foosball and plants

yesterday, the three wives (rachel, ben and me) set the new foosball table up and rearranged the living room. we thought adding red pillows and plants in the corner would really make the place come together...and it does!
we then waited expectantly for the three husbands (john, corey, and vanessa) to come home and see our handiwork. needless to say, vanessa was the only one with the appropriate response (she loved the room) whereas corey and john only focused on the foosball table. boys.

but the foosball table was fantastic! as you can see, its a tad short, but as long as we spread our legs out really wide, then its do-able. we definitely make a lot of noise when we play...we're concerned that our neighbors are going to complain and that we will be evicted from this amazing house.

tonight we are having a housewarming par-tay! i think everybody's coming which means about 50 people. we've been cleaning and buying food and drinks in anticipation of the hoopla. we're also thinking about buying our neighbors wine as a pre-raucous gift (thinking that buttering them up may ease the loudness tonight).

last night we prepared a family dinner (we meaning the wives for the husbands). we had lasagna and pasta and salad and garlic bread. it was delicious! but, not everyone made it. afterwards we went to chiswick (off the turnham tube stop on the green line) for the first bar review of the semester. we had a great time drinking and playing a bar quiz created by matt and brad (two guys from the program).
here we are sitting at our dining room table. even though most of us have desks in our rooms, we prefer all sitting at the table together (we also get zero percent of our work done this way).
ben does not like having his picture taken when eating his cereal (which is really the only thing we can eat right now since our stove doesnt work...boo).
this is a great crepe and waffle place right by the ealing broadway tube stop. everytime we walk by it smells soooo good. i usually cant resist a cream waffle!

another mish mash of pictures...

harrods at night. harrods is an amazing place. they have everything you could ever imagine (actually, i need to go back and by tights. tights there run around 30 pounds...and i wonder why i have no money).




here is the front of our house. ours is on the right...the car in the driveway is not ours, its our neighbor's. we're on friendly terms with him. the front window is ben's bedroom...its huge.






here are some pictures from our house hunting days. i think we were on the northern line on the way to brixton or some other place way out of town. boy am i glad that we finally found a place to rest our heads.

the feet became our symbol of the long hours and many days that we put in to finding a place. we made hundreds of calls and looked at a dozen houses. i know i mentioned this earlier, but we have actually been to more boroughs in london than our british director. thats quite an accomplishment.


here the housemates are on the tube. this is one of our lines...the district line. or as i like to say, the green line (for obvious purposes). we thought this was a funny picture because john is so big and we are so small. today i tried reading on the tube (preparing for class on the day of...man i miss my first semester days when i was so on top of things...oh well). at the time i thought it was a great idea, but now i realize i dont remember a word of what i read.

class time!

i was told to post pictures...the problem with pictures is that they take forever to load. i'm somewhat impatient so the idea of waiting FOREVER for a picture to load does not make me jump up and down with joy. however, right now i am in class so i have 2 hours to post pictures!
(p.s. i'm updating my blog using firefox instead of safari and its soooo much easier!)

i'll post some from the past two weeks in london...

here we are in class...


i am diligently listening to the professor and taking copious notes.

i thought a picture of the london underground would be useful since i talk about the different stations. as a reference, my house is off the ealing broadway station (last station on the green left in the western part of london) and my school is off the south kensington station...can you find it?



here we are traversing the london streets in order to feed ourselves cheaply. its amazing to me how expensive eating out here is. i can easily spend 10-20 pounds ($20-$40) on a meal but when i go to the grocery store its so much cheaper. i can get bread for $1.50 and milk for $2. it truly is wonderful. and now that we are in a house, its so much easier to buy groceries and eat at home.





here we are in front of the pepperdine house (with our groceries).


one night we decided to find soho. we went to this really great bar that served excellent mixed drinks. i thought the place was great and could have spent all my time there but everyone else wanted to try new bars. well, the next three that we went to were gay bars....needless to say, the guys were not too excited about this. finally we found a great british pub (and just in time since the rain was coming down hard). there was a great alcove in the front of the pub that all ten of us were able to fit in.


