Weekend Dilemma’s

Nottingham – Land of Robin Hood

This past weekend (11-12 May) was a disasterous waste. We didn’t make any plans for Saturday, so we ended up sleeping in like we usually do. By the time we decided to go out and do something, it was already 12pm.. too late to go anywhere far.. so we just headed into Nottingham to hang out. Walked by the Castle and had lunch at the oldest pub in the UK…

Taking a long trip back in time..

.. to the oldest pub in the UK

Couldn’t go to a pub without getting a drink.. or two..

Descent sliders..

nom nom nom

Walked around the shops in town.. finally went into Primark (which was like going into Nordstrom Rack on the weekend during Christmas season.. craziness).. grabbed a snack at Homemade… stumbled upon an awesome stag party in the rain (if you can see… they’re all dressed up like Disney characters).. and then headed home.

Homemade Cafe – voted Nottingham’s best cheap eats (2012?)

Interior of Homemade.. pretty basic cafe

SMILE!

Latte .. not so awesome… but they did have free issues of Vice magazine

Boozy smoothie for Minh

Pulled pork quesadilla

the rain won’t bring down this stag party

Sunday we actually had a plan.. but it was an epic fail. I was supposed to meet up with a group of ladies for the Rapha Women’s 100 training ride through the Peak District. Minh was coming along too.. either to ride with me or to do his own ride. And since Minh refuses to drive.. he was playing navigator.

Real life puzzle.. how to fit two bikes in a small sedan..

seats down. wheels off.. tight fit…

We ended up at the right restaurant, more or less on time, but in the wrong city… We ended up heading back to where the meet-up was supposed to be, then driving a bit of the route to try to find a place to park. After much driving and frustration later.. we just decided to give up and head home. The weather was rainy (as usual) and by this time (over an hour after we were supposed to start riding), I was just over it. Instead of heading home, we hit up the East Midlands Designer Outlets, which was on the way home.

lunch at the outlets.. where’s the green?

Outlet here are nothing like outlets at home… much smaller and not as many good stores. I did come home with a new Superdry jacket and some chocolate from the Cadbury outlet.. but that was pretty much the weekend. This coming weekend will hopefully be better.

Grazing

It’s no secret that I love to snack.. my new coworkers have already noticed that I always have food and that I’m pretty much always eating. For the most part, I’ve been trying to keep the snacking health – nuts, dried fruit, fresh fruit, granola, etc.. – but of course there’s always going to be that rogue bag of chips (“crisps”) or piece(s) of candy. That’s why I’m so glad to have discovered GRAZE..

GRAZE BOX

I signed up for biweekly Graze boxes, which come with four little containers of “healthy” snacks. You can also go online and rate the products so that they send you more of what you like and less of the things you don’t like. Pretty neat, right?

FIRST BOX!

Clockwise from Top Left: Florentine Mix, Carrot Cake with Afternoon Infusion, Bonnie Wee Oatbakes with Caramelized Onion Marmalade, Honeycomb Crunch

Also.. the packaging is pretty minimal and all of it is 100% recyclable (and I think also made from recycled materials). Good for you and the environment!

THIRD BOX! (technically my second box.. but I ate all of Minh’s first box too!)

Clockwise from top left: Mississipi BBQ Pistachios, Tropical Daiquiri, Chocolate Orange granola, Lightly Salted Pop Corn

I’m sure there are tons of other products like this, but I thought this was pretty cool and convenient, considering they get delivered right to your home (or office) and include all the nutrition facts for each of the snacks. They’re perfectly sized for a small snack, too… not too large or too small. They have them in the US too!!! If you use my code (9RDTKZ1D), you can get your first box for free (and I get £1 off my next box or £1 to charity!)

