Like the locals do

Hello. I have finally found my local pub. Meet the Queen's Arms.

Why do I love this pub? Because it's close, very cute, and hidden (i.e. not packed like the others) in the charming Queens Gate Mews (remember mews back in the days were the servants quarters but now they are hidden pockets of posh uber expensive homes).
See the cute cobblestone street?? I promise to take proper pictures one day in the daylight. This pub is fabtastic and really close to Jessica and Joe's! It's even a gastropub which means they cook trendy British cuisine so we can have a fancy roast here one Sunday afternoon when work slows down! I can't wait to take all of my friends here when they come visit :)

Life in Full Bloom

Sometimes I forget that I live in London. Then I'm reminded I do at the most random times, like this day when I was on my way to the doctor!

Hello, Ben. I never get tired of seeing you, old friend!

I have been pretty nonexistent lately due to the J-O-B. But, I still exist here in London and as the seasons change, life is sprouting all around me as I await to return to my own. I have to say spring is looking quite lovely on London these days!

In fact there have been some divine days here this March. One of the prettiest days happened to be a Monday when I was lucky enough to be kidnapped for lunch and forced to step out of the office for a little lunch date. This was the view from our lunch spot:

Jealous much? I even had a trench coat on, it was perfect!

Here is the other side of our view:

It was a nice little break, we grabbed sandwiches from this small cobblestoned side street and came out and sat here. This is about a 2 minute walk from my office, sigh. I was deliriously happy the rest of the day thanks to this sunny escape although it may have also been from my lunch companion ;)

Despite my lack of time outdoors in the daylight lately, I have been trying to document parts of my walk so you can see how pretty it is getting here.

This is my favourite part of my walk....there is this incredible cherry blossom tree along the way to the Tube. It's absolutely gorgeous! Those of you who know me will realise how thrilled I am to be living in a place that has cherry blossoms!

And last weekend for the first time in weeks I peered out my window to find these surprises:

Yellow blossoms and daffodils in my community garden

These pink pretties on my porch

And this stunning blossom right out of my window!

Yes, colour does suit London well!

Happy Valentine's Day After!

Oops.

I meant to send this out to ya'll on Valentine's Day (and look at how uncharacteristically ambitious I was...the intention was there!)

Happy Valentine's Day from England.

I hope yours is just as lovely as these chocolates I am enjoying :)

(um and have now just about finished)

It's Bath time

This weekend the girls and I took a much needed break from the city and journeyed off to Bath! Home to the ancient Roman baths, Bath houses the only hot springs in the country. It's only a 90 min train ride from London so it's a great quick retreat. We all had spa appointments booked at Thermae Bath Spa. We were only taking the trip to do our spa treatments, so we didn't get to do much sightseeing. However, we had a little bit of time to walk around this beautiful city before our first appointments began.

Bath Abbey

There is still so much in this city to see that we didn't get a chance to see (including the ancient Roman baths) so I will definitely be back.

Unfortunately our actual spa experience was not worth the money or hype. We all got massages and facials which were mediocre and over priced. On top of that, we paid for the standard 2 hour spa sessions which hundreds of tourists come to do as well. It cost about £20 for the spa session and it includes a lower ground spring water pool, steam rooms, and an outdoor spring water pool. Honestly though the spring water experience was pretty boring and over crowded. They basically herd people through there like cattle too!

The spa

The outdoor pool was pretty nice though- it has a picturesque view of the gorgeous English countryside.

Now it's back to the hustle and bustle of dirty old London!

Jamie Oliver Food Revolution? We Texans Bring It

Hi lovely Texans. In case you were worried about me finding anything edible in this country, never fear, here is proof that I'm getting by just fine:

Helllooooo Cantina Laredo London! Ironically located just next door to one of Jamie Oliver's restaurants. Texas is bringing a Food Revolution to his country!

