Windsor Weekend

We're just getting home from a lovely weekend in Windsor - well, actually we're just getting home from the gym but I will get to that later.

Our friends Bernie and Alison tied the knot yesterday. Bernie is one of Andrew's friends that I met in Baltimore and his lovely bride Alison is a native Brit. They met in Germany and were living there, and attended the world cup, in '06 when my family and I were there...what a small world!

Anyway, the wedding was at a beautiful church - St. Peter's in Burnham. It was absolutely gorgeous and over 800 years old! The gravestones were so so old and unique. It was all very cool! I must say that vows sound better in an English accent. After the ceremony, the Baltimore lushes went across the street to the pub for a drink before the Champagne reception. The Champagne Reception, Dinner, and after dinner dancing were all done at the Burnham Beeches hotel. The area is really close to Heathrow so if you ever have an overnight lay over around Heathrow - check it out!!

The Champagne started flowing around 3:30ish PM (we'll say) and didn't stop until midnight! Brits are hardcore! Andrew and I were seated at the Baltimore table with Justin Magno, Holly S. and Lakisha. There were also two adorable Irish girls, that were a lot of fun, stuck at the Baltimore table. Dinner was beautiful, especially the cheesecake dessert! Hands down probably the best cheesecake I've ever had. It was almost whipped, it was so light and fluffy! And Matt Schneider (also a Baltimore-ian but seated at the Boston table as that's where Bernie first met him) was the best man and gave the best Best-man speech I've ever heard. Seriously! But it was Bernie who made me cry like a baby in his sincere and emotional address to his new wife. Absolutely beautiful!

Of course idiot me forgot my camera, so I only got a few shots on my phone and they're pretty terrible. I'm hoping Holly, Vicki, and/or Lakisha got some better ones!

After dinner, the room was cleared out and the DJ came in! Oh, but I am forgetting the best thing about a British wedding - the Toastmaster!! He announces EVERYTHING and when you walk into the dining room, he announces you to the couple. He told great stories to preface different parts of the evening, how certain marriage traditions began like the phrase "tieing the knot" and the significance of carrying your wife over the threshold of your home and why speeches are given about the newlywed couple. He was the cutest little old man in a bright red jacket with tails and he carried around a gavel and banged it every time he wanted the crowd's attention! He was in love with Holly - he kept making it a point to stop and say something to her ;) Too cute! We all nominated Justin as Toastmaster for all future events.

So back to the dancing!! We seriously danced for a solid 5 hours. The DJ started off strong but then there was a string of apparently popular, old school British music that I've never heard in my life and a 70's set that I just wasn't feeling but went with it anyway. When in Rome, right?? Holly tried to influence the DJ's choices, but I think he was more concerned with her trying to borrow his headphones so he didn't change it up too much... hehehe. BUT it was great and I loved everyone! I met a girl that's currently living in Brussels, Heather. Her husband is playing Pro Basketball there and told me to contact her when we head over there so we can be VIP and see a game! how fun!!

I may have had to boot and rally halfway through the dancing as well, but overall, FANTASTIC day of celebrating. Bernie and Alison have lots of people who love them and make a stunning couple :)

Andrew and I got up early this morning - or a little later than usual if you factor in Day Light Savings - had a lovely English breakfast and hopped a train back to London. From the Paddington station we took a bus because the underground is an absolute mess on the weekends when they close lines and stations for servicing. I've decided I prefer the bus on the weekends. It's so easy and almost like a mini sightseeing tour, especially when you hop on the double decker ones! It's funny - I'm completely directionally challenged when I'm walking the streets of London, BUT my redeeming quality is that I have a keen sense of when we are going the wrong way on public transportation. Which we did from Paddington. BUT luckily i noticed by the third stop and we were able to turn around fairly easily :)

Andrew and I joined Fitness First today on a 6 week membership to give the gym a go in London. It's a bit of a hike from the house but it's the cheapest one so far and if I have to hear Andrew whine anymore about how he wants to join a gym I think I'll pull my hair out! Ha!

I will also be trying my hand in the Fashion industry. I got an assistant position with production company based in LA, to help with their small London office to get ready for the Cannes Film Festival in May! On paper, it sounds REALLY cool - but we'll see where it goes. I find out more details tomorrow :) I also signed up for 2 sewing classes in the city! I'm hell bent on learning to sew - London gives me the overwhelming urge to create!

With the BA strike, poor Matt and Vicki Schneider are stranded in London until Wednesday so they will be coming to stay with us for a couple nights until their flight! Time for cleaning and some laundry!!

