Weekend update

I'm sitting here in the early hours of the morning watching the Olympics and waiting for my cousin to compete. Wish I was in Vancouver with the rest of the family, if only to make it so the figure skating was in the afternoon rather than at 3am! But since I'm trying to stay awake I thought I'd share a few things with you.

I am starting to get the hang of the Indian Railways website. Once you get going it's actually quite straight-forward. It's amazing to me that you can travel for 12 hours overnight on a train (with a bed), therefore saving the cost of a night's accommodation, for the cost of a pizza here in London. Our rough itinerary is starting to come together, and it is looking pretty likely that Noise and I will spend our wedding anniversary this year in Agra at the Taj Mahal. Can't ask for much more romantic than that!

Last night we went to see Megan Mullally perform. If there is anyone out there reading this who doesn't know who she is, she is best known as Karen on Will & Grace. However, she has had a lengthy career on Broadway and is a wonderful singer. We thoroughly enjoyed the show, which was mainly bluesy and almost bluegrassy. Interestingly, it had not occurred to us that we would not be the main demographic group being catered to, but we felt distinctly out of place as one of the few heterosexual couples there. I don't know if it's the Will & Grace link, or just the type of show in general? I will say that it was a real pleasure, for the first time that I can remember in my life, to go to the bathroom at intermission and find it EMPTY. I almost didn't bother because I didn't want to wait in the queue. I guess being one of only a few women in the audience has its perks. :)

Today we went to see Invictus, at the new cinema at Westfield. The best part was the huge amount of legroom. Ok, the movie was pretty good too. :) An interesting look at the politics of South Africa and entertaining as well!

Not much else to comment on tonight, and it's too late for me to be very clever, so I'll leave you now and watch some skating! Cheerio!

Lots of news...

Where to begin? I know I have not been a very good blogger lately, but I do have a bit of an excuse! For the past few months our thoughts and discussions have been pretty consumed by one topic - where to live when we return to Canada - and I didn't want to make all of you have to listen to the endless talks, and back and forth, until a decision had been made. It was bad enough that I made my friend A hear it every day! Anyway, it's all settled now so I can update you all on the plans.

But first, the second distraction - our threesome has become two. We've lost a member of our team. Two weeks ago now, we lost our beloved Buggy. I won't get into details, and most of you already know what happened, but it was sudden and a shock, but he didn't have to suffer for very long and we were able to say our goodbyes and hold him in our arms when he died. It has been absolutely devastating for both of us, Buggy was everything to us and we miss him desperately. He was the best friend, a constant companion, and endlessly entertaining. We will never forget him.

But every day gets a little bit easier. While we can't move on, we need to move forward. And here I come to the plans for our return home! A much happier topic. :)

After much debate and discussion, Noise and I have made the decision to relocate to Toronto. As I say, it took months to make this decision, so I will not bore you with all the factors. But we are very excited about Toronto, and a bit scared as well. We're hoping that if we handled London we can handle Toronto, but that remains to be seen. The biggest factor at the end of the day was that Noise was being offered an excellent opportunity with his firm at the Toronto office, and the job opportunities in Ottawa were not as promising in terms of career advancement. We are hoping to be able to enjoy some of the cultural and entertainment experiences offered in Toronto. In particular, we are keen Leafs fans and Jays fans, so we're looking forward to the chance to see some live action. The Jays in particular are fun, because you can rock up to the Skydome (sorry, Rogers Centre - stupid name) for an afternoon game and buy tickets on the spot. I am also hoping to be able to get out to Wonderland once or twice a summer as well. I do think that Toronto is not as good for outdoorsy sports as Ottawa - but at least it has lovely beaches and places to swim! Our biggest problem is that neither of us knows Toronto that well and we're not sure where to live! But we didn't know Ottawa that well when we moved there either, and we had no idea about London!!! So we'll sort it out. Certainly we'll rent for awhile until we figure out where we really want to live - be it more downtown like Yonge and Eglinton, suburbia either east or west, or north of the city in Richmond Hill or somewhere. I have lots of friends in the Toronto area, and they have all made suggestions to help us out.

We are very sad to not be returning to Ottawa and the friends we left behind there. It is my greatest wish that we will be able to maintain those friendships as they mean the world to us. On a brighter note, though, both Noise and my best friends live just outside Toronto (one east and one west) and we are excited to be able to visit with them more.

So it is with mixed emotions that we make this move, but the overwhelming feeling is one of excitement and anticipation. And if we hate it there is nothing to make us stay! It's our country, we can go where we want!

