For some reason, I got this idea walking back to my hotel after my biking tour of Stockholm (pics here). There are lots of bike and foot paths in Stockholm. They are nicely marked and decently laid out. On one of them, I found a special path, but they seemed a little confused as to who it was for:

This path is for a man with no leg and his daughter. But then, a short while later, it changed purposes:

Now the path is only for men with no heads, one hand and his legless daughter. But never fear, things go ok for the daughter in the end:

Now the child has all her limbs. Alas, the man has no head (he did get his hand back).

Needless so say, I was alone and had all my body parts intact. So I got off that path. Best not to temp faith 🙂

Hope that was amusing!

Just to make people jealous, here are a selection of pictures that hopefully illustrate my trip here. If you want more words, check out a previous writeup.

Here is Östermalm looking along some of the waterfront (there’s a lot of waterfront in Stockholm since part way between the North Sea and Baltic Sea)

Here is my rented bike in front of a museum on Djurgården

A Hot Chocolate and Cake break in a pretty square in Gamla Stan

The front of one of the many churches in Stockholm. This one is known for a sculpture of St George fighting the dragon he supposedly slayed.

A slice of modern Stockholm. Personally, I kind of like this sculpture.

So my first month in London could be easily summed up as a tad stressful. But there have been some wonderful moments. And, due to the lack of free time and internet access at home, here’s my first chance to give you a nicer view of life in London. I have many entries to catch up on, and I’m putting them in a completely random order.

After a week living in an flat in London, I had my first visitors. Dave and Melissa had a trip to Barcelona planned and decided to spend the weekend prior to that in merry ol’ England. Now, my initial plan had been to have had a nice long weekend and then some in my apartment before my arrival. Instead, I moved in on the that long weekend and then spent a couple of days in Brighton (more on that next entry!) . So I was not really moved in in any meaningful way. I had a bed, a couch and enough to cook for a single person and that was all. Yes, it’s not much different from life in Chicago where I never cooked, but I’m trying to turn over a new leaf.

Anyhoo, my preparation for my visitors required a trip Argos. It’s a department store without the store. You either go online and choose what you with to purchase or you go to the store and look through a catalog. when you see what you want, you just select the item number, pay for it and a few minutes later, you pick it up at a counter. I believe things like these used to exist in the US, but I’ve not seen them. My first trip there involved picking up a nice comfy air mattress for my guests.

Dave and Melissa live in Chicago, so they knew they’d see me again when I left for good a month ago. But, this was my last chance to see them for a while (which is sad). They had done a lot of the touristy stuff, so they were happy to be dragged along to see some of ‘real’ London. This mostly consisted of wandering my neighborhood (which includes a very very large Football stadium. In the end, the big events of that part of their trip involved checking out nice cafes nearby and seeing about the local pubs. We checked out three pubs, all within 5 minutes of my flat, and they were all nice in their own ways. I think, if I had to pick my ‘local’, it would be The Nobody Inn. Good choice of beers and they even have decent burgers (not easy to find in England).

Aside from that, we checked out some of the things that London has to offer. We wandered the Saturday market in Notting Hill, we did a quick tour of the National Gallery and we looked around Covent Garden. They did tons of other things without me (what with my having a job and needing to do my US taxes 🙂 ), but they can comment in this entry with all of that fun. In the meantime, here are a select few pictures for a visual reference taken from a pub called The Cock (no fooling!):

I told you it was called the Cock!!

Dave and Matt enjoying a pint

Dave and Melissa looking happy on vacation

I’ve been good and not mentioned the cats in a while (I think). Since I have no internet at my apartment yet (i’m still not sure who my phone line is provided by!!) which is where all my photos are, I’ve been remiss in keeping people really up-to-date on some of the fun I’ve been having. So let me fill you in on the fun my cats have been having.

Since I last wrote about them in full, Anna and Chewy first travelled 1000 miles to Connecticut. There, they found two loving people who have been taking excellent care of them and a cat who had a rough first few years of life and didn’t take too kindly to having two strange cats invading her turf. So, for a couple of months, the three cats took turns having free range of the house. Finally, at the end of March, they all got loaded up in a car and went a little closer to Anna and Chewy’s world: Michigan.

