My *NEW* blog address!

http://texasaggiemoose.squarespace.com/home/

Check it out!!! :-)

Farewell London...

So tomorrow I'm jumpin' a big jet liner, headed back to my homeland of Texas.

It has been a long day of packing and getting things ready to leave, and I'm almost ready. My taxi is scheduled to arrive at 9:15am and I'm meeting Jo at Victoria station - where we'll meet up and she'll accompany me to Gatwick for me to catch my flight back home.

I'm going to miss London terribly, but I defintely plan to come back. London will always hold a special place in my heart - for it truly is an AMAZING city to live in and experience.

Top 5 things I'll miss about London:

1. The fact that the city never sleeps - there is ALWAYS something to do here.
2. The AMAZING choice of food from all regions of the world. Indian curry dishes are my new fave - Mmmmmmm!
3. The incredibly diverse people that live here - you routinely meet people on a daily basis from all corners of the earth. London is DEFINITELY not a "bubble."
4. The shopping and the clothes! Monsoon and Marks & Spencer in particular...maybe I'll be able to order from them off the Internet (I hope!).
5. One word...PIMM'S!!!! ;-)

Top 5 things I will NOT miss about London:

1. The fact that it takes a minimum of 45 minutes to get ANYWHERE in this city!
2. Being nestled under a smelly dude's armpit for the better part of the morning commute on the tube.
3. "Signal failures" on the tube - sounds like a bogus excuse for people not showing up to work if you ask me...
4. Walking home from the grocery store with bags of groceries cutting into your wrists b/c they're so heavy.
5. The level of customer service!!! It wasn't as bad as I predicted originally, but was still quite maddening! I learned a lesson though - not enough people over here complain about it and demand better results, so I made DARN sure that I did and even got several perks b/c of it! :-)

Sadly, this is my last official posting on the blog. The blog has been more successful than I ever could have imagined and gave many people back home a lot of laughs. I've thoroughly enjoyed writing postings on the blog and sharing my wild and crazy adventures - and have appreciated all of the comments from you guys. Living abroad for 7 months has been an incredible experience as well as one heck of a ride - and I recommend it to anyone.

I've decided to start a NEW blog once I get back - and here is the new address: http://texasaggiemoose.squarespace.com/home/

Check it often, as there's sure to be many hysterical "culture shock" moments as I slowly ease back into life in Texas.

Thanks again for reading and for sharing in this incredible experience with me...

-Vicki :-)

Saying the goodbye (for nows)...

Last Saturday I went and had lunch with my dear friend Jo, since it'd be one of the last times we'd see each other before I leave London. We'd *planned* to go and see the Princess Diana exhibit at Kensington Palace since I've been dying to see if forever - but we ended up meeting at a cafe and decided to spend the whole afternoon chatting and catching up instead of making the trek to the Palace. We ended up closing down this one cafe and it was great! Jo was really sweet and even got me a parting London gift that included Bill Bryson's book called Notes from a Small Island (which I'd heard many great htings about), some Pimm's (my FAVE!), some Cadbury chocolate cookie fingers, some hula-hoops snacks, and a big can of Heinz baked beans. HA! All of my favorite things (minus English sausage and HP sauce) that I've fallen in love with over here - Mmmmmm!

Then on Saturday, Stuart and I went to Basingstoke to see his family. It was really great to see all of them again. Pam made a fantastic Sunday roast (very traditional) and all the fixin's. Paul, Kate, Miss O, and Rafer were there as well - so it was nice for all of us to hang out again. As usual - Miss O was a constant source of entertainment and kept us laughing. :-) We discovered that she actually *likes* for you to stick your finger in her ear - as she keeps asking for "more" in a really cute little voice. I couldn't resist!

We also exchanged Christmas presents and they all got me some really lovely Christmas gifts, including some fantastic travel goods like a blow up globe (how cool is that???!!!) that I plan to hang from the corner of my room back home, and some AWESOME BBC travel books. Makes me excited to plan my next travel adventures! :-)

Paris in 36 Hours...

I chose Paris as my final “mini-trip” in Europe, before I come home on the 15th (of December).

