The Haircut

So, as everyone is most likely aware, I am actually becoming an official house husband at the end of the month. It's been a lot of work but I'm going to graduate from fiance to husband. With that, it's important that you look good on the big day and since Rebecca likes my hair best about two weeks after it's been cut, that meant that I needed to get my haircut here in London. I will say, that really shouldn't have been a big deal, but since when has anything worked out well? So, Monday I decided that I would check around the wharf to see what if there was a simple barber around. I should have know that would be a waste. The banking capital of Europe and possibly the world, does not have simple hair dressers. My options were: one: Toni and Guy - a premier hair salon that wanted a personal consultation before even considering cutting my hair, Two: Sean hanna - another high end salon or three: the gentry barber - which was a high end barber like Men's Ultimate Grooming in Phoenix, a place that while nice and would do a good job is still a little much for me, the guy who likes a simple hair cut, nothing fancy. Deciding the wharf was a little much for me, I found a simple hair dresser at a mall a short train ride away.

This morning, I decided that today I would venture out to get my hair cut in the morning and then I would have the rest of the afternoon to get some other things that I needed to get done finished. After Rebecca left for work for 9:30 (side note, how awesome would it have been to start work at 9:30 instead of 6am?) I cleaned up and went to Lewisham where the mall was. I got to the hair dresser, I think it was a supercuts, maybe mastercuts? One of the generic hair dressers. I got there just before 11 am and asked how long? Apologetically, they said it would be 45 minutes as they were quite backed up. That sucks but hey, I have my trusty smart phone and I can easily kill 45 minutes on the internet. 45 minutes come and goes, and only one of the people in front of me has moved, but you know what, there is this duo of girls that are getting their hair full out coloured and worked on, why they decided to do all that at a generic place is a different story, but they look like they are coming to an end so I will wait. Another hour passes, and the only reason the line in front of me has gotten shorter is because people have gotten fed up and left. The duo of girls have decided that the first attempt wasn't done right and are now on try two, but I still have the internet and I'm still happily waiting. Now, it's 2:30 and I'm really thinking that I should just give up, but so many others have and I'm now in the front of the line and I've invested so much time I feel committed. I decided that I wasn't going to give up and finally, at 3:30 I'm rewarded and they say they will cut my hair. However, apparently I've been sitting so long that the hair washing that I did in the morning wasn't good enough for them and they said that they wouldn't cut it unless I paid them to wash it again. Fine, you know what, just wash it again, I really don't care. They cut my hair, I pay up and I thankfully get the hell out of there. To my amusement the duo of girls, was now on attempt 3 or 4, and still working on it. So, I have to say it could have been much worse and hey, I was getting to go home. Or so I thought...

I get back to the DLR station (one of the various subway like trains in London), Check the time for the next train, 20 minutes, hmmm, that's odd, usually they come every 5 - 10 minutes. After 20 minutes, the displayed time disappears entirely. Oh no, this can't be good. Sure enough, a few minutes later "Excuse me, Due to issues with the DLR system, all trains have been cancelled to Lewisham. Please find alternative travel arrangements. Sorry for the inconvenience." What? it would only be a hour or so walk, which wouldn't be too bad, but I'm on the south side of the river and need to get across the river to my place on the north side with no major bridge for miles. Time for the trusty smart phone to save the day. Unfortunately, remember that 4 1/2 hours of waiting for my haircut, well, I was watching high def video's online, and the last thing my phone told me before dying was there was a foot path that went under the river that wasn't too far out of the way. Hmmm, no phone for directions, in a part of london I don't know well, to a footpath I only saw briefly on the map before my phone died. Sounds like an adventure I can't pass up. Thankfully, the trip didn't involve getting too lost. I actually made it back home  in about 2 hours. I mean, yes, the footpath that went under the river was ultra creepy with the 'I'm going to get raped vibe' but other then that the weather was nice and overall I would do the walk again. Unfortunately, that wasn't the worst part of the walk back...

After awhile, I got through the creepy underground tunnel, got back to the isle of dogs where I live and can actually see the building I live in. Now, there is a park near our place and as I'm leaving the park I get caught behind two mothers pushing their babies strollers while meandering down the street. As I'm tired and want to get home I decide that I'm going to just slide past them and continue down the road. How I wished the road had been too small and I had to have crossed the street to pass them. If only life had been so convenient.  Passing a baby stroller what is the first thing you always do? For me, it's look at the cute little baby usually enjoying themselves on their walk. This time was no different, expect I did not expect what I saw. To be honest, I can't even remember what the kid looked like, but I do know what I did and said... I looked down and saw what in my opinion was an alien and jumped and said "AHHH!! what the hell!?!" Note, for all of you who are a little bit socially unaware, mother's are generally pretty defensive of their babies. The next few minutes, or what seemed to be hours, consisted of me being hit and yelled at for insulting the poor woman's child. Next, the child started to cry which caused the second kid to start crying, and it was all bad, all the time. I don't think that I could have gotten out of there any faster. I mean, I feel like a totally horrible person, but I didn't mean to be an ass.

