Visitors!

A week ago Monday, I had 2 great friends come to visit - Lauren arrived first on Monday, Jessica later that week on Thursday. Lauren arrived at my office in Piccadilly Circus around 6PM, but unfortunately it was the one night a month that I have a late night standing meeting in the office (7-9PM), so she went out to Soho and just looked around before heading home. Lauren came to visit me and another friend that she has in Sweden in a break before starting business school at UC-Berkley next month.

Tuesday offered us a bit more time to hang out and we headed to famous Brick Lane for dinner. Brick Lane is a street in East London with a good 100+ Indian Curry houses to choose from. From what I can tell they're all pretty much inter-changeable with the same menu, prices and quality. Its all pretty cheap an good. I'm loving the Peshwari Nan (coconut flat bread) and chicken tikka masala. Yum!

Wednesday night there was a live broadcast of The Marriage of Figaro from the Royal Opera House in Convent Garden to 6 or so huge outdoor screens around the city. Lauren and I picked up sushi and headed to the one in Trafalgar square and ate dinner and watched it all for around an hour or so before heading home.

Another great friend from college and my time in Atlanta, Jessica arrived on Thursday on a really early flight. We made dinner at the house and caught up and then headed to a show in the West End (the theater district in London) called Avenue Q. Its a crazy take on Sesame Street, with the puppets, lewd songs (i.e. 'Everyone's a little bit racist', 'My life sucks', etc.). It was hilarious, if a little odd at first with the people singing for the puppets standing right next to the puppets they were manipulating. We were still cracking up a day later about all of the funny moments (my favorites were the 'bad idea bears' - ooooooh!).

On Friday, I took the day off and we all headed to Cambridge on the train. Once we got there, we went to Joe's apartment and took out the bikes and rode all around the city and parks surrounding Joe's place. We went to dinner at a Moroccan place called Al Casbah. It had a fun atmosphere with tents above and a big open fire grill. From there, Joe showed us a few classic Cambridge pub including a place called The Eagle with a whole back room filled with pilot memorabilia. RAF and USAF pilots had burned their names and equipment types and troop names into the ceiling with candles, including a few famous people from the Memphis Bell (and related movie on that topic). Pretty cool.

On Saturday we all headed back to London and to Camden market to walk around, in particular the Horse Tunnel Market, which has all of the vendor booths built into old horse stalls.

That night, I'd invited a friend from work, Ashvin, over to join us for dinner and from there we went out on the town.

Ashvin new all the cool places to go. We started in South Kensington (the posh area) and a bar with these really cool watermelon drinks. from there, we went on to this crazy place called Sketch. The place looks like a space ship, complete with egg-shaped restroom stalls (see pic) and a saucer-like lounge. Go if you can.

After that, we headed to one of Ashvin's friend's parties in east london and danced the night away. They had this huge loft apartment that was clearly used to hosting parties and had a pro DJ spinning. It was a great way to end the night.

Sunday, we got up late and headed to Spitalfields market. I love this place (that's Lauren and I in the pic outside a restaurant built into an old double decker bus). Its a huge covered market with all sorts of ethnic & health foods, artist booths, and vintage stuff for sale. There's also a large community of art schools in the area and there always seems to be some cool student work on display. We all got food, Jessica got a massage and walked around most of the afternoon.

Lauren left on Monday morning and Jessica on Tuesday, but it was great to have them both in London with me for a while. Thanks again for coming, gals!

A week in the life

So I'm catching up on my blog this weekend and going to write about what I did 2 weeks ago because it was a pretty fun week (well, weekend mostly!).  The week went smoothly enough.  My roommate (they call them flat mates here in the UK) is now staffed on a project based in Oxford, so she's actually gone during the week, Monday through Thursday.  Her name is Frances and she's new to the UK like me - having relocated to London from Capetown, South Africa where she was a medical doctor before joining my firm as a consultant.  She's taller than me, thin, blond, and super friendly.  She loves to cook and has already showed me a thing or 2 in the kitchen.  We get along great.

