Avenue Q

We wanted to take Nyla to the theatre when she was here, and Monday was the day. We chose Avenue Q since we'd heard from several people that it was hilariously good. I actually thought it would be purely puppet based (from what I had heard) but it was a mix of puppets and real people. Its very adult themed (ie lots of swearing and sexual inuendos), but essentially is about several people who live on the same street (Avenue Q) out in Brooklyn. It did seem somewhat lame to see an American-based broadway show in the UK, but it proved to be quite funny and we all had a great time!

Halloween London Style: Pub Crawl

We joined a group called meetup.com last month. Specifically we joined the 'London fancy dress' group - a group of like-minded individuals that like to dress in costume and do pub crawls in the city dressed in certain themes. October's theme was 'halloween' (duh). We figure since Halloween isn' t huge here, we would go out with a group designed to do it right. And oh was it fun!!

We got all dulled up to go out on this pub crawl and we were pretty excited. Our costumes were awesome as pirate, sorceress and devil. We pulled ourstogether from a shop in Camden market, as well as existing clothes (I bought my shirt in Greece last year). It was really strange taking the bus to central London because no one was dressed up! Astrid used the mask to her advantage and just stared people down when they stared at us. Mwa ha ha!


The bars chosen were all done up real spooky and so it felt authentically Halloween. At the second pub Nyla and Astrid played a trick or treating competition where they had to 'sell' a pumpkin full of sweets to patrons in the bar and all proceeds went to charity. They did so well that they won the prize - a flashing 'tales from the crypt' skull! We had an amazing time meeting other ghouls and chatting the night away with some cool folks.

Roller Disco Part Deux

For Nyla's second official night in London we went to a Roller Disco rink, very similar to Roller Gardens to you Hamiltonians, to roll the night away. I think Nyla had a harder time bringing back the Roller Garden days, but I soon picked up the forward skate and some dance moves, but I still can't skate backwards to save my life....durrr!

So many people there were dressed up in tacky 80's hair and clothes - including florescents! We even saw some ghostbusters and superheros by the end of the night. I wore a fun hat and accessories while Nyla and Carmen work necklaces...though we hardly had a decent showing for the event. Little did the Brits know that Ny and I would do some showing up of our own on Halloween! ;o)

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, but Syd knew how to skate (front and back) from his hockey days and suffice it to say, I was quite impressed with that! ;o)

Nyla's Arrival

Nyla arrived a few hours late, and knackered, but safe and sound on Thursday. Astrid and her hit the Old Thameside Inn in South Bank (right next to this cool dry dock of an old ship. I met up after work but we didn't stay out too long since Nyla was ready for some much needed rest. She had planned to sleep on the plane, but she didn't plan on sitting next to a hot guy and chatting the whole way!

Housewarming @ 41e Gascony

On Saturday Astrid and I used the combination of excuses of a housewarming and my birthday to hold a party in our new flat! Our camping backpacks came in handy for carrying home litres and litres of pop, wine, and juice from the local Sainsbury's. It was like portaging with all that weight, exept subtract the canoe and the forest, and add in some urban hustle and hard pavement.

We watched The Rugby that started at 8pm with England facing South Africa in the World Cup final. Above is a picture of Jonny Wilkenson, the famous English captain who is a local hero after winning the World Cup back in '04 with his kicking ability. They took the wax sculpture from Madame Tussauds and put it on top of a 'plinth' in Trafalgar Square during the weekend of the game which was pretty neat. England was a long shot though, and ended up falling 15-6.

Astrid and I had our new futon delivered that morning, so we set it up in the living room for additional seating, and threw the dining room table into the spare room -- it worked out well and the flat felt less small than I was expecting. As always, everyone ends up in the kitchen since that is where the action is. We also used the opportunity to entertain in our outdoor garden with a new lantern that we purchased. If only it wasn't so chilly outside!

