St. Johns Wood

Yesterday we took a final stroll through our neighborhood.  I will miss our high street - great restaurants,  fabulous gelato, great shops (although I couldn't really afford most of them) and the library that Brady loved visiting.  I will miss seeing the 3 cute blond haired school girls in their blazer, plaid skirts and matching hats on the way to work.  I will miss the playgrounds and parks.  Many memories and experiences to cherish for a lifetime.

 

 

 

Closing this Chapter

We are finalizing preparations for our move back to the States.  The movers are coming to our flat on Wednesday.  Are we ready to come home? Yes.  Are there things that we are going to miss?  Absolutely.  This has been a wonderful experience and I can whole heartedly say I have grown personally and professionally.  I am still a conservative, Midwestern girl at heart, but I have an new appreciation of city life, culture, religion and just generally am more open-minded.  Do we have any regrets?   Not a one.  While this chapter is closing and we are very much looking forward to being home, we would absolutely do it again if the right opportunity came up.  Looking back...  We have traveled Europe (and we’re not done yet).  We have experienced the sites & attractions of the UK.  We have met great people.  London will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Today we took our last London weekend walk (and it was a big one as my step count says 38,795 steps as I type this blog).  We needed to take in the sites one more time.  Just our luck, we happened to stumble upon a protest.  Good news is it was a peaceful protest and they were even offering pamphlets to explain why they were marching.  For some reason, I don't think I'll be seeing this on my weekends in Shawnee.

 

Super Size Me

Americans get a bad rap for being overweight which I think is mostly justified as I think our society plays a big role in this.  Everything is about convenience and getting more for your money – drive-throughs, front row parking, super-size, unlimited refills, etc.  We always used the time excuse.  Our lifestyle in the US provided very limited time to work out, but the truth of the matter we choose to do other things in our free time (sleep, watch TV, eat, etc.).  When we took the plunge and decided to move to the UK we thought it would be a great opportunity to try to get a bit healthier. Many of the Americans at our company who have completed a work assignment in the UK have lost weight and I was hoping to be one of them.

Fast forward one year.  Cory is 40 pounds lighter.  He weighs in the 170s and swears that the last time he saw the 170s was in high school.  While I haven’t quite hit Cory’s big numbers, I have lost about 8 pounds and am pretty sure some of my size 4 dress pants (vanity sizing of course) that are sitting back home in my KC closet may fit.  And yes I made Cory pose for this photo.  He participated fairly willingly.

Our eating habits aren’t bad, but certainly aren’t fabulous.  (My Chai Tea Latte habit has gotten worse with the strategic placement of a Starbucks right outside my office door, we eat ice cream regularly and we would get laughed at if we tried to order a light beer.)  The key difference is the amount of activity we’re doing on a day to day basis.  We aren’t huge fans of public transport so we walk everywhere.  Every day we walk to work which ends up being about 2.5 miles round trip.  On top of that both Cory and I have started running about 3 times a week over lunch.  We both are wearing fitbits and are averaging 16,000+ steps a day.  If you haven't heard of fitbit, google it and check it out.  Very cool pedometer.

We’re a bit worried about our return home to the US.  Hopefully we don’t eat ourselves back to our old stats in the first month.  Only time will tell.

Weekend Fun

A couple of weekends ago we spent a Sunday afternoon at a co-workers house.  We had a really nice afternoon eating, chatting and spending time in the garden (aka backyard).  Brady was a big fan of the trampoline.

This past Friday night we went to Wagamamas which is one of our favorite places to eat.  It's similar to Pei Wei, but has a larger menu.  Brady wanted to eat his dinner with chop sticks since everyone else was.  I would say he was moderately successful.  Good thing he had a whole bowl of edamame as a starter.  Yes, our 2.5 year old loves edamame which is maybe a bit out of the ordinary.  I wish I would have thought to take a picture while we were having starters.

Platform 9 3/4

We visited Platform 9 3/4 today.  Am I a Harry Potter fanatic?  No, but the books were a good read.  We've been to Kings Cross station many times, but we hadn't stopped for our photo op.  The crazy thing about Harry Potter is that my little brother Daren started reading the series when he was in 2nd or 3rd grade (can't remember exactly) and I was in college and borrowed his books.  He enjoyed them, but moved on to other genres of literature before the final book was released.  However, I quite enjoyed the entire series. 

Geneva, Switzerland

After spending two days in Chamonix, we drove back to Geneva to spend a day and night before traveling back to London. Apparently, Geneva was in the middle of the Geneva festival and there was plenty of action in the city.  All along Lake Geneva there were carnival rides, concession stands and other festivities taking place.  The really crazy thing is that no matter where we were at in the city there were bikers with balloons attached to their bikes.   I don't know if you could call it a race as there wasn't an apparent course or finish line, but everywhere you went there were bikers and many streets were blocked out.  We had a funny encounter trying to navigate the streets at one point when I told Cory he needed to follow the orange detour sign and he insisted on listening to Karen the GPS lady.  No, the GPS lady does not know that it's the Geneva festival and yes we went in a big circle and ended up following the detour time on the second try.  I am clearly not respected as co-pilot, but that’s ok as I would rather not have the responsibility.

First stop was the Park Des Eaux - Vive.  Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures in the park.  We walked through the rose gardens, but they weren't in the best of health.  I'm not a rose person, but I'm thinking August must not be their prime month.

After the park we walked along Lake Geneva and took some pictures of the Jet d'Eau.  At this point Brady was ready to find a playground as we failed to find the playground at the Park Des Eaux Vive despite being given advice of how to navigate the park. (Of course when we got in the car later in the day and drove on the perimeter of the park we spotted it right away)  We were able to redeem ourselves as we got lucky and stumbled upon a small playground near a cafe we stopped to get some sandwiches from in the Old Town area.  Brady went down the slide about 10 times, we found a grassy spot to have a picnic and then we were able to resume the tour.  I'm not exactly sure what the last photo is of, but it looked important so I snapped a photo.

