Last Friday I think H and I headed into London for the first time ever without any agenda. A was in Paris. It’s funny I have been thinking very romantically about London the last few weeks and how much I will miss it. On the train ride into London I started reading the paper and started feeling very nauseous because we were taking the super bumpy train line. When we got into London we headed to Borough Market for lunch and naturally my first choice was my favourite Greek vendor , upset at the thought that this might be my last visit. My lamb burger was pretty lacking, not the delicious treat I was expecting and as we ate we were harassed by pan handlers. Our favourite cheese shop was extra crowded with less selection. As we left I wanted to have one last glass of mulled wine. I stopped at a different vendor than my usual and got a putrid glass. After two sips, I couldn’t take anymore. The trains were all very crowded and we headed off to the Museum of London, which I had read is one of those great museums that not many people visit. We were not that impressed. They are in the middle of a redesign which opens at the end of April and I think then it will be a place to visit. Now, we spent more time looking in the gift shop than we did at the exhibits.
We then headed off to the Wellcome Collection, an exhibit I have passed a number of times and always wanted to visit. We sat down for a cup of coffee in their café which was packed with people and then started to walk through their exhibit. It was more interesting than the Museum of London and we both wished we had started there because we had to leave early without finishing due to our reservation.
It was a great day because it was just the two of us. But H is no lover of cities, and on the train journey home I was kinda feeling the same way. But by Saturday I was back longing for London.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Staycation
This past year the term “staycation” was all the rage. It was used here in the UK to describe people who holiday on this island instead of traipsing off to another part of the world. Of course Americans do this quite a bit, taking it one step further by taking time off of work and just staying at home, enjoying their daily surroundings.
With A in France and H finished with work we’ve been having our own verion of a staycation. Sure, I was still going to work every day but this week I vowed to work a normal UK workday and not accommodate other timezones in the evening and it has been heaven. H has been enjoying cooking at a leisurely pace and the kitchen is an absolute disaster because of it. I’m at peace with that because one, what’s the point of being too neat as we tear the house up to pack and two, who’s gonna complain when you sit down and a bowl of homemade Jerusalem artichoke soup and sandwich on homemade bread is handed to you for dinner?
We took our chances and didn’t book a table. It was packed when we got there but we were told to come back in 30-45 minutes and there would be a table for two. I am not quite sure how it all worked with reservations because there seemed to be no reservation book. You just walked in and whatever member of wait staff was closest to the door came over and asked how many.
When we arrived back, a couple had just gotten up from the table that was smack dab in the middle of the noisy full house and once a new table cloth and flatware was added, it was all ours. Every time H said something to me my response was, “What?” The noise wasn’t annoying though. Looking around there were two big parties celebrating birthdays and a few other groups. Everyone was having a great time. I picked spanagopita as a starter and H got a mixed starter. They brought out some carrot sticks, olives, and peppers and pita with some homemade tsaziki that was divine. As soon as I tasted the dolmathes on his starter I was taken back to my youth. My uncle Bill made homemade stuffed grape leaves and they were delicious. My original choice of lamb souvla as a main was sold out so I went for the stifado. H got a mixed grill. As we were eating I told H that no meal since we had been in the UK made me think of home as much as that meal did. His response with a smile was, “Which home?” Of course I meant where we grew up in Chicagoland where going to any local restaurant you could have a Greek classic for breakfast lunch or dinner if you wished. Oh how I’ve missed that. The only time the noise in the restaurant failed me was when I didn’t hear what H was feeding me off his plate until I began to chew and realized it was liver! The flavour was good but the texture of liver, yuck.
After the mains H went outside to smoke and ended up talking to the owner who we recognized from television. They talked shop, lamb especially. H asked him if they had a boost in business after the F word and he said that they were always busy. Looking around I believed it.
For dessert, I had a Greek coffee, thick like mud and some baklava. Again that brought back childhood memories. We had a neighbour who honestly as I think about her I don’t know if she spoke English or just Greek. She would bring us Greek desserts on occasion and one of them was baklava. Baklava is one of those desserts that borders on being so sickeningly sweet but good baklava doesn’t cross over that line. H had some vanilla ice cream for dessert and dipped pieces of my baklava in it proclaiming that combination to be the best dessert. It probably was good but when I eat baklava I want the full effect.
As we were waiting for the bill we noticed Zeta, the owner’s mother who also cooks and was also featured on the F Word. As she walked through the restaurant she smiled at me and patted me on the shoulder as she passed. She sat down at a table close to ours as the night began to wind down. Rather than looking completely exhausted, which is what I would imagine every member of staff felt at the end of this super busy night she seemed like a woman who was enjoying being a part of a place where people gathered for good food, drink, and celebration.
