Meeting up and going out.

I have really been trying to branch out and get out of my comfort zone here.  It is important to me to meet new people and try new things...that is what this move to London has been all about!  A few weekends ago, I volunteered to help set up a craft fair.  Everyone was super friendly and I was glad to get out and explore a place I hadn't been before. 

 This past week I had my first "meet up", it was a book club that I joined on meetup.com.  Much to my mom's dismay, I ventured out...after dark (yikes!) in London by myself.  It was perfectly safe and an easy commute by bus to the pub that the meeting was held.  The book we discussed was Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, which was a bit of a depressing book about abandonment, loss and family secrets.  I enjoyed myself and met some nice ladies and I am looking forward to next months meeting! 

I have also picked running back up since I don't have a gym membership.  Memberships are pretty pricey and I have actually been enjoying my runs, which is surprising to me because I hated it in Springfield.  I think it helps that there is constantly stuff to look at and pass by, it isn't boring.  I've been trying to run three times a week and I'm up to about 4.5 miles.  Who knows...maybe there is a 10K or half marathon in my future.  I joined a running club online (also through meetup.com) and headed to my first run on Saturday.  I thought I gave myself enough time to get to Kensington Gardens...but alas, I was 10 minutes late.  I still had a great one hour run and I loved the park.  If only it didn't take an hour to get there!  I'm going to try the meet up again next week...hopefully I won't have any transport problems!

After my run on Saturday, Josh and I went out to explore London again.  We haven't been out in a few weeks.  It was a beautiful day to be outside, the sun was shining and the temperature was mild.

Josh on the bus.

 Josh wanted to check out a museum in the Somerset House, which is a place we have been before (ice skating rink). When we got there, we found this...

Fashion Week

Ooo...Fashion week.  The tent was taking up the whole courtyard and held a runway.  There were a lot of people in black running around looking important.  We didn't stick around and we decided to skip the museum.  On we walked...

University of London Library

Library

Arch near Hyde Park

 We stumbled across a few small markets and had a snack of falafal wraps halfway through the day.  I decided I really wanted to see Harrods, so we trekked two miles across town to see it. 

Green Park

 We walked through Green Park on the way to visit Harrods, it was very pretty and quiet compared to the street!  Harrods was overwhelming.  They have over a million square feet of sales floor.  Josh and I enjoyed the hall with chocolates and teas and coffees.  I bought some English breakfast tea and Josh got some chocolates that he was nice enough to share with me :) 

Harrods

We left Harrods intent on finding a pub so we could sit and have a beer.  Josh walked us to a neighborhood not far from Harrods.  There was a church at the end of the block and we stood there for a minute getting our bearings.  Josh decided we had to go the other direction.  The strange thing was that there were no less than 4 security guards watching the block we were on.  It was like out of a movie.  One on each end of the sidewalks on either side of the street and at least one in a car, wearing black and looking hulky and serious.  I'm not sure what they were there for, but the houses there were pretty fancy...I'm guessing celebrity or politician! 

We ended up going to a pub, called The Queen's Head, near our flat.  The atmosphere was pretty good and we enjoyed ourselves.  Rather than go home and make dinner, we ended up ordering Chinese food to go.  It was just okay...definitely not China Wok! 

In other news, Josh and I are planning a train trip to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Luxemburg for April.  Hopefully we will book our train tickets today and start figuring out hotels! 

Until next time...Rachel.

Moving on up, to the north side...

...to a deluxe apartment in the sky...

Okay, so maybe not a deluxe apartment...more like a small, yet nicely finished flat.  It is definitely a move up from our corporate housing flat.  The last week and a half we have been busy getting our stuff unpacked and creating solutions to our storage shortage.  Apart from waiting for our TV stand to be shipped and putting a few more things on the walls, we are pretty much settled and it is starting to feel like home!

