally seen.
Christmas Zeit
I love Christmas time and London is definitely a place to love it. While in London there aren't houses to hang lights on, each major shopping street (there are a lot) is completely decked out in lights and each street is a different theme of lights. Also a lot of the big department stores decorate by the outside of the building being under "sheets" of lights, we are talking major electric bills. So, if you don't mind the large crowds walking around in the evening is beautiful/gaudy :) My whole goal this past weekend was to forget work and be all about Christmas and was quite successful.
Friday night I went with a couple of girlfriends to three markets. The first titled the 'Super Christmas Market' which shopping wise was totally lame and not worth the £4 entrance fee but they had interactive games that were highly entertaining. I saw my first santa with a British accent and one room of this market was set-up as santa's office and a market attendee could sit down at santa's desk and he would give them a lie detector test and ask them ridiculous questions and be silly in order to determine if their name should be on the naughty or nice lists hanging from the wall. We only observed someone else doing this.
Another room had two 'life-size' reindeers made out of wood with a plastic air pump on their backs and a red balloon on their nose. Two people would race and see who could blow up and pop Rudolph's nose the fastest with the air pump to win. So Michelle VV and I had our hands ready to start pumping while Yang was setting up the camera when the people that were supposed to be running the booth walked it. To our displeasure we found out how the game realllllly worked. You are supposed to sit on the back of the reindeer, but your feet in the stir-ups, hang on and pump the balloon by thrusting your butt up and down on the pump! Well it was too late to back out so we put on quite the show for a crowd of strangers that quickly formed including some guy taking a video on his I-phone. Hilarious.
Market 2 and 3 were more low key, one was a chocolate festival with amazing chocolate art and yumminess and the other was a traditional German style market with booths of crafts, beer and mulled wine and bratwurst. Saturday, Christmas continued with shopping for decorations for the apt and going to a Christmas party with a White Elephant exchange at Michelle VV's. It was a lot of fun to hang in with everyone (not at a trendy club - our recent scene) and eat food and play games. Jim taught everyone Zumi Zumi and it was a hit! Hilarious.
Sunday, I actually hung up (with Jim's help/height) the 64 ornaments bulbs that I purchased and individually tied and strung. Looks pretty and economical! We also went to the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park a carnival/German Christmas market. It has so much going on and the food was awesome and tons of beer. There are "Bavarian pubs" throughout the market. I was discussing this yesterday with a guy from Amsterdam and he said the reason the German Christmas markets are so popular is because of all the drinking.....this all makes so much more sense now and something that definitely hasn't been adopted State-side.
Definition: Mulled Wine - have you heard of it? Extremely popular winter drink that is essentially red wine served hot with cinnamon and can have fruit in it. Picture warm Sangria, really good!
Friday night I went with a couple of girlfriends to three markets. The first titled the 'Super Christmas Market' which shopping wise was totally lame and not worth the £4 entrance fee but they had interactive games that were highly entertaining. I saw my first santa with a British accent and one room of this market was set-up as santa's office and a market attendee could sit down at santa's desk and he would give them a lie detector test and ask them ridiculous questions and be silly in order to determine if their name should be on the naughty or nice lists hanging from the wall. We only observed someone else doing this.
Another room had two 'life-size' reindeers made out of wood with a plastic air pump on their backs and a red balloon on their nose. Two people would race and see who could blow up and pop Rudolph's nose the fastest with the air pump to win. So Michelle VV and I had our hands ready to start pumping while Yang was setting up the camera when the people that were supposed to be running the booth walked it. To our displeasure we found out how the game realllllly worked. You are supposed to sit on the back of the reindeer, but your feet in the stir-ups, hang on and pump the balloon by thrusting your butt up and down on the pump! Well it was too late to back out so we put on quite the show for a crowd of strangers that quickly formed including some guy taking a video on his I-phone. Hilarious.
Market 2 and 3 were more low key, one was a chocolate festival with amazing chocolate art and yumminess and the other was a traditional German style market with booths of crafts, beer and mulled wine and bratwurst. Saturday, Christmas continued with shopping for decorations for the apt and going to a Christmas party with a White Elephant exchange at Michelle VV's. It was a lot of fun to hang in with everyone (not at a trendy club - our recent scene) and eat food and play games. Jim taught everyone Zumi Zumi and it was a hit! Hilarious.
Sunday, I actually hung up (with Jim's help/height) the 64 ornaments bulbs that I purchased and individually tied and strung. Looks pretty and economical! We also went to the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park a carnival/German Christmas market. It has so much going on and the food was awesome and tons of beer. There are "Bavarian pubs" throughout the market. I was discussing this yesterday with a guy from Amsterdam and he said the reason the German Christmas markets are so popular is because of all the drinking.....this all makes so much more sense now and something that definitely hasn't been adopted State-side.
Definition: Mulled Wine - have you heard of it? Extremely popular winter drink that is essentially red wine served hot with cinnamon and can have fruit in it. Picture warm Sangria, really good!
Monday, 29 November 2010
What a day
Today started with three hours sleep (so Chicago) trying to prepare for all my 'debts' being called in at work at the end of the interim audit and meetings with the partner and senior manager. The good news is I survived (even though that's like saying you won the game at half time) but it went pretty well and still have covered up how much more I have to do. I knew the last two weeks would be crazy because I've been the senior and manager on this job and it is the most responsibility I have ever had and in a new industry (telecom) which is wacky and I've been trying really hard (mostly because my Australian manager on my other job hates me and I don't want to get fired and have to leave London) haha. I really think I'm doing alright with everything stacked against me. It was really nice because at the end of today the 2nd and 3rd year guys on the job and who were on this job last year told me they thought I was doing a really good job and handling everything very well :) Too bad their review doesn't count for shit! I had a meeting with the partner, senior manager, financial controllers and financial directors which I had to lead while not understanding half of things on the agenda, but survived that, too.
By the way, today was another tube strike. After not getting to eat lunch consisting of half a sandwich until 3pm, I got to come home at a reasonable hour (7:30) and spend a normal evening with Jim and we went to the Sherlock Holmes Hotel down the street and watched the Barcelona vs Real Madrid football game. It was amazing! I'm serious, the best soccer game you could ever see (I've seen about 10 in my life but in Jim's opinion, too). Major rivals, in the rain, at least 6 yellow cards, fighting and 5-0 victory! So fun and I had a couple of glasses of wine to go along. The weirdest thing was a old man sat next to us and shared our table and he had a strong European face but the softest expression and he literally was the male version of Meema...it was so wierd. I spent most of the time choked up just wanting to cry looking at him. He was from Denmark but lived in London for 20 years and was the nicest man and was talking to us, but every time I looked over I saw her face, mostly the eyes, expression and half smile.
To top it off, booked a train ticket to see Bethany in France in March!!! :)
Love,
Michelle
By the way, today was another tube strike. After not getting to eat lunch consisting of half a sandwich until 3pm, I got to come home at a reasonable hour (7:30) and spend a normal evening with Jim and we went to the Sherlock Holmes Hotel down the street and watched the Barcelona vs Real Madrid football game. It was amazing! I'm serious, the best soccer game you could ever see (I've seen about 10 in my life but in Jim's opinion, too). Major rivals, in the rain, at least 6 yellow cards, fighting and 5-0 victory! So fun and I had a couple of glasses of wine to go along. The weirdest thing was a old man sat next to us and shared our table and he had a strong European face but the softest expression and he literally was the male version of Meema...it was so wierd. I spent most of the time choked up just wanting to cry looking at him. He was from Denmark but lived in London for 20 years and was the nicest man and was talking to us, but every time I looked over I saw her face, mostly the eyes, expression and half smile.
