No one ever addresses Blackpool's rock problem

As I’ve mentioned before, Andy and I have been staying with his mum until we find a place of our own. While I have nothing bad to say about Andy’s mum, the fact of the matter is that we’re staying with parents/a parent, which no matter how lovely that parent or parents are, it’s just a drag. Truth be told, I don’t think it has anything to do with staying with your folks – anytime you are basically living in someone else’s home it’s going to be a bit tough. So while we have only been in the UK for just over two weeks, we decided that we most definitely needed to take a weekend vacation for sanity purposes – both ours and for Andy’s mum (as having long term house guests isn’t exactly that fantastic either).

When we first decided to take this “mini-break”, I had it in my head that I wanted to see Stonehenge. While I still want to see Stonehenge (and will see Stonehenge dammit!), we didn’t think going somewhere 4-5 hours away was the best idea. I may be 5 weeks away from my due date but babies come when they want to. I suddenly had this fear of walking into Stonehenge and having some voodoo Druid magic make me give birth then and there but the baby would be possessed with glowing yellow eyes and a fondness for collecting droid parts. I obviously don’t know much about Druids but I always suspected that they looked a lot like jawas in ‘Star Wars’. ANYHOW, at the last minute we agreed that Blackpool was a good choice for our weekend away; though to be fair it was only because Andy used to say that Las Vegas was like Blackpool on acid. I was curious to see what Las Vegas sans acid actually looked like. Andy forgot to mention that Las Vegas sans acid is pretty closed during the winter months as its still recovering in a closet wondering why monocles and top hats are so damn freaky and for the love of god, stop that wall moving!

Surely I can't be the only one who thought Druids look like jawas.

Blackpool is only 50 some miles away from Liverpool, so even though we set off in the late afternoon on Friday, we still managed to make it there in little over an hour. On the way, I learned that highway ‘accidents’ are called motorway ‘incidents’ here. Pointless trivia point for those back home. You’re welcome.

Blackpool Tower - under construction

When we arrived, we went ahead and checked into our B&B, the Craimer. I feel horrible about saying anything bad about this place because really, it was very clean and modern and the owners were incredibly nice. I mean, I think they were nice. One of the owners, Craig, was Scottish so I could only understand every 14th word coming out of his mouth, but I can recognize “bitch” and “slag” no matter how heavy your brogue is so I’m pretty confident he was a friendly sort. For 92 pounds for two nights we got a double en-suite room that included breakfast. They also had a little bar and pool table that guests can hang out in. As I said, it was clean and had to have been recently renovated. That said, the actually room we got was fucking tiny. I mean midget size. To any of you who have been on a cruise ship and couldn’t afford anything but economy class, you can picture the kind of room size I’m talking about (actually, think a wee bit smaller). The bathroom contained a shower stall, toilet, and a sink that would not be out of place on a small sized boat – all three fit into a space no larger than your average size bathtub. It was tiny and neither Andy nor I are tiny people. Let’s just say that for two days I wasn’t able to wash, much less shave, anywhere past the top of my knees and I hope you don’t hold that against me.

The Craimer: Fantastic for jawas!

Taken from sitting on the bed in the far corner of the room.  End of the bed is a 8 inch gap to the bathroom door.  Door on left is the door out (3 feet from bed)

After check in, we headed out to explore Blackpool. We actually did a lot of what we used to do when on vacation pre pregnancy – stopped in a pub for a couple drinks, went out and got some food, then went to a different pub for more drinks. Andy did my drinking for me though I fully admit to having a single pint of Guinness at this Irish pub called Scruffy Murphy’s. As a person who doesn’t normally like Guinness (it contains calcium and iron by the way) it was hands down the best pint of beer I’ve had – which only goes to show how much I miss beer.

Blackpool, not on acid, but on some heavy cough syrup.

The next day after Bed&Breakfast breakfast, we headed to the promenade to do some touristy things. Mainly I wanted to go to Blackpool Sea Life because if there is one thing I can’t turn down is an aquarium. People are usually surprised by this since I don’t like fish. Or, as I always end correcting them, I don’t like EATING fish but I like watching them swim around as nature intended - in a glass tank with fake algae, a backlight illuminating their colorful scales, and a little sign telling me just what the fuck creature I’m looking at. I had a coupon for the Blackpool aquarium but found out when we got there that my stupid coupon was expired. We ended up paying almost 15 pounds per person because of it. I had a feeling that 15 pounds was not worth what I was about to experience at this aquarium but the draw of fishes in glass tanks was too much to turn down. Overall, I had a good time though Andy was bored shitless, so we left after an hour and went and played some indoor mini golf next door.

