English Drano....Yikes!

Since we moved in to our little humble abode here in London, our bathtub has had somewhat of a drainage problem. As you shower the water collects until the gravity pulls it down the drain all at once...about 15 min or so into the shower. Originally, we thought it was that the pipes weren't ventilated properly, but lately it's been getting a bit worse. I've been looking for a drano type product but have had no luck in our little corner of London. Last night, we were headed to Notting Hill to meet some friends for dinner and we went into a hardware store up there and asked for help. The owner pointed us to a product with pretty rudimentary packaging that said it was professional grade. We were psyched! After dinner we got home and Mike started reading the directions. This drain cleaner was sulphuric acid! It told us to pour a half pint down the drain. We did this once, twice, and on the third time, I think the acid was eating through the plastic cup Mike was using to pour as he felt the burn on his hand. This was some serious stuff! After the third dose, we had to ventilate the house as it was starting to smell a bit like sulphur. So the big question, did it work? Well, not really! It must just be the old pipes in this place! LOL! All of that for really nothing!

A Walk with Jack the Ripper...

Since we've moved to England, we've seen these "London Walks" advertised. They're only 6 pounds and they have about 10 per day in different parts of the city. We've been eyeing up the Jack the Ripper walk and decided to head out and join it last night. It left from Tower Hill at 7:30 and was a 2 hour stroll through East London following in the footsteps of the world's first serial killer! Our guide was "Stephen", an actor come tour guide, and Mike swears he was an American faking his accent.

I think the tour was pretty entertaining...for 6 pounds anyway...and we're going to try and do some more. Some of the things that shocked us on the tour were that a.) only 5 people were killed (all prostitutes) b.) there were and are two police forces in London. The City Police that only have jurisdiction in the one mile square City and the Metropolitan Police that patrol the rest of London. This was one of the problems with the Ripper investigation...some murders were done in the City and others outside so two police forces were investigating.

After the walk we stopped for a nice gammon, leek and cheddar pie and a nice ale, and then headed to the bus stop to head home. All in all it was a great night.

Another Embassy Adventure...

This time, it was the American Embassy! I needed some passport pages, so I headed there the other day. The Embassy is in Mayfair, a pretty posh section of London near Oxford Street. When I finally got there, there was a line around the corner--probably 300 people long. I hoped that I wouldn't have to get in that line so I headed to the front to speak with the police officer standing there. I explained why I was there and he simply said, "Get in the que!"...Okay! So, I headed to the end of the line and decided I might as well make myself comfortable there. The guy in front of mentioned that it was going to be a 3-5 hour wait! Apparently, their computers were down the previous day, so there were double the amount of people there.

After about a 2 hour wait in the line, another police officer came through asking if there were any American citizens needing services. I raised my hand, and he said, "State you business!". Again, I said I just needed extra passport pages. He escorted me to the front of the line! The security at the embassy was tight! There was a tall steel fence around the perimeter and then about 10 feet inside of that was a chain link fence with barbed wire on top. To gain entry, you have to go through airport-like security, and if you had any electronics (phone, iPod, etc.) you had to leave it at the gate, and couldn't bring it inside. Once inside it was very much like the DMV. Get in Line 1, then go to Line 7, then wait for your number to be called, and then go to Line 10.

So at the end of the day, I got my pages. I'm a little upset that they don't match my other ones, but I'll get over it!

Flat Stanley Visits London!

Some of you may have heard of Flat Stanley. He's the star of a series of children's books that my nephew Christopher reads. The story behind Stanley is that he is a school aged child who gets squashed by a bulletin board at school and he becomes "flat". His parents then send him in the mail to his friends. Chris sent me Flat Stanley in the mail and it's my job to bring him on our travels and take pictures of him, I'll be posting some of the pics here. We can't wait to bring Flat Stanley with us to Egypt in a couple of weeks!

Sick.........again!

It seems that every time I step foot on a plane, I wind up with an awful cold! Sure enough, Monday night I had a little sore throat and knew I was doomed! Maybe I should wear one of those surgical masks going forward? It may be the only solution!

Murphy-ski's Law (Warning: LONG BLOG)

You've heard of Murphy's Law-If anything can go wrong, it undoubtedly will?? Well, I'm entitling this blog "Murphy-ski's Law" because on my trip to Poland, this was pretty much the theme all along. While actually IN the country of Poland things went pretty smoothly, but getting there, and getting home were another story all together!

