Jet lag erased my memories -or- To remember what we did on Day 2, I had to look at the pictures.

Day 2 in London brought some new adventures. In the morning, we received the air shipment of our stuff. This meant more clothes, our temple bags, more shoes, hangers (yay!), some basic linens (our apartment provides linens but the extra kitchen towels have come in handy) and our computer! We were feeling a little out of touch not being able to email, facebook and blog. Also most of our financial matters are done online, or at least tracked online and we like to have the option of looking things up at will (restaurants, tube schedules, cell phone stores, etc). We've become a little technology dependent but it sure was nice to be able to get online and learn more about our surroundings. I think we've had at least one google map open since then.

After the shipment came we popped for lunch. (Haha. Popped for lunch.) We went to this little sandwich shop across the way from our apartment. Our building is at the end of a road that dead ends at a pedestrian square. The sandwich place is on the opposite side of the square. Anyway, it's called Pret a Manger. It's a chain of shops that carries pre-made sandwiches and salads and pastries, etc. They come wrapped up and most people get them "take-away" (to-go). The sandwiches are pretty good. Nothing to rave about. Well, the Chicken BLT is really good. Pret's competition is called Eat. It's exactly the same except that they have a few different types of sandwiches (the Ham & Jarlsberg baguette is my fave). Usually, if you spot a Pret, there is an Eat somewhere nearby. They are everywhere, especially here in the city. Seriously, pretty much every block has one or both. Truly delicious sandwiches are found at the little mom & pop french bakeries though, but we'll save that for another day. The Pret in this picture is not the one we ate at, it's just one of the many by Brent's office.

Anyway, after lunch we headed towards Brent's office. We wanted to see how long it would take. On our way, we stopped in at Boot's to get me some medicine. They have some of the same medicines here but a lot of different stuff too, so we had no clue what to get since I had a weird combo of symptoms. Brent asked one of the employees who directed us to the guy at the counter. The chemist (pharmacist) asked me what was wrong then grabbed me some things off of the shelf. I don't know if they have looser regulations on meds or if it's the healthcare system, but he gave me some antibiotic throat losenges. Antibiotics? Without a prescription? Sweet! And some really nasty but very effective cough syrup/decongestant. The meds were much needed. My throat was so bad by this point that had I seen a doctor, they probably would have suggested I get my tonsils removed. Oh well! (FYI: after 3-4 days of the losenges, my throat was fine.)

Brent's office is about a 15-20 minute walk from our apartment. He works in the London Underwriting Centre, a large building that houses several worldwide insurance companies. It's a very interesting looking building. I didn't get too many pictures of it and none of them show how big and quirky it is. I'll have to go back and get better pics sometime. It's located in the Insurance District.

You can see the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London from his office. Don't mind the traffic in the picture. We live in the City so there is always traffic, except for on weekends when nothing is open. But more on that next time.

We walked around the streets near Brent's office and came across other interesting buildings. We knew we'd see the Gherkin aptly named for it's resemblance to a giant pickle. It's huge.

But this one was a shocker. What in the world? We thought it was something under construction but it turns out it's the 30 year old building that houses the oldest insurance company in existence. Lloyd's pretty much invented insurance back in the 1600's. Too bad that weird looking building houses all that history. Supposedly it's built that way so that the interior isn't cluttered with elevators, stairs, heating ducts, conduit pipes, etc. All I have to say is, it better be pretty darn awesome on the inside to look that bad on the outside! It looks like the Gotham City headquarters for some villain.

#1 - The full view, #2 - close up of the main entrance, #3 - swirly staircases on the top, #4 - the outdoor elevator that goes really fast

This pub is across the street from those 2 buildings. Wit and insurance, who thought those two would ever go together?

There is a really cool mix of old and new here. We find ourselves taking pictures to illustrate this point a lot. There are several in this post alone. The first time we noticed this though was when we were in the Insurance District. In this picture, you can see a modern skyscraper and a 600 year old church.

Working our way back to run a few more errands, we came across this market, the Leadenhall Market. It's an old historical market. The photographer in me wanted to shoo all the people away and then turn the sun down and the lights up a bit. Maybe I'll just have to go back later in the day when it's closed...

We also came across the Bank of England. It is the central bank for the UK. There is a tube stop right here, which we have taken several times.

