Athens adventure

As I start this blog, the Midwest is preparing for a massive blizzard, one that could break records. And I'm here, enjoying 45-degree-ish weather. So why am I a little bummed? Because I love blizzards! Man, who knew I would miss being inconvenienced and getting stuck in the snow. Oh well. I guess I just have to suck it up and leave my snowboots at home.

So we were in Athens a couple weekends ago - it was really great. It definitely wasn't my favorite city, but the food was outstanding and the people quite friendly. I didn't know that Athens was covered in graffiti. And full of stray cats and dogs (due to no animal shelters). And kinda really dirty. But all that meant was that it's just not the prettiest city - the city has a really great energy despite its appearance. In addition to the good food and nice locals, the weather is awesome (it was mid-60s while we were there=Athens's winter) and there are al fresco opportunities everywhere. Seriously, I've never seen so many outdoor cafes. We spent time both Saturday and Sunday just sitting outside, drinking coffee and watching people go by. It's so nice to slow the pace of life sometimes.

I won't bore you with the details of everything we ate, but we tried ouzo (awful - unless you like black licorice-tasting liquor), moussaka (amazing!), gyros (lovely), veal stew (delicious), lamb and some cabbage-wrapped beef and onion things (mmmm) and lots of other things. Including Greek wine, which we'd never had and were very pleasantly surprised. Oh and we ate more pasta than I expected us to - but it was awesome as well. I had a simple pappardelle dish with truffles one night for dinner - I wanted to lick the plate...and would've, but Matt took my fork away.

So, on to the sites of Athens. We spent time at the Acropolis museum, which has only been open for a little over a year - I highly recommend for the recreation of part of the Parthenon and also the views of the Acropolis. We also hiked up to the Acropolis and wandered around. It's still hard for me to believe that I walked around a place that has been in existence for 2500+ years. Crazy. You also get the most amazing views of Athens and the Mediterranean from the top. We also wandered through a bunch of other old areas - I'm sure Matt could supply the names, but they are escaping me currently. All in all, I would recommend a visit to Athens, but you don't need more than 2 days to see most of the city.

Matt's travel continues - he left for Paris today for the week. Next week is Warsaw, then a week off (and my brother comes to visit for a long weekend!!! YAY!!!) then he's in Madrid for a week. He'll have more after that, but details aren't set yet. I wanted to tag along to Poland for a weekend, but it's freezing cold there right now so we're delaying our joint trip to Poland until the weather is nicer.

That's all our news for now. Enjoy your blizzard!

2011 already?

Again, I know, I know. We suck at blogging more than once a month. But I'm back for another shot at it.

We had a really great time visiting family and friends in Colorado and Chicago while we were home for the holidays. It was funny to be back because we sort of felt like we had just been there instead of feeling like we'd been gone for nearly 5 months. And even after our amazing visit, we were ready to come back to London and continue our adventure. Well, except for Cosmo. We miss him terribly and my biggest regret is leaving him behind. But oh well, a little over a year to go and then I'm never separating myself from my cat again.

We've just been getting back into the swing of work life and London life since returning. I'm enjoying my job and my co-workers and I continue to learn more about British culture/language/etc everyday. I still can't believe how many different words/phrases exist in this version of English over here. Last week, I asked my co-worker Katy what she was up to for the weekend and she told me she was going to "bugger all." I said, say whaaat? It means do nothing. Who knew? I am loving that part of my job though - it's so interesting to find all these things out about a culture that I sort of thought I had figured out.

In other news, Matt is starting to travel a LOT for work. He leaves for Athens tomorrow for a week (but I'm taking Friday off and flying to Athens so we can spend the weekend exploring Greece), then is home, then gone in Paris for a week, Italy for a week and Madrid for a week. And there is still more travel to be sorted throughout the spring. It's been a bit stressful for him, worrying about balancing work while being gone so much, but we're hoping to get some cheap weekend travels out of his need to be away during the week (since his flights are covered by KPMG).