Our street, in the Borough of Islington, London

Our neighborhood is nice and quiet...so different from the Creechurch flat.  It is nice to finally get a good nights sleep!  And just down the block onto Essex Street we have access to almost everything we could possible need.  Within a five minute walk we can do some grocery shopping, visit at least 6 pubs, pick up some odds and ends at a pound store, grab an organic meal at a Whole Foods type store, do some second hand shopping, pick out a few books at the library, eat at a dozen different restaurants and peruse fabric at two haberdashery shops.  It is great!  Plus, Josh LOVES his short 10 minute walk to work, it is so much better than getting on the tube!

Past Caring...a second hand store in our neighborhood.

My dream...a library right down the street!

Essex Street

Our flat is situated on the ground floor.  We have an upstairs neighbor who shares our outside door and a downstairs neighbor that has their own entrance.  We haven't met either of them yet, and luckily we haven't heard much noise from either of them. 

As you walk in our flat, we have a short hallway.

Coat rack in the entry.

Off the hallway to the right is the reception (living) room.  The couch, dining table and coffee table were furnished with the flat. 

Josh having his lunch in the reception room.

Reception room.

That little alcove used to be a fireplace.

See that fabric box?  I made it!  I also made one for under the coffee table.  Extra storage...oh yeah!

Our TV corner.

We ordered a bookcase to put our TV on...and it came on Saturday morning.  Unfortunately, they sent us the wrong one, so for now we have a bogan set up.  Bogan, by the way, is a word we learned from our Aussie friends that means something similar to a red-neck. 

Reception Room. 

To the left of the living room is our bathroom.  I love this bathroom.  It is a million times better than the one on Creechurch.  Of course, this is England, and it does have its downfalls, but they aren't too terrible. 

Bathroom

There is a huge counter that has virtually no storage in it, which is annoying, but the sink is nice and big and the toilet flushes with no problem, yay! 

Shower/Bathtub

The shower has good pressure and is usually a good temperature.  I am disappointed in the bathtub though...the bath time situation is sad.  The water comes out really slow and not very hot, so I do not see a lot of baths in my future, darn it. 

Howdy People!

Our fancy bathroom storage.

That nifty towel rack warms up your towels.  Nice!

To the left of the bathroom is our kitchen.  I love the kitchen, it is great!  Thankfully, there is a lot of storage in here, so everything cooking related that I had shipped from the states fits.  The only thing I really miss is a disposal...not a fan of having to dig food scraps out of the sink.  Oh well, I can't have it all!

Kitchen!

 

Grocery sign I brought from home and spice racks from Ikea.

I kind of had too much fun with chalkboard paint the other day.  All my spices now are labeled with chalk and I have herbs on my window sills that are labeled as well. 

I love it!

More kitchen.

I really like the granite counter tops, although it is really hard to tell where crumbs are.  I actually have to bend down to counter level to tell if I got them all, ha ha!

Kitchen

View out my kitchen window.

Down a few steps, past the kitchen, is a tiny little closet that houses our washer and other things that needed a home.

Utility closet. 

I can just barely stand up in this closet, so, lucky me gets to do all the laundry since Josh would have to hunch!  There is only a washer, so everything has to be dried by on a rack.  I have two racks that will hang off the radiators.  I also hang a few things up over the tub.  It is slow and a more work, but all in all, it isn't too bad. 

Our bedroom

The last room we have is our bedroom.  It is located at the back of the flat and you can access our patio through it.  The closet in here is tiny!  But we managed to get everything put away.  There is also storage under our bed, so that is where we have put a lot of things that we only use occasionally, like luggage and Christmas decorations.

Bedroom

If you look closely, to the left of the dresser, you will see our corner closet.  Here it is open.

Our closet.

It actually goes all the way to the wall on the right, but it is still only about 3 or 4 feet.  Josh has the top and I get the bottom.  I managed to get most of my hanging stuff in there by making these...

Space savers!

It is a metal shower hook with a short chain attached.  This allows me to hang a bunch of stuff in a small amount of space.  Yay!  Off of our bedroom is the patio, that we have yet to enjoy since it is still chilly and we don't have furniture out there yet.  But I think we will spend a lot of time out there once the weather gets nicer. 

Patio

So there you have it!  All 466 square feet of Baird residence!  Last night, we had our first "dinner party" with our Aussie friends.  It was nice to have people over in our own home again.  I can't wait to have some visitors though.  My cousin Trisha will be visiting in March, I'm very excited to have her stay with us!

