All it does is rain...

It must be spring; I think it's rained every single day since Whitney left. Apparently we're in a drought here in the UK. It's the wettest drought I've ever experienced. I was at a restaurant the other night and asked for tap water. They said their water machine got turned off at 3pm because of the water rationing. I was in wet clothes because I had just been outside in the rain. My face revealed my confusion. 

It's been a relatively uneventful week aside from the rain (and the consequences of rain, which I'll get to in a moment). 

Kenz and I have gotten used to riding on the bottom level of the double decker busses. Does that mean we're locals?

Apparently you get a trophy for going to church here. 

At our local pub, The Tiger. It's better than what Kenz's face is saying. I promise. 

 The rain has been taking its toll on Kenz and I. I usually don't mind rain. It's not that big a deal to me - so I get  a little bit wet on my way around town - no biggie. 

Well, that's what I thought until I experienced something I thought only happened in the movies and/or cartoons. Two days ago, I was walking home, minding my own business, and just generally happy to be alive. Maybe I was oblivious. Maybe I was being an idiot. I was just walking alongside the road on the sidewalk ("pavement" in UK terms), when a huge truck ("lorrie") whizzed past me. McKenzie's luck must have rubbed off on me, because the timing was uncannily perfect: the truck hit a huge puddle at the same time it was passing me. A tsunami of water rose into the air and splashed me from head to toe. I was stunned, flabbergasted, shocked. I stood there, alone, wet, and speechless - my mouth agape, jaw hitting the ground. "Did that seriously just happen," I asked myself, soaked. I watched the truck speed off and thought to myself, that asshole probably meant to do that! But the moment was over as quickly as it started. The truck was gone and I was covered in street water. Sure, getting rained on isn't that big a deal, but having the collected water from a nasty south London street wash over you is an entirely different thing. Luckily, I was on my way home. 

I posted this picture to a social networking site, and a London friend commented, "Don't wear beige." Now I understand why everyone in this city wears jeans. 

The other side effect of rain is leaks. As I've mentioned, the building we live in is over 100 years old. Last week, I was sitting on the couch, again - minding my own business, when I heard the pitter patter of water. I looked up and water was running from the ceiling, down the hanging lamp, soaking the spherical paper lamp shade, and falling directly onto the various electronic devices that were sitting on the coffee table. At first, I just stared at it, confused. I didn't realize that the water was coming from the ceiling - I was dumbfounded as to how the lamp was producing the water. Shortly thereafter, happy that no one was there to see my confusion, I got into action with a bucket and towel. 

The letting agents, who manage the place, were "quick" to respond with, "we'll get to your problem soon" or something like that. Stereotypical UK customer service. 

The leak stopped and I eventually forgot about it. Then the rain hit hard again this week, and the leak returned. However, this time, the water was falling from above and seeping up between the floorboards! Walking around in the living room area sounded and felt like walking through a swamp. I went to the flat directly above us and found out that their situation is just as bad. Same goes for the flat directly below us as well. 

The response each of us has received from our letting agents is "we have to wait for the rain to stop before we can get contractors to fix the problem," which is funny, considering the fact that directly behind our building is a massive construction site wherein workers are laying brick and building an apartment complex six days a week. Whatevs. The leaks only happen when it rains really, really hard. 

Our landlord knows that he'll probably have to get workers to replace the floorboards and fix the water damage on the inside of these walls and ceiling. I can rest, happy that I don't own the place. Home ownership is a special type of joy I haven't had to deal with while over here - and for that I'm grateful. 

We had to send photos of the damage to the landlord

You can see where the water is running down the corner of the walls

Kenz: Do you think it's safe to use these sockets?

In other news, Kenz has taken to ignoring me when she gets home from school. I think she's happy to have some time without visitors, so that she can continue her campaign in the latest video game...

Who plays a video game on their stomach?

She didn't even know I was taking these pictures

That's all for this week. We're getting out tonight to another play, thanks to the "secret club."

Have a good weekend!

Empty Nest Syndrome

In the past six weeks, McKenzie and I have spent one week together alone. The last 24 days were the longest of that stretch, making today the first day we've been alone. Needless to say, it's been a busy six weeks. 

After the girls returned from their trip, they didn't waste much time getting settled in:

Immediately taking over the couch

They got back on Monday and Whit was here till Thursday. We tried to take advantage of her last few days here. 