We're starting to realize that we really need to plan some trips or our time is going to fly by and we won't go as many places as we'd like. In April, we get a bunch of holidays in a row - 2 Friday/Monday combinations 2 consecutive weeks in a row, it's amazing - so we took the 3 days off in the middle in hopes of spending those 11 days somewhere fabulous, potentially Italy. We are headed to the Canary Islands with our friends here in March and are planning a trip to Spain in June. I still can't believe we get to go to all these places that I know I never would've seen if we hadn't moved here.

So I'm off to spend the rest of my Saturday enjoying my husband's company since I won't see him until next Friday. I hear we should eat amazing food in Athens - one of my friends here said some of her favorite meals ever were consumed in Athens. YAY! Stay tuned for a food tour after we return.

Oh and p.s. I just typed favourite instead of favorite. My spelling is going to be shot by the time we get back. All these extra "u's" and "o's". And I'm a good (American) speller. Or I used to be.

Hope everyone is enjoying these first weeks of 2011!

Working girl

Howdy folks. Just wanted to let you know that pics have been updated through Josh's visit. Unfortunately, I didn't take a ton of pictures while he was in town because we were out and about, doing a serious amount of walking/touristing.

Josh arrived Wednesday after a bit of travel from Italy and we spent the afternoon catching up at one of Matt and my favorite pubs, the Bull. I never get less excited about introducing our visitors to the amazing beer selection in this country. Never. Matt eventually caught up with us after work and we enjoyed a lovely dinner at another fav, Le Mercury.

On Thursday, Josh and I toured Westminister Abbey, the site of the upcoming Royal Wedding. I thought it was enjoyable, but St. Paul's is a thousand times more awesome. Thursday was also the day of the Parliament vote on increasing student tuition, so we found ourselves sort of RIGHT in the middle of a massive protest...however, we were there early in the day and it was still peaceful. After navigating through the protesters and police, we walked along the south bank of the Thames alllllll the way to Tower Bridge. We mapped our walk once we got home - almost 6 miles!! And we felt it. And celebrated with dinner in Chinatown at my new favorite place, Leong's Legends. Best hot and sour soup ever.

Friday's outing started with an amazing lunch at the Kensington Creperie. They served up some seriously awesome savory crepes. After, we walked (just a couple blocks) to the Natural History Museum, which I have been wanting to visit since we arrived. They have this incredible wildlife photography exhibit - it was the best thing I've seen in a very long while. The exhibit had probably 60+ pictures from all over the world. Ahhhh-mazing. The NHM is a place I will absolutely re-visit.

On Saturday, Matt and Josh headed to Emirates for the Arsenal tour I did a couple weeks ago while I ran errands. We met up with our usual London gang for dinner, which was a blast, as usual. I won't bore you with all the details.

In more exciting news, I started my job on Monday. Yes, I am a working girl again. And so far, enjoying it. It's a little overwhelming because no one besides my fellow Project Officer (who also started yesterday) has this job. So this really isn't any official training. Or instructions. Or anything. Just a list of projects. So Katy (other said Project Officer) and I are working on getting our feet wet. I know things will start to make sense and fall into place and I just need to remember I am (yet again) a newbie. Luckily, Katy and all my other co-workers are awesome. And insanely nice. And funny. Oh and have I mentioned I can walk to work? My record is 11 minutes, but I think I can definitely break that time. It's outstanding.

The two of us working does mean that posts may get shorter - maybe we won't bore you with each and every detail of our days/weekends/trips. A friend of ours is currently heading home from spending a year in France and also blogged about her time in a foreign country, but she kept her blog to mostly observations about the French life with some well-edited comments about trips. We may steal her approach (if Kate doesn't mind)...I think it could be better than our current approach. We'll have to see how the blog evolves as our time here continues. I still can't believe how quickly time has passed...and that we're already heading home next week. Sheer madness.

Annnnd I'm officially out of steam. Hope everyone is getting excited for the holidays! We still haven't set plans for our happy hour, but I'll post/email them once we know details.

Cheers!