After making a sizeable dent in our bar (which included a very British bottle of Pimm's!), we were able to get the whole crew out of the flat and we headed up to some nearby pubs over in Kilburn. We went to a bar called 'The Good Ship' which is open after midnight and had live music and dancing. Overall a great night, and nice to make our new little place feel that much more like a home.

Les Mis

On Friday, Astrid took me out to see Les Miserables for my bday. It's London's longest running show -- 21 years! It was a great musical, but definiately more traditional versus We Will Rock You. Our next jaunt will be to see Avenue Q, planned for when Nyla is in town next week.

UK Oddities

Here are some things that I have observed and have been forced to get used to since living in the UK:

The Elevators (lifts) and how floors are labelled – G level vs RC (reception) or other random title. G is actually the first floor, and reception or lobby is the street level. At end of day after a long day of work I have forgotten this and hit G instead of RC. Would like to say that I learn from mistakes, but have done this on more than 2 occasions so obviously something isn’t sinking in!

Juice – from concentrate – 1 part juice to 8 parts water. Essentially, straight concentrate tastes like super sweet syrup and vitamin C. I learned this the hard way on 2 occasions - are you sensing a pattern of non-learning?

Toilets – to effectively flush a toilet here you need to continually pump it. There isn't such a thing as too much pumping the way the plumbing is designed. Which is a nice thing cuz you don't have to worry about clogged toilets very often like in N. America!

Doggy poop - so they don't have bi-laws here against leaving dog waste on city sidewalks, though there are some amusing signs posted by the borough council like 'failure to pick up after your dog's refuse is disrespectful to your community'. Unfortunately it also means that people are not so respectful. For a good 6 weeks of living here I managed to poop-watch while walking, but just the other day I let my guard down and my foot slipped through some fresh stuff. I was not impressed. Plus, it happened to also be the one weekday that it wasn't raining for easy clean up! Thankfully it being autumn there were lots of leaves on the street that did a pretty good cleaning job. arg.

Taps – Most sinks here still have two separate faucets for each temperature. In the absence of sink stopper, how do you wash your hands with warm water? Wave your hands under both taps continuously? I must admit I haven't quite figured the right technique yet. Brits think that the tap design is silly too, so it's not just me.

Terms – here are some terms I have heard lately: "Let me have a butchers at that CV" = look at that resume, "That's such codswallop" = that's such BS, "How are you getting on?" = how are you doing/learning, "I'll knock you up in the morning" = I will wake you up by knocking on your door - like when my scot cousin woke me up by bringing fresh hot tea to my room every morning , "I'll ring up the agency" = call the agency, "y’alright?" = how are you doing?, "so you want me to fix this, yeah?" = they say yeah here as often and in the same context as we use "eh"

Londoners "tsk" openly to show exasperation, especially if someone gets in their way/cuts them off or stops quickly. This is especially evident if you do one of these things and fail to immediately apologize.

Football or footie as they call it is taken very seriously here. They hate when we call it soccer! Whenever we get together to play footie on Sunday mornings with infusion crew (of which 2 are British) they constantly correct our North American lingo!

Buying food at the bar – new concept – buy first eat later. Much nicer at the end of your meal if you have to run as you don’t have to wait for a server to bring the cheque…you just leave! Felt weird at first but now I love pubs with this system.

Weather – fog, rain, and some sun. But when it is not raining or sunny it is one of two things: bright or grey. Bright? What does that mean? All I want to know is whether I need to bring my umbrella that day or not, that's all. I always bring it just to be on the safe side but it can be quite annoying to lug around, even the smallest one I can find.

National Health services – Healthcare is social/free here for all residents. The prescription drugs are also free, you have to register with a local independent medical clinic, and most health plans do not have dental coverage so that means that dentists are super expensive and less frequented...and I haven't seen an orthodontist sign yet (have you SEEN some of the teeth here?). An interesting aspect of some health plans is that if you sign up for a membership fr a partner gym, your attendance at the gym is tracked and if you go frequently each week (3 times) then the health plan pays your gym membership fee that month - so you have incentive to get healthy. I think its a brilliant plan, because even though they spend a lot up front to subsidize memberships, it works out cheaper in the end because healthy people have less need to make/use expensive health claims. I hope Canada adopts something like this soon. It makes good sense.