because there were so many of us, we decided to institute the buddy system. i thought it was a great idea and an excellent system, yet we still were able to lose a guy. he went to the bathroom (never a good idea when in a big crowd) and thats when we decided to leave. so, when he came out of the bathroom, we were all gone! he tried to chase us down, but we were way to wily for him. the buddy system failed =(

pepperdine arranged for us to go on a bus tour of london. our guide was hilarious and let us get out of the bus at several stops. one of the places we got out at was a palace where a guard stood watch. i felt really bad for this poor bloke because within the span of minutes he had 50 people
surrounding him waiting to take pictures. i heard through the grape vine that he eventually got a bit huffy and decided to walk along the wall of the palace instead of stand in front of it (probably to get away from all the american tourists!)

here amy, kerry, and i are waiting expectantly for the tour to start.

we also got out so we could take pictures of the tower of london and the tower bridge. this was also along the river bank where we walked this past sunday night (i'm still feeling the affects of that walk in the form of blisters all over my feet).


at the end of the tour, can you guess where we went? to a pub of course! the prince regent near our school was the last site on our "meet and greet" with london. many nights have already been spent in the pubs of london and i'm sure many are to follow.

sunday night

sunday night ten of us (the 6 from st. james, the whites, sarah, and johnny) tried to see love's labors lost at the globe theater. however, when we arrived all the tickets were sold out. so we improvised and decided to take a lovely walk along the river bank and then a jaunt around the london eye. the past few days have been fabulous weather here in london. it was so warm yesterday and didnt get cold enough for a jacket until around 11pm.

along the river bank were street performers, skate boarders, and people enjoying the great weather.

the whites.



dang! i always forget about the up and down pictures! well, here is one of the performers. he's headless.







here i am in the london eye pod. if you look closely, you can see big ben behind me. we timed the trip perfectly and were able to get on the eye around sunset. it was beautiful watching the sun go down over london...well worth the 15 pounds. The other picture is the london eye from a rarely seen angle...sideways....











here's parliament and big ben from the pod. earlier in the week we went on a tour of parliament. it was so fasinating how much of the british legal system we have in our american system. a few things i didnt know...

the house of lords has red trimming everywhere - red benches and the like. this is because red dye was the most expensive back in the day. the house of commons has green trim and seats because green was the cheapest dye of the day.

only those in the house of commons are elected and there are so many members that they all cant fit in the chambers. so some members have to stand wherever they can fit their feet. also, the prime minister is the speaker of the house of commons...

when there is a vote, the members of the house have to actually get up and walk to either the left side or the right side of the chambers (into separate rooms). the left side is a nay vote and the right side a yes vote. they literally vote with their feet!

also, the house of lords and house of commons are separated by a large foyer. and the house of lords is decked out in gold and luxury whereas the house of commons is basically made of bland stone with no gold in site.



here is the group in the pod. from left to right: ben (the domestic one of our house...ben makes sure we are well fed with brownies, cookies, muffins, and the like), vanessa (also a housemate), john (housemate), aaron, janelle, rachel (also a housemate), and me (behind the camera).



a picture of london from the eye. the river thames is off to the left. in the distance is the tate modern and the globe theater is next to that. the tate modern is where we went the other day to see the dali exhibit. it used to be an old factory back in the day.

house pictures

15 st. james ave, london, w13 9dl. what i call home....

my room.


the toilet.


living room (imagine a foosball table in the corner...its coming tomorrow).


the kitchen.

tate modern and dali

today amy, john, brian, and i went to the tate modern to see the new dali exhibit. normally museums here are free but because this was a special exhibit we had to pay 8 pounds concession (this was the reduced student price). it was worth it! the best part was seeing the collaberation between disney and dali called destino. i first saw all dali's paintings for the movie and then i was able to see the movie. it was so cool! i wish they had it in the bookstore because i would definitely love to have it as a memento.

