Paying The Toll in London

Hey Everyone,

Bloody hell, it is just one week from Thanksgiving.  Sadly, we will be giving thanks at work, but we will be thinking of you all eating copious amounts of turkey.  We have made a booking for a restaurant near our flat that serves a Thanksgiving dinner for American Expats, so we will have a little touch of home luckily.

Not to lesson the impact of previous visitors or increase expectations for future ones, but we just had some pretty stellar house guests here in London.  My good friend Tim and incredibly charming and ORGANISED girlfriend Roberta came to visit from DC.  Tim and I are friends and fraternity brothers from the finest institution in South Carolina.  They now live and work in DC.  We were lucky to have them come and stay with us.  They arrived in London a week ago last Thursday, coincidentally, on my birthday.  Stage right, enter "Paying the Toll."  This was a little expression that Tim started back in the day at Clemson.  It was priceless hearing Tim, in his finest drunken Georgia accent, telling pledges that they had to pay the toll, basically drink another beer or 12.  Anyway, it was suggested by another one of our Clemson friends, Al, the day that they arrived that I was to pay the toll for my birthday, and believe me, all four of us paid the toll last weekend!!!  It was such a fun weekend.  We had some great meals, plenty of pints, and a ton of laughs.  We were yelled at by our neighbour who was covered only by the sheet on his bed.  In his thick English brogue, he said to us, "It is not a matter of time, but a matter of going inside."  This was in response to us being way too loud outside of our flat and telling him that we were leaving in a minute.  On Saturday, we toured the House of Parliament, which was incredible.  It was awesome to see the House of Lords and the House of Commons, where all of the government's parliamentary action takes place.  We also visited the Churchill War Rooms.  This was essentially a bunker near Westminster where Churchill and his war cabinet ran the government when Germany was bombing London during WWII.  They have now turned in into a museum to celebrate Winston Churchill.  On sunday, Tim and Roberta left London and headed to France for the week.  They spent a couple of days in Paris and then rented a car and drove out to Versailles and then continued on to the Beaches of Normandy.  From there, they drove south through Brittany and ended up in Bordeaux.  Their pics were incredible and certainly inspired Ann and I to make that trip.  They returned to London this last Friday and we had a great final meal on Friday night before they headed back to DC on Saturday.  Tim and Roberta, thank you so much for coming to see us in London.  We had so much fun.  We can't wait for our next world adventure together.

It is a busy week here in London.  The Senior Director has all of her direct reports in from Europe and the Middle East.  It is also a big week in the Berenz Family as this coming Sunday is the birthday of Senior, Ann, and Joe (BIG 21 THIS YEAR!!!).  All of the guys are headed to Green Bay for the Packer game on Sunday and then a night out in GB.  I wish that I could be there to make sure that Joe is properly welcomed to legal drinking!!!  The last time that I was in Green Bay though for a Packers game, Ann and I passed out in the hallway of the wrong hotel.  Apparently, we paid way too much in tolls that day.  Most excitingly for us in London this week though is the arrival on Thursday of Nick and Jen Dinham.  They are incredible friends of mine from Chicago and we are so excited that they have decided to spend a long weekend with us in London.  It is their first trip away from their precious one year old daughter Sidney, so we will do our best to keep them from being homesick!!!

We hope that everyone is doing well.  Just another quick reminder to everyone that if you are considering a trip next year to London to visit, our calendar is booking up quickly.  Please remember that the Olympics will be taking place in London between July and August, and that would be a very expensive and non-ideal time to visit.

Cheers
Kevin and Ann