Kensington Gardens

We've had our fall time change in England. That means for some reason I SWEAR it gets darker two hours earlier than it did last week. But! And I mean this in the best possible way, it has been very nice, sunny and not too cold during my lunch hours. Being the spry, lunch-packer, office-avoider-on-free-time person that I am, I decided to go for a walk for my lunch hours both on Monday and on Tuesday.

I must admit that I still am finding it truly bizarre that I'm just walking about on my lunch hour and there are tourist milling about, but for these walks I've gone to Kensington Gardens. Kensington Gardens is the largest open green area to Notting Hill Gate, with Holland Park being over twice as far, and quite frankly, kind of creepy. So Kensington Gardens it is. On Monday I walked down to the Albert Memorial and Prince Albert Hall, back up Kensington High Street to Kensington Church Street and back to work. On Tuesday I went in search of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain and ran out of time before I had to turn back. But whilst searching, I came across tons of pretty fall foliage and was able to spot quite a few bids, such as herons and coots (there was a little plaque telling you what the birds were), in addition to the usual swans, pigeons and gooses. I also came across what they called the Italian Gardens, which was really just four fountains artfully arranged. But still, very nice. And very pretty this time of year!

Today I did not go on a walk. Well, I did sort of. I made a bee-line for Whole Foods. You see, today was my first pay day, and in celebration of actually having income, we opted for expensive, heavy salad bar times. I showed no constraint in piling on roast turkey, tandoori chicken, pasta salad, cous cous and veggie samosa on my healthy salad base. And it only cost me 8 pounds... On the sad side I was too full afterwards to partake in a Whole Foods brownie. Alas. The next Big Lunch Idea is to get soup and baguette. I'm not sure when this day will be, but I await it eagerly. As for tomorrow...perhaps PB&J....

NFL at Wembley

Yesterday was the Giants-Dolphins game at Wembley Stadium. As was likely all over the papers here and there, not only did the cheerleaders come, but the Giants won 13-10. So basically, it was a close game (made much closer in the final minutes), but the low score made it a bit dull at times.

It is my job to tell you what you may not get on tv. Things possibly of key interest: while Americans were adequatly represented in the crowd, most people were still English. As it was such an odd game situation, if attendees seemed to have any sort of NFL jersey or clothes supporting any team, they generally wore those, even if they weren't playing. There were a lot of Patriots and Redskins jerseys, I spotted a cheesehead and yes, some Seahawks fans. I even got a not of understanding from one waiting to get down a row a couple in front of mine. In my NFL-gear-less attempt to represent, I was wearing my Washington hoodie.

The cheerleaders got what may have been the largest cheer of the night. Believe it or not, the audience was mostly men and to many of them the idea of a bevy of scantily clad really excited women was quite novel.

There was a streaker. At the start of the second half. I was sadly not at my seat in the time, and returned as he was being hauled off the field. Apparently the same guy streaked at the Super Bowl three years ago. He does it a lot.

There was a good wave effort. In the first half. And the second half. The first one originated in my area. They booed on the initial failed efforts.

There was a guy dressed as Superman that someone decided to take a swipe at. It took approximately 8 'safety stewards', the head safety steward and literally, 4 'response team' members to remove the punch-thrower from the stadium. Superman was holding water bottle to his wounded head. After that it seemed someone else tried to hit him or something, and he was removed as well. Perhaps Superman is an a-hole.

Oh, and American day went well. The root beer floats were a big hit. And I thoroughly enjoyed my token Tootsie Roll purchased the day before.

There are game pictures AND captions on Picasa. Check 'em out.

football of the american variety

so im getting quite excited about the forthcoming trip (tomorrow) to watch the giants v dolphins. having visited new york and not miami i feel i must support the giants even if normally i tend to root for the underdog.

so as part of the game festivities we (margo and i) are having an american day which i think im correct in saying involves pancakes in the morning time and root beer floats at some point - margo spent $10 on a bottle of root beer in what i would describe as an american/chinese candy store just off leicester square. margo is also hoping for hotdogs at the game but i doubt (though i may be proved wrong) they will have them.

sounds quite boring but im also looking forward to checking out the stadium!

so importantly i'm going to try and remember the rules that brian and aaron taught me back in portland - this combined with margo who will probably not like me after the game due to the number of questions i will ask should give me a reasonable understanding of the goings on!

Aussie Aussie Aussie

One thing I can't help but find kind of strange about my current workplace is the sheer number of Australians and New Zealanders that work there. First of all, why do so many Australians come here when practically every Brit you talk to has some dream of living in Australia? Is it simply a case of the grass always being greener?

I have also heard some interesting tales about some of these Australians. I'm going to go ahead and generalize this as an Aussie thing because I have not heard of anyone else doing these things. My boss apparently interviewed an Australian last week. Aside from a rumor going around saying he was a bit odd looking, apparently he was just looking for six-months of contractual work so he could save up and then go traveling 'again'. This fits in with some tales of strange Aussie housing conditions I have heard as well. For example, a very large number of Australians sharing an apartment with at least 2 per bedroom and perhaps a few more people staying over in the living room. I can only assume this lifestyle is adapted again to support a substantial amount of travel. I should also add that this seems to be purely a phenomenon amongst the 20-something set, I don't think you find any 40 year-olds in those living situations.

Of course, I still have difficulty differentiating between Aussie and Kiwi accents. But now I think I can pretty easily tell the difference between English and Australian. Which was always a tricky one before.