All this in the name of a shitty haircut. So, I expect everyone reading this that sees me at the wedding to compliment me on the haircut. As with most things in my life, it was certainly an adventure.

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.

The Apartment

Well it’s been about a month now that I have lived in my new place and I figure that I should give you a tour of the residence. So Rebecca and I moved into a furnished apartment that had just been newly built (it’s still shiny). So you enter our apartment, 29 as you can see, and you are in a little hallway. We’ll stop here to show you some things before I continue. 

Figure 1 -  View from the entrance of our apartment

First, on the left is a really neat phone for letting people into the apartment complex. It even has a video screen to show you who is at the door. That would be great but because of where the camera is located and how most people use the entry pad all you ever get to see is the section of body between thigh and neck on most people. I must say it’s not the easiest figuring out who people are by their chest and you always feel slightly creepy when it’s a girl visiting and since almost all Rebecca friends, and therefore guests, are girls. So, I don’t really use the camera. Next, you see Rebecca’s shoe rack. Yes, those are all her shoes, if you can see in the details, my two (and only two) pairs of shoes were deemed to be unworthy of space on the shoe rack and get to sit beside the shoe rack. Finally, if you are really astute you will notice that my front door has no door handle. Apparently this is quite common but unfortunate none-the-less because the door is a fairly heavy door with a strong auto closer. This regrettably causes the door to slam and shake the apartment each time it closes. But we should continue, as you enter the house to the left is a closet with a washer/dryer. Not two distinct pieces, in the UK, it’s always a single unit. For those of you who knew Jamie in Morenci, it’s exactly the same kind of washer. So it’s about a 1/3^rd of the size of a North American model, takes twice as long and the dryer function is really more for show then actual usefulness. This actually means that I do laundry every two days seeing as a load is about 2 pairs of my jeans and 4 t-shirts before it’s full.

Figure 2 - Washer/Dryer Combo

Directly opposite is the washroom. It’s a washroom, nothing too special, but here you go. Our colour scheme is kind of brown and cream. You can see we’ve decided to frame some photos of us as well as this is where the photos of my friends ended up (I wonder if that’s a subtle message to me, hmm must investigate later).

Figure 3 - Bathroom (sorry about the camera flash in the mirror)

Next, you can either go left into the kitchen/living room or straight into the bedroom. Let’s check out the bedroom so we can end in the living room.  Let me just start with one thing, I always knew Rebecca had a lot of clothes and I always thought that I had an idea of how much she had, but man was I way off.  You’ll notice that we have two wardrobes as well as a dresser and a night stand (actually you probably won’t due to the angle of the photo, but there is a second wardrobe right beside me at the left foot of the bed and the dresser is right beside me on the right against the wall).

Figure 4 - Bedroom

One would assume that the reason we have two wardrobes is to be able to accommodate all of two peoples clothing. This would be wrong. We have two wardrobes to accommodate Rebecca’s clothing. I get the dresser. Next, for my parents that so gratefully helped me pack. You may notice that the nice heavy comforter that I had to vacuum bag across the Atlantic doesn’t appear to be here. Have no fear. It is indeed the duvet set we use as it is extremely warm. But it’s underneath the set on top that is for show… sometimes I really have to wonder.  I will say, however, that it does look quite nice. And even though I pick on Rebecca for these random things it’s really not actually as bad I make it. It’s not like I could fill more than a dresser of clothes anyways, I have only been in this country for a month.   Let’s move on to the final room: the kitchen and living room. As you could have probably assumed it’s just one big room with both a little kitchen and a living room area. Since the apartment was, as I said earlier, fully furnished, the only thing that we had to procure was the bookcase in the corner, which coincidently enough is now the largest thing that Rebecca and I own. How things have changed.

