current digs

some pics from the balcony of our waverly place flat on canons way. i would show you the inside but it with 2 4 yr olds playing in the living room, it always looks like a bomb full of little doll shoes/clothes, stickers & hot wheels cars went off. between that & the laundry hanging to dry in the kitchen (the washer/dryer does wash but does not dry laundry), it looks like we are in a third world apartment.

moving, again

we are going to be moving into our permanent digs on saturday. i will have to repack what i have already unpacked so the lengthy blog updates i know you all are addicted to at this point will kinda slow so that i can repack.

luckily, i look at packing like a lifesize tetris game & as laura plourde can attest, i love me some tetris.

the hubster says that one unlucky aardman PA will be here at 10am to do our ungawdly bidding & help load all of our luggage into the borrowed aardman van. said PA will also hopefully help carry our awful load up 6 flights of stairs at the new place on tyndalls road. oh, there's no lift at the tyndalls road flat so did i mention i will return to the states with buns of steel?

the chocolate chronicles

as you may well already know if you know me, you then know i loooooooooooooooooooooooooove chocolate. not as much as my children or a 10hr block of uninterrupted sleep but quite alot. i have decided to also post about my chocolate experiences here across the pond, where everything is packaged new & differently & therefore more interesting. i think i know a thing or 2 about chocolate, 1st thing being that i like it & have eaten much chocolate - good & bad. my gold standard of chocolate is the contraband chocolate my sister brought from switzerland that sat on a sweltering dallas runway for 2 hrs on a hot summer's day. so de-licious that this stuff converted joe into a chocolate fiend, who's only previously considered haribo gummies & twizzlers real sweet treats.

so here goes . . .

milka: available atr sainsbury's & recommended by my sister & her hubster, ed. they must have tried it in switzerland since it is available in grocery stores & at a very affordable price point, under 1 british pound (my computer does not have the pound british sterling sign so i must spell it out. damn). very smooth, even flavor and not at all chalky or dry like hershey's. definitely would get milka again.

double decker: a concoction made by the makers of kit kat consisting of nougat atop a kit kat bar. kit kat=yummy, nougat=a bit too marshmallowy for my taste so i only ate half & abandoned the rest. will NOT be fooled into getting this again.

gu chocolate pud: my computer also does not do umlaughts & there is one over the "u" in "gu". this packaging describes this as a chocolate souffle. it is in the freezer section of the tesco express (kinda like a 7-11 or am/pm) & apparently needs to hang out a room temperature for at least an hour before entering the fiery depths of your kitchen oven. or you can microwave it but the makers of gu warn that the 2 different cooking methods produce 2 very different chocolate souffles. so i opt for the oven bake this time - there are 2 puds in each package so i can microwave next time. i did have to end up microwaving my gu chocolate pud after oven baking as i took it out to cool & promptly forgot about it. i have eaten enough trader's joe's chocolate lava cakes to know they mean business when they say let product cool for 10 minutes before consuming. if you don't wait the recommended 10 minutes, you run a very high risk of talking with a pronounced lisp the next day as the hot bite melted through your tongue the night before. so wait. all in all, gu chocolate pud good, not great. not a deep rich chocolate but more like a pudding cake. and i think pudding cakes are kind of wimpy since they can't decide which route to go. holding out for trader's chocolate lava cakes but the gu chocolate pud did come in a nice glass keepsake ramkin.

bounty dark chocolate & coconut: as my BFF amy g. knows, i love me some mounds bars. they have been suspiciously absent from the shelves over here as i think some type of mafia deal went down in the 70's - mounds got the contiguous united states & bounty got the european market. sad sad sad little coconut/dark chocolate bar. despite it's dark coating of chocolate, there seems to be complete absence of any chocolate taste in this bar. ditto the coconut. in fact, i am nit even sure i ate this thing because i taste absolutely no remnant. sometimes you feel like a nut & sometimes, you're not feeling it at all.

galaxy ripple: also available at the tesco express. despite it's name it has nothing to do with david beckham or the LA galaxy soccer team, much to my dismay. not that i am a big soccer fan mind you but a mini chocolate david beckham sounds kinda delicious. this is galaxy milk chocolate enrobing light ribbon weaves of more galaxy milk chocolate. kinda reminds me of a flake bar. probably will go for this again.

so up next:
sainsbury's (a grocery chain here) dark chocolate bar
star bar - a peanut, caramel & chocolate bar

stay tuned chocofolks!

diggy on the plane

how cute is dignan? i mean really. this boy is just gonna break hearts some day. starting with mine.

dress up at explore@bristol

explore@bristol, part deux

more pics from our visit to explore@bristol

explore@bristol

so this place is kinda like kidspace in pasadena but loads bigger with waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more to touch. plus part of it is sponsored by aardman & sony pictures entertainment, both employers of the hubster so there is the whole animation angle.

