I thought some of you might be curious about what I (Carolyn) have been up to during my trip to London (while Matt has been at work). While I have been keeping busy getting settled into the apartment and job searching, I have found a fair amount of time to explore the city and do some touristy things too. I am not much of a blogger so I am just going to include a pictorial journey of my last week with some descriptions. 🙂

On St. Patrick’s Day, we celebrated with Guinness and I discovered the joy of half pints.

Last week I went to the Kew Botanical Gardens, on Dina’s recommendation, to see an exhibition of Henry Moore sculptures. I was able to get to the gardens on the London Overground rail system which is about 20 feet from the apartment for just one pound with no transfers! There were over 20 sculptures scattered throughout the gardens and I spent several hours wandering through the plants and art. Here is one sculpture set near the tropical green house.

This past weekend, I went to Germany. I got to explore Frankfurt, Germany a little bit. It is a really interesting city. Frankfurt is the financial center of Germany, extremely modern with tons of skyscrapers, and has an amazing array of museums. It was pretty much entirely rebuilt after the city was devastated by allied bombing during World War II. I spent one day wandering around the reconstructed old city, visiting museums and walking on the riverfront.

Another day, I took a train down to Heidelberg about one hour from Frankfurt. Heidelberg is a beautiful town with a large university, ruins of a historic palace, and tons of students and tourists.

Matt and I had a chance to travel in the Rhine river valley which Matt can tell you all more about tomorrow.

Since I’ve got another bank holiday, I thought I’d start the day off with a little Easter festivities. In keeping with our youth, all parties involved this weekend made sure we ate plenty of Cadbury candy (mmmm, cream eggs). However, on Easter Sunday, Carolyn and I decided to take a trip to church. Well, which church does one go to for Easter whilst living in London?

Why Westminster Abbey, of course! It was a very chilly, snowy March day and we got off to a bit of a late start and arrived just as things were getting started. And there was still a line out the door. However, the folks running things were very efficient and the line moved quickly an we managed to get inside to a standing room only service. We found a nice pillar to lean against which afforded us a decent view of things. Alas, being part of the unwashed masses, we were standing in the back half which is behind a large decorative divider which made it hard to see much beyond the Gospel reading (which was done right in front of us) and the backs of the London Brass who played for the service. The music was beautiful overall. They had an organist, the London Brass and the Westminster Choir performing during parts like the offering and Communion. It was a very nice way to spend your Easter morning.

What’s that you say? That picture could have been taken anytime since it’s always gray and rainy in London? Here’s the Easter program:

Hope everyone had a happy Easter. And to those of you in the US who had to work on Easter Monday? Ttthhhbbt!! 🙂

While we get less bank/federal holidays in England than the US, we do get a 4 day weekend for Easter. In honor of this, Carolyn and I took a trip down to see Dina and Adrian in Brighton. As it were, there’s a beer festival in Adrian’s hometown of Shoreham, which is a nice short trip from their flat. Naturally, we needed to partake of the fun and games that a beer festival has to offer.

Those of you with exceptional memory might recall my trip along the River Adur. This picture is near where it empties into the Channel in Shoreham. The cool-ass buildings in the distance make up a private school. This as a meandering route to the festival so people could take in some natural beauty.

Here stands a solitary figure guarding Britain from the Germans. I’m standing next to the Shoreham International (really) Airport on the remains of, I think, an old WWII anti-aircraft defensive thing. It was very very windy that day.

The festival was in the Red Lion which I’d been to previously. For those of you unaware of beer festivals, it’s basically where a vast number of good beers are set out for people to buy samples of (half or full pints — ok, so more than a sample). This festival had about 70 different beers on tap. Take a look see:

Lots of choices! Well, because it was a very cold March day, seating in the protected areas of the pub were highly prized. After moving tables about 4 times in the first hours, we managed to score a coveted indoor table. Here are Dina, Carolyn and Adrian soaking in some afternoon sun and beer:

It wasn’t just the four of us. We ended up with a jolly old crew consisting of Heather (former coworker of Adrian), Ben, Lou, and Heather’s brother, David. Alas, I managed to snap nothing but shit pictures of all of them, so I figure I should spare them the embarrassment of posting them online. 🙂 We spent a good 3 hours there enjoying ourselves and the nice setting. Now, this being a pretty small town in southern England, it wasn’t just a lot of beer snobs/geeks sampling beer. We had the good fortune to meet what might be described as a cross between white trash and frat boys if this weren’t England. I guess it would chavs here. Anyway, they are harmless, but it can be a little annoying when the rain and hail comes down and 100 people who all know each other come rushing into a room that normally fits about 20. And, each time one of them walks in, there’s a big “HEY!!” that goes around the room. Eventually, the sheer number of people got to be a bit too much, so we moved on to other pubs. We met up with Adrian’s parents in a pub called the Amsterdam and then went on to a pub called the Sovereign:

It was a nice local pub with a good friendly vibe. We all did what you usually do at a pub: socializing, getting to know new people and drinking. Here’s another picture of some of the happy crew:

As always happens the night winds down and everyone goes their separate ways. The four of us went back to Dina and Adrians. Alas, the next day, Carolyn was having all sorts of problems with her leg which, coupled with it being cold and snowy (yeah, it’s snowed a little for the last 3 days) meant the next day was just a nice lazy weekend kind of day. It did give us a chance to a have a freshly baked Guinness cake. Here’s the cake with the chef:

Carolyn and I are back in London now. We’ll post about our actual Easter Sunday tomorrow.

