Walking to Primrose Hill

The weather has been downright depressing lately, and I've actually been getting enraged at how cold and gray it's been. When I spied a ray of sun peeking through the clouds today, I shrugged it off in the likelihood that the clouds would gather and chase it away. Imagine my surprise when that little weak ray of sun was joined by more of its kind to form actual and substantial sunlight! For London, anyway. =)

J and I were supposed to go for a run today, but I decided it would be nicer to take a walk and savor the first sunny day in quite some time and savor we did - for four hours! We strolled through Regent's Park and Primrose Hill and ended the day with hot soup at the Garden Cafe.

By the way, if you ever want to feed a wild animal, go to Regent's Park - the squirrels and birds come straight up to you to see if you have anything good to eat. On a related note, don't go there if you're scared of squirrels or birds.







Regent's Park has a huge lake, which equals lots of birds and bird poo. Interesting bit of trivia: Did you know that Her Majesty owns all the swans and will go all medieval on your ass if you try to roast one in your oven?







I originally wanted to walk along the canal, but it looked a bit cold for that so I contented myself with watching a houseboat float on by.





Then we traipsed up to Primrose Hill, which is just north of our neighborhood. It's where all the British celebrities like Jamie Oliver and Paul McCartney live in bright pastel colored houses. You can also catch an amazing view of London from the top of the hill if you don't mind the uphill climb. The high street wasn't that great, but it was quiet and free of tourists.







Something interesting must have been going on in that basement...


You can see interesting bits of street art all through London...

I Have a Nephew!

Baby boy Trevor, born yesterday at 1:26PM! At one hour old... =)

Born to Bake

I'm not quite sure what the other expat wives do with their time. I'm not a lady that lunches, and I'm not really interested in shopping and filling my closet with clothes that will be out of style in a few months. There are a couple classes I want to take (French, photography, singing), but the classes don't start until April. Boo.

I do "lawyer" work on a project by project basis, and I try to exercise when I can (my goal is to outlift J on military presses; he is not amused). But the rest of the time, I'm a disciple of the housewifely arts. I cook, I clean, I iron, and I bake. Maybe too much baking. A few reasons why I think I'm baking too much:

1. J's work colleagues have started putting in special requests for certain items
2. My neighbor just came by to return the tin I had filled with cookies and called me a dangerous woman
3. Three different friends have mentioned my brownies in the span of a single week

Speaking of the devil, this is sitting in my fridge right now...

Needless to say, J is ecstatic and very popular at the office today.

Fish and Chips - Finally!

And the lucky place? Fryer's Delight in Holborn.

The place is pretty small, with maybe about four large booths. There were eight of us, so we ended up taking over basically half the restaurant. My friend P is a regular there, and she advised me on what to order. I ended up with rock fish (you get to pick what kind of fish you want) and chips (that's french fries for you Americans out there) with tartar sauce and vinegar and gherkins (pickles) on the side.

I never thought I'd be saying this while living in London, but the portion was freakishly huge. Like Cheesecake Factory huge. Apparently, fish and chips is the only British dish that's guaranteed to be served on a plate that's the size of my torso.

Not a great pic, but at least you can see the fish & chips. And my giant white head. It's the flash, I'm not that pale!

 The fish and chips were alright, but not really my thing since I'm not really a fried foods kind of girl. And we're supposed to be running a 10k and a half-marathon soon, and I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be feasting on deep fried goodness in preparation thereof. Eh, I'll run it off tomorrow. =)

Where to go on Holiday?

Yeah, I know, if this is the biggest of my worries, my life can't suck too bad.

J's work schedule is pretty relaxed at the moment, so we're talking about taking a little holiday somewhere. J doesn't mind much where we go, so it's up to me to plan our trips. I'm pretty good at planning the logistics of the trip such as train timetables and finding a hotel within walking distance of all the star attractions. The thing I'm absolutely terrible at? Deciding where to go.

I've been giving this a lot of thought for the last few weeks, and I haven't been able to even narrow it down to a particular country. Adding to the pressure is that J's work schedule is unpredictable, and it's impossible to know if he'll ever get another chunk of time to take a holiday. Another complicating factor is that pretty much every European country is within arm's reach. Talk about being spoilt for choice.

Five hours later...

After researching pretty much all day, I've decided we're going to.... PARIS! Now, I must be off to buy a beret and a baguette immediately.

Working Towards a Resolution

Now that I'm back at home, I've been so busy playing good housewife that I've told J to refer to me as Dobby, the house elf, after the character in the Harry Potter novels. I'm definitely short enough, even though my ears aren't nearly as large nor my eyes sufficiently protuberant, and I can see the appeal in wearing something as comfortable as a toga fashioned out of a pillowcase. So long as it's high thread count Egyptian cotton, of course. And a tea cosy for a hat to top it off sounds fabulous.

