So I might not have a working TV (yet!) and I might be sick (I blame Krista for bring it into the office), but it’s the Rugby World Cup final and England, unlike in the Cricket World Cup earlier this year, are in the final. Last week, Carolyn and I went to a pub to check out the action which was tons of fun. Alas, I’m resting today so I don’t get too sick, so I’m using the wonders of the intertubes to watch it on my computer. Go England!

Oh yeah, I still have very little idea what’s going on in this sport. But I’m slowly picking it up (then I’ll know how rugby AND cricket are played). 🙂

Update: England lost 15-6. I’d give you my insightful analysis, but I know very little about the sport.

As I’ve previously commented on, the UK seems to have the US beat in terms of eating better — farmer’s markets are everywhere, organic food can be easily had even in the Walmart of England (Tesco) and there seems to be less salt in everything. Allow me to detail this a little more by talking about my first trip (yes, it took me 6 months to visit) to Borough Market. Think a farmer’s market on steroids. It’s located under a grand junction of railroad bridges going into the London Bridge rail station and it goes on forever. And in it is just about any possible food you can imagine. You can find local fruit and vegetables, free range meats (both common and not so common), baked goods, cheeses galore and  even a crazy variety of beer and wines. We managed to spend 4 hours there and only left because it was getting close to closing time and the crowds could be a little overwhelming (it was a beautiful Saturday to be out and about). Allow to show you:

Ignore the handsome gentleman in the foreground and just observe the people, the stalls and the architecture.

Fresh eggs and meat for the taking

The variety of cheeses amazed me. You had gigantic wheels of it and then small varieties. One guy was selling some sort of cheese he’d tracked down and brought back from the Swiss Alps.

We went with Dina. This being near London Bridge, you can never pass up a chance to cross the Thames and enjoy the views:

(I think we’re trying to look thoughtful — maybe?)

So, Carolyn is here and I’m trying to show her allllll that London has to offer. However, on her first full day here, Carolyn was the organizer, not me :). Back in middle school, a family moved into her home town for a 3 year stint in the US. As it were, the husband had a temporary transfer for a job so he, his wife and 3 teenage kids moved to the US for a little while. They are back in London and live in a suburb southwest of London. Since Carolyn was coming to visit, they invited us out for an afternoon of fun and games. They have a lovely house only about 30 minutes from Waterloo. We came out there and had lunch and tea. And, since there’s always something interesting to see in England, even if it’s the suburbs, we took a little trip to Hampton Court Road. This was the country palace of Henry VIII. Yes, the country palace. Now that things have gotten a little bigger in England, it’s surrounded by the outer ring of the city. But at one point, this was a long trip to get out of town. It’s conveniently located along the Thames so the king could simply hop on a boat and float from the Tower of London to his weekend house.

This would be part of his ‘weekend house’

Here is Carolyn with Rob and Chris Fairhurst along the grounds of the palace.

We didn’t go in (you need a full day to do that), but we walked all over the gardens and along the river. It was a beautiful place and a wonderful setting. I found it amazing that, in an area that had a suburban feel to it, there’s a 15th century palace just hanging around.
Now, since I just got my new camera (how do the pictures above look?), I thought I’d throw in a little cat photo for those concerned parents. Here’s Anna chilling on the bed:

Coming soon: Greenwich!

So I seem to work with a few football fanatics. Last week, with about 5 hours notice, I was offered another ticket to see a Premier League team play. I got to see Arsenal’s arch-rivals Tottenham. This time it was an international match again a team from Cyprus. Alas, with my complete lack of a camera right now and no notice that I was going to be going, I didn’t have a chance to capture it on film. These seats were in the corner of one end of the curve. It’s an older, smaller stadium so it had a more intimate feeling. Tottenham beat the crap out of their opponents, but the fans weren’t quite satisfied. It was really entertaining. Even with them up 4-0 at half time, the fans were grumbling that they weren’t shooting enough. They scored 3 goals with just a few minutes left in the first half. Even though they were getting beat pretty bad, the away fans stayed pretty jolly throughout and had the Tottenham fans beat in terms of flags waving. But the Tottenham fans were just as lively. Part way through the first half, there was some sort of scuffle between the away section and the rest of the stadium and suddenly, the sections we separated by a wall of security. Very interesting.

