Paris tomorrow!

We are leaving for Paris tomorrow! I have wanted to visit Paris since I was in middle school, so this is still so unreal! I can't wait to share pictures with all of you when we get back! Hope everyone has a wonderful memorial day weekend...we will be enjoying our "bank holiday" on Monday! Thank you Jesus for giving us such an amazing adventure! We don't deserve it, but you gave anyway!

Robin :)

3 YEARS!

Happy Anniversary Jared!

I can't believe it has been 3 wonderful years already!

Love you so much :)

Refreshment

1.There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:1-4

We always look for refreshment in things apart from the Lord (a vacation from our hectic lives, going out to a movie with friends, having a good meal..etc.) True refreshment comes as we allow God to free us from our sin, through the cross, not through acts of penance or guilt. This is a distinction that is hard to make sometimes. "There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." We should not feel any guilt or shame for anything, only freedom from the law that we were once bound to, and are now freed from to walk in the Spirit!

I hope that scripture is a refreshment to your soul today! It is becoming a daily reminder that is filled with hope and grace for me to be who I am in Christ, not who man is calling me to be. Love you guys!

Things to know before moving here

The following is a list of things to know before you move to London. Maybe I should start compiling a list now, and when I leave, write a book for the benefit of anyone who does move here. Knowing these tips before arriving would have saved me a lot of frustration.

1. Plain M and M's here are "choco" - This caused much confusion at the movies last Friday

2. Baking soda is bicarbonate powder - Much confusion in the store yesterday...I just want my fridge not to smell! Oh, and it was out of stock.

3. A vacuum is a Hoover even if it is not actually a Hoover brand. So you don't say, I need to vacuum today, you say I need to Hoover! My friends call theirs Hoovie!

4. A stroller is called a pram for the one that faces you and a buggy if it is one of those cheap-o ones that folds up.

5. A trolley is a shopping cart at the store.

6. An elevator is a Lift, but most of you probably already knew that!

7. Anytime they advertise fried fish on TV/radio they say fillets (fill-its instead of fill-ay)...drives me crazy!

8. You don't have to tip here. This was mind boggling, but actual British people who I have met told me not to! Some places add a service charge, but most don't!

9. There is an eat-in charge at most eating/coffee places. I guess it is because you are keeping the chairs warm?

10. Don't think that people will get your humor. Last night at dinner, the table next to us asked if we could watch their drinks while they went out for a smoke. They said they didn't want anyone to slip a ruffie in their drinks. I said "How do you know we won't"....They looked at me like I was crazy! It's a joke, people!

11. You can't watch hulu or abc .com here...sad story. This is especially sad bc we don't have a TV yet. Hopefully we will have one soon so we can watch DVDs on it!

12. The DVDs here are a different region so you have to get a special DVD player if you want to watch any of their movies from Blockbuster (which they have here!).

13. If you go in to a restaurant the first thing they will ask is, "to eat in or take away." There is no such thing as a to-go box or a doggie bag. Ask for a take away box.

14. Everything is pay as you go here. This gets dangerous because you always have to monitor your phone usage/internet usage, oyster card usage (card for riding public transport), etc.

Well, that's all I can think of for now! I will add to the list as I run in to more frustrating situations! I am trying to learn to laugh it off and just think "this is so silly" instead of getting frustrated! After all, we are probably the ones that changed things from their system, right??

Walking, Walking, Walking...

I am not quite sure when my body is going to adjust to all of the walking we do here! It has been 3 weeks and Jared and I are still so tired and have sore legs by the end of the day. I think it is also hard bc we never get a day off from walking! We each walk about 1-3 miles per day depending on where we go. Someone at church yesterday told me that you get used to it after about 3 months. It was especially hard being pregnant the first week we were here bc I was still in the "I am going to barf bc of all of the outside smells" phase and the "I can't walk more than 3 minutes without feeling like I am having a heart attack" phase. (P.S. if you read this and you haven't seen facebook, and I didn't tell you, we are having a baby in November!! Crazy right, I know!) I feel much better now walking all day without dying, and most of the smell aversions have gone except for cigarette smoke (but I was never a fan of that anyways) and trash! Yuck!

