Wrapping Things Up

It's hard to believe it, but it's already time for us to start packing up to head back to Utah! Spencer's mom (Kaye), brother and his wife (Russ and Rachel), have been out to visit us since last Thursday, which has been really fun. It's also been a fun way for me to see all the sights one last time. Spencer's final day at Barclays is TOMORROW, and our visitors will be flying home on Saturday afternoon. We'll then whirlwind pack up and clean our flat to be ready to fly to Germany on Tuesday night. We will then spend the next 19 days visiting German Christmas markets and castles, skiing and sightseeing in Switzerland, and exploring Italy (I know, it's a rough Christmas break). We'll then be on a plane back to SLC on Tuesday, January 7th. 

Once we get home it'll be time to settle back into real life. Spencer has officially accepted a full time job as a Business Development Manager at a company called BeesPath after turning down a permanent job offer from Barclays. I know what you're all thinking, it seems crazy we would choose to leave London when we had the chance to stay!  It did take some serious back and forth talking and thinking to decide what we wanted to do. On the one hand, we have loved our once in a lifetime experiences here. We have loved the culture with the food, the sights, the accents, the endless adventures, our ward, as well as the simple things like reading the Metro newspaper on the Underground and eating Chinese food in Chinatown. Plus, there are still so many things we'd love to do. But on the other hand, our lives have felt like they were on pause the entire time we were here.  I'd like to be able to work again (anyone know of a good nursing job in Cache Valley or the Wasatch Front?), and we know we'd like to build our lives and eventually start a family closer to home. I think we'll miss London even more than we realize right now (like a lot!), but we're excited to see our friends and family, drive a car to the grocery store, and not feel like we've smoked a whole pack of cigarettes while walking down the pavement. 

There are so many things I've never blogged about, including Barcelona and my mom's trip to London. Hopefully I'll get to those at some point, at least for my own "journal" purposes, but for now here are a few more shots from  our final days in London.

Don't mind my oober attractive tennis shoes with a skirt.  I know, I'm stylish.  Comfort trumps beauty. 

In case our future children are wondering, yes, we are in charge ;)

The London Temple

The whole gang at Kensington Palace

How many hours of my life have been spent sitting at a bus stop? Far too many.

Obligatory bagpipe man picture.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...don't taste very good.

Warwick Castle at Christmas Time

St. Paul's and Millennial Bridge

Outdoor ice skating at Canary Wharf

One of my favorite parts of London has been the West End shows.  Les Miserables, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wicked,  Mamma Mia, and The Lion King.  Les Mis was definitely our favorite, but they've all been beyond fantastic!

Christmas Time in London Town

A few weeks ago, we met John and Christin Whitton, and their two kids.  John and Christin moved to London about 2 months ago from New Mexico.  We met them at church and bonded over our shared experiences of moving from the U.S. to England.  Last week Christin called and invited us to do Thanksgiving dinner with them, so we could all celebrate together since we're so far from family.  Poor Spencer had to go to work just like any other day, and I went to their "cottage" (that's what they call a two-story town house here) early in the afternoon to help with preparations.  We spent the whole afternoon making our full Thanksgiving dinner of potatoes, turkey (turkey breasts that is, we didn't cook a whole turkey, the ovens here are tiny), stuffing, rolls, salad, and pies while chatting away.  By 6, the guys got home and we ate our delicious meal and pies, then spent the evening talking. It's really bad timing that we've finally made some good friends right before we have to head home!  We're definitely going to miss them, and their two adorable kids!

So, here's something you should know about me, I LOVE Christmas. I start listening to Christmas music on November 1st, I think Black Friday is just as awesome as Thanksgiving, and I become completely giddy when I see Christmas decorations popping up.  I love the traditions, family parties, food (have you had my mom's fudge??), decorations, shopping...let's just say, I love everything about it.  So, when I saw the adverts for Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, I knew we had to check it out.  It was a-ma-zing.  They had a full Christmas market styled after the German Christmas markets, yummy food in every direction, live bands, and the most amazing fair rides I've ever seen.  It was as if they'd built Lagoon in the middle of the park over night.  We first visited the Winter Wonderland last Saturday, but we didn't have the camera.  So, we went back on Friday night to take pictures, ride the Blizzard, to further explore the market stands, and eat more dutch pancakes.

 I loved these Dutch Pancakes.  The first time we had them, I declared them to be the best food we've had in Europe.  It may have been a little bit of an over exaggeration, but they were delicious!

Hand-cut decor

Wooden toys 

It wouldn't be an English festival without Fish & Chips

They also had ice skating in the center of the Wonderland.

