Hey Everyone,
It has been a crazy couple of weeks here in London Town. We have been here for the most part, albeit for a short trip to Rome for Ann last Wednesday through Saturday for some leadership meetings. Most excitingly, tourist season has started and that has brought our 2nd wave of visitors. I have to give a shout out to Rae. Rae is the cousin of my good friend Rhett in St. Louis, a.k.a Kevin Gallagher's lesser half!!!! Don't hurt me Rhett. Rae is here in London studying for 3 weeks through her university. I met Rae and her friend Ellen after work last Thursday and we had a really fun night out on the town. We called Kevin and Rhett during the nights' shenanigans, so that made it even more fun.
Last Saturday, my Aunt Melissa, my cousin Sarah, and her friend Lauren arrived. Sarah is starting med school in a couple of weeks, so Sarah and Lauren are on a little Euro Tour and made Hotel Knapp one of their stops. My aunt has a good friend here in London(Jane), so she flew over to spend some time with her as well with us. Quick note about Jane. Jane has been living in London and working for Bloomberg for 25 years. She is a trip. Even though she carried around a purse, most of her important posessions(Blackberry, reading glasses, maps, other misc items) were stored conveniently in her bra. It sure beats a fanny pack!!!! Anyway, the girls had spent the week before in Florence(met the cast of Jersey Shore!!!), and then left today for Croatia, Bosnia, and a final stop in Southern France before heading back to the States. We had so much fun while they were here. The first part of the week they had dedicated to Wimbledon. After one bungled night of camping out for tickets and getting kicked out for leaving their tent, they successfully camped out a 2nd night and were rewarded with Centre Court tickets on Tuesday where they saw Sharapova and some other great matches. The other great win from Wimbledon was their new friendship with Zohan, the Isreali adonis who was camping next to them. Zohan apparently loved to show off his chiseled body, especially when my aunt was looking!!!! My aunt was bringing the cougar to camping;) Beyond Wimbledon, the ladies took some great day trips to Cambridge and Windsor, and made their way around London. The highlight of their visit for us came yesterday. First, we did find a great new restaurant in Notting Hill on Friday night called Ark. The food was great and it resulted in multiple bellinitini's and some chocolate martinis. I thought that was worth mentioning. Anyway, yesterday morning, we got up and the 5 of us took a river boat cruise from Central London to Greenwich on the Thames. If you are not aware, Greenwich is known for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian(0 Degrees Longitude) and Greenwich Meantime. The City holds a lot of significance in British Maritime history, including being the home of the Royal Naval College. They had a really great open air market and we hiked up to the Royal Observatory where you can straddle the 0 Degrees Longitudinal line and also see incredible views back over the South Eastern part of London. It is absolutely well worth a visit. After boating back from Greenwich, our mission was to get last minute tickets for a theater matinee. We had a short list of what we were hoping to see, and we ended up getting tickets for our first choice. We went to see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. It actually just started on Broadway a month or two ago, and if you ever have a chance, it is way beyond hysterical. So, basically, it is about 3 drag queens and their adventure on a road trip between Sydney and Alice Springs in Australia. It was incredibly crass and inappropriate, which made it perfect, and the music was phenomenal. It was all classic hits that you would recognize. I have never seen so much crotch grabbing and heard more references for gay sex!!! The costumes were amazing as well. I was one the few males in the theater, and even fewer straight males, but that environment made it even more entertaining. After the show, we found a great hole in the wall bar in Soho called Frevd with outstanding coktails, and then we ended the night with dinner at Rules, the oldest and most traditional English restaurant in London. It was opened in 1798. Thanks to Melissa, Sarah, and Lauren for coming to visit. They were such gracious houseguests and we had so many laughs and fun experiences. Thanks as well for re-introducing us to "nurnies."
The other great news that we got this week is that we finally were allocated some tickets for the Olympics next Summer. We had been disappointed by being a part of the 1.2 million out of 2 million that did not get tickets in the first attempt, but we managed to get a semi final women's volleyball match for next August 11th. We are definitely looking forward to that. We will hopefully have a chance to buy some more tickets as it gets closer. The other highlight of the week for me was our yearly Apple EU/UK staffing team meetings here in London. We had all of our Recruiters and HR Ops team in from Spain, Italy, France, Germany, The Netherlands, and Switzerland. We had all day meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and great dinners out on Tuesday and Wednesday night. On Wednesday night, we had like a top chef challange. We split into 7 teams and we were at a restaurant where you prepare and cook your own dinner and then eat it. This was way beyond my expertise of heating lean cuisines in the microwave, so I polished off a bottle of wine and delegated to my teammates. I did contribute some far superior cleaning skills though. It was such a great experience to be surrounded by even more people from so many different cultures and language abilities, and in reference to one of my first posts over here, I am finally feeling confident in giving out handshakes, hugs, and double cheek air kisses where appropriate.
We hope that everyone has a great 4th of July tomorrow. That is quite obviously not celebrated here and in fact not even mentioned!!! I was giving some of my British co-workers trouble this last week about kicking their butts. They were none to pleased, but I got some good laughs. I will have to say thanks to some of my French co-workers tomorrow since they lent us quite a bit of assistance in defeating the Brits. I think that was the last useful thing that the French have done though;)
Cheers
Kevin
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