Happy Thanksgiving

The day is finally here! All the prep work to get everything together and here's where you spend hours in the kitchen to bring it all together for that magical moment when everyone is stealing small pieces of carvings from the turkey, licking the spoon from the dressing or potato salad and drooling over the home-made pumpkin or apple or both pies. But not here....not in London. 

The Brits know about this holiday, they've had to understand that it's because of their ancestors wanting a better life than what they had in dreary, soggy England to live in the New World brought them over and voilà, Thanksgiving and Black Friday were born! 

Our 1st Thanksgiving here was such a big disappointment. We heard that an 'American' BBQ was offering a Thanksgiving meal, turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce..the works! So a bunch of us, 10 I think, went there and was eager to see the spread. They served the table on slabs of wood and needless to say it was such a let down. The saddest moment was seeing Kevin's reaction to their pumpkin pie which turned out to be sweet potato-ish pie. Don't try to fool a southern with this, I saw through their rouse. 

The 2nd Thanksgiving was when we went to another 'American' Diner type restaurant as they too had advertised out front they were serving a Thanksgiving Feast! We walked in and thought we'd smell the bird in the oven and well, no. The menu card read: Turkey Burger served with a side of Sweet Potato Fries and that's it. No cranberry dressing, not even dipping sauce. 

However this past year we figured enough is enough. Our dear friend, Mark put his foot down and prepared a roast turkey and well, all the fixings any American Mom would have been proud to put on their table. We celebrated on the Saturday after as the Brits don't have the day off....why not? No matter. We sufficiently stuffed ourselves beyond belief because that is exactly what you do on Thanksgiving. I won't mention how many bottles of wine and other adult beverages we had too. After all, we're not driving! I haven't owned a car for 3 years! No need to have one here unless you're going to Costco or Ikea, but that's a different posting.

This year the 3 of us, Mark, me and Kevin are going to friends of Kevin's from work on Saturday. It's been said this is a Pot Luck Party and 20 people may show up. Could be interesting blog post. 

So with that I want to say that I'm thankful to have this opportunity to be able to write a post from London. I'm thankful to have finally landed a job here. I'm thankful for the new people I've met in this new job. I'm thankful for having the chance to do something completely different than what I've done in the past. I'm thankful to be healthy and that my little family here is as well. I'm thankful that I got to spend time with my nephews and the friends and family I have back in the US even if it was during a sad time. I'm thankful for having the ability to say I was on the right side of history with our recent presidential elections. I'm continuously happy for having met Kevin 16 years ago. 

 Now if I could figure out how to catch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.....

2 more stamps, almost 3!

I'm falling behind here.  We went to Croatia and I haven't told you about it!



We or rather I wanted to check out something different.  Something that wasn't exactly with a European feel,  something that might get us a little out of the comfort zone.  I said "Lets go to Dubrovnik" and well, we did.  We had heard and read a bunch about this place because of their civil war and all the horrible killings that went on in the 1990's and since it's just out side of the Euro Zone we thought it would give us a chance to experience a different culture as we have with Hungary.

Dubrovnik is amazing!  They've cleaned up and polished up the little walled city and the tourist have found out just how easy it is to get there by plane and especially by cruise ships.  The friendly people there are certainly understanding of what tourist have brought to their area as it's becoming harder to find the scars of war.  However, once you go just a couple miles outside of the walled city you are reminded about it.

We spent 2 days in Dubrovnik walking around, up and down the city walls, to the fort just outside the walls and up to the top of a mountain overlooking the town.  The vistas are amazing, but then it's facing the beautiful Adriatic Sea and when the sun is shining it's blue green waters are warm and inviting!

We spent 1 day on a wine tasting tour with 8 Swedes who really know how to enjoy the finer things in life.  They were such fun!  We've added a few of them to our Facebook friends.  As for the wine, well, its not very well known or at least you can't buy it outside of the area unless it's brought out by specialist.  But it won't be long, this place will rival California and Italy at some point.

We rented a car to drive out to Mostar in Bosnia Herzegovina, this place really has scars and is taking a while to recover from the war.  It's a great drive, you actually cross the border twice because Bosnia has cut into Croatia's coastal access.  When you're in the very tourist Old Town in Mostar you'll see how they're trying to have you part with your money, and they'll take what ever kind you want to give them.  But it is charming and the bridge is really very cool to walk over.  The best views are from the top of a minaret of the mosque in the Old Town.  It's worth the price and worth the climb, just be sure you're not afraid of heights.

