Reminiscings of our Honeymoon

We've now obtained internet at the Coronation House, where I have been coronated as king ... of the house. Anyways, I've decided to post a few pics from our honeymoon in NYC and Ireland. Pics of the Coronation House will follow.


New York City Skyline


Claudia on a water taxi (Empire State Building in the background)


Downtown Ireland


Claudia and I on the top of a double-decker bus


Jumping for joy in St. Stephen's Green


Guinness mustache in the Guinness factory


Napping on the way to Galway


Downtown Galway

the latest gossip from coronation station

So as it turns out, Bret has discovered a much unused gift: carpentry. He's a whiz putting furniture together, using tools, figuring out how things work, and installing. We have a new track light system in the office that we got for super cheap at B&Q (think Lowe's or Home Depot), and we're gonna get more. Today, after a another furious day of calling people and sending out my resume, I will go to B&Q to get a tree and some fresh soil. Unfortunately, my Parsley and Cilantro have died. But I am determined to develop a green thumb. I have placed 4 mini arecas on the living room window sill, and the mint and basil are still going strong.

We got the carpet steam cleaned yesterday because it was rotting, and the steam cleaner told me that the water was the color of our coffee table (the darkest, deepest brown you can imagine). I am not sure if the cigarette smell is gone, though, because now the house smells like dirty carpet chemicals. In any case, it looks much much better.

This weekend, we will install our blinds. We plan on doing thick venetians in our bedroom and the dining room, and bamboo in the living room. Soon, we hope to paint the walls, and in a few weeks we'll have our muted-chocolate couch from Argos.

I wanted to have a party for halloween, but the house will not be ready yet. So we're gonna wait and have a Thanksgiving party. We're calling it: "Making Peace with the Enemy" Party. We'll serve traditional thanksgiving food (I've already found an amazing Martha Stewart cranberry chutney) and invite all the Brits. In the meantime, we can only invite one couple at a time every weekend. This weekend, we hope to invite the Alexanders for some Butternut Squash soup, minty lamb lasagne, and poached pears for dessert.

I promise, pictures will be on the blog this weekend. You see, I write from the town library cuz our internet will not be working until tomorrow.

Notes from Neville's Cross

Well friends,
The letting agency has already taken the house off the site, so we'll have to post pics soon. Having our own place is AWESOME!! The house is quite shabby, old, and dirty, but it's got lots of potential. The carpet is burgandy and gross, the walls are mauve, the ceiling has this tacky white floral paper, and the light fixtures are medieval or something. So we hope to a. steam clean the carpet to get rid of the cigarette smell. We have tried deodorizing, vaccuuming over and over again, fabreeze, plug-ins. It's hopeless, the tar is embedded.
b. paint the walls white. It is a dark house, and the mauve doesn't help. White will surely freshen it up.
c. change the light fixtures. Chandeliers are a thing of the past. We are down light and track light people.
d. the ceiling we'll keep (yuck)
e. we hope to get rid of the gas fireplace. it's soooo ugly.

Aside from these minor house horrors, the kitchen and bath are new and lovely. And we have a small city garden in the back which we will fill with ivy and evergreens.

We have already put HHHerbs on our kitchen window. We have parseley, mint, basil, and coriander (cilantro for you non-UKers).

We have also received our first batch of essential furnishings. Ikea delivered our coffee table, dining room table and chairs, cutlery, plates, and pots, our bedding and bed and bedframe, and some other things that we are gonna return cuz we grabbed the wrong stuff at the store.

We now need our couch (there was a mix up about that), and lots of accessories, like fat white candles, paintings, bamboo shades, desks, and of course, plants.

It's so fun to fix up our home...unfortunately it will have to be bit by bit cuz we are soooo poor. For the first time in my life, I've had to ration how much I can spend on food.

Pics forthcoming...promise. You will see the beauty unfold in the upcoming months.

we have a house

that's right, not a flat- a house!! well, the flat fell through, after 2 weeks of chasing after them, pushing them, crossing our arms and giving them the evil eye, we got sick of it, told them that we were interested in another property, and in 3 minutes, the deal was done.
we measure for furniture on thurs and move in fri.

if you want to see pictures of it, go to google and search 'lets rent robinsons,' which is the letting agency. then, find the property entitled "coronation house" (that's the name of our house). click and you can see pics.

and when you do, you'll notice that the carpets are burgundy. they really make this lovely house look a lot more drab than it is. that's the only downside, really. it's got a garden, a new kitchen and new bathroom, a nice master bedroom with closets, and a little room we can use for guests and an office.

a bus on route to our gym passes by our front door every half hour. and it should be a 10 minute bike ride to the station.

there is also free parking for guests (we can't even think about buying a car at this point)

ah, finally. we have waited quite a while for this.

