And she's back.

(gasping for breath)
I'm back! I've survived the most consecutive days I've ever worked (25 to be exact) and have resumed a normal life. Hurrah!

They were nice enough to give me a bonus day off last Friday, so I had a little mini spa day at Büty Salon, near my house. The treatments were wonderful but the facility itself could use a little updating. Nothing was un-hygenic but the floors looked kind of dingy and the walls were all marked up. Still, the massage and facial were fantastic and I fell asleep almost as soon as they dimmed the lights. In my new Zen-like state, I braved Oxford Circus and finally got a chance to enter Liberty's doors. I feel like an angelic chorus should sing when you walk in there. It's this gorgeous gothic castle-like building and inside, it's on the level of Barneys...at least. Yes, a lot of things are just ridiculously expensive, but I was able to find a reasonably priced gift or two and perhaps a very reasonably priced pair of shoes for myself. (hee hee)
Here are the shoes:

I would feel guilty about the shoe purchase, but seriously, it turns out that when you actually walk in your shoes everyday - as opposed to just driving and sitting in them like in LA - shoes actually wear out pretty quickly. Anyway, after Liberty, I roamed nearby Carnaby Street until it was time for my dinner date with the lovely h.lord. I got to see her new fab place of her very own, in north London near the Archway stop. She cooked me a delicious vegetarian dinner, which was especially generous since she was leaving for LA the next morning. Crazy girl. But it was so yummy and sooo good to see her and her new home.

Saturday I roamed around, got a haircut at Bloww from my stylist Sophie, who is French, straightforward and completely hilarious. She does a lot of work for photoshoots and some celebrity hair as well and while she won't name drop or disclose much, she always has great stories. And I think she's warming to me a bit (this was our second appointment). Then, lucky me, I got to see my cousin Monica who was in town for just a few days for business and was willing to brave the trip from Heathrow to downtown on a Saturday night. Of course for the meeting spot, I managed to pick the ONE STORE in Piccadilly Circus that has changed names since I've been here. I met Helen in front of Virgin Megastore in Piccadilly the first month I was here, but of course it's the one place that's changed (now a Zavvi) and that's where I'd told Monica to meet me. Luckily, she didn't give up and was extremely forgiving and it just proved to me how little I still know around London. When we did finally find each other, we had a great dinner at an Italian place just off Regent Street. It was wonderful to see her and catch up on her exciting family.

Sunday was a cleaning and taxes day, but I did meet up with a co-worker for lunch and a stop at a pub afterwards in a neighborhood in northwest London, West Hampstead/Finchley Road, which I hadn't been to before. The cafe was really cute and healthy-like and I can't remember the name for the life of me. I really liked the pub too, called The Gallery - it had a little balcony with sofas and then a lower level where they have bands and comedy. Sunday also started the most brutal weather we've had since I've been here. Monday morning was really the worst with high winds and sheets of rain...I was sopping wet just getting to the bus stop. But I guess I feel lucky that it's only been one day like that, instead of every day.

Now, the big news is that Mom and Dad arrived yesterday and I couldn't be more thrilled to have them here. We already scored big time with a fabulous dinner last night at Lucio in Chelsea. Unfortunately they don't have much of a website yet, so you'll just have to trust me when I say it was amazing and delicious. It was also a very "nice" meal, if you get my drift, so I won't be going there on a regular basis. But it was a fantastic dining experience all around and very nice to have something to celebrate (my parents) as an excuse for trying it out.

Tonight they're going to come to work and then we'll go down to Fulham together so they can see my flat and have dinner down there. I think during the day they're doing the Original London Bus Tour where you can hop on and hop off as many times as you like. I did it my first couple of weeks here, if you'll recall. =)

I'll try to come up with some pictures for my next post. I know how some of you hate all this reading business.

Quake

No, I didn't feel the earthquake this morning, although some of my co-workers did.