Bye for now, Rachel

Snow, Snacks and the Super Bowl!

Beers at the Belgium Beer House

Mmm...beer...nectar of the gods.  Josh and I started our weekend by enjoying a traditional German dinner at the Belgium Beer House.  We have walked by it a few times on our way to and from other destinations.  It is a short walk from our flat on Creechurch, and since we are moving to our new flat in Islington on Monday (Yippee!), we decided we needed to stop in for some beer and sausage.

Our German style dinners.  Mmmm....

Josh had three different kinds of sausages, potatoes and sauerkraut.  I had a pretzel and sausages and sauerkraut (yes, I actually at the sauerkraut!  I'm surprised too!)

On Saturday, our plan was to head to Stratford to try to check out the Olympic Park and to do a little shopping at the mall.  After a short tube ride, we attempted to find a way to the Olympic stadium and park, but it was all blocked off and we didn't get a good look.  We did get a picture from the mall, overlooking some of the park. 

Olympic Stadium in the background.

What we did see of the park looked pretty cool, but the area around it is a little dodgy.  The site of the Olympics used to be a large industrial park and the housing around it looks a little run down.  The mall nearby is pretty new though and the area seems to be undergoing a turn around.  Josh and I didn't stay at the mall very long.  We visited the John Lewis (like a Dillard's or Macy's) and bought a mattress pad for the mattress in our new flat.  Then we bought ice cream cones and people watched before heading back to our flat.

The weather has been cold lately, around -1 to 4* Celsius, which isn't too bad, considering it got to -7 Fahrenheit in Springfield last winter.  They were predicting snow and ice for late on Saturday night and honestly, I wasn't expecting much of anything, but it started snowing around 7:00 pm here in London.  Josh and I were excited for the white stuff!

Josh in the street outside of our flat.

Snow in London!

At 8:00 we went out to a pub called "The Bell" to meet the friends we met last week, Alissa and Kieran.  They were a bit late, because some of the tube lines had shut down due to the weather...London is not used to snow and any amount seems to shut them down!

Sorry this is dark, but it is Josh having a beer at The Bell.

We had a great time talking and drinking with Kieran and Alissa.  We stayed for a few hours and then headed out into the snow.  It was beautiful.  In the few hours we had sat and talked, it had snowed a couple inches.  And the snow was perfect for making snowballs!

Snow!

My snow angel :)

Outside of the bar, there were a bunch of people having a snowball fight, laughing and enjoying the snow.

Josh and I enjoying the falling snow.

Our miniature snowmen.

We walked back to our flat and I was reluctant to come inside.  It was just so nice to see something as familiar as snow, it felt normal!

Josh in the snow.

Our building on Creechurch.

The next morning, I woke up early and decided to try to take a walk around down by Tower Hill before the snow started to melt.  It was already a big yucky mess in the street and sidewalks from cars and people walking around.  Luckily, down by the Tower of London, there was still quite a bit of snow left.

Snow by Tower Bridge.

Snow on a statue.

It was such a nice morning to walk around Tower Hill.  Normally, there would be tourists all over the place, but I barely passed more than 10 people as I walked around.  In a city the size of London, I think that is amazing! 

Tomorrow (Monday), Josh and I finally move into our flat in Islington.  We are really looking forward to being close to shops and to Josh's work.  The biggest thing that we are excited about is getting away from the noise here in our Creechurch flat.  At night, when we are sleeping, there are sirens, people walking below us talking or screaming loudly, horns honking, trash people picking up glass bottles, strange metal on metal noises, car doors slamming...you name it, we have heard it.  Our new flat is in a much quieter area and the bedroom is towards the back.  We can't wait for a full night sleep! 

Tonight, is Super Bowl, and Josh and I will be watching from our flat.  The game doesn't start until about 11:20pm our time, so it will be a late night.  I'm making all sorts of American type snacks to satisfy Josh's Super Bowl food cravings.  I'm pretty sure I will be in bed by 1:00 am...but we'll see.  Sad part is...no US commercials :(  bummer. 

Rachel