To top it off, booked a train ticket to see Bethany in France in March!!! :)
Love,
Michelle
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Thanksgiving weekend
I was never a big fan of Thanksgiving (I know most people do not understand) but in not having it this year and working super hard on Thursday and Friday, I realised its better to have one than not at all!
Today was a fun and freezing day. I got up relatively early did some work and then we headed to the crazy Camden market which we hadn't been to since one of our first weekends in August. Finally bought Jim his birthday present an official Chelsea jersey! Now he will be decked out if we head over to The Globe pub tomorrow afternoon to watch the game. Football may mean different things in different countries but in the US we would never refer to the players as footballers like they do here. At the Camden market we grabbed some surprisely good Chinese food from a vendor and sat outside on motorcycle seats along the Camden locks to eat until we were shaking cold. I guess I really won't be able to shop around until it is spring again so we found a cosy coffee shop (Costa - one of the chains) and had hot chocolate with marshmallows and whip cream. We also tried mulled wine from another vendor which I keep hearing about as a popular wintery drink. It was like hot sangria; pretty good. Then we had sushi for lunch haha. The sushi wasn't very good but it was a cool place where you sit on a cushion on the floor (but then the floor goes down below the table so you have room to put your legs like you would in a normal chair).
We attempted again to get me a real mobile, but of course another crazy rule, that to get onto Jim's plan and thus a monthly discount he has to have three months of paid phone bills in order to add a second line because he doesn't have a UK passport. ?
Spent the rest of the afternoon doing laundry and starting to book our next set of adventures. Planned a weekend in Portugal at the end of January!! Hopefully we will find a great deal for Feb, too.
Missing my family and extended family for the long weekend, but will see the Voss's in less than a month!
Now we need to decide if we are going to go out to dinner or just eat mac n cheese again before going to a housewarming party for some girls I work with; one from Miami/Mississippi and the other from Columbia.
Lots of love,
Chicago Michelle (there is a Dutch Michelle)
Today was a fun and freezing day. I got up relatively early did some work and then we headed to the crazy Camden market which we hadn't been to since one of our first weekends in August. Finally bought Jim his birthday present an official Chelsea jersey! Now he will be decked out if we head over to The Globe pub tomorrow afternoon to watch the game. Football may mean different things in different countries but in the US we would never refer to the players as footballers like they do here. At the Camden market we grabbed some surprisely good Chinese food from a vendor and sat outside on motorcycle seats along the Camden locks to eat until we were shaking cold. I guess I really won't be able to shop around until it is spring again so we found a cosy coffee shop (Costa - one of the chains) and had hot chocolate with marshmallows and whip cream. We also tried mulled wine from another vendor which I keep hearing about as a popular wintery drink. It was like hot sangria; pretty good. Then we had sushi for lunch haha. The sushi wasn't very good but it was a cool place where you sit on a cushion on the floor (but then the floor goes down below the table so you have room to put your legs like you would in a normal chair).
We attempted again to get me a real mobile, but of course another crazy rule, that to get onto Jim's plan and thus a monthly discount he has to have three months of paid phone bills in order to add a second line because he doesn't have a UK passport. ?
Spent the rest of the afternoon doing laundry and starting to book our next set of adventures. Planned a weekend in Portugal at the end of January!! Hopefully we will find a great deal for Feb, too.
Missing my family and extended family for the long weekend, but will see the Voss's in less than a month!
Now we need to decide if we are going to go out to dinner or just eat mac n cheese again before going to a housewarming party for some girls I work with; one from Miami/Mississippi and the other from Columbia.
Lots of love,
Chicago Michelle (there is a Dutch Michelle)
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Survey Says
Today I asked the three guys I'm working with if they have ever had ranch dressing and these are the responses I got:
Guy #1: No
Guy #2: Eww, that stuff is not good and it's it really bad for you?
Guy #3: Ranch is awesome (he studied at UNC-Chapel Hill for one year haha)
Brilliant!
If you want to get a country in tizzy announce a royal engagement, it was breaking news on BBC for the entire day, nothing else. I think they were really stretching for time showing clips of Kate's graduation video and pictures of her family home. I love it and wished I wasn't working so I could watch.
On the announcement day I asked these same three guys what they thought of the royal family. The response was indifference. As long as they weren't costing them too much money. And the one guy thought it cost each tax payer 20p (20 cents) a year. Maybe they publish this type of information?!
Guy #1: No
Guy #2: Eww, that stuff is not good and it's it really bad for you?
Guy #3: Ranch is awesome (he studied at UNC-Chapel Hill for one year haha)
Brilliant!
If you want to get a country in tizzy announce a royal engagement, it was breaking news on BBC for the entire day, nothing else. I think they were really stretching for time showing clips of Kate's graduation video and pictures of her family home. I love it and wished I wasn't working so I could watch.
On the announcement day I asked these same three guys what they thought of the royal family. The response was indifference. As long as they weren't costing them too much money. And the one guy thought it cost each tax payer 20p (20 cents) a year. Maybe they publish this type of information?!
Monday, 15 November 2010
Londoness Randomness
The problem with not blogging continuously is that you don't know where to begin when you finally do. I don't know if there will ever be a time that I'd be able to consider myself a Londoner (Chicago for life!), but trying my damnedest. Today on the tube home I was studying my A to Z (London map book) and memorising the streets in my neighborhood (must remember to bring a book with me at all times so this doesn't happen again!) I spent loads of time on the Tube today because of work computer problems so I got up early to jet down to the PwC office, then Tubed to the client, then back to PwC in the afternoon, then back to the client and then home. All possible because all in Central London and surprisingly easy. Part way through one journey my Tube stopping running due to some security alert at another stop but it was okay because I found a bus without much trouble and then got to sight see London not below ground. I enjoy my time on the bus with my eyes glued to the window taking in every inch of the city like a little kid.
Currently listening to Coldplay.
With Jim's many trips outside of London for various reasons (next weekend will be #5 in a row) I've been on may own growing into London (past the three month mark?!?!) and it has been a blast! There are a lot of great people here with PwC and a network outside of PwC that has expanded from that. I have done more dancing in the last couple weekends than I have in a while and I'm finally growing out of my liking to go home at midnight phase (really the past two years post surgery). We've trying out the London club scene and traditional Asian cuisine of all types (stretching my comfort zones every time but always good)
I've been knocking out some of the classic touristy things as well including Madame Tussauds (wax museum) where I got my picture taken sitting in the oval office with Obama, Johnny Depp and fighting over Tiger Woods. Total tourist trap but I ate it up and it was 5 minutes from my flat! Enjoyed spending the day with new friends and exploring the Imperial War Museum and taking in more war than I could handle and never knew rockets/missiles were so big. To top it off there has a trip to Harrod's for proper afternoon tea. We were all giddy it was so exciting and the whole atmosphere of the thing. Did you know that while in Harrod's you could buy gallery artwork and a live puppy at the same time? Along within anything else your heart could posssibly desire, maybe even a treat from the doggie bakery if you behave and don't spend your whole bank account on designer gear. Really looking forward to going back and spending a day there, I probably only saw 5%.
I had another grand/terrible discovery in that we are a very easy walk away from the heart of the shopping district so if you are meeting people to go out in a couple hours and you have nothing to wear....you could just go buy a new dress....(but at H&M cheap!)
I miss everyone! I just checked the newest facebook pictures up from our trip to Harrod's and I got lost in my pictures and went all the way back into MU days and got homesick!
Cheers!
Currently listening to Coldplay.