But great to know that no matter where I move, it's always a hotspot for quakes.

Mmmmexican

So, amazingly, I had Mexican food for dinner twice this week in London. I was having pretty brutal cravings for tacos, tostadas, enchiladas, anything more than chips and salsa...and after numerous discussions at work about it, I got invited to TWO different Mexican restaurants.

Both were delicious and way nicer than any Mexican I normally eat in LA. More along the lines of Sonora Cafe than El Compadre's dim lighting and flaming margaritas (which you know I love dearly).

Wednesday night I went to Wahaca - I know, I can't believe that's how they spell it either, but apparently they don't have faith in Londoners being able spell Oaxaca correctly when they google it or something. Anyway, they have regular entrees but then also have classic "market" food. I got the small soft tacos and tostadas that come two or three to an order. Yum! And the margaritas were delicious - and must have been pretty strong, since I was pretty tipsy turvy by the time I got on the tube. My only complaints were that there was no guacamole to order as a starter and the salsa came in these teeeny tiiiiny little bowls that were so shallow you couldn't even get your chip in there. But then we asked for more salsa and they brought us proper big bowls. Oh and they didn't have pitchers of margaritas on the menu - but we didn't ask, so maybe it's a possibility. Next time, I'll find out for sure.

Saturday night, a bunch of us went straight after work to Mexicali, in Notting Hill. This one was even more posh than the first place and LA kids please note, no relation to the one in Studio City. They even had a Wii upstairs in the lounge that you could play...next time. The best news - they had pitchers of all kinds of margaritas and proper messy nachos. However, I was the only girl at the table and had to fight with all the guys to get my share. I almost had to stab their hands with my fork to get some guac-y cheesy deliciousness. I had some tasty chicken enchiladas suizas - which is what I order about 50% of the time back home.

Both meals were pretty expensive, even with all the drinks factored in - each meal was about $50, but it was well worth it for finding yummy Mexican in London and for the delightful company I enjoyed both nights.

Thanks for your patience with the updates. And I'm always leaving straight after work, so I'll try to remember to start bringing my camera with me, so I can actually have some pics to post.

Also, just a little congratulatory shout out to the new parents I know this week. I can't wait to meet darling Maia when I get back to the west coast* and, hopefully if our paths cross again one day, baby Anna (who shares my brother's birthday).


*cue song: Coconut Records "West Coast"

Hi Ho Hi Ho

Sorry everyone, but it looks like I'll be working 7 day weeks until March, so there probably won't be a lot of updates in the next few weeks.

However, I promise if I do go anywhere other than my darkened office and my cozy flat, I will let you know.

V-Day

We all know how I like to plan things.

For Valentine's Day, I decided that instead of going home to an empty flat after work, I would try to organize my first social event and get a big group to go out to a pub after work. Of course I had ridiculous anxiety about sending out a massive email and how lame I would look if everyone was like "yeah, no, it's Valentine's Day, cool people have other plans." Or worse yet, if no one said anything and then it was just me by myself at the pub.

Thankfully all my anxiety was for naught and a big group of us had a fantastic time eating and drinking at the Stonemasons Arms, a lovely pub just down the street from work. We had a nice big table, everyone had a place to sit, the burgers were delish and the conversation was completely entertaining.

Also, my extremely on-the-ball boyfriend mailed a very sweet card to me here in London in plenty of time (I, on the other hand, had to enlist a friend's help in order to be timely) and we got to open our cards together while we Skyped. Aww, sickeningly cute, isn't it? =)

Note: Cards designed by the lovely and talented Melinda Farrar


And of course my longest running Valentines sent me some delicious treats from Lewis & Cooper. Thanks to Mom and Dad, I had chocolately ones to shared with my appreciative co-workers and the rest went home with me. And became my dinner on Friday. There's nothing like making yourself a gourmet cheese plate for dinner, with a bottle of wine, watching "Ab Fab". Ab fab, indeed! (And if any of you ever need to send a hamper to someone in the UK, I highly recommend Lewis & Cooper - it was lovely all around)

I know, I'll be on Lipitor before I know it,if I keep up with the dairy like I am. I'll get back to salads before long. I promise.