Anyway, while I lack photos, here’s a video someone posted of a very amusing event. Note the fact that the player who gets hit by the ball looks like he’s about the kick the shit out of this little kid until a moment of “crap, he’s a kid and there’re 30,000 Tottenham fans who’ll kill me if I go after him” comes over him. I was just a little ways away and got a great look at the whole incident live. fun!

Hope you enjoy! I’m supposed to get another ticket to see a league match tomorrow.

Well, here’s one thing I can’t believe I haven’t really written about. It’s been 6 weeks since the kitties finally arrived in merry old England. They arrived in the beginning of August. It was a relatively smooth trip. The tricky part was the prep stuff. In my research, I’d read that the tough stuff was the initial stuff — making sure they were chipped and had their shots and clean of rabies. The way the whole cat moving process works is that the cats can come over 6 months after being proved rabies free. Alas, there is a single lab in the US that handles the blood tests. They were supposed to send the original forms to my vet and it never showed up. On top of that, the vet didn’t follow up even after a number of phone calls. Thankfully, I have wonderful parents who helped ensure the forms showed up. Then there was something about FDA certification as well. Once that crap got sorted, they were ready to go on there way. My parents took them to O’hare, spending a night with them in my apartment and the cats were ready for an 8 hour plane ride — their first!

I had just gotten back from a trip to Frankfurt (I came back especially to be there for the cats) and spent the day nervously waiting for them. Their flight landed at 10:30am, so I assumed they’d show up around 12:30 or 1:00pm. And yet, silence. By 2:00pm, i was a little nervous. As it turned out, there was a major accident on the Ring Road which meant the courier bringing them was stuck in traffic. Finally, he managed to show up with two safe kitties! Here they are:

Chewy hanging out by the tub

Anna exploring — she didn’t wanna sit still for a photo!

I haven’t got any more photos of them as my camera gave up the ghost recently. But the cats are doing well. I think they are still adjusting but they are healthy and generally happy. My place it pretty small and they aren’t romping like they used to. And I’ve been working a lot so I haven’t been around as much as I’d like to 🙂

Man, I’m glad I get paid in pounds. Not only is the dollar worth half a pound, but the Canadian dollar is now worth the same as the US dollar. This is up from being 1/3 less than a US dollar just 5 years ago. Ouch!

To signify the end of summer, the UK has a bank holiday. Over the last 30 years, a tradition has grown in which the Caribbean community living in Notting Hill (or increasingly, near it as the area has gentrified) put on a big ass street festival. Now, it goes for two days and apparently attracts 2 million people to it. Think of it as an absolutely enormous street party centered on a never-ending parade. This sounded like one of those things you don’t miss if you’re going to spend in London. So Dina and Adrian came up and we went to check it out.

The first day is ‘children’s’ parade. We decided to go to that one because the adult one usually ends in at least a couple of stabbings and shootings. I have no idea why this one was the children’s day, as it consisted of amazing amounts of people drinking a hell of a lot of beer. Allow me to demostrate. This is a view of crowd as we were sauntering off:

Would you bring your kid to that? People did. Anyway, if you look at the picture above, you’ll see some semis. That is the parade. Numerous groups would rent a big truck, load it down with speakers and a DJ and play some cool, loud Caribbean influenced music (mostly of an electronic nature). Behind them would trail people dressed up in various costumes dancing to the music.

But it wasn’t an organized parade in most places. You could meander into the parade route and join in. The parade served as the nucleus of the festivities. Off on the side streets, you had an amazing variety of random things. One minute you’d stumble upon a street filled with food vendors, the next, someone had hauled out their own speakers and were putting on a show. This being Notting Hill, we ran into a couple of streets with people selling things in a street fair kind of setting. It was huge and complex. I felt like, in the 6 hours we were there, we probably scratched a small bit of the surface. It was very impressive.

That said, it also had the seedy underbelly side of it. Like I said, there tends to be some violence. Take millions of people, lots of alcohol and a long long day and, as the sun goes down, bad shit happens. I believe there were 2 or 3 stabbings as well as someone firing a gun in the air. Aside from anything carnival related, the area shuts down. Majorly shuts down. Take this fancy looking store:

That’s not because business has been bad and the owner decided to close shop for good. That’s because the owner boarded the place up for the weekend while the crowds descended 🙂 There were entire streets like this where all the action was replaced by street vendors and the stores that normally were open would shut down and go on holiday. The only places that were open were off-licenses to buy alcohol (and some food places) and they would usually only open enough to hand you beer across the doorway. Very interesting.