Figure 5 - View of the living room from the door

You would figure that since the only large thing that we purchased was a bookcase it wouldn’t have been too big of a deal. Unfortunately, since Rebecca and I are trying to save for the wedding (to officially turn me into a house husband) when we purchased the bookcase we had two options: one buy two of the black doors for 40 pounds each OR buy two white doors for 10 pounds each and paint them black. No brainer, what good is a house husband if he can’t paint something black? In the following two days I learn two extremely valuable pieces of information. One, I am a messy person and when mixed with sticky paint that gets everywhere bad things occur and two, with enough effort you can get paint off of absolutely everything. I mean leather, glass, wood, skin (lots of skin) clothing, anything. Last thing I wanted to point out was the red floating candles in the water on the table. If you are ever in the apartment you have to mention that they look good. It took three weeks and trips all over London to make that thing. Also, because it’s just a bowl of stagnant water it is always evaporating and leaving film marks. It’s good times though.  Clean up the house, water the plants and water the candles…  

Figure 6 - View of the kitchen from the dinning table

Finally, here is the kitchen. I actually enjoy it a lot. The stove and fridge are smaller and aren’t as nice as the ones in Morenci, but I think I am still in awe of the fact that I don’t need to use my washer and dryer as countertop space.  Side note, you don’t realize the absurd number of strange looks you get when you are walking down the street with a 50L garbage can. I mean I think the people on the underground thought I was some kind of terrorist. No, it’s not a bomb, it’s a garbage can when you don’t own a car and your fiancée sends you to the extreme south east of London to get a specific garbage can you tend to need to take the train. Just like when Rebecca finds a kettle that she likes, but it isn’t available in London we went to pick it up in Edinburgh after new years before getting on the train back to London.  But yeah, that’s our apartment. It’s now all set up and the door is always open. But I warn you,  it’s always an adventure.

Cooking in London

So, I figured I’ve let you know that I made it to the UK and I would continue my UK story with the newest adventure that I’ve had: cooking. First off, let me say most of this story is my own fault and that Lance has been proven right. The only thing that I should be allowed to do in the kitchen is wash dishes.

Rebecca and I moved in on the 5^th of January, two weeks ago and with my arrival Rebecca had decided that she was craving Mexican food, most specifically, enchiladas. Alright, this shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll go to the local grocery store, Waitrose, the classier of the two near my new apartment, and pick up the ingredients. I should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy. After picking up the easy things like chicken and cheese I wander over to the spices to try and pick up chilli powder to make an easy sauce. I already know that Anaheim peppers are out of the question so I don’t even bother. While up in Edinburgh I was already told that if I wanted Jalapenos I would have to buy them in a glass jar. However, what I didn’t realize is that chilli powder also doesn’t exist. Okay, plan B, not ideal but when I was in the “Mexican” section I saw that they had an Old El Paso enchilada sauce. I’m sure it will do fine. Last on the list corn tortillas. Interesting fact, if you ask an English store clerk for corn tortilla’s they will in fact take you to the Doritos and not to tortillas. I kindly told the gentleman thank you for your help and let him go on his merry way while I searched on my own. First stop, bread section – tortillas are kind of like bread and thinking back to Bashas that was where they were there – not there. Second stop, back to that Mexican section – Victory! I hadn’t seen them because instead of a bag like I would expect they were in a box. Either way, other then an unfortunate trip to the chip aisle a good shopping trip. Home to make them.

This should have been the easy part you would have thought. Fry the tortillas, cook and shred the chicken, use a can opener for the sauce and put in a pan to bake them. Just as easy as being an EW met (BULK ADD SOME MORE!). Sorry, bad Morenci joke. Everything is ready, oven is preheated, just slide the tray into the oven. THUD, Won’t fit, what about the other way? Wham, oven door won’t close… Who the hell sells oven pans that don’t fit into ovens???? This is ridiculous! Well, I don’t have any other pans (or at least not unpacked) so I guess we’re going to slide this sucker in on an angle and hope all the enchiladas don’t slide out. I will say that was a first. Baking Enchiladas on a 45-degree angle and stacking them to stay in the pan. Interesting thing you never realize that you don’t have until too late: oven gloves or tea towels. So, not only was I trying to get the enchiladas out without spilling them everywhere. I was doing this using a balled up t-shirt to try and not burn myself. I will say that it really makes you think about what you have and don’t have when you things like that happen. Even though the enchilada sauce was most definitely salsa that was put into a blender and there was a harsh realization that the oven is tiny, I’m claiming the first meal in London a success.

