Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore

Several blog posts ago, I wrote about the really obvious differences that we are having to adjust to living in London/a foreign country.  Now that we've been here for 2+ months, here is a list of more subtle differences that I've noticed:

• Not all doctors are called doctors here.  Rather, doctors that specialize in something other than General Practice are called consultants.  And since they aren't categorized as doctors, you don't refer to a doctor title when you address them.  So instead of "Dr. Harrington", it's "Mr./Ms. Harrington".
• Bathrooms in homes aren't equipped with electrical outlets.  There must be a construction code here that prevents them from being installed.  Kinda a pain when you need to dry your hair in front of a mirror.  
• The cashier clerks at the grocery stores sit down in seats or stools provided.  I'm sure their backs and feet appreciate it.
• Speaking of cashiers, every time I use my credit card, they make a very big deal about matching up the signature on the back of my card with the slip of paper that I just signed.  One of the first times I used my card here, Olivia was misbehaving and I was in a hurry and I just scrawled something on the slip that didn't look very much like my normal signature.  The cashier actually made me resign so that he could verify.  Or if I swipe my card and then inadvertently stick it back in my wallet immediately, I get some stern looks.  I guess they take credit card fraud very seriously here!
• I've noticed that people don't say "excuse me" if they accidentally bump into you or you're blocking their way.  Instead, it's just "sorry".  They don't say it in a rude way, but "excuse me" just doesn't seem to be a phrase that's used much.
• The first floor of all buildings is called the ground floor, while the second floor is called the first floor and so on up the stories.  It doesn't make any sense.
• Tight pants (men & women) and tights/panty hose (women...thankfully not men) are very fashionable here.  Maybe they are fashionable back in the US, but just are outside of Houston where super tight pants would be so hot to wear.  Here, it seems the tighter the pants, the better.  I frequently see women wearing tights/hose as pants or wearing hose under shorts.  The other day, I saw a very pregnant lady wearing tights as pants with her shirt tucked into them.  Yikes is all I can say!  Now I'll admit, I sometimes where tights as pants when I'm wearing a tunic or a shirt/dress that extends beyond and fully covers my bottom.  But I've never tucked a shirt into them. I guess that lady wasn't afraid to show off her figure.
• Being a mom here makes me feel young!  Now that I've had a couple months to meet and be around other moms with young children (infants and toddlers), it was my observation that they all looked older than me.  Like in their 40s.  At first, I thought maybe it was me just imagining that I look good for my age since I religiously use my Arbonne skincare products and that maybe they weren't really any older than me.  Then recently my landlord validated my original observation when she stated that whenever we send to Olivia to school, I will be one of the youngest moms, or rather mums, there.  This is definitely a change from what I am used to in Houston where the majority of my mom peers were my age, give or take a few years.  I'm guessing it's like that here because 1) people wait until they are older to get married and 2) it's so expensive that couples in their 20's - early 30s probably can't afford to have children that young.  

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In other news...this in our new home!  

Not the whole house.  Just the first floor, er...ground floor.  Our landlord (a wonderful lady) lives with her family on the 2nd and 3rd floors and her mother lives on the first floor.  We moved into our flat, which was built in the 1860s by the way, about six weeks ago.  It's a great place, especially after being in that little apartment.  It's big for London...five bedrooms and 3.5 baths, tons of storage space and a nice, open layout.  Everyone that comes into our flat, from guests we have had over to the maintenance people, tell us how great and big the place is compared to other flats they have seen and how fortunate we are.  And we fully agree with them!  

Here is the backyard, or garden as they call it.  We share the backyard with the other families in the house, but since we are the only ones with small children, I'm pretty sure we'll be the ones primarily using it.  After not having a yard at our townhouse in Houston that we lived in the last eight years, we are very thankful for this wonderful space.  When we first moved in, we went out there a decent amount with Olivia to run around.  Unfortunately, it has not gotten much activity from us the last several weeks due to it turning cold out.  And the fact that it's dark outside by 4:00 these days.

The back patio is exclusive ours to use.  We are counting down the days until the weather warms up and the days get longer so that we can enjoy it.  I see many dinners being eaten out there and hopefully lots of gatherings with friends in the coming months.

Pictures of the interior to come soon...