With A in France and H finished with work we’ve been having our own verion of a staycation. Sure, I was still going to work every day but this week I vowed to work a normal UK workday and not accommodate other timezones in the evening and it has been heaven. H has been enjoying cooking at a leisurely pace and the kitchen is an absolute disaster because of it. I’m at peace with that because one, what’s the point of being too neat as we tear the house up to pack and two, who’s gonna complain when you sit down and a bowl of homemade Jerusalem artichoke soup and sandwich on homemade bread is handed to you for dinner?
Gordon Ramsay has a television show here called The F Word and this season one of the components of the show was a viewer-nominated favourite local restaurant competition. We rarely go out to dinner, but seeing Retsina in Belsize Park featured on the show made us take note and make an exception. Thursday night was my Friday night so off we went to north London.
The Freud Museum is somewhere along the way to the restaurant. I had to stop and take a picture of this statue because at night it’s pretty creepy.
We took our chances and didn’t book a table. It was packed when we got there but we were told to come back in 30-45 minutes and there would be a table for two. I am not quite sure how it all worked with reservations because there seemed to be no reservation book. You just walked in and whatever member of wait staff was closest to the door came over and asked how many. When we arrived back, a couple had just gotten up from the table that was smack dab in the middle of the noisy full house and once a new table cloth and flatware was added, it was all ours. Every time H said something to me my response was, “What?” The noise wasn’t annoying though. Looking around there were two big parties celebrating birthdays and a few other groups. Everyone was having a great time. I picked spanagopita as a starter and H got a mixed starter. They brought out some carrot sticks, olives, and peppers and pita with some homemade tsaziki that was divine. As soon as I tasted the dolmathes on his starter I was taken back to my youth. My uncle Bill made homemade stuffed grape leaves and they were delicious. My original choice of lamb souvla as a main was sold out so I went for the stifado. H got a mixed grill. As we were eating I told H that no meal since we had been in the UK made me think of home as much as that meal did. His response with a smile was, “Which home?” Of course I meant where we grew up in Chicagoland where going to any local restaurant you could have a Greek classic for breakfast lunch or dinner if you wished. Oh how I’ve missed that. The only time the noise in the restaurant failed me was when I didn’t hear what H was feeding me off his plate until I began to chew and realized it was liver! The flavour was good but the texture of liver, yuck.
After the mains H went outside to smoke and ended up talking to the owner who we recognized from television. They talked shop, lamb especially. H asked him if they had a boost in business after the F word and he said that they were always busy. Looking around I believed it.
For dessert, I had a Greek coffee, thick like mud and some baklava. Again that brought back childhood memories. We had a neighbour who honestly as I think about her I don’t know if she spoke English or just Greek. She would bring us Greek desserts on occasion and one of them was baklava. Baklava is one of those desserts that borders on being so sickeningly sweet but good baklava doesn’t cross over that line. H had some vanilla ice cream for dessert and dipped pieces of my baklava in it proclaiming that combination to be the best dessert. It probably was good but when I eat baklava I want the full effect.
As we were waiting for the bill we noticed Zeta, the owner’s mother who also cooks and was also featured on the F Word. As she walked through the restaurant she smiled at me and patted me on the shoulder as she passed. She sat down at a table close to ours as the night began to wind down. Rather than looking completely exhausted, which is what I would imagine every member of staff felt at the end of this super busy night she seemed like a woman who was enjoying being a part of a place where people gathered for good food, drink, and celebration.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
A Very Long Day
A and her friend J have had tickets to see YouMeAtSix at Brixton Academy for about four months now. This would be their last concert together and A was really looking forward to it. Following the success of this band was the first British thing she embraced when she got here so it seemed appropriate that this would be her last concert before leaving. She wanted to go down to Brixton really early and it’s not an area where you send your kid alone for several hours. Inevitably I ended up spending more time in Brixton than I was planning on Saturday. There was some drama surrounding getting the girls where they needed to be but by show time it was all okay.
Before we went to Brixton we went into Fortnum and Mason to round out the gift for the French family with some tea. A mentioned it first. The crazies seemed to be out in full force Saturday. Strangers struck up conversations with us. As we rode down the escalator, A standing behind me, she put her chin on my shoulder and told me to slowly turn around and look behind her. There was a bald guy in a peach cardigan with nothing on under it. The V in the cardigan revealed the thickest carpet of chest hair I think I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t a good look.