Age-defying techniques

We went out with one of Kenz's school friends, Alejandra, on Tuesday evening. Owen's band, The Great Malarkey, was playing a gig in the "hip" part of London. Kenz and I had yet to go see them play, so we figured this was as good a time as any to go. 

Dinner got a thumbs up. 

Owen's mom made him that vest

It was good to get out of the house and see the band. Kenz and Whit had been cooped up in the hotel room for the last four days of their trip. The weather in Palma was nasty rainy the whole time they were there, so they were itching to get out and stretch their legs. 

The band invited a bunch of people up for their last number, almost getting more people on stage than in the audience

It turned out to be a good time. I had anticipated the girls being underwhelmed by the band, but TGM puts on a good show; they're high energy and have an eclectic sound. I don't imagine they'll ever be on tour in the states - but if they are - you should check them out. 

Wednesday was cold and rainy (as per usual). Instead of sitting inside at the house all day, we decided to sit inside theatres all day. 

I had just been accepted into a mildly secret "club" that various theatres use to fill their seats. If a play or concert hasn't sold out, they go to one of the three (that I know about) "clubs" and allot a certain amount of tickets for the club members. Everyone in the club gets an email that a new show has been added. If you want to go to the show, you book the ticket through the club's website and all you have to pay is the processing fee. Of course, there are all sorts of rules about being well behaved and dressing in "smart casual" and not actually talking about being a member of the club or how you got the tickets. I guess I'm breaking the rules by posting about being in the club, but I don't think I'll get caught. Let's be honest, this blog isn't being ready by more than about 10 people (and I don't think y'all are going to rat me out!)

Translated: we got three matinee tickets for Hay Fever for 6 quid. And we got to sit in the 6th row! 

There is a yearly fee to be a member of the club, but booking just this one show would've cost more than the year's membership. I have a feeling Kenz and I are about to be going to a lot more theatre than usual! 

After the show, Kenz and Whit decided they wanted to see a movie too. If only I had some secret club that got us into movies for 6 pounds...

We saw The Cabin in the Woods, which they thought was strange but I really enjoyed.

We strolled back to the bus afterwards, getting sad that Whitney would be leaving the next day. That didn't stop them for making fun of me practicing my whistling. I've begun to absent-mindedly whistle as I walk around. I don't notice it anymore, but it apparently irritates Kenz and Whit. Whitney claims she can whistle better than I. 

Trying to prove her point

An early dinner had the girls wanting a late night kebab before bed. We walked in the rain at midnight to get some gross chicken carved off a rotating skewer.  

"I look like a gnome" - Kenz, upon seeing this picture

I took Whitney to the airport the next morning. We were both so tired that we fell asleep on the way there. We had aimed to get Whitney to the airport three hours before her plane departed, but had been given the wrong flight information the night before (Patti!). Her plane wasn't scheduled to take off for another hour and a half from when we originally thought. So - we were at the airport at 10am, but her flight wasn't until 2:30. I had breakfast with her to keep her company for an extra hour, but at 11am, she was ready to suck it up and get on with the security screening. 

The day of travel at the end of a vacation is the worst. 

Whit made it home safe. She called at 2am to let us know. Thoughtful. 

So now it's just Kenz and I, and I think it'll be that way for a few months. We have a friend planning on coming to visit during the Olympics, but that's not till July. In the meantime, we're trying to stay dry. Kenz is in her last month of her first year of school; she's pretty excited to be nearing the end of this year. Hopefully she'll be posting soon about their trip to France and Spain. I suggest emailing her again to pester her. c.mckenzie.gibson [at] gmail [dot] com. 

I'm sick; I hate being sick.

Rainy days

"There's always one trashy looking pigeon in the bunch" - McKenzie

Have a good weekend!

End of March/Beginning of April: Eddie leaves, Kenz gets a break, Whit arrives, and the sisters elope!

March brought in some better weather than we've been used to: 

Kenz basically finished her first year of school. I say basically because they do things so strange over here. From what I understand, she's got a month off, then she'll be back for a month, then she'll get two months off for summer. But, I don't really know. I could be misunderstanding it. Either way, she finished her installment the week after Edward left and went out to the pub with her school friends...