Waffles and Frites and Beer, Oh My!

When we first moved here, everyone told us that it barely snows in London and our research on normal fall/winter temps told us that it rarely drops below freezing. Well, last week, it snowed everyday and while it WAS above 32 most of the week, it was FREEZING. Seriously bone-chilling cold. And I think it's because it's that damp-type of cold. All. The. Time. And even though the rest of the country got more of the white stuff, London only got about 1 inch of snow at the most in a day. But this was enough to totally disrupt the city (as we were warned). Trains were delayed or cancelled. Commute times tripled. All for a measly inch.

We started to get a bit worried because we were leaving for Brussels (first Eurostar trip!!) on Saturday morning. And it was unfortunately justified when our train was cancelled Friday night. Luckily, Eurostar is smart. They stopped selling tickets earlier in the week so anyone without a ticket wasn't going to get on a train, meaning less madness at the train station. And people with cancelled trains could come to the station and they'd put you on the first available. So we decided we'd get up and try to get on the early train to Brussels that left London at 7:00am. And got on the train with no problem! We never would've had such good luck (and ease of travel) back in Chicago.

So off we went! The train was super cool. The ride is only 2 hours from London to Brussels; there are a couple of short stops including Lille, France. It was weird to be in 3 countries in the short span of 2 hours. And you go through the Chunnel of course - but you're only in the tunnel for 20 minutes. Madness.

We arrived in Brussels and checked into our hotel. It was snowing like crazy and the sidewalks were a mess, but we bundled up and ventured to the Grand Place (sort of a city center in Brussels). It was really beautiful. A lot of the architecture in Brussels is gothic and just amazing (pics to be posted soon). We stopped in a restaurant for mussels, frites and delicious Belgian beer. I don't really know if I drank much Belgian beer before our trip, but I know that I love it now. We spent the rest of the day wandering the Christmas markets and drinking gluhwein (yum!!). After a short rest in the hotel, we headed to dinner near the Sablon area at a restaurant called Lola. We started the meal with (and I'm not exaggerating) the best oysters I've ever eaten. They were simply outstanding. Next was a soup that our waiter (who spoke some English) couldn't translate from French. My guess is it was a butternut squash-type soup. It was served with what tasted like french onion dip, to be mixed into the soup. It was also awesome. For entrees, Matt had steak frites and I had a chicken dish with a morel mushroom sauce. We skipped out on dessert with the intention on finding gaufres (waffles) somewhere on our way home. We ended up walking back to Grand Place, where we saw the coolest light show projected on to the Grand Place itself, set to Christmas music. It. Was. SO. Cool. Probably the coolest Christmas thing I've ever seen. We watched the show a couple times and then went to a pub on the square for a beer each and then a vin chaud (similar to gluhwein) for me and a Cecemel (type of chocolate) and chantilly for Matt. On the way back to our hotel, we stopped for a gaufre liege - a type of Belgian waffle with the sugar and goodness baked right in, so there's no mess. Yuuuum.

Sunday morning, we got up and headed back to the train station in hopes of catching a train to Brugges (pronounced Brooge), a smaller Belgian city north of Brussels. In Belgium, the Eurostar will honor your ticket to any other location as long as you travel within 24 hours of your original arrival. So, for example, our original arrival was supposed to be at 11:08. We got to the station just in time to catch a 11:05 to Brugges, so free trip for us!! Barely. Brugges also has a lot of gothic architecture like Brussels, but the added feature of canals, similar to Venice, but not as plentiful. It was very beautiful - and the weather was outstanding. The snow had melted and we had sunshine on and off all day. We (again) wandered the Christmas markets and drank gluhwein (noticing a trend?) then headed to a beer pub. A beer pub in Belgium means that they carry hundreds (not an exaggeration) of Belgian beers. We took pictures of everything we drank. I stuck mostly to Christmas beers while Matt tried all sorts of things. The other thing to know about Belgian beers is that they are a much higher alcohol % than other beers. Everything we drank fell between 8-12% alcohol. Yikes. After a couple drinks at the beer pub, we headed back to a market for "street meat" as Matt called it. It was basically a giant bratwurst with onions and sauerkraut...mmmmm. We watched people ice skate while we ate - arguably the worst bunch of ice skaters we've ever seen. People were falling everywhere. We still had 2 or 3 hours before our train back to Brussels so we headed to yet another beer pub (the better of the two) and had a few more beers each. After a quick 50 minute train ride back to Brussels, we crashed at the hotel for the night.

