Merry Christmas to all...

...and it's almost good night for us. We're currently sitting back drinking some nice port to cap off a lovely London Christmas. We have the webcam (handy gift from my bro) setup and have been chatting with friends and family most of the afternoon, so it's almost like being at home! But to those we haven't spoken to today, we hope you're having a wonderful Christmas and look forward to seeing you in 2007!

Do they know it's crazy time at all?

December is always a busy month, and moving to London hasn't changed that at all. Work always tends to go a bit manic, and right now the only thing keeping me from working 29 hours a day are the actual fun things happening! We had a work engineering party that included a visit to the Science Museum's video game exhibition. Seeing all the games that I grew up with behind museum glass tends to make one feel prematurely old... It was amusing to see how massive the early GameBoy boxes were compared to today's (I think you could probably fit all of a PS2's hardware inside of one). That, in good English workplace form, was followed by a trip to the pub.

My brother and his wife just recently paid us a visit - we had a great time! Austin and Hank had some guy-time at which Hank discovered Austin's limit of alcohol intake (shockingly low... wuss) with a rum tasting at a Soho Cuban cigar & drinks bar. I ordered a fig and vanilla daquiri which was a very girly thing to order, but OMG that was tasty. So between that place and the local Tiki bar (called the Trailer of Happiness), we've definitely scoped out nice local watering holes. Janine is also a fellow knitter, so we scoped out a couple of knit shops, then went out for a lovely cream tea (cream tea = scones with jam & devonshire cream + tea) at Kensington Gardens. The boys avoided such frivolous girlish things and went...Drinking! Duh.

Hank and I are staying in London for Christmas, and our friend and co-worker Amy has kindly adopted us for the season. Christmas eve dinner is at her mom's, and Boxing day lunch is at her aunt's! I'm still learning about a lot of the differences in traditions here around Christmas, such as that you light Christmas pudding on fire with brandy but not Christmas cake. And Christmas crackers are *seriously* better than the cheapy little ones we'd ever get in the US. Harrods had boxes of crackers for the hefty price of £799 for 5 crackers. Apparently Tiffany also makes custom crackers... I wonder if Santa's still taking requests? ;)

Belgian Beers

I tasted a few different Belgian ales while living in the states. Local stores had a few of the more well known ales in stock (Chimay and Duvel).

Our trip to Brussels was a chance to find some less known and hopefully more exciting brews from small family breweries.

After our trip to Bruges, Danielle was in dire need of a nap (editors note: Danielle is napping at this exact moment in time), so I decided to head down to the hotel bar with a book and a Partagas SD#4.

I talked to the bartender for a few moments about local beers and such and he pulled a Tripel Karmeliet from one of the fridges.

"Try this one. If you don't like it, I will pour a different beer for you and you will not have to pay for it," said the bartender.

An offer like this is not one to refuse, at worst you end up eating a nice pile of olives to mask the flavor of bad beer.

This brew is a bit of a darker malty ale and went down very smoothly and paired well with a few olives.

I also discovered a nice surprise at our restaurant this same evening. They had Jenever on the drinks menu. Jenever is the national spirit of Belgium and started out as a spirit distilled from rainwater. The rainwater was ditched in favor of treated water during the plague years.

Jenever has a nice floral/herby flavor and is best served cold like Sake, Vodka and Gin. Generally I think of it as a cross between Sake and Gin.

The next night led to the moment of the trip for me, Beer Mania. BM is THE place to go for beer in Belgium. It is a very comfy spot with a lovable drunken dog and a great staff.

The back of the store contains some nice wooden tables and a huge wooden bar. The staff will pour beers to your taste. I really enjoy bright and hoppy beers, so he poured a Bink Blonde for me. This was dead on my sort of beer. No chemical tastes. Just a smooth bright beer flows down nicely and leaves a tingle in your mouth.

Danielle likes a more malty beer, so the staff poured her a Mea Culpa, which was created by the owner of BM. She really enjoyed this beer and said it was exactly what she wanted as well, plus the glass is beautiful.

