Mexican Food in London and Pan's Labyrinth

We have decided that Wednesdays are going to be date night, so last night we went out for dinner and a movie.

Mexican food in London...HAH. That's what we have always thought, but last night we decided to give it a go and headed up some narrow stairs to a Mexican restaurant at the top of a building in Greenwich. It was a bizarre experience, but surprisingly good and almost authentic (although we are pretty sure that the guacamole had some mayonnaise in it...seems to be standard practice around here: put mayonnaise in EVERYTHING. The chips also closely resembled doritos and we made the mistake of asking for chips and salsa, which, to the British means we want french fries with salsa on them...everyone was momentarly confused.) The most interesting part was that the restaurant was so small, they had built elevated tables. We had to climb a ladder up to our table, and felt like we were in a tree house while we ate. We were also surrounded by mirrors, which was a little confusing. Getting down after the margaritas was precarious.

After our Mexican dinner, we headed to the movies to see Pan's Labyrinth. Talk about not what I expected at all. I thought it would be kind of like the Labyrinth (David Bowie, tights, muppets, magic, a lesson learned and a happy ending). It wasn't. It had magic and a labyrinth, but those were the only similarities. No happy endings, just evil and gratuitous violence and torture and murder of children...those kinds of things. I really need to see Borat again after Pan's Labyrinth.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. I keep forgetting to bring the camera. Tomorrow we will head to Amsterdam, so will have lots of pictures to share when we get back!

The American Women's Club and Harrod's

Don't laugh. I am doing the club. It will keep me busy and social and I'm hoping to promote some public health there, too. I also finally went to Harrod's, which is HUMONGOUS. I did not get to go to the food section, but I will go back.

We leave for Amsterdam on Friday morning. I'm sure there will be much to blog about when we get back. Right now there is not much...and no new pictures. Sorry!

Windsor Castle

Last Friday, I went with Rashmi and Siddarth to Windsor Castle. After a bit of confusion on my part about our meeting spot, we met at Clapham Junction (not to be confused with North Clapham, Clapham Common, or South Clapham stations)and took the train to Windsor. That was the day I learned how to take the bus in London.

When we arrived, the weather was looking pretty typical--rainy. Here is the Long Walk, which is, as its name implies, a long walk (3.5 miles to be exact) outside of the castle, but off the castle grounds. We were not allowed to go into the castle gardens, but we were allowed to go on the long walk. Since the weather was beautiful, we only took a short walk on the long walk, but we were impressed by its longness. The castle dates back to the medieval times and was built high on a hill, so that approaching enemies could be easily seen and also so that it would take them a long time to actually reach the castle .

On this side of the castle, we were able to look down the side of the hill and see just how high up we were. This was also where we entered the castle to see the Queen's Dollhouse and dolls as well as the state apartments, which were, appropriately, very ornate. The dollhouse is a miniature version of the castle, complete with electricity, plumbing, sterling silver dishes, tiny oil paintings done by famous artists, and a miniature version of the crown jewels. The Queen's dolls each possessed incredibly fancy doll clothes and shoes including fur wraps and jewelry.

This rounded part of the castle was extra fortified, so that the king and his people could hunker down and be very protected in the case of a particularly violent attack.

We learned all of this exciting information through our free audio guides, which looked like long, skinny cell phones. Thus, in many of these pictures, we look as though we were talking on our cell phones the entire time. In fact, cell phones were strictly forbidden inside of the buildings and so were pictures, which is why I can only share the outside pictures on my blog.

Sadly, we didn't meet the queen or even SEE the queen (except in pictures), but we did discover that veggie burgers in England come deep fried and that fish and chips are not all equal.

Thanksgiving in London

Jim was very excited about Thanksgiving. He couldn't stop dancing in anticipation.The turkey breast was pre-packaged and pre-seasoned, just like many of the foods in British supermarket. Even though Jim was skeptical, he LOVES turkey, so he trusted that Claire wouldn't poison him or make him eat aything too weird. But this turkey looked pretty weird:Jim's dancing was a little out of control, so Claire put the smack down by using her best hood (British gangsta) impersonation. Jim was SCARED so he put on a clever disguise:

Meanwhile, the beans got overcooked and the biscuits had too much salt, but the turkey roasted perfectly and, in disguise, Jim made delicious mashed potatoes, using only 2 sticks of butter.

