Bro weekend- St. Paul's

My older brother, Allen, recently visited us in London. He stayed with us in London for 10 days, which fell over two weekends. This way we were able to still spend a lot of time with him on the weekends and during the evenings, however didn't have to take off work!

Friday Night:
On the first Friday he was in town, we headed to a local pub in Clapham for some delicious cask ales and the traditional fish & chips. The local pub we visited was The Sun, in Clapham Old Town.

Saturday:
Apparently our favourite things about London include the food, because on Saturday morning we enjoyed a proper English breakfast while sitting outside in Clapham. The proper English breakfast includes fried eggs, rashers (English bacon), sausage, roasted tomatoes, baked beans and toast. Pretty much a guaranteed hangover cure. Clapham has lots of great breakfast options, however one place that is the best bang for our buck (quid) is Fantasia Cafe in Old Town.

After breakfast we headed to one of the more popular markets, Borough Market to enjoy lots of delicious free samples and a few pints of proper cider. After Borough Market we decided to go to St. Paul's and climb to the 350-some meters to the top of the dome, to the whispering gallery. From Borough market, walk down the South side of the river, which takes you by the William Shakespeare Globe Theater and the Tate Modern Museum. Then cross the pedestrian bridge across the Thames, and St. Paul's will be right there. It is a very lovely walk and one that I recommend our visitors to do.

It costs £16.50 to enter St. Paul's, which included access the whispering gallery, the top of the dome and the crypt. The exterior of the dome allows for a 360 degree view of the city, perfect for a photo opportunity.

The walk to the top is not for the faint of heights, nor is it for clumsy people... Mom- you are not allowed to the top.  Brett is deathly afraid of heights, and even the walk up the metal stairs scared him. . Like for example, when we were in Florence, he didn't make it to the top of the Duomo, he turned around halfway and left me to fend for myself. Therefore, St. Paul's was very reminiscent of our Italy experience.  See below how he is practically reaching for the wall.


Tomorrow I'll post on the Chelsea football game we attended. Sorry for the lack of posts! I'll try to make them shorter and more frequent going forward. Especially with all our travel coming up, it's going to be hard to keep up!

Cheers! Mary

Spring in London

Spring is in full bloom here in London. As I type this blog post, Brett and I are enjoying a crisp refreshing glass of white wine while enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.

Coming from a city where spring is lucky to show up at the first of May, it has been so refreshing to have a winter that ends in February and where the coldest it ever got during the day was 30 degrees. I always wondered if I would miss the snow, but this winter has proved that I don’t actually like snow unless I am on a mountain. My poor friends in Chicago have suffered through a terrible winter and I’m not even sure if a day like London is having right now is in the near future for them. 

As most of you know, just before Christmas I started working at a butcher shop in Clapham. I worked as the delicatessen, making gourmet sandwiches and handling the deli and cheese counters. There wasn’t too much about working in a butcher shop that phased me, for example seeing headless animals or watching one of the guys blow into the esophagus of a rabbit to make the lungs fill up, but I was quite scared of the huge refrigerator that held all the meat. Something about seeing meat hanging from a meat hook reminds me of some horror movie and the thought of being locked in that refrigerator scared me on a daily basis. 

Although the refrigerator was equivalent to the basement furnace in Home Alone, the butcher shop has been such a positive experience for me. It relieved a lot of the stress and pressure I felt around not having a job. We are approaching our six month anniversary of moving to London and I would have to say that trying to find a job has been the hardest part of our move. Having a temporary job really relived a lot of stress and pressure that I felt about sitting at home all day. When you don’t have a job and no children to keep you busy, you definitely build up a lot of guilt regarding not doing anything all day long. Brett would get home from work and say "How was your day? What did you do?", like most loving husbands do. But something about watching 6 hours straight of "Keeping up with the Kardashians" made me feel guilty. I always thought I would be an awesome Housewife, but at the end of the day, I need a lot on my plate to stay productive. So working at the butcher shop for 6 hours a day helped break up my binge TV sessions, and forced me to be productive outside of those hours. 

But after almost six months of unemployment I have finally found a job! And it's a great job and an international company to which I will most likely be able to transfer back to the state with. The picture below is a view from our offices. 

 I started last week, and some of my initial thoughts are 1. That I miss wearing yoga pants to work 2. The Northern line between 8:15-8:45 is pretty similar to the picture below, no one is physically pushing you, but at times I think I could touch the next person with my tongue. You can only let so many trains pass you before you just force yourself on the train. 

That's it for now... We have our second visitor coming this week... my brother is coming to visit for 10 days!! Woot woot!

Cheers, Mary