Funky fashion – the fashion here is a multitude of baggy tops with lots of horizontal stripes, some shirts of such long length that look like mini dresses. These mini dresses are worn over tights or skinny jeans with flat shoes, a big belt and long costume necklaces (chunky pearl-like necklaces in all kinds of colours). I have started buying some of these items cuz they look neat but not all of them are flattering so I have to be selective. Of course I will never buy the skinny jeans and hope that fad ends real soon!

That's it for now. Looking forward to Syd's bday this weekend and the Rugby world cup final. England is playing South Africa. SA is a much stronger team and it will be a fight to the end. Check it out if you get it on your tellies! (tvs)

The new flat

So Astrid and I moved into the new flat on Sunday Sept 29th. Its small, but its cute -- and its all we really need. We've spent a few nights out in the 'back garden', which is a definite selling feature of this place. The flat is on the top floor of row house, which is the most common form of housing it seems. Its funny how back home living in a duplex or a 'townhouse' is considered not as nice as living in a 'freehold', but here the entire city is made up of these row houses, most of which were built from 1850 through the early 20th century. Apparently back in the day the row houses were actually 1 single house, meaning it would have been quite large. Landlords picked up on the money that could be made here and bought up these 'mansions', chopped them up into 5 or 6 flats, and rented/sold them individually. In our flat's case, you enter the main door and there is a hallway with some stairs -- one flat is entered from the lower floor, and 6 have entrances from the 2nd level. Upon entering our flat (on the 2nd floor), you immediately climb another set of stairs -- so our living/dinning area is actually on the 3rd floor (and our bedroom is on the 4th!). Its nice being on top though since you don't hear any neighbours.

Here is a view of our street and our flat. Moving left on the map from Kinsgate & Gascony, we are the 4th flat on the north side (there are 2 cars in front of our place, one black and one white). The darker of the two skylights (the one on the left) is our bedroom.

The backyard (which is 3 floors down from our flat!) has a nice little patio, a small garden shed w/ a leanto that houses a bench where you can sit. There is an area about 8' by 12' which is ready for some plants/vegetables to be planted this spring.

Although we're about 7 minutes from the West Hampstead tube, we're also only 2 minutes from High Kilburn street, which is quite urban with lots of shops. Its a "lower-class" area and kinda feels like Kensington market -- lots of ethnicity and cheap deals to be found. This past Saturday we checked out a couple nice local pubs -- The Black Lion is so far our favourite (it's got gorgeous ceilings that are quite high.)

In a few weeks, Astrid & I will be converting back to our entertaining and hosting ways -- Nyla is in town for 10 days at the end of October / early November -- a few weeks later Mag & Ce are visiting for American Thanksgiving. We can't wait be hosts within our new home :)

Blast From The Past

The weekend of October 5th we went up to Oxford for what turned out to be a mini reunion from my old days there. Andrew (Chalky) Chambers was in town -- his sister was married the previous weekend up in Inverness, Scotland. Alex and Sarah were back in town from their recent move up to Chester (North Western England, near the Wales border) and were also staying at Mark & Eloise's place.


Friday we got in around 10pm and met for drinks at the Honey Pot and had a late night dinner at the Opium Den (Mark's favourite chinese place). Saturday we watched some Rugby (Australia losing to England) in the afternoon and then watched New Zealand fall to Argentina in the evening (which was especially painful since we we watching it at Mark's place with his Kiwi neighbours Chris & Libby). The rugby (which involved lots of drinking) was followed by further drinking and dancing at good old Maxwells on the high street (wow those drinks were cheap there!). After closing that place at 2am, instead of doing the sensible thing and going home, the girls were keen to move onto our old favourite spot, The Purple Turtle until 3am.


Sunday was pretty chill as we watched Bond on Mark's sweet Sony LCD and we headed back to London. Overall and excellent weekend and great to catch up with the old crew.

