London, UK to Brussels, Belgium...

Yesterday we had a full day in London to do a lot of exploring.  Paul completed his 19 mile run, and we were off without a hitch.  We took the "tube" downtown to board our tour bus and begin the day full of activities.  We were able to see a lot of the big London attractions including St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Shakespeare's Globe, London School for Boys, Big Ben, London Eye, and a few others.  We obviously didn't have time to see everything, or go inside of any of the attractions, but we had a good time observing the spectacular views from outside the landmarks and from the Thames River.

Tower of London, only 7 executions, all royalty, I guess we missed that boat.

Streets of London, a little different from red barns in Wisconsin...

St. Paul's Cathedral, the bell is much bigger than Big Ben's... the dome is really impressive!

London's School for Boys, a few smart boys came out of this bad boy...

The London Eye, it costs 20 pounds to ride, and each cart fits 25 people... do the math, ca-ching!

Another example of a beautiful London building...

After our long day of site seeing from the top of a bus, we were kind of "toured-out", so we walked down the street to a market store and bought a few packs of hummus (1 pound), whole grain pita bread (35 pence), some more bread from a different market, and a few beers from a small 24 hour market down the road.  We set up shop outside of our fancy hotel (not to be seen by the people who go there and actually have a few pounds to their name) and indulged in our dinner of beer, bread, and hummus.  We were so full from the breakfast that morning, that this snack-dinner was perfect.  The beer was really reasonable and was the perfect ending to our time in London.  It was fun to dodge the mainstream hotel restaurant and scrape around for some food.  We were also determined to use any of the remaining coinage from our currency exchange into pounds, because you aren't able to go into US dollars from foreign coins.

Our dinner of beer and bread, seated far away from the bar's outdoor patio... that's us alright!

Today we woke up early, had another amazing breakfast of fruit crepes, fresh grapefruit, kiwis, oranges, fresh cheese, bread, and strong coffee.  The buffet was absolutely amazing, and probably one of the best breakfasts I've had in the states, as well as Europe.  We then found our tour group and headed to the UK shore to board a ferry as a foot passenger.  It was a massive ferry with cars, tour boats, and everything on board.  We were trying to use our remaining 79 pence, but the only item we could find was 80, so we now have 79 pence with us for the rest of the trip, hah!  The ferry ride went fast and we were able to relax and enjoy a few tough crosswords.  After landing in France, we boarded our tour bus and headed from France to Belgium.  We traveled through the countryside of Belgium and to the outskirts of Brussels. 

Boarding our English Channel ferry boat!

Unfortunately, we didn't visit a currency exchange before we left and did not have access to any European currency of any kind because it was late Saturday evening, so we were stuck with credit cards.  We wanted to get to the metro and head downtown to see the Grand Plaza and the little boy sculpture who is peeing into a fountain, however, without any Euros, we were stranded.  We decided to skip the optional tour, due to the expensive tour and not a great value.  Instead we walked a little towards town and stopped at a nice restaurant called the Book Store.  It was a real bookstore with sit down tables scattered throughout, and a bar on one end.  The food was unreal, and the beer was also a nice compliment to Belgium tradition. 

Dinner at the Book Store... ahh "I only speak English?"...

After dinner we walked back to the hotel, and we're going to call it a night pretty soon.  Tomorrow we are going to Germany and will be doing a boat cruise, it should be a long day of traveling, but I have a great book to read and I look forward to seeing the sites as we move to different countries...

On our way back to the hotel, last and only night in Brussels!

Missing everyone already... but at least I have a new friend....   tea.  I love tea over here, and I'm sad we're only starting to catch on... I am buying a nice tea cup and saucer set when I get home, so delicious!

We made it to England!!

We have checked into our hotel and spent our first full day in London, England.  We actually experienced quite a bit of luck on our way to Europe.  Our first flight from MKE to Charolette was a small plane, but fortunately we landed the first row seats and Paul was able to stretch his legs out.  The seat change came by chance, as Orbitz didnt' confirm our seats in the first place, so we had to scramble to find two seats together. 