Destination: Spain

One of the biggest reasons we were excited about moving to London were the opportunities to travel around Europe given the easy accessibility.  Geoff's Europe experience basically consisted of Berlin, Germany and mine was none before we arrived here.  So we quickly complied a "must-go to" list of countries we want to visit during the couple years we are over here.  The list includes, in no particular order:

• Ireland
• Scotland
• Italy
• France
• Switzerland
• Portugal
• Greece
• Germany
• Spain
• Croatia (we heard the beaches are amazing there)

Traveling with a toddler and infant will present its challenges in getting to these places and I'm sure will involve a lot of planning.  But we are determined to experience as much as we can while we're here so we'll make it happen somehow!  So anyways, before the holidays arrive in force and before it's too late for me to travel out of the country due to being late in my pregnancy, we decided to scratch our first country off the list last weekend - Spain!  We packed our bags and headed to Barcelona.

We had some excitement just trying to get there.  Right as we were about to hop on the train to the airport (at 6:00 AM no less), Geoff received a text from the airline saying our flight from London to Geneva, Switzerland, where we had to fly through to our our way to Barcelona, had been cancelled.  He quickly called Swiss Air and fortunately, they were able to schedule us on another flight, but at a different airport.  So three different trains later, we were at the airport.  There was pretty bad fog in Geneva, which is why our original flight was cancelled.  While it didn't cancel our rescheduled flight, it did delay it significantly and provided reason for us to worry that we wouldn't make it our connection flight to Barcelona. Sure enough, we were going through immigrations at the Geneva airport when we heard the flight calling our names for last call.  From there, we started running as fast as we could.  It never seems to fail that when you are running late for a flight, it's almost always at the gate farthest away.  Geoff estimates we ran at least a quarter-mile to our gate.  I'm sure we looked crazy.  But thankfully, we made it!  The consolation for our drama getting to and out of Geneva is that we got to see the Swiss Alps from the plane.  Amazing!  We can't wait to go back sometime in the future for a real visit!

Our first tourist stop in Barcelona was the famed Sagrada Familia, or Church of the Sacred Family.  This is the #1 tourist stop in Barcelona and it's easy to see why.  The cathedral was beautiful and jaw dropping.  Construction on it became in the late 1800's and it still isn't finished!  It's currently scheduled to be completed by 2030.

What the finished product is suppose to look like

The doors to the front entrance contain all the words to the Gospels of Matthew and John.

The inside was quite incredible.  Given the relatively young age of the cathedral, in my opinion, the interior had a much more modern look to it than the cathedrals that are hundreds of years old.  Nevertheless, the attention to detail and the ornateness of it was breathtaking.

As expected, Olivia does not yet have a fine appreciation for the arts and preferred to spend her time in the cathedral running around and playing with Monkey.

We later walked around different neighborhoods and shopping areas until we arrived at the Port.  Olivia loved seeing the water, boats and birds flying around.

The next day involved more walking around and exploring.  We found Parc de la Ciutadella, a quiet park in the city. 

Olivia's eyes got so big when she saw this Mammoth! 

Olivia has proven that she has quickly adjusted to the European lifestyle, preferring a motorcycle to get around!

After leaving the park, we headed to the beach.  We wanted to see the actual Mediterranean Sea rather than just the Port that we had seen the night before.  While the weather certainly wasn't beach weather, the water was pretty.  I'm sure the beaches are packed and it's just beautiful there during the summer months. 

That evening, we headed into a different part of the city for dinner.  Along the way, we stopped for some great views of the city and watched a water show at a nearby fountain. 

The Magic Fountain - it was a nice show, almost thirty minutes long, featuring dancing water,  changing lights and music.

In true Olivia fashion, she quickly got bored with the water, lights and music and decided it was much more fun to crawl around on the dirty ground.

Buzzing around

Halloween is a litte different in London.  It's not that big of a deal. Or at least not in the area of town where we're living.  In the US, the grocery stores stock isles of big bags of candy weeks and weeks in advance of Halloween.  At the local grocery store here, there was maybe 1/3 of an isle dedicated to Halloween.  Of that, less than half of it was candy (and not good candy like Snickers or M&Ms) and the remainder was little Halloween decorations.  There was no trick-or-treating for us this year.  However, we did met up with a group of American moms and other toddlers/babies for a Halloween party.  Olivia enjoyed putting on her bee costume (she got plenty of looks from people on the subway as we went to and from the party) and I'm grateful I was able to meet some other moms, most of whom had just moved to London recently too.  The lady hosting (a fellow Texan!) did an amazing job of creating fun little Halloween related activities for all the children.

