Back from a long break

Well hello there!

It’s been awhile! Sorry for the long absence. I finally feel human again after this bloody cold, gloomy winter. But now the sun is out and the days are longer and life is good. 

So much has happened in the last 4 months. I’ll just give a brief recap here and then maybe make some additional detailed posts later on.

First news is that Eryn has landed himself a 6 month contract at Framestore! He is a Technical Director working in the Motion Capture department. We are both working on the same movie and even sit on the same floor. One really great thing about work these days are the friends we’ve made! There are about 4 guys we work with that are super cool. Two Brits, one Canadian and one Chinese. We hang out with them outside of work and always have a laugh. Thanks to Gary, we have also learned tons of fun English words. The current favorite being knobhead.

Eryn, Gary, Aron and I at Framestore's Christmas Party

Me, Gary, Ben G, Eric out for a beer at lunch

Ben G, Gary, Aron, Eryn, Jenny from the block, Eric at Board Game night at work

Speaking of friends, we also hang out with Bernard and Nicole. (Nicole is Eryn’s cousin Eric’s fiance’s sister and her fiance. Umm....right.) We mostly drink wine and eat cheese with them. They are great and we are trying to convince them to move to San Diego when Nicole’s contract is up in a year and a half. We also see Mari every now and again. She is Eryn’s friend Iwan’s cousin. She is a pretty amazing person and I feel like I have to mention that she cycles everywhere. She cycled from Canada to Mexico and just recently from London to Paris!

Nicole and Bernard playing a boardgame at our flat after tennis and a picnic in the park

Mari on the left at Bonfire night

It has helped immensely to have these special people in our lives here since we miss our friends back home so much! 

In December, Eryn’s cousin Jen came for a visit over Christmas. She was our very first house guest and we were beyond thrilled to have her there. Jen is always around for our “big” moments. She was there in New York when we got engaged, she was at our wedding in Maui, and she spent our first Christmas in London with us. She really made our Christmas special.

Jen and Eryn at the Savoy

And finally after a very tough winter, we had our first official weekend getaway to Paris at the end of February! It was awesome. The Eurostar was so easy and it only took 2 hours 15 minutes. We basically ate our way through the city. Never have I had so much cheese, bread and pastries! My favorite part was the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower. It really was amazing. 

 

My Dad and Lisa came for 10 days in March. This was my Dad’s first visit to Europe! They decided to stay in London the entire time and had an absolute blast!

Dad and Lisa at the Tower of London

Dad, Lisa and Eryn at Hampstead Heath park

Dad and I at Tower of London

My Mom was here in April for 12 days. This was also a first Europe trip for her! We had quite an adventure going to Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris! She was an excellent world traveller. (Fun Fact:  The most amazing thing about Brussels was neither the Mannekin Pis, nor the Grand Place.  It was the fact that we never saw a single Starbucks!)

Mom and I on a double decker bus

Amazing architecture in Brussels

Eryn and I in Amersterdam

Being goofy in Brussels

Mom loves Paris!

Mom, Eryn and I having a lovely outdoor lunch in Paris

Eryn’s Dad and Ko had a layover in London after a France and Italy holiday at the end of April. We met them at Heathrow Airport for a great dinner. Way too short of a visit though!

E and his pops after dinner

Eryn’s Mom has just arrived and will be here for 2 ½ weeks! She arrived on Eryn’s birthday, aww. We will be taking a last minute trip to Rome this weekend! Then we will be going to Paris (3rd time, wow) for the French Open. We will be meeting up with Nicole and Bernard and also Eric (Eryn’s cousin) and Kristen (Nicole’s sister). Should be good times with great people!

Eryn's Mom at our tube station

Eryn and his mom on a London bus tour

Eryn and I have also planned a 3 day weekend trip to Edinburgh, Scotland for the end of May.

June and July we’re going to be hanging around England. Plans are in the works to go to the beach town of Brighton with our work friends. Will need our party hats on for that one.

We will be going to San Diego at the end of August for about 10 days! It will be a little over a year since we moved away from that sweet place. I can’t wait to eat as much Mexican food as I possibly can.

Then in October we have already bought our tickets to attend the largest board game festival in the world! Yep, that’s right, a board game festival. We will be heading to Essen, Germany for 5 days.

It’s still up in the air as to when exactly we are moving back. My work contract ends at the end of October and I am perfectly happy to go home then. Eryn would love to stay another year after that. If we can get our contracts extended, I think we will compromise and stay another 6 months. So that would bring us home in April! We’ll see what happens!