In any case, the dishes are washed, the house is tidied, and J comes home to a healthy home-cooked meal every night. But, what do you do when all your chores are done and all your friends are at work?

Oh yeah, work on those pesky little New Years' resolutions. Which means getting back to fighting weight. Emphasis on the fighting. I have no desire to get ultra-skinny and fit into tiny clothes. I'd much rather be fast and strong, kind of like a monkey. Which means lots of running and lifting weights. Damn.

As one of my Christmas presents, J gave me a copy of the book "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall, which is largely about the Tarahamuru Indians in Mexico who are amazing natural runners and quite regularly cover over a hundred miles a day. The book is an easy read, even if it is a bit too bombastic for my taste, and I felt inspired reading about these runners who just kind of pick up and run for the love of it. One of the premises of the book is that humans should run because that's what we were made to do. Another premise is that the athletic shoe industry is a sham, and we'll all be better off running barefoot.

I've been running regularly for about four years now, and I'm not sure how much I buy into the whole running barefoot thing. I heard about this phenomenon a while ago, and J bought me a pair of Vibram Five Fingers for Christmas '09, which are these rubbery slipper-type shoes. I use them when I do mat work or weightlifting indoors, but I haven't yet tried them out for running outdoors. For one, I'm sure they'd attract a fair bit of attention. And two, I once saw a guy wearing them at the airport, and I hadn't realized until that moment how strange they look on your feet.

In any case, after I read the book, I felt like it'd be an easy job to just head outside and run about fifty miles or so. Seriously, he made it seem so easy that the book really should come with a warning: Do not try this at home. Ever.

J and I had taken a protracted break from running since I started working, and we went out for our first run in a while a few days ago, and it was haaard. I actually had to take a walking break after 1.5 miles for a breather, and we wrapped up the run after about 3 miles. I'm heading out again tomorrow, and I'm hoping to log at least 4 miles since I'll be alone, and J can't accuse me of trying to kill him with jogging. Fingers crossed that it doesn't rain tomorrow or I'll be knee deep in mud.

Case Dismissed and Back on the Streets

The case that I was working on has been dismissed, which means that our little crew has officially disbanded for the time being. Luckily, we've all become friends in our short duration together - being locked in a room for 8 hours a day for 3 weeks will do that to you. Three of the others are at another project near our old office location, so we're planning on fish and chips sometime next week. Yay, more fried food!

Now that I don't have to rush out anywhere, I have ample time to leisurely stroll everywhere instead of taking the Tube. That's the wonderful thing about London - you can pretty much walk everywhere so long as you have your London A-Z handy. I guess it depends on your perspective - another American accused the Brits of trying to starve him by making him walk everywhere and then serving teeny tiny servings of food once he got there. Too funny.

I had a hair appointment yesterday at a salon very close to my old office, and I thought I'd take a stroll over there instead of paying near 2 quid to take the Tube. All I've got is time, right? It was a little over 3 miles for a round trip and eminently doable. You definitely see a lot more of London, and you don't have to top up your Oyster card as often - yay!

Now that I've lived in London for a while now and spent much of that time studying maps, I'm getting better about navigating around town on foot and avoiding the uber crowded touristy streets without ending up on sketchy and abandoned streets. So I'm all prepared for the next Tube strike.

Polish Food First

I don't know much about about Polish food, so when my Polish friend suggested popping into a nearby Polish restaurant for lunch, I readily agreed. I was forewarned that the Polish love their pork, so I wasn't surprised when I saw a menu making liberal use of the other white meat. There were four of us who showed up at Bar Polski in Holborn, and we ordered a bunch of things to share along with our mains.

We got an array of pierogis - cheese and potato, meat, or cabbage - with a selection of dips including sour cream, creamy garlic or mushroom. I couldn't tell which was which, so I ended up eating two of the cheese and potato and one of the meat. Apparently, regular pierogis are just boiled, but these were boiled and then deep-fried. And it's rare that anything deep-fried doesn't taste good, so I was a pretty happy camper.

We also got a basket of bread, and you're supposed to spread pork fat on top of the bread and sprinkle some salt on top of that. The bread wasn't exactly Polish style, since it wasn't as acidic as it's supposed to be, but I thought it was pretty tasty. And the gherkins that came with it were a nice accompaniment. I usually eat really healthy stuff like greek yogurt and edamame, and my friend followed my example a few times, and she was really excited at introducing me to her diet. "Look, TK is eating pork fat!" she exclaimed while laughing.

For my main, I ordered a kielbasa with grilled onions on top and a mustard dip, and it came with a salad, coleslaw and mashed potatoes. We all shared, so I also got to taste some stewed white beans with kielbasa, which was amazing. I was pretty sausaged out by the end of the meal, but everything was delicious. Who would've known I would like Polish food so much?