So all of this walking talk is leading up to what we did this weekend! Walking! We decided we hadn't seen most of the main tourist spots along the river and we had to at least see them from the outside. It would have been impossible to go in them all in one Saturday. First, we went to the Tate Modern. They were having a festival for artist to come put up installations. Let me tell you, I was trying to "get inside their heads", but it just wasn't working. I was thinking "is it you, or is it me?" I just didn't get it. Most of the stuff in the actual museum was very cool, though! They had Picasso, Dali, and Warhol and more. It is in an old power plant, which makes for an interesting venue. Here are some pictures from the Modern.

We then decided to walk west along the river around dinner time so we could see the Parliament building, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and The London Eye. I still didn't believe I was actually in London when I was seeing all of these major landmarks. We will have to go back to go inside all of those places, but the sun was setting and made for some good photo ops along the way. We finished the day off at the Red Lion pub where I had fish and chips and Jared had bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potatoes in a red wine gravy!) They were both delicious! Here are some pictures from the river!

I will save all of my adventures from Sunday for tomorrow! There is already way too much in this post! :)

Tex Mex??

Jared and I had a fun adventure last night to Juan's El Paso Mexican Restaurant! We walked up and the sign out front said Tex-Mex, so we figured that was a good sign. I mean, we weren't expecting El Tiempo. but we thought it might be our mex fix while we are out here. We walked in to the tiny restaurant and were seated at the back by an Asian waitress (not a good sign). Jared had a margarita which he said was actually decent (a good sign). Then, we read the menu and they had fajitas (another good sign, and which is more than I can say for some of the mexican places in LA). They came out and looked pretty good. They were even in the little skillet deal. The funny part was that they brought the tortillas out in a dim sum basket! Haha! The fajitas were ok (more like shredded chicken, but I don't know if I would go back for them! The guac was more like a pesto, and the salsa was super spicy! It was a fun experience and decent for "Tex-Mex" in London!

Today, I am trying to set up all of our bills (fun times...). It is not very convenient bc you have to call to set stuff up and then give them your bank info over the phone for direct debit. Everything is direct debit here. 5 fun calls here we come! Hopefully people will talk slow enough that I can understand them!

I also need to go get a shower curtain today bc the half shower door is not cutting it!

On a fun note, I am looking for something exciting to do tonight. Tomorrow we decided we are going to go to the Tate Modern (museum of art), which should be really fun!

We also booked our trip to Paris for the bank holiday in 2 weeks! It took us a while to find a good deal bc we are 2 weeks out, but decided we both have really wanted to go there the most out of any city in Europe, so we decided we would be cheating ourselves if we didn't go there first. It took us way too long to decide yesterday, but I am really happy with our decision! If anyone has any Paris favorites, please let me know!

Below are two pictures I took yesterday of one of the baby foxes in the backyard! They are so cute! Isn't that insane! They get scared and run away, so I had to walk veeery slow up to the window!

Out of the hotel!

We are officially out of the hotel as of Saturday! It was getting a little snug, and not being able to cook was a huge downside! I made my first meal in the new flat last night and actually got some laundry done in my new washer! It takes 2 hours to wash one load and many many hours to dry them out next to my radiator. So....laundry will be a bigger part of my life here. Haha!

We made a run to a cheap department store here to collect bedding, towels, pots and a skillet Saturday, and also went to the giant grocery store here to get cleaning supplies (Tesco). Why don't landlords ever actually professionally clean the place even though they say they did. Blah! Some things don't change from country to country. We are all cheapo's! So, I am at an internet cafe right now and we are trying to get a little portable internet card to use at the house until we get our internet hooked up. Apparently it takes like a month to set up here. Plus, we don't have our bank cards yet to set up direct deposit for our bills which is frustrating bc everything is direct deposit! I will try to post pictures soon, but there is some work that the landlords still need to do around the flat that was promised. So I really hope they get on top of that soon so we can take a shower with a mix of cold and hot water instead of just scalding hot water!