today was a GORGEOUS day. it was a balmy 80 degrees and so sunny that i needed my sunglasses. i felt like i was in california again. so after the exhibit we sat outside on a balcony and enjoyed the warm air and view of st. paul's cathedral. i also was enormously entertained by the pigeons who dared life and limb to grab crumbs from the sandwiches we all enjoyed. one pigeon was chased inside but then realized what a horrible mistake this was and promptly exited the area.

on a side note...i love the accents of little kids here. its amazing to hear them speak with intonations of an adult. i'm amazed at how early things like accents, language, and preferences start. at the museum today, there was a darling little girl (no older than 6 or 7) who was with her parents at the dali exhibit. she would walk up to the pictures and talk about them with her dad as though she was an adult.

at one point, they were talking about a phone with a lobster on it that acted as the receiver of the phone. she asked her dad why there was a lobster on the phone. her dad asked her why not a lobster on the phone. thats all i heard but it was very cute.

afterwards we went back to amy's place in nottinghill and had gourmet burgers. i had a blue cheese one and it was outstanding. although i still cant believe i ate the whole thing. when i first got here i could hardly get enough food because the places we went were really expensive and they gave us such little portions. now i am either used to the price and portions or the portions are bigger and price cheaper. i find myself getting stuffed on a regular basis (i like to think my stomach is shrinking and i'm losing weight from all this walking i'm doing).

now i am back at school and am supposed to be working on homework. we have had a week's worth of classes and i have yet to seriously start the studying process. we'll see if tonight is any different.

the purple room

so sorry that i havent updated this recently. i know a lot of you were biting your nails and sitting on the edge of your seat waiting to hear if i found a house. well.....i have! its a beautiful five bedroom place in ealing. if you look at the tube map, we are off the ealing broadway tube stop (its the last stop for the red and green lines and is in the west part of london). i'm at school right now so i dont have the cord to download my pictures of the place. i'll try and do that soon.

my room is great! its purple and has built in cupboards, wardrobe and desk. personally, i think i have the best room in the house but dont tell the others. we also have a beautiful kitchen, dining room, and living room. we have leather couches in the living room and are buying a foosball table for the corner. we also have a great little backyard with an apple tree. we dont have internet yet so thats my excuse for not updating the blog recently...but we will be getting a year's subscription starting a week from monday. everything here tends to be long term, including our lease.

to get in this place we werent able to get anything shorter than a 6 month lease even though we will only be here for 4 months. so it will be a bit more costly than i had anticipated. however, we are centrally located in ealing (not necessarily in london). the local sainsbury's (a large supermarket) is a short block away, as well as a great pub, the pound store, a guy that sells produce for a pound a scoop (i was able to buy 12 bananas for a pound...about $2. this is an amazing price), a burger king, and a pizza hut. there's also a belgian waffle place by the tube stop!

i really love our little house. we have a great mix of people and i anticipate many fun memories and never a dull moment. its really nice having six people because there is always someone around to do something with.

i'll post some pictures when i can!

more house hunting...

well, day four of house hunting as ended. we visited seven places today (all on the oustkirts of london) and according to our british programme director (being in england i think it best that i spell like an englishman) we have seen more of london than he has. thinking back on the past few days i really cant believe how many places we've been.

after all the travelling today we finally made an offer on a place. if you look up a tube map, we will potentially be living at the end of the district line (the green line) in ealing broadway. the place is 5 bedrooms and earlier today 6 abercrombie models vacated the place. my moto is, if its good enough for the abercrombie models, its good enough for me. actually, this place is really great and is near a cool part of town. the only problem is that the landlady has already received an offer on the place but she isnt happy with it because the people cant move in until september 15th. but we can move in tomorrow so i'm hoping this means she'll pick us over them (feels like kindergarten).

also, we will only be here for four months but most places do not accept anything less than a six month let. that means at most places we've seen we would be paying for two months of rent even though we wont be here. crappy. but its really our only option - either that or split up and we would rather stay together.