The timing has only been hammered out last week. We will both be finishing work here at the end of May, and are planning to be leaving London around the first of June. Our plans include 6 or 7 weeks traveling through Asia before we arrive in Toronto mid-to-late July. Noise begins work in Toronto on August 30th, so we should have a month to sort out various things like somewhere to live, buying a car, reclaiming our Ontario drivers' licenses, etc. We're hoping to spend most of that time in Gananoque with our families. We've missed them very much.

Now we're into the thick of planning the trip through Asia on the way home. Our itinerary has varied widely, but now I think we have come up with the basic outline. We're looking to concentrate on 4 countries, rather than peek into a lot but not really see them. Our plans include India (Delhi and the Taj Mahal, Mumbai), Thailand (the beaches of Phuket and Koh Phi Phi, the jungle of Chiang Mai, Bangkok), Vietnam (Saigon, the beaches of Nha Trang and Hoi An, Hanoi and a boat trip on Halong Bay), and China (Shanghai, the terracotta warriors in Xian, and Beijing and the Great Wall). Then we plan to fly from Beijing to Toronto. It promises to be amazing, although I think after 6 weeks in Asia we will be happy to get home and see a Tim Hortons on every corner!

So that's what's been happening with us, and why I've been so slow to post any updates. There have been lots of little things as well, which were overshadowed by events (particularly by Buggy's death). We've just spent 3 days skiing in the French Alps last week. The trip was already booked and paid for and we were due to leave the day after Buggy died. We decided to go ahead and found it to be a very good distraction in the first few days of grief. We stayed in La Tania and skiied into Courchevel most days and the skiing was amazing. Also trying to concentrate on not killing myself was a good distraction from thinking about Buggy. :)

We've got a couple of events coming up as well. We were walking down the Strand on the weekend and saw advertisements for a show by Megan Mullally so we stopped in and bought tickets for this Saturday. Also we bought tickets ages ago for a concert by Julie Andrews - her first since her botched throat surgery - in May at the O2 which it looks like we will be able to go to after all. There was some question of whether we would leave here May 1st but now we're going to stay until June. We also still want to get to Amsterdam for a weekend, which we'll probably try to do in March, and I've got a girls' weekend coming up in Lanzarote, Canary Islands, in the middle of March. I'm planning to attend Crufts dog show (the British equivalent of Westminster in New York) with my friend A in March - we're going to watch one of our clients, a beagle breeder, while she shows the boys. And if we've got any other time left over there's still a lot of England that we haven't seen! We are now (sadly) able to up and go on a whim some weekend, instead of needing to arrange boarding for Buggy, or find a pet-friendly hotel, and book a car to take him. So perhaps we'll take a few weekends away.

First and foremost in my mind at the moment, though, is the Olympics!!! We get 24/7 coverage on Eurosport, although of course most of the events happen in the middle of the night here. :) The beauty of it, too, is that Eurosport is completely unbiased. They show all the competitors and they don't cheer for anyone (except the Brits but there aren't that many of them!) It's fantastic. Next week I have taken some days off (I had holidays to use up) and plan to watch all the ice dancing live. Gotta provide family support! Even though the rest of the fam is actually attending the Olympics, I will provide the UK support. Go T&B!! Thanks to friends and family at home, we have our red mittens and wear them and wave at the tv (ok, that's mainly me) when the Canadians are competing. And on Saturday we stopped by Trafalgar Square where there were Olympic celebrations going on and someone asked us where we got our mitts and could they buy them somewhere nearby. We had to dash his hopes and tell him that they had been sent to us from Canada (not to mention that for months they were impossible to find!)

So there you go. You are up to date and I can stop feeling guilty that I haven't posted a blog entry. Now that things are starting to be in motion for the move home, I will try to keep you updated as things happen.

Go Canada Go!!!

What a difference a few days makes!

Here is Arlington Row in Bibury when we were there this weekend...

... And here it is today.

We've been hit with a blizzard here in the UK, and travel is a bit of a challenge. Today my work closed early in order for us all to get home safely. Trains are few and far between but I was lucky and arrived at the station just as one was coming through. Buggy is excited! He loves snow!

Welcome 2010!

Well, Christmas has come and gone, and another visit from the PetParents has ended. We had a lovely quiet Christmas, just Noise and Buggy and me. For dinner we went to our friends' house where we were fed a delicious meal of turkey, gammon, stuffing, vegetables, roasted potatoes, and gravy. Yummy! Noise spoiled me as usual on Christmas, although I like to think that he got a few nice things as well. :) We had several skype conversations with our families at home, although that certainly doesn't make up for not being there with them.

