Rome, Italy January 25th-27th 2008

Chuck and Bonnie came to visit us in London for 11 days in January. They knew we were going to take a weekend trip somewhere in Europe for the second weekend they were here, but we surprised them with the location. So early on Friday morning, we drove to Stansted Airport, about an hour by car from our flat, and flew on Ryanair to...wait for it....Rome!!! SURPRISE!!

Bonnie is an outstanding diary-keeper and sent us about 15 pages-worth of memories. For you, dear reader, the pictures will have to do.

Ciao.

Link to pictures --> http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hj0zhyv.bh48jc2f&x=0&y=-uf7n8l&localeid=en_US

This entry offers a special treat for you, reader.  For the first and only time at Wilsons Wander, you will have the pleasure of reading the words of a guest writer!   The following text was copied from (a copy of) Bonnie Abbey’s journal entry from Rome.  It is highly likely that any spelling or grammar mistakes are the fault of the transcriber.

Friday

I didn’t sleep well in anticipation of our trip, I think.  The car was prompt and we were at the airport by 7:10 for our 8:40 flight to …ROME!  Chuck and I had guessed correctly and yesterday had emailed Paulette asking her restaurant recommendations.  We were surprised but excited to finally find out our destination.  We checked in and headed for the gate.

At the fate I had a problem with my contact solution because the container was too big.  We were not checking luggage so we had only a carry on bag – it was the first time I’ve ever used the quart-sized bag of 3oz or less of liquid.  My contact cleaner was 4oz and they would not allow it.  So the official suggested I run to Boots, a drugstore, to buy an acceptable sized bottle and poured in my Renu solution.

We boarded RyanAir and headed to Rome.  Our plane flew over the Apls, a beautiful sight and landed on time.  Rome is 1 hr ahead in time zones.

The Abbeys in front of our hotel. Erin highlights the signage.

Eric negotiated with a taxi driver and we headed to our hotel.  The weather was sunny and mid-50s.  After checking in we dropped our off stuff and began walking around.  Our hotel is near all of the antiquities so everything is an easy walk.  We stopped for a coffee and sandwich, then walked toward the Coliseum. 

We stopped at a church which we toured.  It was gorgeous – beautiful sculptures and carvings.  We kind of got an overview of what we want to see tomorrow.

In one of the piazzas we stopped for a glass of wine.  Our dinner reservations at Nino’s was at 8:00.  Our hotel clerk made the reservation for us at one of the restaurants Paulette had recommended.  Eric was a great tour guide really giving us an overview of everything. 

Wishing at Trevi

After visiting the Fountain of Trevi, making our wishes by throwing coins, and seeing the Pantheon we headed to Nino’s.  This restaurant was a bit formal for us but we stayed.  It was a white table-cloth place.  We ordered a bottle of red wine, had black olives as an appetizer and bread was great, especially with olive oil we ordered separately.  Chuck had spaghetti Bolognese; Erin had chicken with spinach and mozzarella; Eric had cannelloni; and I had tortellini with cream. 

After dinner, we decided dessert would be at the “book” recommended best gelateria in the world.  We found it; Erin and Eric partook of the gelato, but Chuck and I had to walk off dinner all the way back to the hotel.

Such good sports

Erin took our picture in bed; our “sofa-bed” is actually a trundle of sorts. We’re so tired it doesn’t matter!

Saturday

We awoke at about 7:30 to a lot of noise outside the hotel. It seems, being at the back, we are where garbage is collected. Also there is construction going on and they, too, work on Saturdays.  Finally, we gave up and 9:00.  Breakfast was included in our room rate, so we decided to check it out about 9:45.  They had cereal, toast, yogurt, sweets, and juices.  Erin didn’t come down because she had a headache.  Chuck and I had juice and toast.

