How dependent we are on internet access....

Sorry for the long delay in between posts but we have been without home internet access for about 10 days and don't expect to have it again until this Friday. It is amazing how many things we need the internet for and I have therefore been forced to give Starbucks money in order to use their excellent wireless connection. Anyways hopefully beginning next week we will be able to make our regular blog posts again. Thanks to all you family & friends who read this and make it all worth it!

20 Enjoyable Miles

Neat loaf of bread we saw while walking (you can see us peeking in the background)

Another cool loaf of bread

Section of Portobello Market

With Olly's new health insurance, there are very attractive incentives offered if members reach a certain amount of points each year. One way to earn points is to walk 10K or 12.5K steps in a day so with his new pedometer we set off this weekend to see new parts of the city & just how many steps we could take. Saturday we walked to & from Portobello Market in Notting Hill (which was ok but not our favorite as Borough Market still holds that title) and Sunday we moseyed around a few parks in our area. Total we managed to walk roughly 44,000 of Olly's sized steps this weekend which we estimate to be around 20 miles...not a bad way at all to enjoy the gorgeous weather we had, see some new areas, and get some exercise!

Summer Festivals & Fun Have Begun

The different summer festivals in Ealing have now officially begun. This week until Saturday is a Beer Festival in Walpole Park with 200+ cask beers to try, ciders, perries, foods from the around the world, games, and more. This Saturday is the Acton Carnival which will kick off the actual Ealing Summer Festival that spans the rest of July. The remaining weeks of July will have Comedy, Opera, Blues, Global, and Jazz shows all in Walpole Park. Then all the surrounding places will host different local  Blues & Jazz gigs throughout the month.

Also, last weekend we signed up for a 1-year Membership to the Historic Palaces in the area. There are a few exciting Members Only events coming up this month: one is this weekend which is a Palace Party at the Kensington Gardens where there will be dancing lessons (everything from Baroque to Swing), live music, storytelling, arts, and more. Then in a few weekends there is an Archaeological Dig at the Tower Beach to give people their own chance to excavate (and I am sure you can all imagine how awesome that is especially for me).

Mix all that along with some additional invites to barbecues as well as a planned trip to Stonehenge, Bath, and Windsor and I am sure you can imagine how excited we are about the rest of this month and all that it has to offer!

77 Boxes Later...

So we received our Sea Shipment last week consisting of 77 boxes from our previous home in GA. Before receiving the shipment, we both made comments to the effect of "not even sure if we really need all that stuff that's coming in the shipment". I can definitely say, though, that once we received the items, put them in their place, and to use we were certainly very very happy to have all of it. Could we have lived without it, yes...did we want to, no! Amazingly only 1 glass broke during transit and the handle on a Greek vase that can most likely be fixed, so all in all a very successful move over :-)

Various Architecture (1)

View of our building from the park...thinking Victorian but maybe Edwardian (we're where the big bay window is)

St. Mary's Church in Ealing (we love the tower)

A church in Ealing, a bit gothic perhaps

One thing I have always enjoyed about England (Europe really) is the architecture. Whether walking through big cities, churches, or villages a person can see many different types of architecture and find at least some of them appealing. To some the big stone edifices seen in the UK may seem cold or dreary, but my mind instantly conjures up images of historical importance. In our first few weeks, we have seen many examples of architecture that we find impressive and would therefore like to share some with you.

Our new bank branch, even the banks have character

Amazing how even the lampposts are intricately constructed

St Paul's Cathedral - Renaissance with Gothic style

Dome of St. Paul's Cathedral

The London Eye, amazing architectural feat measuring 443 feet

Nice random arch we walked by

Handsome male architecture with the Victorian Gothic Parliament in the background

An impressive sand structure

Goes with the elephant and monkeys

Who said sand creations couldn't be impressive?

Frankfurt

I went to Germany this week to meet the local team. While everything business-related was fantastic and it was great to spend time with them, I also got the opportunity to run in the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge. I was expecting a typical race with up to a couple thousand people, but it turned out that there were over 68,000 people doing this 5.6 kilometer run! In fact, I would describe it as more of an obstacle course than a race, but it was a lot of fun, a great event to bond with coworkers there, and a phenomenal way to see most of the downtown area of Frankfurt.

How to know your game bird is fresh....

Once I figured out how to work our oven (yes it is very different), I was able to cook our stuffed pheasant last night. The pheasant was quite delicious that is if you could look past the tufts of hair still in the bird and the round of ammo used to kill it. After sifting through the various hurdles, we still managed to eat & enjoy the undoubtedly fresh & hand-plucked game bird :-)

The Lovely & Green Walpole Park

We thought Walpole Park deserved a blog post since we walk through it daily either on our way into town or on the way back home from town and then usually for an after dinner stroll (at least now while it is light outside until 9:30ish). The park is home to most of the upcoming Ealing Summer Festival which we are of course very excited about getting to check out. Here are some pictures of the park and the walled rose garden contained within.

The incredible Borough Market

Today, rather than go back to the Ealing Farmer's Market, we decided to make our way to the Borough Market. Getting there was so easy: hop on the Central Line until the Bank exit, walk about 10 minutes including crossing the London Bridge and we are there!

Picture of the Tower Bridge taken from the London Bridge on the way to the Borough Market

Since we were famished by the time we got there, we shared a few items, including a Scottish Roast Beef sandwich on baguette, a duck sandwich (one of the best sandwiches I have ever had) and finished with a chocolate eclair from a French pastry stall.