The "Blizzard" was about as tall as The Rocket at Lagoon and spun around like hands on a clock.  One of the highlights of the ride was dangling at the top while they loaded the people on the bottom and looking around at London lit at night.  I forgot how much I love amusement park rides! 

One of the live bands playing 70's hits

They have awesome window displays in the department stores here!

Picadilly Circus and the Eros statue.  Normally it's just a single statue, but they made it a snowglobe for the Christmas season.

The Luck of the Irish

After living in London for 3 months, the number one thing we've learned is that it always, ALWAYS takes longer to get somewhere than you plan.  Always. Even if you think you're giving yourself a healthy amount of buffer time, you will still find yourself running through a train station like a crazy person at some point during the journey (or find yourself waiting for the train for an hour because you gave yourself way too much buffer time).

On Thursday night, we were right on schedule, waiting to catch a bus to the Stansted airport, where we'd catch our plane to Dublin. According to schedule we were going to have a full two hours at the airport before boarding began, and were feeling pretty smug. Then, a bus pulled up and the driver told us that due to traffic, the buses were way behind, and if you were catching a plane tonight, you should probably ride the train. Dang! So we ran to the ticket office where we purchased train tickets to get to the airport, but we wouldn’t arrive until 20 minutes before our gate closed! After purchasing tickets, we had to catch the Tube to the correct train station, catch a train to the airport, check-in at the desk with our passports, make it through security, then find our terminal. When we got to the airport we ran around like maniacs and made it in time, hallelujah! 

Of course, we hadn't had enough trouble for one night, so we got to the airport, pulled out a map, and began walking to our hotel. After about 20 minutes, it became apparent that the map to our hotel didn't do the distance justice and we weren’t quite sure we were walking the right direction. So, we hauled our stuff back to the airport and caught a cab. Then the cab driver got lost finding our hotel, which ran our bill up an extra couple Euros (can I just say I don't know how people afford to take cabs??). So much for being prepared right?

Don’t worry, that’s not all.  We had rented a car for the 4-day weekend, but decided to opt out on the GPS because that would save us money, and we had a map... (Keep in mind, our phones don’t work without Wi-Fi, so we were doing this the old fashioned way with a big paper map).  We left Dublin after spending Friday morning at Trinity College, and got on the wrong motorway (freeway). Rather than turning around to get on the right road, I suggested we take a little country road that would connect us to the correct motorway.  Well, that tacked on about 2 hours of additional driving, with lots of U-turns and “Are you sure”s from Spencer.  On the plus side, the countryside was beautiful!  Finally, we made it to Limmerick where we’d be spending the night…and we could not find our hotel.  Finally, we stopped at a gas station where an incredibly friendly manager pulled out a more detailed map and showed us the way.  Phew!

Look at those gorgeous fall colors!  Notice I'm sitting on the left side of the car as the passenger??

Above right and left: The Long Room library at Trinity College was gorgeous.  The books are not organized by topic or author, but by size so that it is more aesthetically pleasing!

The good news is we didn’t spend much time lost after that.  I got better at reading the map (actually I was pretty dang good by the time we left), and we learned to stay on the bigger highway roads rather than blazing off onto the country roads for a “short cut”.  The moral of the story is, if you’re going to a country you don’t know, spend the extra money and get a GPS!

Every time we saw sheep on the road, I tried to take pictures, but they would run away!

 One of the highlights of our trip was climbing around on these castle ruins.

Sometimes it was so cold, I sat in the car to enjoy the views...

So cold!

Aside from the woes of travel, our time in Ireland was fantastic!  Yes, it rained for about 36 hours straight, but something has to keep the place looking so green!  We spent Saturday driving around The Ring of Kerry and Sunday driving The Dingle Peninsulas looking at all the scenery. On our last day, Monday, we visited the Cliffs of Moher and got to enjoy a little bit of sunshine before we made the 3 hour trek across Ireland back to Dublin.  (As a side note, if anyone is ever planning to go to Ireland, we loved the West Coast where we spent most of our time.  Dublin is on the East Coast, but we found we weren’t that interested in the city because most people go to Dublin to drink.  So, if you aren’t interested in Dublin, you should just fly into one of the airports on the west coast and buy yourself some more time!)  

Everyone in Ireland paints their house or shop in these bright, fun colors!  I loved it!!!

Eating like cheapskates!  Leftover cold pizza and PB&J made in the car for lunch! Mmmmm

The Cliffs of Moher

See that cute boy I'm hugging?  He's a trooper!  Our rental car was a manual and I'm not very proficient at stick shift...on top of that we had to drive on the "wrong" side of the road and the "wrong" side of the car, it cost extra to add me as a second driver, and I forgot my drivers license!  So, Spencer drove every foot of our 1391.1 kilometer journey over the 4 days!  Gosh I love this kid!