On Monday, we went in search of 1 of the 2 famous frites caravans in Brussels (apparently, the city could be divided over which cavavan makes better frites). Unfortunately, the first one was closed so we headed to the other caravan. The frites there are fried....twice...in beef fat. And quite tasty. I had mine served with the traditional choice of mayonnaise, while Matt chose bicky ketchup (ketchup with indian spices perhaps?). Did I mention yet that these two servings of frites brought our grand total to 5 servings of frites in 3 days? Yep. I am the world's best dietitian. :) However, as I type this, the thought of eating any type of frite or fry or chip makes my stomach churn. Anyway, after the frites, we shopped around, wandered another Christmas market, each ate 1 more gaufre (stomach churning again) and had a couple more Leffe Noels (beers) before heading to the train station to go back home to London.

All in all, it was a really amazing trip. It forced me to use what little French I know (and a learn a little Dutch, since that is what is mostly spoken in Brugges) and I realized that I'd really like to learn French while I'm over here. Once I start work (next Monday, gulp!), I'll get a better idea of how busy I am, but then I'd really like to take a class at one of the local colleges. Knowing more French will make subsequent trips much easier. I also particularly enjoyed Belgium because it was my first new place since we've been here (not counting Bath) - I'd been to both London and Paris before. So I've got another country under my belt now. Yay!!

Today, we are lucky enough to welcome one Josh Johnson into our home for a visit until Sunday. Not sure what we'll do this week, but I imagine we'll have a lot of fun. I need to have a lot of fun and enjoy the remainder of my freedom since as I mentioned earlier, I start my job at Cancer Research UK on Monday. I'm super excited, but super nervous. So fingers crossed for me, folks!

That's all for now. Please mark your calendars for Tuesday December 28 - we're planning to do drinks (happy hour ish) somewhere in the city. Stay tuned for more details!

See you all SOON! Cheers!!

Long. Overdue.

I know, I know, I know. We've been atrocious at blogging in a timely manner this month. We promise to improve going forward.

November has gone by incredibly quickly and we've been busy - hence, the lack of blogging. We'll go backwards again to the weekend we celebrated our friend Mike's 30th birthday. The evening started with a really, really awesome dinner at a Moroccan restaurant called Momo. We didn't have to sit on the floor, but we did sit in chairs that were shorter than the norm. I don't remember the name of my dish, but it was lamb and it was delicious. And much to our pleasant surprise, as we were enjoying our mains, the lights of the restaurant dimmed and the music became much louder and there was lots of dancing, clapping, etc from the staff - including a belly-dancer-type. It was really fun. After dinner, we had enough time for 1 drink at a nearby pub before heading to the ICEBAR for our 40 minutes time slot. Yes, 40 minutes. Prior to entering the bar, we thought 40 minutes was way too short. We were wrong. We were ready to go after about 30 minutes. Everything in the bar is made of ice - the walls, the actual bar itself, the cups you drink out of (not the floor, thankfully). You pay an entrance fee that includes a drink once inside the bar and before you walk into the bar area which is kept at a steamy 23 degrees (F), they give you a cloak/cape thing with gloves attached. If you're me, you might also bring leg warmers too (see pics for evidence). We had a wonderful time taking lots of pictures and I licked a lot of walls...because I could! It's ice!! After the ICEBAR, the night ended with drinks and dancing at another bar near Regent Street. And also possibly some yummy Chinese food in Chinatown if you're Matt and me. :)

We spent Sunday recovering from Saturday and watching Arsenal (go Arsenal!) and Chelsea (booooo) football games with Brock - and a bit of the Bears game before trying Vietnamese food for the first time. I cannot believe that it took me moving to London to try Vietnamese food, REAL Chinese food, Turkish food, Indian food...and the list goes on. I'm super in-love with the ethnic food here...I think I've mentioned that before? :) Luckily, we had the chance to frequent our favorite Indian restaurant the following Wednesday because we had visitors who wanted Indian food...