Eric had figured out how to take the subway, the Metro, which crisscrosses Rome, so we tool it to the stop for the Vatican Museum.  It was sunny and warn in the upper 50s.  At the stop we followed the signs to the Museum.  For a 13 euro charge we entered the Vatican Museum.  There were several galleries including the Sistine Chapel.  We really enjoyed the Egyptian exhibits and all of the sculptures.   Eric rented an audio phone and “read” us the facts on all of the exhibits. 

After the Sistine Chapel, which was phenomenal, we walked over to a restaurant where we had a pizza lunch.  To “save money” we ordered tap water, but when it was delivered it had lots of “floaties,” so we ended up ordering bottled “still” water.  The pizzas were excellent; the bruschetta only so-so. 

St. Peter's

We headed to St. Peter’s Square and the Basilica after lunch.  The Basilica of St. Peter’s was just unbelievable!  We thoroughly explored it.  After we took a lot of photos and were on our way out,  we regrouped to decide where to go next. We decided we wanted to see the Pantheon so we began walking. 

Drinks in Piazza Navarro

We took a few photos along the way, saw the Trevi Fountain during the day, and ended up at the Pantheon.  The Pantheon was having Mass, so we couldn’t go in.  We decided to find a piazza where we could have wine and then go back to the Pantheon after the Mass.  In the Piazza Navarro we found a restaurant and met Fabrizio who had lived in the States but came back to where he was born – here.  We had a bottle of Chianti and watched some performers in the piazza. 

Pantheon

After our wine we headed back to the Pantheon and explored the inside.  When we had seen enough,  we started looking for a place to have dinner.  Erin had her heart set on pesto, so we looked at a lot of menus, not finding it.  We wanted a small café, so we were exploring a lot of back alleys. Finally, a man was drumming up business for Life, a modern-looking restaurant in an alleyway.  We didn’t see pesto on the list, but he said he would check with the chef.   We decided to stay; Erin had pesto and we had a great meal.  We had fun with our waiter, too.  He screwed up with the wine choice, but we ended up getting a second bottle anyway, so it worked out.

After diner, we took a leisurely walk back to our hotel, walking off the wine and the food.  Chuck tried a ham and cheese calzone which was authentic; I had a spaghetti alla carbonara, again and Eric had a spinach and spaghetti dish. We all had a taste of tiramisu for dessert, and we had a complimentary lemoni shot at the end the meal.  What fun.

Bedtime….

Sunday

 When we had gotten back to our room,  the service had remade our bed as a double, not a trundle and single.  We seemed to sleep a lot better and because we did, we got a little later start than we’d planned.

I forgot to mention earlier that I had brought the English curling iron, but the plugs are different here so I couldn’t use it.  It never occurred to me to ask at the hotel desk for a converter, so I just didn’t use it.  Oh well. 

Another thing I forgot to mention was that outside one of the antiquities we were visiting Eric had already read us the blurb about it and he had gone off looking at something, when I asked Erin about something Eric had read.  Erin said, “you’re asking the wrong person…if you want to know the latest on Paris Hilton, I’m the one to ask.”

So today, we packed up, checked out, and left our bags at the hotel until we cam back to go to the airport. It was colder today, low 50’s, but still sunny – what a perfect weekend!

The Forum

We walked about 15 minutes to the Roman Forum and Il Paletine.  Experiencing the ruins was just incredible!  So much has been excavated that it is just amazing that modern Rome is all around it.  The Coliseum is right next to the Forum, the site of a bustling marketplace and political buildings, 3000 years ago. It was hard to imagine how all of this could still be standing.  Why was it preserved and built over?  Chuck said the way we are not “savers,” there would be no remains if it were up to us. But fortunately, there are those who save the past for the future – and we are grateful! We explored the ruins for nearly two hours and walked all around the outside too. 

We walked over to a large expansive grassy area that Eric identified for us as the Circus Maximus, created by Julius Caesar.  Caesar held chariot races here in a stadium that could hold 300,000 fans.  A small section of seating area has been somewhat excavated.  Now it is an area where people walk dogs, jog, or ride down the steep grassy sides.