A Castle in the Clouds

My trip back in time to the Old City of Edinburgh....

As a lover of the fantasy genre since I was a wee girl, you can imagine my excitement to be able to see a REAL castle! I had not seen pictures of Edinburgh castle so I didn't know what to expect, and when the bus rounded the corner into Edinburgh my eyes just widened in joy and surprise. I turned to Evelyn and said, "the castle, its in the clouds!" It was a sunny day with white clouds when we entered Edinburgh and from the base of the hill it really did look like it was in the clouds. SOOO awesome!
Of course I was itching to go up into it but Evelyn wanted us to have coffee and scones at Debenhams, which is a British department store. The interesting story about this particular Debenhams is that it used to be an old hotel, and both of her parents used to work there and actually met each other/fell in love at the hotel. Sweet. So to commemorate that occasion we went to the cafe at the top and had our coffees overlooking the princess gardens and the castle.
We then walked past this amazing monument on the main shopping street, Princes Street, that was dedicated to the writer Sir Walter Scott who popularized Scottish life in the 19th century with his many novels (i.e.Rob Roy).

The City of Edinburgh grew outwards from the Castle rock, and the first houses in Edinburgh were built on the area in front of Edinburgh Castle, which is now known as the Lawnmarket, and then the house building continued down the High Street and The Cannongate towards the Royal Palace of Holyrood House (which we visited the following day). These streets collectively form a single street known as The Royal Mile.

The Royal Mile acquired its name over the ages as Scottish and English kings, queens and royalty in general, have travelled to and fro between the Palace of Holyrood House and Edinburgh Castle - hence the name The Royal Mile. Walking up the cobblestone streets of the Royal Mile to the castle at the top of the hill was quite moving because the city just oozed history and stories waiting to be told! Case in point, there were multiple adverts for ghost tours that I instantly knew we had to check out later. I soon forgot about the ghost tours when I reached the top at the castle entrance and my eyes beheld these regal gates and scottish 'guards'.
We had audio guides to walk through the castle and learned so much history. Many of the castle rooms were still ornately decorated or had plaques telling interesting stories. There was a Scottish National War Memorial in the middle of the main courtyard that had sections devoted to every regiment of both world wars and a main vault containing names of the fallen. It was completed in 1997 and the detail that went into every window, fresco and vault was breathtaking and a great way to commemorate the lives of the fallen. No pictures were allowed inside so you will have to see this marvel for yourself.

After taking in the amazing views of the city from the top of the castle we checked out a tartan weaving mill that is a tourist shop where they have a working mill so people can understand how tartan is made. Very interesting, but very old and noisy machines!

We then went to an authentic scottish pub for dinner where I had a meat pie and Evelyn had Haggis, Neeps and Tatties (i.e. haggis, turnips and potatoes). We were filling our bellies to prepare for our spooky ghost, torture and terror tour put on by Auld Reekie tours. Ediburgh is full of these types of tours because of its popular witch-hunting history. Our tour included going into underground vaults where there is a current/active wicca temple. I took a picture of the temple (below), and then my camera battery instantly died, though prior to that it still had half-life. Seconds after my battery died the tour guide told us to turn off our digital device as the poltergeist in the next vault likes to steal electricity from digital devices...coincidence? Enough to freak us out a bit thats for sure. In the next vault it was pitch black and they spoke of a poltergeist that hates women so they kept us women all huddled together. Evelyn screamed when someone spooked us (below the belt tactic if you ask me). I love ghost tours though and thought that it was great fun. Evelyn on the other hand had had enough 'spooking' for a long time. ;o)