This was the view when I came out of my elevator this morning in my office:

My coworker came in for some work on Saturday and they were just putting it out. Since I took this picture, it seems as though the roof has collapsed even more and there people milling about taking pictures inside and whatnot. It was unoccupied at the time however, the part to the left was (I think) still an active hipster kind of bar. The building is literally 20 feet from my building, just across a street but it seemed to be pretty well contained.

Wow, this guy got action photos. Crazy!

Well, it took a year, but Carolyn is finally making the move. She arrived for her first really extended stay on Friday night. She makes the final, official move after the wedding (in 2 months!). Now we’re stocking my bachelor pad up to make it a little more friendly to others as Anna and Chewy get used to the confusion of another person around. And, as luck would have it, the hot water broke in my place. Allegedly, it’ll be fixed tomorrow morning. I never realized how much I love having a shower nearby. We have some nice friends who are letting us borrow theirs, but it takes a little trip to get there. Never fear, Linda, your daughter is not stuck without a hot shower.

In the meantime, I’m obviously very happy to have her here. It’s nicer to have your loved ones around in person than over the phone. And, the waiting is over as Carolyn begins her adjustment to a pretty big move. Here’s a picture of Carolyn and her new roommates:

Just a little quick update on things. Carolyn moves here in 4 days (yeah!), my place needs work to get ready for a second tenant (boo!). I’m cat-sitting for my coworker who’s on holiday and they’re both very cute (yeah!), Anna hasn’t been the healthiest I’ve ever seen her since she moved here and I’m giving her medicine to settle her stomach which she just loooooves taking (boo!). With that in mind, my life this week will pretty much be cats, work and cleaning. But I enjoyed seeing some spirited debate about these bags. I’m excited to see these snazzy new ones they seem to be selling in the US. All we have here are canvas bags which aren’t exciting, they just work. 🙂

So I’m not always the most environmentally friendly person in the world. Carolyn does a much better job of it than I do. But, I’ve always been confused about how plastic shopping bags suddenly appeared at some point in my youth and became the standard for buying things. I know there’s always some study out there claiming paper bags are worse for the environment overall, but that seems a little suspicious. Anyway, lately, I’ve noticed people have slowly been picking up on a newish trend which is going towards reusable cloth bags. This seems like a nice idea.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, aside from my more environmentally conscious friends, I hadn’t noticed a whole lot of increased use of these bags in the US. In the UK, there’s definitely a nation-wide trend towards cloth bags. The government is sabre-rattling about getting stores to charge for people using plastic bags. I’ve got a cloth bag I try to bring with me all the time so I can use it for shopping. If I don’t always have it, I never seem to have it when I need to go shopping.

Today, I had an interesting experience. I went to a bakery to get something tasty baked goods (there are seemingly tons of them around me) and, instead of just handing me my roll and baguette, the woman behind the counter put them in a free cloth bag. I looked on the bag and the local borough council seems to be sponsoring this giveaway.  That’s a really nice idea. And all the major grocery stores either sell reusable bags or give them away.
On a related note, back in 2002 (yes, 6 years ago) Ireland imposed a €0.15 (later increased to €0.22) tax on any plastic bags which decreased its usage by 90%. That’s impressive. Seems like a smart idea. People aren’t necessarily going to do this on their own initiative and if you leave it to the grocery stores, people bitch to them and they give in. Countries like China and Taiwan and Singapore are apparently putting bans on them outright.
So, my question to my US friends and family: Is this something that is becoming more of an issue in the US? Or is it confined to the damn dirty hippies in the cities and university towns? 🙂

I see this is making some news. There was an earthquake about 200 miles north of me. Did I notice it? Well, no. I was sound asleep 🙂 Ooops!

