It turned very cold again this weekend, and when I got up this Saturday morning, everything was covered with a coating of frost.
It is so strange to take the dogs to the park in the morning and walk on crunchy grass.
I can report that there are a few places in London where one can get qualified good Mexican food. . . if you are willing to pay for it.
This last weekend, Tony and I met my friend Negin at a Mexican restaurant by Holburn station called Mestizo. Upon entering, the wall of Tequila bottles made the place look very promising. Tony and I made a beeline towards the bar to order a Margarita. I've had a couple here, but they've mostly been McMargaritas served out of slurpy machines. I hoped to have an honest to God Classic Margarita. It took forever to get the attention of the bartender, and then he made one of the worst margaritas I've ever had. However, desperation and Mexican food dining demanded that we each order 2. While standing at the bar, Tony and I met several other ex-pats all congregating at Mestizo. It seems that everyone goes here to get there fix.
The most painful part of the evening is when I think about the price. I try not to think about the conversion of pounds to dollars, as that hurts too much, but tonight I ran the numbers. The margaritas cost 7.50 pounds each, so that came to 30 pounds of Margaritas, or $50. YIKES! The Tamales cost 5 pounds, and my Chile Relleno cost 9.50 pounds. If I do the math, my mexican dinner for food cost $22. Back home I could get a Tamale and Chile Relleno dinner for $6.95 and Margaritas are only $5. I miss Paco's Tacos. . .
I've always had a curiosity regarding Haggis - the traditional Scottish dish of tripe and entrails ground up and stuffed in a sheep's stomach. As soon as I met an honest to God Scotsman, Adrian (Addy) at work, one of the first things I'd asked him about was Haggis. He told me it was actually very good.
As January 25th, the Scotish poet Robert Burns' birthday, and the traditional day that the Scots have Haggis drew nearer, I decided to get up the nerve to try it. What foodie could pass up this opportunity? I'd been recommended to buy a MacSween's Haggis at the store. I was even given recipes for the traditional accompaniments, "Tats and Nips" - Nutmeg Mashed Potatoes and Ginger Turnips.
One additional essential ingredient, Scottish Whiskey remained, and Addy took me to a Whiskey shop in Soho where I purchased a good bottle. I purchased a 10 year old Talisker from the Isle of Sky in Scotland. It cost more than I expected to pay, but there were many bottles that were way out of my price league. I had no idea how expensive Whiskey can be.
Before eating the Haggis, you have to address the Haggis by reading this Robert Burns poem. I only got through 4 verses before Tony made me promise to never do this again. All and all, it was a fun experience, and I'm glad to have experienced another cultural treasure.
One of my coworkers at Double Negative landed a really cool Commercial Modeling gig. She has a very cool 1940's retro look about her. She is a very sweet girl, and we are all thrilled for her. She's appearing on TV, on-line, and in tube stations as seen here.
It's been a beautiful snowy and icy week. I expect that the Brits are quite tired of this weather however as it really messes up their transportation systems. I've enjoyed it. It makes for a a very pretty and unusual experience for this Angelino. The Canal by the apartment is frozen! and there are Icebergs floating around in it.
This week, when I went to take the dogs for their morning walk, I was treated to 1.5 " of fresh snow. It was beautiful, and there was a wonderful quiet about walking around the streets with it gently falling. Just beautiful.\
They say it never snows in London, but leave it to me to move here the year they have the coldest snowiest winter in 30 years. It is pretty to see the streets lined with snow, and having the two dogs has led me out to the parks in the early hours of the morning to witness a lot of fresh powder.
It has been a very dramatic time for the UK as there have been airport closures due to snow, and train service failing all over the place. Even the Eurostar Chunnel had trains that for some reason, when going from the exterior cold sub 0 Celsius weather to the warm interior channel tunnel, broke down. Some people were trapped in the tunnel overnight, and then had to be carried out using a service passageway. There were delays for days with people trapped in both the UK and on the mainland.
There have been shortages on a material they spread on the ground to both speed melting and to allow for better traction. They call it simply enough, "Grit". It is made up of salt and some sort of gravel that is mined in the exotic country of Egypt. It is strange to think that we use a common place material that comes all the way from there.
Tony and I went to IKEA yesterday, and were on a train that was delayed due to some sort of signal relay failure. It was freezing when we got to the station, and were then waiting for the shuttle to get us to the store. Thankfully then were giving out free espressos and hot chocolate as you entered the store. Our trip home was equally dramatic with yet more line closures. OY!
It's crazy to think that we have just entered snow season, and still have around 2 more months until we get to March and spring at last.
Prior to the arrival of the container, Tony and I bought a Christmas tree. All of our ornaments were being shipped, and we hoped that they would arrive in time for Christmas.
With the classic movie quote, "build it and they will come" in the back of our minds, we walked up to Essex Road, and bought a cute fat tree. The trees here are not at tall as in the states, but they are a lot bushier. I carried it back to the apartment, and we bought some lights to put on it.
The following Wednesday 2 days before Christmas, the container arrived, and we decorated the tree on Christmas Eve. We couldn't fit all of our ornaments on the tree, but we pulled out a bunch of our favorites as well as most of our Nutcracker collection. In the end, we had a nicely decorated apartment in time for Christmas.
In our tiny kitchen, Tony cooked a wonderful Ham with Marmalade Glaze, and a Pecan Pie. I made my signature Spicy Yams as well as the British staple Brussel Sprouts (I sauted them with butter, bacon, dried cranberries and onions, which made them actually taste good). 
Almost 7 weeks after our stuff was picked up in Los Angeles on November 9th, it arrived in London on Dec 23rd. The container that everything was transfered into in Long Beach Harbor pulled up to our flat in London at 10:30am.
There was some drama in that the bolt used to seal the doors had been bent in transit, which made it difficult to use the bolt cutters to unseal the container. After some work, the bolt was finally removed, and the container opened. It was very exciting as the container doors were opened for the first time since it was sealed approximately 5 weeks earlier.
We had 3 guys from the Shipping company on the UK side to help haul all of our furniture up the 3 floors to our apartment. There were so many boxes. As quickly as the boxes of furniture came in, I worked to unbox and unwrap. It sprinkled rain off and on while the furniture was unloaded, so we had to unload items in batches. This was good in that if we had to bring everything into the apartment before unboxing, we'd have never been able to move inside the apartment. We kept equating the unpacking as a game of Tetris, where you had to move a box over, step around it, move the box to unpack, and then carefully remove the box from the apartment. The rooms were filled from floor to ceiling. Even now, there are still boxes we have yet to unpack. 
London is pretty magical at Christmas.
In modern London, it is the street faires and the twinkling "fairy" lights that illuminate the streets and the faces of families.
There is a dark side to the British and their view of Christmas however as the tv talent show, "X-Factor" has presented the song that has gone on to be the #1 Christmas song each year for the past few years.