Our goal for the day was to find Brent's office (check!) and then get cell phones. We walked back towards St. Paul's because we knew there were a few carriers over there. We were also going to head a little further away to find an Apple store so we could get a UK power cord for our computer but decided that it was getting late, and we were pooped (Jet lag is awful!) so we used a pay phone to call and see if we really needed one. It was a modern phone booth with an ad for Guitar Hero, World Tour. World Tour. Get it?

We passed this pub, the Golden Fleece, on our way home. It's across the street opposite of the pedestrian pathway by our building. You can find a pub (or 2 or 3) pretty much anywhere you go. They are all over the place. We were a little wary of eating in a pub since we don't drink but we had heard the food was pretty good so we thought we'd give it a try. The pub was very nice. Clean, fairly empty since it was 5pm on a weekday and smoking is not allowed inside of pubs so it didn't wreak of smoke. We had some fish and chips. It was yummy.

Then we went home and did everything we could to stay awake until about 9pm when sleeping was inevitable.

Important Reminder

This is the advertisement that greeted us on the tube on our way home from house hunting yesterday. Just a little reminder of one of the reasons why we're really here...

I'm sorry? What did you say?

[Scene: We've just arrived in London, we dropped our luggage off at our apartment because we had at least 2 hours to kill until it would be ready. We're exhausted, hungry, my throat hurts so bad that I *know* I should see a Dr. and we are totally out of our element.]

At the airport, everything is sponsored by HSBC (which here in the UK they call "heych S B C", not sure how H is supposed to make a heych sound, but whatevs). I mean everything. The gate walkways, the transportation, the luggage trucks. Seriously, pretty much everywhere you look there is something with HSBC's logo on it. That being the case, they have "Welcome to London" brochures everywhere so we grabbed a couple. Inside has listings of restaurants, shops, transportation info, maps. Not great ones, but there were some handy ones mapping out the tube and whatnot.

One of the first things on our to-do list, in fact the ONLY thing that had to be done before Monday, was to find a bank. Check! One of the maps in the booklet showed where the local branches are so we whipped out our map, picked the dot closest to us (the map didn't show our exact area, but it did start about 3 blocks from our apartment) and started walking. That was certainly an interesting walk. The weather was nice, the air was clear but in our state of mind, we didn't really notice. Our main goal was to find the place without getting lost or hit by a car and it took every ounce of concentration we had to do that. We found the branch, quite easily, it was up this really quaint little street which I went back and photographed a week later.

Inside the bank, we couldn't figure out who to talk to. They all looked busy. And it's not like an American bank. There were no tellers or windows, just some cash machines and and few desks with people at them. So we stood there looking bewildered. I guess that worked because about a minute later a banker lady walked up to us and says "Right then." What? Right then? What the heck does that mean? We were expecting a "How may I help you?" or "Is there anything I can help you with?". Foreign Language 1 - American English 0. Moving on. We explained our situation and she sat us down to talk about options. She thought it was quite amusing that we'd been in the country for 2 hours and were trying to set up our bank account. Since we don't have a permanent address or even proof of address, because Zurich is paying for our temp housing, we can't have a real bank account. We have Passport accounts which are for people who just got here. In 6 months, after we're settled and have proof of permanent address, we can upgrade to a regular account. Whatever. We just need someplace to stash our monies.

We must have been quite the sight because she seemed very amused with us. The whole time we were setting up the account, she just looked very excited. She was also surprised that we were walking around with a backpack with all of our legal documentation, last 3 months of bank statements and pay stubs and Brent's work info. Who carries that stuff around with them? Foreigners trying to get settled in a new country ASAP. That's who. She was very polite though. Famished, we ask the nice lady if there are any places to eat nearby because we didn't see too many options on our walk. She points us in the direction of St. Paul's square promising that we would find several places to eat and it was "just 'round the corner and up the square". Ok? We spot it on the map, it really is close.

There were lots of places to eat. She wasn't lying! And it was across the street from a beautiful giant cathedral, St. Paul's. We would find out later this is the scene for the whole "Feed the birds. Tuppence a bag." thing in Mary Poppins. I knew it looked familiar.