Next we wanted to try a lambic and we wanted to try it in its raw state (no sugar added). They poured a nice bottle of Girardin Kriek. Kriek is a cherry lambic and this brand was light, crisp and very tasty. Danielle, who is usually a very slow drinker, managed to polish off her glass and part of mine very quickly.

On your next trip to Belgium, take my advice and visit Beer Mania first. This will give you the lay of the beer land and make the remainder of your dinners much easier as you will have idea of what beers will go well with your next meal.

Happy Thursday

I'll be celebrating today, being Thursday, by going to work (had to wait 30 minutes for the tube this morning... so it was like a holiday schedule, but it's not because it's Thursday), going home, stopping by any number of open stores that aren't having massive sales to pick up some food, and cooking some dinner. We might watch some football (although I believe it's referred to as "soccer" in American-English) on the telly.

But Happy Thanksgiving to everyone not reading this in a non-US country. I'm sorry I'm not there to bake pies for the occasion!

They swore they'd been good...

... but photographic proof shows otherwise. Such naughty kitties we have! Hopefully they've been well behaved for Auntie Amy this weekend. Apparently they have already tried to get into the shower with her (and then went into the litterbox with wet paws and then running throughout the house)... so I'm not holding out much hope.

Bienvenue a Bruxelles...part 1

Hank and I took the Eurostar from London to Brussels on Thursday evening - it's incredibly odd to be in a different country across a body of water with no major jet lag and never having left the ground... and it was all in under 3 hours!

Our adventure today took us to a city called Bruges (or Brugge, depending on what language you're speaking). It is a stunning city with quaint little cobblestone streets, a lovely canal bordered in trees wearing the colors of fall, and waffles. OMG there are waffles everywhere. And they're tasty. There's also a chocolate shop about every 15 feet. Those are tasty, too. And I shouldn't forget about the beer. Each beer has its own specially shaped glass. One store we went into must have had a couple hundred different varieties... it was all I could do to manage to get Hank to leave the store.

We'd had plans to go to a tapas restaurant for dinner, but as that didn't work out as planned, we wound up at a lovely mediterranean/French place called Bonsoir Clara. We both loved our meals, and Hank tried a local spirit (we keep forgetting the name) that tasted like a very floral sake with a vodka chaser. And Hank kept talking about it having something melon-flavored (he claimed honeydew, specifically), but I think he was just trying to impress me. ;)

Tomorrow we wander Brussels and see what's to see, and yes, to have des moules et frites! (hold the mayo)

Kitties are home at last!!

The girls finally arrived last night about 8:30pm! They seemed as relieved to get out of their kennels as we were to see them. They walked right out and let us give them some hello snuggles, then proceeded to wander around for the next 2 hours just taking in the new sights. Our friend & co-worker Amy was over to meet them, and both Taka and Neko let Amy give them some head scratches. Taka meowed at us until the moment we turned out the light to go to bed – she sure had a lot to say about her grand adventure.

So, the whole process of getting them hear was far more painful than we’d first anticipated. We hired a company to manage the travel, make sure all the paperwork was in order, etc, but they turned out to be incredibly unresponsive and unreliable. About a week before they were set to travel my mom identified another pet relocation company. She was kind enough to make at least 3 different trips to the vet for all of the last minute signatures and treatments the cats require to enter the UK. The paperwork then had to get sent overnight to the USDA for a stamp in order to leave the country, and all the paperwork had to accompany them on the flight to the UK to be inspected by DEFRA once they arrived.

Unfortunately, the vet made a mistake and didn’t give the cats one of the two treatments the UK requires for entry (even though all of the UK documentation says so). The USDA didn’t notice it before they approved the paperwork, and the relocation guy didn’t notice it either before the cats got shipped off. Unfortunately, the UK DEFRA inspectors DID notice, and the cats had to be put in quarantine until a vet could go on-site and give them the missing treatment. Then they would have to wait 24 hours before they could be released, meaning almost a day and a half in the kennel. All totalled, the mistake cost just shy of another $500. Ugh. These are very expensive kitties, but waking up with Taka sleeping on my hip and Neko snuggled up around my head, they’re worth every shilling.