My friend Melissa (from Rush) and her fiance Matt came into London the following Wednesday morning and we took a tour of Emirates Stadium (the Arsenal stadium) - which totally rocked. Matt is a big Arsenal fan and had never taken the tour before. It allowed us a chance to sit in the fancy chairs where the directors sit, a peek at the locker room and my favorite part, an opportunity to sit in another set of fancy and very comfortable chairs down on the field where the manager, team doctor, physiotherapist, etc. sit. Very comfy. We met (my) Matt and Anas (a friend of Matt and Melissa's) at Tiger Spice (note: favorite Indian restaurant) for dinner later that evening. One of these days, we'll try another place, but it's SO GOOD there. Mmmmm.

On Thursday, my Matt headed off to work and Melissa, her Matt and I headed to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was, by far, my favorite place in London yet. We spent 2 hours wandering around and also climbed a total of 532 (ish) steps to take in not 1, but 2 panoramic views of the city. Our leg muscles were literally shaking by the time we got back to ground level. We met Anas for lunch near St. Paul's and then I sent Matt and Melissa back on the train to southeast England where Matt's family is from. Always so fun to have visitors here! For those of you considering a visit, please note you are fed well and we promise a good time.

But to back up for a second - when Matt, Melissa and I were "tubing" back to our flat before their departure, my phone beeped with a voicemail, but the phone number hadn't registered. I figured it was Matt and thought nothing of it...until I checked my voicemail after my visitors headed into the rain and it was the woman who had interviewed me for the job back in October (who told me that I was their second-choice). The gist of her message was that Cancer Research UK had gotten extra funding for a second position and they were offering me the job. AHHHHH! It was serious madness. There was lots of smiling and jumping and no one home to witness my celebration, thankfully. I calmed down enough to call my new boss back and VERY happily accept the position. They wanted me to start at the same time as first choice girl on Monday December 13 (and were fine with me leaving for the states the following week for Christmas - awesome). So as I sit here (finally) blogging, I have 2 weeks of freedom left before I am employed. My title will be Research Projects Officer and from what I know, a lot of my responsibilities will be figured out after starting (there is a laundry list of possible projects), but it will most likely include assisting with clinical trial work. In short, a perfect job for me. I couldn't be more excited. AND they just moved to a new building that happens to be located about 0.6 miles from our flat, which means I will be walking to work. Walking. To. Work. I might start jumping up and down again at any moment. Stay tuned for more details once I start in a couple weeks.

The weekend following the job offer was spent visiting the Tower of London during the day on Saturday - finally saw the crown jewels, wowsa - and then celebrating our friend Nick's birthday at a visually uninspiring, but super-delicious (and authentic!) Italian restaurant down the road, ending the night at this...well...pub/dance club also close to home. They have a normal pub scene in the front of the space and a dance floor with a DJ in the back room...with a floor that has squares that light up. It's a great place for people-watching and one of Nick's fav places - which is why we continued his birthday celebration there. With him donning a spectacular "birthday boy" sash (courtesy of yours truly). Another great night with great friends.

Matt and I slept in the following day and then happily wandered across the street from our flat for a Sunday roast - the best we've had yet. We really are spoiled by our location. It is literally surrounded by good restaurants and fun shopping. And pubs, of course. Anyway, the roast was followed by some Christmas shopping in Covent Garden and yet another amazing dinner in Chinatown. Upon our return to Chicago, I hope I can count on some of you to trek down to Chinatown with me so I can eat proper Chinese food.

