Hallelujia!!

Now that we're back in Houston, we got our flat! The wire transfer came through, of course, AFTER we left London, but that's ok because we actually were starting to think that getting a flat was not in our destiny and that we were going to have to keep living out of our suitcases indefinitely. Hooray! Now we just have to figure out how to pay our bills without a bank account!!! Maybe we'll get one of those, too, before we head back.

Our fox

Tonight is our last night in Greenwich and, as we were walking down the sidewalk, back to our house, our fox, who we haven't seen in a few weeks, walked out of the bushes and onto the sidewalk in front of us, where he stood and stared at us for a few seconds, before heading off down the street. I don't know if foxes traditionally are good luck, but I think this one is. We're glad we got to say goodbye to the urban fox before moving on.

Dan and Meg's Christmas Brunch!

And finally, today, I can post some pictures of our dear friends Dan and Meg who are not only letting us store all our stuff at their house while we go home for the holidays, but also cooked us a delicious brunch complete with Christmas Crackers! I got a fabulous eyebrow brush as my prize, which has come in very handy, as Jim's eyebrows tend to get out of control.

Meg slaves in the kitchen. She made potato latkes with salmon, creme fraiche, and caviar. YUM!


Meg and Dan


Everyone enjoys brunch and Christmas cracker prizes, jokes, and, of course, our crowns!


I love my eyebrow brush.


Jack the cat, future friend of Emma and Chowder.


After we left Meg and Dan, we stopped off at Camden market and strolled through the many mohawked and pierced people. The market is full of very funky stuff and lots and lots of food. It was a totally different scene than the quaint markets we had visited before. We loved it!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We might not be blogging so much while we're home for the holidays, but we will try!

Our first British Work Party

Last night, we attended Jim's work party. And what a party! The Brits take their office parties very seriously. Whether or not your office party is a success, is, apparently, a reflection on your business as a whole. So, there was dinner, dancing, and DJ, and lots of booze. I was horrified at the debauchery going on around us. There was groping, inappropriate dancing, make out sessions, and all kinds of stuff that you don't usually see happening at a work party. It was great...almost like being out in a club! One guy, in particular, was making his rounds with the scantily clad younger ladies. This afternoon, we were talking to our cab driver about it and he said that his first three passengers had been still drunk from their office parties the night before and that one of them, who was the boss, had a big bump on his nose and didn't know how he got it. So I guess what happens in the office party, stays in the office party. Being new at this, we were on our best behavior. We placidly ate our Christmas Pudding (SO GROSS) and only danced to songs that were appropriate (not Beyonce..but Scissor Sisters were ok!) We left the party at 11:45 so that we could catch the last train home and it was still going strong.

Jim looking dapper in front of our oh so velvety red curtain (which is in our temporary flat's living room)


And me, dressed up for my first London party.


Christmas pudding is a bread pudding type concoction, except it contains treacle, which is really thick and sweet and all those dried fruits that make up fruit cake. It's served with brandy sauce. Personally, I am not a fan. Nor am I a fan of mince pie, which is a pie with mushed up fruit from fruit cakes inside it (and, in some cases, mince, which is ground meat). In the interest of being diplomatic and not ethnocentric, I will say that these desserts are different than what I am used to. Traditional English Christmas dinner is a lot like our Thanksgiving dinner--turkey, a stuffing type paste, roast potatoes, and vegetables, all smothered in gravy (BROWN gravy, it was pointed out to me, not WHITE like the Americans!)


We didn'tknow many people at the party, but we did know these good people--Jim's new co-workers! They are all very nice and fun and some are Americans and some are Brits. None of them were groping each other or acting inappropriately.


Jim with his Christmas Cracker crown and Christmas Popper graffitti! Christmas Crackers are this fun little packages that pop open when you pull them. They contain a surprise (like a game or, in one case, some fingernail clippers), a crown, and a joke. Christmas poppers shoot confetti strings out with a pop when you pull their strings.