On Boxing Day we went to New Bond Street to exchange one of my Christmas presents (a Louis Vuitton wallet, needed to exchange for a different style), and discovered that apparently Boxing Day is the day when all the Asian tourists descend on the designer shops in London. We lined up outside the store for about 45 minutes to get in, then it was another half-hour or so before we were able to complete the exchange. We were the only caucasion people in the entire store! And the only ones not also carrying shopping bags from Gucci and D&G and Burberry. But it was worth it to get the exchange done and start using my lovely new wallet!!

The next day the PetParents arrived. Noise and I met them at Heathrow; they were only an hour late which wasn't too bad considering they were 2 hours late leaving Ottawa. You know, freezing rain, de-icing, and so on. We had a second Christmas then, as the PetParents had brought over presents for us from everyone at home. Thanks again, everyone!

We had a nice couple of days in London, visited the Tate Modern, walked around Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park, visited the Victoria and Albert Museum, ate home-cooked bangers and mash, and so on.

Then on New Year's Eve we headed out to the Cotswolds for 3 days. We stayed at the Lamb Inn in Great Rissington for 2 nights, including a lovely New Year's Eve dinner and party. And we spent time driving around the Romantic Road, visiting all the pretty little villages and towns of the Cotswolds. A great time was had by all, and we were lucky to have 2 days of sunshine despite the cold (for England) temperatures.

We returned to London on Saturday and delivered the PetParents back to Heathrow on Sunday, and thus ends another Christmas holidays. But it was relaxing and quiet and leaves us all with great memories.

And amidst all that I got the news that one of my best friends got engaged on New Year's Eve! Congratulations K! Can't wait to hear about all the plans and details.

But... at the moment there is nothing specific planned to look forward to, so I need to turn my attention to the next trip. We're looking at skiing in the 3 valleys in the French Alps next month. And that should keep me occupied for a little while at least. :)

Wiener Christkindlmarkt!

So there does appear to be a bit of a difference between the German and the Austrian Christmas markets. The general idea is the same, the wooden huts and lights and Christmas trees, selling edible treats, gluhwein, heisse shokolade (hot chocolate) and Christmas trinkets. But then there are some differences as well - most notably the addition of a Christmas Punsch as well as the gluhwein. In a variety of flavours. Which we discovered varied from delicious warm orange and tropical flavours to something which tasted very reminiscent of liquid Ricola cough drops. (The last one ended up in the rubbish bin after a couple of sips!)

There were some new foods for us to try as well. Our favourites were the langos (large flat fried bread with garlic flavour), and the kartoffelpuffers which were basically big hash browns. Noise was also particularly enamoured with the hot dogs shoved down inside a baguette with a lid on them.

The market closest to our hotel was the big one at City Hall at Rathausplatz. It was from here that we got our souvenir mugs this year, a nice complement to our Gendarmenmarkt mugs from Berlin.

We arrived at Vienna airport and easily found our way to the S-bahn to get into the city. When we arrived at the platform there was a train waiting to go, so we rushed to the machine to buy tickets. Which was slower than you would expect since we were trying to use all the euro coins that the Singer and Serdic had left with us. The Viennese subway system was well laid-out and user-friendly. It's a nice 24 minute ride into the city centre from the airport.

Our first day we decided to get an overview of the city and followed Rick's walking tour. We saw all the major sights - the Hofburg Palace, New Palace, St Stephen's Cathedral, and the Vienna Opera House, as well as some smaller sights as well. Just beyond the Hofburg Palace there was a courtyard set back from the street and I wondered what some of the people were looking at - lo and behold it was the Lipizzaner stallions in their stables! Very exciting. We stopped into the Sacher Hotel to try out the famous Original Sacher Torte (chocolate cake layered with apricot jam and a dark chocolate coating... yummy!) We also had a look around inside St Stephen's Cathedral, a very gothic building and very dark on the inside. It is interesting because it has a north and south tower but the north tower is only half the height of the south because they ran out of money when building it. They say the cathedral helped put Vienna on the map as a major city in its time.

One of the nicest things about Vienna is its size - everything is easily reached on foot. The only time we needed public transport was to and from the airport and to visit Schonbrunn Palace. We went out there one afternoon to check out the Christmas market and discovered they had apfel gluhwein - like warm apple cider with dried apples floating in it. Sooooo yummy! I had two. :)

Probably the highlight of the trip for me was attending the performance of the Lipizzaner stallions at the Spanish Riding School. Dressage at its best! Growing up as a horse-lover it was always a dream for me to see these beautiful animals, and I was thrilled to get the chance. The show was about an hour and consisted of several parts - the first section was a showcase of four of the young stallions who are just starting out their training. They were all around 3-5 years old and it was cute to watch them. Of course any of them would ace a basic dressage test, but some of them were acting up a bit and it was just obvious that they weren't as polished as the older stallions. We then saw some of the older stallions through their paces, and then they did some work on the long reins and on the ground - the schools above the ground where they do the levante and the caprioles. This is probably the most exciting bit for the non-riders in the audience. Next the chief rider did a solo routine on his chief horse - one-handed - which was fabulous, and then they did an 8-horse exercise which was incredible. Even just being inside the building was a treat for me!

