Handshake, Hug, or Air Kisses???

This was my very entertaining dilemma at work today.  We had our whole European recruitment team in London today for meetings.  This means that we had recruiters covering France, Holland, Italy, Germany, Spain, and of course, the UK.  The nationalities of these recruiters, however, encompasses Belgium, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Sweden, Scotland, England, and the US.  To make matters more difficult, the vast majority of them are women.  I had already determined that a handshake was an appropriate greeting upon first introductions, but the whole goodbye process was far more complicated.  Given that I had met most of these people for the first time, I had to quickly think about where they were from and address them with the proper goodbye when they were leaving this evening.  I have never felt like such an idiot.  I think that I gave air kisses to the Australian(not right).  I have learned quickly though to just use the excuse that I am an American in worldly training and that always seems to make people sympathise with me!!!         

Nǐ hǎo (hello) from China

Hello from half way across the world!!! 

I arrived in Shanghai, China this morning and I will be here until Saturday afternoon.  As I was riding in the car from the airport to the hotel, I wanted to pinch myself to make sure that this was really happening to me.  I can't believe all of the incredible opportunities that I am getting through MoneyGram.  Who would have thought that this girl from Fond du Lac, WI would get a chance to go to Moscow, China and now I just found out that my next big spot is Cape Town, Africa (April).  CRAZY!  On top of that travel, I will most likely be spending time in the field with my teams in Frankfurt, Paris, Rome and Madrid during February.  The only thing that would make this traveling experience better is if Kevin could be here to experience it with me.  But somebody has to hold down the fort and keep it cleanJ

I concur with Kevin's thoughts regarding his experience working with all of these incredibly multi-cultured people.  The more exposure I get to our employees in the different cultures, the more my mind opens and observes new traditions and behaviors that I never knew existed.  Tonight we had a traditional Chinese dinner with the Shanghai team.  For those of you who love chinese food in the States, I must tell you that you are not actually eating chinese cuisine.  The funniest part of this dining experience is that I was surrounded by professional chopstick eaters, eager to watch me eat the different dishes. As soon as I sat down and realized there were no utensils, I knew I was going to make a fool of myself.  As my husband knows, I have no skills when it comes to chopsticks.  I told the table that I would try to use the sticks but before our first dish was finished, they already had asked the staff for a fork and knife for me.   The dining experience was interesting.  We sat around a table with a lazy-susanne in the middle full of dishes.  Lots of vegetables (no rice at all) and pork and fish products.  There were 8 of us at our table and we probably started with 6 dishes but before the night was over they probably brought out 12-15 dishes in total.  The dishes almost seemed more like starters so I couldn't tell if at some point we would have a main dish.  Then they brought out soup so I was expecting the main dish next but to my surprise they brought out another sweet soup and that was the end of our meal.  There was plenty of food but rather than filling up your plate up like we do in the States, we all took small servings so I probably didn't eat that much.  Then dessert was watermelon.  I can now see why the Chinese people are so thin!!!!  Specifically when I compare the chinese dessert to the dessert place (Ottolenghi - http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/) that Kevin and I found around the corner from our flat this last weekend.  It was so good; we went on Saturday AND Sunday to get goodies.  I can promise all of our future visitors, we will be taking you there.  On Sunday, Kevin said to me (like any true Berenz statement), "this might be the BEST dessert place in the world".

At dinner tonight, the team asked me about my first impressions of China.  I told them that I was surprised that the airport was so quite.  I told them that my cab driver was crazy so I got a taste of traffic but I expected to see a lot more people on the streets.  They told me that I will experience the masses of people on Thursday when I go to a specific area in the city.  Shanghai has supposedly grown incredibly over the last 5-10 years.  Today, where my hotel is located it used to be farm land.  Coming from the airport there were very new, tall buildings mixed in with lower income (almost third world) housing.  It didn't appear that anybody had a dryer in their home because everyone had laundry flying from their windows and balconies.  The buildings surrounding me have very bold and bright lights just as I expected.  The Chinese New Year is just around the corner so there are still decorated Christmas trees around the city.

I hope everyone is well.  Even though Kevin said we got internet set up, we are still having issues and are unable to get connected.  We hope to get the issue solved shortly so we can post more often and get some good pics on the site as well.