PS - Originally I said there was a T.J. maxx was on high street kensington...it's actually called T.K. Maxx! lol. It's exactly the same, I guess it's just the Euro version?? Same exact concept, store set up and everything! We got Andrew a nice tie for 8 quid. Can't beat that!

School Days

Besides Justin Magno staying with us, it's been a pretty tame week. School started again (I was on spring break last week) so that's been occupying my days. Noteables:

1. Over the weekend we went to the Ideal Home Show at Earls Court. It's literally a two minute walk from the flat. It was INSANE how packed it was. I enjoyed the food the most - ham and pineapple crepe = delish! It was honestly one big info-mercial.

2. Sunday we had dinner with Andrew's cousins again. It was Chris's birthday and they had us and one other couple over for dinner. Ele is a fantastic cook! I drank fruity Belgian beer and I must say I enjoyed it a bunch! The cheese in Europe are mind blowing...i can't get enough!

3. Monday night I made Enchiladas for dinner. Mexican food is INSANELY hard to find. Tesco has an "el Paso" section, but once I got everything home and cooking, the Enchilada sauce looked and tasted a little like pasta sauce and the fajita seasoning was more like BBQ sauce from back home. But my enchiladas were made with cheese and spicy refried beans too and somehow, mixed all together, it was actually pretty yummy! There was also a guy trying to steal something at Tesco and was getting taken down by a bunch of security guys so that was entertaining... I made friends with the deli ladies, filling them in on want I saw during the scuffle :)

4. Tuesday - I went over to Ele's and she took me and Victoria, the cutest baby ever, on a tour of the city/neighborhood and then to IKEA. We seriously spent 2 hours wandering. In the car, it's insane to see just how close we live to the gi-normous mall :) I didn't really by anything at IKEA because we STILL don't have our sea shipment.

5. Update: apparently the boat that was carrying out sea shipment, like the plane, also had some "mechanical difficulties" and had to be transferred to another ship. Instead of arriving the UK on Saturday, it was supposed to get in today... we'll see what happens!

6. American TV in the UK - on the mid-level cable plan, on a daily basis, we get: lots and lots of Maury, two and a half men, an occasional friends episode, some America's next top model, Keeping up with the Kardashians, and that's about it! Since I like trashy tv, I haven't had to struggle too hard to find something to watch but Andrew and Justin have not been impressed..

7. Andrew and I got invited to Bernie and Alison's wedding this weekend in Windsor! Bernie is our friend from Baltimore also recently relocated to the UK and is marring a Brit. Should be a lot of fun! I got a REALLY great dress today from French Connection - love it!!

8. Good eating by the house discovered this week with Justin - Nando's: a Portuguese chain with a small, simple, menu and a sauce that makes my teeth hurt and me drool uncontrollably because I can't control the hotness in my mouth...so good; Masala Zone: bomb indian food chain - try the chicken samosas; Wagamama: another chain - noodle bar with the BEST coconut ice cream with mango sauce and coconut flakes ever!

9. Andrew bought a grill... we fought over this grill. we are eating with plastic utensils and on paper plates, but apparently we absolutely had to have this grill right now. And it's sitting in my living room...

10. I found a group called The Make Lounge that runs all kinds of arts-n-crafty workshops!! The first one I want to take is called Knockout Knickers! You learn how to make undies!! Andrew promised to get me a sewing machine if i stopped giving him a hard time about the grill :)

11. I've had a bit of a stomach bug this week that has been extremely unpleasant and resulted in some weight loss... things finally seem to be turning a corner so I'm hoping that I'm on the mend!!

12. My parents got me a Bamboo tablet to help me with my graphic art. I used it for the first time this week to help with one of my projects. The idea was to create a brand mark for a Spanish winery called "Baila" or dance. here are some of my "sketches" I came up with :)




I promise to include more pictures in my blog going forward... I MISS EVERYONE!!

Quick Contact Update

We have TV, internet, and a land phone line! Andrew wrote Virgin's customer service department to let them know about our disappointing experience with their company and long story short, he turned us in to VIPs! We had two guys at our house this morning and now we are wired!

We also bought a SIM card for my iphone. The only problem...it needs to be unlocked! I've been at it all day and I'm still trying to figure it out. *sigh* In the mean time, skye me at: stephijvm.

More hiccups

Nothing with this move has gone smoothly!! We are finally in our flat. We have a couch, a coffee table, a rug, a TV, a bed, a futon, and that's about it. We've been in since Tuesday and the TV/Internet service provider was going to connect us to all the good stuff this morning BUT (long story short) they canceled our appointment for today because they decided that we never moved in. They never called, nothing. SOO the next available appointment is April 6th. I am currently on Spring break but come Monday, I need internet!! I found a bootleg wifi connection that you can pay by the week but it keeps kicking me off... so frustrating!! I have already started researching new internet/TV suppliers because I think this is all just ridiculous!!