With great anticipation, Jim carved his first "turkey" (...ummm...breast). He licked his chops and ate a piece of turkey skin with great relish. "DELICIOUS!" he said, "but not as good as my mom's."

"Well, what did you expect, " said Claire. "I could never cook like our Moms!"

Despite all that, Thanksgiving was pretty ok in London, but we would have preferred to have been at home.

"YUMMY! I LOVE MASHED POTATOES!!!"

Some more pictures from Wendover

And the sun came out!

When we emerged from the lush, wooded area, the sun was out and we were dry and happy!

But soon after, it started to get dark and we had to rush to get back to our train and out of the wilderness before it became pitch black at 4:30. The last leg of our walk was through very muddy fields. We agreed that the stiles were no longer as charming as before and the general mood is reflected in this picture of me:

But we made it back just in time to take our train and when we got to the tube everyone avoided sitting next to us because we were muddy and had bad hair. What an adventure!

After the pub, full of grease, mayonnaise and steak, we hiked straight up a very steep incline and were rewarded with this view:

And then we got lost for a while, but eventually ended up at the site of the remains of some fort. We couldn't actually figure out what were the remains...mostly there were fallen down trees on the ground. This picture doesn't really show it, but these tall pines were VERY spooky.

And soon we found ourselves descending into a valley via this wooden staircase. We were surrounded by ferns and moss and lush, deep groves of trees--a completely different scene than where we had been just a few minutes before.

Eventually, the rain got us a little down. At one point, the directions started rubbing off of the page, the book pages were sticking together, we were feeling soggy and tired, and then, pheasant hunters started shooting all around us. So, with the help of some boy scouts, we found an alternate route to a pub nearby, where we could get some lunch and dry off a little bit. But not before Jim slid down a muddy hill on his bottom. Being a supportive wife, I laughed my bottom off once i was sure that he didn't hurt himself:

The pub we visited was called the Red Lion. We refreshed ourselves with some pints, a steak burger sandwich, a tuna sandwich, and lots of chips and then resisted the urge to call a taxi and continued our journey...and we are so glad that we did, because things got even more beautiful as we went along. Here is a picture of Jim soaking wet with his pint.

And here is Jim, under the Red Lion sign, as, still soaking wet, teeth chattering, we continued on for 7 more miles or so. We felt pretty tough, because while we were in the Red Lion a whole walking group came in talking about how horrible the weather was and how they hadn't been able to walk.

And then the rain started....

In this picture, you can see the torrential downpour that began and didn't stop for the next few hours.

We took "shelter" in this woods for a few minutes.

And then we gave up and decided to brave the weather. Here I am forging a flash flood...a little later, I had water up to my knees and both of us were completely soaked. But we persevered!

Wendover...blog #4

The beauty of the Chiltern Hills is not done justice by our pictures. This is the view just before our walk down the hill and then our sprint through the ram pasture.

And this is at the bottom of the hill, splashing in a stream, a foreshadowing of what was to come...major rain.

Our friend Bramley--Wendover

Shortly into our walk, we met a friendly horse who we named Bramley. Incidentally, Jim fed him one of our Bramley apples. Not long after that, we met some very eager ducks, who we fed one of our peanut butter sandwiches. Each duck got a piece, which preventing any ganging up.

 

Jim and Claire do Wendover--blog #2

Walking in the English countryside is VERY different than walking in the US...or, at least, veyr different than in Texas. First of all, the trails are incredibly maintained and mapped. Throughout the countryside, there are public walks and bridleways and something that threw us off at first was that there are wooden step type things called stiles, which are specifically created and available so that walkers can just hop over fences and walk from field to field. We are so used to posted land and no trespassing signs and the fear of getting shot that we really felt funny just hopping over fences. At one point during the walk, we encountered a pasture full of rams, which our book told us to enter (neglecting to mention the rams) and we debated for about 10 minutes whether we should cut through the ram pasture (partially because we were kind of scared that the rams might, "ram" us.) By the end of our walk, we were perfectly comfortable with cutting through pastures of farm animals and scaling fences.

Here is a picture of me, climbing over my first stile. It was raining just a little bit at that point. We were in good spirits. Jim was even moved to do his best Sound of Music Impersonation:
 

Cold and wet and muddy...our first country walk in Wendover #1

Today, we got out of London and went on our first walk in the English Countryside. The walk was supposed to be 11.5 miles long, but we got a little confused so I think we walked more like 13 or 14 miles...we are composing a letter to the editor of our country walks near London book, in which we will detail just what was confusing about the directions.