With Jim's many trips outside of London for various reasons (next weekend will be #5 in a row) I've been on may own growing into London (past the three month mark?!?!) and it has been a blast! There are a lot of great people here with PwC and a network outside of PwC that has expanded from that. I have done more dancing in the last couple weekends than I have in a while and I'm finally growing out of my liking to go home at midnight phase (really the past two years post surgery). We've trying out the London club scene and traditional Asian cuisine of all types (stretching my comfort zones every time but always good)
I've been knocking out some of the classic touristy things as well including Madame Tussauds (wax museum) where I got my picture taken sitting in the oval office with Obama, Johnny Depp and fighting over Tiger Woods. Total tourist trap but I ate it up and it was 5 minutes from my flat! Enjoyed spending the day with new friends and exploring the Imperial War Museum and taking in more war than I could handle and never knew rockets/missiles were so big. To top it off there has a trip to Harrod's for proper afternoon tea. We were all giddy it was so exciting and the whole atmosphere of the thing. Did you know that while in Harrod's you could buy gallery artwork and a live puppy at the same time? Along within anything else your heart could posssibly desire, maybe even a treat from the doggie bakery if you behave and don't spend your whole bank account on designer gear. Really looking forward to going back and spending a day there, I probably only saw 5%.
I had another grand/terrible discovery in that we are a very easy walk away from the heart of the shopping district so if you are meeting people to go out in a couple hours and you have nothing to wear....you could just go buy a new dress....(but at H&M cheap!)
I miss everyone! I just checked the newest facebook pictures up from our trip to Harrod's and I got lost in my pictures and went all the way back into MU days and got homesick!
Cheers!
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Cheers
In London you will hear the word cheers one hundred times a day. Apparently it has many uses:
1) clinking your glass or beer bottle like we normally think of the word
2) signing off an e-mail
Cheers,
Michelle
3) ending a phone conversation or any conversation....."Cheers! Bye!"
4) expressing gratitude. Like this morning, I am on the bus and it is ready to pull away. There is a guy running down the block to catch the bus and the bus decides to wait for him. When he finally gets on the bus, he says to the bus driver "Cheers!".
So now you know. Other stereotypical British words really are used as well. Rubish, bloody hell, brilliant and fuck off.
My favorites:
We had our third tube strike on Wednesday and the announcement at the station was "Charing Cross station is closed due to industrial action". Industrial action?! You mean strike...
You will not be asked if you want some more wine, you will be asked if you need a "top-up".
You must Mind everything. There is no watch your step or watch your head warnings; it is "Mind your head" or "Mind the gap".
Now that you are practically native like us you can come visit!!!
1) clinking your glass or beer bottle like we normally think of the word
2) signing off an e-mail
Cheers,
Michelle
3) ending a phone conversation or any conversation....."Cheers! Bye!"
4) expressing gratitude. Like this morning, I am on the bus and it is ready to pull away. There is a guy running down the block to catch the bus and the bus decides to wait for him. When he finally gets on the bus, he says to the bus driver "Cheers!".
So now you know. Other stereotypical British words really are used as well. Rubish, bloody hell, brilliant and fuck off.
My favorites:
We had our third tube strike on Wednesday and the announcement at the station was "Charing Cross station is closed due to industrial action". Industrial action?! You mean strike...
You will not be asked if you want some more wine, you will be asked if you need a "top-up".
You must Mind everything. There is no watch your step or watch your head warnings; it is "Mind your head" or "Mind the gap".
Now that you are practically native like us you can come visit!!!
Monday, 1 November 2010
Halloween and typical Monday nights
Celebrated Halloween this weekend in full force North American style (because we were with Canadians too). It was seriously a blast and went to a Halloween party set-up by this company Britbound who does things for people relocating to London. The party was full of decorations and even the limbo. Overall Halloween isn't that big of a thing here and not everyone goes to Halloween Fancy Dress parties (that is what costume parties are called). After many Jager bombs and tons of dancing (even to 80's songs) to match my outfit it was a great long night and felt like I really got to know this group of people a lot better. A couple of girls from work and their boyfriends and then a bunch of other people all recently moved that have kind of come together.
The rest of the weekend was super low key and involved only leaving the house to go to the grocery store! And lots of Skyping with jim (who was in Turkey), mum and dad, Kait and Megan! It was fabulous and deep cleaned our flat and watched movies and finished my 500 page British chicklit book which was hard to put down.
The weekend ended with Jim finally coming back from 9 days in Turkey for fall break at 1am Monday morning. Then having so much to catch up on barely slept, but a typical Monday work day here couldn't end without drinks and a social event, so I drank some wine, beers and bowled two games. I'm actually getting excited for this next audit job now because the team is so great! I really enjoyed them and even the manager and director! Wow, I really hope this continues, but I'm optimistic.
It's about time for bed with my eyes burning and throat hurting, allergies or a cold is still to be determined. Jim is still recovering from his Turkey food poisoning which has been going on badly for about 6 days.
Side note, Megan picked up on my slight British accent haha, love it!
Side note number two, this is the first entry for November on Nov 1 and I'm planning for a blog filled month which means I better do some exciting things!
Cheers!
The rest of the weekend was super low key and involved only leaving the house to go to the grocery store! And lots of Skyping with jim (who was in Turkey), mum and dad, Kait and Megan! It was fabulous and deep cleaned our flat and watched movies and finished my 500 page British chicklit book which was hard to put down.
The weekend ended with Jim finally coming back from 9 days in Turkey for fall break at 1am Monday morning. Then having so much to catch up on barely slept, but a typical Monday work day here couldn't end without drinks and a social event, so I drank some wine, beers and bowled two games. I'm actually getting excited for this next audit job now because the team is so great! I really enjoyed them and even the manager and director! Wow, I really hope this continues, but I'm optimistic.
It's about time for bed with my eyes burning and throat hurting, allergies or a cold is still to be determined. Jim is still recovering from his Turkey food poisoning which has been going on badly for about 6 days.
Side note, Megan picked up on my slight British accent haha, love it!
Side note number two, this is the first entry for November on Nov 1 and I'm planning for a blog filled month which means I better do some exciting things!
Cheers!
Saturday, 16 October 2010
Delayed blogging
One blog so far in the month of October; not so good as it is half over! I blame work (officially been there for two months today) and the crazy London social life where everyone has something going on EVERY night without fail.
Monday - Work drinks with the client
Tuesday - Forced out for a drink with a couple teachers at the local pub around the corner
Wednesday - Jim and I went to some live music in Camden
Thursday - Work drinks with the department
Friday - 1st ever Marquette alumni event in London!!!
Saturday - Jim wants to go to the Roadhouse which looks insanely rowdy
I want to point out that I am drinking English Breakfast tea while writing this, my new drink of choice. You put milk in it making it actually look like coffee. When I was on my last client if you made a cup of tea you had to ask everyone in the office if they wanted some which was over 10 people and make it for anyone that said yes. When the manager asked me to make them tea, (which felt like hazing haha on my first day), I said do you really want an American making your tea? So he "showed" me how to make tea, and it turned out I didn't know because I'd never heard of the milk thing before and their crazy hot water pots which are not the traditional tea kettle.
To back up, we spent last weekend in Barcelona! Neither of us had ever been to Spain and it was fantastic. Barcelona was beautiful and it seemed every inch of the buildings and every brick in the sidewalk had so much detail and the architecture makes the city special including a lot of buildings by the famous Gaudi. His stuff is pretty wacked out looking and almost whimsical but it's in the middle of the city and lots of color. I felt smart because I thought I figured out where the American word gaudy originated. According to Weber though, that is not true.
Monday - Work drinks with the client
Tuesday - Forced out for a drink with a couple teachers at the local pub around the corner
Wednesday - Jim and I went to some live music in Camden
Thursday - Work drinks with the department
Friday - 1st ever Marquette alumni event in London!!!