I have to admit it's not true TexMex. It's a little too healthy to be perfection, but for being 4,500 miles away from the real thing it will do. The tortillas aren't quite right (definitely taste like they are from a package of Mission tortillas), there isn't enough cheese in the tacos, the rice is bland, and there are no refried beans. But it is still the closest substitute I'm going to get on this side of the world. The chips and salsa there are pretty rocking at least. I love how the waiters always say "these are complimentary for you" when they bring the chips and salsa. Sigh. Little do they know that chips and salsa are a given right in Texas! Oh these Europeans.

Another great thing about Cantina Laredo is that it is so American when you walk in. The restaurant is humongous for London standards and there are oversized booths everywhere. You can also hear American accents all over the place!

There is one thing the Brits have gotten right to complete perfection (why am I not surprised..):

The margarita!! This one is my favourite margarita- it's called the purist margarita. Heavy on the tequilla, splash of lime juice, and a kick of TexMexican soul.

I have been to this haunt several probably 4 times in the last month. I love it after a hard day at work, it reminds me of home! I will say it comes at a steep price (£8.95 per margarita, even a house marg). Then again, everything in this city is expensive and this is definitely worth its weight in quid (another term they use for their currency).

It's 2011 and I'm 27!

Hello world! I want to apologise for my lack of posting...although for those of you who have been devoted readers you know that I am not very good at consistently posting- especially when work gets intense! My intentions are always good though and I have a few future posts lined up and in the making, so hopefully I won't disappoint (again).

Anyway, let me tell you about my birthday, which was last week! I truly had a wonderful birthday thanks to all of the friends near and far who made it special for me. I was definitely thrilled at the cards I got and all of the thoughtful messages! I do have to say though that it was the first time here that I felt homesick- I was surprised to find that my birthday of all things would be the thing that made me miss home. I even listened to country music every day of the week of my birthday!!

For my birthday I had a big bash, Fun Bobby style, at a bar. I picked a bar in an area south of the Thames river called Clapham. In order to find a bar, I googled "best bar in London" and came up with some slim pickings. However, this particular bar had one a "Timeout" award (which is basically a company that rates everything here), so I figured it might be good. It also looked trendy, you know, had to pull out all of the stops for my first birthday in London! The bar was called the Loft. I wanted to make sure I had a nice area for my friends, so I reserved an area of the bar (basically a couple of couches). I was surprised to find that I didn't have to pay any fee or minimum tab to reserve a spot in the bar. I suppose there are so many bars in London for people to chose from that the competition is stiff!

On the night of my party I actually ended up arriving an hour late thanks to infamous London transportation problems....coupled with some of my own poor planning. I didn't know that Clapham was such a large area of London- there are actually 3 or 4 train stations in Clapham. Silly me had ventured to the party without looking up directions because I had been to one of the Clapham stations before and I thought that it was the only one! When I arrived to the wrong part of Clapham and realised I was pretty far from the other, we hopped on a bus....however traffic was horrendous on the bus so the whole thing ended up being an ordeal!

Luckily I had some friends that had arrived earlier to claim my spot at the bar and once I had a birthday drink in hand all was forgotten. I definitely had a great time that night and was flattered to have so many people make the trek to come help me celebrate!

My group of British friends

My group of expat friends

Snow Foe

How ironic my last post was cursing the snow- I now have more reasons to add to my vendetta against the snow. Thanks to the snow, I spent 12 hours at Heathrow airport and got no where! It was honestly one of the worst days of my life. Here are some snapshots of how my Christmas vacation to Texas slipped away from my hands:

Roughly 30 minutes after being on the plane (we had to wait for the cleaning crew to come clean up a kid's throwup).

Okay, it's not looking good....but I'm still hopeful.

Hmmmm......

Um.......

SHIT.

So, we waited for 3 hours on the plane while the crew worked to "de-ice" the plane. This is all new terminology for me....but apparently it's a two step process and we only went through the first step which took forever! While on the plane they closed the entire Heathrow airport. I really shouldn't complain because others had it worse. Some people were stuck on their planes for 7 or 12 hours! The BBC article about this is actually kind of funny. But, read on to see what else happened....