My last visit to Paris was back in 1995 when I went with Aunt Karol, Maw-Maw & Paw-Paw. I was 13 at the time though, and didn’t appreciate it as much as I probably should have. I remember being totally let-down at the Louvre when standing in front of the Mona Lisa, thinking to myself, “What??? This thing is MUCH smaller than I thought and really isn’t that exciting.” Honestly the highlights of that trip were flying business class and having the male flight attendant (Oliver) “flirt” with me, going to a McDonald’s in a foreign country, and taking the river cruise down the Seine River that runs through Paris. It’s quite tragic when looking back on it, b/c I was INCREDIBLY lucky to have had the opportunity to visit in the first place – I guess I just wasn’t the most “cultured” of 13-year-olds! HA! J

Anyway, I decided to take the Eurostar across the English Channel to Paris. For those of you not familiar with the Eurostar (as I wasn’t before I moved over!), it’s a high-speed train that takes you directly from Waterloo Station in London to the heart of Paris in about 2 and a half-hours. About 20 minutes of that is spent underwater through the channel that separates England from France. Kinda an eerie feeling knowing that you’re about 150 feet underwater – although you don’t really notice anything other than your ears popping and such. Here’s more info in case you’re interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurostar.

The trip started out on a bit of a hectic note though b/c I realized when leaving the office that day that I didn’t have my passport (of all things to forget!!!)! I’m always over-obsessive about making sure I have it with me when I fly, but for some reason I just didn’t put it together that although I wasn’t flying I was still traveling to another country and needed it with me. It was literally when I was walking out of the office that it dawned on me that I would need it before boarding the Eurostar. DUH!

So I made a MAD dash to Waterloo to verify that I did indeed need it to travel and of course I did. I was secretly *hoping* I could charm my way onto the train with just my international student identity card, but they wouldn’t go for it at check-in. The guy told me that perhaps if I was English I could get away with it, but there was NO CHANCE with me being an American! (Go figure, right?) There was an Italian woman working at the customer service help desk though that was really nice about the whole thing. She knew I was panicked, so just told me to get home as quick as I could, get my passport and then she’d get me on the next train – without charging me the change fee that she was supposed to. I hurried around the corner to check my big backpack since I knew it would only slow me down further. Paid $10 for that and then made a mad dash for the Jubilee line. Got to Canary Wharf and knew that I didn’t have time to wait for a bus to take me back home, so I flagged down a Black Cab, and breathlessly told the driver my predicament. I negotiated a half price fare with him since I was bound and determined to not pay more than $10 for the trip, and off we went! He screeched up in front of the house (well not really, but it makes the story more interesting…), I ran inside, and then jumped back into the cab – heading back to the Tube station.

Got back to Canary Wharf station, then jumped onto the Jubilee line again to Waterloo. Arrived just in time to throw my ticket at the machine, POINTEDLY flash my passport at the French police (even though I was still in London), throw my bags through the x-ray machine, have a rude lady take my token picture outside the Eurostar carriage (for blog purposes of course!), and then hop onboard. When I finally sat down, I was exhausted!

We arrived in Paris around 10pm local time. Once getting off the train, it took me a minute to get my bearings in the Metro station because: a) everything was written in French and b) the Paris metro system is a bit confusing compared to the London metro system. I figured it out though and headed toward the hostel I had booked. I got checked in and up to my room around 11pm and met my three roomies for the wknd. There was Nicole (originally from Jamaica, but went to college in the States and has lived in Seattle ever since), Luiza (from Brazil), and Lorenzo (also from Brazil, but no relation to Luiza). It was a very good thing we all became friends right away b/c we were in about a 10x6 room with TWO sets of bunkbeds, a closet, a desk, and a chair – not to mention all of our belongings. Was quite comical! Nicole had QUITE an interesting story though b/c she's prolly early 30's (she wouldn't confirm!!!), and one day decided to take a trip around the world. She wasn't completely happy at her job in Seattle, so she quit, sold her house and most of her possessions, put the rest in storage, and planned her trip around the world! She's going ALL OVER including Europe (eastern and western), bits of North and South Africa, eastern Asia, and finishing out the trip with 2 months in Australia and New Zealand! I'm VERY jealous of her and would LOVE to do the same one day - you only live once! :-)

Nicole, Luiza and I headed out for a quick bite to eat and a drink a few blocks away and strangely settled for a Brazilian bar. Kind of a strange place as they had TVs all around that had Brazilian tunes blaring from them and Brazilian women dancing all over the stage with cameramen focusing on their rear ends (among OTHER places!) – but the drinks were good and we had a nice time. After that we were tired though – so we headed back to the hostel and hit the sack.

On Saturday morning, I woke up and was not feeling so hot AT ALL! I had a bunch of congestion and that rattling in my chest, which is never a good sign. I tried to stick it out though and continue on with my plans for the day…

I first went to see the beautiful Notre Dame cathedral. It was very lovely and they had a big Christmas tree out in front for the holidays. Milled around there for a while and also bought one of the famous French crepes. One of the most popular is the one filled with Nutella, which is a hazelnut spread with a chocolaty taste. Looks kinda like chocolate peanut butter and was truly squeezed from the clouds of heaven! I had it for the first time in Italy (where it was created) and assumed that it was strictly a European thing. But then I found out that you can buy it at any grocery store in the US even…is definitely on my list for when I return!

