Suttons Go To London

Just ONE simple rule*, and yet, every day, you have to do battle with some moron who just doesn’t get it. First some background. London’s Tube stations are underground (I think that’s where they got the term, The Underground). Sometimes, these stations are really really deep - maybe 65 meters underground. So if you want to board them you have to take stairs or an escalator. Often, you will get off one Line, and have to switch to a different Line, and then go down deeper, or go up, etc… So the one rule is “Stand on the Right.” That way, people who are late for a meeting at HSBC Headquarters can run up the escalator on the left side. But I swear, EVERY time there is some dummy standing away on the left. And some furious Brit (or seasoned Tube Traveler, like myself) trying to wedge him or herself between the Right Side stander and the guy on the Left Side and his 83 bags from Selfridges and Harrods.
* The statement that there is only one rule in London is patently false. There are many, many rules.

After finally finding a place to live this week, I settled in to….. find a place to live. Michael and I looked at the living space we are allotting ourselves with my chosen flat, and we think it might just be too small. Especially since we plan to have LOTS of guests (Right???). So set out to find something better. It is an arduous process because you never know what you’re going to find on the other end, and it involves a lot of walking, and frequently, you get a call a few minutes before you arrive saying the flat has been let to someone else. I found a few more good ones and I am going to try to visit them today

The good news is I found the Camden Markets yesterday, too, which were really fun. Tons of clothing stalls, food shops, toy stores and more. I also found Whole Foods, which is called Fresh and Wild here (my favorite grocery store). They has tons of veggie meats and soy products. I didn’t buy anything b/c I still had a good 3-4 hours of walking in front of me, but it is good to know it is there. I will probably head back today. The prices weren’t too bad, so that will keep Michael happy!!!! I had vegetarian Peruvian food for lunch, topped off by a cinnamon crepe. It was really hard to choose what to eat because everything looked so good. That is probably the #1 reason I want Michael to come out, so we can split everything and eat more food!

It was yet another perfect day in London - 75 degrees, sunny, light breeze…. I don’t know what all this rain is that everyone keeps talking about - I have only seen about 2-3 days in the month. I’m SURE it will be like this forever! I wandered back over to Regent Park, where I had spent a lovely afternoon 2 weeks ago. This time I found the boating lake - you can rent out a little rowboat and row around the lake (all for just 20GBP - $40 USD) for an hour. As I walked along the bank of the river, I saw swans, geese, terns, falcons, ducks, and herons. There were some people feeding the geese, and they (the geese) were freaking out… hissing and craning their necks around in the strangest way. I think maybe there were young geese nearby because you would think if they were getting food they would be happy…

On a happy note - Michael has his visa in hand, and will join me one week from yesterday. He is giving up his traditional 4th of July extravaganza, where, as you know, he dons his stilts and Uncle Sam outfit and parades around the neighborhood, all to to be with me. I can’t wait!

Friday, July 4th my flight departs from Phoenix, AZ. Jen has already been over in London for a month or so, but now it is starting to materialize for me. My Visa came on Friday, and now I am spending the weekend deciding what goes, what stays and what gets put in boxes for possible shipping at a future date. It is a moment where I reflect and wonder (albeit prematurely) how long it will be once I leave before I am back. What terms will I be back on, and how, when every little decision we make in life can have such an affect on the outcome, will a decision this large shape the near future? I’m being a little philosophical, but I feel like we have made a decision that both very few people get the opportunity to do so, and even those who could would shy away from. Jen has been extremely brave to venture into a land where she quite literally knows no one, and soon when I am there with her, we will continue to explore all the places we’ve never been. For me all of this has been prequel and back story. Now, as we finish setting the stage, all we can do is wait for the curtain to go up.

Yesterday I went out with my fancy French friends to brunch around 3pm. Brunch, by the way, consists of a meat or veggie option of the same dish. My veggie version contained 2 eggs, sunny side up, 4 triangles of buttered toast, beans, crispy mushrooms, some kind of mashed potato thing, and about 10 slices of broiled cheese. It was good, but really greasy and filling. I could only eat about half. I would KILL for a pancake right now.

