Happy Birthday to me

My birthday was great. I wore a new cute outfit, went to a work Christmas party in the city (one of many) and then came home to a mini-birthday celebration! The best part was the funfetti cake that Bobby made for me. He went to an American foods store to get the mix and it was delicious. The one bad part was that I got a nasty cold (yup, I'm old). I'm actually home sick today trying to get rid of it before the weekend - we have trips to Winter Wonderland in Hyde park and Benihana (of course) planned!

Feliz Graciadando (Happy Thanksgiving?)

We missed everyone a ton on Thanksgiving...but we missed our favorite American foods even more (its a selfish holiday, lets be honest). Mom's pumpkin cheesecake, Nana's delmonico potatoes, Bob's carmalized onions...mmmm.

We ended up celebrating with Bobby's school friends at the Blue Cactus, a mexican restaurant in South Kensington. We were 2 of 4 Americans teaching everyone about Thanksgiving and how to celebrate properly - in other words, eat until you drop. Along with us Americans, there were 2 Brits, a Dutch, a Malaysian, a Columbian and a Lebonese. They were very impressed with the holiday!!!

We started our Thanksgiving feast with what else? Margaritas, nachos and quesidillas which were actually quite delicious. Then a turkey dinner with all the fixins - mashed potatoes, gravy, a stuffing patty (we weren't quite sure on this one, but didn't ask questions), cranberry sauce and some brocolli and cauliflower. Then, the moment we were all waiting for, the pumpkin pie. But when it got to our table, we were all pretty disspointed to see what looked more like a pumpkin cookie. Nevermind that it tested awful...we think they put pepper in it?

And it just wouldn't be Thanksgiving unless we all went around the table and said what we were thankful for. Everyone is just happy to have the opportunity to be living here and meeting all these new friends (aww...cheesy but true).

Bar-thay-lona

Hola amigos.

Spent the weekend in Bar-thay-lona. Spell it: Barçelona. The "ç" makes all the difference.

Barçelona is in Catalanya, an independant state within Spain and actually has it's own hybrid Spanish language. They use the "ç" quite a bit, and it is just the tip of many differences between the languages (but for the amateur Spanish speaker, an easily noticable difference).

Beautiful city only 1:45 hours from London via Easy Jet our local low-cost airline (like a Southwest Airlines, but less perky and with less perks if that is possible). Fun fact: Cass Business School alumnus is the founder of the airline...Sir Stelios.

Anywho... Got into Barçelona late. Hotel was Vincci Arena near Plaça de Espanya a huge and impressive plaza close to where the Olympics were held in 1992. Grabbed some snacks, a late night paella and a couple draught San Miguel's at the corner paella joint, at around 11:30pm.

We opted to call it a night early so we could be in 100% MAX tourista mode the following day, which we were...

Poble Espanya - The National Gallery (views from)...

Rode the cable cars in Montejuic Park....

Saw the olympic arena....

That evening we rode around on the "Bus Turistic" - a sightseeing bus that stops at all the hot spots. We saw the Port Olympico where the olympic athletes were housed and now they are luxury apartments, the Christopher Columbus statue that points away from America (we also saw the Placa del Rei where he was greeted by the King after coming back from America) and Placa Cataluyna where the old city meets the new. We also found our new favorite snack - churros (like fried dough) dipped in hot chocolate. Dinner with Andrew, then got Katie after she landed and headed out to grab some more cervezas at a few bars in the Bourne Plaza.

Saturday morning we were up sightseeing again. This time we had a plan and saw....

La Pedrera - one of Gaudi's most famous buildings (designed as an apartment building in 1905. can you picture this in 1905?)

La Sagrada Familia - Gaudi's last work. Amazing. Its been under construction for 120 years and they expect to have it finished in 2025! We took the lift to one of the top towers and then climbed down over 250 narrow, windy stairs to get back down.