I left our little corner of London around 9AM to get to Heathrow for my 11:45 flight to Amsterdam where I was connecting flights to head to Warsaw. All was going well, and I even was able to help some American tourists on the way. I got to the airport printed my boarding pass and was headed toward security when I heard, "M'am, M'am, Excuse me, M'AM!" I turned around and the stupid TSA agent asked me to put my bag in their little suitcase measurer thingy that says what you can carry on and what you can't. Very confident that my bag would fit, I hurled the bag up and NOPE...couldn't get it in. I got a lecture from the snot nosed kid about how I must not travel enough to know the rules but I would have to check my bag. Well, I got into a little spat with him about how I do in fact travel quite a bit and that it had never been a problem before. I realized that I wasn't going to win, so I headed back to check-in to check my bag. I finally got through security and called Mike to tell him my big debacle...it was then that I realized that I forgot to take the new camera out of the bag...Luckily it was still there when I arrived in Poland. I boarded the plane on time but we were delayed for about an hour. There was a hailstorm going on in England and we couldn't take off. Finally, the plain takes off but much to my dismaythe captain wouldn't allow the meal service as it was a very turbulent flight--I still hadn't had breakfast!!

My connection in Amsterdam was tight, and I knew that I wasn't going to make the flight given the delay. When I got off the plane I headed to the transfer desk to see what they could do for me. After waiting in the line for 20 minutes I was told that the flight to Warsaw was actually delayed and that if I hurried I would make it. I still had to clear customs in Amsterdam which took FOREVER (even though I was the only person going through) and sprinted to the gate. I made it just in time, but the gate worker said that my bag wasn't going to make the flight. Fair enough, I thought. They'll just bring it to the hotel. As I was walking down the jetway, I head someone shouting, "M'am! M'am!"...This time I figured it must be me. The other gate attendant said that my bag HAD made it...Yippee!

The flight from Amsterdam to Poland was pretty uneventful except for the guy sitting next to me asking what my political views were. I'm reading the Barack Obama book for my book club here, so I guess it gave me away as an American. I really don't like to talk about politics in public as I find that it often spurs an argument and I just don't have the energy to debate my theories. I simply told the man that I generally had more conservative views but the book shed some light on the candidate. I think he sensed that I wasn't going into a political debate with him, so he turned the questioning to our election schedule and how we arrive at the candidates. The man was from the Netherlands and it's always interesting to see how foreigners are so interested in our politics. It really effects them. Whatever we do, most nations follow, so they keep a close eye on us!

When I arrived in Poland I went to baggage claim, but I was NOT optimistic that my bag had arrived and was even less optimistic that it would have my camera inside. After waiting about an hour though, it was there...camera and all! Whew! I then went to the taxi line where I hopped into a taxi. This was the craziest cab I have ever been in...Black Mercedes with hot pink and black leopard print fuzzy seat covers. The driver had Polish punk music playing quite loud. All I kept thinking was that this was the perfect finish to this trip!

That night Mike and I just went down to the hotel bar for dinner. We had to be up at 4:30AM to catch our train to Krakow for our tour the next day. And 4:30 came really quick after a couple of liters of Polish beer consumed watching an American cover band at the bar!

We got to the train station, where "Surprise" nobody speaks English. Mike gets us what we think are 2 First Class Round Trip Rail Tickets to Krakow. Later we found out that they weren't round trip, but we sorted that out with the help of our driver! After the 3 hour train ride, we arrived at Krakow and met with our driver, Luke. Luke was a University student who spoke "good enough" English and was extremely helpful to us!

We drove an hour and a half to Auschwitz where we took an English guided tour. While this is a place that I really wanted to see, I think it was possibly the saddest place I have ever been in my life. Mike and I didn't take any pictures here as we thought it was in poor taste to do so. I am sad to say that other people in our group were not as respectful. There was a family that had a posed pictures taken of them outside of the crematorium--with them smiling. SICK! It was really a hard tour to take. To see how terribly people were treated and how systematic the Nazis were and how they ran this place like a well oiled machine. One fact that I wasn't aware of was that the Red Cross visited the camp twice and on both occasions they set up a German Band and made it seem like a normal prison. Our tour continued at Birkenau which was a nearby camp that housed a lot more prisoners and had 4 more crematoriums. Our driver drove us around the back and we walked through quickly. Mike and I had had enough.

Luckily, we had a lighter tour ahead of us. Our driver took us to a Polish restaurant for lunch and to the Salt Mine in a nearby town. Here we took a tour that brought us down 800+ steps and through the mines where salt was mined until 1996. Walking through the mine was very interesting. The walls were salt, the floors were salt. Interestingly enough, the miners created several salt statues and over 200 chapels. It was said that mining was so dangerous that they never knew if they were going to make it out alive, so they prayed every chance they got! There was even a cathedral in there where the chandeliers were even made of salt! This is where the blog picture comes from--the alter in the cathedral...completely made from salt. Luckily there was an elevator back up to the surface!