After surveying a few of the food choices we decided on Apostrophe, a french cafe/bakery thing. They had some yummy looking sandwiches and they didn't look too expensive. We decided to get our sandwiches and a glass of fresh, apple/pear juice and a cup of hot chocolate. We order everything and then get to the "large hot chocolate please" part and the french lady says something about "you want regular or milk?", we asked what the difference was and her response was something along the lines of "regular, just chocolate, milk, half milk". Ok? Um? Regular?

We sit at a table at the window and realize how picturesque everything is. A front row view of a famous 200+ year old cathedral, double decker buses and black cabs driving by. Gorgeous. Can you believe we just moved here? Wow. At one point, a marching band from what we figured was a local catholic school showed up and marched around in the square for a bit. Do we live in a movie?

They bring us our food and the sandwiches were delicious and the juice was fantastic and the hot chocolate? Well, it was just that. Hot, pure melted chocolate. Oops! It was so thick. We tried watering it down to thin it out but had no luck. We were so tired and not in the mood for plain, melted chocolate (never thought I'd ever say that!) so we chalked it up to our first mess up. Oh well. It only cost £2.50 or something. Foreign Languages - 2, American English - 0.

Feeling a little warmer, a little rested, and full, we head out of the cafe much better. We walk home past a London Welcome Centre and pick up brochures for various things. We still have yet to read most of them but we're gathering ideas for visitors! You should come out here, we'll have fun!

We got back to the apartment a little after noon and we still had 20 minutes until it would be ready so we just crashed on the couch in the lobby. When our place was all cleaned and prepped, we hauled our luggage up to the 6th floor, (don't worry there is a lift) which is actually the 7th floor. Here the first floor is called the ground floor and the 2nd is the 1st, etc. It kind of makes sense, doesn't it?

Brent collapsed on the couch and dozed off for a bit while I figured out what suitcases needed to go where and unloaded some of the toiletries so when we were *really* tired later, they would be available. I woke Brent up and he got a landline set up for us and figured out how to get our US calling card set up for UK calling and then we called our moms to let them know we were safe and sound.

After that, things kind of get hazy. I think we did a little more unpacking and looked through maps and read through our bank paperwork, etc. Around 4 we took a nap until 6. We grabbed some Dominos Pizza for dinner. They have a shopfront on the corner of our building so it was REALLY convenient. Ironic that we had American food for dinner our first night in London? Maybe. Delicious and easy? Definitely.

We watched tv and figured out the quirks in our new little apartment for a few hours and then off to bed with us! It had been one VERY long day. Some of it was frustrating and some of it was amazing and most of it was a blur.

4th March, 1pm MST through 5th March, 10am GMT -OR- Where did all the time go?

Ok, so we've been here for 2 weeks now and I'm finally getting around to blogging about London. Woot! Aren't we all just so excited?! Well, be forewarned that this is a long post with a lot of words and not too many pictures. I won't be offended if you skip it, it's mostly a journal entry for Brent & me to remember the day we flew here.

Our plane left SLC at 1:30 and we got to Chicago around 5(?). We had 40 minutes to make our plane change which happened to be to a completely different terminal. Yikes! Luckily, the bus to catch to get to the other concourse was only 5 or 6 gates down from ours and it dropped us off 2 gates from where we needed to be. We got there after general boarding was done but in time to sit there for 5-10 minutes and get settled before they closed the doors. It was perfect. It was the biggest plane I've ever been on. It was cool. I just wish we could have convinced Zurich to pay for premier class, or at least business class.

The flight was long, but not as long as we had expected. It was 7.5 hours and with all the time changes we were set to arrive at Heathrow a little before 8am. The goal was to relax, watch a movie, eat some dinner and then sleep for as many hours as we could (I was hoping for at least 4). Ha! The best laid plans...etc. About 2.5 hours into the flight, after eating dinner and watching The Day The Earth Stood Still (pretty good, btw) I decided I'd like to try to sleep so I took out my contacts, changed the movie channel to a classical radio channel and laid back. Brent eventually tried laying down a bit too. After 30-45 minutes of not even coming close to falling asleep, we gave up and looked for another movie. That's pretty much how the rest of the flight went. An hour or 2 of tv/movies/reading/staring into space, then 30-45 minutes of trying to fall asleep. Brent slept for about 20 minutes until it was time for breakfast to be served. Ugh! So, no sleep. 7.5 hours in a coach seat with the people in front of us reclined completely back. And WAY to much excitement to get here. It was fun. Well, parts of it were.