On our second day in Ediburgh we visited Holyrood house - the working palace where Elizabeth II stays when she visits Edinburgh. It was also the home of Mary Queen of Scots during her brief rule.
To end the day we met up with Lilian, Evelyn's oldest daughter and her lovely daughter Emily (15) for dinner. They drove in for 1.5 hours to meet up with us. They live at a beautiful house in the borders, which we hope to visit next summer with my parents.
The four of us went through an attraction called Mary King's Close, which was a series of closes (i.e. narrow pedestrian streets) that were built overtop by the Chamber of Commerce in the 1700s and thus are now underground and preserved in the same state that they were in the 1500/1600's during the time of Mary King (famous merchant who lived on that street). What made it really neat was that the series of streets were buried 8 stories underground and there were clothes hanging on clotheslines above your head and it was easy to picture what it would be like back then. The guide told us how different people lived, worked and died there. The more wealthy people were, the higher they were in the buildings to stay away from filth in the street. For you see, the streets were formed downhill so that patrons could chuck their daily 'waste' out onto the streets every night at 10 p.m and announce "Guardy Loo!". The waste would then trickle down into the lake at the bottom called the 'Nor Loch'. Very neat to learn of the crazy times before sewers were invented, I highly recommend it!

I was sad to leave this amazing city and can't wait to return soon. I think I could easily live in Scotland, it is so lush and interesting, steeped in so much history and with family to boot!

Sorry for such a long blog but I wanted to fit it all in. Stay tuned for more London posts. We are getting Internet service this week. yay!

Life in Fife

I spent the last week of September visiting my cousins in Dunfermline, Scotland, in the county of Fife. This is the birthplace of my father and it was very touching to be in the same place that he and my aunt and grandparents lived. After visiting only 2 cities in this proud nation, let me say that my eyes have been opened to the ingenuity and strength and history of the Scots, that I am now a very proud Scot myself!


Second, let me say that I am so honoured to have such sweet and caring cousins that accommodated me for the entire week and made me feel right at home. It is amazing to discover and enjoy a new family (yes, I really have long lost cousins) and I had the opportunity to get to know everyone in my brief stay.

What makes Dunfermline unique is the history that is evidenced by its downtown landmarks, most notably the Abbey. Dunfermline Abbey can trace its roots back to 1070. That was when King Malcolm III married Saint Margaret in a ceremony in a church at Dunfermline. She liked the place so much she decided to set up a religious community there, bringing in Benedictine monks from Canterbury to form its core. Malcolm III ruled from Dunfermline and it was the capital city before Edinburgh.

Robert the Bruce (King during the fourteenth century), known for leading the wars of Scottish independence with William Wallace (Braveheart), also inhabited the palace next to the Abbey and was buried beneath the Abbey's altar.


The Abbey turret also bears Robert the Bruce's name.


The Abbey was established as a true abbey in 1150 and served as a monastery and parish church. The stained glass windows in the Abbey were the most intricate and colourful windows that I have ever seen. The ceilings were so high and little Naomi liked the way that her voice echoed throughout the empty vast halls.

The remains of the palace beside the Abbey overlooked the glen and had an astonishing view. My dad remembers visiting the Abbey when he came at the age of 11 and I know he is very excited to revisit the memories and share them with mom.

Observations:

Apart from the obvious history, life in Dunfermline Town is much like anywhere else. It is 30 minutes by train across the Firth of Forth rail bridge into Edinburgh, therefore many people commute into the city.

There is currently a lot of expansion in the town including a massive car park and shopping mall to accommodate the expansion of Edinburgh commuters. There are many suburbs where there are rows upon rows of houses with backyard gardens and there is also a downtown section (called high street) for shopping. There are major 24 hr grocery stores (Asda) that are huge warehouses that not surprisingly are owned by Walmart.

Scotland climate is windy, rainy and cold! I can imagine what the highlands must feel like...brrr!

The scots love their meat. My cousin Emily is vegetarian but I don't know how she does it! On my very first breakfast, I came downstairs to find a plate of haggis, black (blood) pudding, ham, bacon and sausage...oh, and a potato scone. After I asked what everything was on my plate I did something very strange though. There was black current jam out on the table and I put it on my scone. They thought it was a weird Canadian thing, but I just love black currants! I thought it tasted pretty good. hee hee. It got a laugh anyway.