Saturday - Jim wants to go to the Roadhouse which looks insanely rowdy
I want to point out that I am drinking English Breakfast tea while writing this, my new drink of choice. You put milk in it making it actually look like coffee. When I was on my last client if you made a cup of tea you had to ask everyone in the office if they wanted some which was over 10 people and make it for anyone that said yes. When the manager asked me to make them tea, (which felt like hazing haha on my first day), I said do you really want an American making your tea? So he "showed" me how to make tea, and it turned out I didn't know because I'd never heard of the milk thing before and their crazy hot water pots which are not the traditional tea kettle.
To back up, we spent last weekend in Barcelona! Neither of us had ever been to Spain and it was fantastic. Barcelona was beautiful and it seemed every inch of the buildings and every brick in the sidewalk had so much detail and the architecture makes the city special including a lot of buildings by the famous Gaudi. His stuff is pretty wacked out looking and almost whimsical but it's in the middle of the city and lots of color. I felt smart because I thought I figured out where the American word gaudy originated. According to Weber though, that is not true.
 |
| Gaudi |
We only had one day in Barcelona bc Friday and Sunday were just travel days. Stanstead airport (Ryan Air) is over an hour bus ride outside of Central London, then we actually flew into Girona, Spain which is a half hour outside of Girona, which is then 1.5 hours to Barcelona. But it was totally worth and with a good chick lit book the traveling went by quickly. We saw all three of the big cathedrals including one with a formal mass wedding going on in Spanish! It was so cool. The wedding was going on in the front of the cathedral and the back was still open to tourists. We walked the beach at night, ate traditional food, it was all around great.
London pub names of the day:
The Horniman (MU alum event on the river)
The Twelve Pins
The Beehive (our local pub around the corner)
Yes, apparently the first name of an English pub must be The. Tomorrow we want to go to The Duke of Wellington for a Sunday roast.
Work...is less than to be desired and the stress level has gone up. Although, the hours are still better. I need to be working right now before our busy Saturday starts but....friends and family first. Basically, it is the similar story of a stressed out manager and complicated work and oh yeah you're auditing.
The MU alumni event was fun. Around 12 people came and we were the youngest, but it felt so nice to be around familar people with familar accents talking about familar things like Blo's and we even did an MU trivia quiz which was quite hard. We didn't make any great friends or exchange any numbers, but everyone was really interested in doing another event in January. I even made a potential job contact for the future! True to Marquette form we realised (catch the s not z) that somehow the night flew by and it was 11:45pm and we had to catch the Tube before it stopped running.
The docket is big for today, going to Borough market, a modern art fair in Regent's park, out to a french restaurant for dinner and then the crazy Roadhouse bar tonight.
Cheers! :)
Sunday, 3 October 2010
The Goat in Boots
That is the name of an English pub we passed this afternoon. They have the most ridiculous names, and I love it. I will continue to keep track of any good ones I see and put them on here. The only other good one I can remember right now is The Cock and I took a picture of the sign for Sarah.
We had ourselves a proper London weekend. Friday night I worked late and met up with Jim and a couple of people from his school at the MGMT concert. Awesome that we saw them again after just seeing them in Chicago at Lalla, but wasn't quite the same excitement and energy in the show as when we saw them before. It was a cool, smaller, standing room only venue that was made to look like you were outside in a piazza surrounded by old European buildings and at the top of the really high ceiling there was a single England flag (white with red cross) flat on the ceiling and slightly waving. That was surreal looking up at the flag with the music and lights going and thinking wow that's where I am.
Saturday = shopping! London shopping is so fantastic. I celebrated having our first full month paycheck and finally got some birthday presents. haha. I can't wait to go when girls come to visit! It's a good mix of stores you've never heard of and classics like Anthropologie :) The whole area is PACKed with tourists, love it.
I've been really enjoying the food here; had two great Italian lunches and had Korean food for the first time. We went out to dinner Saturday night for Korean with two people from my work and two girls from Canada and a guy from New York. It is cool how everybody keeps meeting people through other people here not from work and everyone has recently arrived. Stayed out and did some dancing at Bar Soho until I could barely walk anymore in my wedge boots. How do people wear heels?!
Sunday we started picking up an internet signal in our flat and booked hostels for next weekend in BARCELONA and booked a three day trip to Chamonix to go skiing in France in December!! Very excited. It will be a short and quick trip before the Vosses' arrive at Christmas. We also went to a Chelsea pub by the Chelsea stadium in Fulham and watched the game. Packed mostly male crowd cheering and really getting into the game and Jim's team won! I'm on the fence on where my loyalties lie...Then we needed to figure out the buses because another Tube strike started! The good thing was in waiting 20 minutes for the bus a belgium waffle and gelato shop caught our eye and it was all worth it.
Found out that there is some kind of Marquette alumni event in London in two weeks. How cool is that? Really looking forward to meeting others that are over here. Got to talk to Beth and my Dad on the phone/Skype this weekend, too! I like feeling connected and normal.
Majorly procrasinated on the work I was supposed to finish this weekend and going to training for the next two days which may be a 1.5 hr bus ride with the tube strike tomorrow. Training will be interesting because it's one I actually taught in Chicago, but they want us to take it again because there could be differences is some of the things they teach here compared to the US. Wednesday starts a year-end audit, ahh hopefully the hours stay as wonderful as they have been :)
Cheers!
We had ourselves a proper London weekend. Friday night I worked late and met up with Jim and a couple of people from his school at the MGMT concert. Awesome that we saw them again after just seeing them in Chicago at Lalla, but wasn't quite the same excitement and energy in the show as when we saw them before. It was a cool, smaller, standing room only venue that was made to look like you were outside in a piazza surrounded by old European buildings and at the top of the really high ceiling there was a single England flag (white with red cross) flat on the ceiling and slightly waving. That was surreal looking up at the flag with the music and lights going and thinking wow that's where I am.
Saturday = shopping! London shopping is so fantastic. I celebrated having our first full month paycheck and finally got some birthday presents. haha. I can't wait to go when girls come to visit! It's a good mix of stores you've never heard of and classics like Anthropologie :) The whole area is PACKed with tourists, love it.
I've been really enjoying the food here; had two great Italian lunches and had Korean food for the first time. We went out to dinner Saturday night for Korean with two people from my work and two girls from Canada and a guy from New York. It is cool how everybody keeps meeting people through other people here not from work and everyone has recently arrived. Stayed out and did some dancing at Bar Soho until I could barely walk anymore in my wedge boots. How do people wear heels?!
Sunday we started picking up an internet signal in our flat and booked hostels for next weekend in BARCELONA and booked a three day trip to Chamonix to go skiing in France in December!! Very excited. It will be a short and quick trip before the Vosses' arrive at Christmas. We also went to a Chelsea pub by the Chelsea stadium in Fulham and watched the game. Packed mostly male crowd cheering and really getting into the game and Jim's team won! I'm on the fence on where my loyalties lie...Then we needed to figure out the buses because another Tube strike started! The good thing was in waiting 20 minutes for the bus a belgium waffle and gelato shop caught our eye and it was all worth it.
Found out that there is some kind of Marquette alumni event in London in two weeks. How cool is that? Really looking forward to meeting others that are over here. Got to talk to Beth and my Dad on the phone/Skype this weekend, too! I like feeling connected and normal.
Majorly procrasinated on the work I was supposed to finish this weekend and going to training for the next two days which may be a 1.5 hr bus ride with the tube strike tomorrow. Training will be interesting because it's one I actually taught in Chicago, but they want us to take it again because there could be differences is some of the things they teach here compared to the US. Wednesday starts a year-end audit, ahh hopefully the hours stay as wonderful as they have been :)
Cheers!
