Southwark Cathedral

Southwark Cathedral was built between 1220 and 1420. And I see it every day on my way to work. Tonite I went to one of their Christmas "Lessons and Carols" services which was really lovely.



This is what it would look like inside without a million people.



In addition to being lovely, it was the most stressful 75 minutes I've experienced in a long time. It was packed - there were like a million people in there, and we each held a lit candle for the entire time. It dripped on my hand, I dropped my brochure, I kept needing to scratch things, every time the woman in front of me was slow in standing up I was sure I was going to burn her head, and I could hardly focus on the service for all the worry that even if I didn't start the inevitable fire, there was no way all million of us were leaving that place unscathed. Amazingly, we seemed to (although I have no idea why we're allowed to have the candles).


I discreetly took this at my seat, before we were handed the sticks of destruction.

The other parts of London are beautiful

I went to Harrods the other night, via an area called Sloane Square in Chelsea. It's very upscale South West London (to my "downscale" East London) and it's just so beautiful. The pictures I snapped on my phone didn't really come out so I found these online which much better capture what it looks like down there right now.



Incidentally, Leytonstone does decorate for Christmas, and even uses the popular blue lights as well, but it looks more like a neon blue Six Flags than anything.

Joe meets Pete meets Charlie Brown

My friend Joe and my boyfriend Pete hadn't met yet, and Joe agreed to share our "tradition" (ie we did it last year) with Pete, of watching Charlie Brown's Christmas.

Nobody here seems to have seen it (!) so I am slowly introducing it to the country. So far, 2 Christmases, 2 people.
The fellas meet on George Lane in South Woodford! Joe came all the way up from South London to Pete's place to meet him, watch it, and see if he could endure an afternoon North of the river.

Joe in turn made us watch to The Snowman, which I'd never seen and is so lovely. I think Christmas is all about being 8 years old.

Christmas shopping with the Grinch

Joe and I went to my most favoritist place ever last weekend, Greenwich Market. Their Christmas market is even bigger, busier and more beautiful than the normal one. It was so nice to walk around with my Gingerbread latte and find interesting gifts for people.


Joe is smiling, which is a combination of a Christmas miracle and he knows someone is about to hand him some food.

German Christmas in England

Christmas in London is really nice. The other day Rob and I went to a German Christmas Market on the South bank of the Thames. I took this weird picture of him in front of some kind of "wiener shack".



It was nice to be down by the old familiar sites in the Christmas season too. They're so pretty in the pitch black night.

Tree, Christmas, all that kind of stuff

My little 5 foot plastic tree has a new home in Pete's apartment this year. No room in my studio. It's been fun swapping Christmas chat with my Englishman and learning about the have weird traditions they have here. Santa Claus is Father Christmas! And you leave him mince pie and sherry!
Pete hasn't even seen A Charlie Brown's Christmas, and therefore has no idea what a "Charlie Brown tree" is. How sad.
















And one final pic for the Pete fans:

Another blog entry about pancakes

It's come to my attention that a disproportionate amount of my blog has been dedicated to pancakes. So, let's keep that going shall we.

Today Pete and I took a bus all the way from North East London down to South West London, to the only place I can find which claims to serve "American pancakes". The joy I had in finding this eaterie was only slightly deferred by the fact they are happy to serve them on the same plate as baked beans, stewed tomatoes (pronounced with a soft "a") and french fries. Sigh.
Anyway. We had a great time on our little adventure. Geared up with our Starbucks (my first gingerbread latte of the season, I am behind!) and seated in the front row atop a red double decker bus, we set out to see some areas unfamiliar to us and it was really fun.

Breakfast was, well just ok. But I loved being in Clapham Junction, all abuzz with Christmas. And any quality time I get to spend with this handsome man is, obviously, my fave. Can you blame me.

Thanksgiving, without the work or the family

Pete and I went to a restaurant for a similar-to-Thanksgiving meal (kind of). Then we went back to my place to talk to everybody on Skype and watch Home Alone. That's my family's traditional post-Thanksgiving meal movie, and Pete has never seen it! He loved it. How could you not.

Skype Thanksgiving

tg - Slideshow Maker

I don't think this really needs any words.