Quick update on the kitties

I was hoping to post a very happy note that the kitties had arrived, however there's a problem with the very stringent requirements they have to meet before being allowed into the UK. Unfortunately the vet in the US neglected to give them one of the required treatments. So they have arrived to the airport safely, however they are stuck for another 24 hours until the treatment can be administered.

So far most of this process has been a complete nightmare from start to finish. I'll update in more detail later on, but big thanks to everyone who's been involved in getting them here - Hank and I will be tremendously relieved once we've seen that they are safe and sound at home.

The Hank Perspective

So, what's London like? A massive ball of people, cars, shops and buildings. Since I mostly speak English (American at least), things have been fairly easy.

London is a city of discovery, which really appeals to my ADD addled mind, which leads to many hours of just roaming around the city in search of something interesting. Walking in London can lead from aged churches to sex shops in a matter of seconds.

My favorite discoveries so far:

• Rough Trade Records
• Sister Ray Records
• La Casa del Habanos (fantastic selection of bourbon and Cuban cigars)
• The Umbrella Store (sword canes)
  

I also discovered the Holga 120cfn just before we left for England. This little wonder is a cheap, plastic medium format camera. Your average photo geek would sneer at the lack of macro or lenses the size of cannon barrels. While I do love our SLR Digital, the Chinese built Holga produces some amazing images and encourages playful photography.

The shot above was taken in a underground station with multi-exposures and a tad bit of hand movement. I think this shot hits the heart of my feelings for London. Colorful. Bright. Fleeting. Things are always in a state of flux.

Check out my Holga shots on Flicker


As to concerts, music is plentiful here in London and it is nice to be able to light out on a week night in search of some sounds. My first London concert (well, unless you count back in March for the Fonal Records Tour), was the recent Sunn o))) show. RUMBLE.

Hopefully Danielle and I will be seeing Pram Halloween night.

So far, London has been great.

Only where I work... (part 1 of many)

... do you see a developer riding a Segway to get something from the printer down the hall.

Stuff

Stuff - we have it now. Specifically our stuff, at least most of it... our surface shipment with the rest of our clothes, shoes (ooh, how I missed my boots), DVDs, a zillion of Hank's CDs, and just a *few *cooking items arrived this Saturday. I swear I was unpacking this one large box of cooking tools for a solid 40 minutes - it was bottomless! Unpacking took up the majority of the weekend, but it's nice to have this place feel more like our home. And now I can start doing some serious baking - yay! There is one box of stuff that seems to be missing - I am for now assuming it was mistakenly put in storage rather than lost somewhere. But if you see a couple of cast iron pans and a large stock pot looking somewhat lost between London & California, please let me know.

This week Hank and I will be flying to different countries for a couple of days (wow, it is strange to think about that). I'm headed for Dublin for work, and Hank heads out to Germany for a boardgame convention. It's a close race as to which of us is geekier at this point, I think. We're also trying to get in a long weekend in Brussles in the next few weeks. Mmmm.... chocolate....

What didn't we do??

Hank survived his first week of work. He sits about two desks away from me, and surprisingly his messy desk hasn't quite reached its way to me yet. *duck*

We had quite the busy weekend - the weather was forecast to be nice on Saturday but rainy on Sunday, however it ended up only raining Sunday morning, so we really had two lovely days of wandering around. Saturday we went to Greenwich, toured the observatory, and oogled at all of the lovely clocks. The highlight was really taking the boat back from Greenwich pier to Westminster, though.