won't go into too much, i'll just let the pictures do the talking. but i will say gemma & dignan tried ham sandwiches for the first time, which gemma says is her favorite meat because it's pink. awesome sauce, as dignan says.

the carphone store on park street

despite all our best research ahead of time, we have discovered that we will have to get UK sim cards for our US phones as not to incur astronomical roaming fees. especially for my brand new blackberry curve that must check in with the internet every 10 minutes like a dutiful, obedient child. plus joe has already instructed t-mobile to suspend our accounts as of midnight, monday night. so we've landed & have not been able to let a single soul know that we have arrived safely & all in one piece.

a friend has recommended a phone store on the semi nearby park street. by now, it is no longer raining but the sun has peeked out some, so we set out with gemma in the stroller & diggy holding tightly to my hand.

we consult our pirate drawn map & locate said phone store. upon arrival, dignan collapses on the carphone warehouse black leather couch & falls asleep whereas gemma has been out for probably the whole walk up there. so naps would have worked! we purchase new UK sim cards & "top them up" with 10 pounds each. this after the salesman all but swears on his mother's life that my blackberry will get internet for 30 pence per day as well as make phone calls & send texts for 6p per minute.

but here is the where the whole technical snafu thing starts it's insane reign of non-connectivity to the outside world.

because, apparently even though joe acquired the unlock codes for both his phone & my blackberry, i got nada. zip. zilch. zero. internet that is. but now i can call people, so at least there's that.

this is discovered after returning home, dispersing my new UK mobile number & being unable to get online.

i go into internet withdrawls.

this is too much for me. i am going to bed to dream of a world where i can text friends & get on facebook. maybe this is all just a bad dream: my blackberry really works & nobody shot JR.

our first day in bristol

so we landed tuesday & joe was expected at work on wednesday.

that meant i would have the children entirely to myself. for the entire day. in a new city. without a car. and without internet. the latter could have been used to determine the exact GPS coordinates of the nearest play area. although from i have been told, english parks have the most dangerous, unsafe play equipment known to man/childkind.

hmmm.

thank goodness we had the sense to bring a single stroller. although now both children are claiming crippleness & saying they are "unable to walk". awesome.

it was sprinkling lightly outside on wednesday, so here is a breakdown of how i dressed the kids for a walk around our new neighborhood:
- rain coat
- rain hat
- rain boots
- scarves
- hoodies
- heavy pants (no, for those of you wondering, i did not break out the snow pants)

a little overkill?, um, yes. just a little bit. but better too warm & dry than cold, sad & wet, i say.

we head towards this enormous silver ball, which turns out is the planetarium of the explore@bristol. had no idea this kid fun zone was thisclose. it's kinda like kidspace in pasadena but we go there tomorrow so let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?

i have a rudiementary map that was drawn up by some 15th century pirate, mostly just dots, dashes, lines & "x"s. so we blindly set off & i only pray that i have enough brain cells to retain memory of where we are actually staying.

we cross over pero's bridge, which joe refers to as "the bridge with the shrek ears" & head into city centre. near the tesco express, i meet troy, a bristol university student who lives over on whiteladies road, which joe thinks is "code" for something.

not getting much of a kid vibe near the tesco express (the brit equiv of our AM/PM or 7-11), i turn us around & head in the other direction.

we pass the bristol cathedral, college green & troy's place of education, bristol university. still raining but nothing that seems to faze either myself or the peanuts too much.

it is getting close to lunchtime & i am thinking, i forgot to eat breakfast this morning so we'd better get home before i pass out.

i am able to successfully navigate us home (surprise, surprise) as well as pass off last night's leftovers as lunch which my children literally gobble up.

with full tummies all around, i figure now is the time to suggest a nap. for everyone. i envision everyone piled in my bed, with all their own pillows, blankets & lovies sleeping off jet lag peacefully.

then joe comes home early.

so much for everyone napping.

more flat "news"

a few more awesome things about our temp accomodations:
- heavy solid doors that could potentially keep out the zombies
- 3rd floor access allows for zombie lookout, should things come to that
- housekeeping!
- really big fluffy towels

and a few things that suck about our temp accommodations:
- although near countless restaurants/cafes/coffee houses, the nearest real grocery store is 15 - min away by foot. and it's uphill. with twins, it takes like 45 minutes to get there
- comforters that are the exact size of the bed
- despite being called a washer/dryer, the appliance in our flat does not actually have a "dry" feature
- the wireless does not connect to the internet
- the toaster does not toast
- the phone, um, does not phone (that is, make or receive calls)

i also have a few "design" ideas for the rental company, one such revolutionary idea is 3 simple words: semi-gloss paint.

we're here!

so we arrive mid afternoon & it's been raining steadily since we loaded into the van for the ride from heathrow to bristol.

we are temporarily being housed in a condo in the harbourside area of bristol. there are complexes popping up left & right as apparently this is "the" spot to buy up rightthisseccond. we are probably 500ft from the river.