She was happy to have some respite after spending several weeks in the studio, logging countless hours on her installment. One of the days in our between-visitors-week, we got out to the Natural History Museum:

The Dodo!

The Natural History Museum looks like a cathedral on the outside. Apparently the guy in charge of creating the museum didn't believe Darwin's theory of evolution via natural selection, so he hired a cathedral architect to build a church-like museum to glorify all the natural world that god had made:

I did not take this picture. 

Kenz didn't waste much time; after one day, she was nested on the couch, catching up on some much needed video games and television. I keep a tupperware of various nuts for snacks around the house. She hates them because they're unsalted. I wound up getting a bag of salted pistachios, but they got mixed in with the unsalted pistachios. 

I turned around from my desk one night to find her pulling each one out, licking it, and throwing the unsalted ones back into the container:

The taste tester

The Ikea bed we had purchased for Edward's visit finally arrived...three days after he left. But, we knew Whitney was coming at the end of the month, so we set to work putting it together. Well, I say we put it together - that's misleading; Kenz put 90% of that bed together. I kept her company. And took pictures...

Ta-da!

Putting it all together wore her out, though. She spent the rest of the night on the couch. 

I happened upon a cheap clarinet on Amazon. I played one in middle and the first part of high school, and wanted to re-learn how to play it. Needless to say, Kenz makes sure she's out of the house when I'm practicing. It's amazing how much I remember, yet how bad I sound...

Fitting the reed

Squawking

The bed was together and Kenz got her respite, which meant it was high time for us to have another visitor. 

Whitney, Kenz's sister, arrived for a three week visit on March 24th:

I got really good at taking some candid photos when they weren't expecting it.

Her first night here; we go to see the Hunger Games (like everyone else in the world) but Whit fell asleep. 

So...there's that. And it's in a massively public part of town. I think they just trot it out on the weekends.

Whitney never really got accustomed to the time change. The nine days that she spent in London were more like half days. She and Kenz would wake at 11am and get out of the house at about noon. The Gibsons love their sleep. Whitney claimed that she would wake up at about 4am and not be able to go back to sleep until about 8am, and that everything was thrown off and that she was just waiting on everyone else to get up. I half believed it. Either way, they got around town a lot in the week. I had to stay at home most of the days and get work done, but got to go out with them to the Zoo on one of the days:

We had to introduce her to the b'fast cuisine, natch. They have veggie sausages at one of the two local cafes. 

Walking through Regent's Park to the London Zoo

She was more excited than most of the kids

Whit and I got some hawt dawgs

These chickens were roaming around freely in the zoo

lean back

This is/was the penguin pool. I don't know why the penguins weren't playing in it.

Over it

After the Zoo, we walked along Regent's Canal into Camden. Camden has one of the larger markets that's in business every day of the week. Despite it being Tuesday, it was crowded. Whitney lucked out; we had unseasonably great weather the entire week she was here. It was sunny and 65 all week long.

I'll have to learn more, but I'm pretty sure the Camden market used to be a horse market. Statues like this one were everywhere. 

False advertising

This is how the day ended

Part of our Christmas gift to Whitney was a ticket to a West End theatre show of her choice upon arrival. She chose Matilda. We took her to one of our fav restaurants near the theatre (which I've noted before), named Abeno Too. The Japanese "pancake" house:

Matilda turned out to be a fantastically entertaining show. We had waited too long to get tickets, so I didn't get to sit next to them. It didn't really matter, though, because everyone was wrapped up with what was happening on stage:

McKenzie had found a sweet deal on Groupon for a tour bus up to Stonehenge and Bath for a Saturday day trip. We were super cliche - had the cameras, on the tour bus, following the tour guide, everything. It was cool, though, because everyone else was a tourist as well, so we didn't feel out of place. 

Riding a bus to get to the bus

Stonehenge was the first stop. We had been mislead by the London weather into thinking our little trip up north would be just as warm as it had been in the city. We got off the bus to see this wonder of the world and realized we had made a bad mistake. It was about 40 degrees and windy. Kenz had booked four tickets and one of her friends from school came along for the day. She hadn't made the same mistake that we had - and tried to be polite while laughing at us for wearing shorts.

Whitney trying to stay warm

We left Stonehenge just after McKenzie and Whitney purchased a Stonehenge hoodie each. They couldn't handle it; the gift shop must make a killing on stupid Americans.

