Kernovich Abroad: Our First Visitor!

We have been busy finally moving into our flat. The movers came on Friday and were here most of the day. Luckily they assembled most of our furniture and we quickly unpacked the boxes while they were here so that they could take them all away. It feels SO good to be sitting on a couch right now in comfort. And sleeping in a bed was amazing. When everything was in the house I wasn't sure if we had space for everything. But the storage here is really clever and everything fits quite nicely actually. Living off of basically nothing for so long made us realize that we have just too much stuff! Tyler is loving the furniture though. He cruises around hanging on to the ottoman, the couch, etc. And I think he really likes have a rug to play on again too. We spent most of the weekend unpacking, organizing, and putting together Ikea furniture but Sunday was a really nice day so we escaped and took a walk to one of the many playgrounds in the park. Tyler got to play in the sandbox for the first time and although he was a little apprehensive about how sand felt on his hands at first, he ended up loving it.

Monday morning my good friend from Oxford (but now lives in DC), Jenny White arrived here in London. She decided to take a week vacation in Paris and is starting and ending her trip in London. Our furniture came just in time for a guest to be comfortable here! She came up to the flat to drop off her luggage and then we went off sightseeing. It was horrible weather. I don't think it stopped raining at all during the day but we rode around on the tube and still managed to hit a lot of the sights. We went to Westminster, Big Ben, Tower Bridge & Tower of London, and Notting Hill. We had some unusual dining experiences. We went to a local restaurant right outside my door for breakfast. The only booth left on the heated patio had a cat sleeping on it. The waitress asked if we wanted her to move it and we decided that as long as it was a nice cat that we would just have breakfast with her. The cat slept pretty much the whole time, but it was bizarre dining with a stray cat. Then Jenny wanted fish and chips so we stopped in one of the first pubs we saw in Notting Hill because Tyler was getting a little fussy and we needed to get him out of the stroller. It was a pub that had this strange ballroom dining room and so quiet in there you could hear a pin drop. We were one of the only people in there. The fish and chips was OK but probably not the best in London. Jenny was a trooper and even after flying all night, she was still up for checking out a couple local Hampstead pubs. We had a great time catching up and it was wonderful to see a friendly face from home. This was the first night out that I have had since we moved here and it felt great. I really need to look at finding Tyler a babysitter so that JJ and I can go out sometime.

This morning was a beautiful day. Of course it figures that on the day Jen left it was lovely after we walked around in the rain all day yesterday. In the morning we got a traditional English breakfast. I thought it looked absolutely disgusting but wanted to try it to see what all the fuss was about. It actually wasn't that bad... although I could definitely do without the mushrooms and baked beans. And I'm not really a fan of the bacon here. It's like Canadian bacon.

Now Jenny is on the train headed off to Paris and we are going there to meet her Thursday - Sunday. JJ is going to meet us there after work on Friday too! So it should be another fun filled travel week!