Mellow Weekend

This last weekend (27-28 April) was pretty mellow. Saturday we did a mock ride-to-work to see if it’s something that I would actually want to do. Here’s the route…

Because we stopped a bunch of times to make sure that we were going the right way, the ride to work took about 2 hours. Even if I knew the route pretty well, it would still probably take 1.5 hours… mostly because of having to ride through city centers in the first half and groomed (but not paved) paths on the second half. So probably not going to be riding my bike to work… Might consider it more if I had brought the cross bike.. but oh wells.

We got rained on on the way back, but we managed to get over it. When we got close to the house, I slipped on my pedals trying to clip-in, and hurt myself rather badly… so I used that as an excuse to be lazy the rest of the weekend. During which I caught up on all of my TV shows on Saturday and managed to watch the first five episodes of Game of Thrones Season 2 (yea.. I’m behind) on Sunday. And then I napped because all that TV gave me a massive headache.. go figure. For dinner, Minh and I walked into town for Chinese food.

Just a stroll to town…

Left to Beeston.. Right to ??? (home)

more of the path to town..

I choose you, PIKACHU!!!

I don’t even know…

Construction for a new tramline.. set to open at the END of 2014

The Bee Man, in Beeston

Bees are actually this huge here..

There are four Chinese restaurants in town… we tried Lucky Cantonese to start, just because it seemed to be the busiest at the time. We did a set meal for 2, which was £10 per person. It came with chicken and corn soup, sauteed beef in chili bean sauce, sweet and sour chicken, mixed vegetables in bean sauce, and egg fried rice. It wasn’t bad, but definitely not “authentic” as it claimed to be. Tasted very westernized, like any Chinese takeout place. We’ll have to try the other restaurants to see if they’re any better. Hopefully yes.. one of them is supposed to be so authentic, there isn’t even any English on the menu or on the signs inside the restaurant (The Pink Wing)! Next time…

Starter of prawn chips

Chicken and corn soup.. was better with a dash of pepper

LUCKY CATS GALORE!!

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Beef in Chili Bean Sauce

Mixed veggies in black bean sauce

All this (plus the soup) for £21

At least they have boxes so you can take your leftovers home at this place…

“Thank you for your custom”

Take me back to my childhood… ICECREAM!!

When I was a kid, we ate all sorts of desserts.. even cake for breakfast! My mom, afterall, was a wedding cake baker in her free time (hope I have free time when I become a mom). One of the desserts we would only get everyone once in a while was Viennetta Icecream .. mostly because it was fancy looking (and maybe expensive). As we got older, we stopped eating it.. I don’t know if it’s because we just got over it and my mom stopped buying it.. or if we weren’t able to find it anymore. I tried looking for it when I was in college, but could never find it… but in the UK…

BAM! Got this at Sainsbury’s. They also had plain vanilla…

pretty icecream ripples

one slice.. just for me!

So the box isn’t as fancy as I remember it being, and it looks totally different from what I remember it being.. but it’s still delicious!

Settled In

I think I can officially say now that we’ve settled in to the UK. Accomplishments this week:

• GOT PAID (finally!)
• transferred our bills over
• got internet at home!
• got my work credit card
• drove (almost) the whole week WITHOUT stalling!

When we were getting out internet installed, we accidentally bumped a high table and knocked over one of the sculptures that was already in the flat. Luckily, it was only worth £100, and it will come out of our deposit.. so it wasn’t one of the more expensive pieces of art in the flat.

OOPS!

It was really stupid, because if the floor was even, then the art would not have been knocked over, but the carpet is all uneven where the stand was, so it wasn’t very stable. OH wells.. we’ll just have to deal with it, right?

I haven’t gotten  a cell yet, but Minh’s on his and we have internet, so if anyone wants to chat, you can find us on our Gmail accounts.

If you like then you better..

