Visit to Ely

Rachel in Epping.

Josh and I went up to Ely to visit my second cousin Mike and his family.  They have lived in England for a few years.  We ended up taking the tube up to Epping and Mike graciously offered to pick us up!  Epping was a cute little town with a lot of little shops.  We ducked into a little restaurant and had a snack before we went onto Ely.

Ely Cathedral

Mike took us on little tour of Ely.  The main attraction was the huge Ely Cathedral.  It was amazing!  I believe that it was built around the 1100's.  The inside of the Cathedral was amazing...we didn't get pictures though because we forgot to bring our camera the first time we went by.  (Sad face). 

We strolled through the center of town and checked out the weekly Saturday market.  Mike introduced us to a food booth that made very yummy crepes.  It was a very Christmas-y atmosphere with carolers and Christmas music being played around us. 

Shopping on base!

After the tour of Ely, Mike brought us on a tour of the two local military bases, Lakenheath and Mildenhall.  Mildenhall is the base that my brother, Sam, and his almost wife Amanda, will be stationed in a few months!  It was so nice to be able to shop in dollars instead of pounds AND so nice to see familiar products.  Josh and I stocked up on food that we haven't been able to find in London.  Yay!

(I was going to put a picture of Josh riding the train - here - but blogger won't let me upload...or maybe it is my crappy connection...)

Anyway, Josh and I had a great time on our trip to Ely and to visit Mike and his family.  Thanks to them for having us, and thanks to Mike for the train tickets back to London!

Rachel

Christmas Time is here...

On Monday, our air shipment from the states finally arrived.  In addition to clothes, toiletries, etc., the shipment included our small selection of Christmas decorations.  The Christmas tree is a little four foot fiber optic tree that was pretty for the first minute that it worked!  I forgot to check the voltage before I plugged it in and after a few glorious seconds, off it went...so did the TV....oops.  I had tripped the circuit.  So we have a very nice Christmas tree that I can't plug in, so sad.  I meant to buy some "fairy lights" to put on the tree, but I keep forgetting.  No bother, the tree still makes our flat feel more Christmas-y!  Thanks mom!

Our tiny little tree!

 On Monday we also got a few Christmas cards in the mail, which really made my day! They are proudly taped to the mirror in the living room so I can see them whenever I'm in the room.

Our Nativity, stockings and cards!

 

 

 

Monday night was Josh's office Christmas party.  Unfortunately, it was only for workers, so I didn't get to go.  Instead, I spent the night attempting to make some Christmas cookies minus a mixer, baking pans and baking sheets!  I managed to make Millionaire bars (a British treat), Makeout Cookies (a family favorite) and Coconut Macaroons dipped in chocolate (swoon...I LOVE coconut).

Makeout cookies ( bottom), Macaroons (middle) and Millionaire Bars (top right)

Josh brought most of the cookies to work with him and they received rave reviews.  Who knew you didn't need fancy things like baking sheets to make delicious treats!

Tuesday night, Josh and I watched my favorite Christmas movie, Love Actually.  (I'm pretty sure Josh's favorite is Bad Santa, which I refuse to watch).  We have watched it every Christmas for years.  It was fun this year to point out places we have been.  Sometimes it is still hard to believe we are in London!

Today I did a little grocery shopping for Christmas.  I went to a store called "Iceland" to pick up some frozen appetizers for Christmas Eve.  Normally, I would make everything from scratch, but seriously, my kitchen is minimal at the moment AND it is only going to be Josh and I, and he doesn't care where the food comes from as long as there as something to eat.  Sooooo, I picked up a few selections and came across this little gem...

Mr Brain's Faggots!!!

What the....???  Mr Brain's Faggots???  What is the world?  You aren't suppose to say the word "faggot", let alone use it to advertise an onion/liver/meat concoction.  Could you imagine putting faggots on your grocery list.  Hhhmm....I need milk, eggs, bread, and oh yes, I can't forget the faggots!  British traditions are weird.  I'm still grossed out by the Christmas pudding ad I keep seeing on TV from Tesco (imagine a dark brown molded pile of strange colored bits stuck together by cooked suet...cow fat people!)

