The House Husbands Guide to Becoming a Londoner

Before I begin let me apologize for the not writing anything in a while, but I have a good excuse. So, I was trying to make some sweet and sour pork for dinner and I had my laptop on the counter for both music and the recipe when a cooking tragedy occurred. Reaching up to get something from the cupboard I knocked over a bottle of soy sauce onto my laptop. Now, it was sealed and closed so there is no liquid expelled to damage it that way, however, it did impact directly with the hard drive and since my windows disks are in Canada, my computer will be down until at least the wedding. Further proof, I should not be allowed in a kitchen. But onwards and outwards. 

To become a Londoner, I have learnt that there are man things that you need to do. I thought that for my latest story I would write about two of the steps that I took to becoming a Londoner in the past month or so, and no for the people like Peaches that have been hoping, it was not to develop an English accent. I'll work on it but I make no promises on that one. 

The first step was on valentines day where me and Rebecca decided that seeing a west end musical was a key thing that needed to be done. Seeing that it was my first west end musical, and Rebecca had seen countless musicals,  Rebecca let me choose the one that I wanted to see. Such a poor decision. There were so many choices, I mean should I pick a classic musical like Phantom of the Opera or Les Miserable? Maybe I should choose one of the newer ones out there like The Lion King or We Will Rock You, you know something that Rebecca hasn't seen yet. No, it was clear to me what we should go see. I mean it was valentines day and it really should be a musical that is upbeat and with some kind of love story, right? The choice was clear as I said, we needed to go see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Nothing says Valentines day like Australian drag queens and since I figured that I loved the movie, I would like the show. You know the more I think about it I may have an unnatural fascination with drag queens, but I think that I will leave that for a different day. As for the show, it was ridiculous, over the top, and borderline obscene. It was perfect. I mean it couldn't have been better, it even included the giant an operatic song sung from queen lounging in a giant shoe. 

We weren't allowed to take photo's but Google had this one by Tristram Kenton

I would have to say that the first musical that I went to see was a great success. At this point we haven't decided what to go see next, but I'm sure that Rebecca will get to pick, even if she was laughing and having a good time at Priscilla too. 

The second agenda item was that I was suppose to go see a football match here in London, and from what I have learnt from the various people that I have talked to, you can become a fan of one of the big clubs, like Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, or Liverpool like I am, but that isn't as much fun as following one of the smaller teams.  Also, I have found out that most of the family that I am marrying into are supporters of the local team in Watford. So I was invited to go see a Watford game. We ended up going from the near furthest southeast of London, where Rebecca and I live, all the way to the most northwest to see the match. At this point we have no idea who Watford is playing, but we figure it should be a good time. Once there we get told that the team they are facing is a dirty evil team that are a bunch of no good hooligans from Millwall. Wait a second, why do I know the name Millwall, trusty google phone don't let me down.... That's why I know Millwall, they would be the home team where I live in the south east of London. Shit... So, do I go with the family, who at this point I've realized are quite passionate about this, or my home team... Well, in Arizona I didn't cheer for a single Arizona team, so I guess it's really not new for me to be living in a place where I am not a supporter of the local team. Watford it is! 

Ticket for the Watford - Millwall game

Lets go back one second. Remember how I was saying that I was told that it is more fun to support a small club. Well, Watford is a small club, now I don't mean a small club in the premier league, The Watford Hornets play in the football league championship division, which is the league below the premier league. But don't let that fool you, the people at the game when things weren't going well resorted to throwing beer bottles at the players. They take this stuff seriously here. One particularly fun thing that I spent most of the time doing was watching some 12 year oldish kid continually freaking out about the game. I mean, the ball would go out for a throw in and if it was awarded to the opposing team he would act as if that was a crime against humanity. I one point I was just hoping for his team to mess up to watch him freak. I mean that was more entertaining then the match. I know how ridiculous that sounds coming from me, as I can be one of the more passionate fans out there, but I assure you, this was out there. In the end, Watford won and good times were had by all. 

Watford was in Yellow and Millwall was in blue. Also you can see there is a group of police between the millwall fans and the watford fans.

I don't think that I can say that I'm quite there yet, as I most definitely don't have the passion yet, but I got my first few lessons on what I need to know about to be a true Londoner. Now I guess that means that I need to go to an away game and use the special barricaded visitors entrance or go do the next things that I need to learn to do while living here in London. This should be an adventure.

