One way to meet the neighbors...

We knew the little family that lives directly above was french and have a small daughter and one on the way, but we've never met them officially... until today. 

We have family coming and I spent the entire afternoon cleaning the flat top to bottom. Andrew came home early to be nice and help and do a date night. So after cleaning, we walked to the Sainsbury Express to get things for dinner. I always ask Andrew, when we leave, if he has the keys to the flat. As we're walking, I mention that it's always my worst fear that I'll lock myself out of the apt without a phone because I don't know anyone and it would be a big deal to get back in. 

WELL, so Andrew - trying to suggest something nice - says we should take our dinner into the garden and enjoy it. I wanted to eat in the backyard, but he sells me on the garden. We each carry our own plates and I put the vino and glasses in a bag. Andrew says he's got the house keys, so I am responsible for the garden key. We get into the garden and I realize that I'm not wearing my sweatshirt. I say it's fine, I'm not really that cold, but Andrew insists on getting it for me. I pour the wine, set up my plate, and look up and there he is walking back to me... He's forgotten the house key.

Trying to stay calm, I don't get upset. There's nothing we can do about it so we just ate our dinner (but poured the wine back in the bottle as Andrew wasn't really in the mood to enjoy a glass at that moment) and then discussed our plan of attack. I check all the notices on the way out to see if our landlord's number is listed anywhere as he's the Chairman of the Garden. No luck, but we did find the number to another lady that I met with last week to become "official" members of the garden. 

We passed the upstairs lady and her baby on our way out so I knew she was home. She buzzes us in and let's Andrew call the lady whose number we have to see if we can get the landlord. Long story short, we get a hold of the landlord who's in Wales and no one has a key to his house to get the spare key to ours. So after the our new neighbor friends have been super nice and hospitable for almost 45 minutes, we try plan B - B&E.

Our backyard garden butts up to a local hotel so Andrew thinks he can hop the 10+ foot fence and get into our backyard. As we walk to the hotel, we go inside to let them know what we're about to do so that we don't get the cops called on us on top of this!! Andrew leaps the fence with impressive (and surprising) strength and grace. 

The back door was definitely locked, but the little window above it was open. It's probably 8 feet up. So I think I can fit through this window easily if Andrew just boost me up. Well, Problem: I can't hop the fence like he did (in my defense, my arms were/are EXHAUSTED from all the working out I've been doing). SO Andrew is on his own. 

My smarty hubby makes himself a ladder and I watch him pull himself through the little window!! We got back in! I run around to the front door and then i see the damage - he's scraped his legs, tore his shorts, and has bruises forming in several places!! I took a picture to immortalize his efforts :) WHAT A NIGHT!! And looking at the picture, I'm not quite sure how he made it in!! 

And I will be making some sort of delicious baked good as a thank you to the neighbors for their assistance in our crisis! 

Keeping Busy!

After South Africa, I decided that I needed to "do" more with my days here. So two weeks ago now I finally joined a gym! It's called David Lloyd and it's about a 10 minute walk from the flat. I love it! I've been to pilates, yoga, body pump, body conditioning, and more. Yoga and pilates like to remind me of my horrible un-flexibleness, but I still really enjoy them! Pilates more so than yoga. Those have been my staples. I've also been doing a little training with a really neat guy, Johnny. He's an Aussie who just moved here with his girlfriend. He's a former professional soccer player and gymnast. He's super friendly and I've roped his lady, Corinne, into taking some classes with me! They are so so sweet and I've enjoyed hanging out with them!! 

So I've been working out with a fury for the last two weeks! My goal is at least 5 days a week. I've done that so far! I'm trying to get back to where I was before I came to London and sat on my bum for 4 months! And then I found this great app for my phone that has thousands of yummy recipes so I've been doing a lot of cooking! So far I've made shrimp ceviche, Spinach/feta/red pepper quiche, pulled pork bbq, and tonight I'm making shrimp with Old Bay and a Barley/tomato/red pepper/feta/rocket salad!! I have also made a banana mousse for dessert :) 


I'm getting better at doing things by myself! I went to the movies last week to see the new Twilight movie. I love love love the books. I can't say that enough, but the movies are absolutely terrible. This is the first movie that I could actually sit all the way through without getting too antsy. It was good. I think that everyone really stepped up their acting this time, well, everyone except Kristen Stewart. My goodness, she's horrible. I've added her to my list of WORST actors ever with Keanu Reeves, Brendan Fraiser, and Nicolas Cage. I find them all absolutely horrible. 


Andrew and I also went to the Natural History Museum a few weeks ago!! It was in the beautiful castle looking building. It was really nice, but my favorite part was the dinosaurs!! We had a lot of fun checking them out. 