I like making Andy pose in front of things.  No reason.

"Why hello my friend!  Please come and give me a kiss you lovely land walker!"

"No?  How about a hug?"

Andy, disobeying the sign and pointing at fish.

Not only am I disobeying the sign but I'm being perverse and pointing at the shark's "junk"

In the late afternoon we wandered into the WHO shop which to anyone who is a Sci-Fi fan is going to put you in serious heaven. Walking in Andy turned to me and said, “OK, I give you permission to geek out.” Personally, I don’t think he was giving me permission as much as he was giving himself permission. There were security guards all over the place so I didn’t feel like I could take pictures, but let’s just say that I questioned Andy on whether or not the life sized Dalek would fit in the rental car. I’m sorry to say I didn’t purchase anything simply for the fact that I wanted to purchase EVERYTHING and I felt that if I only got one thing, the rest of the things in the shop would feel lonely without it.

"Who's awesome? That's right, WHO is awesome."

After that, we stopped at another pub, Churchill's Bar, where they were having some afternoon karaoke going on. While I’m not a huge fan of karaoke, both of us had a really good time here. There were two men hosting it – one Andy described as the “skinny gay Christian” one and the other I described as the “short dancing leprechauny” one. We were laughing our asses off. When no one was coming up to sing, the short one would put on this montage of old songs (think “Roll out the barrel” and “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me”) while doing jigs – serious JIGS. The singers that did come up were really good except for this 70 year old lady, barely able to stand, trying to do a rendition of “I Got You Babe”. While the leprechauny one was holding her up, she would mumble all the lyrics except when she got to the chorus where it was, “i got YOU BABE!” I tried to get Andy to go up to sing but he claimed he wasn’t drunk enough. Poof.

For dinner we went to West Coast Rock Café because I had a coupon (not expired!) for it. Fuck, I’m glad we went here. The food was awesome, which I don’t get to say very often anymore. It was “Tex-Mex” and while they really didn’t have much in the way of Mexican food (only a burrito and fajitas) the food was American sized portions and taste. I didn’t know the portions would be so big (as I’m already getting used to proper UK portion sizes) and ended up ordering what I thought would be three small starters rather than the 3 starters as big as my face.

After dinner I was exhausted (grrrr, pregnancy) so we ended up going back to our B&B. We got the owner off of his couch to open the bar so we could play pool. Actually, after two games of pool, I went upstairs to lie down and Andy stayed in the bar and talked with the owner for another hour or so. Seriously, this Scottish guy was really friendly and if you are tiny, please stay at his B&B.

On Sunday we woke up early so we could get breakfast somewhere besides the B&B and to go to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. However, Blackpool on Sunday morning is pretty much shut down and Blackpool in winter means that 80% of the attractions (including the wax museum) are closed due to renovations to be completed before the start of the season (which I think is in April). We ended up finding this very small out of the way café that was open, had breakfast, and just ended up heading home.

The promenade.  Mostly closed and in construction.

So that was Blackpool. To all those who have been, YES, I TRIED THE ROCK (and it was good).

The Glamorous Expat Life

So I have been a proper expat for approximately 10 days now. In these ten days I have done…well, I’ve just been living really. Call me delusional (though I hope that I’m not the only delusional expat out there) but when I thought about living abroad, I had all these grandiose ideas on how living abroad would be so glamorous and exciting and filled with new discoveries everywhere I turned. While the new discoveries bit is quite valid in many aspects, the real truth is being an expat is not glamorous or not incredibly exciting simply for the whole lot of Basic Living you’re actually doing.

Let’s put it this way – when you go on vacation somewhere, to a foreign land or hell, even to Florida, you’re on vacation. You don’t think about laundry detergent or which bank has the best APR’s or what form you need to fill out for a grocery store savings card. You’re on vacation. On vacation your main concern is having fun, eating fatty foods, and taking 168 pictures of landscapes to bore your friends with back home. You don’t look around and think to yourself whether or not the area around the hotel would have a good school system, do you? But that’s what it’s like being an expat. It’s just real life- regular basic living, isn’t it? The only difference from trying to get settled in another town in the country you are born in and trying to get settled in a new country completely different from your own is that people talk funny and you spend entirely way too much time identifying the worth of the coins you have jangling around in your pocket.