Adventuring to Bridlington

Good day, before I tell you about the latest adventure that I had, I need to explain a few things. First, for the last three years whenever I had a free weekend with my cohorts the first thing we would do would be to leave our small town of Morenci and go to the big city, whether that was Phoenix, Albuquerque or Tucson, sometimes with as little as a few hours notice. This was just the way it was, Morenci really didn’t have much to do and it was nice to get away from the mine and the constant reminder of work. Second, I just sold off my truck, a nice big six seat Silverado that I had named Isabelle, or Izzy for short. With those two pieces of information, I think we can start.

                About three weeks ago, Rebecca and her friends Stephanie, Laura and Carla decided that since in early March, Laura and Carla are moving to Paris and Dubai respectively, we should do something before they leave. It’s decided that we are going to go to Bridlington in Yorkshire; at this point the only thing I can tell you about the place is that it’s on the sea, which sea? I haven’t a clue, but I’m told that I don’t have to plan anything other then what to pack and that if I made cookies they would be delighted. Time goes on and no mention of the trip is made to me again, I think the girls were discussing and planning but to me everything is going smoothly until the day we were going to leave.

                Friday comes around and I get told that I need to pack my bag, a small one, and be ready by 6:30pm, which coming to know the lawyers of Clifford Chance like I do really means that they will hopefully be ready by 7:30pm. To be fair it’s usually not their fault as they usually are getting stuck at work, but nonetheless it’s still the reality. To my surprise they came to pick me up early at 6:50, well early by the standards I set and told me to hop into the car. What they should have said was hop into shoebox. Apparently, we were going to drive for four hours in a Ford KA. Now for those of you that are North American and don’t have the KA I’ve included a photo below. It’s a little smaller then a mini. And there were five of us. Oh Izzy, I have never missed you as much as I did that very second. I mean, I have been in some bad car rides before: 10 hours to Vegas in a full corolla, St. Andrews to Edinburg with 5 a focus and enough luggage to clothe a nation, and 30 hours to Vancouver going through the blasted lands of Idaho (you might remember that from earlier), but I will never complain about any of those trips ever again.

Figure 1 - The KA

Upon arrival in Bridlington, I swore that we had somehow made a wrong turn and ended up in Nevada. Unbeknown to me, the English seaside towns consist only of candy stores, fish and chip stores and amusement centers that look exactly like the small casinos that you find in Nevada. The whole place is flashing and blinking, the only thing that was different was that instead of real gambling and slot machines it was full of arcade and fair games. Additionally, you had the seaside. Since it is the winter the place was pretty quiet but apparently it becomes so packed that you can’t move in the summer.

Figure 2 - Playing the games inside one of the arcades (Laura, Carla, Stephanie, Rebecca and Me)

The other thing that we got because of the winter was a very angry sea. On more than one occasion you would be walking on the seawall, which was about ten to twelve feet over where the water was and a big wave would come in and splash up at you. Naturally, this meant there was only one thing to do. Try and walk all the way down the sea wall and back without getting wet like a game.

Figure 3 - The Raging Sea

Unfortunately for Stephanie, she most definitely lost the game and was hit full force by one of the waves. I had a few close calls but all in all I would have to say that it was a victory.

Figure 4 - My narrow avoidance of the waves.

After getting Steph home and dried off we then went out to dinner at one of the nicer restaurants in the town and had some good ol’ British cuisine. Side note, you have no idea how hard it is to get a photo that four girls agree is a nice one. I will say that this photo was the umpteenth one after we had to discount many because: “My smile looks stupid”, “My boobs look lopsided”, and “What are you looking at?” I say it was quite a production. But after I ruined the all the others, the girls decided that this one was ok and that my smile, boobs, and facial expressions was okay. :-P

Figure 5 - Dinner out on the town.

Finally, the next day, since I have now been to the UK on three visits and have now lived here for two months and until this trip I had never had fish and chips here. So, we decided that since it was my first time we would all pack into the KA again and drive to the shop that had just won the UK’s award for best fish and chips in the country. (Even thought it won best in the UK, it really made me doubt if I wanted to go if it meant that I had to get back into the KA). However, to my pleasure it was most certainly worth the inability to breathe for the duration of the trip.

Figure 6 - Laura, Carla, Rebecca and Stephanie at the fish and chip shop

All in all, it was an interesting trip. Almost the complete antithesis of what I was used to however. Instead of a group of boys and Rebecca going from the small town to the big city to go do some event and drink whilst forgetting dinner, it was a group of girls and Sean going from the big city to a small town to do nothing but eat dinner. Life is always full of odd twists of fate, but in the end it has and always will be an adventure.