And Park Guell, again by Gaudi. It overlooks the city and the bay. We shared a bottle of wine and watched the sunset... picture perfect.

Dinner on Saturday was at a tapas restaurant called La Cerveseria Catalanya. It was the best food we've had since I've been in Europe. And such a bargain in euros! We got there at 10:30 (the Spanish eat soo late) and sat down to eat at midnight. The place was packed up until 2 am when we left. We drank sangria and ordered two full rounds of tapas - four cheeses, cured ham, tortilla espanola and finished with crema de catalanya (like creme brulee but better).

Up early and back to rainy London on Sunday and getting ready for work/school.

Have some pumpkin pie for us on Thanksgiving!!!

P.S. Can you tell Bobby and I each wrote half of this one?

Busy Weekend (lots of pictures)

We saw lots of British culture this weekend. Saturday we went to see the Lord Mayor's Festival, which has taken place every November for over 800 years in London. It is to show the new Lord Mayor to the people after he is elected and when he swears allegiance to the Queen. The Lord Mayor is different from the Mayor because he is only responsible for the "City" area of London, which is the financial heart of the city (where Bobby goes to school). There's a big parade with over 100 floats. Our favorite was with the little kids below on the Great Fire of London float - all the kids were dancing to "Light my Fire" when they went by us! There's also a picture of the Lord Mayor getting sworn in at the Mansion House. You can barely see him in the middle... he's the one in the white wig.

Afterwards, we qued up for a free historic guided walking tour of the "City" area of London. Our guide was fantastic. We learned that this area was the original "London" back in Roman times and a lot of the architecture was destroyed by either the Great Fire of London or WWII. A couple highlights are pictured below: seeing the old office of Edwin Waterhouse of PwC, Bobby in front of the Roman wall remains and our tour guide in front of St. Pauls' cathedral. While we were walking back, we caught more fireworks over the Thames.

Then today we went to Windsor Castle. Its beautiful and the view is fantastic. There's a flag on the tallest tower that lets the public know whether or not the Queen is in residence. When we went into the tour of the state apartments, it signaled that she was away, but when we came out she was home! I can't believe we missed her coming in. Here's a picture of us in front of the main tower and the second is a picture of the part of the castle the Queen actually lives in.

We're trying to do as much as we can before it gets too cold and we don't want to leave our flat! Next weekend - Barcelona!

BT makes up for it in the end

We have a phone line! It's a miracle, people. And its all thanks to Bobby emailing the CEO of BT to complain about our customer service. We actually heard back from the CEO that day and he put us in touch with his high complaints department, specifically a lovely woman named Lesley. She researched our issue, setup our appointment to get the line installed within a week, gave us her direct line to call from now on (no more holding for 3 hours), gave us three months service free AND THEN sent two bottles of wine and a box of chocolates for our trouble!!! Can you believe this company? It's all or nothing with them.

Last Friday we went out to dinner and then to see Avenue Q - a musical that's like an adult version of Sesame Street and extremely funny. A couple of our favorite songs were "it sucks to be me"and "everyone's a little bit racist". We used the theatre tokens that L&L bought for us (thanks girls) and got front row seats!!

Saturday night we went to go see the fireworks at Battersea Park for Guy Fawkes Day (November 5th). What is Guy Fawkes Day you ask? I had no idea until I looked it up on Wikipedia. Basically, Guy Fawkes planned to blow up the Parliment and kill the King back in the 1600s, but thankfully he was captured right before the plan went through. They killed him and now they celebrate every Nov 5th with fireworks and bonfires. It seems bizarre to me...but I'll take any excuse I can for some free fireworks. Especially when you can watch them right over the Thames river while enjoying a Guinness...

Bobby started his new classes this week and he's saying that he likes the classes much better already - he's taking economics, strategic finance and marketing. He also met with his career counselor this week to start talking about possible jobs after he graduates. Maybe management consulting or aerospace?