The next day we drove to Kotor, Montenegro.  This is where it gets interesting.  We had to cross the border and yes, we got stamps on our passports!  But the interesting part was that right before the border Croatia decided to redo the road.  The night before it rained really hard and the dirt road was kinda washed out for nearly 2 miles.  We had expected a little more rain later and were kind of worried that there wouldn't be a road for us to get back to Dubrovnik.  The drive is basically around a fjord and it's stunning!  We stopped off to take a few shots and made it to Persat, this is a sleepy little town that has probably loads of tourist during the high summer season but we had it all to ourselves.  Kotor is really fascinating.  The historic fort goes up the side of the mountain but we weren't brave enough to make the 2 hour climb up the steep stairs.  We just looked at it from the pizza restaurant and gladly sipped our class of wine.

Yes, 2 more stamps.  We might have gotten one from Bosnia & Herzegovina but the rude-ish border guard in Bosnia wasn't someone we'd want to cross.

Next up, Istanbul!

Curry anyone?

I often watch films where you're taken to some exotic location, Africa, The Amazon, Australia, India, the list is long with me.  This year The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel did that.  I had seen the trailer online for this and knew it was something I had to see.  Besides the amazing collection of cast, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie the location is the true star in my book, India.  Thomas Newman scored the film and, as always, ads a beautiful layer of sound over the stunning location.

Everything I expected from the visual aspect of India is shown here.  The colors and the rawness, the people, the throngs of people.  Anyone who's been there has said the same thing over and over, and it's repeated in the film, 'it is an assault on the senses'.  Sight and sound and of course smell.

Since living here in London we've been able to get some pretty amazing Curry based Indian foods.  The blend of spices and even the color of their food is fantastic!  I could list a bunch of adjectives but basically it's damn good!

We're spoiled I guess, we can have Indian any time we want.  Heck, we've even enjoyed the ready meals from Tesco and Sainsbury as they're very tasty with less wait time due to slow table service.

We have Brick Lane here, or Little Bangladesh if you like.  The place smells amazing!  You can't walk 2 feet without smelling curry.

This is something I want to experience at the source...I want to enjoy, and hopefully not regret, Indian street food IN India.  I want to walk through a market street and see all the beautiful colors from the clothing and the spices.  I could probably even learn how to deal with the offensive smells.

Who's with me?!

Visa Lock Down!

One of the strangest things, and there are plenty of strangest things here in the UK is that in order to live here you need to have the approval of the British Government to stay longer than 90 days.  We went through the initial process back in the summer of 2009.  The process is a bunch of paperwork and then you have to go to some government office where they do electronic finger prints and retina scans of your eyes and take yet another picture of you.  They then have you mail off all the paper work and a check for $450, which is refunded by Kevin's company, to the British Embassy near by along with your passport and have to wait 4 to 6 weeks before you get anything back.  Typically you get back your passport and it's not got a sticker on one of the pages which is your Visa saying "We approve of you".  This time we are here, in the UK and the hoops are just as boring or interesting either way you look at it.  Lots of paper work to go through and then you take a picture of yourself, we went to Snappy Snaps.  But this time Kevin's company hires an attorney to deal with the rest and the company pays the fee, meaning we don't write a check.

We mailed off our thick ass package the week after I got back from the US in mid July and well, now we're on what every expat here calls "Visa Lock Down".  This means we can't leave the country without special approval from the US and/or British Governments.  We're pretty much grounded and this couldn't be better for Kevin.

So we had to do things here....like attend the London 2012 Olympics. 
Awful, huh?
We didn't apply for tickets in the initial lottery but managed to buy a set for 1 event.  We ended up with 3 events!  Our great friend, Mark, managed to get tickets for a Beach Volleyball set, we got to see 4 matches and one was with an American men's team.

 The next event was Men's Diving, our friend, Matthew, from home bought tickets but didn't get enough in their lottery bid to make it worth the trip here so we bought them from him.  The best part was being in the Olympic Park. 

