The Top Floor Flat

The Spoonfed team has a lot of fun. We all get along well in the office, we get to write about the amazing events going on in London, we even get to review those events on occasion. In fact, we pride ourselves on being really quite good at having a good time in London. But it was certainly beyond my wildest expectations that we would ever have a weekday afternoon quite like the one we had last Friday at the Bibulous Drinks Experience event.

Like a group of children on a school trip, the whole office was ushered onto the bus that would take us straight to the venue, a place called (appropriately) Vinopolis, City of Wine which usually offers wine tasting events and tours. On the 27th, however, it was transformed into a smorgasbord of displays that would make the most reformed 12-stepper jump off the bandwagon. There’s tequila courtesy of Green & Red Bar, beers from around the world, real absynthe by Alan Moss, GinTime with Geraldine Coates and a range of ports, wines and sherries from Gonzales Byass – all of which we as the Spoonfed team were encourage to smell, learn about and taste. As a group, we all sat through the Gin tasting session only to discover that the vast majority of us didn’t like gin.

We then split up, our directors opting for the absinthe tasting session, our culture editor beelining for the port, us girls aiming for daiquiris… I even found a stall of American beers which had a rather lovely pumpkin ale.

Although we had been prepped as to what exactly this was we were attending, I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure I understood. Was it a trade show? In some senses – there were displays of various alcohol producers who were trying to promote their goods. A tasting event? That too – but while some stalls (such as the man with the funny moustache and the £2,000 bottle of tequila) encouraged everyone to try everything on the table, others were just showcasing. An alcohol class? That definitely factored in as we learned about gin and how to make the perfect mojito. Overall it was an incredible afternoon where the Spoonfed team got to sample some of the best alcohol in the city at one of its greatest venues. As far as team building activities go, we think this might have been perfect.

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As an American, travelling abroad this time of year can be an interesting experience. It sounds silly but sometimes I honestly forget that Thanksgiving is unique to my native homeland. I mean, Christmas with its rampant commercialism seems to better typify American-ness, much moreso than a day about giving thanks for the amazing things in our lives. So, whether it’s homesickness, forgetfulness or just the desire to share one of the best holidays of the year, I’ve found that both myself and other Americans tend to force Thanksgiving, figuratively and literally, down the throats of their fellow abroadees.

This year, my Thanksgiving took place the Saturday after the traditional Thursday and a friend of mine from Colby who also happens to be in London had invited me over to celebrate. Although he wasn’t American himself (in fact originally from Kenya) four years at an American university had instilled in him the need for turkey, potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie once a year. I wasn’t particularly surprised when he called the night before to ask if I’d be willing to come by and help him cook the meal for the rest of the guests and, with no other plans and excited to take on the challenge of cooking a 20lb bird, I agreed.

Little did I know that this meant that I would be, in fact, cooking the entire meal myself – and I arrived to find my friend looking expectantly to me to make the meal appear. The flat, a Depford bachelor pad with a view of Greenwich and Canary Wharf was gorgeous however I was a bit overwhelmed by the cooking before me when I realised the building was stocked with a bag of potatoes, a giant turkey, and about four dozen bottles of various alcohols and mixers. I hastily scribbled up a list and sent my friend to the store, leaving me alone in the flat to attack the bird and prepare the pie (the ingredients for which I had brought myself, correctly assuming that ground cloves might be mistaken for some sort of illegal supplement rather than the necessary spice).

Six hours and a surprisingly straightforward cooking routine later, I proudly produced a (sadly dry) turkey, gravy, stuffing, green beans, broccoli, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie for the seven of us who gathered for dinner. In the true spirit of the holiday, we consumed almost all of it – including a fair number of the bottles of wine.

I have so much to give thanks for this year; the fact that I am happy, healthy and safe in an amazing part of the world, working in a job I love, communicating my family regularly, surrounded by a growing international contingent of friends and with a bright future ahead. All of that and, of course, the fact that I successfully managed to produce a full Thanksgiving dinner that everyone enjoyed.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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This past weekend I once again had the opportunity to take advantage of the gorgeous Bay Area weather to hike up Windy Hill in Portolla Valley.  This time, I talked a group of friends into coming with me which was quite a feat for a Sunday morning.

The trails through the Windy Hill area are well marked, but a little confusing in relation to each other.  There are about 12 miles total of trails, and if you just keep walking you’re pretty much bound to make it to the top of the Hill in question (where, as we discovered, it was in fact quite Windy).  We didn’t make it on the loop we had originally intended to take, instead walking up the Spring Ridge Trail and back down again for a total walk of around six and a half miles.  It was a great uphill push on the way to the top and an easy walk back down, all of which contributed to a massive group appetite by the end of the hike - perfect for our post-hike BBQ.

Windy Hill certainly wasn’t as eventful as my hike along the Coal Mine Ridge the week before (no bobcat sitings at anyrate) but for an easy couple hour trek, it offered beautiful views, a good workout and a lot of fun with friends.