Hope you all had good Valentine's days too!

Post Script

p.s. Two quick notes...

No, I did not win the 95 million pound Euro Millions lottery this week...even though we did do a big office pool of tickets and gave it our best effort.

Also, there was a huge fire around Camden Market last night. I mention it because I noticed that it made the home page on cnn.com today and I didn't want anyone to worry. I was nowhere near it. A couple of my co-workers live nearby and said it was an enormous blaze, but they're both fine too.

Pub sit

Because I had to work on Saturday, by the time I joined up with the New Zealand day circle line pub crawl, they'd been drinking and crawling for about 5 hours. While still remarkably coherent, we ended up just staying at one pub for the duration. So I feel like I'm letting you all down by having done more of a pub sit than a crawl. But I tried! I also learned that Temple - the stop I met up with them at, is actually the last normal stop on the crawl, so there.

I knew I'd gotten off at the right tube stop when I came up the stairs and turned the corner outside to see a whole lot of public intoxication, puking, and peeing against walls. Ahh, massive drunkenness. But friendly drunkenness. The place closest to the tube, the Walkabout, was ridiculously busy with a line waiting to get in and masses of people stuffed inside. Thankfully - since I had no time for queuing, I needed to be drinking - that's not the pub I needed to find. Our pub, which I don't even know the name of and probably couldn't find again if you paid me, was pretty stuffed as well, but the crowd would come and go in waves. Remarkably we managed to secure a couple of stools and half a table in no time at all. I was really pleased with the amount of time it took to get a beer - I think I waited about 15 seconds at the bar. Fantastic. There were a lot of New Zealand shirts, particularly All Blacks rugby jerseys and another team jersey that was tan and dark brown. Did you know that the official color of New Zealand is black? Just black. So in addition to the All Blacks, their cricket team is called the Black Caps. So there were a lot of black jerseys running around. There were also some homemade NZ outfits (t shirts, bed sheets, jackets with big NZs painted on). And a few random guys in cow costumes. I didn't really talk to a lot of random Kiwis, mostly because I could really only hear the people sitting right next to me. The accents and slurring (not mine) probably didn't help. So we drank and drank and drank some more and then realized some food might be a good idea, so finally abandoned our lucky stools and had some amazing Thai food before I headed home. It was still only 10:30 by the time I got home, but I'd only been out since 5:30 and was totally exhausted. I can't imagine if I had started at noon. I'd have been a puddle somewhere near South Kensington.

Sorry I don't have any pictures to post. Since I went straight from work, I spaced bringing my camera. But basically imagine me in a crowded pub, surround by people in black and tan jerseys and the occasional cow costume, holding a pint of Speight's Distinction (which was delish!).

Holidazical

I don't have anything very England-y to write about today.
However, there do seem to be a lot of new holidays I'm learning about this week, so I thought I'd share some of them with you.

Two weeks ago: Australia Day - anyone Australian or friends with Australians gets ripped.

Yesterday: Shrove Tuesday, aka Pancake Day - everyone's supposed to eat pancakes in preparation for Lent. I don't fully understand the connection but it has something to do with getting rid of your eggs. (yesterday was also Mardi Gras/Carnivale, but I'm guessing you knew that)

Today: Waitangi Day, aka New Zealand Day - New Zealanders go out and drink heavily. This is followed up by a Circle Line Pub Crawl to be held this Saturday. I'm going to try to get myself invited along, despite being neither New Zealand-bred nor of a sufficiently high tolerance to hang out with New Zealanders.

Tomorrow: Chinese New Year. Again, not British or exclusively Chinese, but worth a mention. Maybe I'll go to Chinatown for dinner tomorrow night? Hmm, I'm guessing it might be a little busy.

