Happy Thanksgiving

Hi everyone! Happy Thanksgiving! As it turns out, much like Fourth of July, (and in my opinion Halloween), the Brits shockingly do not celebrate Thanksgiving. And even though all the top people on my project are Americans, I will be working about 80 hours this Thanksgiving week. Oh well, maybe we'll get to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving next year.

However, I do have a wonderful visitor coming to spend the weekend here, so I'm pretty excited about that. Matt's making the long flight and coming over from today til Monday. We haven't seen each other since April (aside from skype-view) so it's really wonderful that he's coming over for a visit.

Many thanks on this turkey day (in my case, it'll probably be rotisserie-chicken day) to my very supportive family and friends back home, who I miss terribly but and for whom I am eternally grateful. Also a whole slew of thanks for the amazing friends I've met this year...it would have been a cold, wet, grey year in England without all of you brightening up my life. I'm a lucky girl and I'm thankful for all of it.

xoxo

p.s. I am actually trying to cook a thanksgiving meal - sans turkey - will let you know how it goes. I've got two dishes cooking right now at 7am before I go to work.

Official

I have my "official" moving date - I'll be flying to start another new life, in Toronto this time, on January 31st. Should be nice to catch it in the middle of winter - really get the worst of it out of the way.

So if any of you were thinking of visiting London, that's your last call.

As one of my nearest and dearest pointed out, that date could still change a million times. But as of now, they'll have to put me up somewhere if they push it back because I have to give my flat manager 2 months notice next week.

In miss/not news...

I'll miss lunch with my two buddies, especially the one who always checks in with me even when I'm clearly not goin' anywhere.

I will not miss lunch at my desk in my little office.

Don't get me wrong, I think there will be many more desk lunches in the next year and a half, but at least it'll have a different view.

Miss & Not so Much, day 2

I will miss random cheesy English dramas (Brittania High, The Palace) I easily get addicted to.
I will not miss 24 hours-a-day of CSI, Numbers and House.

I will miss Orange Wednesdays and meal offers from lastminute.com, TimeOut and TopTable.
I will not miss not getting to take advantage of any of them because I'm working late or don't have anyone to go with. (wah wah poor me, i know)

I will miss my Oyster card.
I will not miss coins that are worth each worth $4 American (but now only $3, thanks to the "credit crunch").


Also, I will try to stop ending so many sentences with prepositions.

Miss & Not so Much

Since I clearly can't be counted on to write regularly and significantly, let alone with photographic evidence, I'm going to try just for the first one.

And so begins my series of Things I Will Miss & Things I Will Not when I leave Londontown...

I will miss walking to work, or at worst, taking a double-decker bus
I will not miss walking through the Hammersmith Bus Station on my way there (not dangerous just ridiculously crowded and chaotic)

I will miss Sundrica's soups
I will not miss M&S mini chicken fillets (at least for the first 3 months)

I will miss ichatting with my work friends
I will not miss fretting that others are ichatting about me (paranoid much?)

I will miss Tuesday Tipple.
I will not miss Wednesday headache.
(Although I really hope that we will bring Tuesday Tipple with us to Toronto)

more to follow...