The next few meals I stay pretty non adventurous. I made chicken korma, basic ground beef burritos, and omelettes. With no catastrophes I’m feeling pretty confident when Rebecca says that she’s invited some friends over and I need to make something. We were both feeling the need for a pasta dish so I decided that I would make the white lasagne I liked making in Morenci. Seeing how the Waitrose wasn’t too helpful the last time I thought that I would go to ASDA, the larger, but less classy, store. Oh man, last time at least I had a fake Mexican section that I could pillage to make what I was trying. Ingredients that I was missing: Ricotta cheese, frozen spinach, alfredo sauce, Italian sausage, and Romano cheese. Ok, step one replace the easy ones, instead of frozen spinach I used fresh – not a big deal, actually tastes better that way it’s just more work. Instead of pre-made alfredo sauce I would hand make it, they have butter, cream and Parmesan and like the spinach it actually tastes better it’s just a bit more work. Ricotta cheese… well they have cottage cheese and I have a blender. Close enough. Romano… hmm hard cheese for topping, screw it I already need Parmesan for the alfredo, I’ll use it for that too. This leaves only Spicy Italian sausage. This one can’t really be substituted. Without it, the lasagne becomes very bland and boring. So I go ask the store clerk what I can use. I should have learnt from the Doritos fiasco in Waitrose. I follow the clerk and he hands me this red package that isn’t see through and says that this is what I want. I’m a little sceptical because it doesn’t feel right and it’s obviously written in some eastern European language. I buy everything and head home.

The next day I start to make the dish. Step one, take out the new cooking dish and make sure it fits in the oven. Well it fits, but it’s one of those silicon dishes, that should be okay right? Yeah, for sure, why wouldn’t the baking tray be okay, it’s made for baking. Step two, cook the sausage and mix in alfredo sauce. I open the sausage, fail. This is positively not Italian sausage. This is bologna, spicy bologna, but still bologna. I’m never listening to a store clerk again. How do you turn bologna into spicy Italian sausage? The only way I could think of, take out my cleaver (probably too big of a knife but I was angry and I was going to take out my aggression on the stupid wrong meat) and I find the New Mexico red chilli spices that I bought with Woot and Jarred in Hatch and mix it in. I’ve now turned mildly spicy bologna into very spicy indistinguishable meat pieces. I have to say close enough. I carefully layer each layer in the silicon-baking dish until it’s all in there. In hindsight, I probably should have noticed the problem there but I was still fretting about the lack of Italian sausage to pay attention. Into the oven it goes and onto the wine I go. About twenty minutes into the hour it takes to cook Rebecca asks me if the apartment smell like burning and indeed it did. So we went to check on the lasagne. Apparently, when the silicon dishes get hot, they lose a lot of their rigidity. I as a material engineer should have known this. In hindsight it seems rather obvious. Looking into the oven I could see that the sidewalls of the dish were bowing out allowing large amounts of cheese and lasagne sauces to escape and drip to the bottom of the oven where they were burning. Oh crap. Rebecca decides that the prudent thing to do was to turn off the oven and let things cool down and fix them then. I decide the smart thing to do is to build little props for the sidewalls to stay up and keep cooking. Which is what we absolutely did and it worked great. That is until we got to the point in which we had to remove the lasagne from the oven in the dish that wanted to topple over. Enter guests, always at the best possible time. Time to employ the double spatula and cooling rack technique without looking to stupid. GREAT SUCCESS! Dinner is served. In the end the guests say they enjoy the lasagne and even go back for seconds. Evidently massacred bologna with New Mexico chilli powder is an acceptable substitution for Italian sausage.

Further in our shopping adventures, thanks to Mitzi (one of Rebecca’s best friends) we came across an Asian grocery store. That, coupled with the glorious successes that Rebecca and I have been having, means that Rebecca has decided that it’s time to throw a sushi party. Great, all I need to do is add raw fish to the menu. If you hear of a tragic incident of a group of twenty some year olds dying in south-east London due to food poisoning it’s been great to know you. Well, I always knew it was going to be an adventure. 

Journey to London

So, I thought that I would write about my fun trip to the United Kingdom. Actually, up until Winnemucca it was fine. The Friday Jarred, Phil, Woot, Brandon and I drove to Casa Grande to visit the Peach. It was a bunch of fun and we stayed up drinking and chatting until late at night. Which may have gotten us in trouble with Rachel who needed to be going to work at 6 am the next morning. Oops. We then went to breakfast before I finally headed to Winnemucca and seeing as I was with Peaches, and on Peaches Standard Time, I didn't start my first 14 hour drive until almost noon... Shitty.

Hanging Out with Peaches and Co before leaving AZ.