The only other news I have is that I learned how to make a proper gin martini last night, which was pretty cool. I also saw "No Country for Old Men", which was not so cool, but I felt the same way about the book, so it wasn't a huge surprise.

24 hours in Paris

Bon soir mon amis!

I'm back from my brief visit to Paris. I'm so glad I did it, have a renewed desire to learn French (I honestly don't think I'll ever really love being alone in Paris until I can speak passable French), and am equally happy to be back in London.

Here's a slideshow of the highlights:

And now, the details.
Thanks again to all my friends responsible for the deluxe Eurostar trip to Paris. It was a very easy process to change the ticket to this weekend, the breakfast they served was fab and until we got to the first stop in Paris, there was only one other person in the whole car! Just a few months ago, they moved the Eurostar London station from Waterloo to St. Pancras/Kings Cross and the station is really lovely.

So, as soon as I got to Paris, I made my way to the Gare du Nord Metro station and had an easy two stop ride to St. Michel/Notre Dame, in the Latin Quarter to check in to my hotel.

I stayed at the Albe Hotel, which I found online and got good reviews. It was also really reasonably priced (109 euros for a single). I think it was reduced from the normal rate because they are renovating the elevator so you have to take the stairs. But since I was only there for one day, even though I was on the 5th floor I really didn't mind the stairs. And as you can see from the slideshow, I had a pretty great view of the Seine from my little balcony. If you walk out of the hotel and go 5 feet to your right, there's a view of Notre Dame, so that was a nice perk too.

Even though I had eaten a lovely b-fast on the train, by the time I got to the hotel and settled, I thought I could fit some more food in, so I went to this fantastic little crepe place my editor had recommended. It was just down the street from my hotel, adorable, delicious and I never would have found it if she hadn't told me about it. Creperie des Arts at 27 rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts in the 5th. They don't have a website but I took pics of my crepe and inside the restaurant in the slideshow. It was a mushroom and gruyere crepe with a dash of tomato sauce throw in - mmm.

After the crepe, I walked down the Seine to Musee d'Orsay, which I love for its huge collection of Impressionsits. Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, Degas, whoever you like. And I like them all. Chagall's "Le Cirque" in the post-impressionist gallery is also one of my favorites. Pointilism at its finest...in my opinion. They also have fantastic sculpture galleries and special exhibits, but I go for the impressionists. I also love the building which used to be the Gare d'Orsay - a train station, so it has a wonderful open airy feeling, and obviously still looks very much like a train station.

Post Orsay, I walked across the river and over to Musee de L'Orangerie, which is small by comparison but they house Monet's Waterlillies murals. I love sitting in the two circular galleries surrounded by the Waterlillies.

Have I mentioned what a beautiful day it was outside? Sunny, not a cloud in the sky and - considering it's winter - pretty warm out. I was thrilled because I was hoping to just spend the whole day walking around and that's exactly what I was able to do.

After finishing visits to my two favorite museums, I walked down the Champs d'Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. It was massively crowded and pretty unpleasant the closer I got to the arch. Also, there was some kind of demonstration about to happen as tons of older men holding French flags embroidered with WWII dates were lining up, along with a bunch of younger people in navy uniforms with red helmets. I never quite figured out what was going on.

Next stop, was my one effort at some shopping. I wanted to go to the Christian Louboutin home store, just to look. We all know I'm not buying at $1000 shoes, but I wanted to visit them in their homeland. They were supposed to stay open til 7pm but sadly, when I got there at 6, there was a note on the door that they had closed at 4pm. At least that's what I think it said. At any rate, it was closed.

So, a food reward was once again in order! This time to Angelina's (sadly, no website but it's on Rue de Ravoli facing Jardin de Tuileries) for some of their famous hot chocolate. A co-worker had told me about it and I knew I'd come to the right place when I got there and there was a line out the door. They have a full menu but everyone was there for the same thing. You get a small pitcher of liquid chocolate which is as thick as a melted chocolate bar (and we're not talking Hershey's), and a side dish of whipped cream. Combine both and drink up. So delicious!