Every Friday morning I have a standing 8AM call to lead (kinda sucks because that means sometimes late night prep on Thursday and an early morning on Friday - I try to get in by 7:30 or so for those).  Every Friday afternoon, though, we have a gathering in our little technology Practice area of the office around 4 for drinks and socializing.  I've actually learned that this usually just means I wind up staying at the office way too late on Fridays!  This one was no different and I just wound up hanging out with a 

bunch of friends from the office for a bit and then heading back to my office to finish up my work before leaving late.  Joe was out of town this weekend attending his friend's Lacy & Sagen's wedding in Pawley's Island, South Carolina (it looked like a really pretty wedding from the pics I saw - see left) so I was on my own.  

On Saturday morning I got up and headed out the door to try to track down a Whole Foods before taking a ballet class later that day.  The one I had tracked down online was just 2 tube stops away in Camden (the kind of huge version of Little 5 Points in London, with lots of punky people and organic random food).  The call the stores 'Fresh & Wild' here and they had y saving grace for sale:  EmergenC (its that powdered version of vitamin C plus other supplements that keeps me from getting sick, or atleast has that placebo affect :).  $40 later...I walked out with a single package of them (that's right folks, it costs almost 3 times as much here!) and headed on to 'The Place', a large dance studio complex around the corner from my house and St Pancras station that offers dance classes.

I took a ballet class from a guy named Raymond at 'The Place'.  It was my first in a good 5+ months and it actually felt great, though I was definitely rough around the edges.  Most of the people that were taking class were hobbyists, but definitely not professionals which is great for me.  The space was great too  (that's it in the pic)- lots of windows and a live pianist, although I actually found the pianist this time to be a bit too harsh in creating the down beats - sounded a bit too much like banging and not soft like the CDs of orchestral music I'm used to in Pamela's classes back in Atlanta.

After ballet, I walked back home past beautiful St Pancras station (that's where Harry Potter heads off to school in those movies, see picture) and took a shower to get ready for my office's summer party.  

The party was a BBQ held in the grass under a tent in beautiful Regent's Park, see pictures, in the grass behind Regent's College.  It was great to meet the families of all my colleagues and the kids were just too cute.  We had a quick lesson in jive dancing from some professionals and then wrapped up the afternoon around 7PM.

From there, some friends from work invited me to join them for a night out.  We went to a mediterranean place first for mint teas and shisha (those big middle eastern water pipes that people smoke fruit flavored tobacco from).  From there, we headed out to Shoreditch, the hip spot for dance clubs in London.  We went to a place called Platinum and I danced for a bit and then headed home.  After buying my yearly tube & bus pass earlier that day for a whopping sum of $2,000, I was determined not to take a taxi home - besides I'd heard the night busses were fun & very safe.  Unfortunately, I got on the wrong one at first, so the ride home took me almost 1 hour after changing & waiting, but it dropped me off just one block from my house.  Great!

On Sunday, I met up with Ashvin - a guy from my office that is quickly emerging as one of my closest friends here.  He's really chill, is up for anything and knows tons of people in London through the MBA program he completed at INSEAD.  INSEAD is a large international b-school in France that people from all over the world go to.  Its only a year long program, but sounds really cool.  Apparently, Ashvin & his friends even rented a 14 bedroom chateau while they were there, which only makes the experience cooler, right?!

Anywho - I met Ashvin an 10+ INSEAD people at a Chinese dim sum place for lunch.  It was cool because 2 of his friends were Chinese and picked all the good stuff for us.  My favorite are these duck taco-like things.  Yum.  At lunch, I met 3 really cool girls that all live together from INSEAD and we exchanged numbers - I could definitely see great friend potential there.  After lunch, I headed with Ashvin and another one of his friend's, Annie, to an athletic center with a huge climbing wall facility.  I just watched (too tired from the ballet class the day before), but it was really cool.  I left Annie & Ashvin there to do their thing and headed home to get ready for a new week.  