Dancing by myself to some acceptable song...Jim wasn't in the dancing mood. The couple to my left were alternating between groping each other while dancing and lying on top of each other at their table.


Waiting for the tube. Moments later, on the tube, Jim stepped in vomit. Then a very loud, Italian woman(we think), teetered onto the train, slipped in the vomit, and toppled onto an unsuspecting man, seated below her. There's lots of drama on the drunk train.

Waiting for the Docklands Light Rail (DLR), the last leg of our long trip home.


Jim concentrates on the last DLR of the night(which was full of even more drunk people than the tube), as the doors close behind him.

Visiting the US Embassy and other fun stuff.

So, on top of STILL not having our own flat, due to beurocratics and barriers placed upon us by the estate agency, we were told by some people that if our passports were within six months of expiring, our visa application would be rejected. Of course, Jim's passport is within six months of expiring. So we took a little trip to the American Embassy in London in hope that they would help us. They didn't, but I'll still give a description.

Outside of the embassy, there were three lines, with nothing identifying what each line was for, of course. Never too shy to ask, I approached an official looking person who informed us that the line to our left, "the very long one," was the line for passports. So we got into it. We were checked by security, checked by security again, had to turn our camera in, got into a third line inside, and, when Jim finally made it to the window, no one had even heard of the six month rule, so we had to go make some phone calls. Really the people we needed to talk to, were the UK visa folks, but, of course, they weren't answering the phone. The really nice American Embassy guy (who actually was American, but wasn't actually nice), informed Jim that because he has a perfectly good and valid passport, he was not entitled to get an Emergency passport, which is good for a year. So the lesson that we learned is that we should have lied and said he didn't have a passport at all.

Determined not to be brought down by the man, we took a nice walk through Hyde Park and checked out some funny little birds called Coots, who swam along beside us and made little squeaking noises and, occasionally, went under water, causing lots of bubbles and swirls, and then popped, comically, back to the surface. We saw a TV show being filmed in the park and were amused when some guy with his dog walked right through the middle of it, causing the director and all the crew members to frantically wave their arms and then exclaim exasperation. Then we went to Notting Hill, where we visited the Books for Cooks shop (floor to ceiling cook books from around the world)and perused the market.

Then, on our way home, we got a wild hair and decided to visit St. Paul's Cathedral. It is majestic and the dome is incredibly high and huge. We climbed up as far as we could and looked down over the cathedral floor, whispered to each other from across the dome (we could hear each other) and then climbed some more to have an outside view of the city from the top of the dome.


Climbing up to the top of the dome..an illegal picture taken away from the security guards.


ancient graffiti on the walls of St. Paul's.


multicolored houses along Portabello Road.

So, all in all, despite the fact that we might not be able to get our visas and we still don't have a home, it was a pretty good day.

The Hell better known as Harrod's

I will never go to Harrod's during the holiday season again. That place, even on a Tuesday afternoon, is a mad house, full of tourists and ex-pats looking for that perfect, overpriced, "staple of London" Harrod's gift for their loved ones. In the "arcade" area, where all the teddy bears, coffee mugs, teas, chocolates, bags, key chains, tee-shirts, and anything else you can come up with that can be stamped with the Harrod's name across the front of it are located, the mobs of people are incredibly dense.

Unsuspecting and thinking that I was smart to go on a Tuesday instead of waiting until Jim could go with me on a Saturday, I strolled into the massive department store. I was carrying a backpack, which I also thought was pretty smart, since my right shoulder has a new pain after lugging my bag full of maps, books to read on the tube, ten pound change purse full of really heavy British money, an umbrella, water, and whatever else I happened to pick up...all over London. Well, I wasn't allowed to carry my backpack on my back in Harrods. Nor was I allowed to sling it over one shoulder. Oh no, I had to carry my heavy backpack IN MY HAND. That, plus the crowds, plus the fact that they keep it about 100 degrees in that place were a recipe for exhaustion.

