Whole Foods is My New Best Friend

We've moved! We finally have our place and were actually able to unpack after 2 weeks of living out of suitcases!! It feels great. Unfortunately, any type of service in London is horrible and slow, so I just found out I won't have internet for a month. Seriously? I'm only here for 6! But anyway, so now I'll be frequenting the cafe at Whole Foods, where the internet is cheap, and try to blog, post pictures, and download TV shows (we also have no TV for about 2 weeks) as fast as I can before my power runs out.

We have been so busy this past week! Saturday was GORGEOUS! Who says it only rains in London?? It was beautiful and we had so much sightseeing planned. First, we went to go get tickets for a theater show that night, it was sold out. Then we went to finally go inside of Westminster Abbey. It was closed for scouts and cubs day. On a Saturday! Argh. So after striking out twice we decided to forgo all other plans, and use the perfectly clear day to check the London Eye off of our list. That's basically the giant ferris wheel in the middle of the city that gives you a 360 degree view of London. Normally they put you in these "pods" with about 20 other people and you take on a 30 minute ride. However we got lucky because we got in line behind a man who's son operates the wheel, so they gave him "preferential treatment" and put us with only 6 people. It was great, we pretty much had the pod to ourselves instead of being packed in there! It was a nice turn of events given all the striking out our day began with. (you gotta get excited about the little things, right?)

On Sunday we went to the British Museum. It was great. And so exhausting. But we did get to see the Rosetta Stone and all other kinds of historical stuff (this was more Adam's kind of thing).

We leave for Paris Friday night -- thanks for all the tips on what to see and do! Not having internet has really made it hard for us to research and know what we're getting into this weekend, so we appreciate all the advice! Hopefully I'll come back with some good stories/pictures. For now here are a few from this past weekend:

Below Big Ben

The London Eye

View from the top of the Eye

In our "pod"

The Honey Situation

Well our weekend ended up being quite uneventful, but still really nice. It just doesn't provide good stories for you guys! We did do a lot of planning for many of our weekends to come which has me really excited! This weekend we are going to the theater and other sightseeing touristy stuff, and next weekend we are going to Paris!! I can't wait! It will be a very short trip so if you have any advice on must-sees in Paris, please let me know. We also planned a trip to Ireland during the St. Patricks Day festival (so fun!) and a trip to Belgium (I'm not sure when that when is). So our passports are about to get a lot of use!

The only major event of this past weekend was "The Honey Situation." On Valentine's Day, we woke up and decided to walk to Starbucks to get a coffee and their oatmeal that we love so much. Well, don't ask for oatmeal here. We got a weird look and an "Eh, what's oatmeal??" So I was forced to get a yogurt with a cup of nuts on the top of it that you sprinkle in, you know? Well the yogurt was actually some nasty, sour, weird European yogurt, and the nuts were actually a variety of seeds, but I still decided to get it because at the bottom of the yogurt was all this honey, and I LOVE honey!

So, we get home, I put my laptop on my lap, and then proceed to open my yogurt. (does anyone see where this is going yet?) Well, I got confused as to how to remove the cup of seeds, and while trying to figure it out, turned the whole thing of yogurt upside down, and that helped. I managed to get the cup of seeds off. And then found out that the honey in the yogurt was extremely fluid. Definitely not the thick stuff I'm used to. (but what in this country is??) So there it was: honey flowing throughout my keyboard. HONEY. Of all things. I know that my family is reading this thinking, that is so Kate! Because it is. I'm the girl who spilled her drink at EVERY Sunday lunch from ages 4-10 (literally). And who spilled bright pink - never the nude colors - nail polish on carpet FOUR times (although until this moment I think my mom only knew about one or two of those times). Basically what I'm saying is I don't learn from my mistakes. I know am prone to spilling, yet still opt to open yogurt over a computer.

So basically most of my Valentine's weekend was spent figuring out how to pop off the keys on a keyboard, clean honey out of a surface that you can't readily use soap and water, and then correctly replace the keys. None of this is easy. Should you ever need to clean under the keys, call me, I've got the system down. And overall the keys seem back to normal, although the ; and ' keys are still a little slow to pop back up. But I'll just wait until the next time I'm in this situation to clean them a little better, since given my history, keyboard spillage will inevitably happen again.

We move this Thursday, so the next time I post on here I will be one VERY happy girl!

Sign your cards.

Some things I've observed in London:

The pizzas here don't come pre-sliced. And you have to eat the whole darn thing with a fork and knife... it takes for.ev.er. But that's okay because the restaurant doesn't care if you take forever; they absolutely WILL NOT bring you your check until you ask for it. Found that one out the hard way...

Their diet cokes (served in those cute little glass bottles) will always have a lemon in them. Not lime. Lemon. I don't think I'm a fan.