Olivia and I also had some pumpkin craft time together at home.  We had purchased a little pumpkin at the grocery store that she was so excited about.  I let her get out her paints and paint to her little heart's desire all over that pumpkin.  It certainly wasn't the prettiest creation.  It was basically painted brown with all the various colors mixed together by the end, but we had a lot of fun doing it.

Can I please have a car to go grocery shopping?

As previously promised, here are a few more lifestyle adjustments we're learning to manage in London:

Challenge #3: Transportation

We currently don't have a car.  We will get one eventually.  Right now, we are just trying to get used to everyone driving on the wrong side of the road.  So here are our three current modes of transportation:

• The Tube/Subway - There is an Underground station a few blocks from our apartment which is very convenient.  Geoff takes the subway to work everyday which is great for him.  It gives him a little time everyday to read or do work while he's riding.  However,  I am not a big fan of the subway.  If I were childless, I would love the subway too.  But for Olivia and myself, it is challenging to use.  They certainly didn't build the stations to be small-child friendly.  They have lots of escalators and stairs to navigate.  If Olivia is in her stroller, then I have to get her out before we go up or down the stairs and carry the stroller.  The stations are busy with people and Olivia is little so sometimes I have to carry Olivia and the stroller at the same time up and down the stairs/escalator.  That's a lot to manage by myself.  Other times, we've tried to get around without bringing the stroller along at all and I've tried to make her walk, but again, she's little and there are so many people that I usually just end up carrying her.  But she's a growing girl and heavy!  So until she's able to walk more independently, she and I try to avoid using the subway unless Geoff is around to help us out.

• The Bus - Those famous double-decker red buses are everywhere around here.  London has a great bus system and we've started using it the few times we've ventured out of our neighborhood.  It's stroller friendly too!  Olivia is a slightly obsessed with buses, so she can't wait to get on to ride.  Her eyes are always so big taking it all in.

• Walking - This is currently our most popular transportation mode.  Olivia and I walk (let me clarify: I walk, she rides while I push her) everywhere every day.  We walk to the library.  We walk to the parks.  We walk to the grocery store.  We walk just for the sake of walking to get out of the apartment and explore the neighborhood.  Yep, we are certainly getting our exercise here!  Only downside so far is when it rains, which is does here frequently.  I have a cover for Olivia's stroller that helps keep her dry, but she doesn't like it because she can't see out of it very well when it's wet.  It's also very challenging to push a stroller one-handed with a 30-ish lb. kid it in while the other hand holds an umbrella trying to stay dry and do that at the same time as navigating narrow sidewalks with many people on them.  It is hard work and usually results in me just giving up on the umbrella and getting wet.  However, despite the rain, I do love the option of being able to walk.  In Houston, no one walks anywhere.  You get in your car and drive to go half a mile.  Whenever we get our car, I definitely plan to keep up all the walking because I enjoy getting out in the fresh air and it's makes me feel independent that I can walk where I want to go.

Nearby park that we frequently walk to.  This happened to be a beautiful, rain-free day!

Challenge #4:  Grocery Shopping
Due to the no car thing, grocery shopping has its limitations.  I'm basically restricted to buying what I can carry while pushing a stroller at the same time = not much.  This was especially frustrating the first week when we had absolutely nothing in our kitchen.  It's difficult to buy the basic groceries you need - spices, olive oil, aluminium foil, bread, rice, salad dressings, peanut butter, etc. plus all your fruits/veggies/meats/dairy - in order to prepare a decent meal when you're at a two small bags limit.  Also, I wasn't aware of a real grocery store within walking distance of our apartment. Every few blocks, they have these Express stores which are kind of like a gas station convenience store but with a little bit of produce, meat, cereal and bread.  While those certainly have their benefits when you need to grab one or two things really quick, they lack most things to prepare a good meal.  I wanted to cook meals we were used to eating in an effort to get some level of normalcy, but when trying to shop at these Express stores, I couldn't find half the ingredients I needed which resulted in some meals that were less than great and a lot of frustration.

Finally, I got smart and ordered some groceries online and paid the delivery fee since I obviously wasn't going to be making a big trip to the grocery store anytime soon.  Then last week, I found a real grocery store that has most of the things I need about eight blocks away.  (That's walking distance.)  I've never been so excited to see more than one option for lettuce!  Again, I'm still limited to the volume I can purchase, but at least it has options and most of the things I'm looking for.  I've realized that I'm just going to have to get used to going to the store every day or every other day, which for right now is fine since it's gives me and Olivia something to do.

So, so happy to see this!