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