I spent the next week literally running around London finding Thanksgiving supplies. I did have time for a quick shopping/lunch date with my friends Theresa and Gemma (and Gemma's adorable 6-month old, Fiona) to wander Northcote Road. But yes, the remainder was filled with turkey-related errands. Because everyone was working Thursday, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving on Saturday. Sandy came over early Saturday morning so we could start cooking. We stuffed our British turkey and just barely crammed him into the oven. I couldn't find turkey bags, which my family uses to keep the turkey moist, so at my dad's suggestion, we soaked a cloth in butter and covered the turkey. Unfortunately, despite our efforts, the cloth dried out and started to produce this awful burning, non-Thanksgiving-smelling smell so the t-shirt was ditched and we used foil instead. And basted the bird. A lot. While the turkey hung out in the oven, Sandy prepared a broccoli dish and I made my family's traditional carrot casserole. We made mashed potatoes and heated gravy. I had made homemade cranberry sauce earlier in the week and we served it both hot and cold. Given our limited space and supplies, dinner was fantastic. Sandy and I might still be patting ourselves on the back. I also baked a pumpkin pie from scratch (and made pie crust from scratch for the first time!!) which we enjoyed for dessert, along with Belgian chocolates that Brock brought along from his very recent visit to Brussels and Bruges. And we enjoyed a lot of wine. The evening was capped with games of Bananagrams and Trains. While we all missed our families, it was awesome to spend the holiday celebrating with our London gang.

It's hard to believe that Matt and I are headed back to the states in less than 4 weeks. And that we're going on 5 months of residing in London. Crazy. Time has FLOWN. And we still have a lot going on before we head home! We're going to an Arsenal game (my first, Matt's second) on Tuesday. We leave for a weekend trip to Brussels on Saturday (staying through Monday), planning to hit up the Christmas markets, eat frites, mussels, chocolate, waffles and drink Belgian beer. And hoping to head to Bruges for a quick day trip. Cannot wait!! And the best excitement to look forward to? We recently learned that our favorite Josh Johnson is heading to Italy for work for the next 2 weeks and has made the effort to fly back through London so we could spend a few days together here. YEAH!

I think that's about it. I know I promised updated pics last post. Epic fail. Look for updated pics - again, both October and November albums before Wednesday.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Remember, Remember the 5th of November.

We got to celebrate our first Bonfire night/Guy Fawkes' day this weekend. It's a holiday that Matt could certainly shed more historic detail on, but basically, it's a celebration of the failure of a man named Guy Fawkes in his quest to blow up Parliament back in 1605. And they celebrate with fireworks and bonfires...and more fireworks. After I enjoyed a lovely day of shopping on King's Road with Sandy, we met up with friends and headed to Battersea Park for a bonfire and fireworks. We all enjoyed mulled wine and Dutch beer until they lit the bonfire, which was HUGE, and wonderfully warm. Soon after, we watched 20 minutes of fireworks set to music and then joined the masses of people as we tried to exit the park through "single-file" type gates. It was a bit challenging to say the least. Our group of 10 got a bit separated as we made our way across the Thames into Chelsea to a gastropub called the Pig's Ear. But all successfully arrived at the restaurant and we enjoyed an extremely cozy meal complete with 6 bottles of a yummy South African Shiraz (note: I am currently obsessed with South African wines - they are the best!). The night continued with a pint at a pub in Chelsea (who may or may not now be short of 1 Staropramen pint glass) and then those of us from Islington piled into a cab and headed back home.

Matt and I lazy-ed around on Sunday until Sandy, Mike and Nick joined us for the Bears/Bills game (Bears win!!). We enjoyed libations and pizza and capped the night with a mini youtube marathon (they had never seen Handsome Men's Club - my fav!). All in all, another successful weekend.

I know I need to update pictures, which I promise to do this week - look for new pics to be added to the October link and a soon-to-be-added November link. Also on the agenda for the week is a local art/craft fair and hopefully a trip to the Natural History Museum to see an exhibit of wildlife photography. Today is another one of those insanely gray, rainy days in London - I don't know if I'll ever get used to these, but they make me appreciate sunshine more than I ever have before.