In other news... I've added a couple photo albums to picasa. One covers a few pictures I've taken in the local hood, the other about 3 different days around London. I'll work on getting the captions up tonight!

The final

So Saturday was the rugby World Cup Final. To make a long story short, England was supposed to lose and they did indeed lose, to South Africa. And the people who play for South Africa have kind of strange names. But the good news is that instead of losing to them 36-0 like they did in the first round of the cup, they only lost 15-6, and it was very nearly 15-13 as England came very close to what we shall just for simplicity sake call a touchdown.

On Saturday the landlord was coming to redo the kitchen. At 7:45 am. So this required getting up at 7am and clearing all the stuff out of the kitchen before this time. We then went to Starbucks because we could make coffee at home, then tried going to the Natural History Museum but it was only 9:15 and it didn't open until 10. So we went to a nearby French cafe, then spend a number of hours 'learning' at the Natural History Museum. This included 'driving' a 'snowmobile' in the special Antarctica exhibit. I did not do that well, as I kept going into the water or flipping the darn thing over.

After the museum we went to another little French cafe for baguette sandwiches that were very good. Mine had avocado. We then intended to go to the wine museum on the Southbank, but when we got there we learned that it costs £17.50 for the basic package, and £22.50 for a worthwhile package, so ended up deciding to hold off on this one. But, I must say, for that £22.50 you get 5 wine tastings, 2 beer tastings, a Sapphire cocktail, 2 absinthe tastings, and either 2 whiskey tastings or 1 whiskey cocktail. Basically, this is not a place you want to go if you have anything to do the rest of the day. So instead of going there, we strolled along the bustling riverfront pathway, popping into Tate Modern to use the bathroom/see the giant modern art crack in the turbine hall. It was deeper than you would think. Then in search of a place to watch the rugby, we walked through the giant Eid celebration in Trafalgar Square and past Buckingham Palace. We figured that places in the tourist areas would be less packed as most would not care about the rugby.

We ended up trying to watch the game at this pub with this horribly mean, drunk owner who kept yelling at people and even turned the tv off at one point because a guy wouldn't move. So we ran screaming out the door right before half time and got back to a luckily-landlord-free apartment with new kitchen for most of the second half. I've taken a photo of the new kitchen, but it will have to be added later. I swear I'll get new photos up this evening!!

Mid-week review

It's Wednesday of week 4 of work. I've sort of slowly passed a number of additional one-year marks: it's been over a year since I've been in England, over a year since I started classes. Well, I guess those are the main ones. Now when people ask me how long I've been here I just say 'oh, a year'. It sounds much more long-term since my old answer of 'oh, just since September' (this is usually accompanied by me point over my shoulder, as if that is where last September was located).

One of my main goals as a working person is to aviod, or at least delay, falling into the working person rut. You get up, go to work, go home, eat, watch tv, go to bed. While I must admit this is what I do most days, I think it's key to mix in random events in mid-week times. Like on Monday, I went to the grocery store. Yesterday I checked out someones new pad in Finsbury Park, which is like the opposite corner of London from here. Today I bought some beans at Starbucks. Tomorrow I shall sample local Thai. Whilst there is something said for the routine, I think that as a new Londoner I have to do my best to take advantage of at least a very small slice of what my surroundings have to offer.

Although I also must admit that I have something of a routine with my work wardrobe. While I change tops everyday (mainly blouses with a few cardigans mixed in), I don't have that many bottoms so I tend to wear a similar set each week. At least once a week I wear my black skirt with black nylons, and another day I wear one of my two lighter skirts with the neutral nylons. The dark grey trousers are worn once a week (wore them yesterday), and then there is usually at least one day involving all or part of a suit. The fifth day (let's call it Friday) is in some ways more of a wildcard. Tomorrow is Thursday and as I haven't worn black skirt yet this week, I think we all know what's coming. And I'm not sure if anyone else ever has this problem, but for some reason when I wear skirts with nylons and blouses tucked in they often times tend to creep up a bit. So you walk to blocks and you have to pull your skirt down so it doesn't end up in your armpits. But this is quite possible just me. Actually tucking doesn't really impact as much as the nylons. Perhaps I best stop talking now...

Ikea

I went to Ikea yesterday. Via public transportation. This may be an Ikea first! There are actually 3 Ikeas in and immediatly around London; one in Croydon to the south, Wembley in northwest and Edmonton to the east. Having been to the one at Croydon before and knowing how to get there with relative ease, that is where we headed.

Getting there involved paying 1 pound to take the District line to Wimbledon and then paying 90 p to hop on the Croydon light rail tram 9 stops to that opposite Ikea. After nearly getting over by several cars walking through the massive parking lot, we grabbed some meatballs before facing the carnage. We were there to get curtains and a frame. It took a little time, but we finally picked out some curtains that we liked. But alas, after much searching, we discovered they were out. And sadly, we didn't care too much for those they had in stock. In the grame section, we discovered they did not have the size frame we required. So sadly, it was not the best trip to Ikea. It seems we're going to have to make another trip to try and get those curtains!

In rugby news, England is going to be playing South Africa on Saturday in the final. This is somewhat expected, but not the best news! There's been a considerable amount of press coverage as well as a lot of talk on the streets. Oh, plus people seem kind of excited in Scotland as they have had a couple of upsets in the EuroCup 2008 qualifiers, including beating France in France and beating Ukraine in Scotland this past weekend. Sometimes I think there are just too many 'big' games!