So our flight gets cancelled and the captain says, "There will be agents waiting for you at the baggage reclaim, and they have a plan for each and every one of you." I personally was so hopeful at this point, but later learned that was complete bs. We also had to go through customs before we could even get our bags, which was ridiculous because we never left the country!

Once we get to the baggage reclaim area, there is the longest queue in the world to "speak to the agents." My friend and I both get in the line and then take turns to get our luggage. I was so glad she was there throughout the whole process- it was actually complete coincidence that we happened to be on the same flight and on top of that by some weird coincidence our seats were booked next to one another- totally not planned! She got her luggage pretty instantly, but I literally waited for 2 hours to get my bags! The problem was that they placed 7 different cancelled flights on the same baggage carousel. It was the craziest thing ever. In the meantime, my friend had gotten to the front of the long line just to find out that we were standing in line to receive a sheet of paper that gave us the American Airline reservation number. What the hell. It was a nightmare because everyone was calling this number at the same time and some people could never get through. I was fortunate that some guy was nice enough to pass on the person he was talking to to me and I was able to get my flight rebooked for three days later....on a nondirect flight, which is really frustrating!

My friend got a flight that was to leave Heathrow that day, but at a later time when the airport was supposed to open. Unfortunately I found out later that the airport closed entirely the whole day and she lost that flight as well and now can't fly out until 6 days after she was originally supposed to!!

While in the long line for the AA agent, we also met a college student from Little Rock, AK. I ended up letting her use my phone to try to get a hold of the AA reservation line, but it ended up being a nightmare. She was on hold with my phone for over an hour, and that was the point when I was really desperate to just leave the airport because I had gotten my luggage and it was already 4pm and I didn't have lunch yet and was running on 3 hours of sleep! On top of that, at one point she walked away with my phone for a long time and I couldn't find her!!

I finally get to leave the airport, and I withdraw a ton of cash because at that point, I didn't care the price...I just wanted to get the hell out of there! Unfortunately, there was the longest queue ever to get a taxi. There were at least 100 people waiting out in the cold snow. Ugh!

So, while dragging two jumbo suitcases, I headed down to the Tube...only to find a massive crowd of people. It took me probably 30 min just to get through this crowd. I finally make it to the Tube....and embark on a super long and slow Tube ride back to Chelsea. However, because I couldn't get a taxi, I had to walk 1/2 a mile in the snow while in my flats...which is really really not what you should be wearing in 5 inches of snow! I was desperately dragging my two suitcases, backpack, and purse up the stairs of the Tube station and all the way home. It's quite difficult dragging suitcases through the snow, by the way! Several people stopped to ask me if they could help which is nice because I did look pretty pathetic. Thankfully, Jessica and Joe were on the way (I'm so glad they live nearby!). I was so happy to see them because right before they came by I had just fallen in the middle of the road in dirty snow and ripped my one pair of skinny jeans!! I made it back home and instantly popped a bottle of champagne I had been saving for a "special occassion." I think it was a well earned occasion to break out the champagne haha.

The one nice thing about the day is that I met so many friendly people. There was a lot of solidarity at Heathrow. I met the man that was traveling all the way from Kuwait to Brownsville, Tx. He had already been traveling for like 40 hours and is now stuck in London....and on top of that his family didn't know he was coming because he was going to surprise them. In order for him to get home he will have to travel to New York and then spend the night there on Tuesday and then fly two more flights on Wednesday to get to Brownsville. He was actually in such a good mood the entire day and he was the one who passed his phone to me, and he also came by to keep me company as I waited desperately for my luggage. I met many nice people who were joking and laughing at the situation while waiting for luggage, etc. On my Tube ride back I talked with two girls both around the age of 19- one from Kentucky, the other from Ireland. We both talked about how terrible our day had been, but it was nice to share stories....especially since my phone was close to dying and I was losing human contact!

So, for now I remain in London. Fingers crossed I make it to the sunshine by Tuesday!