We also attended a concert by the famous Vienna Boys Choir, although to be honest we were a bit disappointed in this. It all just felt a bit amateurish, kind of like when I was in the church junior choir growing up. Not what we expected from a world famous boys' choir. But for 5 euros we couldn't really complain too much!

We had a restaurant dinner on our first night (and after that just ate at the markets) and chose to eat at Figlmuller, famous for its Wiener schnitzel. SO DELICIOUS! Ok, and the truth is we had Wiener schnitzel again on our last day for lunch. :) Because it's just that yummy. And who knows when we'll be in Wien again.

Those are the highlights! We did do a bit of shopping, and finally bought ourselves the creche we've been looking for for a couple of years. Now every year when we decorate for Christmas and set up our creche we will think of Vienna.

Now we need to plan the next trip - we're thinking skiing in France in February. But we'll see how it goes.

What are the odds...???

So I had this random occurrence of happenstance several months ago, which at the time I was very moved by it and almost rushed home to spread my dumbfounded pleasure. I had crafted the perfect entry, which was going to shatter all previous records of wit, intrigue and enjoyable reading. But it was first thing in the morning on my way to work, and by the end of the day I had lost interest.

Then along came this week...

SPOILER ALERT - this may only be interesting to me, so you can stop reading now...

As background, my route to work involves a train to Waterloo and then a bus (either the 26 or 76) to Ludgate Circus. For those of you not familiar with London terminology, I am not any sort of lion tamer or side show freak, though that could be up for debate - it basically means the intersection at Farringdon Road and Fleet Street on one side and Ludgate Hill on the other.

A week or so ago, for no particular reason, I noticed this dude come off the bus and start to head in the direction I was going. I basically followed him (because he was heading the same way) all the way to my office, and then in the front door. Turns out he works here. How interesting, but I guess that happens.

Then along came this week...(did I already say that?).

In a nutshell, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I saw this same dude come off my bus and head to "our" office...and not only that, but 2 of those days, I saw him getting ON to the bus at Waterloo....now that's crazy!! What are the odds of the that?

I have no idea what his route is, but somehow it converges with mine at just the right time that we are both waiting patiently in the queue at Waterloo for the same 26 or 76...


Oh yeah, that random bit of "what are the odds?" from before:

A while ago (when living in Fulham and taking the tube to work), I noticed another person getting on the tube - I think he had a really weird scarf or something. We both got on the same carriage of the District Line at Baron's Court and got off at Westminster. At that point I lost track of him in the cluster of enjoyment that is the scramble to the Jubilee Line in the morning rush. I carried on my merry way...got to work and noticed the same said man get on to the lift (read: elevator) at the office building I was working in!

Apparently he got on the same tube as me, got off at the same stop, got on the other same tube as me, got off at the same stop, walked to the same office tower as me and got into the same lift as me....fortunately he got off a different floor. Otherwise I would think I was having an out of body experience!!!!

What are the odds of that....?

Much to do!

Since we returned from our lovely trip to the homeland we have been busy bees creating our social calendar for the next two months! We were already planning a Christmas party in early December, but now we're completely booked up from late November through New Year's!

First up is a Christmas market trip to Vienna the last weekend in November. Three nights of Christmas lights, hot chocolate, gluhwein, and whatever other yummy treats they serve at the Vienna markets! And last night I booked tickets to see the Lipizzaner stallions perform at the Spanish Riding School - childhood dream number one coming up!

We've also booked tickets to go skating at Somerset House again this year - last year was great fun but here's hoping that it doesn't rain this time! And we're attending a concert at Royal Albert Hall on December 20th entitled White Christmas - a choral and orchestral concert of Christmas favourites. That should kick off the Christmas week!

We're planning a quiet Christmas Day, hoping to not get out of our pjs until dinner time, then dinner at a friend's. The PetParents are arriving the day after Boxing Day for a week, and we've got big plans for New Year's. Two nights at a country inn in the Cotswolds with the PetParents and Buggy, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Now we need to start planning beyond New Year's! We're thinking ski trip to the French Alps, weekend in Amsterdam, south of France? ... other thoughts?