Anyway, we're looking forward to a wonderful weekend ahead celebrating Mike's 30th birthday - complete with a visit to the ICEBAR in London. Oh I am just so stoked. Stay tuned for details next week. Oh and my friend Melissa and her fiance Matt are visiting next week as well - hooray for visitors!!!

Hope everyone is well! Cheers!

November already??

We cannot BELIEVE it's November already. We've been here for nearly 11 weeks and it's flown by. Makes me think that February 2012 will be here tomorrow so we continue to make the most of our time here...

Last weekend was a bit of a drinking fest and while we had a really great time, Matt and I both agree that our post-college bodies cannot handle 3 solid days of drinking in a row. Friday night was a KPMG happy hour for other secondees - we didn't do much mingling so much as chatting up our Buffalo friends, oh well. Afterward, Matt, Sandy, Mike and myself headed to Chinatown for dinner - to the Friendly Inn where, according to NFT, Londoners go for Chinese - and it was SO good, the best Chinese we've had since we've been here (with the exception of dim sum - but that's a whole different category). Our dinner was further enhanced by a hilarious old Chinese woman that repeatedly told the boys how to treat women. Awesome. By the time we left, the waffle man had packed up for the day, but fear not, we got waffles the next day. And the waffle man officially recognized us. Score.

Saturday, Matt and I got up and headed back to Chinatown for a dim sum lunch. We went back to the same place where Scottie, Sarah and I ate dim sum a few weeks ago because I knew what to order (they don't have pictures on the menu and the descriptions are quite short, which makes it more difficult to have any clue what you're ordering). Mmmmm, it was so good. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit obsessed with Chinatown. It's my favorite place to go in the city. But back to the meal, Matt enjoyed dim sum quite a bit and we topped the meal off with the above-mentioned waffles. We spent the afternoon FINALLY getting Matt an Arsenal jersey and wandering up Regent Street.

Saturday night, we headed to a Halloween party that we were invited to by a friend of mine from yoga. The party is the only social gathering her husband's company puts on during the year so they foot the bill. For SIX HOURS OF OPEN BAR (9pm-3am). You can guess how great we felt come Sunday morning. The party was really fun and we made some friends from Canada, Australia and the states. We dressed as an outlet and plug - pictures to be posted soon.

Side note: I often update the pics but forget to mention it in a post so you'll just have to check the folders on the right side of the blog from time to time.

People LOVED our costumes, which made Matt very happy because the costume was his idea, and all night, we had to show people how you could actually insert the plug into the outlet. Yup. Most people in Britain only dress up as "scary" things for Halloween, but our party was full of funny costumes like a character from Fraggle Rock, a shark with human legs coming out of its mouth and a giant weird pink monster thing. We called it a night around 1am and may or may not have grabbed a PJ pizza on the way home.

Sunday morning was rough, but we dragged ourselves out of bed to meet friends for a roast on Baker Street. For those unfamiliar, it's quite common for many pubs to have a "roast" on Sundays, meaning they'll serve beef, chicken, pork and vegetarian roast dishes with lots of yummy roasted vegetables. So 10 of us met up to enjoy delicious food and then we all headed to Wembley Stadium, where the Broncos and 49ers game was. We had a great time enjoying real football...or whatever game the Broncos and 49ers were pretending to play. All in all, one of the best weekends we've had since we've arrived.

Day-to-day life is going well too. Matt's doing well at work and is staying very busy. I had an interview last week for a position with a group called Cancer Research UK, but did not get the job. I got feedback this week and found out I was their second choice. Bah. Oh well, I continue to apply and stay positive. Matt is considering running a half marathon in the spring with Sandy and Mike - it's in Paris! - but is deciding if training can fit into his schedule. I wouldn't argue with another trip to Paris. :)

That's it for now. Hope all is going well back at home. Oh and I'd like to congratulate Lisa and Kevin on the birth of their adorable son, Lucas Ervin!

Cheers!