I also think your mind is a lot more open when you are on vacation. Or maybe that’s just me. I just know that when I was here last year for 3 weeks I was all about trying all the local foods and just taking in whatever England could throw at me. This time around I find myself already searching for American equivalents to the every day things I use. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about that a year ago. Why would I? There’s no point in finding Britain’s answer to Secret solid deodorant if I’m going to be back in the US in 3 weeks. Bring on the roll-on!

This all may sound like doom and gloom. Andy is probably reading this right now shaking his head and mumbling about me being a bit fat complainer; which I must respond, I’M NOT COMPLAINING. I’m actually stating some facts here and I’m stating them for all those out there who are thinking about moving abroad and are as delusional as I was. Because if you are delusional (like I was), the reality can hit you in the face pretty fucking hard and maybe it would help if someone had told us (the delusional people) a little bit about how it actually goes down. So, hey dumbass, it’s not going to be a vacation, it’s just going to be your life.

With all that NOT complaining stated, I have to tell you that life here isn’t so bad. It’s actually quite good really, for regular life. Technically, we’re still in limbo living at Andy’s mum’s house at the moment; anxious to get on with proper settling down in our own place and all that, but it’s been good regardless. Now that we’re here we’ve been able to buying the big things that the baby is going to need – stroller, crib, car seat – also things that plug in like the baby monitor and bottle warmer. That’s actually been a huge relief. For someone who considers herself efficient and just likes to get things done already, it’s great not to be waddling around at 34 weeks without a clue on how we’re getting the baby home from the hospital. Baby aside, we’ve gotten a lot of the basic things taken care of – opening a bank account, got new phones with really long phone numbers (which I admit fully I can never remember what mine is), got the saving card at the grocery store (and Costa Coffee – uber important!). I’ve also got to experience a lot of normal UK life – going to the tip (aka: dump\landfill), going to the Trafford Centre (aka: big ass mall), going to the cinema on Friday night to see Simon Pegg’s new movie, “Paul” (I was the only one in the theater who laughed a the illegal alien joke), and eating out A LOT. We’ve visited the cat twice in quarantine, which is really a big ass compound in the middle of the countryside (she’s doing fine, though has let herself go by gaining a least a pound in two weeks). We’ve helped Andy’s mum buy a new laptop and Blu Ray player at Curry’s (aka: similar to Best Buy but they have Best Buy too).

The Willage (aka: Crosby Village).  I've been to Costa no less than 8 times in the last 10 days.

Our abode and fantastically awful Vauxhall rental car

Headed into the Birkenhead Tunnel to go see Chloe

Our chubby little monster

Me, trying to show off my bulging belly in Sefton Park but failing miserably.  At least I have water shooting out of my head.

Like I said, we’ve been busy and it’s been good but it’s not terribly exciting, it’s just life. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I do have one small anecdote for you, which is to describe Little Chef. Little Chef is a chain diner type place, usually located along a traveling route. I would say it’s similar to a Stuckey’s or Waffle House in the States. When we go and see Chloe in quarantine (which is in the countryside remember), we actually pass two Little Chef’s on the way. The first time we headed that way, I couldn’t hold my bladder any longer and asked Andy if we could stop at Little Chef so I could pee. Walking in to Little Chef is like visiting an area that just got a visit from the Dementors (Harry Potter reference – I don’t care how dorky it is, I’m not changing it as it’s the only way to describe it). Everyone there, from the customers to the employees just looked like the joy had been sucked out of them. Like they were all there, in that Little Chef, wondering what they had done in their life wrong that they somehow ended up there, at Little Chef, for the rest of their days. Even their mascot, Charlie, looks like he has a forced smile. Growing up my parents used to threaten to drop us off at jail when we were misbehaving. When Henry misbehaves, I’m going to threaten to drop him off at Little Chef.

I feel the life draining from me just looking at this.

That’s about it for me. Now that the laundry is done, I’ve got to run into the willage (aka: Crosby Village) to get some bread and vegetables from Sainsbury’s because that is the sort of glamorous expat life I lead.

Giraffes on Parade

So I know a lot of people who read my blog either live in the UK, have lived or been to the UK or read a fuck load a bunch of other blogs about expats living in the UK. I want to just tell you, this post isn’t for you. This post covers things that a billion other blogs have lamented about before so this is neither original nor life changing. This post is basically for my dearest friend, Beth, who while certainly has traveled outside of the US before has never actually been to Europe. What I want Beth to do right now, if she’s reading, is to get up from her couch or desk or whatever and take a stroll into her bathroom and kitchen and take a good hard look. When she’s done, I want her to take another look and then give a kiss to her appliances. She’s a clean person so I’m pretty sure she won’t mind doing this.