I spent 2 days applying for jobs so far, not too many, just putting some feelers out there and seeing what I get back. I was supposed to have my first interview yesterday, but when I got out at the Kings Cross St Pancras station, I walked 15 minutes in the WRONG direction. By the time I figured out where I was and got back to where I started, I was going on 10 minutes late for the interview and didn't have the nerve to show my face! Without a mobile I couldn't call either! So I hauled tail to the Starbucks by the house and wrote the most sincere apology I could and gave her my comments on what I was asked to think about for the interview. She was super nice and let me come in today to interview.

The company is a Video production company comprised of Thembisa (from South Africa) and 3 guys all cramped into a tiny little room. They started the company last year and have 3 months to get themselves together or they will have to cease their operations. I think the interview went really well, she said she'd interviewed quite a few candidates so I'm not going to get my hopes up, but it'd be a neat opportunity to get some one-on-one attention to learn some cool stuff. They produce music videos, corporate videos, commercials, 3D animations...stuff like that. She said their financial stress is due to their lack of marketing efforts. They want an intern to monitor their social media stuff (facebook, blog, twitter) and for research. Eventually, the intern would help re-do the website.

An interesting marker on my way to the interview:



There are so so so many opportunities in London. Tons become available each day. I think I'm going to lay off the applying though until I have a mobile so I actually have a contact number!! With no phone, tv, and internet I seriously feel like I'm missing part of my soul or something. I haven't been THIS cut off from the world since the 7th grade...

After the interview, I explored the area a bit and found the cutest bookstore where EVERY book was only 2 quid! I bought 3 books :) Wuthering Heights (Bella is obsessed with it in Twilight lol), a book by Freud (bringing me back to my psych days!), and another adult read having to do with Statistics. After reading the City of Bones, I decided that maybe I should really start branching into age appropriate literature...

Since I've been home from the interview, I've eaten a package of cured beef and have a tub of hummus...or hommous as the Brits call it. I love London supermarkets. They have the craziest stuff!
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Last night I met Andrew at work and we went out for St. Patty's day! I made lots of new friends! This one girl Jo and I were hugging an hour in. Justin Magno is in town! We hung out with us too. We met up with Bernie, who has also just recently relocated to the UK, and had ourselves a lovely night. FYI Canadians LOVE themselves some St Patty's day!

First London weekend Noteables

1. High Street Kensington = AMAZING!! This has been my favorite street so far in London AND I can walk there from where we live! There is a TJMaxx (of all the random stores?!), an Urban Outfitters, a TopShop, a store called Monsoon, a GAP, and best of all a Whole Foods. There are a million more and I haven't even made it in to all of these shops yet, but it's nice to know they are there!!


2. Whole foods! It is the largest and best whole foods I have ever been in. The entire downstairs is the grocery store. There's a bread oven where they bake the most magnificent smelling breads right in front of you, a huge dessert counter/section where they had a table stacked with the largest meringues I have ever seen, FOUR raw/cooked build-your-own salad kind of stations, a huge wine center, a pre-cooked foods center with pepper encrusted rare tuna steaks and the most beautifully juicy looking beef Wellington. There are regular aisles for grocery shopping too. When you walk in the store, there is a tower to the ceiling of potted orchids in purple, white, and pink. Gorgeous. Upstairs, they have a restaurant to your left and the Whole Foods Market to your right. In the Market, there's a gelato station, a salad/soup bar, a burrito station, a pizza station, a pasta station, a sandwich station, a sushi station and then tons of seating options. Saturday I built my own salad and sadly sat there eating it after I tasted Andrew's sandwich. I have yet to taste non-amazing bread here. Everything is AMAZING! Andrew's sandwich was on thick crusty bread and had rare beef, portobello mushrooms, mustard sauce, lettuce and some delectable form of blue cheese. Heaven!