Our layover in Charolette went very smoothly, not a lot of waiting at all.  I was racing to try to find a Starbucks so I could load up on treats before the long flight, which I found out was completely unnecessary!  We by chance had the exit row, which left plenty of space for leg room and stretching out.  Shortly after reaching cruising speed they came by with a warm dinner of pasta, salad, wheat roll, and cholcolate cake.  It was a delicious meal for coming from an airline stewardess. After demolishing that meal, I sat back and watched a few movies over coffee, diet coke, and orange juice.  I was able to watch the King's Speech, which I would highly reccommend.  I also watched a move about a trial where someone was found guilty of murder (of which he was innocent) and his sister devoted her life to becoming a layer and proving his innocence.  It was also a really good movie and perfect for the flight.

After the movies finished, I tried resting my eyes but I had absolutely no luck and stayed awake the entire flight.  We landed in London and our next challenge was finding the trains to take us downtown to our hotel.  I was super tired, and cranky, and worried we weren't going to get downtown.  We navigated the system of trains just fine and make it to our hotel around 10AM, while walking and riding at a liesurely pace.  After checking in we crashed for a few hours and tried to take nap.  I was so frazzeled when the alarm went off, I barely knew who, or where I was... haha, classic.

We had a relaxing afternoon strolling down King Street which is full of shops, restaurants and coffee shops.  It looks like they have a nice open air market in the mornings.  I indulged in a Vanilla Chai and took in the sites and culture of the busy London streets.  We walked back to the hotel and just hung out for the rest of the night.  We're both pretty exhausted, and we needed to plan our next day of events - London Bus and River Tour!

Some more fun facts, we realized that our hotel room costs 200 pounds, which is freakishly expensive in American money, and way more than Paul and I would dream on forking over for a hotel stay.  We have free breakfast lined up tomorrow morning (with the tour) and that's 17 pounds worth of food.  You can bet that at that price, Paul and I will be shoveling the food in and feeling good about getting our monies worth.  We are planning to get up early, work out, and grab breakfast.  Paul has a 19 mile run planned, he's going to head downtown for the first 8 miles, and then finish the rest on the treadmill in the gym.  I'll dabble in the workout room for the morning to try to work off all of these packaged/processed snack bars I've been fueling myself with!

Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures soon, and I'll have plenty after tomorrow's city tour.  I'm on a shared hotel lobby computer, so getting pictures on here would be a feat.  So, it's off to be for now, and an early morning tomorrow!  We're hear, not yet well rested, but we plan to change that.  I need some sleep so I can fully enjoy the sites and time here!  Our trip has begun...

Last day in Pittsburgh...

I'm in the airport heading back to Madison after a good morning roaming the streets of Pittsburgh.  I woke up and jumped on the bus to take me up to UPMC Children's hospital to meet some people in the lab I'll be working in this summer.  I thought it would be fun to stop by and introduce myself.  The lab is pretty big, so I am just hoping that I don't get lost within its masses.  I am not that great at wet bench stuff and I have a feeling there will be a steep learning curve.  I haven't done much microscopy, virus work, or any real wet bench experiments, so it will definitely be a summer to learn a bunch of new techniques.  I've also never had the opportunity to work with animals, and Dr. Hackam's lab has quite a few strains of mutant mice they are working with, so perhaps I'll get a shot to try out a lot of new areas of research.  We'll see!

UPMC Children's Hospita, brand new!  The research towers are around the corner!

After meeting everyone, scoping out the cafeteria, and enjoying a perfect orange, I made my way back down to Shadyside.  I just took Friendship Ave all the way back to our new apartment.  I wanted to pass by it again to get a better feel of the building and the area.  It's even closer than I thought to Whole Foods, and just down the road a block I realized that there is Paul's favorite store.... Walgreens!  This is the first Walgreens I've run into while in Pittsburgh!  CVS stores are pretty popular, but I managed to pick an apartment by a hidden Walgreens!  Booyah, now Paul has a clearance rack to clear out.  I have yet to check out Trader Joe's, but I'm sure that's the first thing that mom and I will be doing once she visits.

