The wind in my face...

Sorry for the delayed update, I've been trying to think of wity things to say, but that might prevent another update. Things are still going well. We've had a horrific week of rain and cold though. We even had to turn the heat on yesterday.

We've also had our first visitor. Ian Stakiw, a former colleague of ours from Arthur Andersen and Hitachi was finishing up a month long tour of Europe and stayed with us. I think he liked the accomodations because he came for a night and stayed for four. He was a big fan of the new espresso machine.

It has been interesting moving to a foreign country, but not in any one really big way, but rather in a million small ones. Differences and challenges we've found to date:

• Dress for work - Suits. It became pretty clear pretty early that my look isn't going to work in London for long. In my never ending effort at conforming I went out and bought a sport coat, started wearing a tie and shaved my beard. I feel so much more British now...
• Money. Many challenges in this department. First is the simple fact that the exchange rate is not in our favor. The prices are really the same on the face; a $3 latte is 3 pounds. The problem is that 1 pound is approaching $2. So everything is really double. Fortunately uncle Hitachi helps us there, but it is still a shock when a movie is close to $20...each.
  
  The other challenge with money is just how hard it is to pay for things. For example, one of our early goals was to get a cell phone. The problem is that in order to have a cell phone, you need to pay with a direct debit from your bank. To get a bank account, you require a utility bill (with your name spelled correctly, which apparently takes an extra ten days), to get a utility bill you need a lease, and for a lease you need money. Fortunately, we again had the help of uncle Hitachi here. Without their help, it would be near impossible to sign a lease unless you have the amount for a deposit and rent in advance in cash. Of course a landlord wouldn't take cash so you'd have to write a check....but you can't get an account. Fortunately, we now have an account...just no pin number, so we can't use it...that takes a few more days.
• Television - as most know we love television, so we had to go buy one. Only we can't take a TV home with us because it is a different signal and voltage. So we decided to buy a "cheap" one. It's cool and widescreen though. Now we find that if we own a tv, we have to buy a TV license to pay for the BBC and other channels, a mere 130 pounds a year. But we trying to find a loophole. We've recently discovered the beauty of downloading US tv shows from iTunes and learned how to play them on our new TV. Plus, we've signed up for the NetFlix equivalent. Now we wonder if we can avoid the TV license...but who are we kidding, we'll probably get the license anyway. But, at least we still have The Apprentice, Top Chef and Desperate Housewives. Heaven forbid we actually see London while we're here.
• Electrical supplies - everything needs to be replaced since new electronics are cheaper than buying voltage converters....see money above.
• Sayings are different too. I don't have much problem understanding english accents, I just don't understand the words they are using. Not that they're particularly challenging, but it just takes another minute of looking at them like a dumb American.
• Lunch time, and work hours in general - The day generally starts later, around 9ish, and ends later around 6:30 or 7 and lunch is at 1. I've found that my lunch hunger is triggered by the clock as much as anything and that hour between 12 and 1 waiting for lunch is finally getting easier.
• Transportation - public transportation is fantastic. I've really enjoyed not having a car. The only problems are carrying groceries and other large purchases home. We actually walked a mile carrying our new espresso machine. Of course most places deliver, but we haven't figure all of that out yet. The other problem relates again to money. Apparently taxis are more expensive at night. A short 4 to 5 mile cab ride late on Saturday night was a mere 30 pounds....$60. We're looking into night bus options now.

I'm sure there are a million other things that are escaping me now, but I wanted to get another post up. We're going to Paris this weekend for the long weekend, a delayed birthday present for Erin. I have no doubt that it will be a blast.

We're also planning all the trips we want to take while we're here, along with all of the people who are planning to come visit. The next confirmed visitors are brother Andy and his girlfriend Jen the first week of July and David Han from Hitachi who is coming for Wimbledon around the same time, but staying mostly with another friend of his.

Hope everyone is well. More soon.

Ted

Our Flat

Finally some pictures of our new apartment. We engaged in a frantic weekend of unpacking and buying things we forgot we would need, or need just because we're in London. Most of them are electronics. Since the place is still largely a disaster area, we've limited the pictures to the areas that are relatively presentable - like the outside. We'll add more later as we continue to settle in.

