Life In London

Life in London is quickly becoming our new "normal," so I figured I should jot down all the things that make living here unique - good and bad - before it all just becomes so routine that I don't notice it anymore.  

And, for those of you who follow this blog solely for the adorable pictures of Nathan, I have included some of those too :)

Things we love about living in London:

• We love being back in a real city (sorry, but LA just is not a real city) where we can walk everywhere or take public transportation.  We love just walking around our neighborhood and exploring all of the little parts of it that we haven't seen yet.  Plus, there is so much to do here - museums, historical sites, etc.
• There are so many beautiful parks and gardens here to explore and play in.  
• European travel - it is so easy to travel around Europe from here.  We have already been to Barcelona (1.5 hour flight) and Paris (2.5 hour train ride).  And, we have a trip planned to Marbella, Spain (2.5 hour flight) in November.
• Weather - well, this one is a pro and a con.  It's kind of nice to not have all of the crazy heat waves that we had in Pasadena.  And, so far, I am really liking having seasons again.  Fall is definitely here now - the weather is brisk and the leaves are changing color and falling off the trees.  But, we did kind of miss summer, we didn't have too many hot days here.  And, I am reserving the right to retract this one, come the middle of winter :)
• Our garden - our flat is working out so perfectly for us.  Having the garden right outside our backdoor for Nathan to run around in is perfect!  It's like having a huge backyard for him to play in!
• British people - everyone here is so friendly and helpful!  

Things that are "unique" about living in London:  (Chris said I shouldn't do a blog-full of complaints, and I'm not.  These are just the things that have taken us a while to get used to.  I do really love living here, even with these quirks!)

• No electrical outlets in the bathrooms (apparently there is a law against having electrical outlets in the bathrooms) - yeah, so this means no hair dryers, curling irons, straightening irons, or even electric toothbrush chargers in the bathroom - fun!
• Combined washer/dryer - it is almost impossible to find a flat here with a separate washer and dryer, instead, they all have combined washer/dryers.   They hold about 1/2 of the clothes that a normal washer/dryer holds and it takes about 6 hours (not kidding - I have actually timed it) to run a full wash and dry cycle.  This means I do laundry pretty much every single day!  Oh, and we also have a drying rack so that we can hang-dry clothes.  Believe it or not, this is sometimes easier than drying clothes in the machine, because for some reason, the clothes get so wrinkly when they are dried in the machine.
• Smokers - everyone here seems to smoke all the time.  You can't walk down the street without inhaling a ton of second-hand smoke.  And, every once in a while it creeps into our apartment through the vents.  We bought an air purifier for Nathan's room to make sure he is not inhaling too much of it.  
• The metric system - so annoying when you are cooking using an American recipe (which all of mine happen to be).  Thank goodness for Google.  I am constantly looking up Fahrenheit to Celsius conversions and ounces/pounds to grams conversions.
• Grocery shopping - everything here comes in smaller packages than what we're used to.  There is definitely no bulk buying (and you really couldn't anyway, because the refrigerators and freezers are smaller here).  So, if it's something you go through a lot of in a week (like milk for Nathan), you have to make sure to buy several at one time.  The other tricky part about grocery shopping here is the language barrier.  Although, technically, we speak the same language that they do, it is not entirely the same.  Many things, especially food items, are called something else here (or they just don't have what you're looking for and you have to research what a suitable replacement is).  Here are a few things I have learned so far:  a zucchini is a courgette; they don't sell graham crackers here, but you can use digestives as a replacement; powdered/confectioner's sugar is called icing sugar here; if you want the kind of bacon we get in America, you have to buy the streaky bacon; etc.  Chris always wonders why it takes so long for me to do my grocery shopping (I do it on-line).  He doesn't realize it's because I have to do research every time I do my shopping :)

And, what you've all been waiting for - the pictures :)  These are some pictures from August (I know, so late, sorry) that I forgot to post before:

When it was still warm out, Nathan loved having picnics in our garden! He always asked me to "eat outside; night night outside" (meaning he wants me to put the blanket outside).

Being silly with his toy bins.

He finally likes vegetables again after going on about a 6-month vegetable strike.

Eating lunch in Holland Park.

Playing with an oversized chess set in Holland Park.

Taking a break on our walk.

And, a few more recent pictures and videos:

This is what happens when the weather changes and your son still insists on having a picnic - you convince him that it's way more fun to have a picnic inside!