Hi Everyone,
I promise that I will catch up on the Blog this weekend. We had a fantastic time in the Canary Islands, although the food was complete rubbish. We came back tan though and the views were incredible. I will make sure and post a few pics. A few is all that we have though since Ann had another incident with our small digital camera!!! If you recall, the last time that she was in Spain, she left our camera in her hotel room. On Day 2 in the Canaries, after a few cocktails, Ann and the camera had a run in with a chair. The lens somehow got stuck in the zoom position at a downward angle. If you have not bought stock in Sony yet, it might be a pretty strong buy at this rate. Anyway, it was kind of tough though to come back to a 3 day week and another 4 day weekend. All of these National holidays over here make it tough to get any work done;)
If you are wondering what national holiday we have tomorrow, well, you must live in a hole. Tomorrow is the reason that I moved to the UK. It is Wills and Kate's wedding day. Ann and I have been anticipating this day forever, long before we got the invitation. We will luckily not need a camera tomorrow because I am pretty sure that the Royal photographer will catch us in our finest moments. We are so excited. I did have to sit Ann down this week and have a discussion about "Wedding Ann." If you have never met "Wedding Ann," well, let's just say that this behavior might not be completely appropriate for this occasion. We certainly do not want the Queen Mum keeling over at her grandson's wedding when she sees Ann fly across the dance floor. Bottom line, my mission is to keep her away from Prince Harry(we know how he likes parties) and all of the "commoners" from Kate's side. We do not want her to feel like she is all of the sudden back in Fondy. We will make sure and take mental notes of every minute to share with you all since there probably will not be much media coverage. If you do happen to get a glimpse inside Westminster Abbey during the ceremony, we are in the 4th pew on the right.
Here's to Wills and Kate!!!!
Maldives
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Monday, 18 April 2011
Happy Easter Week
Hi Everyone,
Just a short post for today. We had another great weekend in London. I have uploaded a pic of a tulip garden that we discovered in a park near our flat in Kensington called Holland Park. We walked through there on Saturday. I thought that it was perfect to commemurate Easter week. On Sunday, we took one of the infamous "London Walks," a guided historical tour through the Tower of London. The Tower of London was the original castle built in London when William the Conqueror invaded in the 14th century. It now houses all of the crown jewels of the English Monarchy. It was a great tour and history lesson. The original mote around the castle has been dry for hundreds of years, but the guide informed us yesterday that they are considering filling it for next year's Olympics. That would be awesome.
So, 48 hours from right now, we will be touching down in the Canary Islands, the Spanish Islands off of the coast of Africa!!! We are spending Wednesday through Monday on the Island of Tenerife. It is going to be incredible. We are so looking forward to sitting by the pool and doing nothing. I am taking my clubs, so I will hopefully sneak in a round or two, but other than that, it is going to be the pool bar and beach chairs. We have to try and lose the glow of our pasty white English complexion!!!
We hope that everyone has a very happy Easter. I am not sure if my little sister-in-law, Chad Mongin, reads this blog, but his birthday is on Thursday. You better start working on that tolerance again for my visit in June. Happy Birthday Chad(please see picture below)!!!
Just a short post for today. We had another great weekend in London. I have uploaded a pic of a tulip garden that we discovered in a park near our flat in Kensington called Holland Park. We walked through there on Saturday. I thought that it was perfect to commemurate Easter week. On Sunday, we took one of the infamous "London Walks," a guided historical tour through the Tower of London. The Tower of London was the original castle built in London when William the Conqueror invaded in the 14th century. It now houses all of the crown jewels of the English Monarchy. It was a great tour and history lesson. The original mote around the castle has been dry for hundreds of years, but the guide informed us yesterday that they are considering filling it for next year's Olympics. That would be awesome.
So, 48 hours from right now, we will be touching down in the Canary Islands, the Spanish Islands off of the coast of Africa!!! We are spending Wednesday through Monday on the Island of Tenerife. It is going to be incredible. We are so looking forward to sitting by the pool and doing nothing. I am taking my clubs, so I will hopefully sneak in a round or two, but other than that, it is going to be the pool bar and beach chairs. We have to try and lose the glow of our pasty white English complexion!!!
We hope that everyone has a very happy Easter. I am not sure if my little sister-in-law, Chad Mongin, reads this blog, but his birthday is on Thursday. You better start working on that tolerance again for my visit in June. Happy Birthday Chad(please see picture below)!!!