Since the boat let us off right at Big Ben & parliament, we wandered some more and took a bunch of photos - TBP (To Be Posted). We noticed a fairly substantial queue (note the nice Britishizing of the vocabulary...) and saw signs that summer tours of parliament were being given. We were able to catch one of the last tours of the afternoon, and I have to say it was absolutely stunning. The House of Lords side is decorated using the ultimate Victorian interior design adage - if you can overdo it, do it! There was gold gilt on anything that would stand still long enough to take it. The House of Commons was bombed during WWII, and although they didn't say what it looked like before that, the current design is much more subdued yet still elegant. (There's nothing like plain oak paneling to make the lower house know its place, I say!) It was also a good introduction into the differences between parliamentary and Congressional processes. And yes, there was a gift shop with two types of whisky: House of Lords (single malt) and House of Commons (blended) - natch!

And no, Molly, we did NOT buy the parliament shot glasses.

Also, apparently the cats are doing quite well, for those of you who've asked.

The new "here"

What a week it's been - phew! Hank and I are now living in our London flat (they finished working on it about 3 hours after we showed up to move in...). We have all the basic furniture/TV/DVD/stereo that came with the flat, plus whatever we crammed into our *ahem* small amount of luggage that we'd brought on the plane. Even though I have a thing against driving in London (Dave & Julie remember it all too well, I'm sure), we decided that renting a car would be the best way to get everything done in the first few days we were here. It has actually gone very well, although I still hate pulling in and out of our building's garage with the 3" clearance I get on each side.

We made the obligatory trip to Ikea and picked up a few household basics. I won't name names, but a fairly major internet search engine's mapping system led us down possibly the most complicated route on city streets through London to get to the Wimbledon Ikea - an hour and a half drive for what it had said would be 6.5 miles. On the way back, we picked up a London A->Z (pronounced "aye to zed," mind you) and made it back in about 30 minutes. I'll be filing a bug on that shortly.

Since we don't have any pots or pans yet (just a baking sheet), we've been eating a lot of ready-made microwavable or oven meals. Apparently few people in London do much cooking - the store bought meals are actually quite tasty. We made a massive trip to the big full-service grocery store a few miles down the road (most stores are more local, small shops with smaller selections) for all the basics. There's also a natural food store close by our house, which makes picking up vegetarian things for Hank easy... but they also carry really nice looking bacon for yours truly. Hehe.

Apologies to those who've tried to call us or haven't heard from us by phone - we won't get home phone or internet access for another week and a half. I've got access while I'm at work, but my cell phone can't call internationally for a couple of months. But we're doing well and loving exploring around our new home.

Ooh, and for those who saw my photo of the world's smallest washer/dryer - it actually comes with the record for all-time longest time to wash and dry a load: clocking in at 5 hours! Wheeeee.

Final frenzy

The movers/packers showed up bright and early this past Monday morning, and left us an empty house around 4pm. (Photos to follow in a couple of days.)

Hank and I had spent the better part of the weekend sorting things into air (5-15 days arrival), surface (4-6 weeks arrival) and storage (don't see it till 9/07) piles. We only got 250lbs of air shipment so we really had to figure out what essentials we'd need for about a month. We over-shot by only 10lbs (I had thought it'd have been a lot more, actually), so it worked out alright.

Tuesday and all this morning I've been running some last errands, packing up my desk at work, waiting for the visas to be delivered (which they just were - yay!), and so on. It's definitely been pretty crazy!

Anyway, I am really excited to finally be going! It seems strange, like it's just a very, very long vacation (except for the whole having to work thing). I'll miss everyone a lot, but I know the year will go by a lot faster than I think it will...and we look forward to having lots of visitors while we're there!

One more week

We have a flat! OK, so we sorts 'had' the flat before, but I've finally received all of the documents and lease agreements for it. It's the last really major portion of our move that hadn't been truly signed off on. We'll be living in an area called Westbourne Grove. It's a 5 minute walk from two separate tube stations on 3 different tube lines, which makes it really easy to get anywhere else in the city. There are tons of restaurants, small grocery stores and even -count'em- TWO cooking supply shops within a 2 minute walk! There isn't a very large full service grocery store within walking distance, but so many stores deliver for a low fee that we can stock up on bulky or heavy items maybe once per month and just pick up fruit, vegetables and other fresh stuff at the smaller markets near the flat.