My next two stops were less successful. I tried to go to Harry's Bar near the Opera. It looked awesome inside but it was super crowded and when I go to a bar by myself, if I can't get a seat, I don't stay. I'm awkward that way. So after walking around near the opera then back along the Louvre, past Notre Dame and into the Latin Quarter, it was time for another meal. I tried going to a couple of the hot spots in the Time Out Paris but I didn't have a booking and they were full. (Note: I did dress nicely for the evening so I don't think they were refusing me just because I looked like a scrubby American, but who knows) So I ended up just going to a bistro that looked decent and had onion soup on the menu. I don't even remember the name. But I know I had onion soup, coq au vin and chocolate mousse - so a pretty quintessential French meal, aside from the lack of frog's legs or snails. Everything was just ok, nothing earth shattering. Stopped and had a glass of wine at another place on the way back to the hotel and that was it. That was my Paris in a day.

The next time I go to Paris, I'm going to forget about trying to hit any tourist spots and just shop or walk around the gardens or drink in a cafe somewhere. Try to really understand living in Paris. But before that can happen, I will learn some French. I know I would be more comfortable there if I just felt like I could understand my surroundings a little better. No one was super mean or ignored me - aside from Angelina's, there was definitely a little distaste there - but when I'm traveling by myself I think I'd enjoy it more if I knew I could say a few words to absolutely anyone. All I know is I was really happy to come back to London today, just as happy as I felt about leaving for Paris. And if this job had gone to Paris for the second half instead of Canada, I think I would have been right not to consider it. It would have been a really rough adjustment and I'm not sure I would have been able to prepare enough. Like how I would have found time to learn a new language while working 60-70 hour weeks in London. This was a long one. Thanks for reading!!!

Two more things. A poster pic for Matt and Mike:


And a poster for my Dartmouth friends:


I'm thinking maybe France needs a little political correctness lesson.

Bo-ring

I'm boring. I've been trying to come up with something to post about but I've really just been working and adjusting to my new early shift this week.

On Tuesday we had movie night after work and watched "Juno", which I enjoyed much more than I expected to...I had been warned about it trying too hard or being overwritten and I think because I was expecting the worst, I was really pleasantly surprised. I'm sorry but the line "this is one doodle that can't be undid, homeslice" is pretty awesome, especially when delivered by Rainn Wilson.




In prepping for movie night, we were encouraged to bring beverages or extra snacks - they ordered pizza for us but we pitched in on everything else. So anyway, since I'm on the early shift now I had plenty of time to head over to Sainsbury's, the nearest grocery. I bought juice, a little thing of vodka, and some soda. What I did not realize was that the juice was actually "squash". Basically it's super concentrated sugar juice that you need to dilute 4:1. Of course I realized it when I tasted my first sip of the giant glass of cranberry juice I had poured myself. Blech. Later, I realized I should have put out a sign because one of the other Americans did the same thing I did. So that was my lesson on squash.

Also Sainsbury's related, I got my first grocery delivery Wednesday night. That's fantastic! I mean, in LA, I would just feel super lazy ordering groceries to my house. But it's a whole different story when it's about a mile to the nearest large supermarket and it's all being carried by the arms of yours truly. So I got all the heavy stuff delivered - beverages, canned goods, and some nice weighty produce - and maybe a few extras too. I mean, if I'm paying for the delivery why not toss in some pasta, rice and cereal too, right? Anyway, I'm not going to do it all the time but when I'm working long hours, it's a great resource. For the day by day stuff, the Tesco Express down the street is still the best.

So that's my boring news for tonight. Also, I'm definitely going to Paris this weekend. Can't wait! Will fill you in on all the details once I get back!