Monday, 11 April 2011
Our Weekend Olympics and The Real Ones Too
Hi Everyone,
We hope that you had a fantastic weekend. We were here in the sun and warmth of London this weekend. Ann made it back safely from South Africa on Friday, so it was great to have her back home. She took some great pics in Cape Town, and had some fun and unique experiences, so I will make sure that she blogs about her time there.
As you can see from the title, we had a really active weekend and took full advantage of the sun. We went for a great long walk on Friday evening just around the Kensington area and discovered some other little quaint pubs and cafes that we had yet to see. Saturday morning, we were up early and had to get our 2012 Olympic ticket application submitted. Since we are now official residents of London, we are able to get first dibs on tickets for next summer. They have set up a lottery process so you request the events that you would like to attend and then hope that you get tickets. It is just a random allocation process. I was hoping to throw around Ann's Sr. Director title, but it looks like that is not going to carry any weight with the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland. Do they know who she is? The downfall of the system is that you have to pay for whatever you get allocated, so you need to think about that when you are requesting events. Anyway, we have requested tickets for the Opening Ceremony, 2 Swimming Events, a Beach Volleyball Event, and finally a Tennis Event at Wimbledon. We are keeping our fingers crossed. How lucky that we ended up in London for the Olympics as well. Well, we may be saying lucky now, but when we are trying to get to work next summer on the Tube amidst 10 million extra visitors in London, luck may not be the first word that comes to mind.
We used the inspiration for our Olympics ticket purchases to fuel our own mini olympics in Hyde Park after that. While we did not set any distance records, we did have a nice run and mix in some wind sprints to boot. Ann also had a co-worker in from Minneapolis, so we met him for lunch in an area near Covent Garden/SOHO called Neal's Yard. I had discovered it last week with some co-workers and it is an awesome little outdoors area. One of the buildings, now turned restaurant, was the home of Monty Python for about 10 years. I have posted a photo above. Anyway, we had lunch with him and then walked him around Central London and showed him some sights. We ended up walking about 3 or 4 miles, so by the time that we finished that on top of our morning olympics, we were exhausted.
Sunday led to some more activity outside, albeit this time, a little more "mad." We did start the day with a nice walk around Notting Hill, but then our aspiration for physical activity took a turn for the less rational. So, all over the city of London, there are these small automated banks of bikes where you can rent a bike and then just return it to any other bike station. It is really a great concept and super convenient. We have also been wanting to find another tv series on DVD to watch when we are around and there is nothing worth watching on British TV. I had the genius idea that we would rent bikes and bike to a DVD store in Central London. We could get some exercise, be out in the beautiful weather, and accomplish something. Well, I am not sure if I have mentioned in a previous blog, but you really need to be insane to even want to drive a car in London. The traffic is horrendous, people are just lunatics behind the wheel, and they are on the opposite side of the car and road. Furthermore, you are not allowed to ride a bike on the sidewalks here. So, here we are on rented bikes, with some useless little bell, trying to manuever down Oxford Street, maybe one of the busiest streets in London. What in God's name were we thinking? At one point, I am following Ann and she turns down the wrong way on a busy street. This was definitely worthy of a Seinfeld episode. We luckily escaped unscathed, found a new TV series on DVD, and needless to say, WALKED HOME.
We hope that you had a fantastic weekend. We were here in the sun and warmth of London this weekend. Ann made it back safely from South Africa on Friday, so it was great to have her back home. She took some great pics in Cape Town, and had some fun and unique experiences, so I will make sure that she blogs about her time there.
As you can see from the title, we had a really active weekend and took full advantage of the sun. We went for a great long walk on Friday evening just around the Kensington area and discovered some other little quaint pubs and cafes that we had yet to see. Saturday morning, we were up early and had to get our 2012 Olympic ticket application submitted. Since we are now official residents of London, we are able to get first dibs on tickets for next summer. They have set up a lottery process so you request the events that you would like to attend and then hope that you get tickets. It is just a random allocation process. I was hoping to throw around Ann's Sr. Director title, but it looks like that is not going to carry any weight with the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland. Do they know who she is? The downfall of the system is that you have to pay for whatever you get allocated, so you need to think about that when you are requesting events. Anyway, we have requested tickets for the Opening Ceremony, 2 Swimming Events, a Beach Volleyball Event, and finally a Tennis Event at Wimbledon. We are keeping our fingers crossed. How lucky that we ended up in London for the Olympics as well. Well, we may be saying lucky now, but when we are trying to get to work next summer on the Tube amidst 10 million extra visitors in London, luck may not be the first word that comes to mind.