Happy 6 Months London!

Walkinna Winta Wundaland

I want to say right off the bat that I am not totally unaccustomed to snow. I have been snowbaording, and experienced snow fall, participated in snowball fights, all that sort of stuff.

What I am not used to is living in a place where it can snow. It's different to wake up in my home, look out my window, and see my street and all the famliar areas in my neighborhood transformed by the snow. For some reason I found the whole thing really exciting.







Last weekend we had one of the best saturdays ever. We woke up and everything was covered in white fluffy winterness. After a bit of lazy lying around we geared up to go find some food. I recommended that we first stop by the park so we could see what it was like in the current conditions. I was so glad we did.

Snow like we had last week is supposedly quite rare in London and it seemed like anyone in walking distance of the heath was there to enjoy the weather. It was all very fairy tale and picturesque. People were sledding, people were building snowmen, people were frolicing in fields or huddeled around cups of coffee or cocoa and simply enjoying the scenery. The only thing missing was our own sled which would have been awesome, but it was still fun to watch the rest of the crowd. We spent a long time just wandering around and taking it all in.



We then walked to Kalendar for a couple of delicious "Mocha Royales" and a bit of lunch. Finally we walked back home and spent the rest of the evening watching movies and playing board games.

We ended the day with a video skype connection to Mike and Gwen's house for the big annual Secret Santa party. It was pretty late but it was still fun to say hello to our friends at home as they arrived for some hard-core merriment.

-Chips

November recap

December is here and that means a few things. It means that winter has arrived with all it’s cold weather and customary holidays. It also means Trisha and I have been residents of the UK for almost 5 months now. We continue to adjust. It would be easy to assume that the real challenge would be getting used to our new surroundings and coming to grips with various cultural differences. Those assumptions would not be without merit, but the real tough part has been dealing with the consequences of unplugging ourselves from our comfortable, familiar life in San Diego and trying to rebuild that stuff somewhere else. This would have been the tough part no matter where we went. Unless we went to Afghanistan or something I guess.

November was actually a difficult month for us. Thankfully there hasn’t been any major event or set-back (nothing like that computer debacle), but we have had to learn to do without some of the old conveniences and luxuries from our old life. My lack of employment had thrown us back to a lifestyle that I can only describe as “college-esque”. We’re not starving or anything but we ate a lot more PB&J that’s for sure. The worst part was probably just the lack of activity. We became paralyzed by the state of our finances, which is probably why we haven’t written much here. There just didn’t seem like a lot to say.

November wasn’t all gloom and grief by any means though. For one thing there was the weather.

I was expecting to come home to London and be confronted with constant rain, but for the most part the weather has been really nice. Well...it’s been nice to look at (it’s pretty cold here). We wake up in the mornings and typically experience the closing moments of the day’s sunrise with the sky full of soft orange and yellow colors. When the sun sets (a short time later at around 4:00pm), The sky is still remarkably clear and full of pinks and reds.

(sunrise over the Heath):




With November we naturally think of the Thanksgiving holiday. As there is no Thanksgiving here, November seems to really be the start of Christmas season. It’s as if the air gets cold and suddenly everyone is anxious to hang up their lights and wreaths. Neighborhoods hold little ceremonies where someone flips a switch to turn the Christmas twinlkers on, people pass out mulled wine, it’s all good and fun.

While we missed our families on the actual Thursday night of Thanksgiving (and celebrated by ourselves with a fairly meager meal of traditional side dishes, but no turkey), we did find our way out to Chiswick to celebrate with some fellow ex-pats. Our friends Bernhard and Nicole cooked up a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner and the rest of us brought a dish or two on top of it all which made for quite a feast.

(Bernard sets up our fantastic meal!):




We also had a few visitors recently. An old friend from our Sony days, Marla, and my cousin Lindsey both flew into town and made some time to visit with us. It’s always nice to be with familiar people in a new setting like this.

I guess the other highlight of the month was our trip to Somerset House to see the Dior / Rene Gruau exhibit. It’s always comforting to know that even when you are pretty broke you can see some amazing cultural treasures for very little money (or sometimes for free). Exhibits like these have contributed to a surge of creative energy in our house. Most days we find ourselves spending some time drawing, or crafting, or painting.

(Ice Skaters at Somerset House):



By the end of November I managed to find myself some employment. I’ve been working as a “Technical Director” for the same VFX company that Trisha works for. It’s not yet a long term gig but I managed to get a solid 3 weeks in before being told that things were slowing down for a few weeks and I should check back in January. Of course I wont get paid till the end of December but, it’s still a huge relief to get some much needed extra income.