Anyway, I feel like my words aren’t quite capturing the whole vibe, but that’s what yer getting. It was a very cool experience.

Now, I’m not the competitive type (sort of), but this is worthy of a posting. My company usually sponsors a number of activities during the summer known as the ‘Summer of Fun’. In the US, most of them consist of using one of the few patios in the Loop to host a party. In the UK, we lack that kind of public space, so it ends up being a variety of activities. This summers seemed to focus on bowling. We had two bowling events, the British type and the US type. Why do I post about something this simple? Because I somehow rule both! 🙂

The first event was lawn bowling. For those of you looking for a US parallel, it’s like bocce. You have teams and a single ball rolled down some grass. You try to roll a weighted ball closest to the ball in the middle of the grass. My coworker Steve was in town for the fun and, on a whim, we joined in. Well, we somehow won! The final was a closely fought contest in which we actually came down to a roll off which required a measurement to determine who was closest in the end. Here would be a perfect capturing of that moment:

Look how close it is!

Well, Steve and I took home the gold for Team USA (and team IT geeks). Flash in the pan, you’re probably thinking.

But no! I came back in the US version of bowling to show how truly dominant sedentary geeks can be. Tonight was the US bowling leg of the summer of fun. Well, how did we do? My team came in first overall. I bowled a strike on my first roll, thus winning the ‘First Strike’ trophy. My teammate, Julie, won best female bowler and I won best male bowler. We Rule!!!

So I come back from lovely Paris to find that 2/3s of the underground will effectively be shutdown for three days due to a strike. This is due to the fact that England, like a lot of industrialized nations, has been screwing around with public services by privatizing them. Unlike, say the US which cut the cord entirely, causing corruption, higher prices and terrible service, the UK went the public-private route. As a result, you have companies with many restrictions on them trying to make money off of things that shouldn’t be thought of as being profitable and now one went bankrupt. So the workers, afraid of losing their jobs and pensions, are striking (although the government seems to have agreed to all their demands. weird). Anyway, all I can think of right now is ‘Thankfully, I take the bus!’ 🙂

I do wish countries would stop thinking about profitability when it comes to public transit. The whole point is that it’s subsidized and should never run at a profit. Now, running efficiently, that’s another story, but I personally think the idea that corporations can run things more efficiently than the public sector is a myth. They both have their bloated inefficiencies, they’re just different.

For those of you curious, this is what it looks like when the tube is shut down at rush hour. Although they’re claiming the Northern and Picadilly Lines aren’t supposed to be shut down. Wow!

Man, I’ve been bad. Well, this time, it was because of a last minute trip to Paris. Yep, I’m writing from Paris. I bought a ticket on Monday and hopped the eurostar on Tuesday night. Yes, the tough life. Hopefully, the work part won’t be as bad as I’m expecting. If so, then I get a day or two of free time to see the city. Alas, my digital camera died about 4 days ago, so I might not be able to post any pictures for a bit (I’m gonna look into getting some sort of single-use camera in the meantime). whee!

Well, it’s been more than a week, which I believe is the longest I’ve been blog-silent since I moved to London. A touch of writers block. I’ve been busy, but there’s plenty to write about. So let’s write.

Last week consisted of a lot of work and a lot of going out and being social. One of my favourite people in the world, Jess, was around for many days and it meant that I got to see her multiple times for what may have been three years. She’s on a grand work tour which included Australia, New Zealand and London. It ends with her going on her honeymoon (congrats Jess and Amit!). But, before she could relax in Italy with Amit, she was stuck hanging out with me.

Last Monday, she wanted to come up and see my neighbourhood a little bit and see my cute kitties who had arrived three days earlier (clearly I’ve been bad about writing in the blog — there’s no cat entry!). Before that, I decided she needed to try the Marquess Tavern. It’s a pub about 15 minutes from me that has a nifty little niche in the pub-food world. They have some sort of room in the back where they store racks of beef. They keep a running list of what they’ve got in back on a chalkboard. The sizes range from about 2.5lbs to about 10lbs of beef (I’m planning a big trip with many people to tackle one of those larger pieces of meat). If you pick one of them, they take it off the board since they only have one and the meal is something of a roast with gravy, potatoes, yorkshire pudding and some sort of vegetables. It’s very tasty. And the beef is right off the bone. Look!

