It also occurred to me that really I should be admonishing you for not keeping us abreast of your goings on. **ahem**
Executive Summary
The report is turning to the mundane because we're getting settled in nicely, which is about damn time seeing as we've been here for EIGHT months. We still don't know that many people, but I finally realized that it wasn't an overnight occurrence that left me surrounded with such a stellar set of friends in Seattle. That took several years. And so now that I've remembered that, London doesn't have to work as hard to make me embrace it. And somehow, we're managing to keep busy and pretty happy even with our limited social circle.
For the purposes of breaking up large visual copy blocks, I will be splitting each section of this email in two parts:
- What I'm gonna tell you
- What you really wanna know (based on FAQ's)
Work
What I'm gonna tell you
Peter's been working since January as a program/project manager for a medical device company based in Wales (??). The job sort of fell into his lap by way of a virtual introduction by our friend, Mark, who never actually met the person he was virtually introducing us to (this is key to being VIRTUAL). If you weren't a believer in networking or the internets or LinkedIn before, have PK tell you the crazy story some time and you will find your faith. Then we'll hold a baptism for you where we sprinkle you with pixel dust and bless you with ethernet cables. He's liking the job pretty well thus far but it's not his passion. I'm not sure if I was supposed to tell you that part, but I can't ask him because he's currently busy playing his keyboard pretty furiously and can't hear me anyway because of his headphones. Of course, I can't hear him, either, because I'm also wearing headphones and pounding on my laptop keyboard in my own angry-sounding-even-though-I'
As for my job, it's still keeping me plenty busy but, after burning stoopid intensely for a few months, I'm coming up for air. I'm still working the same client account but things keep changing within the account so that keeps things fresh (or something).
What you really wanna know
The thing you probably really want to know about my job is whether we're staying another year or coming back at the end of August. The answer is i can't really tell you right now because it depends on a bunch of things, most of which are out of my control. What I can tell you is that we're not ready to leave London at the end of August.
English
What I'm gonna tell you
It seems like my English verbal skills are deteriorating since moving here. It's kind of like when you study a French in school and you feel all confident in the classroom but then you actually go to France and suddenly you're hyperaware of your lame accent and the fact that you don't sound or speak like everyone else and who are you trying to fool anyway, with your feminine and masculine articles, you imposter? OK, so all that was specific to my business trips to France, but it also seems to apply to my everyday business trips to the London office where I frequently jumble my words. I think my friend, Halee in Helsinki, is having the same issue (she's got a weird relationship with direct objects these days). But you'll like her better because she chronicles her life as an expat with much more regularity and less run-on sentences than I do. Anyway, don't be surprised to talk to me in the future and find that I'm no longer able to conjugate verbs. In English (wanted to make sure you were clear that it's not just the French that's messing me up).
What you really wanna know
No, we don't have an accent, not a British (or faux British in the way of Madge) one, anyway. According to everyone here we have American accents, but they obviously don't know that the USA is the central point for all maps and that they're the ones with accents.
Visitors
What I'm gonna tell you
When we first got here, we had an onslaught of visitors. It got to the point where we considered posting a Google calendar and giving all of y'all access to it. But that would have meant I'd have had to get my shit together a lot sooner to put together that fabled distribution list, and, as the British say, I just couldn't be bothered. But now I've bothered so if we start getting more requests for the vacation season, I'll be ready.
What you really wanna know
No, you cannot come stay with us for Wimbledon because we're already fully booked. Sorry, but you should've looked at that Google calendar sooner. ;(
Cats
WILD CARD CATEGORY! Crazy cat lady potential
We'll be bringing them over from Michigan at the end of May after we get back from our visit to the US. My lips are pursed and ready to kiss them on their sweet little heads just typing this out.
Travel
What I'm gonna tell you
I was feeling like we haven't done that much traveling and then I ticked off where we've been since we got here:
- Bath, Shropshire, Stonehenge (with Aaron & Stacy in October)
- Paris (3x) (work, meet up with PK's family)
- Carcassonne (end of February for PK's birthday, to meet up with John and Lola from Vancouver!)
- Shanghai (visit my mom, Christmas)
- Helsinki (work and fun in August, January)
- Tallinn, Estonia (August)
- Maldives (April for plain ole chillaxn')
That and the fact that I need to get extra pages in my passport means I've done more than I thought. I've become so accustomed to all the travel that it doesn't strike me as being an extraordinary amount anymore. And there are so, so many other places we need/want/plan to visit! ACK! See why we aren't ready to move back yet?