After we had sufficiently feasted on large amounts of pork, we decided that we should all get together and run the Bath half-marathon in the spring. I was drunk on lard when I agreed, so I hope they don't hold me to it. ;)

But speaking of drunk, the restaurant had an impressive selection of vodka - there were at least fifty different flavours of vodka at the bar! Did you know there's a caraway flavour vodka? Madness! But it'd be pretty tough to get drunk since a shot is only 25 ml, much to my American friend's chagrin. I don't drink, but this sounds intriguing!

The British Museum

I've been a bit sick for a while now, and today was the first day in a while that I felt anything like my regular self. I did manage a long walk around Primrose Hill yesterday, but I came back feeling clammy and feverish. But after a good night's rest, I felt up for a visit to the British Museum since it seemed like a shame to spend such a beautiful day in our flat. And I just got a new digital SLR that I've been dying to try out. The space itself was absolutely stunning.







Probably the most famous item belonging to the British Museum is the Rosetta Stone. There certainly was a large crowd around the case, but we managed to get a pretty good glimpse of the three different languages inscribed upon it: hieroglyphs, Egyptian demotic script, and ancient Greek.




But my far and away favorite was all the Egyptian artifacts and mummies:













My other favorite was the Mildenhall treasure because I had read about its discovery many many years ago when I was a child, and I never thought I'd actually ever see the treasure in person. If you're curious, Roald Dahl wrote an excellent story about the treasure.





And of course the museum had a million other beautiful things to be amazed by. Literally.





 

Oh, and thanks to my older brother for telling me how to link photos from Flickr to avoid the horrible compression that occurs when you upload to Blogger!

Back in the UK (Home?)

We flew back to London Sunday night after spending about eight days back home in LA. I'm not sure whether we can still call LA home, since we have a tenant in our westside condo and we no longer own a car. So is home London, where we have a very nice flat and fully topped up Oyster cards? Hmm.

We stayed with my parents in their house in LA, and although it was great spending so much time with my family, I missed having our own space sometimes. My parents are parents in the truest sense of the word - the kind that overfeed you, tell you to put on a sweater, and give you spending money whenever you go out. It sounds great until you realize that you and your husband are grown ass adult lawyers who get money from the 'rents for cab fare and dinner. One bonus - we didn't have to exchange any currency, woohoo!

The worst thing about being back in LA was the claustrophobic feeling that I just couldn't shake. It didn't help matters that we didn't have a car, which you absolutely need in LA in order to get anywhere. Even if we did have a car, the unanswerable question is where would we go? You can only go to the Grove so many times before you get sick of paying its exorbitant parking fees. And it seems silly to drive and look for parking for 20 minutes to go hiking in the canyons.

We did manage to hook up with some of our friends while we were there, but we missed out on seeing a lot of others since we were there for only a short while and lots of people had traveled back home for the holidays. Funny fact about most people in Los Angeles - I don't think a lot of people are actually from LA. I forgot how much I missed my friends until I saw them again, and we got the chance to catch up on the new stuff in our lives. Some good (pregnancy, new relationships) and some bad (layoffs, divorce). I always wondered how things would be different when we returned from our time in London, but it seems like things are changing a lot and very quickly too. Now, I'm almost scared to see what happens at the end of another year.

Potential expats to Micronesia and Hong Kong...

A New Year and Newer Resolutions

2010 is done and gone, and here's what I've got to show for it:

1. I moved to London - Yay!
2. I gained 10 pounds - Boo.
3. I lost 4 pounds - Kinda yay!
4. I bought my first digital SLR camera - more pics to come!
5. I resumed working as a lawyer - Yay?
6. I celebrated my first wedding anniversary - Yay!
7. I visited Edinburgh, Scotland

Now that the new year has officially kicked off, I suppose it's customary to make resolutions for 2011. It's also customary to break the resolutions within the first few weeks of making them, but I think I'll try to stick with it since one of my resolutions is to improve my stick-to-itiveness (yes, it's a word).

So for the coming year, here are the things I'd like to accomplish:

1. Enroll in a photography class
2. Learn French
3. Get back to fighting weight
4. Visit Bath, England; Paris, France; Barcelona, Spain; Sydney, Australia; hike in New Zealand
5. Make more of an effort with my appearance - I probably shouldn't be proud of the fact that I could get ready to leave the house in less than 10 minutes, which usually just entails putting on a long coat over my pajamas

It's going to be a busy next couple of months, but I'm actually looking forward to it. I wanted to run the London marathon, but the ballots are already closed, so I guess it's something I'll do in 2012. There, now that it's in writing, I can't back out.

Seems like it should be an interesting year...