Since then, all three cats, now that they’re in neutral territory, are apparently getting along marvelously. Meanwhile, being the wonderful cats that they are, they’ve managed to win people over. My parents keep threatening to not let them move to London when they are legally allowed to (the bastards!) and my uncle, who normally rips on cats constantly, has taken an immense liking to Anna (because of her dog-like qualities, but it’s impressive nonetheless) and referred to himself as Anna’s new ‘master’ (as if!).

Anyway, here’s a pic of Anna and Chewy in their temporary home (which is one of the things I need to post more about!). I can’t wait to see them again.

I can’t move into my place until Wednesday, but they can’t stop me from wandering around and taking some pics! 🙂

That’s my street!

That’s the exterior of my apartment. I’m the second floor (here it’s the first floor)

Looking down Beresford Rd

Looking down Beresford Rd again

Ok, it’s official. In the beginning of April, I will be the proud tenant of an apartment that is NOT a cardboard box or a hotel room. It was a bit of an ordeal but, in the end, I have a signed lease and I’ve put down a crapload of money. I’ll get into the details later. For the moment, I’ll just post some pics from the listing. Enjoy!

Here’s the layout (yes, that’s 400 sq ft!)

Bathroom

Kitchen (part of the living room)

Living room

And here’s a link to a sort of panaroma . And if you wanna see where it is, here’s a google maps link.

Anyway, my latest jaunt to the UK is over. Time to pack and head back to Heathrow for a final trip to the US.

So you want pictures? Then we’re going to have to take a trip into the past, in a time when I was still in the Central Time Zone. At the time it was assumed that I would be moving March 5th, but work kind of changed that and I’m able to come back to Chicago one last time. Anyhoo, Carolyn and Carolyn were kind enough to throw me a nice little going away party, complete with beer and shepherds pie! A group of very nice people came and wished me farewell, although I hope to see them all again very soon since I’ll be back in the States next week! Below are some photos from this very party!

You might notice two obviously missing people. Myself, but that is due to the fact that I was the drunken photographer and, more importantly, Carolyn. Well, when I went through all my pictures just before writing this, I was surprised to find that, anytime the camera came upon Carolyn’s beautiful visage, she covered her face!! Sooo, Carolyn has no photos of this party. Booo! 🙂

Over the summer, Carolyn and I made a couple of trips to the Chicago Botanical Garden. The admission is free if you ride your bike there. The city has a 20 mile trail from the northwest side up to the garden and you can park at various places along the forest preserve that connects the city to the Botanical Garden. We usually rode 15 miles each way and had a lovely day riding through the woods and wandering the gardens once we got there.

Anyways, they had a little exhibit in the newly renovated central building which combined some replicas of various parts/buildings in Chicago with model trains. Since it’ll be my last chance before heading out of the country to see the place, we made a little trip up to check it out. We drove (it might be warm, but it’s not that warm), but here’re some pics of our time amongst the wooden city.

This would be Carolyn at the entrance! Hurray!

Carolyn standing next to the Baha’i Temple. We went there during our first date.

A train going by the Bean (kind of looks like an ass) and the Geary Bandshell

Wrigley Field

Buidlings of downtown Chicago

Well, it wasn’t my first time in AZ, but it was the first time seeing what will be my parents new home. They’ll be retiring pretty soon and they’ve decided to spend their retirement in development outside of Tucson. It’s called Coyote Creek. They bought about 3 acres on the edge of the development and currently border state land, so their eastern view has a straight shot along the desert to a beautiful mountain. Below are a few pictures of our time there.

Here’s the Badanes family in front of the sign announcing their arrival in the area (it’s a little swanky there 🙂

This is the house in its present state. My mom was so excited to see the frame of the house up

This is their view outside the living room/kitchen and their bedroom

These are the lucky new home owners!

This is me sitting on the bulldozer they’re using to do various construction-y stuff 🙂