One “fun” fact I’ve forgotten to mention is the type of items for sale around the tourist attractions.  By every one there were men selling tripods, yes, tripods of every size.  We’d never seen this before.  Of course there were the typical souvenirs, but also belts, scarves, purses, and a lot of books.  There were souvenir shops everywhere and the farther from the attraction, the cheaper things were there.

We wanted to have lunch before heading to the Ciampino airport, so we found a café down an alleyway.  We had a couple pizzas and were on our way.  Before reaching our hotel we stopped for a last gelato.  Mmm, good.

At the hotel Eric asked the clerk to call a taxi for us and on appeared immediately.  He negotiated the flat fare.  This cab driver was a maniac compared to the one we had arriving.  We got the airport in about 20 minutes. We then had about a two hour wait.

Checking in went smoothly – no shoe check – but we departed about 10 minutes late.  It’s funny – RyanAir’s slogan is “The On Time Airline” and both flights were late taking off.  The airline personnel were nice, but seemed inefficient at times.  Because the crew tries to “sell” stuff on these flights (food, drinks, lottery tickets, bus passes, duty free items) we remembered to water and snacks.

The flight was great.  The driver who had picked us up on Friday morning (we named him “Lester”) was coming back to Stansted Airport to bring us back to their apartment.  Unlike the cab driver in Rome, Lester (who also smelled bad and looked like he hadn’t had a hair wash in weeks) took forever getting us back to the apartment.  It took over and hour, and the guy never stopped talking!  Eric was the one stuck in the front seat with him both trips – he’s a saint!

When we finally got back, Eric headed to the grocery store.  He and Erin threw together a dinner of some Indian favorites, breaded prawns and leftover Indian appetizers, a salad, and cheese/crackers.  We planned our departure for the next day, packed as much as we could and said goodbye.  We planned to leave at 5:45 AM so we told Erin and Eric they didn’t/shouldn’t need to get up.

Bath, UK January 12th 2008

Our first intra-country trip!! We traveled by train to Bath, UK with our friends Jason Straker and Jimmy Slocum. Bath, about 90 minutes west of London, was one of the first Roman settlements on the island about two thousand years ago. They chose it for the natural hot springs that shot out of the ground. England is cold enough without proper shelter, gas furnaces, and Gortex, so I can understand the Roman rationale. It was just a day trip, but we had enough time to see the ancient bath complex, sample some Cornish pasties (pronounced pass-tees), and visit 3 local pubs and a nightclub. We were by far the eldest at the latter, so we didn't stay long.

Touring the baths complex

At Royal Crescent

Dirty bath water

We look like this 80% of the time we're with Jason and Jimmy.

Raining...shocker.

Enjoy the photos.


http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hj0zhyv.21zsrpcn&x=0&y=-nsqyqz&localeid=en_US

Munich & Nurnberg, Germany December 14-16, 2007

Synopsis: We went to experience the famous Christmas markets (Kris Kindle Markt) and to return to the place where Rob and Jean lived while completing a tour in the US Army (Rob, not Jean) in the early 1970's. The markets were crazy, crowded, and cold, but it was hard not to feel the Christmas spirit while drinking mulled wine eating copious amounts of sausage (Eric, not Erin).

Again, the journal entry for this trip is in Erin's book.

Pics of the trip--http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hj0zhyv.cgj781lj&x=0&y=4v87cu&localeid=en_US>

The following entry was copied from Erin's hand-written journal.