3. The tube on the weekends blows. The Earls Court station is literally a 2 minute walk from our flat. The district and Piccadilly lines run through that station. The district line is what Andrew takes to work, and takes us most directly to the places we've, so far, wanted to visit. Well, this weekend the Circle line, Jubilee line, and one other line that I'm blanking on were completely closed for maintenance, SO that made the service from Earls Court all funky. We tried to go to a home goods store called next, but just maneuvering through the people on the limited lines was tedious!! When we finally got to where we wanted to go, we couldn't find the store! It was pretty humorous :)

4. First embarrassing event/my poor uggs. So after our useless trip to the Victoria Station area, we decided to get a little coffee and tea for the ride back. I carried my tea for awhile because it's always scalding when you first get it from Starbucks. We're standing on the Victoria line for literally ONE stop to get us back to the Piccadilly line and as soon as we pulled in to the station, Andrew drops his hand from the ceiling rail, slams the cup of tea from my hand, and it splatters EVERYWHERE - drenching my relatively new light-colored suede uggs. This happens literally as the doors are opening and the guys getting on gave Andrew and me the dirtiest looks and said "well done mate." I wasn't as concerned with that as I was with what an idiot I looked like walking around with half wet/half dry boots...Andrew swears all i need is a suede brush, but I say RIP uggs :(

5. Dinner with Family. Andrew has a cousin that lives with his wife and 7 month old literally a 4 minute walk from our house in Earls Court Square. Christophe and Ele invited us to dinner on Saturday night. Christophe's parents Katleen and Louis were also there and Victoria is the sweetest baby ever!! She such a chunker! I love it! There was Champagne and Thai food and good company all night! Ele invited me on an Ikea trip with her this week and to try out her gym with her! I'm looking forward to it :) She's on maternity leave and apparently gets as bored as me being home all day alone. Should be a fun week!! Dinner with them relighted my desire to learn French...

6. Homebase. A store where Ikea meets home depot. It's FANTASTIC! This weekend we got a microwave, a lamp so we could have light in the reception room, an iron, an ironing board, hangers, a trashcan, a clothes drying rack, and a toilet paper roll holder. Those few things have made our place so much more homey even without the furniture!

7. First meal at the flat. Thanks to the microwave, we were able to heat up some soup at our flat for lunch on Sunday. Seems insignificant but I am so so tired of eating out already! AND Sainsbury, one of the big supermarkets here, has amazing pre-made soups. Londoners lover their pre-made food in general (which I'm still trying to get over my fear of) and the soups are actually stellar.

8. Engaged. Jill, Andrew's step sister got engaged last week! Apparently Andrew had known for a few days and forgot to tell me... it came out at dinner with the fam. Nice, husband...

9. City of Bones. I've read all the Harry Potters and Twilight series a million times and now I started a new one on Saturday. I'm more than halfway done with the 500 page book, but the more I read about the 16 year old main character, the older I feel. I should really start reading books meant for people my own age that don't involve vampires, wizards, shadowhunters and other mythical creatures...

10. INSANE jetlag. Anyone who knows me knows that I normally can't keep my eyes open past 9:30 at night. Here, I seriously can't fall asleep before 1 or 2 in the morning. It's been like that ALL week. And then I can't get up the follwoing mornings. It's pretty terrible and is driving me nuts!! Falling asleep at will is one of the things I pride myself on. I need my powers back!

11. David Lloyd gym. It's the best gym I've ever been to. It's clean and fancy and all the people who work there are incredibly nice!! Andrew and I tried it out on Saturday... phenomenal. The trainers are mostly Australian (me likey!), there's a pool, a boxing room, a power plate centre (which is all the rage here), a cardio centre, 2 studios for classes, a juice bar, a lounge with free wifi, and two separate weight rooms. LOVED it! The only problem is that it's on the pricier side so without knowing what our monthly expenses will be shaping up like, I am reluctant to join right away. I told myself that when I get a job, it will be the present to myself to sign up :)

12. Out of curiosity, I walked through the isle market "Foods from around the world" at the Sainsbury. 1/3 of the isle? Uncle Ben's rice... way to go USA!

13. Giraffe. Between the vino at night and the black currants jam I have in the morning, my tongue is a constant shade of purple. I'm starting to worry...

OK, that's enough for now. I'm hoping today is our last day in the hotel. I'm going to lay here and read some more until I get the A-OK from the big guy to get my bum home because the movers are coming...oh a girl can dream!!

Stupid US Copyright laws!!

My cousin Mikey turned me on to this tvgorge.com website where I could watch all my American shows - every season, in order! It was basically the greatest website I've ever seen and I spent most of the last two days, while Andrew was at work, getting into True Blood. Well, I watched the entire first season and the first episode of the second season, no problem. Mesmerizing. I tried to watch another one before bed this evening and I find that tvgorge has been shut down!! After an hour of looking, I've determined it's virtually impossible to watch USA TV in the UK online. I'm devastated. Now, to fall asleep, I'm left watching the Fresh Prince in German. Carlton is an even bigger TOOL in this language...