Sunday, 26 September 2010
London homecoming
So I was coming "home" to London from Italy and that was a little strange because it didn't really feel like I was going home. It's different when you live in a fully furnished place so nothing is actually yours except for your clothes. Saturday and Sunday I joined the local library (two blocks away with wi-fi!!!), continued the battle to buy the internet, found a much better grocery store (Waitrose), etc. and felt a lot more at home. One thing I noticed is whenever anyone asks me where I'm from and I say Chicago, I get a big smile on my face. :) Don't know if I'm going to make it all of the way till June!
The rest of the audit in Padova was fun. Incredible pasta every single day and I was with a great group of nice guys who were also serious drinkers from London and drank 9 days in a row. Are we back in Uni? (college). The people in Italy were incredibly hospitable. We left with presents! Pesto and spaghetti noodles. Italy definitely feels different from the US but London doesn't always seem that way, and not just because it's the same language. In week 2 of Italy I started writing Italian e-mails through Google Translator. It worked pretty well, with very basic english sentences and changing around some of the words that didn't look right.
I splurged on a copy of US Weekly in English in the Venice airport which was completely worth it and now I'm up on the latest celebrity happenings. Guilty pleasure.
The weekend was pretty low key with laundry, errands, but Saturday night we went out to dinner at a restaurant where one of Jim's fellow teacher's boyfriend is the chef. It was a little fancy and very good. After a lot of wine, we all went out to a bar playing American top 40 (much appreciated) until somehow it ended in Jim's fellow teacher getting punched in the face by another girl and dragged out of the bar forcefully by the bouncer. The security definitely messed up and were out of line. The whole thing was madness. It started with a little tiff of two girls dancing in each other's space on the dance floors and elbowing. Finally went to bed at four. Woke up at noon on Sunday and found a local bagel shop where according to the sign on the wall "bagels are America's best kept health secret". Wish that were true. Sunday night Jim's teacher friend and chef boyfriend are cooking us a Sunday roast at their flat, yum!
Jim went to his first Premier League soccer game yesterday with the director of his school. Unfortunately "my team" (Arsenal) got their butts kicked.
Cheers!
The rest of the audit in Padova was fun. Incredible pasta every single day and I was with a great group of nice guys who were also serious drinkers from London and drank 9 days in a row. Are we back in Uni? (college). The people in Italy were incredibly hospitable. We left with presents! Pesto and spaghetti noodles. Italy definitely feels different from the US but London doesn't always seem that way, and not just because it's the same language. In week 2 of Italy I started writing Italian e-mails through Google Translator. It worked pretty well, with very basic english sentences and changing around some of the words that didn't look right.
I splurged on a copy of US Weekly in English in the Venice airport which was completely worth it and now I'm up on the latest celebrity happenings. Guilty pleasure.
The weekend was pretty low key with laundry, errands, but Saturday night we went out to dinner at a restaurant where one of Jim's fellow teacher's boyfriend is the chef. It was a little fancy and very good. After a lot of wine, we all went out to a bar playing American top 40 (much appreciated) until somehow it ended in Jim's fellow teacher getting punched in the face by another girl and dragged out of the bar forcefully by the bouncer. The security definitely messed up and were out of line. The whole thing was madness. It started with a little tiff of two girls dancing in each other's space on the dance floors and elbowing. Finally went to bed at four. Woke up at noon on Sunday and found a local bagel shop where according to the sign on the wall "bagels are America's best kept health secret". Wish that were true. Sunday night Jim's teacher friend and chef boyfriend are cooking us a Sunday roast at their flat, yum!
Jim went to his first Premier League soccer game yesterday with the director of his school. Unfortunately "my team" (Arsenal) got their butts kicked.
Cheers!
Monday, 20 September 2010
Venezia
We’d heard mixed reviews on Venice and hadn’t really put it on our list because people said it wasn’t that great, dirty, smelly, etc. Well we definitely learned it is wise to make your own judgements because Venice is AMAZING! It is truly a city on water with so much history and Italian charm. There are multiple little islands and in the main part of the city where we stayed there were no cars and there really wouldn’t be a place for them. You rely on the water buses or residents have their own boats.
I was in Venice by about 3:30 Friday afternoon and a few of us that were working in Padova last week came in for the weekend instead of going back to London. True to form, I hadn’t planned anything out and the Google map I’d printed minutes before leaving didn’t suffice. Once we got out of the train station, I headed to San Marco, the famous square at the heart of Venice, on a water bus. Then I realised my Venice map sucked but I found an information office, got a real map and someone to lead me in the right direction. Jim didn’t get in until about midnight, so after settling in at the hostel and finding the local supermercato I decided to ride around on a water bus for about an hour and a half. Who cares about gondolas when you have the water bus! It’s awesome because you can stand outside and travel down the Grand Canal and get a boat tour of all the gorgeous buildings lining the water. That night I met a girl from work for an outside dinner along a canal and learned about her life in Kenya/London.
It rained/poured Friday and Saturday, but was a blast nonetheless. Me and Jim took the water bus to the island of Murano and spend most of the day wandering around and looking at all the glass shops. Insanely gorgeous art and unfortunately you can’t take pictures of their stuff to explain why it is famous. I’ve already picked out every light fixture I want for my house that doesn’t exist. Owning a Venetian Murano glass chandelier is now on my life goal list. Meaning we’ve decided that we will come back here someday. We figured the best way to spend the evening after being wet and cold was to find a cosy Italian restaurant and get a bottle of red wine. It was perfect.
Due to the expense, we passed on doing most things like gondolas (€80), museums and tours. Sunday was beautiful sunny weather and we walked aimlessly through the tiny (think alleys) city streets and over bridges until we wore out our feet and camera battery. We stopped for a great lunch along a canal with white wine and Quattro formaggi gnocchi (my third time of four, yum!).
I think September was a great time of year to come here with a few less tourists and not hot so you don’t smell any algae. Lesson learned; learn some Italian before buying said chandelier and attempting to do any more accounting audits. I’m really looking forward to one more week in Padova and figuring out how to communicate with Donatella.
Ciao!
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
The past two weeks
Time is flying by. We just hit the one month mark. Do I have a British accent at all? No. Do I know my way around Central London fairly well and public transportation? Yes. Two weekends ago we took a train to the English sea shore because we are in fact on an island except it doesn’t feel like it and no one seems to really think about it like that. While it was pretty, we are not talking sandy beaches or anything you would want to swim in and lots of broken crab shells and fish skeletons. We went to Whistable in the Canterbury area which was a very nice small town with little stores including a sandwich cafe with the best hot chocolate and a cupcake shop. Pictures will best describe the “beach houses” that line the shores. These were the funniest little things. Little sheds really in different paint colors lining the hillside in tight rows. Without plumbing it is mostly a place to store your chairs and still on the porch. I kept thinking about the houses compared to Folly Beach and it was so different. Jim and I met these great 12 year old boys and played tag. This was hilarious and ended with me wiping out on my butt. We chatted with one kid for a while and his dream is to be a professional football player for Portugal cause England sucks or a fireman like his dad.
The Saturday markets in the city are amazing. The big three appear to be Borough, Portobello and Camden and are all unique. We decided that we will rotate these any Saturday we are in town. Borough is all about insanely fresh food like prosciutto being sliced right off the leg and aged cheeses. The US FDA would freak out if they saw the amount of food sitting out not enclosed, no refrigerated and not pasteurized. We sampled tons of cheeses and sausages and walked around chopping on a loaf of rosemary foccacia. Portobello is more antiques and food vendors with different ethnic foods.
This past weekend was really pretty tame. Friday we both spent separately with our respective groups of work friends which I think will continue to be a trend. Saturday was the market and then a get together at our new friends from Houston’s house with other people from my work including two from Amsterdam. This night was super fun and ended in us crashing at their house and taking the Tube hungover the next morning which is not advised.