We arrived Friday into Munich. We took the Bahnhof to Hauptbahnhof station (approx 30 minutes) and found our hotel – Tryp.  Smoking indoors is still legal so it is a bit unbearable in the lobby of the hotel.  We drop our things in the room and head out to find the Marienplatz to see the Chirstkindl Market.  The stalls at the Christmas market consisted of ornaments, lebkuchen (a version of gingerbread), gluhwein (mulled wine), wooden crafts, sugared nuts, chocolate covered fruit and nuts, and a whole lot of brats & brezn (pretzels).  We ate a ridiculous amount of pork.  The ___ (orbrot) was the best part!  The weather was bitter cold, but that didn’t stop us from being outside all day.  We went to a traditional restaurant, Ratskeller (“City Hall”) under the giant Glockenspiel (cuckoo clock) for dinner.  We both had sausage, some form of potatoes, and potato pancakes to start. 

Everything seems to close relatively early in Munich.  But on our way back to the hotel we happened upon a skating rink where quite a few children (and a few adults) were enjoying the small outdoor rink.

Saturday

This morning we tried to work out in the hotel, but it was really janky so we did a makeshift workout in the room then headed out.  We arrived at the train station but found the tickets to be really expensive so…we decided to rent a car and drive to Nuremburg.  Eric’s parents lived in Nuremburg for a few years and recommended that we go since we were so close and because its Christmas market is so famous.  The drive was relatively uneventful, but Eric was really excited to go 160mph in the Fiat on the autobahn.  That might have been the highlight.  The trip took approximately 1 ½ hours – not too bad.

One of many Lebkuchen stalls at the Christmas Market

View of Nuremburg from the Castle

We found our way to the Christmas Market, but we were freezing and needed something indoors so we continue on to the castle at one end of the city.  It provided some great views of the city and pitched roof houses.  Germany looks old (as you might imagine.) 

***I, Eric, copied the Belgium and Germany trip notes out of Erin’s written journal (it’s now 2011 – over three years later) and her Nuremburg entry mysteriously cuts off mid-page!  I’m afraid my memory only contains the summary points by now, so the details will be missing from here out. 

We spent a lot of time looking at the Christkindlmarkt.  The offerings were pretty similar to what we saw in Munich and the place was absolutely packed with people.  We bought ourselves the painted-Santa-Clause-with-candle-hole which we’ve used every year since.  I can’t remember what we did for dinner, but there’s a good chance it involved pork.  Later that night we drove back to Munich.  We were ready to go out for dessert, but again the city was pretty quite except for a few clubs so we found a coffee house (it might have even been a Starbucks!) and shared a piece of cake.

1972 Olympics Pool Venue

Eglischer Garden

On Sunday, we took the U-bahn out to the grounds of the 1972 Summer Olympics.  Many of the venues were still standing, include the pool where Mark Spitz earned seven gold medals.  The grounds were really nice, a great spot to visit in the summer, but we were freezing so we went back into Central Munich.  We strolled through Englischer garden, watched the surfers in wet-suits surfing the endless wave in the canal, had one last frankfurter, and made our way back to the airport.  Oh yeah, there was yet another Christmas market at the airport so we had time for one last gluhwein before hopping on our flight back to London.

Brussles & Bruges, Belgium November 17-18, 2007

About to ride the Eurostar train from St. Pancras station in London

This was our first trip to "The Continent" since moving to the UK...hopefully the first of many. We didn't start keeping this blog until January 2008 so the journal entry for this trip is kicking it old school in Erin's handwriting in a leather book.

In short, we went for beers and chocolate, and to try out the Eurostar train which as of this month, moved from Waterloo to St. Pancras Train Station. Not a bad way to travel.

Pics from the trip-->http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hj0zhyv.967kuprj&x=0&y=-n8duvi&localeid=en_US

The following was copied from Erin's journal in February 2011.

