Thanksgiving in Zurich

Hi All

Sorry it's been so long since we've written. I'm going to let John tell you about his Day with the Dogs another time and I'm going to give you a quick recap of our Thanksgiving and Anniversary.

We went to Zurich for Thanksgiving with Flo, Keith and Lauren (a friend who is studying in Rome this semester.) We took the first flight out Thursday morning. The problem with that is that the tube doesn't start running until 5am, so we couldn't take the tube to the airport. Had to take a cab. Oh well- not too bad. We arrived at la Casa de Flo y Keith at 11am exactly- less than five hours door-to-door. I will miss that.

As you would imagine, Flo had everything under control. The apartment looked like a page out of Martha Stewart's magazine, the turkey (which is a hilarious story all its own) had been marinading in brine for 24 hours and she was cool as a cucumber. We enjoyed a fabulous dinner and even got to watch the end of the Macy's parade and the first football game of the day thanks go their amazing Slingbox!

Friday we went exploring into the mountains. First, we bought wood for their fireplace. Then, we went to a restaurant with a gorgeous view for drinks. Finally, we went to a fabulous fondue place that puts DIP to shame. Unfortunately, this exploration was marred by the fact that a heavy fog had set in and we couldn't see ten feet in front of us. Seriously, I don't know how Keith was driving! Look-


Fog or not, we still had a great time. After dropping off the firewood, we made our way to the train station, the site of the largest indoor Christmas Market in Europe. They did have a Christmas tree decorated entirely of Swarovski crystals, but this seemed like a better place to take a photo-


It was very pretty but not as large as I thought it would be. I was also expecting very "Swiss" things but it was pretty much like any other Christmas Market- a lot of food and costume jewelry. Flo and I had mulled wine (mine was non-alcoholic) and John and I had bratwurst and bread. It was delicious!



After that, they dropped us off at the airport and we were home by 10pm our time. We would have liked to have stayed longer, but I had rehearsal the next day and John had his boys' day with the dogs...

We celebrated our 7th Anniversary in the usual way on Sunday- watched our wedding video, ate pizza and drank beer. FYI: Non-alcoholic beer is SO GROSS!!!!!!! My hormones are definitely in full effect this week. Usually, I only cry at key points during the wedding video but Sunday I started crying with the exterior of the church and didn't stop until my bridesmaids were dancing on the tables. You, hussies!

CHAMPIONE CHAMPIONE!

We won the PR Football league on Wednesday night! We believed we would only take away second place, but the team in first place didn't win a single match on Wednesday and we won all three of ours. Therefore we won on goal difference since we had the same number of points in the league.

I won't lie, the first match was a hard fought win and the second match looked grim as we were down 2 - nill at the half way mark. But showing our mark as true champions, we dug deep and overcame adversity to win 4-2! We then destroyed the final team 7-1. I personally had the best match of my career - I was like a ninja cat as I humiliated the opposing strikers.

That's enough bragging - except for this one fact - we forfeited 4 games due to player unavailability, and we still won the league!

We have a cup knock-out competition on the 28th and then the award ceremony. In other sporting news, we're rooting for Israel to win against Russia today.

A Very English Weekend

Hi there

While John was loving it up in the Madrid office, I was experiencing a truly English weekend.At 9:27am Saturday morning, Steve and Penny picked me up in a gun metal VW Golf courtesy of Streetcar and we began our trip to Essex. I should mention two key points. One- Steve was EARLY! Two- We had no directions. Steve was planning on using Emily, his Sat Nav, but she decided to be fickle for most of the trip. So, he pulled up a map of London on Google Maps and we zig-zagged our way through the city, up and out to wonderful Essex. And we managed to only make two wrong turns! It's amazing how little traffic there is in London at 10am on a Saturday morning. We even made it across the Tower Bridge with no wait. See?



The whole trip to Essex was scheduled because a friend of ours read an article about The Company Shed, a wonderful fish restaurant on the coast of Mersea Island that serves fresh fish at its finest without the trimmings. You bring your own beverages, sauces and bread/butter. It sounded like a good excuse for a weekend away and the trip was born.

The thing about Mersea Island is that it isn't always an island. It is connected to the mainland by a causeway, which floods every day at high tide. If you don't make it to the causeway by hightide, you have to wait an hour or so until the tide starts to recede before you can go across. This made our meeting time very important. We arranged to meet on the island at noon. Let's just say our car made it but the other two didn't.

Don't worry- we didn't enjoy the seafood without them. We waited at a cool 15th century pub and all went in together after the tide receded. As a pregnant woman, I was limited as to what I could eat, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching the rest of the gang chow down on what was described over and over again as the best seafood/oysters/etc. they had ever eaten. Here's what the table and the gang looked like after several seafood platters, dozens of oysters, a few lobsters and a couple of bottles of champagne.