Vehicles

Saw these two recently near work.
Nice.











My friend Kristin and I used to have a thing about people who have names like "John Johnson" or "Ben Benson". What were their parents thinking. Our favorite though was a kid we went to college with named "Anders Anderson", because Anders isn't even a real name (unless you're Dutch or something).
Anyway this one is good because Evans is the dorm I was RD of for 5 years. Good old Evans.

The birds

I took this (fairly self-indulgent, but short) video when Pete and I were in Bournemouth at a park with lots of swans and birds around. The swans were huge and 'friendly' to the point of being scary.

Ten points to the first American who knows what the cute thing is he says.

Weekend away

Pete and I had a long weekend at his parents' little place near Bournemouth. Last time we went was a super hot weekend in May - this was very different! Hardly anybody was around (as opposed to the packed summer beaches last time) and it was FREEZING. But it was great to be away and we had some very clear crisp weather our first day, which is always a joy when you're in England.



We got there at 1am on Saturday so I was amazed when I woke up later that morning to this beautiful view out the front window.





It's in such a great spot, right on the water.




My sister bought us shirts when she was in Nantucket and we both wore them all day. Pete wasn't excited wearing about matching shirts, but I think they are GREAT!

Some pretty sights we got to see during the weekend..

Below is a slide show of these plus more pictures for the truly interested (or bored).

By the sea, for a minute

I took the day off on Friday and went to a lovely seaside town called Whitstable in the county of Kent. It was really nice and relaxing, but after about an hour I think I saw the whole place. So on Saturday morning I took the 1/2 hour bus ride to Canterbury (of the Tales) and had a look at the cathedral and some of the other area views.

I made this short video slideshow of some pictures I took on my phone as I went along.



Click this link if you'd like to see a larger version on YouTube instead.

Fruit: Good; Cake: Great; Fruitcake: Nasty Crap

The English love their cake. They loooove it. Where American grocery stores might have aisles of, say, toothpaste, English grocery stores have aisles of different types of cakes.

Christmas has its own cakes, confusingly referred to as "Christmas pudding". A lot of these appear to be of the fruitcake variety, which also confusingly, the English seem to love. I was amazed to see that the Christmas cakes were out already when I did my shopping last week. I thought they must expire before Christmas, so I checked.... September 2010.

For the few of you who haven't seen Jim Gaffigan's humorous thoughts on cake, watch the video below. The classic and applicable fruitcake bit starts around 4.20.

They just have no idea

At this conference I went to recently, the hotel served a snack of cold pancakes cut in half with jelly to put on top. And my friend Sarah likes to order pancakes for dessert at this restaurant we've gone to. They're not on the breakfast menu - they're on the dessert menu.

Weird England.

Welcome back to my honey

Last week Pete and his buddies went on vacation to San Francisco. They had a great time! I took some pictures of them when they got back to Heathrow but none came out. Anyway I had to put up this cute one of Pete making a face at me, and the only other one is this blurry one of us on the tube ride home. He's tired but still so cute at 3am California time after 15 hours of traveling.

English countryside

On Tuesday I went to Birmingham for work, and took some scenery video out the train window. It seems like the second you step out of London, it's all just country.

Welcome to Leytonstone

I moved to Leytonstone East London 4 weeks ago today and I'm getting to know the area, mostly by bus. Joe's a walker though so today we took a stroll around the neighborhood behind my house and the High Road that I live on.

Like a lot of London, it's a mix of beautiful old buildings and junky fried chicken chains.

Southeast meets East

Joe deigned to cross the river and come up to East London to see the new flat today.




We relaxed on my rooftop patio eating donuts and we took a walk around the area.










I made him read Where the Wild Things Are, which he'd never read. You can tell he has an MA in Creative Writing as he studies it intently.

Italian English

Pete makes sauce now (thank you very much). Here's the first dish of macaroni he made. I'm so proud.


And yes it's good!

When stereotypes are true

Here's me trying to get home from grocery shopping recently. It wasn't even overcast when I left my house (without an umbrella of course).

The trolley was drenched and I also was carrying two bags. Waiting for the bus. Ah, London.