Flying over the English countryside was beautiful. I just wish I would have snuck my camera out to take some pictures, even though they had already asked for all electronics to be turned off. It was like a picture book. Big open fields lined with trees. Little country roads lined with trees with little European cars driving on them. Some big, old churches and cottages all lined with trees. Gorgeous! Flying over the city, it got cloudy so we couldn't see much but we did catch a glimpse of some palace. My best guess is Windsor Castle.

So then we were here! Ahh! So exciting! We totally forgot how tired, and dry eyed and sick we were. For a few minutes anyway.

The line to get through immigration wasn't too bad, it only took like 10 minutes. I would have taken pictures to document all of this but it strictly said no cameras until we cleared customs. Darn! As we were waiting in line for our turn with the Border Authority I was reminded of this movie. We heard the other people in line in front of us being asked all sorts of questions so we were getting all geared up for our turn. No questions. Well, just one or 2. "Are you traveling together?" and "May I see your work permit please?". I guess when you already have visas that say you're going to be here for 2 years and the proper documentation to back it up, they don't have any other questions. They guy just looked at our passports, then us, then our visas, then us again, then stamped a few things, wrote some stuff down on our landing cards and then we were done.

We got our luggage easily, I guess it had been spinning around on the thing long enough that the attendants took it off. We grabbed 2 trolleys (they are free here!) and headed over to the toilets. They aren't "bathrooms" here, they are toilets, which I think sounds worse, but whatever. The pictures on the toilet signs crack me up. The girl has a poofy skirt! Awesome! I probably shouldn't have looked in the mirrors in the bathroom because, well, yikes. I looked like I'd been awake for almost 24 hours and was sick. Oh well.

After the luggage, we thought we were done but to exit the airport, you still have to go through customs. Huh. We thought that was the first thingy where they stamped our passports. Good thing they aren't too strict on the cameras thing because I took some pictures with our luggage. So we head over to the "area" and there are 2 lines, one that was labeled "Nothing to Declare" and the other "Declarations". There were no attendants, no security, nothing. So we went in the nothing to declare exit. No harm no foul, right? I don't think we had anything to declare. We just had a bunch of clothes, some paperwork, our cameras and some snack foods and things to do on the plane.

We headed over to the taxi line and got our cab. It was so cute! All the taxis here are old timey looking cars. I think it's the same concept as all the cabs in the states being yellow. It's for show. Anyway, the driver loaded up our things and off we went. The driver had the most perfect accent. It was awesome. He was very nice and made a point to ask questions and answered some of ours and he pointed out landmarks. At one point, he called the Duke of Wellington a "bloke". I don't know the major roads around here yet but I'm thinking he may have taken the specific one we did because we passed the major museums, Buckingham Palace, St. James Palace, and all kinds of other things. It was our own personal little tour. I didn't take any pictures of things though because the windows were fogged up and we'll go on proper sightseeing tours later.

It was so crazy to be on the wrong side of the road, especially on the freeway (or motorway, I should say) having all the cars zipping past on the right side. Weird. Not to mention the whole driving on the wrong side of the car. I guess it is the right side to them. Ha! Get it? Right side? Yeah, anyway, it's going to take some getting used to. We're still working on which direction to look before crossing the road. Obviously, the "look both ways" things still applies but you really need to know which way the oncoming cars are headed. Brent saw a guy almost get hit by a bus the other day.

It took about an hour to get to our apartment because it was rush hour driving into the city. The taxi cost us £70! We knew it would be at least that much though so it didn't matter. And it is being reimbursed by Brent's office. We could have taken the tube or a bus or something but we were so tired and had NO idea of where to even start and we had tons of luggage so a taxi was just easier. And fun! It was the first time I've ever been in a taxi.

Anyway, we got to our apartment, The Marlin Apartments, at 30 Queen Street but our room wasn't ready yet since check-in is 3pm and it was about 10am at this point. The concierge said it would be ready around noon so we dropped our luggage off in the closet and headed out for a walk. I'll pick up there on the next post. I just need to get this one up before Brent needs the computer for studying because if I don't it'll be a couple more days.