Going home

It's no secret that I love to travel.  However, this particular trip wasn't planned and there wasn't any excitement building up to it.  I had to return to my childhood home to lay to rest my Dad.  I've made this kind of trip twice before, in 2000 for my Sister and in 2003 for my Mom.  Each time it was unexpected and very surreal.  Each time before I was pushed to grow up, mature a little more.  This time was no different.  I had hoped the strongest man I had ever known would have pulled through and shown us how strong he is/was.  I had told my nephews that I'd really rather come to Louisiana later in the year because it's nasty hot in June/July.  I explained to my new employer that I really thought it was going to be ok but that I may need to rush off at any time, not really expecting to do this when I did.As unpleasant and heart breaking a funeral is it still has some moments where you can feel the love and support of family and friends.  So many people showed up during the wake that I couldn't visit with them all.  My Dad was described as a 'pillar of the community' by so many people and it showed.  I spent time chatting with some of his old friends and members of our extended family.  Bringing back amazing memories of my youth.  Seeing Mrs. Mills, my 2nd grade teacher made me remember walking to school everyday for 12 years.  Seeing Mr. & Mrs. Benoit Guidry reminded me of how we'd have our families gather together for dinners and fun.  Seeing Pope and Judy Huval reminded me of when my Mom and Dad and myself would all work at the Hungry Hobo and I was reminded by my cousin Pam about how we'd make handmade burgers and my Mom would toss the ground meat at the ceiling in a rebellious move.  I saw Mr. Stelly and it reminded me of when my Dad would pick pecans from his trees, I went with him after coming out of the hospital for an emergency appendectomy and Dad would help me move around picking pecans with him.
And then there's "The Sisters".  My Dad was 1 of 6 children, he had 3 surviving sisters.  Two of them are older than him, one 88 and the other 90.  Seeing them remind me of those Sunday drives to visit them.  I always felt uncomfortable going but went anyway. I don't know them all that well, maybe it's my own fault.  I suspect my Dad understood why I felt the way I did.  I know my Mom knew why I didn't like going.
Right now I'm sitting in my childhood home looking around at the place I spent so many years, yes, the house is in a state of disrepair mostly because of neglect and probably from a lack of understanding what to do and funds.  It's still very comfortable here.  Old furniture and even older pictures on the walls, some covered in a little layer of grimmy dust.  The yard is bare except for the 3 trees I planted many years ago.  They're the only survivors of my Dad's chainsaw.  He basically removed or mowed over everything I had planted over the 20 years I lived here.  Mom would cry and ask him why he would do this after the fact.  I suspect he just didn't want to do the extra work around the yard, just mow in a straight line and be done with it.  After all, it does get to over 100 F here during the summer with crazy levels of humidity.  Beyond the trees is the cemetery where I have many relatives including my Mom, Dad and Sister.  Dad worked there for 42 years as a care taker, he got the job after my Grandfather retired.
The road we live on has mostly the same people still here.  Some new people and most of the homes are still the same.  The age level has gotten way up.  Trees are bigger and paint has faded and boards have fallen off.  Fences have come and gone and most of them are rusted, twisted or rotted.  We have 1 new home at the end of the street but it's because what was there burned down a few years ago.  The rest of the town still looks the same, the grocery store is still open and there are a couple little businesses that have come and gone. 
I'm going to give up my part of the inheritance to my 2 nephews.  I think my Mom and Dad would have approved of this.  I don't have any real ties to this place except for the memories.  The boys need this place more than I do.  I can hope they will work things out and get the house back into shape over time and maybe it'll last long enough to where their children will be able to have those great memories I have had.

Behind the Iron Curtain

We’re probably over doing it some but since we’re her we may as well make the best of it, right?  We figured that maybe we should take advantage of a 4 day weekend and head out of town not to avoid the Queen’s Jubilee but to just go somewhere that just might be warm and sunny.  We went to Budapest.  Also, we have to now stay put due to our Visas are going to be renewed and this takes 2 months.  We have to stay and enjoy the Great British Summer (it's a joke people).