By the way, I could have called this post “For Beth”, or “For Fuck’s Sake” or “Sometimes America actually gets it right” but I didn’t. Since I don’t actually have a title for this post quite yet, I’m tempted to call it “Giraffes on Parade” just to be silly. Yes, that’s definitely what I’ll do.

If you aren’t Beth and you’re still reading, chances are that the other blogs you have read have complained on and on about the bathroom\kitchen differences between the US and the UK. I would like to state for the record that it’s my fucking turn. In an effort to not be a complete Negative Nancy, I’ve included some good bits at the end because really, I do enjoy being here and am grateful to have the chance. However, complaining is 100 times more funny than being all Shiny Happy Heather, so the majority will be bitching.

Let’s start out with the bathroom since that’s where most of the pain comes from. Here is the bathroom, as innocent as you please:

Because of the angle, you might be thinking to yourself that I couldn’t manage to get the toilet in the frame. Let me assure you that I did not. There is no toilet in the bathroom. It’s a BATHroom, which means that it is only required to have a BATH. What I find funny is that Andy’s mum had some flooding issues last year and this whole bathroom needed to be replaced. There used to be a bidet in here. Notice there is no longer a bidet in here. That bidet could have easily been replaced with another toilet since the plumbing was in place. But no. A handy 3 drawer system went in its place instead. In case you are wondering, the toilet (water closet) is in another room just a few steps down the hall. That’s all fine and dandy but what does one do when one has their period (don’t mean to be all gross here but let’s talk practicalities)? When Ole Flo is in town and I am done taking a shower, I do this lovely sprint type maneuver from toweling off in the shower to getting my ass on the toilet as not to make a mess (if you know what I mean). Because there are other people in this house, if I were to have Ole Flo in town (which thank fuck I’m avoiding at the present…thank you baby!), I would have to be somewhat dressed to leave the bathroom to make it to the water closet which by that time a mess could have already occurred and I also run the risk of losing my spot in the bathroom. Seriously, if you have a toilet in the same room as your shower\bath, hug it. Hug it hard for me.

To the right, the bathroom.  To the left, the toilet.

Moving on.

While we are still in the bathroom, let’s talk about this sink situation:

You will notice that there are two taps. One is for Freezing Ice Water and the other is for Boil Some Ramen Noodles. The concept here, of course, is to use the plug and fill the sink with a combination of both as to get a lovely mixture of Slightly Warm to Soothe Your Soul water. But really, who has time for that? If it’s late at night and I’m doing my 3 in the morning bathroom run (thanks baby!) I’m not going to risk third degree burns and will just turn my hands into popsicles for a quick wash. During the day I’m more daring and will try to wash my hands with the boiling water hoping to be finished in the 4 seconds it takes for the water to reach that point. I have lost this battle a few times already. I also feel incredibly guilty for not adhering to the ‘sing “Happy Birthday” while you wash your hands to make sure that they are properly clean’ mantra. Oprah would have a fit.

One last detail about the bathroom and that’s the shower. Or I should say, the shower “door”:

That is the complete shower door. There are no shower curtains to fill the gap for where the shower door ends. I’m a big girl. I’m also pregnant. Even though I huddle under the shower, half of me is never quite covered by the shower door. The shower door also swings in and out. This means that on occasion, when I’m washing my hair and have soap in my eyes and can’t properly see, my elbow will knock against the door causing it to swing open slightly bringing a hefty amount of shampoo and water down the outside of the shower which makes my mother in law hate me for ruining her new floor. I’m just kidding, she doesn’t hate me. I don’t think. Yet.

With these three things, I must admit that getting ready in the morning is a bit stressful. It feels like a chore. I completely get why some Brits don’t shower every day…or even just once a week. It’s scary in there.

The last few things I want to show you aren’t really complaints. They are just differences that I thought Beth would get a kick out of. Oh wait…there is one complaint. No dryer. Since I’ve hashed that one to bits I’ll just post some photo evidence. Andy will need to thank me for cutting out the bit of the picture that has his underwear hanging on the radiator.