This weekend's plans (besides celebrating Hank's bday) are a lot of sorting things into piles according to shipping method (air vs land/sea), packing and generally getting more organized. The packers show up bright and early Monday morning, and we'll de-camp to my dad and step-mom's house until we leave on Thursday.

In other news, I was officially granted the UK work permit early this week, and I shipped off the permit, marriage certificate, passports other omg-please-don't-lose-it documentation to the British consulate for our visas. We can't leave until we get those back, and the timing is a bit tight, so please think positive thoughts. (How embassies get away with working 5 hours a day is beyond my comprehension. I totally need that gig.)

T-minus 10....

So we're 10 days from leaving. The number of to-do items on my list seems to grow at exactly the same rate at which it's shrinking. We're itemizing, sorting, estimating, tossing and donating. Addresses are changed, VOIP setup (we'll still have a working 408 phone number), documents signed, checklists re-checked. And with our friends, we're dining, hugging, and saying "maybe we'll squeeze in one last visit before we go."

Reality that this really is happening is setting in. I'm excited and stressed (very close to Scary-Fun for those from early Ariba days). It is funnily like going off to college as a freshman; it's a new and bigger world where things work differently, but it's sure to be an adventure.

Hank and I will be sending out email with our new address/phone number within the next few days. Our ability to be reached via phone/cell may start to get a bit spotty next week as we transfer and close up accounts, so electronic means would probably be the best way to make sure a message gets to us. We fly out Thursday 8/31 (arriving Friday) and hopefully will be all set to move into the new flat!

Doin' the Electric Slide

One of my recent debates has been whether or not I bring my KitchenAid mixer and food processor with me to the UK and buy a step-down power transformer. The transformer converts the 220v to 110v, but European wattage runs at different cycles than US appliances. Using the power of the internet, I've found just as many "it works great for us" stories as I'm seeing "we tried it and it blew out the motor of our mixer" ones.

I've discovered Craigslist for London, but don't see any for sale right now (although it could be a great place to dispose of a 220v one before I leave?).

Are there any electrical engineers in da house?? And no, as much as I try to save electricity, a wooden spoon and a hand-whisk is *not* a viable alternative. I do knead my own bread, but hand whipping 2 cups of heavy cream is not the workout I'd choose.

Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin

So, now that I'm back in California, the bulk of the relocation work is starting to kick into high gear. I've had the moving company come buy to estimate how much we'll be air shipping and how much will go by "ground" (a 20' sea container). I'm really glad to have the flat figured out and know what furniture/cooking supplies/other miscellaneous junk we'll need to bring with us. The flat will only have the basic furniture (sofa, dining set, coffee table, beds, and typical-British-not-enough-space closets. The rest will be up to us.

Most of the rest of our belongings will go into storage for the time we're away. We're trying to divest ourselves of a couple of automobiles (anyone want a VW Jetta or bus? or both? We'll strike a really great deal if you take 'em both...) and sorting through drawers and closets for a big drop to Goodwill. I know we'll get back home next year and look through all the stuff we haven't needed for a year and wonder what to do with it, but I always have a hard time getting rid of things before moving. True that it does make more sense to get rid of things before having to lug them around, but since I'm blissfully NOT doing the packing this time, my motivation is not quite as strong.

Homes Sweet Homes

We've got a flat! We're still finalizing the paperwork with the letting agents, and I'm in a sort of weird limbo state with the US and UK bank accounts, but for the most part we're there. It's nice to have a major piece of the puzzle figured out. I've posted a couple of pictures on Flickr, but I have to say, it was definitely the kitchen that sold me. ;)

The building is still being built - the photos I posted are of the flat one floor above us. Our flat is not quite finished, but it'll be ready (fingers crossed) by the time we move around Sept 1. The landlord agreed to furnish it (a surprising number of places around here are rented with furniture), and allowed me to pick out the furniture. I spent most of yesterday dealing with pre-moving details - measuring the flat for the furniture, picking it out, and banking.

