YAY!

I GOT A SECOND INTERVIEW WITH NESTLÉ!!
I'm going back next Thursday at 10:00am!!

Nestlé

Today I went on an interview at Nestlé in Croydon. I feel like it went rather well, but we’ll see next week! I hate that the hiring process takes so long over here! Next week I probably won’t hear from them until the end of the week, and then if they liked me, we’ll schedule another interview for the following week, and then it will be another entire week before I know whether or not I got the job. The whole process takes more than a month; it's so nerve-racking!

Andrew was teaching his first client training class today in Amsterdam, and I’m anxious to hear how it went. He seemed pretty excited about it...

I scheduled an appointment today to look at a flat that Andrew and I want so badly we can taste it. It’s absolutely gorgeous; it’s in a great area, and we’re just positive that something is going to happen to prevent us from getting it. We’ve only seen pictures online so far, and I’ve walked past it. Just from seeing photos, the street, and outside, though, we actually discussed putting an offer on it sight unseen. Don’t worry; we didn’t, but we thought about it! Anyway, I’m going to see the place in person at noon on Friday, and I just can’t wait!!

We have an exciting weekend planned, too. Friday night we’re going with our friends to a Mexican restaurant, a real, live Mexican restaurant with sombreros and six kinds of margaritas! I really hope that it lives up to my expectations! I need my Mexican food and margarita fix!

Saturday night we’re all going to the Bavarian Beerhouse for dinner and drinks. It’s apparently the U.K.’s only authentic German-Bavarian restaurant. (Apparently the waitresses are dressed like the Saint Paulie girl, too, which the guys should thoroughly enjoy!)

On Sunday afternoon all of us girls are having the first meeting of our Bookclub at the Chelsea Bun for brunch! I’m really excited about it; we’re reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, which is number one on the list of the Ten Greatest Books of All Time. I can’t wait!

Canterbury!

We were incredibly busy this weekend! Friday night we went to a restaurant / bar / club called Cactus Blue on Fulham Road. It’s quite a swanky place; I’ve wanted to go for a while because I heard they serve the best margaritas in London. If you don’t know, it’s really difficult to get any Mexican food over here, much less good Mexican food! Cactus Blue turned out not even to be Mexican, but the food was really good. Andrew and I ordered four Spanish tapas: Alaskan Crab and Prawn Dim Sums; Grilled Chicken and Mango Quesadilla; Panfried Ginger Tiger Prawns; and Seared Fillet Steak Teriyaki. Just so you know, their tapas are really quite small, and that was barely enough food for Andrew and me; if Andrew hadn’t had a very large, late lunch, it wouldn’t have been enough. We should have ordered two tapas and split an entrée. I definitely recommend the restaurant, though. The margaritas were typical for London, but the food and atmosphere were great. There’s even a little elevator that takes you drinks up from the bar to the upper floors! Apparently, there’s a club on the lowest floor, and a cute little martini bar on the topmost floor with a roaring fire in the fireplace.

Saturday morning we got up and went to Fulham to register with estate agents there. We were supposed to have done it last weekend, but Hadley got sick (she’s completely recovered now). We walked all around Fulham and registered with at least 12 different estate agents. Most of them said that it might be difficult find a place that will allow dogs, which we knew, but we’re looking two months in advance, so hopefully that will give us plenty of time to find something. In fact, I received a call this morning from one of the agents; she found a flat that has a large private garden, two double bedrooms, a large living room, large kitchen, is three to four minutes from the tube station, and is much cheaper than what we’re paying now! I’m supposed to go view it tomorrow, so we’ll see then what her definition of “large” is!


Saturday night the Beth and Rino Nori hosted a Going Away Party for the Beards. Brad and Jill moved here from Birmingham, Alabama, three years ago and are now packing up to head home to the States. They’re moving to New York City, where I’m sure they’ll have a blast. They’ll be able to get anything they want at any hour again (a luxury that doesn’t exist here, as everything closes around six). We’re really going to miss them, though! Beth cooked a fabulous dinner, and Rino played Sinatra’s “New York” when they came in the door. Beth and Rino’s flat is absolutely adorable, they have a precious teeny, tiny, not-fat-at-all cat named Candy, who is one of the most friendly cats I’ve ever seen. We had a really great time and want to thank Beth and Rino opening their home to all of us!

Brad and Jill - Guests of Honor

The Group

Getting the guys to pose for a picture is quite difficult!
Pictured above: Tim, Jeremy, Rino, Brad, and Andrew

Pictured above: Kelly, Christi, Katy, Beth, and Jill

Getting the girls together was much easier, but what is Rino doing?!

Yesterday Andrew and I tagged along with the Beards as they marked another place off their list. We took a day trip to Canterbury, the culmination of Chaucer’s pilgrims’ journey in the Canterbury tales. We visited the cathedral where Thomas Beckett was murdered and saw the place where his tomb, which was destroyed years ago, formerly rested. We also visited the Canterbury Tales Museum, which was absolutely hilarious, and wandered around the streets of Canterbury, which, despite the Subways, Starbucks, and Café Nero’s, doesn’t look like it’s changed all that much since Chaucer’s time.