Anyway, on a more fun and interesting note, there is another bank holiday on Monday May 31st. Jared is taking the Friday off so we can hopefully go to Paris. We are trying to find a good deal, but, again, the bank cards no getting to us is slowing things down on booking!

P.S. There are foxes in our backyard! Crazy! There is a mom and a baby so far that we can see, but we think they are nocturnal bc at 2:45 this morning, something was rustling the bushes outside. They are very cute, and apparently there is a problem with some politicians wanting to re-instate fox hunting!

Bank Holiday

Yesterday was a bank holiday, which is what they call a federal holiday here. Jared had the day off so we decided to go out and see the sights.

First, we went to the British Museum (entry hall above). It was the biggest museum I have ever been to. Unfortunately, both Jared and I are the personality types that have to accomplish the entire museum, or we can't tell people that we went. That said, we ended up spending 4 1/2 hours there (we also took a lunch break in there at a great little chain called pizza express...which actually has authentic pizza and is not actually express). The entire place had 95 rooms! Here are a few highlights from the museum.

Jared's favorite of the day. Centaur fighting a man from the Parthenon.

Jared in front of the Parthenon...well, part of it.

Mom, I bought this lovely turquoise collection for you, hope you like it!

Cool Mexican stonework.

My new bearded friend. Jared don't be jealous!

Ram in a thicket made out of gold and lapis.

Outside of the museum.

After the museum, we needed to go eat dinner. We saw a place called Thai Square that looked delicious...and it was!

Then, we went to a concert at a cool venue called The Borderline. It was a small basement venue. The crowd was a mix of people in various life stages, which was cool to see. We had looked up the band the night before and knew that it was a Swedish duo called The Tiny. They were AMAZING live! The stuff we heard online didn't even compare to what they did in person. They were so unique. The girl sung most of the time with the guy doing back up vocals, whistling, playing the cello, glockenspiel, and a saw with a bow! Crazy talented guy! The girl played keys, too. Her voice had so many different tone colors and they blended all of the different sounds they were making together beautifully. We downloaded their CD from Amazon mp3, but it is not as good as they sound live. I am guessing bc of the quality of recording/producing that would be required to capture all of their different tones.

Overall, a fabulous day in London!

Today, I am going to try and go to the store and do laundry at the Laundrette across the way. Hope I have enough of whatever coins I need, and that I can figure out how to use the washer/dryers here!

Sunday fun!

Jared and I had a great day today! First we went to a great church service this morning, and then we went to the Gourmet Burger Kitchen which was delicious! Jared's company gave us this great card called Taste of London which is usually 75 pounds a month, but we get it free the first month and 35 pounds after that. You get 50% off at a TON of great restaurants which helps out a lot!

After lunch, we took the tube to Bond Street to go to Handel's House Museum! Very cool! I really enjoyed that! Later, we got to walk up and down Oxford St. where there are a ton of shops (including Top Shop which is a bigger, better, version of H and M!
Above:

View of Oxford St. with double decker bus

Below:

Me playing Handel's harpsichord!

Our First Flat :)

I thought the world was going to end Friday when our offer had fallen through with the place we really wanted. The landlord was out of the country for another week and a half and he wanted to meet us first. Fail! Then I went to a couple more places Friday afternoon that were TERRIBLE! One of them had mold in the bathroom like crazy and the other was way too small (think 300 sq. ft.). I went straight back to the hotel and started calling about viewings for Saturday. We went to West Kensington to see a few properties in the morning. I was less than hopeful, but hoping for a miracle because we need to move in by Saturday the 8th. We got to see 5 properties, 2 of which were great! We put in an offer and it was accepted! We got the flat and are really excited about it. It is a little smaller than the last one we put an offer on, but newly remodeled and clean! It has a small patio and it is on the lower ground floor. There is a nice bathroom and great furniture. I will post pics after I move in! We will be ready for visitors soon!