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One of the things that I love about the internet is how it allows me to live vicariously through my friends in a way I wouldn’t have believed possible.  The ability to be involved in the day-to-day minutia of people’s lives through Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, blogs and more is in many ways creepy however while at home, it allows me to travel with a friend of mine who is off on her own great travel adventure.

Kate, with whom I attended high school, spent a semester in Paris during college and caught a travel bug of epic proportions.  After graduating, she decided to come home and get a job before heading off but last week took the plunge and flew to Hong Kong to begin a round-the-world tour that she has no current plans of ending in the near future.  After a few days in Hong Kong she’s left for Bali.  From there she’ll travel through Asia, meeting up with friends, make her way to India, through Egypt, up to Turkey, and by fall of 2009, she hopes to be in the UK.

I already love reading her posts on her blog Chasing Hemingway and highly recommend that anyone interested in travel or interesting personal stories takes a look.  It’s definitely going to be an exciting trip and thank goodness the internet lets me play along.

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Another long stretch without a proper post. And I don’t even have a good excuse this weekend as I was fairly lazy.

Weekend Stuff!

Alright, starting with last Thursday night. I had press tickets to see The Waifs, an Australian folk band that I love, perform at a very cool venue right near my flat. I had two tickets so my flatmate Ann came along and she seemed to enjoy it alright (at least I wasn’t inflicting my country/folk tastes without letting her know what she was getting herself into – she had listened to their music before we went!). I got the tickets because I was going to write up the event afterwards and the article is here: The Waifs on Spoonfed.

Friday evening was incredibly low-key which was good as on Saturday, I got up early to head off to Portobello Market (which is known for its vintage offerings but also has a ton of produce as well) to get produce for the week. I got:
- 2 baskets of strawberries (which I actually had to throw out most of because they were moldy at the bottom  )
- About 30 Clementine oranges
- A pound of apples
- A pound of tomatos
- A head of broccoli
- A pound of mozzarella cheese
- A loaf of homemade whole grain bread
- A pound of onions
- Half a pound of cherries
- One fig (which was also slightly rotten – or I didn’t know how to eat it properly)
For £9. It was pretty unbelievable and I definitely plan of making more use of the farmers markets around London. I probably wouldn’t buy meat (although there was some tempting fresh fish) but for stuff that comes from the ground, I think it’s quite a deal!

Then, after the market, I went home to try to find something I could wear for the fancy dress bachelor/bachelorette (or as they call it here Stag and Hen) party of my friend from work. She (and her fiancé) are Australian and so are having their party together because they don’t know many people here and this was their main celebration in the UK. It was a pub crawl that began at 2pm and carried on until the wee hours of the morning (although I headed home around 10pm!). The theme was School Uniform and I was pretty hopeless (no skirts/shorts/knee-high socks/ties or anything!) and had to make do with grey trousers and a button down – so basically I just looked like I was going to work. It was a ton of fun, though, and I met some really nice friends of theirs. I think the entire afternoon/night could probably be summed up in these picture, though:

Let’s just say that people were all very generous about buying rounds of drinks for everyone else. Regardless it was a great day.

Sunday, in the morning I met with Mimi to talk about her business plan and in the afternoon I was going to play tennis but it ended up raining so unfortunately I was out of luck. Hopefully we’ll have some good weather over the next couple of weekends.

Relevant Important Stuff!

My big(-ish) news is that Spoonfed has offered me a longer-term job and is willing to sponsor my visa (a generous offer as that’s both a hassle and an expensive process) to stay with them until at least June of next year. I’ve been a little stressed out (in a good way! I don’t have any bad choices!) about trying to figure out what to do as I have three wonderful options:

1) Stay in London with Spoonfed
Pros: it’s London, I like the people at Spoonfed, it’s England, David Tennant’s Hamlet will be coming to London in December, everyone likes Doctor Who, it’s a central hub of travel, they’ll give me a pay increase, I’m getting settled and making friends here, I love my flat and flatmate, I’m working with an exciting startup in a good position, awesome accents
Cons: London is a big city (which I am not loving to death - I’m a suburb girl I think), it’s beyond expensive… which means travel is difficult/impossible until I get a pay raise, a year and a half is a long time to be away from home, I work long hours and the commute sucks

2) Move to Ireland for four months in December when my UK visa expires (this is an option provided through BUNAC – the group that sponsors my current visa)
Pros: it’s Ireland, I could work and write my novels, live in another country, really really awesome accents, I’ve always wanted to be in Ireland
Cons: I have to start this whole process (job, flat, social life) over again, it’ll be cold and dark all winter and then when it starts to get nice I have to leave

3) Go home and possibly get a job with IMVU
Pros: it’s California, it’s free housing for a while, I really like everyone at IMVU, family is there.
Cons: I’m not here, I miss out on possibly awesome and rewarding startup experience, I’m not near extra cool European travel, people don’t have awesome accents, it’s silly to go there now when I’m going to go back in less than a year regardless of what I decide

I think I’ll be able to make a decision that’s good for me, and Spoonfed has been very nice in giving me a couple of weeks to make up my mind. I do miss home sometimes but I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. Additional pros and cons for any of the three options are happily accepted in the comments section below.