Also, I want to add a little message to London...although I doubt if anyone pays attention.  Dear London, if you would put out more public trash receptacles, more people would use them.  Negating the need to pay people to go around picking up litter all of the time.  Seriously, I don't understand the lack of trashcans...

Anyway...Josh and I have an action packed week and a half ahead.  We are very excited to be visiting my second cousin Mike and his family in Ely on Friday and Saturday.  Then we have a (hopefully) relaxing Christmas day on our own in London, then off to Scotland for a week.  I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! 

Cheers, Rachel

Living London

The company that manages the property we are staying at decided they needed to immediately address the floor issues in the bathroom, so this morning after church, Josh and I moved our stuff from our flat to another flat two floors up.  It is basically the exact same set up and it didn't take very long to switch flats.  Now, I have a chicken roasting in the oven (it smells soooo good) and we are spending the afternoon relaxing.

Our first look at St. Paul's Cathedral

Yesterday, Josh and I set out to explore some of the parts of London we had not been to yet.  We started in Islington, which isn't a new area for us, but I wanted to stop by a Christmas craft market that was set up on one of the side streets.  There were not as many crafters as I was hoping for and really didn't see anything that thrilled me.  There were only about 20 booths, so we went through pretty quickly.  We decided to start walking south from Angel tube station.  Our first big "find" was stumbling across St. Paul's cathedral.  It was immense!

St. Paul's Cathedral

There has been a church on the St. Paul's Cathedral sight since 604 AD.  The current cathedral was built between 1675 and 1710.  This was the sight of the wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles in 1981.

Josh and I only stepped inside for a few minutes.  You have to pay 14.50 pounds (about $22.50 US) to enter the church during visiting hours (services/masses are free).

The church was also the site of hundreds of Occupy London tents.  Somehow we didn't get any pictures, but the tents were all over the place.  They even had a little donated "grocery" store for the occupants.

Royal House of Justice.

 Josh and I continued our walk and came upon the High Court of Justice.  It is another large beautiful building that dates back to the 1870's.  Near here I also found a Twining of London store.  It was the most narrow, long store I have ever been in!  I don't think it was more than 8 feet wide!  Of course, I had to buy a few tea samples.  I had one this morning that tasted and smelled like rose.  Not bad actually...

Josh and I at Somerset House.

 We continued along "The Strand" and found an ice skating park at the Somerset House.  It was such a festive atmosphere!  Josh and I grabbed a cup of hot chocolate and watched people skate as the sun set.

Trafalgar Square at Christmas.

We then made our way to Trafalgar Square, where there were carolers singing Christmas songs.  The National Gallery is in the background.  Josh and I went into the Gallery and walked around admiring the artwork for about an hour.  

By this point, Josh and I had been wandering around London for five hours.  We were exhausted!  So we hopped on the closest tube and headed back to our flat.

This next week, we are expecting to look at a few more flats that are close to the Angel Building (Josh's office).  I hope that we have some luck,  if not, we will probably have to wait until after New Years to look again.  Everything pretty much shuts down around the holidays.  Josh and I decided to plan a trip to Scotland instead of giving each other gifts this year, so on December 26th we are leaving London for a five day trip to Edinburgh and Glasgow Scotland.  We are so excited to see Josh's "homeland", I promise I will try to get a picture of Josh in a kilt!

Cheers! 

Well, that sucks...

Josh, hard at work...