So slowly meandering up Nevada at an average speed of 85 mph I got up to northern Nevada at about midnight, but unfortunately I missed Dahren and Jess so I got the pleasure of sleeping in my truck under a bridge... less then enjoyable but hey I would meet up with the Wayman pair the next day right? Yeah.. at about 10:30 am I was sitting in Winnemucca trying to decide if I should wait longer or should I give up and just head out. Thankfully I did get ahold of the two of them and we hung out and went to dinner. 

Getting to Winnemucca

Dinner out with Dahren and Jess

That was just the start of travelling going wrong. The next morning we parted ways and I put into my On-Star "Vancouver Canada" somehow my On-star got confuse and thought I said Boise Idaho... so instead of 12 hours of driving on wet roads at the speed limit or thereabouts, I got 20 hours of driving 1/2 the speed limit on ice and hard snow. I actually spent 2 hours thinking about sending Izzy into a Canyon and walking. Who it there right mind wants to go to Idaho in December? Either way, I did get to Vancouver. 

My view from my truck while I cursed Idaho

Fast forward, Christmas happened and I got random wedding things done and I was on my way to England. Leave my folks home at 4 am in the morning and with a series of planes, trains and busses I end up at YVR (Vancouver's Airport) and am checking into my flight. I knew that I was going to have to pay some extra bag fee because I decided that I would need an extra bag for the move. Seemed logical to me. I even checked to the fee charge online, only 30 dollars, well worth the extra bag. I got to the counter and got a lady who barely spoke English and you could tell was obviously French who proceeded to charge me 125$. Needless to say I was a bit confused. But I was diplomatic and we got it all worked out. I talked, she nodded, I talked some more, she said okay and then charged me 125$ Apparently I need to work on my powers of persuasion. 

First leg of my flight was okay, but I was flying from Vancouver to Seattle. I was in line to get on the plane longer then I was in the air, if there had been any issues I would have been shocked. Getting to Sea-Tac I learnt that my second leg had been delayed. Great, but I'll take it in stride and with a drink. This is where my memory starts to get a little foggy, most likely because of Booze, but I'm going to blame it on the exhaustion of travel. My flight gets delayed again. I buy more to drink... This continues until about 4pm at which point the guy I'm drinking with and I realize that it's taken me 12 hours of travel to go 200 Km. That's about an average speed of 15 kph or 10 mph. To put in perspective I would be losing to a marathon runner at this point. Thankfully, my plane boarded and I got to sit in the plane for take off. Unfortunately this was also the end of booze, which was tragic. An hour and a half later, the planes captain comes over the loud speaker to say "I'm sorry for the delay we are now next in line to take off." No reason or explanation but a simple apology. The reason became apparent 45 minutes later. We were waiting for the weather to be better. I think we should have waited longer. There have been a few alcohol related events worse then this one, but not by much. First, I started the flight drunk, sobered up, then went into the worst hang over ever all on this flight. Second, since the flight was so turbulent sleeping wasn't going to happen. So watching the film it was. Mercifully I landed in Iceland without being too sick and they said that they were holding my flight if I ran.

Signs of many things to come

What I didn't realize however is that Iceland has the most annoying Airport EVER. Got of the plane, passport control, down the hall and up the stairs, Passport control, go through security (wait I just got off the plane why am I going through security, fuck it I need to run), Passport control... SHIT! around another corner and see a sign for my gate, passport control ( Ok, it's the same passport as the last few times, what the hell!) Get to my gate and check in, great, walk to my plane, Passport control (You have to be fucking with me, seriously?). Get on the plane for the flight Iceland to England. This one wasn't too bad, except one thing. Remember that terrible hangover, well the guy sitting next to me had a liqour shelf of small bottles of booze that he was plowing through. Not a single same one either, first it was the smell of gin that was making me ill, then Scotch, then Grand Marnier, then vodka, then baileys and this went on the whole way. Needless to say, ill again...

Get to London, drop off some bags with Rebecca's Aunt and start with the Train to Scotland. I'll keep this brief but 2 broken down trains and 7 hours later I got to my final destination and just wanted to die. Other then the trip however it's been fine here. Everything moves so slowly. I mean I just set up to have internet set up at our new place and they said the fastest that they can be there is Feb 17th. I mean, what?!? that's more then a month. I talked to some people and they were telling me that that was just the way it was. But like I said I moved into the new place and as soon as I've unpacked and bought some new furniture I'll have to take a picture for you guys to see. Up next, new cell phone and job, Should have them by May and August... Why did I move to this country again? OH!!! you'ld love this. I was in the underground (subway) and I couldn't stand up at one of the stations because it was too short. Well, I always new this was going to be an adventure.