Then I got in trouble because, with my backpack in hand, my coat thrown over my shoulder, and a Harrod's basket full of Harrod's goods in the other hand, I made my way from an arcade on the bottom floor to an arcade on the main floor. Apparently, you're not allowed to carry the basket outside of the arcade..or from one arcade to the other. I think, though, that my convincing plea that I was lost and just needed to get to the other arcade and find my friend (kind of a lie. I wasn't lost. My friend was meeting me in the original arcade.) and my American accent helped the security guard feel sorry for me and he directed me, with my illegal basket, to the arcade I was seeking. When I finally was ready to pay for my goods, a chatty lady talked my ear off about her lack of vacation time. This is really rare, actually. Usually no one wants to talk to me here. SO, I should have enjoyed it, but by that point I just wanted to get out of there.

So, I've done Harrod's. Never again...at least not until I have to.

Partying down engineer style

Saturday night we attended our first holiday party with Jim's new co-workers. They are all engineers (except for Jim) and have all been working 7 days a week (including Jim), so it was PARTY TIME! Everyone was already well into the wine/beer/vodka by the time we got there and had put on their party pants. Jim and I were the newbies (and the youngest)and were on our best behavior...until the White Elephant Gift Exchange. I opened an awesome "paint your own garden gnome" kit, which a very loud, happy Scottish (Irish?) man promptly stole from me. My second gift was a Starbuck's card, which was also stolen from me, at which point I RE-Possessed my gnome! Much commotion ensued because after two trades the gnome was "dead." Victory was mine!!

Jim was the last person to pick and ended up with some cranberry sauce and something that caused much inappropriate speculation (some sort of not sex toy that somehow, to the enebriated party attendees, became a sex toy). We brought a life sized, hot pink buddah head to the party, which was the biggest hit of all.

Next week there are two parties--one with the client, which spouses are not invited to and a second party sponsored by the company that Jim is contracted with, which is fancy schmancy. Happy Holidays!!!

Borough St. Market, Ewww, and Greenwich Market

The end of the weekend is upon us and it's time for another blog. On Friday, I met up with a friend at the London Bridge tube stop, which is VERY BIG and VERY CONFUSING. We finally found each other after 40 minutes of text messaging and headed to the Borough St. Market, which is a large farmer's market, very close to London Bridge, the Globe Theater, the Tate Modern, and other historic landmarks. The streets are narrow and cobbled.

Inside the market there were stands and stands of delicious foods--fruits and vegetables, cheeses, baklavas, meditteranean food, meats, seafood, flowers...YUM.



Fresh seafood. You can see a shark with his mouth full of oranges in the back portion of this picture.


A butcher and his produce. Meat eater's delight!


Freshly baked baguettes and...Goose fat in a can! YUM!


Cheeses on display. We ate lots of samples.


Freshly killed game--bunnies, turkeys, geese.


And buckets and buckets of olives!



After the market, Jim and I met and grabbed a drink at an Italian restaurant in the bowels of a building at the end of a dark alley. We headed down the dark and winding staircase and sat at the bar where I was accosted by a very drunk, 70 year old man, who failed to see Jim at first and then, despite Jim's presence, continued to try to convince me to leave my husband for him and to come work for his very drunk friend who's business was failing (I wonder why? This guy could hardly stand he was so drunk). Apparently these guys spend a lot of time at this bar, because they are on first name basis with all the bartenders and the owner. The owner/bartenders could have been the maffia--burly, open shirts with chest hair and gold chains peaking from their collars, long greasy hair pulled back into little ponytails. There was some drama as a new group of drunk Italians sat down at a large table, which was not reserved for them. The Maffia king/owner exchanged a few bullet speed words with them in Italian and the drunken party moved on. Unfortunately the drunken Irishmen next to us did not, but WE did after my 70 year old friend copped a feel. Good thing I've spent so much time with George over my lifetime.