When we arrived at the venue the line was already crazy long so we thought we’d explore a little bit, check out Brixton Market and get some lunch.
The girls had downstairs tickets. I had a balcony seat where you weren’t allowed to stand up during the show. A license to stay seated, that sounded good to me when I’d been standing in line with her for hours. By the time I got J home it was about 2:00am. H had only been home about an hour and I had to be up by 6am to get A to her bus for her French trip.
She woke up in a foul mood, no surprise after 3 hours of sleep. After a few tense conversations between us I drove her to the bus in silence still in my PJ bottoms so unlike the other parents, getting out of the car was not an option. I was tempted to yell out the car window as I left “Hope you’re nice to your French family because you treat your American family like crap!” I thought better of it since I hadn’t had any coffee yet and driving a car AND trying to make a statement would be considered multi-tasking and at that hour without caffeine something could go horribly wrong with that plan. Oh yeah, and I wouldn’t want to embarrass her.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
"Pick Up and Put Down"
That’s what B, one of our all-time favourite people calls walking through posh stores where you can’t afford anything.
I got out of work on time on a Friday night for the first time in many nights and A met me at the train station and we headed into London. We both have colds and it was one of those chilly and rainy nights so we didn’t go far, but needed to buy a gift for her French host family. I had a couple of ideas in mind based on some suggestions from my friend L. I can’t really pick out a gift for anyone without major assistance, LOL. We were going to go by Fortnum and Mason and pick up some tea but we headed to Liberty first. This store is fabulous. The building alone is gorgeous inside and out and filled with tons of stuff that had A going “Who can afford this? Who buys this?” Up on the 3rd floor they have a sewing department. Did I ever think we’d be spending a Friday night looking at buttons? Probably not, but that’s what we did. It was the fanciest sewing department I have ever seen and everything was beautiful down to the pin cushions. They had these birds for sale that were little statues probably about four inches tall that instead of being covered with feathers were covered with bits of fabric of different patterns and colors like quilts. Hard to describe without making them sound tacky but they were very intricate. A wanted one until we saw the £150 price tag.
The V&A Museum just opened a quilt exhibit so in conjunction with that Liberty had some quilts displayed. I covertly took a quick picture of some of them. The quilting supplies they were selling were amusing. My grandmother was a master quilt maker and watching her work, it was always about taking the scraps of other projects and making something beautiful with what is left. This store was selling little packs of swatches of “American Retro” fabrics for £35 ($55-$60). This is not your grandmother’s quilt shop!
We left with gift in hand. The exchange student’s mother is a children’s writer so we got a really cool children’s picture book with retro illustrations of London and a patterned Easter Egg box filled with chocolates.
I got out of work on time on a Friday night for the first time in many nights and A met me at the train station and we headed into London. We both have colds and it was one of those chilly and rainy nights so we didn’t go far, but needed to buy a gift for her French host family. I had a couple of ideas in mind based on some suggestions from my friend L. I can’t really pick out a gift for anyone without major assistance, LOL. We were going to go by Fortnum and Mason and pick up some tea but we headed to Liberty first. This store is fabulous. The building alone is gorgeous inside and out and filled with tons of stuff that had A going “Who can afford this? Who buys this?” Up on the 3rd floor they have a sewing department. Did I ever think we’d be spending a Friday night looking at buttons? Probably not, but that’s what we did. It was the fanciest sewing department I have ever seen and everything was beautiful down to the pin cushions. They had these birds for sale that were little statues probably about four inches tall that instead of being covered with feathers were covered with bits of fabric of different patterns and colors like quilts. Hard to describe without making them sound tacky but they were very intricate. A wanted one until we saw the £150 price tag.
We left with gift in hand. The exchange student’s mother is a children’s writer so we got a really cool children’s picture book with retro illustrations of London and a patterned Easter Egg box filled with chocolates.
The Moving Starts to Happen
A is walking around with a spring in her step. She keeps hugging me and saying “We’re moving to Utah!” I keep smiling and saying she’ll be singing another tune once we get there, because after all she’s 14 and it’s change. She’s just so happy to be going back to the States. I always ask her if she’ll miss her friends and she says yes but she doesn’t feel like she knows them well enough to be that upset about it. Is this a cultural thing or just an A thing? She says that while she has a big group of friends here, none of them are her best friends. Being in a big group seems to mean that you tell one friend something and it’s like telling the group which makes people more guarded. I was talking to a friend here about it and she said when she was growing up “the group” was the most important thing, forget about having one close friend. I see it in their interaction, it’s kinda cool and polite. I wonder if being at an all girl’s school has anything to do with this.
