London at Night

London can be truly magical at night. Whether exploring the twisted streets of the West End looking for a show or restaurant, or seeing the magnificence of Trafalgar Square, London comes to life in the evenings.

For the last night that Luis and Leza were in town, we simply walked down to and along the River Thames. It was a coolish night, and we all wore our London scarves. We wandered past Big Ben and the Halls of Parliament, then walked past the London Eye. It was a lovely evening.

As we boarded the subway, I saw Luis and Leza to the stop where we would part ways. We all hugged, and then they were gone. As the train pulled away from the station to take me back up to Angel, I reflected on how wonderful it was to have them visit, and how much I will miss them now that they are gone. I feel very fortunate to have such wonderful friends in my life.

Jack the RIPPER!

Luis, Leza, Michael, Lynn, and I signed up for the infamous "Jack the Ripper" tour. It starts on a hill overlooking the Tower of London. It was a cold and cloudy evening - the perfect setting for a tour dealing with London's most famous serial killer.

Sadly, most of the buildings that would have featured in the story have long since been torn down or blownup following World War II. We could however see the locations where a modern highrise now stands, but 200 years ago, a horrendous dastardly murder occured. We did get to see "The Bell" Pub, where one of the victims had her last drink and plied her trade for the last time.

The tourguide made the evening a very entertaining one, and I'd highly recommend the tour. Lynn, who doesn't like scary ghost stories jumped a few times.

Playing Tourist for a Day

I made plans to meet Luis, Leza, Michael and Lynn Saturday morning at the Buroughs Market for a day of site seeing. We rendezvoused there, had a cup of coffee, and began our tour of London.






Luis is a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, so we had to visit the Sherlock Holmes museum, which is actually not as kitschy as it sounds. It is located at 221B Baker Street, which was the address of Sherlock Holmes flat.

Right next door they have the restaurant owned by Mrs. Hudson (Sherlock Holmes' landlady. The museum is set up as a mock recreation of what his flat would have looked like, as well as a tribute to the different cases he solved. It is a great tribute to a fictional character that led to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle being knighted by the queen. I can think of few literary characters that are as loved throughout the world as much as Sherlock Holmes.

After that we wandered back to the Baker Street tube staion, one of the first underground train stations on the planet as London's Metropolitan line was the first underground trainline. We took the tube over to Portobello Road, where there is a famous street market. It was featured in Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks. It is a fun crazy antique market where, to quote the song from the film, "anything and everything a chap can unload is sold on the backstreets of Portobello Road". Tony and I will have to come back here. He'd love poking around the street and the stores.

A Visit from Dear Friends

I had the wonderful pleasure of being visited by my old friends Luis and Leza. Luis used to work at Sony, but now works for Dreamworks. They were visiting Luis's family in Spain, and stopped in London for a couple days to visit me and see the city. It was so nice to see dear friends from back home. They were at our final send off party.

I took them immediately for lunch over at the Covent Garden Farmers Market that is on Thursdays. I'd been wanting to go, so this gave me the perfect excuse.



I had lots of fun taking them around showing them some of the fun and different things that I'd come love about London. I managed to get Luis to try a belgian beer, and eat a meat pie. Though sadly, I thought the meat pies we got were not the best. For the record, the best meat pies I've had come from The Pie Minster.




Tony has been hanging out with Luis and Leza back in the states. Thankfully Leza has taken Tony under her wing a bit while we are apart. She is such a great woman, and I feel good knowing that she is keeping a bit of an eye out for Tony.

I spoke with Tony, and it is tough being apart and hanging with our old dear couple friends at times as it is a bit of a reminder of our separation, but it is also so nice to spend time with dear friends that remind us of home and our times together. The separation is over halfway done, and I know that we will soon be all together again.

London Newbies

Okay, so they're not really newbies by now, but lots of amazingly good ex-Sony people are starting to show up in London. Among them are Michael Stein and his wife Lynn. It was wonderful seeing them the week they arrived. I met them at O'Neils Irish Pub in Angel in an attempt to lure them to live up by me. It was fun downloading to them as much as I had been able to learn over the last little while. Michael had his first British Meat Pie, and Lynn had Fish & Chips and Mushy Peas.


They eventually decided on living in an area on the westside of London called Chiswick (pronounced Chissick - don't ask, it's Brittish). They found a cute little house with a small backyard. It is a little further out just at the end of Zone 2, so it would just barely be bikable if Tony and I were to move there. However, the appeal of a yard for the dogs is fantastic.

Michael and Lynn had me over a month or so after their arrival for a proper Sunday Roast dinner. It was fantastic. Lynn is quite a cook. They used the same mover that Tony and I are planning to use, so it was their turn now to download everything that they had learned in shipping over their belongings. It was fun to have fellow ex-pats (I hate that word) to exchange information that we are all learning as we go through this transition.

When I came over to the UK, I smuggled in some really good wine. It seemed fitting that since Michael used to work for Pixar in Emeryville, CA, that I bring a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon that I'd bought at a winery in Emeryville. It was from a very small producer called Periscope Cellars and only make 800 cases a year. They are located in an old Submarine Repair station (more exotic sounding than it turned out to be). It was a wonderful evening, celebrating their new home here in the UK.

Space Planning and the New Apartment

Tony and I are planning for the big move on November 9th. I contacted a shipping company when Tony and I first started talking about coming to London. They estimated that we would be fine reserving one container for our furniture. We didn't know exactly what the apartment in London would look like, so we made rough estimates for the shipper. Once Tony and I had found the apartment in Islington, we had a better idea of what furniture would be coming, and what would either go into storage, or be sold at a series of garage sales.

To help facilitate this, I did what any digital artist geek would do, I built a rough model of the apartment on the computer. This allowed me to see what pieces of furniture would work in the apartment before we even began the process of moving stuff over. I didn't want to run the risk of not being able to have room for something we brought over. The two images show all of our stuff, fit into the small apartment. I'm guessing it won't be a totally accurate representation of what it will look like in the space, but I think this helped us to have an idea of how our furniture might work over here.

Renting out our Home

Tony sent me the image of our house with a "For Rent" sign in front of it. I knew this day would come. I signed our house up with Vines Management, the company who managed the Condominium complex we used to live in, before I left for London. I've known Jean-Paul Vines, the owner of the company, for a long time, and if there was anyone that I would want to look after our home, it is he and his company.

However, it is still a bit of an emotional experience to see your home going up for rent while you are on the other side of the planet renting a much smaller apartment. It is of course the logical thing to do, and home is people, not a building. . . and yet. . .