Christmas in a Box

Our first package (that wasn't our cable box) arrived today! It was Christmas in a box!

We got a whole slew of goodies: Advent calendars, Christmas robes, Christmas Tree cakes, and a tripod to take pictures of us!

Needless to say, we sport the robes quite well.

Happy Black Friday to all!

Visitors!

We have our first visitors! A-K's parents are here for a week to celebrate Thanksgiving and Mr. E's birthday. Unfortunately, the British don't recognize Thanksgiving as a public holiday, so we had to work today, which made me angry.

AK tried to get turkey for lunch, but found that turkey had sold out at the eatery she went to. In the end she settled for chicken, which is close enough, right?

We are taking off Friday and will explore London over the weekend, maybe see a show or two, and eat some scones, not to mention going to an Aggie watching game against tu.

We still need to post about our trip to Portugal, biking to Greenwich, and about our flat, but that will come later.

When in Rome...

Our first three weeks of work were full of trainings. It all started with an experienced hire training, followed by an audit methodology approach training (fortunately this was just a recap, proving that we have learned things over the past 4 years), followed by a technical excellence training in Rome, and finally followed by a financial instruments training in London.


Naturally, we (as well as all the other ex-pats) took full advantage of the training in Rome. Rome is one of my top 3 big cities in Europe, despite not knowing a lick of Italian. Since A-K had been to Rome twice and somehow not made it into the Coliseum, that was priority number one. Fortunately, it did not disappoint and A-K can add it to the list of Seven world wonders that she's visited. Here is proof positive:

After the Coliseum, we toured the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. This was much better on a guided tour than A-K and I just walking around looking at rubble. :) The history of Rome is incredible, not to mention I am obsessed with the Piazza Venezia building. There are so many artifacts and historical ruins! It is like Egypt, they just have too much, so they just put them places. For example, A-K and I sat on a Roman pillar ruin that was being used as a bus park bench.

Our next objective was clear: Delicious Italian food plus gelato! We walked from the Forum all the way to the Spanish steps and found a great little place to eat. There is just something amazing about good Italian pasta with delicious sauce. An Italian meal just isn't complete though without gelato! (I think we got four each while on a 2-day trip!)





We also took a side trip down to Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius with Valerie. Mt. Vesuvius was very impressive. The crater caused by the eruption seemed to be 1/2 mile deep. Being the green activist that I am, I used a goldfish bag that had been thrown on the ground to collect a bit of volcanic sand. :D





Pompeii is phenominal! An entire city, impeccibly preserved, all due to a volcanic eruption. The historic site is massive! We walked around looking into rooms, that by normal standards, would have been masterpieces by themselves, but we not even given consideration on the tourist map. Because so much of it was left in tact, you could very easily see what the city would have looked like back in the day, not to mention that there were plasters of people's skeletons that had been covered in ash.





Naturally, we took too much time enjoying the sites and didn't quite leave enough room to make a leisurely walk back to the train station. So, we introduced Valerie to the "we have 12 minutes to make it to the train station" 1-mile run. For some reason she is a bit more reluctant to travel with us now. ;)





Thanks Deloitte for having training in Rome so we could explore!

Not An Appropriate Substitute for Pants

So, we have discovered a craze sweeping across Britain. You may have heard of such things as the black plague and the dark ages, but this one is just as dangerous. It is a phenomena called Black Tights!

Everyone here wears them (mainly the women though)! A-K felt a bit fashion backwards, so we had to give in and get her a couple pairs. That's right...a couple. I must say though that she sports them better than the Brits, but maybe I'm biased.

We have noticed that, whereas most women wear them as leggings under a dress or skirt, some prefer to just wear tights, leading us to the moral of this story:

"BLACK TIGHTS ARE NOT AN APPROPRIATE SUBSTITUTE FOR PANTS!!!"

Arrival and Flat Hunting in London

It's a little out of date, but it's up!

We are alive and well in London. Our feet are a bit sore from walking EVERYWHERE!!, but we're enjoying getting to know our new home. We are staying in some great corporate housing in canary wharf (the new business sector of the city) with a great view of the east side of London. We have been looking around at some houses and it is CRAZY how expensive it is here. We've seen signs for 5,000 up to 15,000 pounds per week for an apartment. Needless to say we're a bit out of our league. :) We found a couple cute apartments though.

Here is a quick recap of our time here thus far: Wednesday - sleep zero hours in the US; depart 9:30 am arrive UK 9:50 pm. We were picked up by a personal driver with sign, that conveniently drove a BMW 735i (fabulous). We went to our first corporate apartment and slept til 2:30 pm...a bit jet lagged. Thursday - walked around central London and found the Deloitte office...seemingly a very nice place. Walked around south kensington and chelsea at night, which was very nice, but my allegiances made it difficult for me to be there. We had dinner at a great little restaurant on the side of the road. We thought it was traditional English fare as it served "bangers and mash", but fortunately, it was a French brasserie and was delicious. The area is really nice, but a bit pricey, naturally.

Friday - walked around Notting Hill area for hours. It was very cold outside, down in the low 50's, with rainy mist....lovely. We had dinner with David Phillips, a fellow Aggie that works as manager for Fat Tire bikes, at a neat place (Electric) on Portobello Road. The Notting Hill area is really nice with tons of cute shops and side streets.

Saturday - still super jet lagged, but got up and walked around Holland Park, High Kensington Street, and Kensington Gardens, in and out of streets, up hills, down hills, etc. The weather perked up to a nice sunny by London standards (aka partly cloudy).

Sunday - woke up and popped over to the Hillsong Church in London. It was an overall interesting experience as it was quite different than the usual services and teaching we've become accustomed to at McLean Bible. We plan on going back next week, but will also check out other local churches along the way. After church, we took off to Islington and Angel areas of London and did what we do best...walked! We took the tube down to South Kensington and walked around for a bit. The weather today was terrible! Intermittant showers and cold wind gusts. Needless to say, a pop in to the coffee shop for a cappuccino was necessary. I must say, caffeinated AK is hilarious! We went to dinner tonight with Valerie, our colleague from DC who is also here. On our way back east after dinner, the Jubilee line on the tube shut down half way home, so we "got" to walk across Tower Bridge and take in the views of the Thames. It was a blessing in disguise as the sites were quite pretty.

Monday - had multiple site visits of Notting Hill properties. We found a couple flats that we like that are near the tube, near Kensington Gardens, and in a safe area. After viewing about 10 properties, there are two that we are still seriously considering. We have more to see tomorrow, so we won't make a decision right away, but things move off the market so quickly here we need to be on our game. The downside from a visitor perspective is that both are just one bedrooms about the size of our first apartment. Later I'll have to share the craziness that is the real estate process in London. I'll just sum it up with this...every letting agent has different properties, so to see them all, you have to contact ALL of the letting agents on your own...dumb. But...all in all the first week in our new city was pretty great!