Anyway, after indulging with the Nutella crepe I did a bit of souvenir shopping and then headed over to a wine museum. Kinda a cool place, but also a bit of a letdown b/c I was expecting a great tour and when I walked in to this place that was MUCH smaller than anticipated, they handed me a brochure, told me it was self guided, and then I realized AFTER paying my £7 that all of the signs were in French! Sigh….I still saw some really cool (and very OLD!) wine making tools and pictures that showed the whole process. The end of the tour of course came with a glass of chilled French white wine.

After that, I headed over to the Eiffel Tower b/c I had arranged with Nicole and Luiza to meet there to see the Tower all sparkly and lit up. For 10 minutes on the hour every hour, the Eiffel Tower literally is lit up with tons of sparkly lights and it looks amazing! When I’d seen it previously on “The Bachelor” (no laughing!) I thought it was for the show and not a regular occurrence. Then we met up with one of Nicole’s friends that lives in Paris, named Fiona. She recommended a very nice restaurant on the Champs Elysses that was on the second floor of a concept car showroom (kinda strange, I know!) and we had a very lovely dinner and some great wine. The service took FOREVER and I had a couple of classic American customer service cravings, but I did the best I could to control them and keep myself in check. HA! :-)

Then it was back to the hostel for bed, after a very long day – in which I was still feeling a bit under the weather.

Sunday was a complete wash folks…I was supposed to get up early and head over to the Eiffel Tower to pick up the Fat Tire Bike Tour (like I did in Barcelona!), but I woke up feeling wretched. The congestion had set in further, I had a headache, and it was raining – not a good mix for an all day bike tour. I finally came to the conclusion that I needed to just get on the next Eurostar back to London and rest up for the upcoming week. So I packed my things into my big backpack and headed for the station. Had to wait about an hour and a half for the next train (just long enough for the older Italian man next to me to make anti-Bush comments after finding out that I’m from Texas – joy!), but I eventually got back to London safe and sound.

So all in all, it was quite a whirlwind trip to Paris – but it was still nice to get away and to finally experience Eurostar!

P.S. - Did I mention that I saw "Paris Hilton"??? LOL! ;-) (See pic below)

Thanksgiving abroad!

Thanksgiving this year was spent in Swindon with Stuart and his brother (Paul), sister-in-law (Kate) and niece (Olivia). Oh yes...and Rafer the famous chocolate lab. :-)

Stuart and I took off work on Thursday and Friday of that week (since people in the UK obviously treated it as any other day of the week). I headed down on Wednesday night to try and help Kate with things (since she's expecting!), and Stuart headed down on Thursday morning. It was really good fun getting into the holiday spirit and also teaching everyone what it's all about in the first place. Just like at Gobblerfest, I found myself answering questions about Thanksgiving related things that I'd never been asked before. I decided to come armed with the official Thankgiving story printed off Wikipedia to reference in a pinch - HA!

Paul and Kate went *above and beyond* the call of duty though and made it as close to a real Thanksgiving at home for me as they could. It was really touching b/c it was the first time I'd been away from my family and home for the actual day - and Thanksgiving is a much bigger deal to me than Christmas. Kate went to great lengths to find TWO big turkeys (Fred Senior and Fred Junior) and got ham (Wilbur) and ALL the trimmings. We even decided last minute to experiment and try and make homemade cranberry sauce even though we really had no clue what we were doing and I don't even LIKE cranberry sauce! HA! Neither of us ended up caring for it much, but one of the people at dinner that night commented that he really liked it! Go figure...

Anyway, Paul and Kate invited several of the guys on the same Army course as Paul and their wives over for dinner that night. Everyone got really into it all, and the Irish couple that was there brought some really good sweet potatoes and even brought marshmallows along at my request. :-)

As an extra added surprise, Paul and Kate ordered a huge Texan flag off the Internet that we hung from the front porch before everyone arrived. They also went to the effort of downloading a bunch of Texas/country themed songs from iTunes to create a music playlist for us to listen to all night. The Aggie War Hymn was even on there - I was VERY impressed! Other songs included some of the Dixie Chicks, the Yellow Rose of Texas, Road to Amarillo, and also some Johnny Cash. It was hilarious!

Dinner was fantastic and everyone had a really great time - Thanksgiving was a total success! :-)