London Checklist

Hi everyone, just a quick note from me, Aaron. From time to time, I'll drop in here. :) I wanted to mention the wonderful yet quirky things that Julie doesn't always talk about. This time, I'll talk about the crazy people we saw in London on our very short visit.

First, the girls (Julie and Meg) were very excited to see the prototypical Euro-man laying in the park with his shirt open. I guess they were excited by some hot Euro-belly. Check.

The next one on our checklist was the man with the metal detector searching the grass near the top of the hill. I haven't seen a metal detector in a long time. He didn't find anything, but I found a 1 Pound coin lying on the ground, and I didn't even have to look like a total tool!

Finally, our mini checklist was complete when we saw a man digging for gold on the tube. His finger was way up in his nose. Totally gross, but more importantly, it makes for a mildly interesting story. :)

It was a blast hanging out with Meg and her new fiancé Chris, and I hope we get to see them again soon. Maybe we can work on our Los Angeles checklist.

More from Berlin coming soon.

Auf Wiedersehen!
Aaron

First two nights in Europe

We made it safe and sound... no hiccups at the airport - well, except for one of our carry-ons being ever so slightly too big for the BA flight to Berlin - but they let us pass 'just this once.'

After landing at Heathrow and making our way to our hotel near Primrose Hill, Aaron and I called our friends Meg and Chris to come meet up. They live in Bristol but came into the city for a weekend on special account of us being there. One favorite view of the city is from the top of Primrose Hill, so after cleaning up the four of us headed up there for a visit and the views. Then we stopped at a pub just down the road, went for an Indian meal at a place in Islington (thought about heading to Brick Lane, but knew that our jet lag would be setting in so we decided not to venture too far from our hotel) and then for another pint at a pub nearby. I was crashing hard (so sleepy!) so we headed back and called it a night. We made it all the way until 11:30 or so, which was pretty good considering our all night flight from LA. As we were going to bed Aaron commented that it was an excellent way to start our European vacation and I agree. A really nice evening with friends, some fresh air, good food, and a pint!

The next morning we got up early enough to grab some breakfast at a cafe on the local high street. I hadn't been to this part of London before (even though it wasn't that far from where I had lived) and found it to be almost the perfect speciman of a London high street. Butcher shop, flower shop, cafe, pub, pharmacy, and local grocery. Everything the neighborhood needed.

Our flight to Berlin was un-eventful. We left out of the new Terminal 5 from Heathrow, which was HUGE. Accomodated large amounts of shopping and restaurants. Gordon Ramsey had a restaurant there and Harrods had a small department store inside too amoungst many many others.

We found our hotel in Berlin easily. On our way there we came across hundreds of football fans on their way to watch the Euro Cup Final in the public parks that had been set up to accomodate the fans. Flags as skirts, tri-colored mohawks, painted faces... the whole nine yards. After getting settled in our room we went to see about joining the crowd, but found out that we got there too late. They had reached capacity and weren't letting any more people in. We walked along the water-park and found an 'over-flow' area and watched the first half of the game with a couple of thousand fans there. At half-time we took off back to our hotel and watched the rest of the game at the outdoor cafe that our hotel had set up.
Today so far we have meandered around, grabbed lunch, and will now set off to see some sights.

I NEED a vacation!

This week was off to a rough start. I got an email on Sunday (this will teach me to check my work emails on weekends) from one of the partners I work closely with in Phoenix saying that I was needed in Phoenix on Monday. Urgh. I of course, forwarded it to my two boss figures and asked for their advice. They kicked it around a little only to come back with a "you better go." Not what I was wanting to hear, but it was what I was expecting.

I didn't read between the lines and thought (naively) that I would be done by Monday evening. Um, no. I caught the last flight of the day home, only to turn around on the very first flight of the day on Tuesday. This meant getting only about 4 hours of sleep. Worked until about 1:30 in the morning, checked into the hotel across the plaza from our office, and then got up in time to get the first flight of the day back home to LA. I again hadn't brought an overnight bag and I wanted clean clothes and a hug from Aaron.

Frantically put the finishing touches on the project we were working on and then at 10:00 am sent it to Miami to be printed and couriered to the hotel where the partner had flown to that same day. I took about an hour nap and then worked all day to get things sorted out with my 'day job' that I had been neglecting for the past two days.

Luckily, we are leaving for vacation on Friday! TWO weeks in Europe! I definitely earned it and will relish every moment.

Stay tuned... I'm hoping to post a couple of entries while we're away so you can see what we get up to in London, Berlin, and Riga (Latvia).

Griffith Observatory

This weekend we went to the Griffith Observatory - which Aaron hadn't been to in ages and it was my very first time there. We were pseudo celebrating our friend Debbie's birthday. I say pseudo only because it was actually several months ago but she was busy giving birth and what-not. Time with friends, beautiful views, a historical building, and a couple of science refresher lessons made this a great afternoon.

(photos to come)

Chef's Inc.

For our wedding some friends gave us a really awesome gift - a gift certificate for a cooking class! Aaron and I were slackers when it came to selecting a class and signing up, so here it is almost two years later and we just finally used it. We signed up for the "Summer with Friends" meal - potato crusted sea bass, salad, minted snap peas, and some sort of cherry dessert. The experience was really fun. There were 6 other people in the class - none of whom we knew - and two chefs. More or less it was like cooking in a huge kitchen and having an assistant who took out all your ingredients, brought you all of your utensils, cleaned up after you, and answered any questions you had about the recipe.

The people with us were two high school girls and a family of 4 (two sisters, one husband, and their high school aged son). Aaron and the other husband bonded reminiscing about their alma mater's sports history - Go Bruin's - and the rest of us just had a really nice time chatting, getting to know each other, and hanging out.

I have to say that the meal itself wasn't terribly difficult to fix. All of my 4-H training as a kid taught me most of what we learned in the class. But I can see if someone was incredibly scared of cooking and was truly awful at it they would have walked away after this class feeling like they were Rachel Ray. I enjoyed it more for the interaction with the other diners. You don't get to know new people like that when you go for a meal at a restaurant.

Winner, winner, winner!

One favorite Sunday afternoon activity at the Schneider household is house hunting (just looking to look, not to buy). Los Angeles real estate on it's own is interesting and so overpriced, but to make things even more exciting we make a game out of it. This afternoon we convinced our good friend Darren to take a bike ride with us all around the Mar Vista area of LA and play along. We check out a house and before we look at how much it's listed for we take our best guess and see who is the closest. I may have found my next career: real estate appraiser. I was the closest to the listed price almost everytime we found a house to look at! Next time we might think again about neighborhood choice... Mar Vista has so many hills that we had to climb on our bikes. But we did get a nice workout from it.

Whoa - what a difference

It's the end of my work day on Monday and things just seem really good. I have two theories about why:

1) I can finally breathe out of both nostrils for the first time in several days (I had caught one of those super annoying summer colds)

2) I went to yoga this morning for the first time in many weeks. The 6:10 wake up is brutal, but I always feel so good when I'm done.

LIfe is good. :)

Trying to do too much?

Nah! Just enjoying everything we can! This past weekend Aaron and I were busy busy people. In addition to all of the time we spent working on the backyard and putting in the new planter box we also managed to fit in a birthday party Jane Austin style, kayaking in Long Beach, and Aaron's Sunday basketball league game. On paper it doesn't sound so full... which is partly how we (I am more the culprit) end up with such a busy calendar. But in practice we can easily end up feeling like we are bouncing all over the place. It's definitely worth it though.