And we booked a trip to Italy last night for New Year's! It's two nights in Venice, then one night in Florence & two nights in Rome. I can't wait! Its so easy when its only a three hour plane ride away...

I wasn't exaggerating!

There's been a few requests for pictures - so take a look. These are even AFTER I went and got it fixed (to the extent possible). I refuse to take a picture of my whole head while my hair is down... way too embarrassing. It's like a femme-mullet, but only on half of my head since the other is long with barely any layers at all. I'm now straightening it every day (imagine what those short pieces would look like curly) and wearing it in a ponytail with a headband.


Okay, enough of me complaining. This week, Bobby has a break at school - yesterday he had "sports day", which is an entire day of PE. Today he taught a class on "how to brew beer" for his classmates to work on his presentation skills. He even called up a local brewery (they make London Pride, if you've heard of it) and got them to donate a bunch of beer for a tasting!

Work is not too busy for me this week. Tomorrow night we're going to a PwC American Halloween dinner where full "fancy dress" (aka dressing up) is required. Friday night we're going to see the play "Avenue Q", which is a comedy that's like a crude sesame street for adults. Its supposed to be hysterical...

But, seriously, does anyone have any home remedies for making hair grow faster?

We set a date!

October 3, 2008 at Gibbet Hill in Groton. YAY! Here's some pics...

Haircut from hell

I got my haircut yesterday afternoon. I was wandering around the part of the city near my office to try to find a decent salon with reasonable prices. Well, I learned my lesson the hard way - there are some things in London you just don't try to save £10 on.

My ignored warning signs:
- When I walked into the salon, they seemed very excited to have a customer
- When I explained I just wanted a trim, Yana (my stylist from Latvia) brought out a magazine of short and spiked haircuts asking to point to the one I wanted

Now the nightmare. First, she trimmed the bottom. Okay. Second, she combed all my hair into a pony tail directly on top of my head, twisted it until it was really tight, and proceeded to cut from the bottom up. I yelled - I scared her (she had to open the door for some fresh air) and the receptionist asked if I please wouldn't scream anymore. I couldn't help it! I thought she was cutting the whole ponytail off! She didn't end up cutting the whole way through, but instead just cut the ponytail about 1/4 of the way in and worked her way up. There was panic on my face. It was definitely the weirdest haircut I've ever received, including the time when someone cut my hair while it was dry. Why am I so nice? I should have just left. And then I paid £35 for it! What is wrong with me?

The result - Since there was no rhyme or reason to how she cut my hair, it is completely uneven. There's tons of short layers on one side, but barely any on the other. And in the front, there's a big piece that's cut to right above my ear (so I can barely put it back). Also, it's about half as thick as it used to be. I think I'm still in shock. Do I get it fixed or let it grow out until xmas and make an appointment in the states? I am not going to cry....

A little bit of everything

This week has been very busy. I was working up in Reading (ha - I left Reading, MA to come to Reading, England) on a new client and Bobby had his last week of his "Block 1" classes - only 3 more "blocks" to go. Time is just flying by here. Work is getting better, but busier. My new team is great - very friendly and we have a lot of laughs in the audit room. And Bobby's doing so well in school, of course... Last week he gave a group presentation and the professor said they were the best group by far! He's also been doing a lot of networking by going to at least one career fair a week.

I went to a PwC "survival" course for secondees this week. Hysterical. It was for all the people who started in my group within the past few months from overseas. They handed out a list of "You can tell you're a Londoner if"... here are my favorites: you've mentally blocked out all thoughts of the city's air/water quality and what it's doing to your insides, your door has more than 3 locks (ours has 4), and you're paying £1,200 a month for a studio the size of a walk-in wardrobe and you think it's a "bargain". All so true...

Also this week, our phone line stopped working. All of a sudden - nothing. So it was back to calling BT and staying on hold for hours at a time. Why is this important? Because you can't get broadband without a phone line. Apparently cable internet is a thing of the future over here. I can't complain, though, because we have been enjoying our TV! I have 2 wedding channels (which I have going in the background right now) and Bobby has the Discovery channel.