First is a picture of the outside of the flat. Really does look like a converted stable.



















Next are two pictures of the Mew we live on. You can see our green doorways in both of them. Just a mere three doors down is an actual stable. There is a working stable/riding school in our Mew for Hyde park. Most days we see about 20 horses out and about. It may be a stinky summer of horse poo....but quaint right?














Now for the inside. The first is of the downstairs. It is one long room with the big barn doors on one end down to the kitchen on the other end. There are two sofas, a huge table and a bathroom under the stairs.













Then there is the upstairs. Just above the barn doors is an open room with two doors that open onto the Mew. This picture was taken from that room down the hallway to the two bedrooms and bathroom. The highlight is the giant skylight over the stairs. There are also skylights in both the bathroom and second bedroom. The upstairs is flooded in light. It's great.














We'll send more pictures as we get more set-up.

Ted

Mmm Iberian meat products

We had a great time touring around Spain. Our trip was through Andalusia which is in southern Spain.

Day 1, 2 - Malaga














We flew into Malaga, a Mediterranean seaside town. Since we were so busy getting ready to get out of town and look for an apartment in London, we only had a general plan for Spain, but had made no reservations at any hotels. We were lucky to find a nice hotel in the center of town. The first night in Spain we went out for dinner at about 10pm and I think we were early. As everyone knows, Tapas are a fantastic way to eat. We lived almost entirely on the assortment of Iberian meats (chorizo, procuitto-like serrano ham, etc), wine and sangria.

Day two, we shopped. Apparently a lot of shoes are made in Spain -- we looked at a lot of shoes. Erin became a complete shopaholic in Spain beginning in Malaga.
Following shopping we loaded up the rental car and started driving toward our next seaside destination of Nerja. We had a bit of a hard time figuring out the roads and directions, especially since neither of us speak spanish. But we were on the road. In one town along the way we were driving slowly through a parking lot looking for a bathroom. Suddenly Erin shrieked "lookout...LOOKOUT!" and out of nothing a kid on a bike shot out between two cars right in front of us. Fortunately, we stopped in time, but it was one of the closest calls I've ever had. Needless to say I was a little unnerved as we got back on the road. As I was driving slowly down a small road about 20 minutes later. Just starting to get more comfortable after the near miss and was looking at the sites and suddenly SLAM. I looked around and realized I didn't hit anyone, nothing in front of us. Look in my rear view mirror and as soon as I saw the car that hit us, we felt another SLAM. I couldn't believe it, we were being rammed. We pulled over to the side and the driver pulled up next to us and started screaming at us in Spanish. The driver was very drunk, and apparently we weren't going fast enough so he slammed into us like bumper cars to get us moving. We were completely shocked and didn't know what to do. Fortunately there were some people on the street who looked as shocked as we did. As we got out of the car to inspect the damage, he thankfully sped off. There wasn't much damage, just a dented bumper if you looked closely. We decided to forget about it because of our terrible spanish and decided to move on. I was getting nervous about our decision to rent a car and drive through Spain. Most of the rest of the trip was uneventful, except for after the third night when I went to get the car and found out someone had hit our car in the parking lot and put a three inch ding near the front tire. We'll find out how good the insurance on Diners Club is soon I guess.

Back to vacation. We spent three nights on a horribly uncomfortable bed at a stunningly beautiful town called Nerja. Our hotel was on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. The first day the whether was hot and fantastic and we got our share of sun. The next few days were cooler, but great and we were able to wander all over the small town and down on the beach.
















Days 5, 6 - Granada
Drove north to the town of Granada, site of the Alhambra. The Alhambra was an amazing fortress built about a thousand years ago. It is quite famous and we were lucky to be able to see it. Words can't really do the Alhambra justice, so here's a picture of me looking at enjoying some spanish wine.
















Day 7 - Cordoba
Cordoba is former Roman town founded in 152 BC. It was amazing to see Roman ruins, including a bridge that old. There was also an amazing mosque. Another highlight of Cordoba was visiting a Arab Hammam, which was really a series of a pool, a hot tub and a cold plunge, with a mediocre massage, but in a stunning building.