After brunch we went home for a little rest to get ready for a big party tonight. Audrey was nice enough to invite myself and Murielle to meet her at 10pm to head over to a White Party in Marylebone, which is a borough of London about 3 miles from where I am living. A White Party is where everyone has to dress in all white, and the purpose was to celebrate the summer solstice yesterday. At about 9pm, Murielle poked her head in my room and said she was too shy to go a party, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to go anyway. But we both said we should go for a little while and at least try to be social.

This group was 100% French (after I got there, it was 99% French). Everyone was French, spoke French, and danced in this newer style of French dancing called Tecktonik. There were a good 100 people there, and they would form little circles of people and one person would go into the middle and do their version of the dance, and so on. Here is what the dance looks like:

I think you’re supposed to have a mullet and wear super tight pants to do the dance properly, but I’m not 100% sure on that. Everyone was a good 10 years younger than me, so I have decided that my new age is 28. Actually Murielle and Tatiana (my other fancy French friend who is a Natalie Portman lookalike) decided that I look 26, but I feel it is important not to stretch the truth too much, and a 7 year difference is really the max I feel comfortable with. So everyone… I was born in 1980, okay???

Here are some observations from the party:

1. All French men have either the aforementioned mullet, or super curly hair (at least all the guys at this party did).

2. All French girls are unbelievably pretty. So are the London girls. They’re not pretty like LA girls, but very natural without a lot of makeup. Of course, the girls at this party were all 20-27 yrs old, and it is kind of hard to NOT be pretty when you are so young.

3. the French LOVE to kiss you in greeting and departure. Love it.. you have to kiss everyone. Murielle explained the rules to me, so if you have any questions, let me know.

4. The Tube closes around midnight.

5. Walking 3 miles with someone really gives you a chance to get to know someone.

A little dinner and dominoes over at Mom and Dad’s tonight. We spent some time together since we won’t be seeing a lot of each other pretty soon. It was nice to just relax and chat and fix the Palm not syncing problem. What are these people going to do when I am gone? Oh, they’ll be just fine.

Dad and I went and saw the Hulk after mom went to bed, and we both agreed, it was better than expected, intense and pretty awesome. At first I felt bad going to see movies without Jen because we tend to like the same stuff, but then I realized that she’s in London partying with a bunch of French girls. Now I don’t feel so bad for going to movies.

The Prius is officially sold. One car down, one to go. I was a little sad to see the Prius go. I’m not a big car guy, but we connected. As you can see by the photo I chose, the rain represents the sadness I feel and the car represents itself.

And the way you can tell is that she created a WeeMee. I have to admit, they are pretty cute/clever. I’ll be curious to see how it plays out for them. If you want to make one, just click mine below and it will take you to the site.

My Visa application is finally in progress and my biometrics appointment is Friday. What all of that means is that it is time to really get serious about closing things out here and preparing to join Jen, who found a flat today that she fell in love with. It is kind of a share, kind of not, but I’m sure details will come about as we get closer. Well instead of getting ready, tonight I just watched the Celtics dismantle the Lakers and enjoyed every second of it. I’m really happy right now that KG, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and P.J. Brown all got their rings finally, but Rondo and Posey were two reasons the Celtics won the series. I won’t get into the game too much, I’ll bore you all with sports this football season. I’m still not quite sure how I will handle that when it comes September.

Yesterday morning I had decided to go see the Trooping the Colour Parade, but then I realized that it would me going and battling 100s of millions of wild eyed Brits, aching for a view of the Queen. And I realized that if I could be transported over to a prime seat, I would probably go, but since I had seen the parade just last week and I have seen pictures of the Queen, and I have an imagination, and I am extraordinarily suggestable, by next, I’ll think I saw the Queen in the Parade. I’ll probably think I was in the parade…