Another negative, no one in South Kensington wears sweatpants. I went on an hour and a half exploration of the neighborhood today around lunch in my sweatpants since the sun was shining, and only me and the homeless people were wearing sweat pants. Mental note made sweatpants at home only :(

On a higher note, Andrew and I visited a cool department store today called Peter Jones. It's 6 floors of fun! We have a nice little Saturday planned at home depot, maybe some bed bath and beyond if we have time ;)

New experiences #1

I had two new experiences today:

1. Taking the tube by myself ever,
2. eating Indian food

I was really proud of myself for taking the tube all alone!! It made me realize just how little I actually pay attention when I do things with Andrew, I totally just follow blindly. I was the dope standing in front of the tube map for a good five minutes making sure I knew which way i should take the train. London also has quite the underground labyrinth connecting several tube stations. I found my way just fine, although, it's really hard getting used to doing everything being backwards - everything Americans do on the right, they do on the left including: driving, walking, and escalator-ing. Feels REALLY awkward.

The Light of India. After a long day at work for Andrew, we wanted to find a light, inexpensive dinner near the hotel. It's FREEZING here, especially when the wind blows, so we ended up at this little Indian place on Gloucester Road. I had never had Indian food before, but as I have been feeling rather adventurous I thought, "Bring it on!" We started with a yummy pureed lentil soup with lemon. It was spicy and the lemon gave it tang - I loved it!! for my main course, I ordered Chicken Dhansak. Fantastic!! Pureed lentils again, but a completely different flavor and there was some SERIOUS heat in the after taste. Again, i LOVED it! The best part of the dining experience was the little old Indian man that served us. In true Steph style, I made a gigantic mess during dinner on his table cloth so when he cleared the plates he pointed at my mess and gave me a stern look. I told him that I got REALLY excited about the food and he laughed and ended up bringing me chocolates for the rest of the meal and told me not to tell Andrew. We're bffs :)

We also found out that the air shipment with our stuff is now only coming in this afternoon and there is little chance it will clear customs by this weekend. Looks like we'll be staying at the hotel through Monday...boo! Our flat is so cute, I can't wait to actually live in it!

Here Already

I can't believe we're in London already. Time seriously FLEW by. We officially touched down at 8:34 am on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010. We had a hired car take us pick us and our four giant bags up (after the cab fiasco last time that cost us a bazillion dollars...oops, pounds) and then we were on our way. We stopped at the listing agent's agency, Chard, to pick up the keys and then walked into our new place for the first time as actual tenants!

The flat is as nice as I remembered it, perhaps a little smaller than I had been decorating in my mind, but definitely very nice. The kitchen is TINY! Andrew and I will definitely be elbow to elbow when we try to cook. I think we have four small cabinets of storage? The bottom cabinets are taken up by a fridge, the washer/dryer combo, dishwasher, and oven. Our fridge looks like a mini bar. Should be interesting!!

It took us a few hours to get the heat going. A fuse blew, apparently, and we had to go to the "Ironmonger" to get a new one. Fuses here looks like a teeny tiny, itty bitty container of ooze (from Ninja Turtles II - Secret of the ooze) or kind of like a dumbell? More like the ooze container though. So once that was fixed, the heat was flowing nicely and I could finally take my jacket off.

The second bedroom has a door that opens into the back garden. It's super cute!! It looks like the lower ground floor neighbors might also have access so we should probably make friends with them soon!

The bathroom has a towel warmer. Unaware of how these things work, I grabbed it with my hand to see if it was on. It was. No major damage done, but I recommend not a lot of skin/towel warmer contact.

Our house currently has zero furniture and an air mattress so we are staying at the South Kensington Marriott until probably Friday. Hopefully the air shipment will come by then so we can comfortably stay in our flat!!

Yesterday, we also found the nearest Starbucks. Andrew's response "I've never lived so close to a Starbucks!" We checked out two of the local gym options, went to the new Westfield shopping center, to the TV store - Andrew is such a boy, to the cellphone store, to the grocery store, and on a stroll through the garden we have literally outside of our front door. It was amazing!! You can't sign up for any kind of services in London without a bank account and a chip/debit card I believe the cellphone man called it. We have the bank account, but not card just yet. So no celly for me yet, boo.

Andrew is off to work today and I think I'm going to start looking for possible internships. There are soooo many opportunities here, there's gotta be something for me :) I want some graphic/web design experience.

But my main mission today - to find hangers. I don't think it's hit me yet that I will be calling London home for awhile, but the people are super nice and I actually understand how to navigate the tube, so hopefully when it does hit me, it won't be too scary a realization...

This is what the front of our building looking like :)

The garden out front