Saturday

We arrived this morning at about 10am via the Eurostar from London St. Pancras Station.  The trip took about two hours with an hour lost due to the time difference.  We walked through a somewhat sketchy part of town from the train station to the Grand Place which is the center of town.  After wandering through the tiny streets lined with chocolate shops and sandwich places, we landed at a small corner bar/café on the corner of Rue des Brasseurs called au Brasseur.  Eric had a croque-monsieur (ham and mystery cheese) and I had onion soup (very mediocre).  They apparently have not banned smoking here so I refused to sit inside.  However, the weather is clear but extremely frigid, but it was better than smelling like smoke.  Oh, and we packed extremely light – 1 outfit, toothbrush, change of undies and an undershirt.  We will only be here for the weekend and wanted to deal with little baggage.

Grand Place

Following lunch, we went back to Grand Place (the main square in the center of town).  We were so cold from being outside for the past two hours that we decided to go into the Museum of Brussels.  For 3 euros each, we were able to stroll through rooms filled with artifacts, models, and history of the city.  It was educational and warm!

The female Pis-er

One of the funniest parts of Brussels history is the legend of the Mannekan Pis.  This is what it sounds like - the pissing mannequin - there are many stories about the little boy who constantly pees.  But there are many replica statues and outfits for the little boy who statnds about 3 feet tall and is always peeing.  After our museum trip, we headed back outside for some nice hot Belgian chocolate.  We had followed some directions on places to see and visit from one of Eric’s colleagues who lives in Brussels – Julie Maquest.  We had a hard time finding the specific area of chocolate places she recommended so we divided to head southeast to one a bit more off the areas surrounding Grand Place and Brussels. 

I ventured into the Museum District and up an incline to an area that overlooked the central part of town.  It was quite a view.  Outside the Royal Library we were enticed by the smells of hot Belgian waffles coming from a van parked out 100 feet away.  We had seen these vans all over town - kind of like the hot dog carts in NY.  It was our of respect for the Belgian culture that we try this local delicacy.  Mmm – hot, flaky, with a dusting of white sugar.  To wash the waffle down, we went across the road to a café and had some uninspiring hot chocolate and a white circus peanut in the shape of the Virgin Mary – very strange.  It was getting a bit late so we decided to try to find the bar we had scoped out to watch the Michigan/Ohio State game.  After heading in the wrong direction for a few minutes (20) we pulled out our map and turned around.  It turns out the bar was the other direction on the Rue de T’oison D’Or.  At last, we found it.  It had since been renamed “Big Al’s” and was clearly closed and under construction.  Bummer.  It was time to find our hotel – the Four Seasons (I mean Four Points – Sheraton) and find another venue asap.  After approximately 1 ½ miles we found our hotel in a bit more of a residential area.  We checked in.  I took a short nap – my dogs were barking.  At this point we had been walking around, taking in the views for about 5 hours.  Eric went to look for a new bar at the business center.  20 minutes later, he returned with a placed called Fat Boys in the east on Luxembourg Place.  After eating some sandwiches we had packed, we headed out to Le Sablon for some more sight seeing.  We had about 1 ½ hours before the game.  Le Sablon was quite cute.  Small narrow streets with modern shops and restaurants.  The main square had quite a few chocolate shops and cafes.  We happened upon a restaurant that seemed to have authentic Belgian good called Tavern la Rossa.  We decided to come back following the game (it was across the street from Q-Zar, the laser-tag place) – kind of strange.  We then walked to Fat Boys.

At Fat Boys, which seemed to be the one sports bar in all of Brussels, we were relieved to see it was still very much in business!  The game was just about to start and it happened to be on one smaller tube television, above the bar right as we walked in.  The Italy/Scotland soccer game occupied the five other TVs in the bar.  Those soccer fans are rowdy and very passionate!  We ended up meeting another Michigan fan who lived in Brussels and had gone to UM.  Nice guy – liked to clap a lot.  Too bad we lost to Ohio State for the fourth year in a row.  Oh, we also met the owner of the bar, Fat Boy, who was from Pennsylvania originally, had retired and moved to Brussels 11 years prior.  He then opened Fat Boys seven years ago.  It seemed to do very well as a sports bar that plays all of the soccer games and American sporting events. 