This weekend Bobby is at Sean & Tina's wedding in upstate NY. He booked his ticket last minute (he wasn't sure if he could get the time off school), and ended up having to fly from London to Germany to Chicago to Syracuse, NY. WOW. He made it though!

My weekend was surprisingly full, considering Bobby was gone. One of his classmates, Nina, invited me to a London Business School event (right around the corner from our flat) on Friday night. Her husband goes to school there and they have company sponsored events every 2 weeks. Free drinks - I'm in! It was a great crowd. Then last night was the rugby championship - England vs. South Africa. Every pub in the city was PACKED. I met up with Nick & Tara at a pub in Fulham and we couldn't see any of the game - it was like every 6'6" guy in the whole city decided to go to that pub and stand in a line directly in front of us. So we headed to Erin's flat (another PwC person I met at training a few weeks ago) at halftime, watched the game and ordered pizza. Perfect, except that England lost. Oh - random sidenote - I learned that England's national anthem "God save the Queen" has the same melody as "America the Beautiful". At first I was very, very confused... :)

Now off to go grocery shopping with the biggest backpack I can find. I learned my lesson a couple weeks ago where I just tried to carry the bags normally on the 3/4 mile trip home from the store and almost lost circulation in my wrists/hands. More updates soon and I really am trying to get Bobby to do another post. I'm sure he'll have some interesting story from his travels!

We have tv :)

The engineer from Sky came this morning and set us up with cable! We didn't want to get our hopes up since they missed the appointment on Tuesday, but they did end up coming today and restoring some of our faith in the British customer service system. Now its just a matter of ordering broadband (I've been on hold for almost 45 min so far)....

This weekend was great. Friday night we went out with some of Bobby's classmates near Bond St. Some highlights: finally meeting Takeshi - one of Bobby's friends in his "small group" who previously was an investment banker in Japan, Tom explaining to us how the British political system is setup, getting advice on where to vacation in India from Rav, convincing Nina from Columbia to only speak Spanish to Bobby to help him practice, and watching Ping-Ping distribute a tray of Tequila shots to the Chinese classmates that had never tasted it before. Such a great group! Here's a picture of Bobby with Bingqiong, Rav and Voon.

Yesterday while Bobby went to his first intermediate spanish class, I cut up through Regent's Park and explored Camden Town. It brought back memories of when I went to visit Kim DiReeno and Katie Ruigh while we were in college... There are great markets up in that area and there were tons of tourists out and about. Bobby and I are actually heading up there again this afternoon! While I was in the area, I ended up buying new blinds for our place (since the landlord hasn't made any attempt to fix our broken ones in over a month), and had to walk back almost 2 miles with an 8 foot long box that had the headrail in it. I couldn't even fit on the bus!! Needless to say, I got a lot of stares and some old man in the park yelled "hope you catch a lot with your new fishing pole!". I wish I had a picture - it was ridiculous!

Last night we met up with Andrew, Katie & Steph to go to the BC alumni sponsored BC vs. Notre Dame game event. Finally - Bobby had some American sports to watch! It was a great turnout from both BC and Notre Dame alumni. The coordinators setup a projector on the roofdeck (you can kind of see it below) and we all hung out, drank beers, played beruit and watched the game. Turns out we ended up seeing 3 more people that we knew from BC at the party and there are 7 of us total from the class of 2003 over in London! Small world.

Off to Camden to get out for a bit - its been gorgeous fall weather lately. Oh, and still on hold for broadband.....

Megan & Rigo's Wedding

I got back on Monday from Megan & Rodrigo's wedding in San Francisco... I had the best time! Megan looked gorgeous and they were the happiest couple. I teared up a lot (and then quickly was reminded to get a hold of myself)! It was truly a beautiful day all around.


Now back to the real world.