Sunday the weather was particularly nice so we opened our apartment window and sat on the sill for awhile (no screens which freaks me out about with bugs and that our windows are constantly open 24/7. We’ll hope for the best.
Oh yeah and I went shopping! I wandered down Oxford Street and went into every store because I had no idea what was what and had to check them all out. There are so many and lots of fun. Now I am decked out with my proper trench coat (a must), work shoes that no longer have holes and a purse bag for my computer because the backpack they gave us was not going to cut it. I don’t need any more help in looking like I’m 5 years old at work J
Travel plans:
ITALY – right now J
Barcelona – October 8th weekend
Turkey (Jim only, boo work on a year-end client – late October)
Alps – December TBC (This use this instead of TBD)
Paris – with the Vosses after Christmas!!!
English really can be a whole different language. I think I understand about half of what people are saying (Exaggeration). Accounting lingo is the worst. Who knew the Turnover means Revenue, huh? And financial statements are called accounts. Every internal PwC word is also a different acronym.
This blog entry is a mix of a bunch of random thoughts because the internet is really hard to come by. To show my dedication I am actually writing this in Word and going to transfer this to the blog in the morning once I get to the office. Apparently internet at the hotel is €80 + a week, what?! That means there will be delays in all the e-mails and pictures I was planning for the week.
Tonight I sat there thinking life has become really random as I was sitting in Italy with three British guys and one from San Antonio and all from the client and ordering bottles of wine and them telling drunk stories. In the Italian hotel in Padova you have to insert your key card into a reader on the room wall in order to make the lights work. This I did not figure out until I went down to the front desk. After dinner I watched Mean Girls on TV dubbed in German and then the Miss Italia competition which was in Italian but still interesting. Jim is coming to Venice on Friday for the weekend, yay!
Miss you all.
Love,
Michelle
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Work
Probably time to write something about this. Overall pretty good. Although I am slowly seeing my new found worklife balances slipping away...
I seem to have some pretty great clients including MTV. MTV?! Coal plants and uranium to MTV? That is definitely an improvement. As you might think, the MTV office is pretty cool. It is in the punk/alternative/hippie part of London and there are music videos streaming on the wall of the lobby. I sat in a conference room with a giant picture of Jay-Z and the dress code in very casual. I was sitting there one morning and started hearing Ke$ha. Apparently music continuously streams through the speaker system (although softly). There is another conference room that has phrases written in the frosted glass. (There is some VIVA MTV thing with a slogan that starts with UP). Phrases included: "Up your Power-pointless presentations", "Up your bored-room meetings" and best of all "Up your doing it on the boardroom table". FOR REAL? Love it.
Then I'm going to be senioring a telecomm client and doing some work for advertising client in ITALY for two weeks! I can't believe. In two weeks I will be going to Padova, Italy (one hourish from Venice) for two weeks. It will be a solo mission and I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to be doing until I meet with the client tomorrow. This is the first work we are doing for them and it's all me which is a little intimidating but quite fantastic. I'm going to stay the weekend in between and Jim will fly in.
This fall is turning out to be quite busy. I'm not going to be able to use my free "settling in" days or my 2.5 vacation days before Sept. 30 and I can't take time off for Beth to visit over Thanksgiving. Hopefully nothing to insane though. I will keep you posted.
Work is strange because it is very similar but yet all the small things are different in terms in admin and the actual auditing. It's kind of like being new. It's interesting because I think I expected it to be exactly the same, or things I didn't realize could be different are and the US has more resources and is ahead in the technology we use.
Happy Tuesday :) Miss everybody!
I seem to have some pretty great clients including MTV. MTV?! Coal plants and uranium to MTV? That is definitely an improvement. As you might think, the MTV office is pretty cool. It is in the punk/alternative/hippie part of London and there are music videos streaming on the wall of the lobby. I sat in a conference room with a giant picture of Jay-Z and the dress code in very casual. I was sitting there one morning and started hearing Ke$ha. Apparently music continuously streams through the speaker system (although softly). There is another conference room that has phrases written in the frosted glass. (There is some VIVA MTV thing with a slogan that starts with UP). Phrases included: "Up your Power-pointless presentations", "Up your bored-room meetings" and best of all "Up your doing it on the boardroom table". FOR REAL? Love it.
Then I'm going to be senioring a telecomm client and doing some work for advertising client in ITALY for two weeks! I can't believe. In two weeks I will be going to Padova, Italy (one hourish from Venice) for two weeks. It will be a solo mission and I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to be doing until I meet with the client tomorrow. This is the first work we are doing for them and it's all me which is a little intimidating but quite fantastic. I'm going to stay the weekend in between and Jim will fly in.
This fall is turning out to be quite busy. I'm not going to be able to use my free "settling in" days or my 2.5 vacation days before Sept. 30 and I can't take time off for Beth to visit over Thanksgiving. Hopefully nothing to insane though. I will keep you posted.
Work is strange because it is very similar but yet all the small things are different in terms in admin and the actual auditing. It's kind of like being new. It's interesting because I think I expected it to be exactly the same, or things I didn't realize could be different are and the US has more resources and is ahead in the technology we use.
Happy Tuesday :) Miss everybody!
Labor Day the UK way
This past weekend was the UK summer bank holiday which is similar to Labor Day in signifying the end of summer and getting Monday off from work. In celebration we did the following:
Friday: Met up with some of Jim's fellow teachers at our local pub after work. It was great to finally meet some of them and the group had two teachers from Mexico, one Aussie, one from Ohio and none from Britain. So far this is how things have been going. We have met so many people from other countries but not many locals. This is a VERY international city and it amazes me that I have probably met more people from around the globe in the last few weeks than I have in my entire life.
We really like the English pubs (by definition open till 11pm. I don't like that part). They have so much atmosphere and you feel like you are in a living room, with coaches/love seats and chandeliers. We also found a bar (open later) that had a hip-hop dance party going on and that felt like home.
Saturday: Another attempt at getting the internet for our apartment. Unsuccessful. Grocery shopping at a "real" (but still small) store. Pretty successful. Although, there was no mac n' cheese in a box. This is going to be an issue. I'm thinking I might need to learn to make it from scratch with all my new found free time and my great new kitchen.
We went to the St. Pancras train station and asked what was the soonest/cheapest National Rail tickets we could get for the day. This was followed by "Well, where do you want to go?". We didn't care, but the ticket agent wasn't exactly prepared to play travel agent for us. We ended up going to Cambridge because this train station apparently only went north.
Cambridge... We all have heard of Cambridge as in the University but this town was really great and definitely exceeded my expectations. The amount of history, old beautiful churches, academic buildings and grass courtyards was amazing. There were universities dating back to the 1300s. Other highlights included the hours we spend in the pub until our 11pm train (only 1 hr 15 ride) and watching "Punting" down the river. This is similar to a Venice gondala but bigger. Picture a low, flat boat with a man standing on the back. We didn't participate due to the time of day and that the weather sucked. However, we did see a group of drunk guys attempting to row one of these things while drunk and one dressed up in a ridiculous outfit. We think maybe a 30th b-day party or bachelor party. Anyways we continued to watch as their boat took on water and eventually sank and the whole group went down in the river with empty beer bottles and all. This scene caused everyone in the town walking by the water to stop and watch, especially when the boat company people had to figure out how to get the sunk boat out to the river.
Sunday/Monday: Besides walking for hours and pub excursions we went to the Notting Hill Caribbean Carnival. This was absolutely ridiculous. Massive amounts of crazy people, dressed crazy, drunk and blowing whistles and horns like they do at soccer games. Picture purple fake eyelashes, lots of stomaches showing and Jamaican flags wrapped around peoples' shoulders. Monday was much better because we saw the parade which included round after round of a large trunk blasting heavy bass Caribbean dance music followed by a large group of people from a particular caribbean London organization dancing behind it in crazy costumes. The best way to describe is with pictures. Check my Facebook once my Mum mails me the camera computer cord we forgot at home....We also met up with a girl I work with and some other people she had met from Boston and New York through friends of friends which was a lot of fun, too. I definitely want to check out the Covent Garden area more.
