Home sweet home

We added to our list of firsts this year with 'first inter-continental trip home for Christmas'. The trip both ways was very long, but thanks to modern technology you can watch movies and drink wine the whole way. And we were sitting in economy! Christmas and New Year's at home was great (apologies to Pullman - we will post pictures once people email them to us!).

Our first stop was Marin for Christmas. We did a fair bit of hiking with the dogs (and the Mom) and managed to go for an overnight bender in the City with Cameron and Craig. We also did the traditional inappropriate x-mas cookie contest at Helen's and fondue at Katie's.

A few days after Christmas we flew into Seattle and tried to hit as many of our favorite restaurants as we could in a day and a half. We then packed Casie's grandmother Millie into the rented Jeep and (very slowly) crossed the Cascades to get to Pullman. It was a successful drive but not without quite a few white knuckles on my part! We saw quite a bit of the whole family in Pullman and even managed to go sledding in near gale force winds.

It was hard to say goodbye to everyone, but we hope to see everyone soon on this side of the pond.

Country Walk #3 - Wadhurst Station

You would think we would learn. Although we did not get lost this time, we did fail to plan for the 3" thick muddy trails and the sudden down pour of rain, let alone the pub that was supposed to be open but wasn't (typical). Despite our lack of planning, we still had a great time and once again experienced the beautiful English countryside that we can't seem to get enough of.



Chris and his first near-sheep experience.

Pembroke

The first trip I took for work was in November to this cute little seaside town in Wales, about a 5 hour journey due north west of London. I could have hired a car, but too fearful to drive on the wrong side of the road, I opted instead for a 10 minute tube ride followed by a 2 1/2 hour train ride, followed by a 1 1/2 hour taxi ride (with a conspiracy theorist cab driver that had lived in Africa for the past 20 some years until recently returning home).

I was only there for a few days, and this was the brightest it ever got while I was at the hotel, but you can still see the amazing views that were probably there during full daylight. Apparently, according to the conspiracy theorist, there is a 200 or so mile coastal walk that you can take all along the western coast of this country. He said that some people come to do about 10 miles a year, and it's quite popular. Perhaps we'll add that to our list of walks to do after the lake district is conquered in June/July of this summer.

Ice skating at the museum

Apologies for the (very) late posting, but in early December Casie and I joined a group of our fellow PwC US expats for ice skating next to the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. It was Casie's first time ice skating and I hadn't been in years, so the first half hour was touch and go. Nobody fell but it was close! Once we got our ice legs, though, it was off to the races. After all the physical exertion was over we retired to a pub for some good food and beers.

I must be British

I have to post this because it is too funny not to:

I was just walking down the street near our flat and was waiting to cross at the crosswalk (one of the ones where cars are forced to stop). A young guy in a brand new BMW M3 stopped and let me cross but he also made all sorts of rude faces and gestures to indicate that he was not very happy about me holding up his evening. Once I got to the other side he pulled up next to me, rolled down his window, and said:

"You know who you look like? Harry Potter!"

And then he laughed and sped off!

Moritz and Tiffany visit

Enough said? Perhaps... But for those of you who don't know them (there may be 1 or 2 of you) Moritz and Tiffany both worked in Seattle with Casie, Lori and Carisa. Moritz recently returned to his native Switzerland, and Tiffany is now working at a tech startup that sells complex software which I don't understand. Mortiz came to visit us to celebrate his birthday (and life in general), and Tiffany was here for a whirlwind 5 day vacation. A good time was had by all! We saw the musical 'Buddy', drank at London's best Mexican place past closing, ate huge pancakes, and consumed quite a bit of Swiss chocolate. My favorite moment was of course finding a restaurant named 'Christopher's'... It must be pretty classy...

The 5th of November

Apparently we Americans are not the only ones who enjoy blowing things up to celebrate national independence. We have recently discovered that every November the British not only hold massive fireworks displays, but they also burn effigies of Guy Fawkes on huge bonfires. For those of you who haven't recently watched 'V for Vendetta', Guy Fawkes was the one caught in the basement of the Houses of Parliment ready to ignite a few hundred barrels of gunpowder. Needless to say he's not well regarded in this country! The logical way to celebrate the anniversary of his being caught is obviously to pretend to burn him while drinking lots of mulled wine and shooting off a ton of fireworks.

We were joined for this event by our friends Lori Mitchell and Carisa Richardson (soon to be Osvaldik) who worked with Casie in Seattle. They were just as confused as us about what we were celebrating, but we all agreed that it was the most kick-ass fireworks show we'd ever seen (sorry America). We also walked through 4 parks, went to a church service at Westminster Abbey, and checked out Buckingham Palace. Not too shabby for one day! The rest of the week we hit up a bunch of restaurants all across this fine city and spent most of our working hours hung over. Can't wait for Lori and Carisa to come out again next year!