Random London updates:
- Still no cable (we broke down and ordered the basic package) or internet
- Royal Mail has been on strike for over a week (Bobby may write a blog about this later)
- Bobby's taking spanish classes on top of his MBA program

Another Rainy Day

I had such a great time with everyone in Boston last week! It made it really hard to come back... and then just to top it off, I went from sunny 90 degree weather to rainy 50 degree weather. But such is life here in London!

While I was back, I got some requests for pictures of the outside of our flat, so here they are! Here's the front door and a little grassy area in between the blocks of flats when you walk out...

and the back patio (now we just need a BBQ).

Right now I'm waiting at home for the guy from British Telecom to come and install a landline so we can get phone and internet. Get ready for this - it's the third appointment he's missed, I have been waiting a total of 5 hours and 23 minutes for this guy to show up and have been on hold with the Company on the phone for 2 hours and 10 minutes. (Dave, thanks for chatting to help pass the time) I'd choose another provider, but there's a monopoly on the phone lines here! I'm starting to think there's a conspiracy against Americans having any means of communication here in the UK. At least we have skype for now!

Here's a quick update on Bobby's end....Even though he has the day off today, he's been at school all day working on a group project. He took a read through the group's rough draft last night and had to call an emergency meeting today. I guess people were quoting Wikipedia (for those of you that don't know, this is a website where pretty much anyone can go on and put information up as "fact") so he had to have a talk saying that its not really acceptable. Good luck with that...

More updates to come soon!

Quick Apartment Update

We finally have internet at our flat! YAY! No thanks to British Telecom, but because our very friendly American neighbors are letting us use their internet connection until we get our own on Monday. Its a London miracle.

Also, in the car park behind our flat, we've noticed a three wheeled car owned by one of our neighbors. We laugh at it every day and managed to sneak a picture with it over the weekend. Bobby wants to buy it - its the European version of Rusty!!!

I built a desk today

Our shipment from the US came today - it took a total of 5 and a half weeks by sea. It feels so good to have more of our things with us. The movers came at 8am, brought in 18 boxes, used the toilet and made sure to leave the seat up - thanks, and left. So I took another "settling in" day with work (so nice to have those) and unpacked. No major accidents - I am very proud. I took a few hours to build Bobby's desk that I got him at Ikea - it looks great! He's actually using it right now to do his homework...

So let's see... this weekend was pretty low key. Although on Saturday we woke up and went to the Borough Market near London Bridge to get some groceries for the week. There were sections of the market for each type of food - pastries, meats, cheeses, produce, even beer & wine. We sampled english cheddar, tofu, pickles, coffee, jams - delicious! Here's a pic of Bobby at the smoothie counter.

On our way back to the tube, we ran into some events for the Thames Festival. We ended up walking over Southwark bridge which was closed for the festival. It was amazing - it had different themes for dinner and dancing throughout the bridge! First stop, a band that everyone was really into - including a woman dressed like a cowgirl and 2 Elvises (I tried to get a picture but couldn't!). Then there was the formal section - long rows of tables with red tablecloths and fake flowers and candles. They even had fake waiters pretending to take everyone's order - but really there were just different restaurants that had tents setup all along the bridge where you could buy food. Then we walked into "the Parlor" that had carpets, couches and big comfy armchairs setout for you to sit and eat and a gramophone playing music. There were so many different areas - the last two were picnic area with fake grass on the bridge, picnic tables and lawn chairs which turned right into a beach theme with sand at your feet!

Last stop was a walk over the Millennium Bridge (aka the "wobbly" bridge) on our way to St. Paul's cathedral. We didn't go in (too expensive and it was closing), but we did get a quick peak inside.

Now Bobby's doing homework even though class begins on Monday??? I'm off to build the "Svenning" chair from Ikea that I bought to go with the desk!

Come visit!