So I thought about lazing around all day, moaning about how I miss Michael, but I dragged myself into the shower and started my day. I began with the intention of making it over to Regent’s Park, which is supposed to be beautiful. I had a book in my backpack, and figured if nothing else, I would read in the park and enjoy a little sun (it STILL hasn’t rained hard since I have been here….maybe one day at the beginning…). So I walked over toward King’s Cross Rail Station since it is kind of on the way. Across from King’s Cross is St Pancras Station, and there is a beautiful church right behind it. I got an “Award Winning Cornish Pasty” and tea for breakfast and sat outside the British Library (right next to the station) to eat. A pasty, by the way, is like a calzone, but filled with non-Italian stuff. Mine, for example, had cheese and mushrooms. Since I was sitting at the Library, I figured I better check to see if it is worth seeing, and I am glad I did. I spent about 90 minutes looking at 2 exhibitions. The first was “The Ramayana. Love and Valour in India’s Great Epic.” The Ramayana is an ancient Indian epic which follows Prine Rama’s quest to rescue his beloved wife Sita from the clutches of a king with the help of an army of MONKEYS! It is considered to be one of the most important works of ancient India, and dates back to about 500-100BC.  There was this crazy, horribly great movie playing there, too, that brought this epic to life. The movie had astoundingly poor acting, yet I was strangely drawn to it, and watched for a good 15 minutes before I was able to pull myself from the clutches of the movie with the help of an army of…. oh wait, that’s something else. Then I went to the Treasure Room, where I saw the Magna Carta, several original documents written by Leonardo Da Vinci, Shakespeare, all sorts of Queens and Kings, religious documents, original Beatles songs written on little scraps of paper… that kind of thing. Good stuff.

I set off for the park, and didn’t get lost once!!! It was only a mile or so away, so I guess I shouldn’t be too proud. The park is in fact, very beautiful. It has a lot of formal gardens and fountains, and huge areas for people to play ball sports. There were people playing football (soccer), cricket, frisbee, and I even saw a small group throwing around an American football! I got another tea and found myself a bench and read my book for a long time. At some point, I headed back home by way of Oxford High street, which was an absolute zoo, and found my home around 6:30pm.

I found Isabelle in near tears because she has just got a laptop from work, and she couldn’t get it to log onto the internet. Luckily, the problem was password related, and we fixed it right up! Around 8pm, a friend of hers from work came by and we all went swimming in the Jacuzzi (which is NOT a hot tub… very disappointing because I though they were the same thing). Then sat in the sauna, which was so nice and warm, and we all just talked about life. The guy is from Spain, Isabelle is from France, and I am from the US, so we each had our own native language, but they both speak English pretty well. Having said this, we had a few moments of trying to understand each other, especially over the roar of the Jacuzzi. Later we went out to dinner and had another talk about life. I am finding that it is a lot easier to make friends here than in the US because everyone meets each other at work, and eventually, you start to meet people from other people’s previous jobs, etc, and everyone just has a good time. It seems like it is a lot easier for people to just hang out, too - men and women are friends with no deeper expectations. I’m liking all the people I am meeting and having a lot of fun by spending my days exploring, and my evenings being social. One more piece to fall into place to make life complete…. you know who you are!!!

That’s right, Julie has it down. Sure she seems all innocent and sweet, and being demure may lend itself to that, but nope she takes my money when I’m in need (in video games). You see her and Rowdy and I played some Everquest type multiplayer game last night where you can be warriors, clerics, elves, etc. Julie employed her take the toughest guy available, kick the crap out of everyone, and then grab all the treasure before anyone else strategy. Now I’ve realized that Rowdy and I have the same weakness. First we want to be the fancy classes that fight AND cast spells so Julie is always right in front where the money is. Second, we try to read what we are grabbing before we do so. Too slow! Julie truly plays by the motto, kill em all and let God sort em out; then we’ll sort out all the treasure after that. Secret rooms? What secret rooms?

The Aforementioned Rowdy, Julie and Bandit (Read Bandit’s awesome rescue story!)

Actually, don’t let me mislead anyone, we had a good time and as always, made fun of each others characters and ourselves and stayed up way too late. Rowdy and Julie delivered on the Grimaldi’s pizza– t’was muy bueno.

Okay, it is official. Bachelor life has lost its fun factor.

So I am starting to settle in to regular life in London. Amazingly, I still like it here, even though the brand newness of it all has slightly worn off. By that I mean that I am not really a tourist, or a business visitor anymore, just a regular citizen of London. Londoner? Londonite?