Happy Jim and Claire...

And an uncomfortable moment with an inebriated old pervert who later shared the details of his sex life.

After our maffia/Irish experience, we met Dan, Meg and their friend Wyn for a fabulous Turkish dinner. As usual, we forgot to take pictures of our friends and as usual we had a great time. Someday we will have a whole blog dedicated to them!

Today it has been very cold, but we ventured out to our own little Greenwich market which was very full of fun and cool stuff, food, and lots of people. We looked at furniture, got some stuffed grape leaves and ciabatta bread, wandered through the stands, drank apple cider. It has been a happy Sunday!

Gotta love this London weather

Yesterday it was sunny, but the wind was blowing at about 100 mph. Today, sunny and windy and then, suddenly, clouds rolled in and it started hailing so hard that it came down the chimney. Fortunately, I got in from my run ten minutes before the storm and I was feeling pretty good about not having a car, as I watched the cars parked on the street getting pummelled.

I need a job

Seriously. If anyone has any ideas about anyone I can talk to here in London, that would be great.

Amsterdam

On Friday, we headed to Amsterdam via Heathrow, which was a chaotic and confusing. That airport reminded me of DFW in the American Airlines line--lots of people and no direction from anyone in charge.

Despite that, we made it through the chaos, didn't see any celebrities, and got on our plane to Amsterdam! I had never been to Amsterdam before this, so I had low expectations. I figured it would be drug dens alternating with prostitutes. But I am pleased to say that it was not like that at all. Amsterdam is a very pretty and charming city, full of beautiful people on bikes, who all speak English. Here I am walking across one of the many canals in Amsterdam. Behind me you can see house boats, which people live in and also which can be rented for holidays. We did not stay in a house boat. We stayed in Hotel Van Onna!


Hotel Van Onna is owned and run by the elderly Mr. Van Onna and his sons. Our room was small and bare with no TV or telephone or soap or shampoo, but it had clean sheets, a comfortable bed, clean towels, and, after some searching, we were able to buy soap and shampoo. Each morning the Hotel Van Onna provided us with a complimentary breakfast of bread, one piece of cheese each, one piece of ham each, one hard boiled egg each, chocolate sprinkles, jam, butter, and coffee or tea (or both!). We were a little mystified by the chocolate sprinkles at first, but found that they tasted pretty good on the bread with butter. The hotel is outside of the touristy section of Amsterdam and in the art district. Here is the view from our window, which overlooked one of the canals:

On Friday, it wasn't raining (note foreshadowing), so we headed out first to the Ann Frank House, which was right down the street. It was very interesting and very, very sad. So we cheered ourselves up by going shopping. Here is Jim in the window of one of the fun stores where we shopped. This funky store and lots of others are located on the "9 streets." Jim got a warm and cozy hat before we moved on.

The city was decorated for Christmas. Christmas in Holland is different than our Christmas...there are a few major differences, in fact. First of all, Santa Claus is this angry looking St. Nicholas and he doesn't have elves. He has black men. And the black men aren't actually black. They are white people in black face and gypsy costumes. See pictures later in this blog. And read the David Sedaris essay that gives a hilarious description of the Dutch Christmas (sorry Kristian...it really is pretty funny. If people in the US went around in black face, there would be an uproar.)

I included this horrendous picture because I look like a troll. I have no idea what emotion I was expressing, but I did think the Ernie hat was pretty cool.

For dinner on Friday night our dear friend Kristian, who is Dutch, suggested that we go to an Indonesian restaurant and have the Rijsttafel (rice table). We scored extra points at the particular Indonesian restaurant that we visited because they misunderstood me when I said a friend had referred us and thought that he had referred us to their restaurant and not to an Indonesian restaurant in general. So they were extra nice to us and also had us sign their guest book. Plus, there were some really stoned, loud, and kind of rude Americans at the next table, so we were on a mission to prove that all Americans aren't loud, annoying(and stoned). I think they liked us.

