It's been a while.

Greetings, loved ones.  I’m sure all you members of my vast and diverse readership have been losing sleep since November 3^rd, wondering what glorious adventures I’ve been up to and missing my ever insightful commentary.  Fear not, I have returned.  Rather than write a book about all that has happened since my last post, I will list a series of small updates:

The day before my mom and Erin and Colleen arrived, I took a tumble down the stairs in our apartment.  Elbows and ego still bruised.  But my feet are large and our stairs are small—it was only a matter of time.

There was a white feather in the carton of eggs that I bought.  Ashley and I screamed when we saw it.  She was like, “DO YOU NOT CHECK THE EGGS BEFORE YOU BUY THEM??”  Apparently I missed that grocery-buying lesson.

My Mommy came all the way to London to change the sheets on my bed and help me clean up my room.  She is the best.

Erin brought me Jif.  Rejoice!

I stayed with my mom and Erin and Colleen in their hotel.  I took my first shower in months (not as gross as it sounds—our apartment only has a tub, so we are confined to taking baths).  I also blow-dried my hair for the first time in months.  I should really go buy a hair dryer.

This is Erin’s graceful descent from one of the lions at Trafalgar Square.

Nice socks.

This is Erin and I reenacting a scene from the royal wedding at Westminster Abbey.  Obviously I am Pippa, the more attractive younger sister.

Nice bouquet.

I think we did a good job.

Yesterday was Remembrance Day, 11/11/11.  At 11:00, our office had a 2-minute “moment” of silence.  It was generally well observed, except for this American girl blabbing in the back room (I swear it wasn’t me) (and this girl’s voice is loud and irritating even when everyone else isn’t being silent).  People were kind of rolling their eyes.  Why must there always be someone to perpetuate the stereotype??

Yesterday was also this American guy’s last day at the office (he’s moving back to America!).  We all went out after work for goodbye drinks.  The first place had 2-for-1 cocktails, so I got Moscow Mules in honor of Becca being a general whiz at life.  British Will’s girlfriend met up with us.  Her name is Kate.  They are just too British.

My mom gave me an assignment to go shopping this weekend.  (I need to get a winter coat, hair dryer, etc.)  Thanks, Mom!  Just a heads-up, you might be getting a call from your friends at Capital One!

I can hear Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” coming from one of our neighbors’ apartments.  …There is almost too much to say about this.

It is visiting season.

Our flat feels pretty empty right now.  We have had a constant stream of visitors coming and going for the past two weeks.  Ashley’s friend Lance stayed with us the whole two weeks (he left Monday), Philip (hi Philip) was here the weekend before last, and Catherine and her friend Morgan were here this past weekend and left early yesterday morning.  It was really nice to see some familiar faces.  Plus, everyone came bearing delicious gifts from their adopted lands.  Philip brought us stroopwafel and stroopkoeken from Rotterdam—AMAZING waffle-ish cookies with caramel filling inside.  So good.  They did not last long at all.  Catherine and Morgan brought mantecados and bonbons from their little Spanish pueblo called Estepa.  Mantecados are a little difficult to describe—they are these addictive, crumbly shortbread balls that come in different flavors.  I’m trying to only have one a day (my treat at work), but it’s really difficult not to eat several in one go. 

Highlights from the visits include, but certainly are not limited to: being a good little architecture nerd with Philip and going to the OMA exhibition at the Barbican (it was really good and the Barbican is SWEET.  I could live there.), celebrating Ashley’s birthday with Lance (he had chicken cordon bleu all cooked and ready for us when we got home from work!  We also ate lots of cake from my favorite little bakery that is on the way to work.), and participating in London’s Halloween zombie pub crawl with Catherine, Morgan, and Ashley (Catherine went as zombie butcher, Morgan went as zombie Statue of Liberty, and Ashley and I were Pinky and the Brain.  We were going to be Pinky and the Brain zombies but we liked our costumes too much to zombify them.  Our zombie post rationalization for our costume was “Pinky and the brains brains brains brains.”  The zombies on the crawl were way more intense than we were, and they quickly smeared blood all over us because we were just too clean.)

The visiting continues on Friday when my mom, Erin, and Colleen come to London.  I cannot wait.  And they will come bearing gifts from America—primarily Jif.  And good news for Erin—the dog poop and pee in our stairwell (mentioned several posts ago) has become a fairly regular occurrence.  But, never fear.  We talked to our landlady (she is awesome) and she and her husband set the neighbors straight (I WISH I could have witnessed that).  When I got home from work, instead of having to cover my nose and mouth to shield from the stench, I enjoyed a fresh, bleachy, poop-free trip up the recently scrubbed stairs.  Just in time for the Queen of Clean’s visit this weekend!  

(Part of me is a little worried that our complaints will earn us our very own deposit of poop outside our front door...I could kind of see our neighbors doing that.)

Pinky and the Brain take a stand against poop.

Send me Jif.

If you want to make me the happiest girl in the UK, send me a twin pack of those big Jif jars of peanut butter (creamy, not crunchy).  My birthday is a few months away, but I’m willing to celebrate it early.  As you all probably know, I’m very dependent on my American name brand peanut butter.  We’ve been buying these teeny tiny jars of Skippy (and Skippy is fine, but I really just want me some Jif).  These jars, which hold about the amount I apply to a sandwich, are insanely expensive!  I don’t even remember how much they cost because, upon purchase, I instantly block the price from my memory and instead focus on how thankful I am for American peanut butter.  Ashley suggested today that we make the switch to British supermarket brand peanut butter, which we can get in much larger quantities, for much cheaper.  …I’m just really reluctant to do this.  I was exploring this whole blog thing a little bit today, and I noticed that I can add a little PayPal gadget to my page….peanut butter fund?  What do you guys think, yeah?

In other news, I did a long overdue load of laundry today—mostly T-shirts and underwear, that sort of load.  I thought everything had been washed enough times that I could throw it all in together and put it on hot.  Evidently, I was wrong.  Some article of clothing (I oddly can’t figure out which) caused the non-cotton parts of my other clothes (waistbands on underwear, lace trim on a white tank top, the stitching on a running shirt, etc) to turn this purple-grey color.  But actually, nothing is ruined and I consider several articles of clothing to be improved.  The tank top with the new color lace looks like a completely new shirt.  It’s the luckiest washing machine mistake ever.

Third and final tidbit of my day—London is doing this Open House event this weekend.  Lots of buildings and architects’ offices are open for the public to tour for free.  After a very leisurely morning, I decided to pick one and check it out.  So I went to Norman Foster’s office (Foster + Partners), figuring it should be pretty interesting.  (Brief explanation for non-architects: Norman Foster is a pretty big deal, I guess.  Foster + Partners did the Gherkin in London and the Hearst buiding in New York.  Only he isn’t actually too involved anymore—he’s created an empire of minions to design in his high-tech style.  And if my tour guide—a project manager for the firm—was any indication, these minions all think they are very, very important.)  The office was pretty cool, but there was definitely a snobbish “we are the premiere London firm” vibe, which kind of made me want to be a nudge.  So during the tour, I spoke up and asked, “How regularly does Norman, you know, pop into the office?”  The tour guide’s eyes bugged out a little bit and he replied, “Umm, Lord Foster isn’t as involved anymore, but certainly has his hand in many of the projects.”  Bleh, excuuuuse me.  Architecture school put me on a first name basis with every architect, even the lords of the bunch.  How do you even become a lord anyway?  Is a lord some kind of mega-knight?  If so, Sir Elton John definitely deserves an upgrade.