We woke up early this morning and were on the tube by 6:45. We took a commuter train from London Marylebone station to Wendover--about an hour outside of London. Here is a picture of a sleepy eyed Jim on the train:

We arrived in Wendover at around 8:45 and started our walk. The walk was rated a 7 out of 10 in difficulty...and we figured out why.

Here is Jim outside of the train station, which marked the beginning and the end of our walk:
 

Many London Updates Coming Soon

But right now I'm just too tired. Stay tuned for fabulous pictures of our London Thanksgiving, Windsor Castle with Rashmi and Siddarth, and good times to be had tomorrow in the English country side as we embark on an 11.5 mile walk.

I heart footballers.

Yesterday, I was introduced to the culture of football...not American football, mind you, but football as it is played in Europe (soccer). I love it! My future brother, Andy, is a die hard American football fan, which I have respect for, but I have always had a hard time paying attention to American football, because it's so slow moving, stops and starts so much, and I don't know the rules. Plus, I have never found American football players to be attractive...

But footballers here...whoo! These guys are serious athletes. They sprint for the entire 90 minute game. And they are, for the most part, really cute!

Yes, yes...some people argue that soccer isn't really very interesting because they hardly ever score. But the ALMOST score lots of times, which is when it gets exciting in the pub. Last night we were in this smoke filled place. I was one of about three women there and was surrounded by chain smoking, beer filled, Chelsea fans. We were also cheering for Chelsea, but it took us while to figure out which team actually was Chelsea, because we have not been Chelsea fans for very long at all, so we don't know the diversity of their uniforms. Last night they were in black. Anyway, it was good fun and I think I could actually get into this sport...at least for half of the game.

On Saturday I believe we are going to a rugby game. Another sport who's rules I don't quite get. I have noticed that when I guy gets the ball, the rest of them don't pile on top of him, like they do in American Football, but they make this huddle, called a scrum, around him. A friend who used to play rugby said that lots of young people in rugby leagues break their necks during this huddling, due to the immense pressure.

Rugby players are burlier than soccer players...not so much my type as footballers. Plus they don't wear helmets or anything and they tackle each other, so they are often missing a lot of teeth.

So...I heart football (or footballers). Especially when they take their shirts off!

Urban Foxes

Something I have forgotten to mention is the foxes that we have around here. They are like stray cats, almost, and live under houses in our neighborhood. We have seen them on walls, crossing a busy street, staring us down on our neighborhood sidewalk. We have seen more foxes in the past few weeks (or maybe the same fox) than in our whole lives. On one hand, it's very cool to see a fox. Foxes are very beautiful animals--cat-like and dog-like at the same time and extremely graceful and silent in their movements. The other night we stopped and the fox stopped and we had a stare down from about 6 feet away on the sidewalk. The fox definitely wasn't afraid of us.

On the other hand, it's sad to see a fox in the middle of an urban setting, because that means that we have encroached on their natural habitat. Foxes aren't supposed to be living under houses and perusing city streets and scaling walls and dodging traffic.

So I have mixed emotions about the urban foxes here, but I always hope that we'll see one while we're out in the evenings.

Running along the Thames in Greenwich=SKETCHY

After my two days of schlepping around looking at flats, I feel completely unmotivated to do anything in Central or North London and have, in general, lost my motivation to go around doing things by myself.

I don't really feel lonely anymore, even though I spend a large part of my days alone. And I'm still struggling with cultural differences, some of which are the same as before. We have a NEW washing machine (The old one flooded the kitchen..not our fault.) This one has no dryer...great. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it takes three days for our laundry to dry. It's cold and damp here which isn't ideal for drying clothes. Anyway, I have mastered the new washer on the first try!

The other day I was rudely informed that my American Credit Cards were not accepted when I tried to top up (that's what they call adding money to your accounts) my oyster card (tube pass) at a convenience store kind of place. That almost made me cry, since the people who were so rude to me were foreigners themselves. But then I got over it.