The work itself has been quite stressful but overall good. I really enjoyed meeting some new people and my co-workers are all great people -- smart, hard-working and a lot of fun to be around. I even managed to find my way into the company Christmas party during my short time there which was really cool.

(company party):



Of course, this now being December, we are reminded that even though we are far away from home, the people we love are still with us, and are still supporting us. Our families have been so generous to us this year, and are helping to make December a much much easier month than November. In fact, with their help, we have even finally managed to wrangle ourselves a proper television. Trisha has really been missing this simple comfort and she was overjoyed to have one again. We brought it home yesterday (via the bus, which was interesting), and I don’t think she’s ever been happier!

-Chips

Great News!

Eryn will be working at my work next week! He will be coming in to work in the Motion Capture department. Funny enough, I have also been working in the Mocap department for the past week or so. Technically I am on the Pipeline team but have been helping out Mocap. It will be just like the old days at Sony!

He also had a great interview at a game development studio last week. It went great, so he may be hearing something from that soon too.

A few steps closer to living like adults again and not college kids. :)

Mr. and Mrs. Roston

We are back! Back in London. And it is freaking COLD!

Our wedding was wonderful! It was so great seeing friends and family. It was even better seeing them all intermingle in Hawaii together. Such a special trip. <3



After having 3 weeks off work in the warm sunshine, it’s been quite an adjustment being back here. Like I said before, it’s freezing. Also, we are kind of trying to just get by. It’s tough on one income in this very expensive city. Eryn is working hard at getting a job. He has had some great interviews with promises of hiring him in the New Year, if budgets allow. So, fingers crossed!

Every weekend we take a nice long walk at our neighborhood park, Hampstead Heath. This park is so amazing. There are tons of parks around London, but this one is HUGE and WILD. It has beautiful views of the city. When we got back, the trees had all changed to bright yellow, orange and red. So neat to see! So usually we walk in the park, then go to this cafe on the other side of the park called Kalendar. They have a “Mocha Royale” which is a mocha with homemade marshmallows. Yuuuuum.







Last Saturday I dragged Eryn to Ikea. He loves Ikea, really. I’m trying to make our flat feel more “homey” and I have to do it creatively because we don’t have a lot of cash right now. It’s a strange feeling going from having EVERYTHING to starting over with basically just your clothes (and boardgames). Anyway, we picked up a small desk for me (£9.99 - cheap!) and a few other random things, a casserole dish (for Thanksgiving), a laundry basket, a small table to put books on (£4.99 - super cheap!) and some cool fabric to make some cushion covers. It’s different not having a car and lugging stuff home on a Shuttle and two tube trains. That’s fun.

What else....

Eryn has been going to London On Board every week. He loves it! He was happy because he won the game he played the other night. Check him out in action...

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/853346/fury-of-dracula

We went to a 90 minute yoga class last week. That was awesome and I want to do it every week. After yoga we went to this random Russian restaurant on the Primose Hill High Street. We had some really delicious latkes.

I went to a crafting class in Hampstead last Tuesday night. We made stationary from Indian carved wood stamps.



Eryn makes me tea and breakfast (mostly) every morning.

I had a funny moment in Pret today. I ordered a mozzarella and tomato croissant and the guy asked me, “Is it toe-may-toe or to-MA-toe?”. I say “toe-may-toe”. Then the other guy behind the counter asks, “Ah-luminum or Eh-luminum”. Me, “Ah-luminum.” This went on for a couple more words with smiles and giggles. Guess who has a funny accent? Those guys.

This weekend we are going to hit up some art galleries. Eryn is currently doing a digital painting so he wants to go get inspired. I would like to go to “Dior Illustrated”, an exhibit on Italian illustrator René Gruau. http://www.timeout.com/london/museums-attractions/event/56314/dior-illustrated-rene-gruau-and-the-line-of-beauty

The big news over here right now is Prince William’s engagement. It’s in every newspaper and everywhere online. I’m sure it’s on television too, but we don’t have a one of those yet. :( They are planning to get married in the Spring or Summer which means we get to be those crazy witnesses lined up on the streets for their big day!

That’s about it for now. I’m going to start a series of blog posts called “My London Today”. I’ll try to post a photo everyday or most days. It makes me look at the city with fresh eyes. So everyday on my lunch break, I go seek out something interesting.