After lunch, we checked into our B&B, which looked like something out of the Brady Bunch. We had a great night. Played some Jenga, ate yummy pub food and enjoyed magic tricks by our two youngest companions. I retired early (11:30,) but there was apparently a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit into the not-so-wee hours of the morning.

The next morning, after a wonderful breakfast, we ventured to a park where we flew kites and took in the awesome English coast. We experienced true English weather on Sunday. It was rainy, windy and chilly when we ventured out to the park. The rain would stop and start, as is common. Then, the sun came out! It was wonderful. The sun reflected off the sea. It was truly magical.

And just as we were heading to the cars to find lunch, the sky opened up! There's nothing like crossing a large open area of grass with the English sky pouring down on you. I was at a strong disadvantage, not being able to run to the cars like everyone else, but it was okay, because I was the only one with an umbrella.

The trip finished with a great pub lunch and a three-hour drive back to London, which saw Penny, Steve and me finding our own alternate route through the streets of Hackney and miraculously getting Emily to work just as we found our way to Tower Bridge again.


It was a great weekend. I only wish John could have joined us.

For those of you who are wondering, we didn't do too shabby last night at Quiz Night. We were bang-on average. But we were up against some stiff competition. This pub has a Quiz Night League with standings and everything! So, I was quite impressed with our team. We might try it again before we leave.

Tonight is John's last batch of football matches. Hopefully, his extremely swollen fingers won't hinder his goal-keeping abilities.

My Mom says I'm cool!

Jamie is on her way back from a weekend trip to Essex with Steve and some other friends. I was supposed to go with them, but Madrid rescheduled their office move for Friday & Saturday instead of Thursday & Friday.

The Madrid move marked my last official duties as European IT Manager. I honored the occasion by purchasing two cans of San Miguel Especial from the airport cafeteria (with some Tex Mex Doritos so I didn't look weird). I enjoyed my cerveca especial and regarded the magnificent view of the Madrid landscape from the panoramic windows of Terminal 4 of the Madrid Barajas Airport. I noted the sunset over the sparsely treed hills surrounding the airport was a metaphor for my era as European IT Manager. A simple metaphor, a device so frequently used (I'm a SYMBOL! *CRASH*) that my brother Mike's graduate writing class would sooner carve out their eyeballs with their fancy graduate school pens than be forced to read about it. But still, it was very special to me (*CRASH*) .

I have been promoted in preparation for our return to the US (in 4 weeks?!) and we have hired a new IT Manager who started last week. The upshot is that I shouldn't be called in to work at 3 AM if someone unplugs the servers, which will be a welcome change!

Quiz night didn't happen - our friends were sick last week, so we're trying to reschedule for this week. I know you are on the edge of your seats, so we'll let you know if we get to go!

In a desperate measure to be as cool as our gimptastic friend "Noelle", I jammed my fingers so badly while making a save in my Wednesday night football (soccer) league that I can't wear my wedding ring and my middle finger is as thick as a big fat sausage. However, I lacked the resolve "Noelle" showed and stopped short of breaking my fingers. Which I'm OK with.

Get Well Soon, Noelle

With Ed's guest blog nowhere in sight, I thought I'd give you a brief summary of our weekend. But first, a shout out to our friend Noelle who is recovering from a broken ankle while trying to blog every day for the next 30 days. Stay strong, Noelle. We're rooting for you!

Our weekend was splendid. We realized that we have very few left in Londontown and should maybe start doing all those things we wanted to do but haven't done. We thought about that...and then decided watching the Arsenal/Man Utd. game at the Alex was much more important. And it was. We snatched a draw out of the jaws of defeat deep into extra time and by the end of the match, I was considering changing Cooper's name to Cesc in honor of Cesc Fabregas. Don't worry, John won't let me.

The rest of Saturday was spent at a crappy baby store in Brixton and a leaving do for a friend who is heading back to New Zealand after five years in London.

Sunday was a relatively lazy day, although John did make it to the gym and I managed a walk. Of course, we are devastated by the debacle called a football game that occurred last night in Philadelphia, but I won't get into that.

Tomorrow we head to a quiz night at a pub up the street. Last time we tried one of those, Steve was the only other member of our team. Needless to say, two Americans and an Australian didn't fare too well that night. This time, however, we'll be playing with actual English people. Fingers crossed!

