So I promised a while ago I’d lay off the lamentations of missing my cats. This is not one of them, but it is a short little ditty about my cats.

I don’t know if I’ve gone into details, but the way the cats can come over is by being free of rabies (the UK apparently hasn’t a single instance of it). This must be proven by a blood test. If they show enough of the vaccination for it and they are not symptomatic, then they are ok to move over to the UK. Well, right before they went away with my parents, I had them have their blood test. The blood test is then sent to Kansas. As soon as that lab gets their blood samples, the clock starts ticking.

Now, my vet promised to contact me as soon as they heard the results. Well, I assumed that there’d be no problems and, being a little wrapped up in all the other things in life, I didn’t really follow up. The prospect of being able to have them move over with me soon (since my apartment is cat-friendly) reminded me that I’d heard nothing from the vet since I brought the cats for their blood tests. So I called them yesterday and they realized they’d never heard a peep from the lab in Kansas since they mailed the blood to them. Gulp!!

Thankfully, they got in touch with the lab and the official day the 6 month clock started ticking was January 10th. Which means the cats can move to London in mid-June July! Very exciting!

Well, I am making it fully official. Today I purchased an overpriced ticket to London. The return date is technically sometime in May, but I imagine I’ll end up changing it and stuff or not using it all. But it does mean that on the evening of March 25th, I need to have all my shit in order and be ready to uproot the nice little life I have to move to London. How nerve wracking! 🙂

In the meantime, I am going up to Michigan tomorrow with a load of things to start cleaning out my apartment. When I leave, there should be nothing but furniture, pictures on the walls and stuff in boxes.

So I’m back in London. It wasn’t exactly easy, but I’m back. Let me preface this by saying that I’m pretty lucky to have made it out of town at all. My flight was scheduled for Saturday around 8pm. Everyone had been predicting snow, rain and ice from Friday night onward. But Saturday dawned overcast, but still none of the bad stuff. I spent the day doing all sorts of errands just getting ready for the trip. Carolyn came by to drive me to the airport and still nothing. But, the second we got into the car, down came the ice. And it kept getting progressively worse.

I arrived to the airport, said goodbye to Carolyn (sniffle) and found that my flight was still on time. I met up with my boss, Andrew, and we went to the terminal. The plane boarded nicely and on time. But outside, the wind was swirling and ice was sticking to the plane. And then, miracles of miracles, the de-icers showed up. I don’t know if you have seen a de-icing vehicle but it’s basically a cherry picker with a hose in the basket (which is often covered) that spews some freaky colored chemicals. One of the de-icers didn’t have cover for the poor guy in the cherry picker. He looked really miserable.

They needed to do three passes over the plane to get it nice and clear of the ice. And then we got to experience what it’s like for a Boeing 777 to back out of a space onto runways covered with snow and ice. And then taking off on an icy runway. But we got into the air without a problem. That pilot has to have nerves of steel for that takeoff.

I figured the rest of the flight would be smooth but then came dinner. As soon as everyone had their food and drinks the plane hit some nasty ass turbulence. It was bad enough that the pilot called out to the flight attendants to get themselves to a seat  immediately and we all sat gasping for about ten minutes whilst trying not to get all our food and drink spilled on us as the plane bumped and dropped and shuddered.

Anyway, with all that fun, we managed to only be an hour late, which seems to be kind of normal for the long haul flights, even with good weather. The news is mentioned many flights at O’hare being canceled, but I get the impression that the international flights don’t get canceled unless the airport is closed outright.

Now I’m in London in a swanky place. I’ll post pictures later. I’m good and jetlagged but need to make it through dinner before passing out. I’ll also post pics from my going away party, too!

So until we landed, I had a very lovely 8 hour flight home. I had my own row, which meant I could stretch out, read, watch movies and eat the food and drink provided by the nice people of British Airways (who kindly didn’t strike last week). Alas, O’Hare wasn’t exactly running so well and we sat in the plane for 25 minutes whilst we got a gate (what good is getting in on time if they don’t have a parking space for ya?). And, to make it even more fun, it was so cold, the baggage grabbing thingys weren’t working so we sat waiting in customs for 30 more minutes for our bags (and they kindly block cell phone service meaning the kind people who come to pick you up have no idea what’s happening).

But, I’m back in the US, just in time to see what will hopefully be a triumphant Bears Super Bowl win. From what I saw on the car ride home, half the billboards and all the neon sign thingys have something about it. It should be entertaining.

On an unrelated note, I was sad to see that the area I was visiting during my sabbatical decided to resort to violence during a Palermo-Catania soccer match. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. It also explains why Italian stadiums are designed entirely for riot control.

Well, I made it to London yesterday morning without a hitch. The flight was a little late, but that was no problem. My hotel room is nice and I was awake enough when I got there to wander a little bit and have a couple of pints while watching Manchester United lost to Arsenal (Arsenal is located a little north of where I’m staying). Then I went out to dinner with my soon-to-be coworker Ben and his wife Jeri (sp?). Very nice people, good food and so on. Then I caught some of the end of the Bears winning and heading back to the Super Bowl. I slept good and hard last night and it’s time to really start my adventure. woo hoo!!

Phase one is here. Tonight, I shall be taking leave of Chicagotown for the great land of tea and scones! This is just a 2 week business trip, but it’s a start.The only exciting news is that I checked in to my flight and got a window seat! Woo hoo!

Anyway(s), today is just a day of getting a whole lot of shit in order so I can leave for the airport this evening. I swear I will not make this one of those “this morning i woke up” blogs. Just pointing out that not a whole lot is going on today, but it’ll get fun tomorrow!! 🙂

So, a move from Chicago to London is going to be different in many ways. One of them is navigation. Chicago has to be one of the easiest cities to get around. They have a simple grid system, almost all the streets are straight and in 90 degree angles and they have a numbering system to determine where you are. London, by contrast, appears to be a mess of narrow winding streets with little logic to it. Anyways, I was pointed to a fun link that has listings of a shit ton of pubs in the city and you can search by tube stops. So let me begin my pub exploration and navigation of the city by a list of pubs near my future office. I’ll be working near the Old Street tube stop (postal code EC1Y 1HQ).

So this is starting to feel more like a done deal with every passing day. Friday started the Visa fun. Based on what HR has told me, I don’t need to do a whole lot of weird legal stuff and waiting on lines, but I do need to provide them with a whole lot of information. It’s mostly professional-related info, but I’m required to put together a CV, something I haven’t done since I started working at Morningstar (almost 5 years ago).  I also need a copy of my diploma, something I haven’t seen since, well, since I graduated.

The next sign that this is a done deal was the announcement of my replacement(!). They are doing an internal re-organization type thing so it’s not like they had a whole hiring process. But my heart-felt congrats to Hong on joining my now former group!

The final piece is taking a visit over to London. Today I bought a plane ticket to spend January 20th until February 3rd in the UK. During that time, I’ll get acquainted with my soon-to-be new coworkers, wander the streets of London and see if I can adjust from grid-like Chicago to the mazes of the London streets. And finally, I’ll be checking out neighborhoods and “flats” (I won’t start talking like a Brit just yet) so I know about my living situation. When I get back, I may very well have a lease!

Anyways, a lot of movement going on. It’s all pretty cool and making this whole thing seem real and not some weird dream. And now the exciting things are happening. Hell, I get to go back to Europe when I was just there 3 months ago. Sweet!