.. put a ring on it…

BIG CONGRATULATIONS TO MY SISTER, ANNI!!! I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there to congratulate her in person, but I’m so happy for her and her new fiancee! Hopefully I can help plan from afar…

Home, home on the Grange…

Good news! Our shipment of “stuff” came on TUESDAY! Minh was home to get it and partially unpack everything for us. This is what I came home to…

Half of the bikes.. assembled and waiting in the hallway

The other half of the bikes taking up the living room

Minh.. chillin’ on his computer

Kitchen stuff unpacked and remnants of shipping materials

Clothes scattered about everywhere

Some of it hung up in the closet (which I’ve already filled… )

All my shoes.. all lined up in a row

More clothes.. scattered about

I was so happy to have our stuff, especially since I was starting to not want to wear any of the clothes I had and we were both itching to ride our bikes rather than hike the 30 minutes into town. It will take a little while to get everything in its place, but it’s nice to have familiar things around us. Makes this place feel more like home.

Minh got our bikes (all four of them) built up before I got home, so we were able to ride into town to get some dinner. Seriously cut our “commute” down to about 10 minutes. Granted we were on our singlespeeds and pretty out of shape (so we had to walk some of the “hills”), it was still much preferred over walking.

We originally walked into this Chinese restaurant called the Pink Wing for dinner.. smelled good from the outside, and the food looked good from what we could tell with the other customers in there. But there wasn’t a stitch of English in the place, so we had no idea how to order or what to order. And it didn’t look like anyone was working there (or at least not for the couple minutes that we were in there), and the patrons who were there weren’t very helpful, they just kinda looked at us (not rudely staring though). We eventually had to walk out. I do want to try this place sometime, but we need to go with someone who has been there before or can read Chinese.. or both.

Instead.. we walked down the street a little to Jerry’s, which was a hotdog place that was also an arcade and a little casino.. or something like that. Minh and I split a big fat Hoop Doggie Dog, which is essentially a fat foot-long hotdog with SpaghettiOs (or rather the British equivalent) on it. And yes.. it tastes EXACTLY like how it sounds. Actually, SpaghettiOs would probably have been better.. on a Costco polish sausage.

Hoop Doggie Dog, YO!

Minh’s going to spend the rest of the week getting our stuff unpacked and put away where it “needs to be”.. and then this will really feel like home. Same but different…

Drive on what side? Oh.. the WRONG side!

Minh and I have now been in the UK for a couple days… let’s recap our adventure so far…

On Friday, we picked up our car from the office. This was a true eye-opener. At first we thought it wouldn’t be so bad, driving on the left side of the road, sitting on the right side of the car, manual.. BOY were we wrong! Minh got to drive first because he’s more comfortable with manual transmission than I am. The car came from Hemel-Hempstead, about an hour and a half away, and of course it comes pretty much empty.

thats pence per liter.. about $8.01 per gal (US)

We filled it with approximately £20 pounds, which should be enough for a little while. The driving is pretty nerve-wracking.. you can tell by the look on Minh’s face. First thing he did was hit the curb at the gas station. Then continued to freak out every time a car passed in the opposite direction, and I freaked out every time the car veered closer and closer to the left. The perspective is totally off with the driver on the right, we had no idea if we were in the lane or not.

Driver on the right.. Car on the left (“wrong”) side…

We also did a Costco run while we were out, mostly for toiletries and household goods. We didn’t think that we would end up spending that much, but it ended up at about £144, which I guess falls into a “normal” Costco-run at home. Hopefully, all this will last us a descent amount of time and we won’t need to go back to Costco anytime soon.

Our first UK Costco run

After getting home from Costco, we stayed in the rest of the night. I was supposed to go out to “practice” driving.. but it started to get dark, so I passed on that. We did, however, get up on Saturday to drive to ASDA. This time, I was driving. The shifting wasn’t too hard (only stalled the car once), but it was weird driving on the opposite side, mostly because I thought I was going to hit everything around me. And I kept forgetting to watch my lane lines. The ASDA run was much more fruitful.. we were able to get a bunch more groceries for about £75. Plus some more toiletries and random household stuff.