The Rijsttafel consists of small portions of various dishes--veggies, lamb, beef, chicken, and pork--ranging from not very spicy to really spicy. The small portions were served with rice, salad, a started of japanese chicken soup, and dessert (which Jim skipped, but I enjoyed thoroughly. We wore orchids behind our right ears to show that we were married and not availble while we stuffed ourselves.

On Saturday, it rained, so we visited the Van Gogh museum. We had to stand in line for a long time..in the rain, and then, once we bought our tickets, we had to stand in line before going through security. And the museum was cold and crowded. So we weren't super impressed. Jim and I like to breeze through museums, but the audio tour people make it hard to breeze and hard to even see the artwork. So we abandoned the museum and headed off for lunch, where Jim had croquettes (also suggested by Kristian) and I had some delicious soup with bread. We saw a woman painted white, with a big sheet around her and a turban on her head. Occasionally she would take the sheet off and languish in her nudity in the freezing cold and rain. All for the sake of art, I guess. I think I would have chosen a warmer, drier day for nude art.

Another house boat:

We also visited a couple of great markets, which had clothes, electonics, food, music, and colorful people. We were especially impressed with these nuts:

After the market, we warmed up in a very cozy cafe with excellent cappucino and gigantic pieces of apple pie. We were very happy with our coffee and pie and enjoyed not being in the rain (have you noticed a theme with the rain? If it's not raining all the time in England, it's raining everywhere else we go, too! We are getting very used to being wet.)

Many people in Amsterdam ride bikes. In the area we were in, there were more bikes than cars. The streets are very narrow--hardly wide enough for one car to pass through, so having a bike makes it easier to get around. Having spent our past many years in large, automobile dominated cities, we weren't too good with the bikes. We kept stumbling into bike paths (they weren't very well marked) and we got "A-hem"ed and "Ding-a-ling-a-linged" a few times (People actually said A-hem and ding-a-ling). We tried to be careful about not colliding with bikes and somehow we made it through without causing any major problems.

It kept raining, so we went to see the movie The Queen and then we visited the Red Light District. The vibe completely changed from happy stoned people and healthy looking people on bicycles to scary, testosterone driven groups of slimey looking men. We witnessed a man going into one of the red rooms and later saw another man, who looked very much like a pimp, knocking on the door of another room. We got completely mixed up and ended up in the bowels of the red light district with drug dealers pushing hard drugs on us from every angle. They whisper, "exstacy, cocaine, heroine" and they come out of the shadows and then recede when you say no. SO SKETCHY.

Sighting of St. Nicolas and one of his helpers on the street. He was whisked away before we could get a picture with him:

The next day, SUnday, it was still raining, so we went to a couple of more museums. We saw the Bodies exhibit, which, at first I wasn't so excited about. The artist preserved human specimens and then dissected them as a way of educating the masses about how the body works. Somehow I just don't think that the people who donated their bodies to science had this kind of science in mind. I'm not sure I would want my dissected body in display in museums. Anyway, it was creepy, but still pretty interesting.

After bodies, we visited the Sex museum. It was also creepy...but in a different way. Or maybe I'm just modest. ANyway, I was grossed out by how many people were hanging out for extended periods of time in the S&M and Beastiality room, and then I almost fell down the stairs when one of the fixtures on the wall next to me suddenly moved and made a farting noise. So we left and did more window shopping.

We saw this tiny car driving down the street. The driver gave us a peace sign as we took his picture. I bet this car gets excellent gas mileage, but I'm not sure it would survive on the highways. I wonder if they are allowed to drive cars like this on the highway, actually.

Here is one of Jim's arty pictures of me, commemerating my ever present green pea coat. I do have other clothes,besides the pea coat, but I do not have another coat.

And, finally, posing next to another very small car. We had a fun weekend...and now it's back to the grindstone for Jim and to job hunting, laundry without a drier, and flat hunting for me.