On to the differences:

That’s the electric plugs. There are two switches, one for each side of the plug. You have to “switch on” whichever plug you want to use. These are also the closest plugs we have to the bathroom (and they are in the bedroom) so I use these plugs with an extension cord to reach the mirror that is on the OTHER side of the bedroom to do my hair. Seriously Beth, give your bathroom a kiss.

This is the fridge:

This is actually a pretty big refrigerator for the UK. The bottom half is the freezer bit and the top half is the regular fridge bit. It’s not uncommon for UK households to only have a fridge the size as the one below, which is what Andy’s mum only had before the flood. This also explains why many Brits go grocery shopping at least every other day as there is no room to do a mega shop:

Also very common this side of the world is the washing bucket in the sink. While the washing bucket makes absolutely no sense to me, it doesn’t really bother me so it’s not a complaint, more of “Huh?”:

For some fun stuff, here is the how the milk and juice is packaged:

Here’s what I’ve been eating for breakfast for the last 4 days. Sadly it is neither as sugary or as chocolately as its American sugar cereal counterparts but I guess that’s a good thing (grumble grumble):

And finally, what the UK got right:

Yes, that’s the automatic tea kettle. We have these in the States. Hell, we had one ourselves in California. The UK tea kettles are different though. They are magical. When I used to plug in our tea kettle in California, I could safely run a load of laundry before the kettle was ready. Not these UK versions. You plug this baby in and by the time you get a tea bag in your cup the kettle is ready. I’ve never seen water boil so fast in my life. I’m impressed. I’m so impressed I’m going to give it a kiss. And a hug even. Fuck, just burned myself. I never learn.

Up to this point...

So I’m currently sitting in bed upstairs at Andy’s mom’s (sorry, “mum’s”) house under a duvet with no top sheet, drinking a GeeBee No Sugar Added Cherryade fizzy drink (that tastes slightly like that one type of cough syrup you had as a kid that didn’t make your mouth turn inside out), while Andy’s mum is downstairs watching ‘Hustle’ while Andy fights a losing battle with his new Blackberry phone under the Orange network on the settee next to her. I must be in the UK.

It’s going to be hard trying to sum up the last two weeks in a coherent and entertaining blog post. This is on top of being jetlagged and suffering from a cold picked up from the bowels of the frozen tundra that is Wisconsin. I guess I’m saying is that this post might be humorous because it makes no sense, or it could just not make much sense and you can wait for the next post where I attempt to entertain my best friend, Beth, with English household oddities.

Right. Best get started then, shall I?

The last week in California went entirely too fast. There wasn’t a day where we weren’t doing something marked as Really Important and I started to question my choice on working until the 2nd to last day before we left. Of course work let me out a half day early on my last day which only lead to me sitting in the hotel room watching shitty network television for 4 hours before Andy got back from whatever it was that he was doing so in the end, it was probably best that I did earn those Last Day Dollars. (Was that a run-on sentence? Probably. Fuck it, I’m jetlagged.) Anyhow, while still in California, we went to what was formally Moe’s Pub Quiz (now Vicki’s Pub Quiz) at the Harp and we came in 3rd place, had a last curry meal with Dave & Jill at Mother India, had last drinks with Dave & Maggie, and did a couple other things that I have since forgotten. I do know that I never got to properly say good-bye to Mari, Gunter, Michele, Patrick and Marilyn which makes me really bummed out though I suppose it gives me leverage to guilt them all into coming out here sometime in the future.

For expat blog purposes, I must inform you that Chloe (el gato) flew out to the UK a good week before we did. There was this huge pet carrier issue we ran into that resulted in us buying no less than 4 carriers (of which only 1 could be returned) before we had the right one. Note to all those shipping your pets, the carrier needs to be big enough so that when your pet stands up, its head doesn’t touch (and I mean, not one little furry ear touch) the top of the carrier. Also, there is a PetSmart near LAX just as a general FYI. I worried for a good 24 hours while Chloe was in route here. She doesn’t do change well and I thought the whole process might be too much for her little heart. I needn’t have worried. We called the quarantine place the morning after she arrived to find out how she was. After a general chit chat, the quarantine guy said to Andy, “When you come to visit, you’ll know the people who have dealt with her by the bandages.” Heh. That’s my girl.

Piss and vinegar.  That's how I like my pets.

