Suttons Go To London

Well, we are here. In Prague for the weekend via Easy Jet on a flight that resembled a frat party more than it did anything else. I’m not quite sure if it was a stag party making its way here, or what, but either way, it was quite a noisy flight with gambling even!

We just walked around the city a bit for our first day and took it in, since we didn’t get started until 5:30pm or so, but don’t worry, we were still able to find something eventful to get into. Can you say money scam? Oh yeah. I’m out £30 now, but that is just what 3 semester credits at the School of Hard Knocks goes for these days. More to follow on that…

One of the reasons Michael and I moved to London is to enjoy the cooler weather. Now granted, it IS in fact, cooler than Phoenix, but it is 10:30am right now, and I am hot already!!! I thought London was supposed to be cool and rainy, yet it is 80 degrees, sunny, and humid!!!

I keep seeing dogs around London, and it makes me miss my girls a lot. It is funny how you know in advance that being away from something you love will be hard, but when you actually are away from it, it is harder than you imagined. I know they’re just dogs, but I keep picturing Ocho getting excited about dog food, or twitching in her sleep with her little white teeth caught up on her lips, and Comet’s crazy look when she sees poolie (her dog pool toy, for those of you who don’t know) come out, or the way she jumps in a circle whenever she sees me or Michael.

So it is a bit of a melancholy morning… I don’t miss Phoenix at the moment, but I do miss the people and creatures living there. But on a good note, things are going well at work - they like me a lot, and I think I can move quickly through the ranks here. I just wish you would all move over here - and bring our house, too, please, so I can have the best of all worlds!!!

Living far away from everyone would have been much harder 20 years ago before email and instant messenger, but iChat (or video conferencing) has made it so tht I can watch my nieces and nephews grow up in Minnesota and make fun of Ryan’s purple t-shirt and hoodie combo in Phoenix within minutes.

It will never replace actually being there, but it is nice to be able to see live video of everyone. Now if we can just teach Jen that when you have headphones in that you talk a lot louder than you think you do…

Last night Michael got to meet a few work people. We met Hannah, mark, and Jack for dinner at Pizza Express. It was okay, but the pizza is just not the same. They don’t cut it into triangles or squares, so you just get a pig pizza plopped down in front of you, which you have to cut with a knife and fork, and for some reason it is really hard!

After dinner, we dropped Jack and picked up Howard (my boss) for a comedy club. We had to lose Jack because he is only 17, and you have to be 18 to get in. Really nice kid, and it was too bad he couldn’t join us. They comedy club was set up like the show “Who’s Line is it Anyway?” and it was pretty funny. There were a few parts that were actually hilarious, and I definitely recommend the show.

Then Michael and I walked home and had a nice chat about people in London.

But the really good news is that we have internet access again, and you can all enjoy my pearls of wisdom and witticisms again!

In all of it’s glorious goodness, we have high speed broadband now. …and exhale. Seriously, it is pretty much like Internet Claus came to the house and we were good boys and girls. Well, I’m going to go freebase some pure 18+megabit Virgin Broadband.

Speaking of jonesing, man, I could go for some Pei Wei.

Also, thanks Amy (in photo) for making me feel better about myself.

As vegetarians, one thing we can claim for London is the wealth of vegetarian options available everywhere. Both restaurants and grocery stores have gone out of their way to label every product with a “V” or “Suitable for Vegetarians” whenever it is necessary. Meaning, the green beans aren’t labeled, but anything that has combos of ingredients usually is. Even cheese is labeled so you know whether or not the rennet is animal or vegetable based. That is not only really nice, but it makes being vegetarian that much easier. The only issue I have ever had with being vegetarian is the fact that I have to read the ingredients every time I buy a new or reformulated product, and I have to ask servers at restaurants if items have chicken stock or not. Well for those of you traveling or considering a move to London who have vegetarian concerns, you needn’t worry. London has you covered here!

Sorry, no internets until Monday… yes, we can actually live without it. Sort of…

I apologize to Europe in advance.

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This past weekend Jen and I decided to do some touristy stuff. It seemed like a good idea to get out and get acquainted with the city we now call home and see what all the buzz was about. We started big. We decided not to go to the obscure stuff that may be of personal interest, we went to the icons. Big Ben, Westminster Abby, 10 Downing St. and the London Eye. We saw them all. As someone who has been a tourist abroad before, I can say that it felt completely different. We’ve always visited during off or late shoulder seasons, so while we have run into crowds before (re: Shinjuku Station), being in a crowd of tourists is a completely different, and worse, experience. We weren’t able to really enjoy the monuments because we were either getting out of someone’s way, or had someone moving into ours. This brings me to a theory of sorts that Jen and I discussed for a bit. We couldn’t help but feel that it was always us deferring to others and moving out of the way of oncoming pedestrians. There is no rhyme or reason, no favored side or any discernible pattern of how to walk the streets efficiently. Anyway, that brings us to our theory, well more of a proposed experiment really. What if we stopped deferring? What if we just walked in a straight line, consequences be damned. If you get in my way, you get run into. What would happen? Would we just run into person after person, or would we find out that in the game of pedestrian chicken, we are just the ones that are always bailing first? We said we were going to do it, but it is hard to overcome all the years of being polite and minding your step. We didn’t have the heart to really commit to the exercise. So if you are in a crowded city, and have the discipline to try it, let us know, are people really that self involved and oblivious, or are we just terrible at chicken.

Fighting the throngs of shopping crowds up and down Oxford and Regent on the way home made me realize, that while I really enjoy London, that I will leave the really popular attractions for less popular days from now on.

Not only do they have Whole Foods over here(food), but the even have American Apparel as well(clothing). Sheleter shouldn’t be a problem either… Ryan (my brother if you don’t know) you are all cleared for take off!

I know how much you like your purple shirt from there, so I was looking at the mannequins to get some Christmas ideas… As you can see, purple is big here too, you just aren’t accessorizing it right over there. White shorts and fanny pack for the win!!!