She’s been compiling a list of things she’s looking forward to and the funny thing is that two things high on her list are Tuna Helper and SpongeBob Squarepants Macaroni and Cheese. Forget that she’s been eating better the past year than many people eat their whole lives!
H is wrapping up his last week of work so he can focus on the logistics of the move. We’ve put together a list of things to sell and I think about having to buy a new life again when we go back to the States. If we would have seen into the crystal ball and known we wouldn’t be here for at least five years we would have put some things in storage, but in a way, it’s nice to not be saddled that way. Financially not the best thing we’ve done but it’s just stuff right? I was telling one of my colleagues here that I think about the future sometimes when A meets the boy she wants to marry (although she swears that will never happen) and we get invited to the soon to be in-law’s house and they have beautiful furniture, china and a fancy dining room table. Then they come to our house and we’re still living like college students because we’ve moved around so much. What will they think of us? She just laughed that I would be concerned about that. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking of that because in the end I guess the lesson we can teach her is that possessions don’t really matter. Get some life experiences instead.
Me, I feel like I’m having a mini mid-life crisis. With this big move, work not letting up a single moment, and a milestone birthday around the corner that I am trying desperately to ignore, it’s a little stressful right now. The day my mother died, we were leaving the cemetery after the service and while her death in many ways had been a long time coming, I still felt like I’d been sucker punched. As we walked to our cars, my best friend put her arm in mine and said to me, “Just promise me you won’t do something stupid with your hair”. Fast forward to London a few weeks ago and me admiring a woman with bleached platinum blonde hair. The train journey home I was thinking to myself, yeah that would be cool! The next morning when I verbalized this to one of my co-workers and saw the reaction it evoked, I realized how well my friend knew me. The moment of insanity passed. I will be heading back to the U.S., brunette as usual.
She’s been compiling a list of things she’s looking forward to and the funny thing is that two things high on her list are Tuna Helper and SpongeBob Squarepants Macaroni and Cheese. Forget that she’s been eating better the past year than many people eat their whole lives!
H is wrapping up his last week of work so he can focus on the logistics of the move. We’ve put together a list of things to sell and I think about having to buy a new life again when we go back to the States. If we would have seen into the crystal ball and known we wouldn’t be here for at least five years we would have put some things in storage, but in a way, it’s nice to not be saddled that way. Financially not the best thing we’ve done but it’s just stuff right? I was telling one of my colleagues here that I think about the future sometimes when A meets the boy she wants to marry (although she swears that will never happen) and we get invited to the soon to be in-law’s house and they have beautiful furniture, china and a fancy dining room table. Then they come to our house and we’re still living like college students because we’ve moved around so much. What will they think of us? She just laughed that I would be concerned about that. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking of that because in the end I guess the lesson we can teach her is that possessions don’t really matter. Get some life experiences instead.
Me, I feel like I’m having a mini mid-life crisis. With this big move, work not letting up a single moment, and a milestone birthday around the corner that I am trying desperately to ignore, it’s a little stressful right now. The day my mother died, we were leaving the cemetery after the service and while her death in many ways had been a long time coming, I still felt like I’d been sucker punched. As we walked to our cars, my best friend put her arm in mine and said to me, “Just promise me you won’t do something stupid with your hair”. Fast forward to London a few weeks ago and me admiring a woman with bleached platinum blonde hair. The train journey home I was thinking to myself, yeah that would be cool! The next morning when I verbalized this to one of my co-workers and saw the reaction it evoked, I realized how well my friend knew me. The moment of insanity passed. I will be heading back to the U.S., brunette as usual.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Driving - Something I Won't Miss
Let me say that I don't mind driving in the States and especially like a good road trip. But I seriously will miss nothing related to driving in the UK. This past week with our exchange student I’ve been more of a taxi than ever and I’ve hated every minute of it. Car maintenance is ridiculously expensive, driving on narrow roads with everyone parked on the street is frustrating, and I’m ready to be back in the land of the enormous parking lot where parallel parking is rare. Yesterday I was taking one of A’s friends home. She gave me directions and told me to turn down this road that was named “The Clump”. If I didn’t see the sign I wouldn’t have believed it. I was amused for about 10 seconds and back to hating what I was doing.
This morning I was back to training it and happy to do so.
This morning I was back to training it and happy to do so. Au Revoir
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