Karen and Scott Arrive Safely!

So Karen and Scott (Ben's parents) have arrived safe and sound in England. We went out to London to see them on Friday night. As we arrived across the street from their hotel we could see them waving frantically from their hotel steps. Ben and I prayed that Karen wouldn't cross the four lanes of traffic to give us a hug and would wait at the cross walk until we could make it over to greet them. Thankfully we were all hugging happily seconds later. We went up to their hotel room, and checked into our own. They were kind enough to get Ben and I a room so we could spend all evening with them and because we had to sign the papers for our apartment early Saturday morning it meant we had time to have breakfast and visit before heading North.

We had a great dinner at the Troubador Restaurant somewhere in South London. It's actually right next to the restaurant that Connor works at. (Connor was working at his other job that night). It's a quirky little place with a window full of assorted kettles and strange and wonderful signs everywhere. Joni Mitchell played there at one time in her career and ever since then it has been the coolest place to be. Well, I'm not sure that's true, but the hummus is amazing and that's enough to bring me back.

Saturday morning we had a great breakfast and then Ben and I went off to sign our money and our lives away. We left Karen and Scott to shuffle their luggage for their trip to Scotland this week. As we were walking away from the bank, we almost walked into Rufus Wainwright. For those of you who don't know him, he is an incredibly talented Canadian Musician who we have loved and respected greatly since High School. There he was just sauntering down the street looking hip. If that isn't an omen for moving to a great neighbourhood, I don't know what is. Ben also saw David Byrne from The Talking Heads (a band he likes.. I didn't see, I was on the phone) which was a pretty good second omen for him. We then took the train into Rochester with Scott and Karen for our Rochester day. It was on and off rain, so that wasn't great. And the Cooper's Arms (our favorite pub in the world) was closed due to power failure, which was disappointing. However, they did see lots of the antique shops along the high street. We met up with Kate for a beer and had some late Legends for lunch. We finished off the day at Thai Four Two (where else) witha delectable and perfect meal. That place never disapoints and we were happy that Karen and Scott enjoyed it as much as we do.

They are off to Scotland for three days and then Aleida arrives Wednesday afternoon (yay!) and then Friday afternoon we are off to Holland!

Our New Neighbourhood

If you want our address please give us a little comment on here and I will e-mail it to you. And then you can Google Earth Street View our apartment. We are right behind the big red bus in the Street View image :)

Moving to London

Well, the time has come that we can announce on the blog. We are moving to London. Many reasons have resulted in our choice to move to London. One main one being that living in the Medway isn't quite providing us with the adventure we had hoped. We will be sad to leave some amazing new friends at work- but know that we will keep in touch with those who want to keep in touch with us. Personally I am a little bit sad about leaving some of the students behind. Many of them of course will cheer when they find out we are not returning, but there are always a small few who worked hard and made the worst days just a little bit okay.

So, we are moving to North London- to an area called Stoke Newington. It is a really hip and up and coming part of town, that feels much more like home and we have only visited a couple of times. The apartment we have secured is in the old Council Housing buildings in the area, however they are now mostly all privately owned. There are families EVERYWHERE and parks and playgrounds. A 11 minute bus ride away from the Tube on the Victoria line, which takes us right into the centre of London within minutes (also approximately 16 minutes to get to Victoria Station to buy my day of Wicked and Billy Elliot tickets EVERY DAY). It's a two bedroom that has a water closet (meaning the toilet is in an actual closet, and the bathtub and sink are separate), it's all furnished and it even has a sweet little patio out front. Ben can't wait to find a little camping bar-b-q and when it's nice out make some burgers on the deck. Right now they are repainting and cleaning the whole place, so when Connor moves us in on the 15th (while we are in Zurich) it will be all fresh and new.

While preparing to move and change our lives has not been easy, we are hoping it will be for the best. We want to look back on this year being a big exciting time for us. And we are doing what we can to make that happen.