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One of the problems of living in a city with such a developed underground transportation system is that one tends to become quite knowledgeable about certain areas of the city, with absolutely no clue as to what’s going on in between. For example, I feel quite at home in the west end of the city, just north of the river, and just east of the city proper. Other than that, I can sort of muddle my way from tube stop to tube stop.

This was hit home as I met up this evening with my friend Kathryn for dinner near Covent Gardens; arguably one of the places I should be able to figure out the most easily as it’s particularly touristy. She took me on a walk through the absolutely gorgeous part of town where all of the barristers have their home-away-from-home (little studios near the courts so even if they live in the country they can be in the city for important cases). I had no idea that area was there.

Kathryn and I had a great dinner at this little Greek place and then walked through Leicester Square where there were all these big setups getting ready for the European premiere of Dark Night tonight (for which I sadly did not have tickets. Or see Christian Bale. How disappointing). All in all, though, it was a great night!

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Yesterday I met up with Vori for tea which was so so nice but I had gone on a long run with Mimi in the morning and I think I got horribly dehydrated as by the time I met up with Vori I had the most awful headache imaginable. I hope I wasn’t too terrible to be around - she’s so nice and she invited me to join her bookgroup which she will be starting with some other friends. Perfect for me - I love to read and I love to talk about reading.

After I excused myself and my somewhat out-of-it behaviour (do to the headache) and made it home to feel ill for the rest of the afternoon, I made some dinner, drank about 10 gallons of water, and started to feel a bit better. By early evening, I was fine again which was great as Ann, my flatmate who had been in Wales all weekend, got back and we decided to visit this local pub about which we had heard really great things. It was so nice! We had Pimms (no strawberries, though) and just chatted.

Then we went home and had the cake I had made earlier that day (it came out much better than I expected!) with some tea and it was very very nice. All in all, what with Doctor Who, seeing Vori, cake and lots and lots of tea, it was a wonderful weekend!

Pictures of cake:

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Well, you’ve all risen wonderful to my selfish demand for more comments. Excellent. I also appear to have gotten Milly to start watching Doctor Who which I think is like… massive karma points in the grand scheme of things.

So, yesterday was fairly uneventful until about 6pm. See, the plan was to meet Kathryn and Jenny (my friend from high school and her friend from college) at around 7pm, possibly grab a snack or small dinner, then go to a swing dancing class that my colleague from work recommended. After I finished work, I went into the bathroom to change from work clothes into a dress and dancing shoes (read: impractical heels - which were suggested on the website for the class) which I had brought with me in my backpack.

Then things started to go a little nuts. I called Jenny (who was going to be spending the night at my flat before catching an early flight back to Russia today where she’s studying abroad for the summer) who was still at least an hour away from our meeting point - where we were planning on meeting in about 20 minutes. I got on the bus and because the weather was absolutely atrocious, everything on the roads was impossibly slow. So, fifteen minutes and three blocks later, I called Kathryn, who was already at the arranged meeting point, to say *I* was another half hour away.

I finally got to our meeting point, although Jenny was still a half hour behind us. We’d basically missed the beginning of the dance class at this point, but decided to try this nice Italian restaurant that Kathryn’s friend had told her about and began to walk there with the plan to have Jenny catch up with us at the restaurant. As we passed an ATM, I realised I didn’t have any cash so went to take out my wallet, only to realise it was gone. I, rather understandably I think, panicked (in a completely controlled and not panicky way, but I still panicked) and started searching through my backpack - which responded by busting a zipper which I couldn’t seem to fix. Keep in mind that it’s raining cats and dogs and we’re on an uncovered street as I’m frantically searching through my bag.

It occurs to me exactly where my wallet was - on the sink counter of the ladies room at the office. I was now about 45 minutes away from the office and could in theory go back but because it was such a long trip and we had now arrived at the restaurant which told us the kitchens were closing in half an hour I really didn’t want to go back if I didn’t have to (i.e. if it would still be there in the morning or if it was already long gone). I called Alex, my boss, who has been incredibly helpful in the past to ask his opinion on that point. His response? He called the maintainece staff and a guy he know who worked in another office in the building, got the guy to go into the women’s bathroom and *find* my wallet so I could pick it up today, and then offer to come meet me where I was in the city to give me money to get home if I needed it (thankfully I didn’t - I had my travel card which gets me anywhere in the city). Honestly, I’m pretty sure I have the world’s nicest boss. Talk about building company loyalty.

In the end, Kathryn spotted me money and we had a great dinner and had a lot of fun with Kathryn and Jenny. I managed to get all of my stuff home in a relatively dry manner despite the broken backpack, and today I’ll get my wallet back. It was a suitably embarrassing escapade (especially the bits where I was pulling my clothes out of my stuffed backpack on a crowded street in the middle of the rain looking for my wallet) but lesson learned. Crisis averted thanks to really, really nice people.

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