One Last Stop

Saturday, the 28th, we drove to Utah for one last stop before the big move. I got a call about 8 hours into our drive from my sister, Cami, saying that 2 of our siblings (Teri & Nathan) would be at her house around 6:30 for a little bit because they happened to be in town for their grandmothers funeral and that we should stop in on our way up to Taylorsville. It worked out well, because 6:30 was right when we were driving through Provo, anyway. Good timing! It was good to see them all. I hadn't seen Nathan since 2005 at our Grandmother Black's funeral and we hadn't seen Cami or Teri since our trip up for Christmas. We were pretty tired from driving all day but we had a few good laughs and shared some stories and things. Not the best circumstances to see them, but nice nonetheless.

Sunday we went to church with Brent's parents and then after church the rest of the Gray clan and the extended family came over for dinner and socializing. We had fun playing with Hannah & Jocelyn (the babies) and talking to all of the cousins and aunts and uncles. I didn't get very many pictures and what I do have is of the little ones, but they are the best part anyway, right?

Monday morning we were going to go to the Draper Temple open house but I was REALLY sick. I starting feeling sick late Sunday night and by Monday morning I couldn't even stand up without practically falling over. So, I took some drugs and went back to sleep while Brent, his parents, Camille (his sister) and Jared (Brent's cousin), Ceyln and Jocelyn Pond went to the temple. Brent said it was beautiful and that the celestial room has the tallest ceiling he has ever seen. The chandelier is 13'-14' and is hanging from a chain at least that long.

Monday afternoon, I scraped myself out of bed and we drove down to Utah County to visit people. Our first stop was Spanish Fork to see the Rowley's (Luke & Sarah and their 3 kids), friends from California that moved back to UT a couple years ago. (Funny side story: Luke lived in the same ward as me when I was in junior high/high school and was friends with my older siblings. It was funny to meet back up with he and his wife in Studio City, of all places.) We had lunch and visited for about and hour or so but didn't take any pictures. Darn!

Then we went to Provo, back to Cami's house. We hung out and giggled and played with Luis' sister, Ana's baby Kenley, and ate food and talked about fabric and making things and watched a dog show (yeah, yeah, I know) and the boys played video games. For a couple of hours, my dear friend, Jessica, came over to visit. I haven't seen her in a couple of years so it was nice to hug and what not. She is my oldest friend that I am still close to. We have known each other since elementary school. I love her.

After a few hours there, it was getting late and I was feeling pretty crummy. You can see in the photos how I'm all flushed and shiny. I had a pretty bad fever off and on the whole time we were there. Ugh! So we left. We had a few other people we would have loved to have seen but I was too sick.

On Tuesday, I was feeling a bit better so I did a little last minute shopping with my mother-in-law, LeAnn, while Brent stayed home and took care of some last minute financial things to make sure we were all settled with our accounts and things before we split the country.

That evening, we had a big family picture taken with the whole Gray clan. They are getting the pictures back tomorrow so maybe I'll be able to post some here in the next week or so. They turned out pretty cute. It's getting harder to have family pictures taken because we have so many people. Isn't that just a wonderful problem to have? I love it. Hopefully soon, we'll be too big of a group to fit in a studio.

That night, Grandma & Grandpa Duzett and Jared, Celyn & Jocelyn all came over and we had a bit of a party. Some of us watched a movie and some of us played Scotland Yard because, well, we just had to! It was a blast and we stayed up way too late and we said most of our goodbyes.

We gave Dan & Andrea the present for Hannah's birthday which is coming up next month. I made it for her back in LA before the packing and moving all happened. I got the idea from my friend's website and then made up my own pattern. I think it's hilarious. Possibly the funniest thing I've ever made. Those long, bendy legs sure do match Hannah's!

Wednesday morning Brent's dad gave us father's blessings so that we could feel settled spiritually before this big adventure and we had a nice breakfast with Brent's mom. Then we spent a couple hours packing and organizing and shuffling weight between suitcases so that we wouldn't be paying too many overweight bag fees. We got it all settled except for one bag was 11 pounds overweight. We figured since we didn't pay for the plane tickets, we could pay for one bag fee. Little did we know that ANY overage on international bags is $350! Good grief! When the lady at the airport told us that, we found a way to get rid of some excess weight, we carried our small duffel of dirty clothes on board with us. It was odd but it worked. The Salt Lake airport is notorious for being ridiculously meticulous with the security so we were worried we'd run late but everything was smooth and we still had 30 minutes before boarding. Then off we went!