Around Canterbury

The Canterbury Tales Museum

The Cathedral

Needless to say, when Andrew and I finally arrived home last night, we were exhausted. It had been a busy, but great, weekend full of great food, great friends, and great adventures!

Valentine's Day

Our first Valentine's Day as a married couple took place last night. Andrew flew in from Amsterdam early so that we could have dinner together. I cooked steak, using Dennis's marinade recipe, baked potatoes, and fried zucchini. The steak smelled burned, but it turned out fine; the fried zucchini was great, but the baked potatoes were hard as rocks! I screwed up the easiest part of the entire dinner! It was so disappointing...

Also, Andrew brought me a bundle of buttercups!

The Weekend from Hell

We had a horrid weekend, beginning on Thursday, the day of my interview with Tom at Hudson, a recruitment agency, and the day of the biggest snow London has had in seven years. I woke up at 8:30am, ready to face the day. The snow was beautiful; I hate that I forgot the camera when I took the girls out for their morning romp. Normally I would have gone back in and grabbed the camera, but I was worried about time and tube delays caused by the snow. The park looked like a winter wonderland, and it was the first time Hadley and Savannah had seen snow. Savannah wasn’t too keen on the snow. She was prancing around in it, trying to keep her feet off it. Hadley, on the other hand, loved the snow. She was running around scooping it up in her mouth like a pelican and eating it.

The sidewalks were coated in slush, and I was worried about getting my shoes and hose sopping wet and dirty, so I had to wear my knee-high, high healed boots to the interview; I took my regular pumps in a Partridge’s bag, and I changed in the bathroom when I got to lobby of the building where my interview was. The interview went well, and I hope that maybe Tom and I can find me a job!

So Andrew’s plane was supposed to leave Amsterdam at 8:15pm, and he would arrive home around 10:00pm. Because of the snow, his plane was delayed and taxi left without him; he didn’t get home until about 1:30am, at which point we were both exhausted. I unpacked Andrew’s suitcase while he got ready for bed. The next morning, I got up with Andrew around 8:30am and went into the computer room to check my email for job updates. That’s when I saw the big pile of pooh. One of the girls had gotten sick in the night. I was worried that whichever it was wasn’t finished, so I put them on their leashes and took them out, but Hadley didn’t even make it to the park. She pooped on the sidewalk, and I, of course, had to attempt to clean it up as passersby glared at me. Later that day, she threw up, too.

So that night, we went to Chinatown to have Chinese food for dinner, and afterward, we were going to walk over to Soho to go to Jazz After Dark, a jazz bar I read about in Access London. I was really excited because I had wanted to go for weeks, and we were finally getting a chance to go. So we find the place (it’s raining, by the way), and they tell us that if we don’t have reservations, there would be a cover charge of £10 apiece. Andrew and I looked at each other and were about to decide, when another bouncer poked his head out the door and said they were at maximum capacity. So that decided that, and Andrew and I walked back down the street and found a bar where we could get a table. When we got home, Hadley had left us an unpleasant surprise.

The next morning, another unpleasant surprise waited just outside our bedroom door, and we were out of paper towels. When Andrew got up, we decided that we needed to cancel our plans to go register with estate agents in Fulham. We had to get Hadley to a veterinarian to find out what was wrong with her.

We finally got to the vet around quarter till two, and the vet was supposed to arrive at two. Unfortunately, they don’t take walk-ins, and they were booked solid. The receptionist said that I could speak with the nurse when she got there. Anyway, the nurse arrived and gave us some “bland” food and a giant syringe of medicine (Prokolin) to help Hadley’s digestion, and we made an appointment with the vet for this evening.

I had to walk by myself, in the dark, through Battersea, because Hadley was too sick to take her on the bus. It was scary, but we survived! Even sick, Hadley can look threatening from far away! It tuns out Hadley's developed a bacterial infection, probably from eating the snow on Thursday. The vet gave her a shot of antibiotics and gave me some medicine with strict instructions about how much, when, and what to feed her for the next several days. Let's hope it works and that next weekend is much more pleasant!

The Dinner Party and Fulham, Clapham, and High Street Kensington

Friday night we had the Beard's, the Nori's, the Triefenbach's, and the Tiensvold's for Italian Night. I cooked spaghetti (homemade sauce from fresh and canned tomatos), and we had all the "fixin's" to go with it. It was great company, even though we were a bit squashed trying to find seating for everyone and having to eat off paper plates. Although our poor carpet (and Rino's pink shirt) suffered some nasty blows (red wine disasters).

Later this weekend, Andrew and I decided to visit Fulham, Clapham, and High Street Kensington because we're thinking about moving in April. We wanted to check out those areas to see if we liked them and to look at some of the estate agents to see if there were any flats within our price range. We're also hoping to find a flat with a backyard garden for the dogs. We really liked the High Street Kensington area, although I'm not sure that we'll be able to find what we're looking for there within our price range. We also liked the Fulham area. It just really felt cozy; it almost had a small-town feel to it. We're hoping to make appointments with estate agents for next weekend so that we can actually start looking at flats that will be available.