So anyway, on Thursday of last week, it was pub night for the company. This was supposed to involve a good old fashioned game of softball. That's actually pretty unusual in the UK. Of course, football (soccer) is the sport here, but you also see lots of cricket and rugby. There is a softball variant that involves a shorter bat. But it turns out that one of our employees is the coach of a real softball team. I was looking forward to this, because I could bring the family and have some fun, and also because I thought that maybe, even though I am not a great softball player, I'd be a ringer because I totally understand the game and how it's played. But the rain washed out the playing field, so the event turned into drinks at the Globe Freehouse.

 

Anyway, after the swan incident below, we made our way to the Globe. Now, there's no rule against bringing kids into the pub. But it's not a great environment because you can pretty much smoke anywhere in London and we didn't want to expose Alex to too much second hand smoke. We rented the second floor function room (which is the normal non-smoking area of the pub, a bit rare in itself), but because we rented it, smoking was allowed. I hadn't been by the office much that week and I showed up in ripped jeans with a stroller, kid-carrier backpack, Katherine, Kara and Alex. The thing had only been going on for a half hour or so, but there were plenty of people there spread across two or three large tables.

 

It was like a scene out of a classic western. You know, when the outlaw walks through the swinging doors and the piano player stops, the crowd goes quiet, and everyone stares. I kid you not - the room went silent and everybody just stared at this apparition of me and my family. Now, I work with these folks, so it's not like they don't know me. I found it all pretty amusing. I think they were just surprised to see me dressed so ratty with a couple of small kids in tow. Lord knows how many cultural rules I broke. We only stayed for long enough the chat with a few people, get some french fries for Katherine and have a beer. I ordered a 'Budvar' for Kara. This is a European beer that's basically a knock-off of Budwieser. It's supposed to taste better. I just, again, thought it was pretty funny. And since the tap was broken upstairs and Budvar comes in a bottle, it was the fastest way to alcohol.

 

But the real reason we are here is to look for a place to live and a school for Katherine. We've been successful on both fronts. Here's a picture of the street (actually, it's a mew) that we hope to live on. We've had an offer accepted, but are still working on contracts and stuff, so it could fall through. It's located just outside of the downtown part of London in a section of Maida Vale called Little Venice. The name derives from a junction of canals in the area. We'd be a block or two from one of them.

 

 

Real estate in London is ridiculously expensive and the process of renting or buying does not work the same way as in the US. When you buy a property in the US, the agents have certain ethical rules about what they are obliged to tell you. Here, all bets are off. It's difficult to do it and learn about it at the same time, but we seem to have gotten through it. We are very excited about living here. It's a beautiful neighborhood, four subway stops from my office, and still considered central London. Think of Cambridge or Brighton in the Boston area and you've got the basic idea. It's just more expensive. Everything here is more expensive. And smaller.

 

When I told the estate agent (as they are called here) what we lived in now, it was laughable. Most of the three-bedroom properties we saw had literally three bedrooms, an eat-in kitchen, and a combination living room/dining room. A few baths. Occassionally another room. This one was unique because it had a few rooms beyond that, which made it a really large and flexible space by comparison. But still dramatically smaller than we are used to. It will take some adjustments on our part.

 

To say that our first week in London was miserable would be an understatement. It was horrible. It started going downhill before we even got off the plane. We landed a bit early but were held on the tarmac until a gate became available and then had to further wait for a gangway operator to arrive. It took almost an hour for us to get off the plane. This, after almost six hours in flight. Brutal. We had booked a car to take us to our apartment because we figured we were too large for a taxi. London taxicabs are all the same. They seat four, two facing two, but they don't have a lot of space for luggage. So we hired a six-seater van. Unfortunately, the van that showed up was a four seater (including the driver!) that was smaller than a London taxi. We had to put some of the luggage on the floor of the car in front of Kara, who's knees were up around her chin. Needless to say, this was a very bad start to a trip that was supposed to be a delightful, romantic exploration of the city for me and my family given that we are considering relocating here. Still, Alex managed to have fun in the apartment with Katherine's backpack. This was kind of a rare moment in the first week as you'll see.

 

The apartment (called a 'serviced apartment' here) was a three bedroom job in the Swiss Cottage section of London. It's still within the city but outside of the city center. It's two subway stops for me to commute to work. It's on the second floor (which is called the first floor here) and sits over a bunch of really nice restaurants and shops. Our apartment was on top of a fish and chips joint. That did have its drawbacks - namely that the place smelled like fish and chips.

 

Luckily for us, the owners decided to take a three week holiday shortly after we arrived, so we weren't smelled out of the place.

 

But I digress. On Sunday, three significant things happened. First, Alex started teething. OK, that's not good. Second, we were all terribly jetlagged. I usually avoid the worst of it through a regime of sleeping on the plane and going to bed early. However, when traveling with the family, I'm on the family schedule. That means that I was really crushed by jetlag for the first few days. In fact, we really only got the kids on a normal schedule a few days ago - more than a week into the trip. And the third thing, well, that was the weather.

 

It rained, and rained and rained on Sunday. Now, it rains in London. London has a pretty healthy reputation for rain. But it doesn't usually pour for hours, especially in the summer. We quickly realized that we had not brought enough rain gear for Katherine, so after a quick detour at the O2 Centre (a nearby mall), we headed down to Oxford Street and stocked up on clothes. Two days after we arrived, it not only rained, but it was the coldest day in London for something like 26 years. It took until Thursday for us to get a really nice day. That was when I captured this moment. We took a long walk through Regent's Park on our way to a company event at a local pub. That's a story for another night - it was just nice to have a sunny day that we could enjoy together.

 

Just before leaving for London, Kara and I went to see Kim Davidson's new band Stampede. The show was great - she joined up with former Silver Saddle session players, and they are really tight for having only played out a few times (more as of this writing, but I've not had the time to track them from London).

 

Anyway, on the way to the show Kara and I were treated to some pretty spectacular weather.

 

 

In New England you don't often get this kind of perspective. There are too many trees and hills to really get the 'big sky' impact. But we were riding up I95 and I couldn't resist the opportunity to take some photos. Yes, these were taken from a moving car. Tricky thing, that. You have to make sure you have a fast shutter speed. I took the picture below through the front windshield. I use this trick quite a bit when I am a passenger and something interesting happens. It's not a perspective you see that often. Note that these picture do not reproduce well on a monitor that has not been color calibrated - your mileage may vary.