As predicted, the hardest thing for me has been being a little lonely. The good news is I haven’t been achingly homesick yet, and I haven’t cried yet (although I wanted to on Sunday with all the moving headaches). But I keep having very vivid dreams about interacting with a weird combination of the people I have met here and my friends and family back home. As much as I love the adventure of what I am doing here in London, I have to say that I truly love my family and miss them a lot. The most challenging thing about the way I (and blessedly, Michael) live my life is that just when I get comfortable, I start to yearn for the excitement of the unknown. But then I find myself wanting the comforts and familiarities of home! What a difficult time my mind causes me!!!

On a brighter note, my roommate, Isa, had a small dinner party last night. There were a total of 4 of us… Isa, myself, Audrey, and Pierre. The other 3 are all French, but Isa wanted to cook me a real French dinner, so she had to invite her French friends to make it authentic! I was worried that I was going to put her out because I don’t eat meat, but she explained (in very good English) that she rarely eats meat in England anyway, because she doesn’t trust the meat. Apparently, the meat is of extremely poor quality, and tends to be very overpriced. Plus there is a lingering concern about mad cow disease, after the major issues here several years ago. So she made a potato and onion omelette type thing, a sautee of mushrooms, tomatoes, and onions, and a simple salad. Then we had a cheese course!!! I HATE goat cheese, but I ate it anyway, and since I had smothered it in fig jam. Then dessert… Audrey had baked some apples earlier in the day, and Isa mashed them up with cinnamon, and served them the sauce with ice cream. It was really good! I also had fun getting to know her friends. We had some mildly heated debates about vegetarianism - Pierre wanted to know if the animal was raised on a clean farm and lived a good life, would I eat it? We also discussed politics, and everyone wanted to know my opinion on whether or not Barack Obama would become the next president. The French consensus was that America is not ready to elect a black man, and they (regrettably) think McCain will win. I had to explain the electoral system, and even though they kind of understood it going in, they all wanted to hear it from a real live American, because they just couldn’t believe that it was truly the way we elect our presidents. All in all, it was a great night, and I got the double cheek kiss thing from Audrey and Pierre at the end of the night. If only I had remembered to wear my beret… I bet they would have thought I was super cool! Oh AND, I spoke French today! AND the person I spoke it to understood me! The phone just rang and I picked it up and it was Isa’s grandmother, who only speaks French. She kept saying Isabelle? Isabelle? I paused and thought back to High School French…. “Je ne parle pas de Francais! Je suis Jennifer, et Isabelle no es ici…elle es a la maison d’ami!!!” And yes, sadly, I am pretty sure I said it with the exclamation points. And yes, I introduced myself for some reason. And yes, I realize I have probably butchered the spelling an grammar, but, I think the grandma was glad I at least tried. There was a LONG pause and she said “Oui, oui oui…. something something La Louvre es tres bien something something…. goodbye!” Yes! I knew I was secretly fluent in French. By the way, if you don’t know what all that means, you can call Joanne, because she is fluent, too.

I also met another colleague today, Hannah. I REALLY like her. She is a little chatty, but simply couldn’t be nicer. Also, she has been extremely helpful with explaining some of the details I felt I was missing at work. Just a lot of little things that added up to some confusion. She took me out to lunch at Leon, and I had a sweet potato wheat wrap. Yum. I love having all the veggie options here. I have also have been assigned a project at work - It has to do with SEPA, which is the European effort to start making the Euro the main form of currency for electronic debits and payments. I find out more details tomorrow, and so you will find out then too! I am sure you are waiting with bated breath.

And lastly, I went to Manchester on Monday, which was quite interesting. I took the train, but there was a signal line down, which caused a backup of all the northbound trains. It took 4 hours to make a 2.5 hour trip. Luckily, I had a gaggle of boisterous teenagers to entertain me with their delightful observations about British popular life. They had some kind of tabloid and proceeded to decipher every nuance of the photos therein. I know, I know… I am an old lady now. Sigh…. lousy teenagers.