 It’s 11:25 at night and I have to get to sleep…hopefully I won’t wake up in the middle of the night not able to fall back asleep.

Love,
Ann

Bath Trip and London Updates

I apologize for not getting a post up sooner from our trip to Bath last weekend.  Apparently, work is going to cut into my blogging time.  Speaking of work, I started at Apple this week.  It was a brilliant first week besides for the fact that Steve Jobs took a leave of absence on my first day.  I knew that he would step aside for me at some point, but I thought that he would let me get onboarded first!!!  Anyway, I just have to say how amazing it is to work in such a mutlicultural environment.  Most people that I work with speak somewhere between 3-4 languages fluently, english typically being their 2nd/3rd language, and have most likely lived and worked in as many countries.  Just sitting at my desk listening to the recruiters around me, I will typically hear French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Scottish(yep, you thought that was English, not so much) on a daily basis.  It is impressive and incredibly eye opening to say the least.  I had many moments this week realizing how incredibly non-cultured that I am.  I am really getting to utilize my Spanish though, which is fun.

Other great news for us, we finally have internet and cable!!!  I feel like I have been living in a cave.  I am incredibly out of touch with news and sports.  Great news on the sports front though.  We met some other American expats and are going to an American Sports bar called Bodeans in SOHO on Sunday for the Packers and Bears game.  Ann is wishing that she would have brought some of her Packers gear.  Anyway, we have our skype account active and back connected to the world.  On the negative side, we are completely over the tiny washer/dryer combination.  It is complete rubbish!!! 

Anyway, Ann and I had a great first excursion last weekend to a city in the West of England called Bath.  It was an easy 1.5 hour train ride from London.  The city sits at the base of 7 surrounding rolling hills and is known for the only Roman Bath built in the UK during the time of the Roman Empire.  It was absolutely beautiful.  The original stone work was mostly still in tack, and the Bath is fed by an active hot spring that pumps somewhere like 15,000 gallons of water a day.  It was impressive.  The city still remains quite affluent, so the architecture lying in and amongst the hills has been well preserved.  It was also a great city to cover in just a few hours, which was nice to just leisurely stroll through the streets.  We also got to see a little bit of a rugby game since their rugby stadium is right in the heart of the City, and Bath was playing a team from Italy.  The Italian team was also staying at our hotel, so that was entertaining.  We had an awesome dinner on that Saturday night in a place called "The Hole in the Wall," which was one of the oldest restaurants in Bath.  It was basically located in a cellar in a hole in the original roman wall in the city.  The food was unbelievable.  I had guinnea fowl that just melted in your mouth.  After that, we hit up some pubs and bars around the city.  Ann made some friends with a farmer and an upholsterer!!!!

Well, I suppose that is it for now.  We are just chilling in London this weekend.  Ann has to work for a bit tomorrow and then she leaves for China on Monday morning.  We promise that we are going to start getting some pics downloaded to be able to share with you all.  We have been slow to do that since we just got computer access.

Cheers
Kevin         

London Accolades

First, I just wanted to give proper acknowledgement to a couple of places thus far.  First, cheers to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Library.  Due to our internet and cable not being set up until the 20th, my only internet access has been at this library.  I have spent more time at the library in the last week than I did in 4 years of college. 

Second, I just came from my 2nd trip to Paul Rhodes bakery.  Ann and I discovered it in Notting Hill last week and bought a loaf of honey walnut bread.  It was brilliant.  I returned today to buy a loaf of malted grain bloomer bread.  It will be lovely. 

Finally, a nod to Marks and Spencer, our local grocery store.  Since we ditched the shopping cart, and our fridge holds 2 days worth of food, I have spent the most amount of time, behind the library of course, there!!!

That is all for today

Cheers
Kevin

Kevin's New Mobile

Happy Wednesday.  Ann has been earning her keep at work and enjoying her new digs.  She already has a trip planned to Shanghai, China the week after next, so she is going to be banking some miles for us!!  We went out for Indian food on Monday night and had an unbelievable meal at a small place on Gloucester Road near our flat.  Other than that, I have been holding down the fort and enjoying my last few days of vacation.  I did purchase a mobile phone today, so I wanted to send out my new number.  I believe that we might hop over to Bath, England this weekend for a night, so we will keep you posted on that.  Usually we are commiserating with our friends from the north over the snow, but it looks like you all in the south have been getting it this week too.  Good luck with that.  For Ann and the GB faithful, Go Pack Go!!!