On Friday, February 4th, we flew out to Wisconsin. AirTran no longer has food for sale on the LA to Milwaukee flight, as another FYI. That information might be useful to you if you happen to get nervous before flights so you decide only to have a banana thinking you’ll just buy a sandwich mid-flight and all you get is two lousy bags of pretzels. My dad and stepmom picked us up from the airport and when they asked me how I was I said, “I’m fucking hungry.” I might get a bit moody when I haven’t eaten. We had a great Conejito’s dinner that I don’t regret even though it gave me Conejito’s ass the next day during the family going away party\baby shower. As promised, I’m not going to blog about the 2nd shower as it was pretty uneventful (though Beth and her mom showed up which was like, the best gift ever).

On Sunday was the Super Bowl. I actually have some pictures from that. Being in Wisconsin when the Packers happened to be playing in the Super Bowl is nothing short of a miracle. Cosmically, everything lined up for us to be there. Andy and I headed down to Champion’s, my old Wisconsin local, at 10 AM to watch the Liverpool vs. Chelsea football match. I’m not sure the owner, Bobby, would have opened up the pub early for the game if it wasn’t for me pestering him to do so but I like to think (very immodestly) that he did it for me. After Liverpool won (!!), we had plans to kind of bum around the East Side getting some lunch and having some coffee. However, we got frightened into staying at Champion’s when someone else at the pub mentioned that it would start filling up for the Super Bowl at 1 PM even though kick off wasn’t until 5:30 PM. We seriously had rock star seating at this point (at an empty pub, go figure) and we didn’t want to lose it. So we stayed. At Champion’s. For 7 ½ hours before the Super Bowl even started. If there is something that I have learned in that 7 ½ hours of sitting there is that time goes really fucking slow when you aren’t drinking. What’s worse is that the pub didn’t actually start filling up until 3:30 PM so we would have had plenty of time to bum around. But that’s neither here nor there. The Packers fucking won the Super Bowl! And it was awesome! There was lots of shouting, and cheering, and dancing and shots being done by everyone but me (damn pregnancy!) and Andy got completely off his face and kept squeezing me and telling me how happy he was that I brought him to Wisconsin for a Packer’s Super Bowl win (not in those exact words and not as coherently). And Andy doesn’t even like American football!

Andy watching Bobby cook the brats for the game.  Yes, as a matter of fact, it was fucking cold that day.

When you say "Wisconsin", you said it all!

Look at that excitement.  Not bad for a Scouser.

 I miss Champion's!

...and I really miss shots.

I should have taken this picture during hour 4 at the pub.  Ach well.

On Monday I hung out with my mom while Andy went out drinking with my brother, Adam, to celebrate the Packers win. As tempted as I am to go into details about my day with my mom, in the off chance she does read this blog, she would be absolutely mortified if I posted what I want to post for the entire world to see. All I can say is that it’s a shame that I can’t because any story that ends with “and I had to drive my mom to the Oak Creak Police Department so she wouldn’t get put in the slammer” is a great story to tell. I know, you totally hate me now, don’t you?

On Tuesday I got hit with this cold. I seriously spent my last day in the United States in bed with a jar of mentholatum and a heating pad. There aren’t words enough to tell you how much that sucks monkey balls. Oh sure, I know I’ll be back to the States at some point but I wanted to give it a proper good bye. I wanted to at least have some more Mexican food, instead of the stomach settling mac & cheese and tomato soup. On the plus side, I did get to see “the Social Network” and was rather pleased with it.

Obviously on Wednesday, we left. There isn’t much to tell about the journey except that it was long, hard to do on a cold, and exhausting when I don’t have the ability to sleep on planes. But we made it just fine. Thank you airplane pilots, airplane mechanics and terrorists who took the day off.

Anyhow, I don’t know if I’m excited yet. None of it seems real to be completely honest with you. It’s a bit like a cannon shot me back to my Christmas 2009 vacation and any moment the same cannon will shoot me back to my apartment in Costa Mesa. I just need some more sleep I think, and some powerful cold meds. And I’m sure sometime next week I’ll wake up under this duvet with no cover sheets with a half glass of GeeBee’s CherryAde next to me and it will all come flooding in. “WTFHID!”

You'll be disappointed if you hope this is a real post....

Just a quick whatever to let you all know that I'm still here...I haven't abandoned the blog. It's our very last day in the United States, we fly out of Chicago to Liverpool at 9 tonight. Trust me when I say I'll have a lot of time in the next weeks to update this place so you'll just have to be a bit patient.

By the way...it's 0 degrees in WI. Andy has finally admitted that it's cold (he doesn't want to come off as a pussy). Personally I'm looking forward to getting to England to warm up a bit.