Rowing Upstream from the River of Sorrow

Friends and Family,

This morning I went on a walk with my camera so I could take some picures to share. Claudia and myself have been slowly making the journey towards normalcy, despite not having a place that we can call home.

Actually, Claudia has been bouncing off the walls with joy because yesterday she was selected to interview (on Monday) for a position as a marketing assistant. Right now she is reviewing her interview strategy so that she is prepared for all kinds of questions. If you have any suggestions for Claudia, please comment!

Today, I went to Bannatyne's gym to sign Claudia and myself up for a membership. The gym is a 35 minute walk from Durham city centre and on a frequently-visited bus line. This is great, considering it's been roughly two months since we've had a stable gym and my muscle mass has begun to whither somewhat ... ahhh! Additionally Bannatyne's has free weights and machines, cardiovascular machines, exercise classes, a pool, steam room, sauna, restaurant, bar, squash courts, etc., etc...

After sculpting my guns, I met up with Claudia to go exploring in Durham city. We decided to head down to the River Wear and go for a row boat ride. This means I got to row the boat, while Claudia enjoyed the fresh air on this nice sunny day. If you're visiting Durham, I would recommend the row boats. It's a great way to see the surrounding area, while getting harrassed by local fishermen! To finish off our lovely evening, we ordered some paella, wine, and beer at the riverside restaurant "Hallathan's." For dessert was a delicious banoffee pie ... for those of you not familiar with banoffee, try it now! Fantastic!

So now, Claudia and I are going to take it easy and get a movie. We have high hopes for getting the "OK" to move into our flat this week, at which point we will be very busy decorating. Goodnight for now ...

Cheers,
-BDL

P.S. - Our potential flat is in one of the pictures above. The flat is above the Loyds bank.

A better day

Good evening friends! We have sorted out our financial woes! Goodness, moving to a foreign country is so complicated.

But it's no fun to write about our troubles, and I imagine that it's even worse to read about them. Let's talk fun times.

I have started running again because it's nice and cool (some days not so nice and really damn cold, but for the past few days the weather has been lovely). We get lots of exercise just living in Durham cuz we have to walk everywhere, and the hills are quite unforgiving, but we need purposeless exercise, too. I just listen to my running podcast and follow the instructions. It's pretty easy so far, interval run and walk, so I'm using it to build up my speed.

We have also been doing a bit of cooking here at temp house number two. They have a gorgeous modern kitchen, so it's a pleasure to concoct our culinary delights here. Last nite, Bret made Andouille sausage with Red beans. Tomorrow, I will make steak or lamb. I don't know about you all, but Bret and I love "hominess." While we love to go out to the pubs and have a good time at a fancy restaurant, it's so cosy to cook a good meal and listen to music. We really miss playing boardgames. And we are so excited to have potted plants. Bret's into herbs (pronounced HHHHerbs) and veggies, and I'm a flowers kinda woman. MMMM, soon enough we'll have a home.

And soon enough, we'll be writing about our travels. Once we settle into our home, we will start taking day trips around the country. And in several months time, we'll be able to hit up other countries. Our first stops will be York and Edinburgh. Oh, and London, of course. Harrods, here we come!

one day we'll have a happy post...but today is not the day

The situation is not getting any better. We keep calling the letting agency, but they don't return our call. The prob is that we had to pay 150 pounds to apply for the place. It is standard to have to pay an application fee when you rent a place. The thing is that if they do not want you to live there, you do not get your money back.

To make things even more complicated, the women who processed our account at HSBC totally effed us over (trying to keep it pg for the kids). We wrote US checks for our HSBC account and she told us that it would take 5-7 days. Well on day 8, I decided to find out why we still had zero in our account and the reason is because she made a mistake. For a large sum, it actually takes 8 weeks to get money into the account, not 5 days. big oops, and best of all, they do not want to deal with their mistake. We have to figure out a way to fix it. We are currently working on that.