The next stop was Bath. I didn't know what to expect - I had never really learned much about the town.  Apparently the town is super old because of the hot springs that are the town's namesake. Even before the Romans, people have lived here because, well, who doesn't like a natural jacuzzi? The city that is in existence now was built up under the monarchy, but they've taken special care to restore the baths that had been built during the Roman occupation.

All of the buildings are built with a locally sourced stone that yellows more and more the older it gets. The town is in a valley around several really big hills (I refuse to call them mountains). As a result, our tour guide called Bath "a spoonful of honey in a big green bowl."

We had three hours in Bath to explore on our own. Instead of trying to cover the whole town in three hours, we ate lunch and explored the Roman baths.

Top of the Roman Bath terrace with the cathedral in the background

The statues are all of Roman emperors and famous governors of the Bath region. 

The hot springs underneath all of the buildings.

There is an entire museum connected to the baths that illuminates the history of the town, how the Romans used it, and how it has been used since. We lost track of time while we were in there and had only managed to get through 2/3 of it before we realized it was time to hurry back to the bus. 

All in all, Bath is a really neat place to visit. I had been lukewarm about the trip, but left happy to have gone. 

The two days before the girls left for their next adventure, we took Whitney to Portobello Road market and Brick Lane. By this time, though, I had forgotten to take pictures on a regular basis. Forgive my lack of photo evidence for these outings. 

My view for most of the week. 

Just a big hand...we thought about buying it for my mom. 

The day before they were scheduled to leave, Kenz thought she might be getting sick. She spent a lot of time in bed, trying to preemptively get better before they left:

Whit said the pillowcase to the right looks like a face. I agree.

Monday, April 2nd, was spent packing. With equal parts perseverance and consternation, they got all their belongings into bags in just enough time to head out to catch a train. Their trip has been 2 nights in Paris, 3 in Madrid, 3 in Barcelona, and 4 in Palma. They are taking trains to each destination - spending 14 hours on one train (sleeper car), and taking an overnight cruise to Palma. I've spoken with them each day while they've been on the trip and it seems like they're having a great time.

However, there was one big curveball. While they were on the 14 hour overnight train from Paris to Madrid, they had to leave (most of) their belongings in the train car. The next day, Whitney couldn't find her wallet. When Kenz told me this (about 20 minutes after the realization), I asked if she had left it in the train car while they went to dinner.

"Yup. Luckily, though, she had her passport on her. It's with me now."

Whitney promptly cancelled all her credit cards and bemoaned the lost cash that was in her wallet.

Two days later, Whitney is rummaging through her backpack and out falls her wallet. It had been in some hidden pocket that she didn't even know existed. Apparently it had fallen in the pocket without her knowing.


Kenz swears she's taking pictures and will be doing a blog post upon her return. We'll see about that...

Travel partners!

What have I been doing while they've been gone?

Getting lots of work done

Playing some iPhone games

Going to see live jazz with my friend Derek (we saw Ambrose Akinsumire if you're interested). 

More work

Walking around aimlessly 

Hanging with my friends Jim, Rachel, and Hunter

Riding busses

Hanging out with Owen and Celia

And going crazy...

Sidebar:

London hosted The Big Egg Hunt this year. Over 200 eggs were decorated by artists and "hidden" around the city; each had a name to text to a number. When you texted it, you were entered into a contest to win some 100,000 GBP Faberge egg and automatically donated 3GBP to a charity for children. I don't know much about the charity, but I had a blast finding the eggs all over this city this past month. I took a picture each time I saw one:

The eggs reminded me a lot of the bears that have been decorated in a similar fashion around Knoxville, TN, representing conservation efforts for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (I think). Yet, this was on a much larger scale. 

******************************************************************************

The girls should be returning on Monday afternoon. Whitney will have one full day left in London before she returns to Tennessee on Wednesday. She'll be starting a new job the week after that. It's been great to have her around, and I'm looking forward to their return. Whereas I've been productive these past two weeks, it's been strange being here all by myself. 

As you've noted, I've been fairly irregular at getting new posts up as of late. I apologize for that. I'm back on my game now - look for a regular post every Friday. 

Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend! 

Best, 

David (and McKenzie...and Whitney)