Friday: Met up with some of Jim's fellow teachers at our local pub after work. It was great to finally meet some of them and the group had two teachers from Mexico, one Aussie, one from Ohio and none from Britain. So far this is how things have been going. We have met so many people from other countries but not many locals. This is a VERY international city and it amazes me that I have probably met more people from around the globe in the last few weeks than I have in my entire life.
We really like the English pubs (by definition open till 11pm. I don't like that part). They have so much atmosphere and you feel like you are in a living room, with coaches/love seats and chandeliers. We also found a bar (open later) that had a hip-hop dance party going on and that felt like home.
Saturday: Another attempt at getting the internet for our apartment. Unsuccessful. Grocery shopping at a "real" (but still small) store. Pretty successful. Although, there was no mac n' cheese in a box. This is going to be an issue. I'm thinking I might need to learn to make it from scratch with all my new found free time and my great new kitchen.
We went to the St. Pancras train station and asked what was the soonest/cheapest National Rail tickets we could get for the day. This was followed by "Well, where do you want to go?". We didn't care, but the ticket agent wasn't exactly prepared to play travel agent for us. We ended up going to Cambridge because this train station apparently only went north.
Cambridge... We all have heard of Cambridge as in the University but this town was really great and definitely exceeded my expectations. The amount of history, old beautiful churches, academic buildings and grass courtyards was amazing. There were universities dating back to the 1300s. Other highlights included the hours we spend in the pub until our 11pm train (only 1 hr 15 ride) and watching "Punting" down the river. This is similar to a Venice gondala but bigger. Picture a low, flat boat with a man standing on the back. We didn't participate due to the time of day and that the weather sucked. However, we did see a group of drunk guys attempting to row one of these things while drunk and one dressed up in a ridiculous outfit. We think maybe a 30th b-day party or bachelor party. Anyways we continued to watch as their boat took on water and eventually sank and the whole group went down in the river with empty beer bottles and all. This scene caused everyone in the town walking by the water to stop and watch, especially when the boat company people had to figure out how to get the sunk boat out to the river.
Sunday/Monday: Besides walking for hours and pub excursions we went to the Notting Hill Caribbean Carnival. This was absolutely ridiculous. Massive amounts of crazy people, dressed crazy, drunk and blowing whistles and horns like they do at soccer games. Picture purple fake eyelashes, lots of stomaches showing and Jamaican flags wrapped around peoples' shoulders. Monday was much better because we saw the parade which included round after round of a large trunk blasting heavy bass Caribbean dance music followed by a large group of people from a particular caribbean London organization dancing behind it in crazy costumes. The best way to describe is with pictures. Check my Facebook once my Mum mails me the camera computer cord we forgot at home....We also met up with a girl I work with and some other people she had met from Boston and New York through friends of friends which was a lot of fun, too. I definitely want to check out the Covent Garden area more.
Monday, 23 August 2010
Eating is Cheating
This is some of the advice I got this past week that explains the after work drinking culture of the London business community.
In my first week I went out for drinks for two work functions and another night with a couple of girls. The pubs (a lot) around the office buildings are packed after work and have great happy hour specials. Tuesday was with the group Unite, ie everyone from abroad in the London office. During the Friday work function I was talking to my assigned "buddy" (from New York about three years ago) about how these events happen all the time and how you go straight from work to multiple drinks without getting dinner until much later. She said once she was out and mentioned to the Londoners that she wanted to get something to munch on after about four drinks. She was told "Eating is cheating" :)
In my first week I went out for drinks for two work functions and another night with a couple of girls. The pubs (a lot) around the office buildings are packed after work and have great happy hour specials. Tuesday was with the group Unite, ie everyone from abroad in the London office. During the Friday work function I was talking to my assigned "buddy" (from New York about three years ago) about how these events happen all the time and how you go straight from work to multiple drinks without getting dinner until much later. She said once she was out and mentioned to the Londoners that she wanted to get something to munch on after about four drinks. She was told "Eating is cheating" :)
Address Part 2
Forgot to mention that this is in Central London (Marlyebone neighborhood) which is higher-end with lots of great restaurants and pubs. The best part is that Jim can walk to work in about 10 minutes and I can get to the Tube in about 5. We are near the edge of Regent's park which I really like. There is a like stream/river running through and the Queen's gardens. Yesterday we walked through and there was JAZZ IN THE PARK. No way! We couldn't believe it, just like MKE, but it was Sunday afternoon. I should have packed my plastic wine glasses and wine bag from the US.
Address
There is our new address:
Flat 1, 80 Gloucester Place
London, UK
W1U 6HL
We moved in this weekend and moving is fantastic when you have a taxi and no furniture. It feels great being able to unpack all of my clothes. We really love our place, it feels big but is only 400 sq ft! We've lived in apartments 2.5x that size, haha. It has a great updated kitchen that is fully stocked and a dishwasher. One thing I didn't know was that not all apartments have full fridges and ours doesn't even have a freezer. Jim thinks this is good because we will be healthier. I said we could just go buy a frozen pizza and other dinners as long as you eat it that night :). The bedroom is a good size and bigger than our room with no walking space in Chicago. The living room/kitchen are the same room. The coach is really a very comfortable day bed, which is PERFECT for our future visitors. That is a hint.
The apartment is on the lower ground floor (basement). But the front of the building is back from the sidewalk and there is a staircase that goes down from the sidewalk to the level of our apartment in front, meaning we still have windows and good sunlight. You walk into the front hallway of this building and it looks like you are walking into a big old fancy house and there are a few apartments on the main floor and then a staircase going up about 4 floors. We explored this to the top and found a ladder and a latch that goes to the roof! Not sure if we were trespassing or not, because we felt maybe we were in the person who lives on the top floor's area so we were super quiet and sneaky.
Our street is pretty with buildings that are all connected. If you were walking down our street you would have to look at the little plaques (or flags) by each front door to see what the building is; residences, our residence, Hotel London, Lithuanian Embassy, Hotel, Polish Embassy, street corner. Random!
When you get to the lower level of our building there is a door. The door opens to a hallway and three doors; one being ours. The other two are owned by the same old lady (Trina or Pina, who is the landlord or property manager, about to find this all out tonight). She seems pretty friendly but leaves the doors of her two places open when she is home; meaning you kind of feel like you are in her home and have to cut through it. Only real issue is that she must have been smoking down there for the past 50 years and it smells!! I plugged my nose. I think it is in the carpet and walls. Luckily, our apartment is hardwood. We can contain the smell to our little entry way, but will need to work on some more air freshener or candles or something. Keeping all the rest of our doors closed saves the rest of the apartment. We will figure it out.
Flat 1, 80 Gloucester Place
London, UK
W1U 6HL
We moved in this weekend and moving is fantastic when you have a taxi and no furniture. It feels great being able to unpack all of my clothes. We really love our place, it feels big but is only 400 sq ft! We've lived in apartments 2.5x that size, haha. It has a great updated kitchen that is fully stocked and a dishwasher. One thing I didn't know was that not all apartments have full fridges and ours doesn't even have a freezer. Jim thinks this is good because we will be healthier. I said we could just go buy a frozen pizza and other dinners as long as you eat it that night :). The bedroom is a good size and bigger than our room with no walking space in Chicago. The living room/kitchen are the same room. The coach is really a very comfortable day bed, which is PERFECT for our future visitors. That is a hint.