A full haul from ASDA

We had an early lunch of sandwiches and chips. We’ve been trying to eat-in as much as possible, until we’re a bit more settled. This stops us from spending too much on restaurants and allows us to load up on the essentials. We’ve done breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast, lunch with sandwiches, pasta dinners, cheesy garlic bread.. it’s been pretty basic with the meals, but still good.

Sometimes the simple meals are just what you need

After our harrowing first adventure in driving, Minh and I were pretty nervous with driving, so we decided to take the bus into Nottingham to open our bank account at HSBC. We picked up a Mango card at the post office, which makes it easier to take the Trent-Barton busses because you can just tap the card instead of having to carry cash. Also, opening the bank account went fairly easily, which was a surprise. Everything else has been SO HARD.. (you can read more Minh’s frustrations with that on his blog).

Two steps closer to full UK integration… Mango Card and HSBC key fob

We walked back to town in the afternoon in an attempt to get Minh a cell phone. Apparently you need to have lived in the UK for 3 years to get a two-year contract for a cell phone, so we need to go with the “pay as you go” route.  One of the other great “opportunities” that we have in our long road to “settling in”. One I’m actually looking forward to is nursing these orchids back to health. I don’t really know what’s wrong with them, but Minh gave them a little water, and we’re hoping that this will help, since we don’t really want to re-pot them like it says on the internet. On the bright side, the sun came out today!

These orchids have definitely seen better days….

So kiss me and Smile for me…

Because of the Dangerous Dog Act of 1991, Sprocket was not allowed to come with us to the UK. We made arrangements for my uncle to watch her (or take her) for the two years that we’ll be away… But, he lives in Utah, so we had to drive Sprocket out there to drop her off (we weren’t about to traumatize her by shipping her). Also, unfortunately, the rental car didn’t allow pets, so we had to keep Sprocket in her crate for the whole trip.

Had to “contain” her excitement..

She knows something is up…

The trip to Salt Lake City, UT, is LONG.. we knew that it would be a long drive (10 hours), plus stops and what not. We got a late start (didn’t leave OC until 11PM), so we were in for a long drive ahead of us. In an effort to gorge ourselves on All-American food before we would be deprived of it, we stopped at Bob’s Big Boy in Norco on our way out (yes.. only 45 minutes into the drive).

Caramel Turtle Shake. Chili Spaghetti. Patty Melt and Onion Rings.

Bob’s Big Boy – Cowtown, USA

We didn’t do too much while we were in Utah except hang out with Sprocket and Xavier. It was good to spend time with her and get her adjusted to her new home. My uncle has two other dogs of his own (Mika and Chewie), plus they were dog sitting two other dogs over Easter.. so it was almost like he’s running a shelter. I think Sprocket knew something was amiss, but I don’t really know what she’s thinking…

So sad to leave her…

After we left Sprocket, we had to redeem a “loss” that I had last time I was in Vegas.. getting roped into signing up for a time share presentation for a stay at the Venetian. On the way to Vegas, we stopped in St. George to eat at CRACKER BARREL!!! I haven’t been to a Cracker Barrel since I was in grad school, where I first discovered them. It was just as good as I remembered it.. and the store and restaurant looked exactly like the one in VA.

LOVE CRACKER BARREL!!!

We stayed a couple nights in Vegas. The hotel room was really nice, but the timeshare presentation was FOUR HOURS LONG!!! Good thing we got it over with in the morning and was able to enjoy the rest of the day. We also got to indulge in the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s Palace. The food was good, but the desserts were just so-so…

Sleeping in luxury … perhaps not completely worth the four hour timeshare presentation we had to go to..

Buffets = this is why you’re fat…

Amazing dessert spread at Bacchanal Buffet (looks better than it tasted)

Chris decided to fly out last minute to spend some quality time with us before we left. He came in late on Monday. We grabbed dinner at Grimaldi’s and hung out all night.. he actually got Minh to GAMBLE!! WHAT?!?

Spontaneous visit from Chris in Vegas

Hello/Goodbye Las Vegas!