It was a great weekend in London.

More pictures!

More pictures, as promised. Below top is the view from the lobby of my office in Piccadilly Circus (before security threatened to kick Joe out for taking pictures :). Next is a picture of me and my bear wearing the requisite sleeping gear in my apartment in London: eye shades and ear plugs (the sun doesn't go down until around 10 PM, rises at 3AM and I'm right near a pretty busy road so its a bit noisy indoors even with double paned windows).

Below top are some people practising rowing on the River Cam outside Joe's apartment. Then there's me typing away on his couch.

Below top is the British Museum down the street from my house in Bloomsbury. Joe took my Mom and Grandma there when they were visiting. Then there's my Grandma walking on the sunny streets of London. Joe's been getting into photography lately and many of these pictures are ones that he took with his new fancy camera, including the last motion one with the car. I think those kind look really cool. Last is a pic of a Londoner Joe spotted while walking around the city. Hottt.

Finally Joe and I in front of the famous Odeon Theater before we went to the Indiana Jones film. It was good, but what we both most remember is the fact that our night out at the movies cost us $70: ~$30 each for tickets and $10 for popcorn. Welcome to London!

This weekend has been a slow one. I'm still sick because doctors in London won't give you the strong antibiotics for fear of creating immune bacteria, so I had to go through level 1 antibiotics before they would give me anything even remotely strong. So...20+ days after getting sick, I'm just now starting on the semi-good stuff and feeling better, though I've mostly just been relaxing in the apartment this weekend. I asked my doctor for Z-pac (the anti-biotic I often take in the states for sinus infections) and their response was that they save that one for those people in hospitals as a level-4 treatment, so I guess if I'm still not well after this week, I'll just have to head to the hospital!

Enough on sickness. Joe came in town this weekend and we went to a former colleague and friend, Andrew's graduation party from London Business School at a restaurant in China town by Leicester Square. It was a fun time, but the waitress did spill water all over me half way through dinner.

On Saturday, Joe went to get his car - a red mini cooper. He'd parked at a a nearby tube station to avoid paying congestion charges for bringing it into the city on a weekday and came to the house to drop off a TV stand that he got for his flat screen that he generously has loaned me for my place (its huge!). He set that one all up and it looks great.

Saturday night, Frances (my new roomie and a new colleague at work) and her friend Dan who was visiting (via the Eurostar from Paris) cooked a WONDERFUL dinner for us. They made roast chicken with lemon and thyme and a tomato-bread salad - very Tuscany. It was great and we all had alot of fun.

On Sunday, I finally got around to sorting through my closet. I cleaned out a bunch of hangers that were just taking up space and put like items together. Much better now. Joe also helped Frances and I put things in the attic that we weren't using and we cleaned out the kitchen to make room for other stuff. I also made a yummy lunch - my famous gnocchi with diced tomatoes, basil and olive oil and pesto chicken sandwiches.

Its 9PM, so I'm going to head to bed in a bit. Hope you all have a great week!

Worth a thousand words

OK - I've got lots of pictures to share, so I'm jut going to put a bunch in one post.

In Cambridge, Joe and I bike along the River Cam. That's him seated along the river with his bike. Joe's apartment also has a long balcony that overlooks the river (that's where I'm standing above). - its so peaceful to look out over it. People go 'punting' on the river in those little boats where you poke the the ground and push with that long stick. Joe and I tried it one time and it was so tough that we wound up just hoping on the shore and pulling the boat back.

In London, everything is just so picturesque. Mainly, those cute red phone booths, beautiful old buildings (the building above on the corner is the old Finsbury town hall), down the street and of course, Big Ben (the clock).

That's Joe and I in the pic at the top laying in the grassy area in front of Wesminster Abbey. You'd be surprised to see just how many other people were laying around in the grass too! On a sunny day in London, everyones out in the parks! That's Wesminster Abbey in the middle and my Grandma and Mom on the right when the came to visit the other week.

OK - signing off for now, but more pictures in the next post.