we arrive at our temporary apartment with all 8 bags, 2 kids, 2 carseats, & 2 kinda worn out adults. we are met by pete, who shows us the particulars of our temporary digs. we decide who is going to be where & move the appropriate luggage around. it is late afternoon by the time we are sufficiently settled in, 3:45pm-ish & now famished.

luckily for us weary travelers, there is a pizza express just around the corner (literally, we can see it from our balcony) from our flat. yes, let the britishisms fly - i am constantly being corrected by brits & non-brits for my non-use of the proper words for things.

thinking that something recognizable would be good dinner fare for my children, we head over to pizza express, which we have discovered is a little italian chain over here. and they have kids meals & activity coloring books for the kids. we are in.

sadly, my children are not.

despite so called "advice" from other parents traveling with wee ones, keeping them up until bedtime (in this case since they can't tell time, thank gawd, is anytime it's dark out) is a complete diasaster. we order & dignan just starts to lose it. he wants to hit/kick/throw/topple everything in sight. knowing he is probably just really really stressed from the last week of packing & prep for this big trip over the pond, i scoop him up & take him outside & thankfully, the rain has stopped.

he promptly tells me he wants to go home. and not to our new flat. he means casa de strasser. in west los angeles. CALIFORNIA, some gillion miles away at this point. i get him calmed down down to re-enter the restaurant & the food comes but the kids just pick while joe & i devour.

lesson learned: comfort food did not really go over well with over tired children.

in light of our restaurant experience, we think it's best to head home & perhaps get an early start on getting these people into bed.

so first impressions:
condo rocks - small but convenient.
condo close to explore@bristol (kids exploratorium)
condo close to restaurants
condo close to the ferry that joe will take tomorrow for the ride across the river to aardman
rainy weather not so bad. yet.

more later peeps!

abandonment issues

so no, i did not abandon this blog project when we landed in the UK nor am i ignoring you. at least not yet.

we have been besieged with technical snafus left & right since arriving tuesday afternoon. all i can say is that all is well after 3 visits to 2 different celly stores, the purchase of a new UK cellphone & a wireless dongle. no, not some kinky english thing - a USB plug-in fob that is kinda like wireless but slow like dial-up (& the brits even call it dial-up) but nonetheless, it works better than the flat wireless whose signal has been MIA since we touched down.
but that is a rant for another blog & i am now as joe says, "plugged into the matrix".

so as you already have read we had great luck checking in with air new zealand & the rep was able to get our luggage count down to 10 pcs instead of the 10 we came in with & damn the weight posting on their website. she made it her personal mission to make sure we did not pay ANY overages. and we did not. LOVE her.

the flight rocked: the kiwis really have the customer service thing down pat. as soon as we boarded, the kids & i were swept up by an attendant who helped the kids upstairs (yes, this plane had an upstairs) & showed us to our seats where the kids got goodie bags & we got champagne (we got goodie bags too with awesome kiwi lip balm that you know i will be purloining from the kids as they don't go in for lip balm yet). each seat had it's own video screen so the kids got hooked up with sleeping beauty & beverly hills chihuhua - at 30,000 feet you will allow your children to watch ANYTHING to keep them quiet. got to watch the hangover, fast & furious (so yes, i finally got my paul walker fix, charlie), night at the museum:battle for the smithsonian. the food was probably the best airline food i have ever eaten - salmon with pesto & baby tomatoes on pasta with chilled shrimp avocado & mango salad, warm garlic bread, cheese plate & orange cheesecake. hungry yet? breakfast: apple crepes with fresh (& i do mean fresh) fruit, yogurt, warm croissants, cereal & fruit smoothies.
i was like damn, air new zealand, way to make me feel like i flew first class.

getting through customs was a whole 'nother matter & took almost an hour. other guests in line were entertained by my children who used such words as "surrounded" & "enormous" whilst taking to rolling around on the floor despite my harsh warnings that this was NOT the time or place to do such a thing. ah, the naivete of children.

the car picked us up from heathrow & the rainy weather put us all to sleep while our driver, peter piloted us to bristol.

to be continued . . . .

Air New Zealand ROCKS!

So as not incur the $100 fee for overage pieces of luggage, the ANZ rep combined several pieces of luggage into 1 giant plastic bag thus taking our bag count from 10 to 8. Keep your fingers crossed that the rest of the flight goes as smoothly! Will send out the UK phone number

on the way to LAX

Being chauffered by our boy, Boise in the Lincoln Nav. So far so good. Don't think we left anything behind. Or at least we won't know for like another 15 hours. Air New Zealand here we come!

in 3, 2, 1 . . .

so the countdown has begun. the clock is ticking. we leave for bristol on monday & arrive sometime in the buttcrack of the wee hours. joe has a day to acclimate then his presence is requested at aardman on wednesday. stay tuned for more exciting news from the strassers, bristol, england!