yesterday we went on a coach tour of london. our guide was great and was so funny. i have some great pictures but havent uploaded them yet.

classes start tomorrow and i am far from prepared to start another semester of school. i would be more prepared if i was living in a flat and wasnt still living out of my suitcases. hopfully tomorrow morning i will get a lovely phone call telling me that the offer was accepted and we can move in at our convenience. then i could buy groceries and unpack my shampoo. i would feel more like i'm home and less like a traveler if that happened.

i'm wondering if its too late to come home.

success!

after waiting on hold an hour and a half, i am finally able to withdraw money and charge again!

your call is very important to us so please stay online for the next representitive

another unsuccessful day of house hunting. now we wait over the weekend (unlike america, people here actually limit their time at work and do not work on the weekends and only work from 9-5...now, i'm sure this is not universal, but a lot of places here are like this including the estate agencies who we need to help us with this whole process).

last night we all went out to eat and then to a bar. we had a great time! although, i had run out of paper money and wanted to pay with my card. when the waitress rang up my card it came up denied. turns out my bank has put a hold on it because i didnt put a travel alert on my account.

thankfully, my current roommate melissa gave me her mobile and i called card services. the first call was pretty much unsuccessful. the guyg didnt know what to do so he put me on hold a few times and then the call ended. so, i called back but that call ended just as i was beginning to speak to someone. then, the phone rang so i answered it and it was the bank. the guy who was on the line was able to put the travel alert on the card but since it already had a hold on it he needed to transfer me to debit services. i then proceeded to wait about 45 minutes. everybody else had moved on to the pub so i was standing outside in the cold waiting for someone to help me. i finally just gave up and went inside.

so, this morning...i still have no debit card, master card, no paper money and my mobile phone has no minutes. so whats a girl to do? i found out we can call toll free through skype to 1-800 numbers. and guess what? i am currently on hold with the debit card people waiting to sort out this mess. i am starting to hate wamu. i have had such horrible service and the worst part is that i cant do anything until this is done because i have no money.

ahhhh!!!!

...and the hunt continues.

after two days of hard core searching we still havent found a place. i think we walked over the entire city today. we almost had a great four bedroom apartment that was above a store and in a great neighborhood. but when the estate agent contacted the landlord, the landlord changed his mind and decided he wanted to let the place for 1-2 years rather than the six months he originally told us about. dang it! we were so close. now we have to go back to the drawing board.

i was originally supposed to live with amy and holly, but when i got here amy told me that she was going to live with a friend of hers who is already here. its a great situation for her because her friend is not charging her rent (she will now save thousands), the place is in nottinghill (great part of town) and she doesnt have to go through the hassle the rest of us are going through. so, holly and i tried to find a place for 2 people but it wasnt economical for us. so we decided to partner up with five others. now we are down to six people because holly has decided to live with some other friends of ours.

well, the search continues. hopefully we will find an affordable place that isnt too far away. we found a great five bedroom place this evening but it is 50 minutes away..so we're not sure if we want to go with it.

i'm exhausted and i'm starting to get blisters on my feet. i also have the hugest zit ever on my chin that continually reminds me its not happy. i havent unpacked yet because we're still in temporary housing and i cant wait till i'll be able to find everything. tomorrow we continue with our quest and will hopefully be able to sign our names on the dotted line.

london, baby!

for all you who dont know, thats a friends reference. the last time i came to london, brynne and i would say that to each other. brings back good memories!

well, i am now in london! the place where all your dreams come true...wait, thats disneyland. i feel like this city is my home away from home...

i arrived yesterday around 1:30pm london time. i decided to be cheap and take the tube from heathrow to pepperdine house. needless to say, after carrying 110lbs of crap my body is still incredibly sore. at the time that i was carrying all this stuff, i felt like i was going to have a heart attack because my chest hurt so badly...it still hurts. i think next time i'm going to pay the $100 and take a taxi...sometimes being cheap really does kill you.