This evening Josh and I were participating in Josh's favorite pastime...making lists.  These events are not as exciting for me, so I usually grudgingly participate.  While crossing some "to do's" off our lists, Josh discovered that there were some odd charges on our credit card.  It seems that someone was able to use our credit card number to make two cash advances of 100 pounds.  Ugghh.  The picture above is of Josh, during the one hour conversation with Capital One.  Having fraudulent charges on a credit card sucks under normal circumstances, but having you only source of payment/cash canceled three days before your UK bank account goes into effect really sucks.  Basically, we have 40 pounds cash between the two of us until at least Friday...if not longer.  Josh's new CC will hopefully be arriving on Friday...mine will be mailed to the States for some reason (mom, I'm going to need you to mail that to me!)  Transferring money from our US bank account is an option, but it also takes a few days.  Luckily, Josh is scheduled to be paid on Friday, so we should have access to that right away.  The whole situation isn't completely terrible, but it is completely inconvenient!

Since I am writing about sucky experiences, I'll talk about my bad tube experience from yesterday.  I had an appointment with a career counselor on Monday at 4:00.  My counselor, Sharon, thought that it would only take about 30 minutes to reach  the Royal Festival Hall (which is down by the Thames and London Eye).  I left around 3:00 with a written detailed plan on what tubes to take and where to transfer.  I'm not sure exactly what happened, but somehow I ended up a tube train going the opposite direction from where I needed to go.  Luckily I figured this out pretty quickly, but I was still delayed.  I ended up being 30 minutes late to my appointment and completely frustrated (almost to the point of tears!)  Thankfully, Sharon was very kind and understanding and our meeting went well.

I feel like being pouty, so I'm going to complain about our washer/dryer too.  The company that runs our corporate housing left us a vague description of how to use the washer/dryer (it is an all in one machine).  There are nobs and buttons and weird squiggly lines I just haven't figured out yet.  It literally takes all day to do a load of laundry.  The dryer seems to be my biggest nemesis...I have been using what I think is the dryer setting, but it takes FOREVER to dry anything.  I basically think it is air drying it with no heat, while it tumbles around.  Luckily, someone is stopping by tomorrow to leave better instructions for me.  Fingers crossed I can get it figured out. 

In better news, during my flat hunting I've found a very serious contender. There are a few downsides, but it has almost everything we were looking for.  First of all, the building is beautiful, it is in an old water works building.  The best part is that it is only a four minute walk to Josh's office. 

Rosebery Avenue Flat

Reception Room

The building is very secure, with a keypad to gain entrance and a concierge in the lobby (which is huge, it looks like a ballroom, but dang, I didn't get a picture!)  There are two bedrooms, that are small (eek) and two bathrooms.  The kitchen is also pretty little, but has everything we need; a large fridge, storage, washer/dryer combo, and a dishwasher (yay!)  The reception (living) room is a good size and the whole flat is hardwood, which I love.  I still have a few flats to see on Wednesday, but this just might be the winner!

Tiny little kitchen (there is more that you can't see though)

I hope that our days get a little easier this week.  We really don't need anything else to go wrong, it makes it hard to enjoy this new city we are in! 

Settling in...

The view from our flat.

Josh and I have settled in a bit at our temporary flat.  Our flat is located near Tower Hill and the business district.  We have a great view of the Gerkin, an office building that is shaped like a pickle.  When we arrived in London on Friday morning, we took a cab to our flat...not realizing that we weren't able to get in until 3:00 that afternoon.  We had about 4 hours to kill!  After stowing most of our luggage away with the maintenance man, we headed out to find somewhere with some food and some free wifi.  We ate at a chain called something like "The slug and lettuce"...doesn't sound very appetizing does it?  I'm not sure I want to think about a slimy wormy insect (is it an insect?) while I eat.  The food was fine luckily, and no slugs anywhere to be seen!  I wonder if slug means something else here in England?  Hmmm...

The walk-in-closet sized Kitchen, complete with a washer/dryer combo.

After lunch we wandered around and stumbled upon Petticoat Lane, which historically is where petticoats and lace were sold a few hundred years ago.  These days it is a huge discount clothing market, although you can find many other things there as well.  Definitely somewhere I will be checking out again on my own while Josh is at work!