Ooh, banking.

Dealing with banks in the US is not one of my favorite activities. Trying to deal with 3 banks across 2 countries definitely counts as even lower on that list. I called the UK branch of the bank today to try and arrange for the deposit to be paid to the landlord, but since my account was setup last week, I don't have the bank card, just the account number. Every one of the three times I've called the UK bank to ask them if I can setup payment, or get online of access to see if the deposit has been made to the account, I explain I don't have the card so I can't gain access to my account online. And then each time they ask me to verify my card number. Ummmm...

I also have to say that for money to be all electronic these days, no electrons move slower than the ones belonging to banks.

I'm hopping a plane tomorrow to fly back to the States. It's been a long trip and I'm ready to be going home. But after the last three weeks here, London is also really starting to feel like home as well. I'll have to start thinking of a new definition of what I call home.

Flat world

I know I’ve been in London a whole week and a half and I haven’t updated yet… part of the reason is that I’ve been waiting for something interesting to happen. I’ve been busy working and interviewing scads of people last week. A few folks were in from the Mountain View office to help, so we had a few group dinners (I highly don’t recommend figuring out how to split a bill 20 ways, with some of them paying with credit and no one else having the right amount of change). But I’ve gotten to know more people from the London office, and had a first meeting with the developers coding the projects I’ll be working on over the next year.

Today I met with the relocation specialist who showed me a number of different flats in different areas of the city. Mostly I’ve been interested in Marylebone which has a really nice, quiet high (translation: main shopping/market) street and shady tree-lined residential areas. We also looked at some flats on Westbourne Grove in the Kensington area. Just as in the US, flats are priced based on location, building amenities (one I looked at had a plasma screen TV, a good sized pool, gym, sauna and *gasp* a free parking space!), distance from the high street or tube station, etc. The same priced flat in one area was brand new with a very modern kitchen and had tons of space, while others in a different part of the city had teeny matchbox bedrooms and dark kitchens. Because London is such an old city, they tried to make the best use of space as possible, and some buildings have flats below ground level. I looked at a few of those because they often have more room for the money, but the trade off for available light probably is too much for my taste.

London has been having a heat wave since I arrived – it’s been very humid and in the 80s and 90s every day. On Saturday it felt more like New York City when the day gave way to a mid-day rain storm to cool things down a bit. Everyone here keeps telling me how rare it is, how much I should enjoy it because it won’t last. Having always lived in California, I know I take for granted that we can keep the windows open most of the year and that it’s consistently sunny. So when I’m touring flats today and thinking how dark it is, I have to believe it’ll feel about 100x more so in mid-February when I haven’t seen the sun for more than 5 minutes since September. I have to say that although I know I’ll miss the warmth, I am really ready for the temp in the tube to get down below 85 degrees at 9am in the morning (and worse that evening!).

Start of a visit

I arrived in London Thursday morning and was checked into my hotel by about 1pm. Unfortunately the guy on the flight next to me who was insanely fidgety and the turbulence, I didn't sleep much at all. I slept for about 12 hours last night so I'm feeling pretty decent today, thankfully.

The hotel I'm staying at is in Kensington, and I haven't had much time to explore the area yet, but there are tons of nice looking bistros, small grocery stores, a nice Waitrose grocery store just past the tube stop (sort of on par with Whole Foods quality but less organic/natural-ish) and some independent shops. The sheer lack of independent retail stores here was a shock - all of the High (main) streets in the towns have the same chain stores, so there's little in the way of local character. But Kensington seems to be a bit different and definitely more "posh."

The plan for this weekend is to go on an area tour with Allen, a co-worker expat who moved here about 2 months ago. He was even kind enough to bring me a little present - a book on learning to understand the Brits, both in behavior and cultural nuance. There's an incident with some pants he related to me that hopefully I will just learn vicariously.