Day 8, 9, 10 - Seville
Seville was amazing. We were there for an annual festival called Feria. Feria is a weeklong festival following easter that celebrates the Spanish Flamenco culture. All over town we saw women all day wearing full flamenco dresses, men in suits and kids dressed to match their parents. All-day we saw people being driven to the fair in horse-drawn carriages, cars, mopeds, buses, you name it. Like everyone else we headed for the fair as well. After about a 2 mile walk, we found the fairgrounds. Amazing...the fairgrounds probably stretched two miles. I would guess that there were 200,000 people there...at 3am. One night we were leaving the fair at about 2am and there were far more people heading in than heading out.




















Feria was unlike any fair I've ever been to. There are thousands of tents set-up each hosted by a family or a business, or luckily for us a public tent for a district of town. Each tent is more elaborate than the next and all feature chandeliers, speaker systems, bars, kitchens, lots of people dancing and eating iberian cured meats. The kicker of all of it for us was the drink of choice....Sherry. Every tent serves Manzanilla, a chilled, dry sherry served by the bottle or in a giant pepsi cup containing a bottle of sherry and some 7-up. The first night the sherry was great. The third night it was gross...we were thankful for the 7-up...but we still drank it.

One great night at a bar following Feria, we went to a bar and had the bartender give us a sampling of different kinds of sherry's. They were quite good. Neither of us had ever had sherry before, but no doubt we will again. Most were much like Port. I've been meaning to look up the difference between sherry and port, but I haven't yet.

(note the sherry bottles and more meat products)















The other highlight of Seville as attending a bull fight. The bullring in Seville was built in 1758 and holds about 14 thousand people. We showed up about 2 minutes before the first bull and were directed to our seats about 10 rows above the entrance. I tried to ask which aisle we should go up and the guy didn't understand my question, just kept pointing up while pushing us forward because the bull was coming. So we had to walk straight up the seats and ask everyone to stand up to let us by. There were no aisles. Of course the seats were also directly in the sun and we had no hats, but fortunately plenty of sunscreen.
Bullfights are pretty amazing. Certainly not for the squeamish. It's amazing that 14K people show up every night to watch the gallantry in 6 bulls getting killed. Starting with knives in the bulls shoulders, ultimately leading to the matador finally stabbing it in the heart. Then the bull wobbles around and dies. Only to be triumphantly dragged off by horses.
















Day 11
Back to Malaga

There are probably a million details I'm missing, but here's a start...

More soon.

London arrival

After a crazy month we are starting to settle in to life in London. We left Seattle on April 12th, spent about five days in London, then went on vacation in Spain for 11 days. Now we're back in London and ready to get down to business. We really enjoyed having this blog during our trip to India, so we'll try it again in this big adventure. Since so much has happened in the last couple of weeks, I expect there will be several different updates to the blog over the next couple of days to bring you up to speed. Here's the start.

Arrival in London
We planned our arrival in London for April 12th which would give us five days to look for an apartment before heading to Spain for a much needed vacation. What we didn't know was that was Easter weekend and most of London was shut down on Good Friday and Easter Monday (and of course the two days in between). Our five day house hunting trip turned into a five hour tour on Tuesday. After investigating different areas of London, we wanted to live near the Paddington train station because that's where we will need to get the train to Reading for Microsoft. We had a relocation person help us out and she picked us up at 9:30am with a plan to find a flat and drop us off for the train trip to the airport at 3. No problem.

We saw about 15 different apartments, all charming in their own way. Some had 20 foot ceilings and were 400 years old, others had five flights of stairs. We settled on a converted horse stable in a small alley about a block off of Hyde Park (the Lancaster Gate Tube station) and three to four blocks from Paddington Station. It has two floors, recently remodeled and a big sky light that makes the upstairs very bright during the day. At night it appears to have a bunch of halogen type lights that will make it very sophisticated and "euro". They call it a two bedroom, but the second bedroom is perfectly sized for someone no bigger than my mom. (but Ma, there's a guest room for you). It also has stable doors that open up onto the alley which will be great in the summer. I'll post pictures after we move in tomorrow.

Next we went to Spain. I'll save the summary of spain for another post.

Ted