A queen sized bed!  So thankful it wasn't a double, which seems pretty common.

 Blessedly, we finally got into our flat.  After a nice long hot shower and a good teeth brushing (it had been 24 hours!) we did what any new Londoners would do...we napped!  Ha ha!

Our flat is...okay.  There are a few things about British flats that I have noticed that I think are strange.  Josh thinks the British "like to make things difficult".  I think I agree...

*outlets have to be turned on with a switch before they can be used (each has an individual switch)
*each separate room has a door that automatically shuts...so every time you enter or leave a room you have to open a door
*toilets are wimpy...multiple flushes are common
*can only plug shavers into bathroom outlets...I don't understand why...
*most light switches are on the outside of the room
* Two faucets in one sink (one is hot, one is cold and you have to cup your hands under the cold then move it over to the hot to get warm water)

The living room/office/dining room.

 We have decided we really don't want to be in this flat for two months, so it is my job on Monday to start flat hunting.  Good thing I just got a phone!  Its a smart phone, with a data plan!  I'm really moving up in the world! (I'm serious here, I've had an old school phone FOREVER)  In an added bonus, calls to the US are only 5 pence per minute...woohoo!

So, as you can see, Josh and I managed to get me a phone today.  We had big plans of getting a lot more done, but we got off to a bad start.  First we slept in late, trying to catch up from not sleeping on our flight over.  I spent the morning on the google maps making a walking route to each business we wanted to visit today...cell phone, art store, kitchen store & barber.  We start out full of confidence, get to our first destination and...CLOSED!  What???  How can a cell phone store be closed on a Saturday?  We go to our next destination...CLOSED!  What???  I'm so confused...Apart from Starbucks and Subway (two American based stores BTW) nothing is open in our area.  Everything apparently shuts down for the weekend since the majority of shoppers are the business people who work in this district during the week.  After regrouping at our flat, we made our way to Oxford Circus and found lots of shops and lots of people.  Josh and I tried our first "real" Belgium waffle...so yummy.  It was a very Christmas-y atmosphere with lights and carolers around.  Only 13 shopping days left!  Cheers!

The weird bathroom with soft floors and double faucets.

The Joys of Travel

Josh and I settled into our seats on the flight from Dallas to London, cramped in our tiny economy seats. The plane taxied out...then proceeded to taxi back almost immediately. Joy! Apparently the heat sensor in the plane wasn't working properly and according to my pilot brother "you are going to want that" when flying over the Atlantic. Bummer. After about 45 minutes of waiting to see if the problem could be fixed, we were herded off the plane to wait for a backup. After enjoying the fine virtues (ie. women's bathroom, closed restaurants, and lack of wi-fi) in the Dallas International Airport for a few hours, we were finally on our way to London.

After a changing money fiasco, a rude TSA agent and figuring out how to get oyster cards (for the tube) we were on our way to Islington. The tube ride took about 30 minutes. Exiting the station we stepped out into a world of bright lights, hustling crowds, double-decker buses and drizzling rain...it was perfect!

After a quick clean up at the hotel, Josh and I went out to explore the Islington area. Our dinner that night was fantastic. We ate at a little Mediterranean place with dim lights and a cozy atmosphere. The food was amazing, we shared a baba ganoush appetizer, Josh had shoulder of lamb and I ate a delicious chicken kabob dish with tomato and cream sauce. Mmmm...this is making me hungry!

We crashed early that night and it is a good thing too...the next three days were filled with appointments and flat hunting. Everyone we met from Josh's company were very friendly and helpful. A few are new to the London area too, so hopefully we will be able to explore the city together. Flat hunting was....hmmm...interesting. Some places had weird set ups, some were filthy from the current tenants, and some made us feel claustrophobic. A few places were possibilities, but in the end, we decided we weren't ready to commit...and that we needed to up our budget to get what we want.

Overall, our first experience of London was excellent. I definitely think I can live there. Good thing too...since we can't turn back now!