After walking around the city, We jumped in the car and drove 30 minutes to the town of Yvoire, France.  It was a cute medieval village on Lake Geneva.  We enjoyed the shops and had some good ice cream before heading back to Geneva.  One thing that Cory and I both were a bit amazed by is the ease you can travel between countries in Europe.  When we crossed over from Switzerland to France there was a small customs/immigration building, but it was unmanned.  We just drove right on in and right back out with not interactions.  I can’t even imagine if we had this setup in the US.

Last stop on the Geneva tour was seeing the United Nation.  The chair is missing a leg, but we were not sure what the story was behind it.  Cory made up that he thought it was due to some recent protests, but the real story is that it symbolizes opposition to land mines and cluster bombs, and acts as a reminder to politicians and others visiting Geneva.  Also, I don't know the random girl in the UN picture, but there was a line to take photos so I decided they would just have to be in my photo.

Dubin, Cory insisted on taking this picture for you.

Alison, the Caterpillar office was doing well.  It appeared there were even a few folks working.

Chamonix, France

On a whim we decided to squeeze in another weekend destination before we return home to the US.  (Only 30 days to go, not that we’re counting.)  Several of our American co-workers recommended visiting Chamonix, France which is a mountain town in the Alps about an hour outside of Geneva.  Cory and I are both like the mountains, but recently have only visited during ski season.  As a kid, my family regularly went to Colorado over the summer and I remember having just as much fun in the summer as in the winter.  The drive into town was absolutely stunning.   I’m not sure if it’s because it was the first time I visited the Alps, but to me they are even more impressive than the Rockies.  Chamonix has a great view of Mont Blanc and is generally very picturesque.

The weather forecast predicted rain all weekend, but we lucked out and only had a couple hours of rain all together and it was in the mid 70s most of the weekend.  It was nice enough for us to take several swims in the heated outdoor pool at the hotel.  Swimming was definitely a Brady highlight and he would have been content to spend the entire day in the pool.

So Brady was keen to swim, but you may be wondering what Cory and I were going to do in Chamonix.  One word, CHEESE.  We have both come to love French food.  A good percentage of French meals involve cheese, bread and of course some salad.  Cory and I have both always liked our cheese, but I would say we were cheese novices.  I don’t feel that the typical American truly appreciates cheese nor do we normally venture beyond our standard grocery store varieties (Cheddar, Colby Jack, Monterey Jack, Mozzarella, Swiss).  Sure, most Americans have heard of or even enjoy Brie and some of enjoy blue cheese, feta or goat cheese, but only the rare foodie really knows their cheeses.  I still would put Cory and I in the novice cheese category and while I still love my Colby Jack cheese there is so much more too experience and enjoy than Kraft cracker cuts.  Whether it be in a nice restaurant, casual café or a local meat & cheese shop, cheese is everywhere.

Our first night in Chamonix we had a raclette dinner.  Raclette is something that I had not heard of before moving to the UK, but feel that everyone should have raclette within their lifetime.  Typically raclette is a big huge hunk of cheese that is on a heating element.  When the outside gets warm and bubbly you shave it off onto potatoes, meat, bread or whatever you want to accompany the cheese.  It is simply amazing.  At the restaurant they put a bit of a spin on the raclette and gave us a wood fire stove for us to heat our own raclette and serve it over meat & potatoes.  Incredibly delicious.  My only complaint was our little wood fire was putting off so much heat that we had to open the door to let in some cool air.  The lady at the table next to us was giving us glares which I interrupted as a ‘why did you guys order a dish that is raising the temperature of the restaurant at least 10 degrees’ look.

On Saturday we woke up early with intentions of taking the Aiguille du Midi lift into the mountains.  This cable car holds the record for world’s highest ascent.  The views from the top are said to be simply amazing.  You can even take it into Italy.  However we did not get the opportunity to take the cable car as we were quickly turned away as the minimum age to go up is 4.  We were a little disappointed, but then realized we may not have been able to enjoy the views as I can’t imagine Brady sitting still in the cable car for 30 minutes plus I tend to be a nervous wreck anywhere there is an opportunity for him to fall great distances (I’m recollecting climbing the Blarney Castle at this point and my near freak out as we got to the top of the castle).

 

The good news is just as we were leaving the cable car the town train tour showed up.  Brady loves trains so we hopped aboard for a gentle city tour.  

After the train tour we jumped in the car and drove to the Merlet Animal Park.   It was very scenic and we were able to see llamas, multiple varieties of deer and mountain goats.  Brady had fun playing in the sandbox.  We were pretty amused with him interacting with some French speaking kids about their age.  A little girl was talking to him in French.  Brady was talking back in English.  I think they were both fairly confused.  We also had some great views from the park.

  

 

That evening we had another cheese dinner planned at a fondue place.  For us fondue is synonymous with the Melting Pot which is one of our favorite restaurants.  However, come to find out most traditional fondue restaurants only do the cheese part of the fondue and it’s typically just with bread, potatoes and cold meats.  We both had amazing appetizers before the fondue, but to be quite honest missed all the ‘extras’ that a fondue place such as the Melting Pot provides.    Don’t get me wrong, it was good and I would certainly go again if I was back in the region, but I would actually probably pick the Melting Pot.   We both had excellent desserts as well, but I’ll have to admit the thought of dipping pound cake, cheese cake, brownies, strawberries, bananas, pineapples and marshmallows in chocolate did race through my mind a few times as I was eating my blueberry tart.

Our time in Chamonix came to an end too quickly.  I am hopeful that someday we can revisit during ski season.