We’ll also post up pics of our flat soon-ish.

The Interview.

So Trish, you've been in Britain now for 10 weeks! You’ve managed to see a few sights around London so far, but how do you spend most of your time?

I spend the majority of my days here working. I mean, my job is the reason we got this great opportunity to live abroad. The past few weeks have been going great at work too. I’m getting all my tasks completed in a timely fashion and really getting a grasp on how the company operates. I am the only girl of 21 people on the Pipeline Team, so I’m also trying my best to fit in with the guys, going for coffee breaks, talking about video games, etc. [Which is quite funny because she doesn’t play video games.] But aside from work, we really try and explore this country as much as possible.

(Leaving work)

From Exploring the City

So your first sight seeing trip, where did you go?

We went to Windsor Castle! My first time seeing a “proper” castle.

Great...tell me why you chose to go there?

Well, America is sort of lacking on the castle front. It was pretty amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it.

How far away was it?

We were staying in Marlow at the time and it was about a 45 minute train ride.

Tell me the one thing you remember best about your time there.

I have to choose one thing! Hmm, well, just the exterior of the castle was pretty spectacular. But so was the inside...damn, I liked all of it!

So that was a pretty quick trip then right? Just for the afternoon?

Yep, just a quick Sunday trip. I definitely need to go back though. There was so much of it I didn’t get a chance to see! Maybe when all our family and friends come visit, we can take them there.

(by the moat)

From Windsor Castle

(the walls)

From Windsor Castle

Have you been anywhere else outside of London?

Well, yes. We took a two day trip to Bath.

I hear Bath is quite a charming town. What led you to it?

Lots of people had mentioned we should go to Bath. Rick Steves has a great section on Bath in his book about Britain and also Gwen had some great things to say about it.

How long did you stay for?

We stayed for one night at the Hilton and this was the most expensive hotel we’ve stayed at so far. And they charged for Internet. So surprised!

What makes Bath special, and how is it different from London and Marlow?

Bath is so special because of the rich history of the Roman Baths. We did the audio tour of the baths and it was so amazing. It was just so cool to be standing in a place that was so old and just imagine what it was like back then.

(the park in Bath)

From Bath

(Chips exploring the roman baths)

From Bath

They have a modern day bath right next to the roman baths that you can actually take a dip in. We definitely wanted to do this but we didn’t bring our swimsuits, so we had to buy one in Bath. I found mine right away, but you on the other hand, oh my. We spent over an hour scouring the streets of Bath looking for suitable trunks. You were not pleased because every pair had the built-in underwear, which you are not a fan, or they were super short! I said go for the sexy short ones but you weren’t having it. So, we finally found a Quicksilver store (can you believe they have one in Bath?!) and got some proper trunks. It was definitely worth it. The rooftop pool overlooked the whole town which was quite a view to take in.

What were some of the other highlights?

Some highlights of the trip were great food! At that point, it was the most delicious food we’ve eaten here so far. We ate at this restaurant called “One Fish, Two Fish”. This place was so cool, it was like hidden. You would totally walk by it if you were just walking down the street. There is a small sign on the sidewalk and you walk down a steep set of stairs to the restaurant, which is in some sort of wine cellar. It’s all dark with such good mood lighting, including twinkling lights. We had the best haddock and gruyere yorkshire pudding and not to mention the delicious fish entrees. Yum!

(blurry one fish to fish)

From Bath

Another highlight was the Fashion Museum. I loved seeing all the styles from back in the day.

(trying on some old school fashions)

From Bath

Oh, and I can’t forget about Afternoon Tea. We had a classic afternoon tea at the Pump Room (recommended by Gwen) and this was one of my favorites. We got two pots of tea, peppermint and earl grey tea. We also got this awesome sharing plate. It was served on a three tier serving stand. The first tier had little tea sandwiches with no crusts. The second had warm, fresh scones with cream and jam. The third had a few other assorted desserts. So good!!!

(Tea time for Trisha)

From Bath

Sounds like a good trip, where do you think you will go next?

Next up is our wedding in Maui! We leave one week from today actually. I get to take three weeks off work and am very happy about that. We get to spend some quality time with our fabulous friends and family on the beaches of Maui. I don’t know what’s better than that!

Okay, after Maui?

Over Christmas we are going to go to Edinburgh, Scotland. Jen (your lovely cousin), will be coming to London for a visit and then we’ll head off to Scotland!

Sounds like you are doing a pretty good job of dominating Britain!

Oh yea, dominating day by day.

Cheers!