Kevin's New Mobile - +44 07767203178

Cheers

Kevin    

Survived 1st Week!!!

We have officially suvived our first week in London.  It was great to get everything that we had air shipped on Friday.  We spent Friday night getting all of that stuff unpacked and organized.  We got up early on Saturday and took the tube to an awesome outdoor market called Burough Market.  It is also the same stop that Ann gets off of for work, so that was a good trial run for her.  It was an easy two tube stop ride.  Anyway, the market was packed and they had every kind of food imagineable.  We tried a ton of different cheeses and some pastries as well as a traditional English Pork Belly sandwich with apple sauce.  That was like biting into Miss Piggy herself!!!!  After that, we ventured over towards Buckingham palace where we showed off our formal invitation to the royal wedding.  I know, you are jealous.  I also made Ann mad because I would not let her buy this rip off union jack flag ornament in the Buckingham Palace gift shop.  Her response to this was asking me if I was going to tell my kids no when they asked to buy a souvenir at Disney World.  I diffused the situation by stopping in the next pub for a pint.  Needless to say, I definitely will be buying a union jack ornament while we are here!!!  The pub we found was a great place called The Orange.  It was a pub house, restaurant, and hotel near Chealsea.  We stayed for a drink and then continued toward our ultimate demise, Peter Jones in Sloane Square, the Macy's of London.  We needed bed sheets and some other stuff that we could only find there.  I hope that was my last trip to that store while in London.  It was 7 floors of pure shopping madness.  There were people everywhere.  It was a pain that only a non shopping person like myself could understand.  The only thing that kept me focused in there was the next pub:)  Anyway, we made it out of Peter Jones alive with not an alarmingly huge armful of goods that we had to transport back to our flat via the tube.  Luckily, they deliver because I would have been hauling a full length mirror through the streets.

Saturday evening, we walked from our flat up towards Notting Hill to find a restaurant.  We discovered this great little wine bar and had a glass of wine there before heading to dinner.  We ended up at a restaurant called Kensington Place.  The food was surprisingly good, but I think that we are beginning to understand that service is not the foremost worry of a business.  After dinner, we walked back down towards High Street Kensington because we had discovered a piano bar earlier in the day.  We got there about 9:30, and this place was already one in one out.  It was well worth the wait though.  This place was classic and even better, it is about 30 seconds from our flat.  We will definitely be back there again.

I guess that is about it.  I am going to enjoy my last week of vacation and I am in charge of planning our first weekend trip for this coming weekend.  We are probably just going to go somewhere in England for a day and night.  We will keep you all posted.

Cheers
Kevin               

The Yanks Landed

We have landed and we have been spending the last 3 days trying to get settled. Our air shipment is due to be delivered to our flat tomorrow. We are so thankful for the advice that we received about bringing bedding and towels with us. It may have been a long week with out it. One would think those would be items easy to find in such a big city but that is not true!! Kevin and I walked into our first department store yesterday to find no inventory...only catalogs and phones. We walked out of the store missing Target!!! On Tuesday, we made our first grocery store visit. We were clearly the Americans because we were the only ones with a shopping cart. Everyone else had only baskets. At first we were disappointed with the lack of selection until we realized that there was a basement to the store. After both of these shopping experiences, I wish we would have had a camera to capture the Yanks walking down the street with arms full of crap. It was the best when we bought our TV and DVD player. Kevin and I are still trying to figure out the flow of traffic on the sidewalks. We seem to always be walking on the wrong sides and running into people. Besides for all of that, we are loving our flat, the location and everything around us including the pubs and restaurants. For all of our MN friends, we do not miss the snow. Last night, we started at our local pub, The Elephant and Castle, and then walked down the street to a
wonderful Lebanese restaurant. And for the first time in our relationship Kevin agreed that I
had ordered the better meal!!

That is it for now and we will keep you posted.

London Invasion

Hi All,

Well, the day has finally arrived!!!  We are about 7 hours from boarding our flight in Milwaukee.  We fly from Milwaukee to Newark, and then leave Newark at 10:00pm tonight for the flight to London.  Tomorrow at this time, we will be Londoners.  We will make our first post in London as soon as we can.