Thanksgiving in London

Many of you know that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. It's probably a combination of being in the Fall and so close to my birthday, being a time to eat as much delicious comfort food as you want, and being an excuse to spend time with family and friends, but it is mostly because it is a day to remember how much we have to be thankful for and to share that with others without all the commercial excess that comes in to play with some other (not to be mentioned) holidays.

I love hosting Thanksgiving dinner, a tradition that we started many moons ago. I love cooking all day and setting the table in anticipation of our guests. I love having the Macy's Parade on the telly in the background, while Steven prepares the bird and I frantically vacuum the house. I love how the cooking smells fill the air and the phone keeps ringing with well wishes from family on the other Coast. I love sitting down to eat with people that I love, and hearing what each one is most thankful for this year. I guess I am a bit of a nut about Thanksgiving; did I mention that it's my favorite holiday?

Being in England for Thanksgiving this year was certainly different. No one celebrates it here, not just minimally like Halloween, I mean not at all. It isn't a holiday in the UK and some folks have no idea what it even symbolizes. That didn't faze us, though, we still hosted Thanksgiving dinner, and it was really nice. We splashed out and ordered almost all of the food from Abel & Cole, including the organic cranberry preserves. We bought a whole pumpkin and Steven baked pumpkin pie from scratch, while I stuck to the easy apple pie making. We cooked all day, cleaned the house, had calls from family and friends, all with "This American Life's" podcast playing in the background. Then Uncle Alan and Aunt Isabel came over for dinner and we introduced them to Thanksgiving. It was really special that we were able to celebrate it with family, and that was one of the recurring themes when we all noted what we're feeling most thankful for. The other biggies were being thankful that we could take this adventure and that it is all going so well, thankful for our health and for our happiness, thankful for each other. It really doesn't get much better than that. Oh, and the upside to the Brits not celebrating Thanksgiving is that they also don't celebrate "Black Friday." Something else to be thankful for!

Weekend in Winchester

King Alfred the Great

King Arthur's Round Table

The B&B where we stayed

Franny's new hat

Inside Winchester Cathedral

Our country walk

This past weekend, we spent some family time in Barton Stacey for Dad's cousin Julia's 40th birthday. She had a disco-themed party, which was fun, and a big Sunday roast lunch at the pub the next day. It was great to see everyone, albeit for not very long. Then again, we'll all be heading back in five weeks for Christmas! We left on Friday and stayed in Winchester that night. We all loved the city (more like a town, but apparently Winchester is a city because there is a cathedral), it wasn't large at all- just one main high street with lots of shops and market stalls. One highlight was all the beautiful buildings we wandered into or passed by. We saw Arthur's round table (supposedly) and mural of the members of parliament representing Winchester, and awesome brick apartments surrounded by a park. On Saturday morning we visited Winchester Cathedral, which was incredible. It's fifteen centuries old, and beautiful. Best bits: 12th century Bible in excellent condition, Jane Austen's grave, and the amazing architecture in general.

After a full English breakfast at the Dell B&B where we stayed, and a visit to the aforementioned cathedral, we drove to Barton Stacey and stopped to take a hike on the way. It was a great country walk, and the autumn leaves made it especially nice. Plus, we lucked out that it was sunny all weekend, and not nearly as cold here as Seattle has been (although I'm hoping for some snow this winter). All in all, great November weekend.

Date at the Tate

Last week Steven and I finally made it to the Tate Britain. We've been to the Tate Modern quite a few times, and always love that place; but we wanted to check out its big sister this time around. We were not disappointed. It's a beautiful 1897 building, with incredible domed ceilings and gorgeous wood floors, and a very impressive collection of British Art. The museum sits along the River Thames, on Millbank.

The beauty of all of these museums having free entry is that you can just check them out for a little while, and then go on to something else. So that day, we wandered through some of the galleries, but barely scratched the surface of the whole museum, before getting a bit peckish and deciding to head off to lunch. We stumbled upon the Garden Museum and popped in to their cafe for a delicious bite, before walking along the food-stall lined streets of Lambeth and finding freshly baked cookies for dessert. None of these places took credit cards, so we managed to squeak by with just the fourteen pounds I had in my wallet that day, and our trusty oyster cards for taking the tube everywhere.

We spent another hour just walking around, exploring yet another part of the city. How can there possibly be so many different areas of London? And each borough is completely different, just walking down a block you can feel the change- the buildings, the people, the shops, the streets, it's very interesting.