What you really wanna know
No, we did not elope in the Maldives. Miss an entire day where it's completely acceptable for it to be ALL ABOUT ME? Are youcrazy? Besides, the Maldivian government doesn't allow marriage of foreigners on its soil (there's not much soil there, so they have to be really judicious about how it's used). We went to the Maldives because we had time off (Good Friday and Easter Monday) and I had some ser-i-ous-ly hard-earned bonus money to blow (seriously hard earned, not seriously a lot of $$). The trip wasn't cheap, but when you compare the costs to pounds, well.... It was a pretty fantastic vacation where we snorkelled (I know it looks weird that there are two 'l's in that word, but this is what gmail is telling me, so I just do what Google would do) until we thought we were bored with snorkelling (turned out to be untrue), survived an attack by some giant flying roaches in our beach villa (we took three prisoners) and generally had what we unanimously voted as our Best Vacation Ever. Peter actually thought he would get bored there, but he ended up being too busy eating giant breakfasts for lunch and napping to ever get bored. I got a little worried, too, and brought three books to read. HA! If ever any of you find a way to market the skill of "proficient in frittering away large chunks of time doing nothing", please do let me know. We were so busy doing nothing it took us two days to watch the entire Sex and the City movie.
As for future travel we have a bank holiday on May 3rd so we were thinking about flying to Berlin. I'm a little wary of scheduling any flights in case that crazy Icelandic volcano starts being a brat again. And earlier this month, I stopped at the bookstore and bought six Lonely Planet guides: Morocco, Barcelona, Greece, Greek Islands, Sicily. So that gives you an idea of some of the places we're thinking about. I've also got a bee in my bonnet to check out South Africa, despite their lame tourism slogan ("It's possible" - ties with Seattle's "Metronatural").
And yes, we're coming back to the US for a visit during which we'll be touring the US to attend my brother's college graduation, visit PK's family and Seattle. All that stuff I was telling you earlier about being OK without having many friends here? IT WAS A LIE. J/K It's just that I'm super excited to be able to see people when I'm home.
Randoms
Gout: If ever there is a time in my life when I am most vulnerable to this disease, it will be whilst living in the Europe. It hasn't struck us yet, but I can't help wonder how most of my British/French friends/colleagues don't already have it.
I am totally confused about how to write out the date here. DD-MM? YY-DD-MM? DD-MM-YY?
Just before leaving for the Maldives, I was obsessed with the rise of bedbug infestations in hotels around the world. World class, five star hotels. *scratch, scratch* Can you imagine inadvertently bringing those home as a souvenir? Next time I stay some place, I'll be peeling back the sheets to examine the mattress.
Things I love about living in London
Our flat and how much sun it gets, meeting people from all over the world all the time, weird activities like live figure drawing after hours in the galleries of the Tate Modern, playing How Close to Zombie on the tube (a game I invented in which I assign a number on a scale of 1 to 10 to indicate how far away from being a zombie a person is based on their pallor), KFC is the bar time food of choice, the French butcher around the corner got everyone else he works with to whistle the them to the A-Team, knowing that I cross paths with about 10,000 other people every single day, the gigantic 3 story Anthropologie store that opened up in the summer on Regent's Street, knowing my way around the tubes, being able to give directions to lost tourists (80% of the time)
Things I don't love about living in London
Our randy and vocal upstairs neighbors, the way they bill utilities (totally messed up accounting that works out in the end but would make Excel throw up), bathrooms, our shower, extraneous use of vowels and shunning of the letter Z, how much guys openly pick their noses (I've recently used this as a deciding factor of why one particular guy is cuter than another particular guy), girls who forget their pants when putting together their Friday night going-out outfits (usually the same girls who mistake tunic tops for dresses), how little they recycle in my office, the popularity of Abercrombie & Fitch, missing weddings and the births of my friend's babies (lame!)
Off to bed. I have to reserve some brain power to finish a redonculous Power Point deck at work tomorrow. Death by cut and paste.
I hope you're all well!
xo,
L (&P, by proxy)
P.S. I was listening to 'Seasons in Love' repeatedly while I wrote this email. How do you measure a year?
P.P.S. Yes, Halee, I really did point people to your blog in order to take some heat off of me. ;(
This dispatch was sent in an email on 04-26, 10-26-04 or 26-04-10. I'm not sure which.
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