You're so money...

I've had the pleasure of gaining some understanding of how confusing taxes are when you're an expat. There are specific residency rules for California, the US and the UK - depending on the number of days you work in a certain country you're eligible to pay certain taxes, etc. The bonus is that I get out of doing my taxes for two years! Woo!

I'm heading to London for 3 weeks starting the 13th, and I'm going to get started opening the various bank accounts I'll need. My current bank doesn't have any European branches, so I'll be setting up a US account and a UK account with a bank that does. I will be paid in US$ (pray for a strong dollar!) and will then have to transfer money between accounts whenever I get paid. This should get interesting, with my luck dealing with banks lately. (For those who missed it, when I was in the UK last time, my bank turned off ATM access to all UK ATMs 3 days before I left even though I'd told them I was leaving, and took over a week mailing me a new card. I was able to withdraw cash if I went into a bank branch and asked them to do a cash advance against the credit card portion, but found this out Saturday at 3pm in a small English town where banks didn't open again until Monday morning and had already checked into a B&B that didn't take credit cards. Grrrr.)

Complimentary customer service... for a fee

Hank and I are jet-setting a fair bit before we move in September. We're heading to Kentucky next week for 5 days to visit Hank's family (and I'm hoping to taste some really excellent BBQ!). I'll be in London for work/flat-hunting from July 12 - Aug 3. Although Hank is invited to come with me to look for flats, I think he's opting out of the trip. I mean, being cramped into uncomfortable plane seats for 10 hours to be hauled around house-hunting just to fly back 10 hours and then have to do the flight all over again in less than a month - seriously, I just cannot understand why he wouldn't want to go! :P

Most of you are aware that I test software for a living, and let me just say that for my recent efforts attempting to book a ticket with British Airways, I found a few doozie bugs and was charged $20 extra for my efforts. (I'm kinda used to getting paid for that skill, so this was a shocker.) I was getting an error message on the booking page attempting to pay for the ticket, so I called two different help lines, and after an eternity on hold, spoke with a woman who told me to try it with a different browser. Sure, no problem - I went through it, still happens. She tried it on her system, and found a ticket $500 more than what I was seeing. I tried it again on my system, and this time, the SFO - LHR ticket price showed up as $-41!! Somehow it does seem fitting that airlines should pay you to fly on them. The return ticket price turned out to be the full price of the round-trip ticket plus the missing $41. So it still came out to be the same price.

No, it didn't let me 15 one-way tickets.
Yes, BA did charge me $20 to book the ticket with the "helpful" website support person to book the ticket because their website sucks. Gotta love customer service.

London calling!

I've been asked by work to head to London for a year to help build and get my team started across the pond. Woot! It's something I've been wanting to do for years, and Hank was willing to make another huge move for me, so here we go! My start date is September 1, 2006.

I will post to this blog periodically over the next 18 months or so to document our moving process, our adventures living in the UK and traveling abroad.

Here's the FAQ of what we know so far:
Who's going?
Me and Hank at first.

But what about those adorable, well-behaved kitties of yours?
If we don't want to put the cats in quarantine, they have to wait until 6 months after a rabies shot & blood test they got about a month ago. So they will be staying with some friends of ours in Mt View until about November when they'll come over.

How often will you be back?
I may fly back somewhat more frequently for work; I'll let you know when that happens. Hank and I also get one trip back we'll have to use before March. Again, I'll let you know what we schedule. We will most likely spend the holidays over in the UK.

What will you do with the house?
Dunno yet - we might rent it, we might not.

Where in London will you live?
I'm heading over there in July for a few weeks and will look for places while I'm there. Many flats come furnished, so most of our stuff will be in storage.

Will there be a spare room? Cuz I'm totally coming to visit!
We'll definitely look for a 2 bedroom place. No worries. Reservations will be on a first-ask first-served basis. ;)

What'll Hank be doing?
That's still being sorted out. He'll have a work visa for England, so no slacking for him, even if he says it's for "research".