Our new apartment building/house!  We are on the second floor and it's currently getting a new roof, hence the ladders and temporary door covering - how exciting!

After getting a feel for the apartment, parking situation, and taking a look at Sharp's Edge, I walked down Centre Ave for a quick bite at Panera.  They were out of whole grain bagels, so I cashed in my free coffee and ate my own granola bar like a cheap-o haha!  I took Aiken over to Walnut and did my last trek down Walnut and the expensive shops and headed up Negley Hill!  I walked back to Squirrel Hill to gather my things from Emily's condo and take a quick shower.  It was so nice out today, and it was actually pretty warm.  I was sweating while walking around!  I packed up my new internal frame suitcase and headed out after slipping the keys under Emily's door...  It was such a great feeling to head home knowing that everything is taken care of.  I did my last and final hike down Forbes to Oakland to get on the 28X.

Just an example of the beautiful houses I've been walking past all weekend!  There's some really pretty, historic real estate and of course don't forget the scattered stone roads...

I don't want to know how many miles of walking I put on this weekend.  My feet are killing me and I am very excited to be off of them for a few days.  I'm sure once we land in London it will be back to walking great distances each day.  I hope the puma's can handle the walking and are nice to my tootsies! Footwear takes up a lot of room in my suitcase, so I'll have to think twice about what shoes I take.  It will be a challenge to pack for 20 days out of a carry-on bag.  Another adventure I'm sure!

I have a home...

I'm out in Pittsburgh, and now finally feeling a little relief, I've found the perfect spot to live.  Originally we had looked at Shadyside and Friendship neighborhoods as a place to hang our heads, but it turns out we'll be living in Friendship!  It's a little bit closer to the Children's Hospital which will be great for going back and forth to work this summer, and it's a few blocks removed from the craziness that is Shadyside.  I like shopping and expensive homes just as much as the rest of 'em, but there's just something nice about living on a quiet street,  I guess I've been so spoiled over the last few years living n Kendall Ave that it was hard to find a rental that gave me the same feeling of home.  Well, I found it!

All of the places I looked at out here I found on the internet through Craigslist, websites, and the graduate student website.  I did pretty well hunting down openings for June 1st from Wisconsin.  No one could believe I had all of my appointments lined up and organized.  One landlord actually said, "I can't believe how calm you are while trying to find a June 1st apartment, I bet you'll make a good doctor to be so laid back..."  Oh if he only knew that I'm a crazy woman who plans out every moment, and I just was going through the motions before signing an apartment.  I just laughed after he said that.  It was probably because I wasn't even pissed at him for being so late, ahha.

Today I literately woke up at 7 AM and headed out the door to make my appointment 2.5 miles away.  I walked all over Shadyside and Squirrel Hill today and didn't get off my feet until 3:30PM.  It was absolutely ridiculous.  My feet were killing me like Lyssa's dogs on Canal Street.  Tomorrow I think that I'm going to walk back from the Children's hospital.  I'm going to go see Dr. Hackam's lab space and meet some of the other lab members I'll be working with this summer.  I cannot wait, and I'm so pleased to have my summer work lined up and also a place to live, whew!  Now we can go to Europe stress free.  So, tomorrow I cancel my other showings and head to Panera bread to make a list of things I need to pack for Europe.  My plane leaves at 4PM so I need to catch the 28X around 1:15PM from Oakland.  I still have to plan out my morning, but I'm sure it will be just fine.


So, more about the apartment.  It's a two bedroom with hardwood floors and the inside has been completely redone.  It's an older home turned into apartments and they did a great job doing it.  The plaster is fresh, the windows were replaced and I think are pretty similar to Kendall Ave.  The kitchen appliances are black and are standard size and not apartment style.  The stove is gas, which is wonderful!  The kitchen countertops are ceramic and look great next to the black appliances.  In the master bedroom there's exposed brick which makes the room feel really comfy and warm.  The apartment is on the second floor so we get the generous heat from the first floor apartment and the benefit of being up a level and having great windows.  We are able to park in the backyard of the place which shares spaces with Sharp's (a great little pub).  I seriously couldn't have asked for a better cozier apartment.  It's not massive, but it's nice, new, and comfortable.  The price is right too!  We'll be close to Whole Foods (which in Pittsburgh is beautiful!) and another super market.  We're just a drive away from Trader Joe's which makes me happy inside!  I cannot thank Matt enough for hooking me up with his awesome landlord.  This guy is super down to earth, and hopefully once our roof is replaced, he'll let me do some landscaping! Haha, flowers and tulips here we come!