It also has a nice selection of ales and a friendly atmosphere inside. The surrounding area is a fancy part of Islington called Canonbury, with lots of beautiful homes and greenery. The exterior of the pub is nothing to be ashamed of either. I believe it’s Listed (some sort of British distinction to preserve things of historical interest).  Look:

(bad picture — but it’s beautiful).

Anyway, that was one evening of Jess. The following days were fun as well and even included one night of Dina! But I lack photos of most of it. I’ve been a bad travelling Matt.

OK, I was able to leave the office at a reasonable hour, have a leisurely dinner and decompress by sitting on my ass in my flat for once. Let’s start up the blogging again with these cute little critters:

Anna looking pensive

Chewy zonked out

Now I’ve said I wouldn’t dwell too much on the cats, but there’s developments afoot! In one week, these sweet little creatures will be crated up and take a crazy ass adventure across the Atlantic to join me in London. Just writing this makes me incredibly nervous. It was wonderful to see them again in Michigan (I’ll get to that in the next week), but when I think about the 12 hours of hell they’re going to go through just so I can be with them again, I worry. OK, first of all, I hope it’s not hell. And when the come out of their crates, then they will be home again. Even if home is a long ways away and nothing like the last two homes they were in. But I’ll be there.

Anyway, Anna and Chewy are coming soon. I’ve got a lot to do to prepare for their arrival. Woo hoo! 🙂

Sorry I haven’t written anything lately. I now have a nice build-up of things to write, so let me start catching up with a current event. As I’m sure you’re aware, there was some sort of actual attempt to do some harm to people night-clubbing and tourists. First things first, Haymarket/Trafalgar Square are about 2 miles from my office and 4 miles from my flat. All good. Anyway, I’m sitting at work, the day is winding down and my coworker mentions that there’s a cubs game later. From what he’d heard two places in the city were going to be actually televising it. Alas, the better choice to watch the game near the Haymarket site. He and his wife are big Cubs fans and this was against the Brewers who are ahead on them in the standings. So, instead of just listening to the game, they wanted to watch it. With no other plans on a Friday, I decided to tag along.

Alas, our first choice (the one NOT on Haymarket) wasn’t really conducive to baseball watching. It was more of a cafeteria style place where, after an hour, we might feel awkward. So we decided to at least check out the other place. Well, we got near Piccadilly Circus and the place is teaming with people out and enjoying themselves. I don’t know for certain, but if something like this had happened in the US, I feel like people would be hiding in their houses. In London, people acknowledged it and then moved on. Easy enough.

Finally, we try cutting over to Haymarket and it’s totally cordoned off. Granted, it’s cordoned off by a single cop and the Polices catering services vehicle, but it’s closed off. We cut around hoping that the lower part of the street isn’t closed and lo and behold, there’s our bar, about 200 feet into the closed part of the street. Doh!

For those of you curious what a failed terrorist attack looks like here ya go:

A few reporters and some police tape (there were two cops to the right as well).

Anyway, after a large fiasco of trying to find food, we left the area entirely and went to Brick Lane for some Indian and beigels (i swear, I’ve seen it spelled that way!). Before some people start freaking out that I actually went smack into the center of this shit, in my defense, we made a very conscious effort not to do this, but we wanted to watch an American baseball game and drink MGD. In the end, not only did we not watch the game, but the Cubs won a thrilling come from behind victory. Doh!

If you want my theory, I’m putting my money on a right-wing hate crime kind of motive. In 1999, guy named David Copeland set off a number of nail bombs, one at a gay bar short distance away from where the first car was found. And, today (June 30) is the London Pride parade. Just a thought, though right-wing nutjobs and religious fanatics aren’t exactly that far apart in what they hate.
Coming up, more entertaining things like visitors from out of town and a comedy burlesque show. (Ooops! I was wrong! Hence I’m no pundit! 🙂 )

Not really something to gloat about, but it appears as though London is the second most expensive city in the world (link courtesy of Anne). Those of you New York City lovin’ readers who bitch about the cost of living there, this article claims that London is 25% more expensive than life in NYC. Personally, I would love to know how they came to these conclusions. NYC is pretty damn expensive, particularly if you want to live in Manhattan. At the same time, while I know there are places in NYC where it’s possible to live a little less absurdly expensive lifestyle, if you want to actually live in London (or one of it’s central boroughs), there are very few cheap options unless you live 1.5 hours from the center.

Looking on the bright side, at least it’s not Moscow (how the hell is it so expensive to live there???).