Luke brought us to the train station and made sure we got the right tickets and then drove us around the city of Krakow until our train came. We got back to Warsaw around 11PM and were exhausted! The following day, our 3 hour walking tour of Warsaw started at 10AM. Magdalena, our tour guide picked us up at our hotel. Neither one of us was really thrilled to do a 3 hour walking tour after the VERY LONG day before. It was very interesting to see something nice in Poland. The Old City of Warsaw was completely demolished and the citizens rebuilt it to look exactly as it had pre war. The buildings really look like they are 500 years old, when in all actuality they are only 50. We visited the city of Warsaw on a Sunday and it was interesting to see all of the people attending church. With the growing secularism in the states and the state of the Catholic church, having to close parishes, etc. it was eye opening to hear from our guide that they were opening new churches all the time in Poland.

After our tour we head to the airport. Mike got upgraded to business class, but I was stuck in coach! He was a gentleman and offered it to me, but he needs the extra space for his legs, so I let him stay up front. This time we connected in Paris and made it to our connecting flight with plenty of time....only because THAT flight was delayed for 2 hours!!!! Yes, we were on the plane and sat at the gate for 2 hours because of various problem, weather, technical difficulties, weather at Heathrow, you name it! It was about 10PM in London by the time we got home and we were EXHAUSTED!

Mike's got a rough week at work this week, so he's been coming home and falling asleep really early. I (like always) am sick after the flights, so I'm nursing what I think might be bronchitis. We have a party at our house of Saturday for the expats, so hopefully I feel better before then!

Walk Like an Egyptian (Part 2)

Walked back onto Egyptian soil in the middle of London (aka Egyptian Embassy) today and picked up our visas. Nothing interesting to report on the matter at all. We got the visas.

Tomorrow Mike's headed to Poland for a meeting on Friday and I'm heading out on Friday to meet him there. By the time I get there, we'll just have some dinner in Warsaw. On Saturday we're getting up bright an early to catch a 6am train to Krakow where we'll meet our private tour guide at 9am. He's bringing us to Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Salt Mines. If time allows we're also get to see Oscar Schindler's Factory. We have to catch a 7pm train back to Warsaw so hopefully we'll have time to see everything! On Sunday we're scheduled on a 3 hour walking tour of Warsaw before we catch out flight back to Jolly Ol' England. With the limited amount of time we're spending there we figured that organized tours are the way to go. We don't have much time for wandering or getting lost.

Mike did some research on the US State Department's website on Poland and we actually found out that it's not necessarily the safest country in the world to visit, but they say if you stay to the tourist areas you're alright. Nonetheless, I'll be leaving my "bling" at home in the safe!

Welcome Mia Gabriella Canova!

Mike and I would like to congratulate Matt, Larissa, and little Keira on the arrival of Mia Gabriella.

Mia Gabriella Canova
April 8, 2008
11:51 AM
7 lbs 11 oz
21 in.

The photo is of Aunt Christine and Baby Mia with her VERY full head of hair!

Walk Like and Egyptian...

Yesterday I had to go to the Egyptian Embassy to get our tourist visas for our May trip to Cairo. I had to be there between 9:30 and 11:30 AM and figured I would leave around 9 to get there for 9:30. If I hadn't gone to Lowndes Place instead of Lowndes Street, I would have been there by 9:30. Luckily they were in the same neighborhood and I was there by 10 after trying to navigate the London maze of streets. When I arrived, there were about 30 people in front of me in line and I stood there for about an hour. I don't know what I was expecting the embassy to be like, but I can assure you that it wasn't a basement with dirty carpet that smelled. They had crappy replicas of the Sphinx and King Tut on a couple of shelves. I can't say that I visited a NJ DMV in the 70s, but this is what I would imagine it to look like. Dark panelling on the wall, broken formica counters, etc. When I finally reached the front of the line, I walked up and said, "Good Morning, How are you today?" to the woman wearing a head scarf behind the counter. She not only didn't respond to me, she didn't even look at me. After looking at our passports and rustling through our papers, she said "You're American...24 pounds." I paid with exact change as I had seen the guy in front of me get ripped off because she didn't have any change. Not sure how that's possible with all the traffic coming through that morning! Then she handed me two slips of paper like you'd get at the deli line at Shoprite and sent me on my way. When I turned to ask when to come back for the passports she said (again, without looking up) "Wednesday between 3 and 4--not before, not after". So tomorrow I'm headed back to this little hell hole in the middle of very posh Belgravia! We're crossing our fingers that they haven't lost our passports or anything crazy like that!

Emerald Isle Adventures...

As promised...I'm going to post a photo along with a little explanation of what we did while in Ireland. We got to Shannon Airport and rented our car. Originally we'd booked at Mazda 3, but when Hertz wanted to give us a Ford Focus in its place, Mike refused and upgraded to a Toyota Avensis. Probably the worst mistake we made while on the Emerald Isle, but more on that later.