I may sound crazy because we've literally been here for 3 weeks, but I got an email today about cheap flights from Boston to London Heathrow round trip for $458 (including taxes) and wanted to share in case anyone was thinking of booking a trip! It's available for departures through Mar 7, 2008 except Dec 19-23, 2007 and you have to stay in the UK for at least one Saturday night. You can get tickets on either Air Canada's website or orbitz.com. I'll keep posting any deals as I hear about them :)

I miss US customer service

It's my first blog in a while! Work was great last week - I've already gone out to a client on Friday, which of course, meant that we ended the day at the pub! Afterwards, Bobby and I went out to dinner near Bond St (I think this is near where Madonna lives) to a little cafe on an adorable side street. We sat outside because it was a gorgeous night and there was so much going on! The street was packed with people overflowing from the pubs/lounges, the outside tables at each restaurant were filled and there were even belly dancers performing outside at the hooka bar nextdoor - ha!

Saturday we slept in and then I spent 3 hours on the phone trying to get internet and a landline setup at our new flat. It turns out the absolute earliest we'll have it is Sept 25th!! Are we spoiled Americans or is this a ridiculous amount of time to be disconnected from the world?! I may not make it. From our experiences so far, it looks like this is the typical customer service in the UK. It's a little bit of a slower pace over here! Afterwards, we did get out for a bit and go to Portobello Road to do some shopping. It's a road right in Notting Hill that's closed on the weekends and has booths of antiques, produce, clothes, household goods, art, anything you could want! We stocked up on fruits and veggies and I got a cute little sweater (oops! over our monthly budget already).

Sunday we continued to fix up our new place. Bobby did some weeding outside on the patio while I "magic erased" the shower....it's starting to look pretty good! Our shipment from the US came in last night, so now we just need to wait for it to clear customs and then we'll begin the unpacking process for the second time.

Bobby's first day of school is today and I'm anxiously awaiting an update! He had his suit and tie picked out last night and laptop bag ready to go. I'm sure he'll write an update tonight or tomorrow!

We're In! Again!

Dee and I have made the move into the apartment. The move was an interesting one, but now that its done and over, we have begun to make it our own.

In a manner that brings me back to days in Sweden (where waking up constitutes a productive day), productivity in London has proved to be something a bit more difficult to attain than Dee and I are used to from our former medium. Dee took a "settling in" day yesterday (Thursday) so that we could attempt to get some things done during the daytime. One such bullet on the to-do list was to figure out our banking situation. What we thought was going to be a simple trip back to our old stomping grounds of Chelsea to pick up some glorified "internal mail" at NatWest, ended up being a 3 hour mind-bender. The phrase that sums up the experience came from one exacerbated customer service representative that we were passed to at a branch very far from where we started.

"You should consider yourselves lucky to have a bank account in England at all."

Thank you Mina...thank you. As my sister says, it was time for the "job speech" which Dee delivered to perfection.

Wait, it wasn't all bad though! We followed up this main course of banking woe with a generous helping of IKEA for dessert! As any good square headed Swede knows, IKEA toes the line between Home Depot (guys) and Bed Bath & Beyond (gals). All parties are interested and curious no less, and no one (me) feels completely emasculated by completely enjoying oneself. What a amazing place it is.
After about 4-5 hours of wandering the aisles, we finalized our purchases. In London they have a same-day mini-cab service that will drive you home for a small fee! Priceless when you have big items. Our paranoid driver and my lack of quid (not sure if I have used this correctly, i.e. cash) made it an eventful ride home, but we got back all in one piece!

In Sweden, a day ending at this juncture would be considered to be an immensely productive one. Dee kept going though! Assembling furniture, cutting things, hammering nails, organizing clothes. On a mission.

Back to work today for Dee, and today is my last weekday of nothing! Hence the long post. We hope to take a day trip somewhere (Windsor?) tomorrow, but we'll see how it all goes!

The Big Move

Dee is off to day 2 at work, with one day down from yesterday. She can elaborate on the details, but it sounds as if earning a spot in the London PWC office is a very prestigious and sought after position. Way to Go!