Erin's new favorite - raw ground beef.

We took a taxi after the game to dinner.  The place was smaller and had a bit of an upscale feel.  The menu was in French so Eric had to translate as best he could.  I ordered a portion of fromage (cheese) for an appetizer and filet americaine, frites for my main course.  Eric had a traditional Belgian dish called Waterzooi.  The cheese was a plate of white cheese cubes (not sure the kind) and mini gherkins and pickled pearl onions.  It was a lot of cheese.  A few minutes later our meals arrived.  Eric’s was a bowl of chicken in a yellowish cream sauce.  Mine was a molded mass of raw ground beef with parsley sprinkled on top.  After five minutes of hysterical laughter, we asked the waitress if this was correct and she said what I had ordered and brought out the frites.  Eric felt bad about me not eating any of it so he tried it.  He also put some in his bowl of yellow cream sauce to disguise the taste and the temperature (it was cold).  I felt bad too so I tried a speck.  It was disgusting.  I put about a 3^rd of it in my napkin and threw it out in the bathroom.  We left about a half hour later and went back to the hotel.  We were looking for something sweet and to kill the impending E.coli so we ended up going to the hotel bar for hot chocolate.  Apparently this Four Points Sheraton hosts local Bingo on Saturday nights so we armed ourselves with French numbers and joined in…just kidding.  We drank the Swiss Miss (no joke) hot chocolate, then went up to the room to bed.  

Sunday

We checked out of the hotel this morning around 8:45 and made our way back to the train station.  We stopped along the way a Le Pain Q’otidien (a chain) for a croissant and coffee – what we had craved the entire trip.  They were delicious.  Our 9:36 train was on time and we made it to Bruges -“Bridges” in Flemish - around 10:30.  We walked from the train station to the city and immediately agreed that we liked Bruges more than Brussels.  It’s called “the Venice of the North” for its canals and rivers.  The views and sites were picturesque.  Just like Brussels, there were restaurants and chocolate shops on every little street.  One new addition to the retail scene was lace and tapestry shops.  These two crafts are also big in Bruges.  We made our way to the central area called Markt.  There we climbed the steps (366) to the top of the belfry and “Museé de Brugge.”  The views were vast – the steps were extremely narrow and windy.  

Postcard perfect Bruges

Our next stop was the chocolate museum.  I had been looking forward to that stop all weekend.  We strolled leisurely through the cute, quiet streets admiring the small colorful homes in an unassuming building that resembles an old church.  We learned about the history of the cacao bean – how it was used as currency by the Aztecs, how it is harvested, where it grows, and that Louis XVI used to drink 50 cups a day.  It was a very enlightening visit that ended in a chocolate demonstration and tasting – yum! 

Eric and I were both getting a bit hungry and were still frozen at the core, so we decided to find a real restaurant. We ended up going to Cambrinus– which was busy and had and English menu.  The menu was traditional Belgian with over a few hundred different types of beer.  Eric ordered one that he was basically in love with – a blonde.  (His second was good – an abbey beer – but not as good as the first).  We ordered Trapetti cheese croquettes for an appetizer, Eric ordered a steak with the house specialty sauce with fries, and I ordered a goat cheese salad with bacon – safe.  The food was decent.  The croquettes were delish.  Steak was good – sauce, ehh.  Fries – again mediocre.  One think I was surprised about was the reviews of the French fries.  They were supposedly some of the best in the world.  What we found was that they were soggy, yellow, and a little thicker than McDonalds’.  Penelope’s were better.  My salad was ok.  The bacon wrapped around the goat cheese didn’t look cooked so I didn’t eat it, but Eric did and he actually liked it. 

