I'm super excited because tomorrow Stephen and I are going to the Prime Minister's Questions. This is more exciting than it sounds. I'm hoping for some dialogue akin to this link...
(btw, this video doesn't necessarily represent my political views, just my hope for an interesting argument)
If you're interested in learning more about this process, go here!
I love the band Gomez. I was introduced to them by my friend Ashley (and Band of Horses, and lots others, she has great taste!). I have been listening to this song off their new album pretty much on repeat. I love how you almost get two songs for the price of one! (The end is my favorite.) Anyway, it's been in my head all day long so I thought I would share...
Well, we've found our new home in New York! We flew out there last week and spent about six days in the city. We walked and walked and walked and looked at a bunch of places, and we found a good one! We will be in TriBeCa (which I'm pretty excited about) and very close to the water and various parks. Nothing as good as Hyde Park though, I'm trying to come to grips with losing it! I'm in denial.
Our new place has two bedrooms and two bathrooms (only smaller than our current place). But we can fit a queen in both rooms, so if you're making plans to visit then come on up!!
Stephen's brother and SIL were in NY as well (happy 10 year anniversary to William and Lisa!) and we got to spend a ton of time with them, which was great. I don't think I've ever spent that much time with them, just the 4 of us! We walked and ate. That pretty much sums it up.
Speaking of food - glory be American food!! I am so excited, how I've missed you! We had brunch at Bubby's and holy crap was it good. I had sour cream pancakes that were incredibly fluffy and delicious. And actual bacon! Bacon here in the UK is Canadian bacon (no, they don't call it that, they just call it bacon. they're wrong.) American bacon is "streaky bacon" here, and it's still not quite right. I've just given up on eating it all together, which health-wise is probably a good thing. But, I had real bacon with my pancakes and I could have died and gone to heaven. We also ate at a steak house called Abe & Arthur's. Three words - mac. and. cheese. Awesomely, fantastically good. Towards the end of the trip Stephen and I had a quick dinner at one of my favorites - Five Guys. It's a burger place if you aren't familiar with it. It reminded me of America's ability to over serve portion sizes. We ordered one regular size fries to split between the both of us. It filled up half of our paper bag. Seriously, there must have been 6 potatoes in there. We left NY saying to each other that we need to join a gym ASAP when we move, or all of this delicious food will really catch up with us!
NY has such a different vibe than London. I knew that already, but it's different experiencing it after living in London. NY is ALL about the ambition. People coming and going, looking for their big break or to make a ton of money. I haven't seen any celebrities since living in London (other than the queen), but in our trip to New York I saw Carrie Mulligan (complete with paparazzi, and staying in our hotel), Bethenny Frankel - real NY housewife (in our hotel having a PR/business mtg), Jenna Bush, a host from Fox and Friends (who's name I can't remember because I don't watch Fox & Friends, and who was at the same bar as Jenna Bush oddly enough), and an actor from Chappelle's Show who was working out in the gym in our hotel while getting a pep talk from his manager.
Our last night there we got to watch the National Championship game (Roll Tide) with my friend from college, Laurie (Roll Tide!), and got to see Bama dominate LSU to win our 14th title! Roll Tide!! We also managed to catch the Broncos/Steelers game with the miracle overtime touchdown pass. Man! That's another thing I'm excited about returning to - Football.
I know I have a lot of blogging to do before we leave London - South Africa, I never blogged about Scotland or Vienna... I'm going to try to get it all in! My last day of work is next Wednesday, so that should help.
I've been doing laundry pretty much non-stop since we returned from South Africa. We had quite a lot of dirty laundry from our trip, which took a while to get through, plus we'd run through our entire collection of bath towels and that was a separate mountain.
Laundry has become my least favorite chore. I actually used to not mind it that much, but that was in the days of having an American washer and dryer. How I miss my washer and dryer!! Two separate units that each do their job very well, and can handle large loads! What I have now is what's known as a "washer/dryer", as in it's all one unit. There are many problems with this thing -
The washer/dryer is meant to fit in small spaces under counter tops in little British flats. It is therefore very small.
This one machine is meant to do both the washing and drying. This means that you cannot have one load drying whilst washing the next.
You can fit approximately one pair of jeans, three shirts, and one sock inside of it. Not much.
Its drying capabilities are often shoddy at best.
When I want to dry something, I switch it to the drying mode and then have to press a button for how many minutes I want it to dry (there is no automatic sensor for "dry"). Only each time I press the button, it adds just 5 minutes to the total. It starts with 10 minutes. If I want anything to actually be, I don't know, dry, I have to let it run for at least 2 hours. If it's towels, 3+ hours. SO, each time I dry a load of towels (which would be 1 bath towel and 2 hand towels max), I have to hit the button 36 times. Each load. I have done 5 loads of towels and another 6 of clothes this weekend. I have hit that freakin' button 360+ times.
Once I set it to dry and hit start, it locks and I can no longer open it. If I missed something, it fell on the floor or whatever, I'm out of luck. To the drying rack it goes.
When the load is finished drying, it beeps loudly for about one minute. This beep, however, does not mean (as one would expect), "Hello, I'm done! Come open my door and get your mostly dry clothes!" Nope. It means that the door will remain arbitrarily locked for another few minutes. For fun. You cannot get anything out right away, or stop the beeping. Oh, and there is no beep when that random wait period is up. You just have to remember and come back to get everything before it wrinkles.
When we first moved here, one of the things Stephen and I missed immediately was our American washer and dryer, and they were old and not even that spectacular. We said as soon as we moved back to the States and had a house again, we were going to buy the biggest washer and dryer on the market. (Stephen said, "Let's get two of each!") Only now we're moving to New York, and will be in another apartment! No room for our own personal laundry mat I suppose. But, we are looking for places with washers and dryers in the units (not just on the premises in the building). It's actually very high up on our list along with safety and close to green space. Hey, it's a life changer!