After picking up the car we took off for Tralee and the Dingle Peninsula. The sole reason I wanted to go to Tralee was because every year, QVC has a special show called "The Rose of Tralee"...No joke, this is why I wanted to go there. I can't express how disappointed I was in this city. I really was a dump and because we were there on Good Friday very little was open in terms of food, so we went to a diner-like place and had pizza...big mistake! Again, Tralee was a huge disappointment mainly because of my ideas of grandeur brought forth by QVC!

From Tralee we hit up the Dingle Peninsula which was possibly the best part of the trip. Here is where we got to see all of the VERY ANCIENT (500AD) ruins. The way they created these structures is amazing--fitting rocks together without mortar so perfectly that they survive even today! Going around Dingle was the first problem we had with the car. We kept hearing a grinding noise which I assumed was just some crud in the wheel well, but came to find out that the whole front end of the car was dragging on the ground the entire time! We hadn't hit anything so we knew that it was of no fault of our own, but Mike still had to fix it in the pouring rain, wearing the only pants he brought with him. (Even though I told him he should have brought a spare--so much for light packing!)

After we finished the Dingle Peninsula we went down to Killarney to our hotel and anniversary dinner. As we were getting into town, Mike's temporary fix of the bumper came down and people were literally staring us as we were driving up the main street. Luckily this time we parked in a parking garage and Mike was able to put a more permanent fix on! We went to a very nice dinner at a seafood restaurant and enjoyed our meal in a very empty restaurant on Good Friday.

We woke up early the next day to head up to Galway where we were to spend two nights. On the way we visited the majestic Cliffs of Mohr and the Burren Region--Both of which were breathtaking. The Cliffs of Mohr brought out a fear of heights that I wasn't aware I really had. There was a stone barrier up to a point and then there was a sign that said "Do Not Pass Beyond This Point" but everyone was. Beyond that point there was no barrier, guard rail or anything. I got very nervous and you can see it in the pics of me! I made Mike get back behind the barrier before we could even get a picture of the two of us there! The Burren Region is very interesting. It's a huge area of the country that seems to be growing rocks! The rocks just come out of the grass as if they are growing upward! After that, we got into Galway where I wanted to see some traditional Irish music in a nice Irish pub! We got some great pub food and went out in search of some fiddles. We found them in what can only be described as the most crowded bar I have ever been in...We had a pint, listened to the music and were on our way.

On our second day in Galway, we drove along the coast to Connemara National Park. Again, those QVC fans will know that there is such a thing called Connemara marble which is green in color and quite rare. I thought we'd see where it came from. NOPE. No marble in Connemara National Park! There were a series of hiking trails where, if we had the time, we could have taken a nice hike. We consciously tried to get back to main roads before dark though, so we had to pass on the hikes. Again, QVC led to another disappointment! That night we went to a "Local" bar in Galway. We'd heard that in real Irish pubs they don't play Irish music, they play American music, it's just in tourist bars that they play Irish music. We knew we weren't in a tourist bar when we heard "Sexy Back".

We rounded out our trip the next day at Bunratty Castle where we stopped before returning to the airport. This was a true medieval castle where I thought they did a great job in capturing what life would have been like back then. They even created a little village showing what regular homes and businesses would have been like back in the medieval era.

When we got back to Shannon and returned the car, we found out that there were a lot of hidden charges with the rental. What we thought was going to cost about 300 euro, wound up costing us about 700 euro! Needless to say, Mike is livid and has "written a letter!", in true Mike fashion, to Hertz. We'll see how that goes!

All in all, Ireland was everything I'd hoped it would be and more. The sights were great, the food was good and the pints were fantastic! Even with the little disappointments of Tralee and Connemara--which I hold QVC directly responsible for! I can't wait to go back again to see Dublin and Waterford.

Ah, The Garden State!

Home Sweet Home! You know, many people consider New Jersey to be the armpit of the world, but I must admit, there's no place I'd rather call home! I have been here almost a week at this point and am sad to say I'll be heading home to England on Thursday. Again, it's been a whirlwind of a trip, but at least with Mike going back earlier it gives me a little time to relax a little bit!

Some highlights of the trip home, are always seeing friends and family, shopping, American food, shopping, driving, shopping. Did I mention the shopping! I need my retail therapy afterall! Things are twice as expensive over there!!!

One thing I've been told several times since being home is that I'm slacking with the blog. I'll try to keep it up with more frequent posts. It's just that we're starting to really LIVE there now, so nothing terribly interesting has been happening!

Again, I'll post some pics of the Emerald Isle when I return to foggy London town, and write a blog about our trip to Ireland. In one word it was amazing! In one phrase, a dream come true. Stay tuned for some more detail!