What we’re doing while in London 2007

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We’re halfway through our adventure in London and this is only the third blog entry. Sorry there hasn’t been more info, but we have things to do!

Unlike some of our other trips, we have not been travelling around as much. Part of the reason is “we’ve already been there” to a lot of the places in and around London, and the other part is how many other “important” things we have to do; this isn’t a vacation, we’re simply living here instead of in California.

So, I thought it might help if I described our typical life in London. If you’re reading this entry you probably know one or all of us well. Since this blog is hosted on a publicly available site I avoid revealing too much personal information. If you need more details about something, send me a note. You can use either the “comment” part of the blog (there’s a link at the end) or simply send an email directly; you probably have one of our email addresses anyway.

Here in Europe, the week starts on Monday. In fact, many of the calendars both printed and online are arranged with the week starting on Monday. (This has caused me a few head scratching moments when trying to arrange travel because the dates seem to be “in the wrong place” when I look at the calendar. In addition, it seems only Americans use “month/day/year” order when writing dates, so I’ve almost booked airline and trains in the wrong month!)

A typical day for us starts with Jonalyn getting up early enough to take a shower before getting ready for school. Her school starts at 8:45am and is about 40 minutes away from our flat. She gets her own breakfast; it’s great when your kids get old enough to start taking care of themselves. She walks and takes the Tube (Underground) to the school. She is taking Maths (yes, it’s plural here, we’ve been told it’s because it’s an abbreviation of “mathematics”), History, Biology, English, Drama, and Music. The French class they offered was too advanced (the other students in her grade have been taking it since 6th grade,) so we hired a private tutor (Harvard educated although she is from the Ukraine.) As if the class work and homework weren’t enough, she is also trying to “keep up” with some of her classes back in the US, so there’s not a lot of free time in her schedule.

She often takes the Tube home with some of her friends. On Fridays she has been known to go to their house or the cinema with a few of them. One of the advantages of having a vast public transportation system is how independent she can be. She’ll be able to start learning how to drive when we get back, so this is a great way for her to show us how responsible she can be. She has a mobile phone and is very good at sending us a text message on where she is. She has taken a few dance classes at a studio called Pineapple near Covent garden.

School and homework take up most of her days, even on weekends. We bought a small desk for her room from Ikea (a trip almost worthy of an entire blog entry itself) so she can work undisturbed. She does find time to meet with friends, keep her email and Facebook updated, and watch TV.

Shelley starts her day making a cup of coffee and checking her email. We usually go to bed around midnight, but that means people back in California still had several hours to come up with things which need to be handled. How lucky for her… The great thing about email is we usually get to sleep all night without getting a phone call. Of course, there have been times when someone doesn’t realize the 8 hour time difference means we’re asleep. She will often be answering email or even making a call just before we go to bed -- the answers are waiting when we get up.

She normally walks about 25 minutes to the University. We have been very blessed with nice weather since we’ve been here. It has not rained very often and the cold weather of winter is just beginning to arrive. The brisk walk there and back each day helps her to keep fit and she’s doing a great job at keeping up this daily exercise. If the weather got very bad she could take a bus or the Tube for most of the route.

She teaches classes on Tuesday and Thursday. However, since she’s also the Programme Director and the building is planning on some major renovations, she has many things to handle every day. On most days she doesn’t get back to the flat until 7:30 or 8pm.

On most evenings she also works on coordinating things with California and preparing her upcoming classes. (OK, sometimes she will stop in at a local pub on the way home and I’ll go to meet her.) Somehow she also finds time to host a supper for a few students (on a rotating basis) at our flat. We love this chance to share our outstanding flat with some of the students and the leftovers provide us with some great food for a few days. Of course, there are plenty of things back in the ‘States to keep up with after dinner since it’s only about lunchtime in California. She is amazing.

We don’t go to restaurants very often because it’s so expensive. For example, Jonalyn had a few friends come over and we ordered 2 large pizzas. Here in the UK a “large” is about the size of a “medium” in the US and they cost $15 each.

To get the best price on food we go to Tesco about once a week. It’s a 15 minute walk from the flat. We use our backpacks to carry heavy things like milk and have some large bags for the rest of the stuff. It’s a lot different than dumping stuff in your car and driving home; we have to carry it all ourselves. There is a Marks and Spencer Simply Food nearby for mid-week needs but the prices are higher.

We get a chance to catch up on the news each evening watching the BBC or CNN. We have a TiVo-like device (just not as good) on the TV too which makes watching TV similar to the US.