And this past weekend was really busy! Saturday, our friend Valentina had a picnic by Tower Bridge to celebrate her birthday!! We got there around 1 and it lasted until 7pm!! Her parents are in town from Italy and together, she and her mom, made a fantastic spread! There were salads and frittatas and crumb cakes and cupcakes and yogurt cakes and zucchini and tuna sandwiches...it was insane!! And I ate the entire 7 hours... there went my working out for the week but it was well worth it! ha! I really enjoy hanging out with them, they're great! AND we found out that they will be in the Baltimore area the same time we are back for Greg and Ashley's wedding! So that will be pretty neat :) 


Andrew just got accepted into Cambridge for his Masters! To get him pumped, we took the train on Sunday to visit the area! Are good friends Bernie and Alison were in Cambridge for the weekend house shopping so we met up with them! We had a yummy lunch outside in the sun, then grabbed a bottle of prosecco and went on a punting tour. I had no idea what punting was, but it was these big wooden boats kind of like Gondalas and there was a guy on the back pushing us around the river, giving a tour about some of the colleges of Cambridge that you could see from the water.  I'm a nerd and really like that kind of stuff. It was interesting to learn that Cambridge wasn't really bombed much during the war because it was rumored Hilter wanted to use it as a residence when all was said and done. It was all just really great but the best part was, these punting companies allowed groups (or couples) to rent these boats for private hire where they pushed themselves from the back of the boat! It was a gorgeous day so the river was REALLY congested and there were several really close calls of people almost biting it. ha!! I wanted so bad to see someone fall in, but they didn't. To finish off our day, we went to this place called the Waffle Company where i had a giant yummy waffle with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce all over it! Clearly it was not a healthy eating weekend...


I'm really happy with myself for how busy I've been staying!! You might be thinking "why doesn't she just get a job??" Well! We've been doing so much traveling and still have quite a few little trips left so I'm trying to hold out until the end of summer :) It's honestly such a beautiful and perfect time to be in London!

South Africa - The Conclusion!

I got a little lazy for awhile and blog!! But here goes my attempt to catch up! 

South Africa was great!! We did just about everything you'd want to do in South Africa in the winter time. We took a tour of the city from a sailboat, we did an all day long winery tour of the Stellenbosch region where I was quite tipsy from 10 AM onward, we spent a lot of time in the Victoria & Albert waterfront, went to the top of Table mountain in cable cars, too a bus tour of the entire area, went the the aquarium, and shopped the markets (one day just missing bill clinton by an hour!). We also went to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned and our tour guide was an ex political prisoner. 

My favorite area was Camps Bay. The locals called it mini Miami, but if it was, it was REALLY mini. There was a strip of a block or two that had a bunch of restaurants and a few shops. There was this tiny shop called Sinnful Ice Cream that made their own and let me tell you, their coconut still haunts my sleep it was THAT amazing!!  We ate in the area after the tour of table Mountain. All the restaurants had outdoor seating and so we picked a place called Salt & Pepper or something like that. Dining in South Africa was great because not only was the food good, it was really cheap. They were big on their game meats so you could get a 200g fillet for the equivalent of $15-$17. Actually, I whole Ruth's Chris quality meal for that. It was pretty amazing. We ate A LOT of meat. Ostrich is a big industry there, so that was often on the menu as well. At a tapas place called Fork (which was my most favorite place we ate) we even at Kudu, which the waitress said was a type of Gazelle! Crazy. But actually, I think my most favorite tapa there was this giant ravioli with ricotta and a poached egg inside that had a bit of a kick to it. Amazing!! It was so good, I made Andrew eat there twice! 

I still can't get over the huge gap between the haves and have nots... it was terrible. Around the waterfront and the really heavily touristy areas, it wasn't that bad, but we stayed in the heart of Cape Town and you saw so so much. We were almost scammed at an ATM in the lobby of really nice bank! Looking back, we should've seen it, but the men were friendly and dressed nicely, so we didn't think anything of it. To sum it up, there were two guys chatting me up while the main guy tried to pull the scam on Andrew. Luckily Andrew had his wits about him because I missed the whole thing and at one point, the scammer actually had our bank card in his sleeve!! Never ever enter your PIN in front of someone! It really shook us and reminded us that we really needed to pay attention to our surroundings at all times. 


I really liked our hotel though. It was recently renovated and really really friendly staff. Breakfast was included in our rate and they had top notch breakfasts!! I had poached eggs and sauteed mushrooms every morning and toast with homemade jams and fresh fruit and cheeses. It;s funny, I'm not a breakfast person AT ALL, but on vacation, when it's "free", I'm ALL over it . haha. 

The second game played in Capetown while we were there was Spain V. Portugal. That was much more exciting than the Cameroon/Netherlands one! The fans were crazy and again, the weather was great and the stadium gorgeous. The vuvuzela horns though, WORST invention EVER!! This little kid probably 9 year old kept kicking my chair and blowing his in my ear. I'm telling you, I have all the patience in the world especially with kids, but this one.... it took all my will power not to rip the horn from his hand and stomp it to pieces!! 

All in all, it was a REALLY great trip. I bet Cape Town is incredibly beautiful in the summer, but I don't think I ever need to go back. We did and saw everything and for a beach, there are a lot of beautiful ones a lot closer!! Definitely a fantastic experience though!! 

I was also really proud to be an American when we were there :)