And I've been trying to do some online grocery shopping, which is a challenge, since some things (many things) here are called different names. For instance, I have no idea what pie crust is called. When I look it up, I get all kinds of options to purchase mince meat pie, pork pie, chicken pie, shepherd's pie, and other pie combinations that I have never considered before. "Courgettes" are zucchini. "Aubergine" is eggplant. Crackers are "biscuits for cheese." Ground beef and turkey are "mince." There is no such thing as black beans in the mainstream grocery stores here--but they have a million different kinds of kidney beans. They don't have black eyed peas...so we'll have to figure something out for our New Years good luck! Shrimp are prawns here and paper towels are kitchen towels. Kitchen towels are tea towels. Anyway, it's a challenge every time we try to grocery shop, but we're learning.

Language barriers and cultural barriers aside, I still can go running. Today I decided to bypass the killer hills in Greenwich park and go running along the Thames. That was a mistake. The Thames Trail runs along the river. The river in Greenwich, on good days, looks kind of pretty in an industrial, run down way. On days like today, it wasn't looking so hot. There were masses of trash on the shores and it smelled like a mixture of dog poop and rotten garbage. The trail starts out at historic Cutty Sark, where there was something being done by workmen with cranes on the historic ship that is docked there. I weaved my way through and ran past Greenwich Univeristy, behind Trafalgar Pub (also old, historic, tourist trap...but cool! We went there on Sunday. We were the only ones not enjoying Sunday roast.), hopped back on the trail, rounded the corner, and that is when the vague prettiness ended. My goal was to run to the infamous, not used, very ugly Millenium Dome, which looks like the superdome with cranes poking out of the top of it (part of the design), but I found myself surrounded by graffiti, barbed wire topped fences, abandoned shoes, and industrial ports. I was feeling more fearful for my well being than enjoying myself, so I turned around and went back after two miles. It was pretty disappointing. They are really trying to improve the community, and the Olympics are part of that effort, as they will be held in this area, but they aren't there yet. Parts of Greenwich are really nice and "gentrified" and other parts are pretty shady. We are on the cusp of the sketchy part of town right now.

This afternoon, I plan to go down to the center of Greenwich and poke around in some of the shops. I have spent so much time going other places, that I don't really have a good idea of everything that is right here.

Rashmi, Siddarth, and boots

Rashmi and Siddarth are in town visiting Rashmi's sister, so we all met in Canary Wharf, where Jim works, for lunch. Rashmi and I, to Jim's amusement, both were wearing our skinny jeans with boots over them--London Posers! Unfortunately, we did not catch this phenomenon on film, but we did get a nice picture of Siddarth, Rashmi and Jim before we all headed our separate ways this afternoon. Rashmi and Siddarth have already done more in the two days that they have been here than we have done the whole time we've been here (or almost)--very impressive! And they are doing it in style, as Rashmi looks quite the Londoner with her boots over jeans.

Here is a picture of me levitating in my new outrageously priced (GAP) skinny jeans and boots. Skinny jeans aren't so bad, really:

I can't believe what a follower I am.

For the past two days, I have been looking at more flats in the areas of Hampstead, West Hampstead, and St. John's Wood (which is near Hampstead, but closer to Regent's Park). I may not have a job, but I am worn out from looking at flats. And everytime I like one, it gets let by someone else before we even have a chance to think about making an offer. So, this is good training in patience for me (not one of my strongest personality traits) and I am learning to look and see what I like and get an idea of what kinds of flats we'll be able to afford...and not get too excited about anything. I still like Hampstead better than St. John's Wood, but you get a little more for your money in St. John's Wood, it would be an easier commute for Jim, and, near there is Abbey Road and Paul McCartney's rumored home (which I saw...the crosswalk, not the home. It looks like all the other crosswalks in London.) Very exciting!

The flat I liked the best today, which has already been rented by someone else since I saw it two hours ago, was at the top of a mansion block, large, lots of windows, a beautiful kitchen, and the potential not to allow cats...so it probably wouldn't have worked for us anyway since our cats are very much in our future in London. There were a couple of other flats with great windows and private gardens, which DID allow cats, so eventually we will find some permanent place to live. Once we are able to jump on a flat, we'll do it. We're just not there yet (big sigh...this is another lesson in patience for me).

Stay tuned to hear how Thanksgiving dinner cooked by me in a foreign country goes and whether or not I go to Stonehenge at the end of the week. 

Not fluffy crows at all!

Umm...the large, fluffy, menacing looking black birds are most likely not crows. It has taken two weeks for someone to point it out to me that they are the infamous London Ravens. But they are related to the crow! Anyway, I'm a moron. And they are huge.

Hampstead Heath....last one

People enjoying the day in the early afternoon on Saturday...in Hampstead Heath.