We used the inspiration for our Olympics ticket purchases to fuel our own mini olympics in Hyde Park after that. While we did not set any distance records, we did have a nice run and mix in some wind sprints to boot. Ann also had a co-worker in from Minneapolis, so we met him for lunch in an area near Covent Garden/SOHO called Neal's Yard. I had discovered it last week with some co-workers and it is an awesome little outdoors area. One of the buildings, now turned restaurant, was the home of Monty Python for about 10 years. I have posted a photo above. Anyway, we had lunch with him and then walked him around Central London and showed him some sights. We ended up walking about 3 or 4 miles, so by the time that we finished that on top of our morning olympics, we were exhausted.
Sunday led to some more activity outside, albeit this time, a little more "mad." We did start the day with a nice walk around Notting Hill, but then our aspiration for physical activity took a turn for the less rational. So, all over the city of London, there are these small automated banks of bikes where you can rent a bike and then just return it to any other bike station. It is really a great concept and super convenient. We have also been wanting to find another tv series on DVD to watch when we are around and there is nothing worth watching on British TV. I had the genius idea that we would rent bikes and bike to a DVD store in Central London. We could get some exercise, be out in the beautiful weather, and accomplish something. Well, I am not sure if I have mentioned in a previous blog, but you really need to be insane to even want to drive a car in London. The traffic is horrendous, people are just lunatics behind the wheel, and they are on the opposite side of the car and road. Furthermore, you are not allowed to ride a bike on the sidewalks here. So, here we are on rented bikes, with some useless little bell, trying to manuever down Oxford Street, maybe one of the busiest streets in London. What in God's name were we thinking? At one point, I am following Ann and she turns down the wrong way on a busy street. This was definitely worthy of a Seinfeld episode. We luckily escaped unscathed, found a new TV series on DVD, and needless to say, WALKED HOME.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
It's Always Sunny in "London"
The sun today is so powerful that you can almost forget every day that it has been absent. Today is the most unbelievably beautiful day since we have been here. There is a perfectly blue sky and it is almost 70. It is like those days that I had written about in a previous post. The energy of the people outside is electrifying. I just sat outside and had lunch with some co-workers in the middle of a church courtyard right across from our offices. It was so nice to feel the sun beating down on you. I have never bought into the whole Vitamin D deficiency thing, but we have been told it is the most prescribed supplement for expats in England. We have not gotten to that level yet, but I have never yearned for the sun so much in my life. I am definitely leaving work early for a run through Hyde Park this evening. Ann is sadly missing this day in London, but since she is feeling the 80 degree sun of Cape Town this week, I am not feeling too bad for her. I hope that this weather sticks around for her return though this weekend.
If you noticed, I added in a new pic at the top of the blog. It is a picture of Churchill Arms, one of our favorite neighborhood pubs. Is that not one of the coolest things that you have ever seen? The picture I took last weekend from my iPhone did not do it too much justice, but the flowers are amazing.
I hope that everyone is having a great week. My Cardinals have not gotten off to the start that I was hoping, but they will come around. Most importantly, it is Masters week at Augusta. I am praying for good tv coverage here, so we shall see. I am incredibly jealous of my parents though as they are flying down this weekend and have tickets for the final round on Sunday. Similar to Busch Stadium on opening day, it is quite an amazing experience to stand on the grounds of Augusta National during Masters week. There are not many comparable sights or experiences in the world, and for a lover of the game of golf, well, it is downright spiritual.
If you noticed, I added in a new pic at the top of the blog. It is a picture of Churchill Arms, one of our favorite neighborhood pubs. Is that not one of the coolest things that you have ever seen? The picture I took last weekend from my iPhone did not do it too much justice, but the flowers are amazing.
I hope that everyone is having a great week. My Cardinals have not gotten off to the start that I was hoping, but they will come around. Most importantly, it is Masters week at Augusta. I am praying for good tv coverage here, so we shall see. I am incredibly jealous of my parents though as they are flying down this weekend and have tickets for the final round on Sunday. Similar to Busch Stadium on opening day, it is quite an amazing experience to stand on the grounds of Augusta National during Masters week. There are not many comparable sights or experiences in the world, and for a lover of the game of golf, well, it is downright spiritual.
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