It’s one of those places you read about in World History and then you see more about it when the fall of communism happened at the end of the ‘80’s then it doesn’t really seem all that appealing until you actually live in Europe.  Thankfully it isn’t one of those over-the-top communism cities so I’ll call it commy light.  They were considered to be the most ‘Western’ city behind the iron curtain during the Cold War.  They had the 1^st McDonald’s in Eastern Europe and they allowed several western retail chains to setup shop.  I guess it made it more tolerable to live in Hungary during that time.

Our trip had us going through Luton Airport, again.  Having had that fun a month earlier I knew what to expect….and it’s really not ‘fun’.  You’re up very early as they have only 2 flights on the Hungarian Cheap Airline or WizzAir and we didn’t want to be dealing with late afternoon traffic  so we were up at 3am…again.

Budapest is beautiful even if some of the buildings could use a bit of work.  They prettified the place for their 1000^th Birthday Bash back in 1896 then came 2 World Wars followed by years of Communist oppression.  They’re crawling back up and doing a fantastic job with it.

We stayed on the Pest side where we felt we’d have more options for hotels and places to eat would be closer too.  The hotel was very central to everything.   We could walk, and we did, everywhere.  The city felt bigger than Prague but still very easy to walk through.  All the major sites are accessible via public transportation but we still like walking so we can see the neighborhoods and maybe get a glimpse into the locals lives.

This place is CHEAP!  They are in the Eurozone but not on the Euro so the Pound or Dollar go much farther with hotels/meals/drinks. 

Highlights:

The Chain Bridge

Parliament House

Castle Hill

Central Market

Szechenyi Baths

Danube River Views

New York Café

Memento Park

Tokaj Wine

These are just a few as there are great statues all over the place and interesting buildings that are all restored or being restored or just crumbling.  The Metro and some of the Buses are from Communist times and fun to ride on.

The food is awesome as is the Hungarian wine.  They make wonderful paprika dishes and a bunch of pastries with cream fillings and fruit strudels.  Their coffee houses are incredible as is the beer.

Don't try to learn the language, it's way too hard but that's fine, English is spoken here and you'll be ok.

I’d love to go back.  The Iron Curtain has truly fallen and there's no stopping Hungary and their gem; Budapest of being fantastic.

Another stamp

One of the main reasons we came to London was that we could easily get to other parts of Europe.  I recently had to renew my passport but mostly be cause the old one was filling up with stamps!  I love going through it and trying to figure out the dates and where the stamps have come from....they're usually messy and mostly blurry.

We added another stamp and best another country.  We spent a long weekend in Lisbon, Portugal.  I have been craving warm and sunny and we figured this would be a good place to go in a 2ish hour flight form London.  Well, it was!

Lisbon is beautiful.  It's historic old town area is falling apart, crumbling mostly, but it's still beautiful.  They're propping up some of the really bad ones and trying to recover some others but you do get a sense of what it was like when you see those that have been restored.  Most of the really old ones have been preserved and they look fantastic. 

We rented an apartment this time instead of a hotel room.  This worked out great as we had a 3 room apartment, Bath, Kitchen & Bedroom.  The place was very nice, blue paint with white trim, reminds me of our guest bedroom in our house in Los Angeles(*sigh).  Having an apartment meant we could take our time with getting up and making our own breakfast.  We weren't rushed to avoid the housekeeping either.

We got there and figured out how to get from the airport to the center of town via the Aero Bus.  One of the first things we saw were these vendors selling HUGE strawberries, so red and big and full of flavor!  We had them everyday for breakfast.

Walking around the city is easy and looking through bakeries makes it really worth walking everywhere.  One thing we noticed right away was how cheap it is to eat.  Another thing was how easy it is to buy drugs!  Yes, every night I was approached by at least 3 men asking if I wanted to buy hash, coke, or pot.  I always giggled when they asked.  Granted we only had this happen when we were in the main pedestrian street very late at night AND it's still very safe to be walking around there.  The dealers take "No" for an answer and they leave you alone.

Oh, English is spoken there and strangely they broadcast several channels in English with Portuguese subtitle.  That took some getting used to.  It was great to see current programming in English!  It made us feel that we would be able to get around the city easily even with our little map.

I really loved going to Lisbon.  I hope they get their act together soon and get the buildings in shape, clean up the graffiti.  Belem was great.  Sintra was fantastic especially before the hoards of tourist buses came in and packed the little town.  St. George's castle was fun even if we'd been through so many other castles before.

Where to next?