after i arrived at the house (around 3:30), some of my friends showed up from galavanting around the city. we went out again and i bought a sandwich at marks and spencers (a posh grocery store...probably wont be shopping there again, but the sandwich was good) and then we went to carphone warehouse. i hate to say it but i am now the proud owner of a nokia mobile phone. i decided with all of us spread out here (everyone in the law program has to find his or her own housing around the city) the best way to keep in touch with people was to buy a phone. so i did.

well, its breakfast time. for all of those who know me, you should note what time i am posting this....7:30am! thats right, and this is after i took a shower and got ready for the day. crazy jet lag!

check back often and hopefully i will post often. ciao!

80's par-tay!

for my birthday we had an 80s party. tons of people dressed up for the occasion. adam, one of joel's roommates, made a putting green and put it in the middle of the pool. we swam, barbequed, and listened to crazy 80s music. mom, do you recognize my 80s costume?

felix's

tonight joel, hutch, charles, and i went to felix's cafe in orange. its a great cuban restaurant where we get lots and lots of excellent food. i also like the atmosphere because its in the middle of the circle and there is a lot of outdoor seating. its neat to feel like we are in a community. a few dogs went by and charles got up and pet them and talked to their owners. we took a few pictures with the waiters....they're all great and are super friendly.

disney-rama

we went to the happiest place on earth and all my dreams came true...i went on space mountain! it wasnt that busy when we went. we were able to go at our won pace and there was never a huge crowd pushing themselves along the walkway. the longest we waited was about an hour for space mountain. we went on 12 or so rides...it was great.

mini golf

ummm...not sure why the pictures are sideways. i'm trying to add a new flair to the page.

last week with my dad and brothers here (as well as hutch) we went miniature golfing at camelot. hutch and i tied for first. we had a great time, although it did get super hot.

i was told i need to update my blog more often. i wish i was one of those people that updated it regularly because i love reading the blogs that are constantly changing...it brings joy to my days; so, assuming people read this, here's a bit of joy for today.

i ended my judge job a few weeks ago. it was a sad day as we said goodbye to the judge. we took a picture with him in front of the bench (i'm supposed to send it to him but i have yet to do it) and then took us for a tour of the underground jail. it was awe inspiring (in the sense that i hope i never make it to jail) and a bit scary. we went in to the hallway and the guard shut the door behind us (this was right after some inmates walked by)...all i could think about was a prison break and then i wouldnt make it on time for my plane.



speaking of planes, joel and i recently went to sacramento for a family reunion. my stepmom's parents were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. each of the families had their own color shirts (ours were Kelley green) and they said "hitched 50 years" with a picture of a man and a woman in a carriage. the children (meaning my stepmom and her siblings) prepared a song to the tune of "old grey bonnet with a blue ribbon on it" (dont worry if you have never heard of it...i hadnt, but after that weekend it was s.t.u.c.k. in my head).





my grandparents live in the outskirts of sacto so they have sheep and horses on their property. we were able to ride the horses and then the last day we had to heard the sheep and move three of them into another pasture...the mother sheep was so stupid that instead of running through the passage way we had created, she turned and ran straight into the fence, bounced back, fell on the ground, and then couldnt get up because she had stunned herself - so stupid!

now i'm getting ready to leave for london...i leave next monday on the 13th. i have a mix of anticipation and sadness. it will be a great semester and time to learn a lot about international law, but it will be hard to be away from joel for four months.

right now i'm watching wedding crashers and i didnt realize how funny it is. wouldnt it be funny if we had wedding crashers at our wedding...would they give a toast, cut the cake, and eat our amazing food?

joel's best friend, hutch (i didnt know his first name for the longest time), has been here for the last week. we've had a great time with him. today he and i went short shopping for joel while he was at school. its usually a tramatic experience for him (joel that is) so hutch and i thought we would jump start the trauma by buying the clothes for him. then all he had to do was come home, pull the shorts out of the bag, and put them on. i'd like to report - it was a complete success! out of five pairs of shorts he's only returning one pair...yes!