It's official, we have a new home...

Apartment Searching...

Now that we both know we're heading to Pittsburgh, we stumble upon the hard part... finding a place to live!  Pittsburgh is an interesting city of neigborhoods, each with there own unique personality.  I have been talking back and forth with some of the students out there to get a feel of the different spots to live, and I think we have it narrowed down to either Squirrel Hill or Shadyside.  Oakland is the neighboorhood that the Universities are located in and the hospitals are in.  Fortunately, Paul will have a parking pass and will be able to park at the hospital each day, but I will not have that ability.  My classes are going to start around 8AM, where Paul will most likely have to be into the ERs around 6AM.  Perhaps I'll become an early bird and do some early morning studying, but most likely, I will end up bussing back and forth from class.

At the moment I am trying my hardest to look for apartments in Pittsburgh from my small computer in Wisconsin.  It's been a difficult and time consuming task, but it needs to be done.  Our schedule is so packed for the next few months with our Europe vacation, that I really want to get the apartment signed before we go abroad.  I start work June 1st, and we will get back from Europe in late April.  I think I might even head out to Pittsburgh during the second look weekend to meet with faculty, which pushes my return home even closer to my start date.  It would be nice to be have a lease signed before we have to move so all of the June 1st contracts aren't gone already.  So, in order to do that, I've been spending a lot of time in the search, and I am going to fly out to Pittsburgh next weekend to see the places I've been looking at.  Fortunately, I will be able to stay with a current student, Emily, who said I could use her apartment's spare room.  I cannot even explain how much money that is going to save me!!  I owe her so much! She's such a sweetheart!  I'm going to fly out of Madison and back for a really reasonable fare.  Paul is in Mexico right now spending time with Kathy and his brothers. He had quite a time getting down there because his flight from Madison was delayed and he missed his connection on Detroit, this is after he fought with the airline company about his return flight.  Paul booked his flight with frequent flier miles, so they've been putting him through a lot of hoops and shifting his return flight around like crazy!  He sent me a picture which I thought was adorable from mexico, UPMC!

My plan is to take a bunch of pictures and videos of the different apartments I see while in Pittsburgh next weekend and then when he gets back, we'll have to make our decision of where we want to sign for next year.  It would be so nice if we can get a June lease rather than something that starts August 1st, which are far more common!!

This weekend I was able to come back to Seymour to spend time with family, and Grandma and Grandpa VB.  Mom and I had a great time with Grandma VB on Saturday, we watched the residents go bowling which was really entertaining, then we watched Man vs. Food on the travel channel.  Grandma was being really funny, after she saw the 6lb chili cheese dog, she said "I don't know if he should eat it, or throw it out..."  One time the resident really missed all of the pins bowling, she leaned over and said "Well, at least they don't have to pick up any pins..."  Hahah, it was really fun to spend time with her, she was in a great mood.  Tonight we went out to Jackson Point with Uncle Ray, Bonnie, and the Koeppel's.  It was so nice to see everyone and visit.  Uncle buck met us out there too. 

Tomorrow I have to head to Madison for work.  I work tomorrow over the noon hour, Tuesday and Thursday I babysit and Friday I jump on the plane!  This next month is going to get away on me... a lot is happening all at once!  I also make a promise with Paul that if I would loose three pounds he would gain 3 lbs.  It's hard for him to eat enough food to keep up with all of his running.  I'm going to have to excercise a lot this week to keep up with him!  Tomorrow I'm going to head to anytime fitness and when I'm hanging with Drew I'm going to do workout videos like I used to...  it will be good for Europe!  I got some new clothes for Europe this week and I'm excited to start packing!  Ahhh, so much to do!