It was sad to come home without Sprocket there, but she was probably having a blast playing with her new friends. We’ll see if we get her back after two years… after all, she’ll have been with them for longer than she’ll have been with us. As long as she’s happy and taken care of.. that’s what really matters.

One last “family” picture

Oh Baby, I Hate to Go….

So… I write this in the living room of my new home (for the next two years) in Bramcote, Nottinghamshire, UK. It’s been a crazy few weeks getting the house packed up and ready for us to leave.. but more on that later. Now that we’ve settled in a little bit (sort of), just wanted to give everyone a little summary of our move day…

We had all our bags packed pretty much the night before so that we wouldn’t have to worry about it this morning. I got the two check-in bags under 50 lb, and just loaded up the two rollies and our backpacks with the rest of the stuff.

All my bags are packed I’m ready to go…

Then, my parents came over to empty out our freezer of weeks worth of frozen chicken, beef, bacon, tamales, veggies, and homemade icecream. Once we loaded up my parents’ coolers, we dropped the truck off at Minh’s mom’s house, picked up my wedding dress from the cleaners (FINALLY!), and my aunt/godmother took us out to lunch. We went for sushi at Sagami Tei, next to the house. Was good to have sushi and a meal with my family before we left.

The driver was (about an hour) early picking us up to take us to the airport, but wasn’t a big deal.. just a little rushed getting out of the house after dinner. When we got to the airport, the Air New Zealand ticketing counter wasn’t open (supposed to open at 1:30PM, but didn’t actually open till about 1:50PM). We got to the counter and were able to check out bags without any problems, but apparently they have a weight limit for carry-on baggage too (!!!). When did airlines start doing that?!?!? I had to pay extra ($150!) to check one of the other bags because it was WAY WAY over the 7 kg (approx 15 lbs) limit. And we were able to disperse all the other stuff amongst our two backpacks and one more carry-on, so we didn’t have to pay double on the checked baggage. Probably should have checked on that before we got to the airport…. oh wells..  Minh and I got a  little tiff about exchanging money (because we left it as an afterthought).. and then shared an incredible final USA meal of … drum roll … Burger King Whopper Jr and Chicken Nuggets. AWESOME!

Last meal in the U.S.A. – Burger King Whopper Jr and Chicken Nuggets

The flight was uneventful (other than the baby across the aisle from us that was on-and-off crying the whole time). And we were able to get through customs just fine and came out to SNOW IN LONDON!!! WTF? It’s APRIL! Here’s where the fun starts… Our driver from London/Heathrow to the flat was FAST… so we got there before the letting agent was available to let us in. We also didn’t have a gate code that worked… and the driver had another appointment at 3:30PM.. so we had to unload outside the gate and wait. Minh ended up jumping the wall to get us inside the car gate, but we still had to wait outside the building.

Wishful thinking that the front door would be unlocked…

Waiting for the letting agent.. in the cold wind…

The letting agent came at about 3:45PM and let us in. The flat is smaller than we remembered, but still pretty awesome. We settled in a little bit and then decided to get some groceries. We walked about 1.5miles to Beeston, with our backpacks, to load up on some groceries – apples, pears, dried pasta, pasta sauce, juice, onions, carrots, green beans, frozen pizza, salad, eggs, beer, sausage, bacon, toilet paper, brita filters, shredded cheese, butter, bread – all that for £50.50. May be a little expensive… but it as less than I was expecting for our first grocery run.

Part 1 of 2 – Moving day groceries!

Part 2 of 2 – Moving day groceries!

We walked everything back to the flat and made the frozen pizzas for dinner. Classy, huh?

Frozen pizza dinner.. was fairly decent for frozen pizza..

More on our last days in the US later.. but for now, I’ll leave you with a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! to my dad, who turned 68 today. Sorry I couldn’t be there to celebrate with him.. but we’ll be back to celebrate the big 7-0 in two years.

HAPPY 68TH BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!