There is no open container law. This one is actually pretty fun. It makes the tube on a weekend or during a "football" game way more interesting... everywhere you go is a party! And really great people watching.

On football -- I will never again say that Red Sox fans are the best fans I've ever seen. They look like Rangers fans compared to these people. Football is everything here, and I really can't describe the ways I've seen them express their allegiances... there's costumes... songs... I'll try to get some pictures the next time I see it. It's nuts.

They eat foliage. On their version of The Today Show, this chef was cooking a Vday dessert, and part of it included pureeing rose petals... ? Neither of the hosts reacted to this as if, "oh my, what an interesting idea for the sauce on the dessert!" No, they just said "mmm, can I taste it??" If you have heard of this before let me know and I won't write the English off as crazy. Until then, crazy.

For the love of God, sign your dang credit cards. The first time we tried to use our credit card this rude cashier at the tube station flung it back to us and said "Cards have to be signed in this country, mate." We were like okay... so can we borrow your pen? Haha, he didn't let us. Since then we signed one of Adam's cards thinking "This is so stupid. Are they really going to compare signatures and know for sure this is our card??" Yes. They really will. They STUDY those things. Apparently they are terrified of fraud here. At a restaurant they bring the credit card machine to you rather than taking your card because of fraud-fear. So if you ever travel to London and plan on using your credit card, SIGN IT.

Well these are just a few of the things we are adjusting to here. We're not sure what our Vday plans are (why didn't we think ahead and plan on Paris this weekend??) but we will definitely be out and about the city this weekend and we will take pictures to put on here! Hope you all enjoy your lovey day!

My mum is brilliant

So when you are in another country, you have a different IP address. This means that websites where you might regularly watch your favorite TV shows no longer recognize your IP address and forbid you to watch their shows. A huge disappointment for a TV junkie like me. The show this has affected the most is The Bachelor. I don't care what kind of trash you think it is, I love it. The best part of it is talking to other girls about it, and I was so sad to think I wouldn't be able to join in Bachelor convos over Skype. Well, my brilliant mum suggested looking for it on YouTube. I scoffed at that. Copyright rules, right?? Well apparently not for The Bachelor! Every episode is on YouTube!! In 10 minute increments of course, but I'm not going to complain! So maybe it's illegal, I'm really not sure, but I'm willing to take my chances.

In other news, a couple of people have asked about that darn grocery trip... well, it did not start off great. I got all dressed in my cute coat, skinny jeans in rain boots (skinny jeans in boots are a must here), cute scarf, and hair slightly wavy with the chunky knit hat that I would never pull off in Dallas. I walked outside, turned in what I thought was the right direction, and proceeded to get completely lost. So I walked until I found our apartment, went right back inside and played a game of spider solitaire... After I finally won a game, I studied a map, got my confidence back up, did the chunky hat thing, and tried again. And I made it that time! The rest went well, except for I forgot to tell the checker I didn't need any bags -- I was going to put them in the trendy and oh so "green" bag I brought -- so I was left lugging the plastic bags that cut through your fingers the whole way home... in the rain... with no umbrella since both hands were dedicated to carrying bags. But I made it, and we had dinner, and we'll try again next time!

Work is going well for Adam. He got staffed on a case actually here in London-- hallelujah! He said he was going to write on here, so maybe you'll get to hear his side of things soon! Now it's time to watch the episode of 24 we had to buy off of iTunes on my little laptop. So sad...

We are here...

We have officially spent our first weekend in London. So far we've walked, looked at apartments, walked, looked at historical buildings, walked, tried Indian food (not bad), walked, bought coats, walked, walked, walked, and finally figured out the tube (also not so bad).

Right now we are living in our temporary "flat" which is fine, with the exception that the lady who lives below us must really hate moths... when we walk past her flat (during our regular hike up our 3 flights of stairs) we have learned our only defense against the moth balls is to hold our breath and run. The moth ball smell is so strong, and because she lives directly below us the smell has permeated through to our flat (not hard to do given the age of the building). So, basically I've spent the day googling how to get that smell out of your clothes. Blegh.

Luckily, as of 9:00 am today we have an apartment! Yay! It's a little bitty thing... but I like it, and... there are no moth balls! As soon as we move I will put some pictures on here.

Adam is at his first day of work today, so it will be nice to have some other contacts here aside from our estate agent and our landlady, Jane (who happens to also be the moth ball lady).

And now I am going to try to figure out this whole walk to the grocery store in pouring rain and then carry all your groceries home in the pouring rain. Right...


Some pictures of our journey:

6 months of luggage... not the easiest thing to haul around Heathrow airport...

A picture for Dana; I think of you every time I see it!

We are missing you all back home, and will hopefully have plenty more stories and pictures to come!