You Can Drink In The Street! (guest blog by Marissa- Ed's will follow shortly)

Marissa and Ed in London—October 26- 31 (Sorry for the length)

Greetings! This may well be the last guest blog since John and Jamie are moving back to the US in 6 weeks!

I have never been to Europe, and couldn’t wait to do so many things. Unfortunately, the first thing I did upon arriving at Heathrow was throw up from motion sickness after circling for 15 minutes. Ahhh precious memories.

However, things looked up considerably once we got through immigration and took the Tube the entire way to their house. It took about 90 minutes. It was great! The Tube is superb compared to the El in Chicago. We took the Tube everywhere. Love it! After thoroughly admiring and cooing over Jamie’s blossoming tummy, she took us to a tasty lunch and gave us a tour of their charming neighborhood. After bathing and napping we headed to John’s office to meet him for dinner. John had already been drinking at his in-office bar for a few hours as it was Friday. We headed out to find a pub, when Ed and I learned that Londoners drink in the street! You can legally drink practically everywhere, and people do. So, we stood on the sidewalk in front of a pub on a very crowded and busy London sidewalk drinking wine and beer and cranberry juice for Jamie and Cooper.



We then found a great Indian restaurant for dinner. After we were sufficiently full of some of the curry that London is known for, we headed to the very posh Goring Hotel to meet Jack Welsh and his wife for drinks. We had a fantastic time with them!



The next day we headed to Westminster Abbey, which was simply beautiful. It was one of the highlights of the trip for me. We then strolled around, found a pub for lunch and went to Covent Garden market. Then it was back to their apartment to rest up before our night out. We met their friend Steve in Soho at the Red Lion and drank in the street again! Once food became a necessity we wandered about until we found a Thai restaurant for dinner.

The next day we woke up to John making us a delicious English breakfast which we enjoyed in their conservatory.


Ed and I headed off to the Cartoon Museum and the British Museum. The British Museum is really cool. Not only are the exhibits like nothing I had ever seen, but the settings in which they are displayed are entirely exquisite unto themselves. We met Jamie, John and Steve at their favorite pub, the Alex, for an Arsenal Football match. That was a highlight! A pub during a match is as quiet as a library, except when a goal is scored, at which point mayhem ensues. Fabulous! We had a quick dinner at a fish and chips restaurant which was marvelous. Then we went home grabbed road beers (a real term) and took the Tube to the Tower of London for the Ceremony of the Keys. http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/WhatsOn/ceremonyofthekeys.aspx

It’s the ceremony they do each night to lock up the Tower. You must request tickets and only about 40 people get to go each night. We enjoyed it immensely. I highly recommend it.

The next morning we went on the Big Bus Tour of London and saw it all! We sat outside on the top of the bus and saw every big site in London. And who says the sun doesn’t shine in London!?!?! We had fantastic fall weather the entire time. It only misted a bit on the first day.




We went back to the Tower and did that tour which included the Crown Jewels. If you like diamonds, it’s a must see! We then went on a boat tour down the Thames before heading off to a romantic lunch at a risotto bar, Ooze, recommended by TimeOut London. We walked about some more prior to heading home. Jamie cooked us a delicious dinner of her mother’s famous recipe of stuffed peppers, and we made our way to another neighborhood pub for merriment.

We started our last full day in London with a 10:00 AM sun-filled trip on The Eye


We then met Jamie at The Wolsey for fancy English breakfast. It was phenomenal and so cool inside. Apparently, jeans are unacceptable attire for the main room at the Wolsey so we were placed in the tiny side room for the underdressed commoners. We then went to Harrods and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Both places are full of so much stuff it’s incredible. Jamie left at this point to go to auditions for her last Showcase in London. Ed and I walked through the Inns of Court, which were absolutely gorgeous but they are likely only something my husband, the attorney, would want to do. This was the only time on our trip where I knew confidently that we were the only tourists!


At this point we were starving and headed to Mother Mash, a modern pie n’ mash shop (another TOL rec), in Soho for a delicious lunch. Once fortified, it was time to get really serious and do some London shopping. We found an amazing new winter coat for Ed at Muji and picked up a few things for myself at Top Shop. Top Shop is H&M on crack! After thoroughly exhausting ourselves at the shops we managed to rally and meet Steve and John at Trafalgar Square. From there we took a quick walk over to Chinatown to experience the Ramsburg-lauded Crispy Duck restaurant. All around it was darn good Chinese food, but that Crispy Duck appetizer is like nothing I have ever eaten before. It was so good!

We managed to pack a TON into 6 days in London, including loads of QT with John and Jamie. Thank you both so much for being such spectacular hosts. London is a fantastic city, but it wouldn't have been anywhere near as fun as it was had we not been with you.