I get up as Shelley and Jonalyn are leaving and also catch up on some overnight email. I’m trying to stay in shape for refereeing when I return, so I’ve kept up jogging. The previous times we’ve lived here I’d run around Hyde Park. Our flat is too far away from there and I don’t like running on the pavement (British for sidewalk) anyway, especially since the traffic is so heavy and “coming on the other side of the street.” Fortunately, the Brompton Cemetery is nearby. OK, so it was a bit weird at first, but it’s relatively quiet, very large, and I only have to watch out for bicycles and dogs being walked. I’ve developed a route which is about 6km long going around the park twice. I run almost every day and, so far, have been running in shorts and a short sleeved shirt listening to my MP3 player with NPR shows I “stream rip” off the Internet from the station in Pasadena. On a recent Sunday I ran in a 10K race about an hour’s journey from London in Hertfordshire. I came in 758 out of over 2,000 people. (I had signed up for a race in Battersea Park here in London, but about 4 days before the race, the founder of the sponsoring organization died, so they cancelled it. His death was mentioned on NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15271102 as he was an inspiration to many. There were supposed to be about 150 people in that race. I passed more than 150 in the Herts 10K.)

While cooling down I get something to eat, clean a few things up around the flat, do the laundry some days, and check on our investments and bills; they don’t stop just because we’re in London. We’re fortunate to have a person come by to give the flat a good cleaning once a week too.

Through the understanding and generosity of my company, I’m also working half time while here in London. We’ve had some great success recently (see www.thedalailamamovie.com and www.eyeofthedolphinthemovie.com for example) which I’ve been working on. I use email and Skype to communicate. The email part is mostly in the morning and then, once people in the US start waking up, I make and receive phone calls. Sometimes this means we’ll get a call during dinner, but it’s been very successful so far. Using the Internet, the calls are very cheap and incoming calls are free to me when I’m near the computer; the world has changed a lot in the last decade. Many of my customers have no idea I’m working from “across the pond.”

Most weekends are taken with resting and getting work done which is left over from the week (preparing classes, homework for 2 schools, keeping up with the news, and plenty of email for everyone.) Yes, we’ve taken a few trips, been to see a few shows (Lord of the Rings, Mary Poppins, The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged, Jason Robert Brown in concert). We’ve tried a couple of churches when we’ve been home, but so far haven’t found quite a match.

We love to hear updates from you, our friends and relatives, too. Both email and the phone work well. If you don’t have the special Internet phone number to call us on, send me an email and I’ll give you the details.

We have some people who have taken us up on the offer to stay at the flat. If you’re coming to London please contact us so we can see if there’s a chance to get together.

Coming next: A Relaxing Week in Tenerife

PS - The most frequently asked question I get is “when are you coming back to California?” We will be back in the USA on 1 January 2008. This means we won’t be hosting our usual mid-December holiday party. We still have the guest list though, in case someone wants to host it for us this year.

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Photos

Wagamama - a great place to eat in London
Jonalyn and Shelley at this great restaurant. The 3rd person is Kerry, who came to stay with us for a week. This is a "noodle bar" type place with pretty reasonable prices.

Jonalyn's bathroom
Our flat has 2 full bathrooms - this one with a tub and separate shower. Two bathrooms makes it so everyone can "get ready" at the same time in the morning.

The "office" at home
Gary spends most of the day here. There's not much to see outside the window - just the other part of the building. There's enough room for both Shelley and Gary to work at the same time. Jonalyn does her homework in her room - we have wireless Internet.

A fabulous kitchen in London
This is one of the meals Shelley has made for students. The kitchen is big - much bigger than others we saw - and has a VERY large refrigerator with icemaker.

Our living room with a great entertainment center
Two big couches and even a tiny balcony (since we're on the top floor) where we can view the garden in the courtyard of the complex. It's getting too cold to go to the garden much any more.

A beautiful place to run
This reminds me of the daily run although this is a picture of part of the 10K course in Hertfordshire. The scenery was great (when there weren't several hundred other people crowding around.)

Shopping at Portobello road
Kerry came to join us for a week. She joined us for a bit of shopping at this famous street market on Saturday. We're happy to have people vist us - or call on the phone even.

Jonalyn and Mary Poppins
Wigs an makeup sure change Scarlett Strallen a lot. Jonalyn, on the left, doesn't need much help to look beautiful.