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!

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!

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 8^th 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