The little Duck Sandwich stand made basic sandwiches with a little mustard, roquette (also called arugula) lettuce and of course, a huge portion of duck meat, with both tender and crispy pieces. Yum!

We wandered for a few hours among the multitude of butcher stands with free range and game meats, the aromatic cheese booths, the shops specializing in so many things from olives to mushrooms, from flax seed to tea and just about anything else edible one can think of.

Focused on cutting very thin slices, this butcher is taking apart a leg of Iberico ham.

This stand offers quite a variety of mushrooms, and the owner is happy to make recommendations on how to cook them.

This farmer is selling raw milk that he milked from his cows this morning. In fact, we could order milk for delivery from his farm, Hook & Son, though it is quite costly. The milk from his free-roaming cows is delicious!

After tasting a few different types, we ended up settling on a mix of different olives and also picking up some cornichons.

Some of the foods we ended up bringing home with us: organic apples and pears, avocados, 3 different saucissons (green olive, duck and red wine), flax seed, cornichons, olives, a raw goat's milk blue cheese, a milder Italian cheese, some black truffle duck pate, smoked bacon and bacon-wrapped pheasant stuffed with chestnut stuffing.

So far, whether prepared in restaurants or bought the local store/market, the food here has been amazing both in diversity and in quality. It is possible that food in England is not impressive (yet to be verified first-hand). But when it comes to London, the cultural diversity, the ease of importing from close-by countries and the focus on sustainable and natural foods contribute to making this city an incredible destination for epicures like us!

Importance of Friendly Neighbors

Being in a new place thousands of miles away from family, friends, and all you are used to is a huge change. One thing that we have found to help tremendously is friendly neighbors. Our second day here, Saturday, one of the upstairs neighbors ran into us while unloading our IKEA stuff & promptly invited us to the barbecue they had planned for the next day where we would get the chance to meet him, his girlfriend Sara, and the other set of upstairs neighbors James & Charlie (another couple). Sunday came and with it some good ole' London showers (following two days of gorgeous sun) but the barbecue went on as planned (thanks to Simon's fore-planning of hanging a tarp) since they are all from England and are quite used to the showers.

We had a lovely lunch with the other two couples, who were all our age & in similar life circumstances so there was much we had in common. They also were able to give us advice on good places to camp, hike, sail, eat, local rules, etc. When they heard our stories of leaking showers, towels that wouldn't dry, trying to build furniture with a Swiss Army knife, and more they immediately brought us fresh towels of their own, electric tools, and let us know they were here if we needed anything. The afternoon passed quickly but by the end we felt at the very least we had some great neighbors and possibly even some new friends.

(Picture is of our communal garden and the rigged up tarp & tables where we had the barbecue)

Oh Ealing How I Like Thee

It seems the more we wander around Ealing & experience the neighborhood, the more we feel at home. You hear a mix of city sounds paired with country sounds that are surprisingly peaceful considering our previous home was about as quiet as it gets (with the exception of the yapping dog we had next door for a few years). We find ourselves sleeping through the night extremely well even with sirens or cars in the background....so is the way of city life I suppose :-)

Saturday we started our day at the Ealing Farmer's Market and were very impressed with the excellent options contained within the market which itself was not that large. We were like two kids in a candy shoppe while selecting which goat's cheese, bacon, lamb, fresh artisan bread & croissants, yogurt, honey, vegetables, fruit, etc that we wanted to try this time (all of the farmers present must grow & raise their own wares locally).

Next on our agenda was IKEA to find a bed, wardrobe, entertainment stand, etc. All went well there and we met a delivery guy in the store who delivered our stuff immediately while giving us a ride home in his truck...very smooth & hassle free. As we finished unloading our stuff we were greeted by one of our new neighbors, Simon, who was very friendly & invited us to a barbecue they planned to have in the communal garden Sunday afternoon. We were very excited by this as we knew it would give us an opportunity to meet most of our immediate neighbors, learn more about the area, and maybe make some new friends.

After Olly built our bed (with a Swiss Army knife as a screwdriver) and I did some cleaning/unpacking, we headed out for dinner as neither one of us was in the mood to cook. Being in the mood for pizza we found a place online, Santa Maria's, which had been voted Best Pizza in London just a few months after opening. We went there excitedly ready to try this pizza only to find out there was a 45 minute wait (it was already 8:45pm) & were then asked to leave our name & number...well even though we bought a 'pay as you go' phone until we could get permanent ones we did not know what our number was & decided it was becoming too difficult. It was decided we would walk down and have dinner instead at The Grove where I enjoyed a delicious Crab Mezzaluna Ravioli and Olly a Chicken & Prosciutto dish stuffed with lots of yumminess. Although the dinner was delicious it was not completely filling & we couldn't get pizza off our mind so we decided to go back over to Santa Maria's in order to split a pizza for dessert :-) Happy to report that the pizza was in fact absolutely wonderful...we will definitely be back to enjoy it as a full dinner!

After that, we meandered around dropping in several different places to hear live music, do a little dancing, play some darts, and just enjoy the rest of our evening. It really is wonderful having so much to do & see and all within easy walking distance...Oh Ealing How I Like Thee!

(Picture is a glimpse of downtown Ealing and a guy who tried very hard to dash out of the way of my picture :-)

Expression of the Day

I learned a new expression today. When waiting, people do not get in line, but rather they get in the queue!