In addition to being her first day of work, it was also our official day 1 in our new place. With all the pleasure of finding our place behind us, we both knew that moving in would be an adventure. There were a few twists to the day that made it interesting, including a HUGE Tube strike, which both of us had 0 idea about. Apparently Metronet Rail, the largest contractor on the London Underground walked off the job yesterday at 6pm due to some labor negotiations gone bad! Unfortunately for Dee and I this meant getting all that luggage to the new place by way of bus...which was also being used by all 3 million other London commuters.

On the way to the bus, another lovely thing happened. Not trying to be crude...we narrowly averted being peed upon. Yes...you read it correctly, peed upon.
In London you always have to be ready for the unexpected, even if it comes in the form of a stream from the darkened stoop of an apartment complex. I wouldn't have written about had it not been symbolic of our London house hunting experience!

But...we're in!
Checking out of the Cloisters today and moving on to our new pad.

Monday, September 3, 2007

Lazy Weekend in London


Saturday and Sunday of this weekend were a great pair of days. For the first time Dee and I were not consumed with our housing search, and therefore had time to devote to relaxation and exploration!


The day started with a search. A search to find a TV that plays Boston College football games. After calling numerous bars and restaurants and searching online, we found that BC doesn't necessarily draw big ratings in the UK (surprise!). This is not so much a bad thing though, as sport teams from Boston typically do very well when I live outside the city, as exemplified by the following list:

New England Patriots, 2001 Superbowl Champions
Bobby's residence: Uppsala, Sweden
New England Patriots, 2003 Superbowl Champions
Bobby's residence: Washington, D.C.
Boston Red Sox, 2004 World Series Champions
Bobby's residence: Washington, D.C.
New England Patriots, 2004 Superbowl Champions
Bobby's residence: Washington, D.C.

With a track record like this, Vegas should take note.


Saturday continued, sans BC vs. WF. Using the good weather to our advantage, Dee and I took some time to walk around Battersea Park (just south of Chelsea on the ''other side'' of the river), then packed a picnic dinner and headed into the city to watch a free play at City Hall (also south of the river). The play, ''Helen of Troy'', was very well done especially for being free. Afterwards, we sat down in a nearby park, ate our bounty and drank some wine under the lights of Tower Bridge. Check out the view we had of the bridge:





Sunday was a packing day. Sounds boring, but with the prospect of finally vacating our Cloisters postage stamp for our new pad in Marlebone, you couldn't wipe the smiles of our faces. Add to that, Bond - GoldenEye was on BBC1 and it brought back many good gaming memories.
Dee's first day is today, and I'm still waiting to hear about the status of our place...
Updates to follow...

Friday, August 31st

We dropped off our deposit on our new flat this morning...yay! When we got to the bank, they told us that there's a fee for a wire transfer or we can just take the money out in cash for nothing. So we decide to save a couple bucks and withdraw 10 weeks rent in crisp, new 50 pound notes. They counted it out and handed it over to us, and then we booked it to the real estate office hoping not to get mugged or that Bobby could at least distract a would-be mugger while I sprinted the rest of the way. We managed to arrive safely to pay it off - the apartment's ours as of Monday!

Then we headed to Buckingham Palace to try to catch the changing of the guard, but instead we ended up getting an up-close view of the guests arriving at Princess Diana's memorial service. Today was the 10th anniversary of her death and the princes held a service for her. We stood (me on tippytoes) at the gates with the paps (what they call papparazzi here) and news teams. We managed to get a couple good pictures. Below there is Sir Richard Branson, owner of the Virgin Group, the car that the princes came in (I think if you zoom in, you can kind of make out one of them, possibly Harry?, in the backseat), and Bobby waiting with the crowd. Of course my camera died RIGHT before the Queen drove in.

Later in the day, we stopped by Kensington Palace to see the flowers and notes people left in the Princess' memory. It was a moving tribute.