The apartment is on the lower ground floor (basement). But the front of the building is back from the sidewalk and there is a staircase that goes down from the sidewalk to the level of our apartment in front, meaning we still have windows and good sunlight. You walk into the front hallway of this building and it looks like you are walking into a big old fancy house and there are a few apartments on the main floor and then a staircase going up about 4 floors. We explored this to the top and found a ladder and a latch that goes to the roof! Not sure if we were trespassing or not, because we felt maybe we were in the person who lives on the top floor's area so we were super quiet and sneaky.
Our street is pretty with buildings that are all connected. If you were walking down our street you would have to look at the little plaques (or flags) by each front door to see what the building is; residences, our residence, Hotel London, Lithuanian Embassy, Hotel, Polish Embassy, street corner. Random!
When you get to the lower level of our building there is a door. The door opens to a hallway and three doors; one being ours. The other two are owned by the same old lady (Trina or Pina, who is the landlord or property manager, about to find this all out tonight). She seems pretty friendly but leaves the doors of her two places open when she is home; meaning you kind of feel like you are in her home and have to cut through it. Only real issue is that she must have been smoking down there for the past 50 years and it smells!! I plugged my nose. I think it is in the carpet and walls. Luckily, our apartment is hardwood. We can contain the smell to our little entry way, but will need to work on some more air freshener or candles or something. Keeping all the rest of our doors closed saves the rest of the apartment. We will figure it out.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Soccer and English pubs
English pubs are fantastic and, yes, I will continue to call it soccer. We've watched three games in pubs in just our first week. The pubs have old and unique settings; lots of character. The bartenders have let us sample different English taps and you could just stay there for hours. This Sunday we wanted to watch the Arsenal v. Liverpool game but the popular pubs were jam packed. We found another little pub down the street in the less populated area. It turned out that most of the 10 people in the pub were related/dated/owed/worked at the pub. We stayed on our own for a bit until this awesome older man originally from Liverpool (sounds Irish to the untrained ear) started chatting with us. He was so funny and thought it was great that we moved to London. After we talked with him for a while he asked us how we felt about Obama and Bush. Haha, I was wondering when that would get brought up here! We ended up staying all afternoon, became friends with everyone, played pool with everyone and got invited to next Sunday's pot roast at the pub. Definitely one of my favorite days so far. The nicest people in the world and a true English experience. I finally got a Sunday Funday. :)
Jim and Michelle go clubbing 'til 5am
Kind of. One of the top clubs in London is supposed to be the Ministry of Sound. It is open until 6am and has a £16 cover charge or £6 after 3am. Well, we didn't want to spend £16 just to check something out so we decided to go at 3am and stayed out till 5am! The back story is that we went to bed early and set alarms for 2:30am to get up and go. Are we old or what? Then there was the whole debate on what do you wear to a Euro club anyways? Now I was expecting a Chicago downtown club but this was totally different. Nothing fancy at all, no dress code, black walls and grungy feeling; when did I get so pretenious?! After I got over that, it was pretty cool with trance and techno music (all instrumental) and a bunch of different rooms with different DJs and one room with a big "warning:excessive noise levels" sign. Girls, I think The Mission in Elgin was louder! The lights were amazing and everyone was dancing. Picture my kind of dancing though; barely bopping back and forth and not hip hop grinding. It was also amazing how many people were having a great time and not drinking...maybe because it was 4am. Really fun night!!! :)
Monday, 16 August 2010
Day 1 - 6 of over 700
If you had a list of the people least likely to blog I'd probably be on it, but this is going to be fun!
The big picture is that everything is going really well and I only anticipate them to get better as things calm down and we are less stressed with all the hassles of moving to a different country. The trip itself was easy! Visitors don't worry about it. 7 hours air time for a direct flight with movies, TV and two meals? I was so entertained. I was too excited to sleep so once we arrived in London I couldn't keep my eyes open to look at it...opps. And pretty sure we got a shout out from the pilot before landing "Michelle and Jim have a great trip to Europe"....we know people :)
PwC rocks in helping us move abroad. Our temporary place is "big", remodeled, with dishwasher, washer/dryer and a balcony viewing the London Eye (ferris wheel), top of House of Parliament and City of London buildings. NO compliants (well our shower was definitely not built for showering, they need Kohler here), but the towel warmer in the bathroom almost makes up for it.
Observations:
1) Elevators = lifts, restrooms = toilets and the toilet handles are push buttons on the walls
2) You can order mozzerella sticks at McDonalds.
3) We read in a London magazine that London is loud, rude and awful at rush hour. Not true. People are so helpful and the Tube is not packed wall to wall L style and everyone is QUIET on the streets. No Midwesterners here.
4) Pimms = some alcohol that's pretty tasty and when you order Pimm's it automatically comes mixed with lemonade.
5) London might be the answer to me finally learning my rights and lefts. It is written on the street at every cross walk: "Look Right".
6) Jim & Michelle method to looking at a crosswalk: Look in a complete circle and run!
7) I would NEVER attempt to drive here: no grid.
8) The largest Apple store in the world is in London.
9) Street signs are on buildings.
10) The famous London Eye lights up blue at night.
11) The Tube is pretty fantastic.
12) The apartment rental girl said one thing she's noticed about American's is they are shocked by how much smaller London flats are. We said, "oh not a worry for us, we lived in a shoebox in Chicago". "How big?" she asks. "About 600 sq ft.". Well... in London small equals around 300 and bigger equals around 500....
13) You can get a half liter of German beer at 5.3% for £2.55!! If you disregard the conversion factor and rent, cost of living is not bad in my book.
14) Exit signs are green.
Much more to come... :)
The big picture is that everything is going really well and I only anticipate them to get better as things calm down and we are less stressed with all the hassles of moving to a different country. The trip itself was easy! Visitors don't worry about it. 7 hours air time for a direct flight with movies, TV and two meals? I was so entertained. I was too excited to sleep so once we arrived in London I couldn't keep my eyes open to look at it...opps. And pretty sure we got a shout out from the pilot before landing "Michelle and Jim have a great trip to Europe"....we know people :)
PwC rocks in helping us move abroad. Our temporary place is "big", remodeled, with dishwasher, washer/dryer and a balcony viewing the London Eye (ferris wheel), top of House of Parliament and City of London buildings. NO compliants (well our shower was definitely not built for showering, they need Kohler here), but the towel warmer in the bathroom almost makes up for it.
Observations:
1) Elevators = lifts, restrooms = toilets and the toilet handles are push buttons on the walls
2) You can order mozzerella sticks at McDonalds.
3) We read in a London magazine that London is loud, rude and awful at rush hour. Not true. People are so helpful and the Tube is not packed wall to wall L style and everyone is QUIET on the streets. No Midwesterners here.
4) Pimms = some alcohol that's pretty tasty and when you order Pimm's it automatically comes mixed with lemonade.
5) London might be the answer to me finally learning my rights and lefts. It is written on the street at every cross walk: "Look Right".
6) Jim & Michelle method to looking at a crosswalk: Look in a complete circle and run!
7) I would NEVER attempt to drive here: no grid.
8) The largest Apple store in the world is in London.
9) Street signs are on buildings.
10) The famous London Eye lights up blue at night.
11) The Tube is pretty fantastic.
12) The apartment rental girl said one thing she's noticed about American's is they are shocked by how much smaller London flats are. We said, "oh not a worry for us, we lived in a shoebox in Chicago". "How big?" she asks. "About 600 sq ft.". Well... in London small equals around 300 and bigger equals around 500....
13) You can get a half liter of German beer at 5.3% for £2.55!! If you disregard the conversion factor and rent, cost of living is not bad in my book.
14) Exit signs are green.
Much more to come... :)
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