London 2012

WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!!!!!!

We said all along that going to the Olympics would for sure be a once in a lifetime experience and oh was it! We took the train into London on Friday to meet up with one of Nick's friends from High School who was in town for a layover on her way back stateside from Sweden. It was our first time on the tube. Compared to NYC the tube train is much more comfortable than the Subway. We watched the Opening Ceremony at a pub just about a mile from the Eye. It was so exciting to be in London for it! During the ceremony the street which was pretty busy before the ceremony started was all but silent during it! Our bartender was so nice and gave us all sorts of insight to the monarchy and how the queen operates. When the queen (who is 86 years old) then Charles will take over the throne even though he will be well into 60's if not nearing his 70's even though the popular choice would be for William to take over, it won't happen until after Charles passes.

On the way home, we had a short wait for our next train in Paddington. We rushed to use the restroom before finding our train to find a charge to use the toilet! We were both shocked at the charge! Though I guess its common.

We ended up missing our train and had to wait over an hour for the next one! During our now long wait, we saw a woman in costume on her way back from the ceremony. She was part of the opening ceremony!

We finally made it back home at around 230am. The next day we slept in and woke up with just enough time to get ready and head back into London to see our Volleyball match! 

Outside of Earl's Court! Ready to watch the Olympics. I was wearing my USA Flag scarf which came in handy for waving as well as wearing!!! 

Nick gave in to my demands for millions of pictures while there. We found this silly little mascot guy (Do they show them on TV in the states? He's everywhere around here!) 

When we finally made it to our seats, he thought he was done having to take pictures but I wasn't about to give in quite yet!!

When the USA v Korea match finally started the crowd went absolutely insane. We really enjoyed the match and by the time the fourth set came up we were both really into the game! USA won which is all we could have asked for!!! What an experience!

All in all it was quite the experience!! We have tickets for the single canoe sprint finals two Saturdays from now! It will be quite the experience to see a medal ceremony too! 

We are starting to get homesickness and miss everyone at home so much!! 

Getting Settled In

The Flat

We're here and everything is going really well! We're loving the town we're living in so far! Right now we're really focused on getting everything settled and comfortable. Our little flat is starting to feel like home. I brought a few of our photos from home and a blanket we have on the couch at home to put on the couch here so we feel comfortable. 

 

The last two windows on that top row are our flat! The longer windows are actually doors that lead out to the tiniest balcony. The balcony is only about 6 inches so its mostly just to get fresh air in than relaxing on the balcony! Our flat is on the second floor which is what we call in America the third floor. On our elevators the floors are usually listed, G, 2,3....  Here its G,1,2,3... 

Our flat is built on top of Waitrose which is a market. It's pretty convenient that I can just go downstairs and grab anything I need to! This was especially helpful the first few days when we needed all of the basics! Everyday I wake up and realize there's something else we don't have that I'm use to having in the pantry! I woke up Sunday and was going to make French Toast, then realized we didn't have any syrup! 

 

We started unpacking on Saturday and pretty much gave up and our bedroom was an explosion of clothes the entire weekend. Four suitcases, two carry ons worth of clothes.... I was stressing all week over if I could all the clothes put away. Nick and I ended up finding some super thin hangers and I was able to get it all put away! I felt pretty victorious fitting all of clothes into the dresser and wardrobe! 

 

Our bathroom is really nice, but has taken some getting used to! The shower only has half a door that swings in and out which is so weird! The first day we ended up with water all over the bathroom floor! I think we've finally mastered it though 

The toilet has two flushes. If you look at the button the smaller portion is for a smaller flush, and the bigger portion is for a bigger flush. One for 1 and 2 haha 

The kitchen is a whole different challenge! The washer/dryer combo is difficult to use and doesn't dry things all of the way to begin so I have to lay them out after I take them out of the dryer. The oven is a convection oven rather than a conventional oven so there's a fan that moves the heat all around. The first night I used it I burned my pizza :( 

This is the view from our flat window in the kitchen. We have had the windows pretty much permanently open except for the few hours of rain we got on Friday. There's no A/C in our flat or pretty much anywhere here. The weather hardly gets to be 80 F in the peak of summer. We hit 80 F this week and everyone was floored enjoying the summer weather! 