A few days later, Greta and I headed in to London to check out the Dazed and Confused exhibit at the Somerset House (we love going there!). We couldn't take photos in the gallery, but outside we got to see the crew putting up the Christmas Tree and skating rink, which was cool- we definitely want to head back there next month. Reminded me of Mary Tyler Moore's line in "Ordinary People," when she said "Ah, Christmas in London- it's like something out of Dickens!" You may wonder how I remember such a trivial line, but Greta and I just watched that movie last week (it holds up very well, by the way). Anyway, after the exhibit, we got hot drinks and walked all through St. James Park. She even talked me into doing a little shopping and I fell in love with a gorgeous dress at Jigsaw; it was marked down to half price (still ridiculously expensive), so I went for it. I haven't bought many clothes since being here, and this dress just called to me. Plus, I got my first paycheck last week!

Remember, Remember, the 5th of November

"Remember, remember, the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason, and plot."

On November 5th, we all trekked to Carshalton for Guy Fawkes. The holiday originates from the attempted plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605, and Guy Fawkes was burned at the stake on November 5th for treason. Now, it is a tradition (much more popular than Halloween) to have a bonfire and to go see fireworks on the 5th. The park near Alan and Isabel's does a show, so we went to their house to watch it. While it is a bit of grim celebration, the fireworks were definitely the best we've ever seen. There was also a bonfire to burn down a "Guy." Followed by some excellent jacket potatoes at Alan and Isabel's, it was a traditional November night in London.

Half-Term Holiday in Italy

It's been a while since I've posted, and things have certainly been busy around here. I finished my two weeks of training, and have started work, which is going really well. Abel & Cole is a great company, and they are really good to their staff, so it's been fun to join their team. But this post is about the week between training and starting work, spent in Italy, which was amazing. Greta chose some of her highlights to write about, so I'll include some of mine. Like her, I feel like I could add a million pictures to show how beautiful it was and all that we did, but I'll try to reign it in a little. :)

First, let me explain that none of us had ever been to Italy, and it was a place that we've always wanted to see. My mother had promised me a trip to Venice as a graduation gift, but the years went by and it never materialized. Then a few years ago, Steven and I decided that a trip to Italy would be the perfect way to celebrate our 20th anniversary; so, this October we made it happen. I booked our flights last August, once we confirmed the week the kids would be off school. EasyJet is a budget airline, but all went smoothly with our flights. The lovely apartment that we rented I found through sabbaticalhomes.com, a gem of a sight for renting academics' properties when they aren't using them. I had originally booked an Italian professor's two-bedroom flat in Florence, but she contacted me about a month before the trip to say that she was incredibly sorry, but wouldn't be able to rent us the place after all, due to personal circumstances. We were rather crushed, but she then told us that we could have her one-bedroom flat, in an even better location, for just the cost of the deposit on the other place. This was a screaming deal, and there was a pull-out sofa in the living room, so it really worked out just fine. It was charming and on a lovely street, right by the Uffizi and the Piazza, walking distance to everything we needed, including one of the best gelaterias in Florence.

We hired a car service to get to Gatwick and then flew on to Bologna, where we spent the day wandering around the market and sampling the local espresso and gelato. For some reason, Steven kept trying to speak Spanish and my inclination was to revert to French, but we quickly picked up some basic Italian words and were able to get by just fine.  We had booked the train from Bologna to Florence, which was a lovely ride in a nice compartment car, and took less than two hours. From the train station, we walked to our apartment, and were very glad that we had traveled with just our backpacks, as lots of tourists seemed to be having trouble wheeling their luggage through the old cobblestone streets!

We headed out for pizza for dinner that night, and all smiled at the realization that what everyone says is true- there is no pizza quite like true Italian pizza, it was amazing (and the bottle of wine that Steven and I threw back wasn't too shabby either). The next day we started at our local cafe for americanos and flaky pastries filled with Nutella, then wandered around the city getting our bearings and seeing the major sights. We also hit the local market to get some snacks for our apartment, and of course, stuck to our (as suggested by Brian D.) rule of having gelato every day.

Some highlights of the week were walking across the Ponte Vecchio many times, hiking up to the Piazzale Michaelangelo to see the "David" sculpture and Firenze from above, sampling handmade pasta dishes, shopping at the San Lorenzo Market, strolling through the Uffizi Gallery with Greta, date night dinner at Sabatino's with Steven, taking the bus up to Friesole to see the Roman ruins and Franciscan monastery, definitely the amazing Boboli Gardens, and just walking around such a beautiful city. We joked that it was a bit much really, all the grand cathedrals, famous artworks, stylish Italians, fantastic food, and delicious desserts. We had thought that we might head off to other areas during the week, but once we got to Florence, we realized that we really just wanted to hang out there and enjoy it. So, we'll definitely need to return to Italy to see more.