Soon, I’ll have more pictures of this again:

This is a short little post to point out the fact that, in 17 days, Carolyn will begin the move to London. I say begin because even when she flies here on 14 March, it’ll only be a temporary trip. She will not be living here for real until after the wedding. But that’s pretty soon too! In the meantime, I’m not complaining. I’ll be very very happy to have her in my direct world again. It’s been a long year and I’m glad we’re near the end of it.  🙂

I’ve mentioned a trip I made to Highgate Cemetery before. It was one of the Magnificent Seven, a group of privately run cemetery’s that ringed what was, at the time, London. They were set up because the inner London burial sites were filling up and the dead bodies in the middle of a dense city were causing health problems. The British of the 19th century loved their burials and business in these new cemetery’s was good. As the Victorian fascination with death gave way to more of an interest in things like cremation, they ran into trouble. First they cut back on landscaping and maintenance and eventually, they shut down. Today, I checked out Abney Park, which is one of the other shuttered cemetery. Unlike Highgate, this one was taken over by the local council (Hackney) relatively early, although they didn’t do anything with it to keep it from becoming overgrown. However, it has recently done quite a lot to turn it into public park space. So, unlike Highgate, you can easily just go in and take a stroll around and take in all the impressive sights to see. And, it’s only about a 20 minute walk from my flat. Here would be some highlights:

I think this gives a good impression of the state of things in this burial site. It’s been overrun by this lush greenery which makes it pretty cool looking and feels very relaxing, especially since it’s surrounded by the hustle and bustle of Stoke Newington.

There’s something about the way these graves have all lilted in various directions that I liked.

A unique part of this cemetery is the remains of this old church right in the middle of it. You might notice the supports holding it together as it’s in very bad shape. You’ll also notice the beautiful blue sky today (I was not even wearing a coat). 😛

This is the interior of the church. I love how, in the middle of London (this isn’t the very center of the city, but it’s still central London), you can have this wonderful piece of history and greenery and have buildings like this as a reminder of how old everything is around here. Hackney has done a great job of keeping this space a beautiful combination of history and park space while respecting the fact that’s thousands of people’s final resting place is right here.

For those of you with good memories, you might recall my triumphs last year in both lawn bowling and American bowling. Well, I was heading home one night and ended up catching my bus home in Finsbury Square, which has the lawn bowling pitch in the middle of it. The architecture around it is a mix of 1920s, 1950s and contemporary architecture. This building isn’t that exciting looking, but I do like the colors on it once the sun goes down:

Since it’s a winter lull in the interesting part of my life :), I’m shooting just to capture some of the fun little things in life. Hope you enjoy. And mom, if you’re nice, I might take some pictures of skinny Anna and fat Chewy.

The last couple of mornings have been extremely foggy. However, the fog has burned off and it’s become very lovely. As luck would have it, I thought about an interesting compare and contrast photo and whipped out my camera on my way to the bus stop yesterday morning. Let’s compare shall we:

Normal (slightly overcast and rainy) weather

Slightly foggy 🙂

I saw a picture in one of those horrible free dailys always floating around town where someone managed to get a photo from an airplane in which the entire city was socked in except the tall buildings in Canary Wharf. Pretty cool.

This is unfortunate. It looks like there was a nasty fire at one of the Camden Markets on Saturday night. I’ve written about one of my trips there before. The first picture is inside the section that caught fire, I believe. It’s a bit of a hipster area with a lot of funky shops that are fun to peruse. The part of the market affected is built into an aqueduct which creates a very cool environment. Here’s hoping the local shops are able to recover and rebuild after this. The details still seem to be spotty, so we’ll see what happened and to what extent the damage is soon.

By popular demand (aka. my mom’s request), I give you Dina’s dish:

(and the garden below her flat in the darkness)

Now, let’s get a little mundane. We have two things at work here. First, I have a TV now. One thing you learn about having a TV in the UK is the licensing scheme. Like all things in life, the BBC is not free. It gets paid for by a yearly fee you pay. If you own a TV, you pay about £11 a month. This alone is no big deal. Why they just don’t deduct it out of a payroll tax is beyond me. But, regardless of that, it goes to a worthy cause as the BBC has come out with some great shit and most of the quality programming in the UK that isn’t Simpsons syndication comes from the BBC. My issue is the collection method. The BBC has paid a bunch of companies to act as Big Brother, checking address databases with who has paid the fee and who hasn’t and allegedly roaming the streets and looking for signals from places that haven’t paid. Earlier this fall, they had adverts up with things like “We’re watching you so pay up” all over the city. It’s creepy and overkill. On top of that, there is a presumption that everyone has a TV and if you haven’t paid, they assume you’re hiding something and harass you and threaten so show up and inspect your home. I have no idea what authority they have, but my colleague, who really doesn’t have a TV has had to call repeatedly to get to stop sending threatening notes about their obvious guilt because everyone has a TV.

Anyway, the point is, I have a TV and I wanna get a real signal, so I’m paid up on my license and I’m looking at the two big TV providers Sky and Virgin. As I started trying to sign up for Sky, they asked about installing a dish which confused me because i thought they were terrestrial cable. So I asked Dina who mentioned it and I realized I had some sort of dish outside my window so I asked what hers looked like so she sent me a photo. I’m obviously ignorant because Sky is satellite TV. Very exciting, no? 🙂

Here ends a daily mundane post. Was it boring as shit?