The Towne Centre 

We sit at the corner of the main road that comes into the city, and High Street which is the main street through downtown or The Towne Centre. In the photo from the kitchen window the road you see is High Street. 

High Street has a lot of different things on it. There's shopping like Mark's & Spencer and Top Shop! Plus lots of great little boutiques that have super cute stuff. There's also an indoor mall that High Street and Queen Street wrap around. 

The Pizza Hut Delivery is on a bicycle. Everyone here walks or bikes everywhere. 

In the middle of the downtown is a gambling centre that has poker and slot machines. There's also a lotto centre that does keno and lotto drawings. 

I had a pub lunch the other day. A yummy cider "Kpparberg Strawberry with Lime" tasted like a strawberry limeade! YUM! I also had Jacket Potatoes which is like a baked potato with only one filling. They just split the baked potato in half and put on the fillings. Almost every meal is served with salad on the same plate not as a separate course. 

Adjustments

We're making some serious adjustments to everything over here! We are learning some of the slang and getting more used to the accents every day. We both notice ourselves starting to use some of the lingo, especially "cheers" which they say for  both thank you good-bye, you're welcome, good-bye. 

We are trying to master the driving on the other side of the road thing. We haven't had to get behind the wheel of a car so far but walking down the street its a challenge to make sure I look right for the first half of the street and left for the second half! The driver here are absolutely insane and they park crazy!! 

I don't think there are any laws like in the US where you park with the flow of traffic! It's not uncommon to see cars parked boot to boot facing away from each other or towards each other. 

They also will just pull over to the side and park up on the sidewalk. Absolutely insane! 

So far we love it here though. The environment is great. We can just wander around town and no one is in any type of hurry. We get to go to the Olympics Volleyball match on Saturday in London. It should be really exciting to see! I also got some tickets to a rowing finals which is taking place just up the road from where we're staying. Eton College where Prince Harry and William both attended school. They have a huge rowing lake! 

I'll update more later! Until then keep in touch with us! We miss all of our friends and family! If you haven't downloaded Viber yet please do so we can text and call through there, or use our text free numbers to get in touch with us! 

'MERICA!!!!

 It’s the fourth of July, which means we should be celebrating America… Instead Nick and I have been working tirelessly to get outa here!

The visa application process has both of us completely on edge. Everyday its something else they want from us, more papers, more proof, more this and more that. By the end of this we may just get turned away at the border because they sure won’t recognize us since they’ll be expecting a couple with a full head of hair and Nick and I have both been ready to pull our hair out!!!

Nick and I have spent the majority of today’s holiday pulling a paper trail of our last 2 years. At this point we are both on pins and needles in anticipation, just praying we have enough of a paper trail to prove our co-habitation. LUCKILY Nick is all about keeping his mail (anyone who has been the house has seen our lovely mail container sitting on the kitchen counter). I’m going to say something I’ll probably regret here: “I wish I had listened to Nick.” If I had kept all my bank statements the way he does we would have a lot less issues. Trying to pull all of this on a holiday is even more stressful.

We hope to get our biometrics done and the visa applications sent out this week or Monday at the latest. Our application should be reviewed within 48 hours, which puts us on a bit of a time crunch since we start our Florida vacation on Wednesday the 11! We hope to have the visa by Tuesday; otherwise they will try to send them to us in Florida so we can fly out. If that’s not possible we will return to KC for close to a week before we fly out to the UK.

We have just 3 more full days in the house before our house sitter Angela moves in. Her new pup has come to stay until then so Dugger has time to get used to her. We’re busy getting everything wrapped up and cleared out of here!  

After all of this we are definitely looking forward to our week of vacation. We are going to the MLB All-Star Game and Home Run Derby then headed to Florida to join his family for the rest of the week. I’ll post lots of photos of the baseball festivities and Florida for everyone to see after next week!!!