After lunch we took a long walk to the outskirts of the city.  We saw two giant windmills and a part of the original city wall that used to surround the city.  There was a still is a moat, the remnants of the wall and then the city itself.  Our next goal was to find some good Belgian chocolate  to eat and to bring to work for our colleagues.  We ended up at the guidebook-recommended Depla where we bought walnut pralines and chocolate covered coffee beans.  Walnut pralines were ok.  Next shop – claiming the best hot chocolate – The Old Chocolate Shop.  We bought some regular dark chocolate, some hot chocolate (not too shabby) and some disks of white, dark, and milk for the office.  The last place we went, The Chocolate Line, we ended up having chocolate Grenache with a bit of pepper.  Good.  We bought some truffles – ehh, and an assortment for Thanksgiving dinner at Kathleen’s on Thursday.  We then had about an hour so we strolled some more and made our way to the train station.  At 5:35 we were on the train back to Brussels.  At 7:00 we boarded the Eurostar and are now headed back to London.  Good weekend in Belgium

London, England, November, 2007

We arrived in London to start our overseas journey on November 2^nd.  It was a great couple of weeks as we worked to get settled.  We spent the first weekend living at Argos buying electrical appliances that we couldn’t bring with us.  We managed to get mobiles and go on a few runs in Hyde Park.  For the beginning of November the weather was relatively mild and it didn’t rain for a least the first week and a half that we were here.  TO be honest, it was quite sunny and only tended to get cloudy midday.  The sun does set here really early this time of year.  Can’t wait to see how work is on Monday.  Eric and I both start our jobs right away that first Monday, November 5^th. 

My first week of work went well.  Everyone seems really nice and welcoming.  They are actually going out of their way to make sure I am comfortable and introducing me to everyone.  Allison and Nicola will be fantastic to work with and their English wit in incredible.  My first embarrassing experience came that Friday when about 10 of us went out to lunch.  I had ordered pizza and ate only half.  I asked for a to-go box and was immediately ridiculed.  “What will the neighbors think?!”  “Are you really going to carry that all the way home with you?”  The questions were endless, but just as it had been all week, me making fun of them as much as they made fun if me – I proudly marched out of Strada, pizza in hand.  But…I left it in the fridge over the weekend.  Our air shipment came that first weekend after we had arrived – what an incredible mess.  So far we have to live amongst piles of clothes until our sea shipment arrives with all of our furniture.  We did eat a lot of meals in - with the nice ready to heat & eat meals from Tesco and on the floor. That got old pretty quickly. We are loving our scary exciting adventure so far and can’t wait for the next trip we are planning – Belgium – next weekend.

First viewing of what would become our home.  It was the sixth flat we viewed that day.

Our sea shipment arrived in that embarrassingly large container and was hoisted up through our window.

End of November, 2007

Our sea shipment arrived.  We made many, many trips to Argos and one side-trip to Ikea for some additional furniture.  We ended up having two Thanksgivings this year – one at Jim and Jason’s with Jennifer and her mom cooking a feast.  We also met her sister, Kathleen, a high school senior who was kind of a trip.  Colin, Jen’s fiancé, was also there.  We had a great time and the food was fabulous.  The night ended with a somewhat rowdy came of celebrity.  The second Thanksgiving was on Saturday at Eric’s American boss’ house.  Again, good food and a different crowd.  Kathleen and her fiancé, Bruce, hosted.  Jim and Jason attended along with David and Sara (boring!), friends of K&B. 

The next few weeks were spent organizing our flat and setting up our home.  It really is starting to come together.  My Christmas parties soon began.  These Brits know how to drink – yikes!  I was ill for a few days after our agency “do” but it was black tie at a swanky club and quite a bit of fun.  Eric’s was the following week.  Again, black tie and again too much alcohol.  I think we are about done for the holiday season – oh wait – Eric has his group party on Thursday and the theme is “cocktail making skills” – should be interesting.

The whole crew from Thanksgiving #1.  Jen's mother, Jimmy, Jason, Colin, Jen and us.

The hosts of Thanksgiving #2, Kathleen and Bruce.

Finally unpacked.

Our living room.

Our bedroom.