I live in London, just so you all know.

I'm currently sitting in my living room, and I think I may live in a real life version of Never Never Land...Oh god, not the Michael Jackson one, the original where Peter Pan resides. There's this boat right outside of our apartment that is apparently for a group called the Docklands Scout Project. Now I thought it had something to do with the boy scouts here, but we've only witnessed them playing around in canoes and kayaks on weekend mornings and not doing anything that remotely resembles community service. So who knows. I also just had the pleasure of watching their shadowed figures scaling the heights of this boat in freakish lost boyesque agility and fearlessness. Possibly I have just forgotten what it's like to be that young, or it may have something to do with that fact that I was never a boy. Either way, i'll be sure to keep watching for their peculiar behaviour. <-----Ah, absolutely accidental slip up using proper British spelling!

So back to this living abroad stuff. To say that the transition has been smooth would be an utter lie and so I'm going to let you in on what the last three weeks have been like, both the good and the very very VERY bad.

First Off: Flight = horrible. I was stuck in the absolute middle seat in the middle row of a packed international flight. I for some odd reason found it impossible to sleep on the plane, which for anyone that knows me... that's extremely odd. I can sleep ANYWHERE. Sometimes when I'm watching one of those movies where a person is being dangled above hydrochloric acid or sharp machinery blades after being kidnapped, I'm sure that if I was tired enough I could sleep in that situation. So on a plane...well that mineaswell be a down mattress in a 5 star hotel..and I couldn't.

We arrived in Heathrow after a relatively easy stroll through customs, exchanged some money, called our letting (rental) agent to get the details for moving into our apartment and were instructed to get a hotel room.  Mere words cannot describe the intense, rollarcoaster of emotions that inhabited every centimeter of my being for the succeeding week after our arrival. Highlights, however, include:

-Sleeping on and off in an airport for over 6 hours

-Paying for a hotel room for 3 nights, not to mention cab fare, food, and many other expenses

-Feeling the joy of finally receiving keys to our apartment and then immediately an almost incomparable despair at walking into a horrifyingly, obviously unattended since vacancy flat.*****

*****I wish there some possible way to truly explain how contradictory first walking into this apartment was. What you NEED to understand, is that where I live, this place that we were fortunate enough to acquire is absolutely stunning. Our view is incredible. So to be here and feel anything but peace and happiness is some form of universal contradiction.  But when I tell you that the apartment was FILTHY, know that I mean it was just nasty, disgusting, uninhabitable. No one had cleaned since the last tenants, who obviously didn't give a crap. There was mold in the fridge and freezer, soiled linens and trash in the closets, our view was marred by having the only dirty windows on the entire property, julie's bathroom was in pieces.... AND we had no electricity or running water, which was all SUPPOSED to be on. YAY. If I wasn't who I am, I may have gotten on a plane and flown back to the States. It was that bad.

The incompetency of my letting agent has persisted to this very day, but, I am pleased to say that we are finally done with him and his company. Everything with the apartment is starting to really come together finally, we just have to be conscious of the money we're spending to achieve that.

The area I live in is also really amazing. It's called the Isle of Dogs and it's right next to a place called Canary Wharf. To steal my mother's phrase, "Canary Wharf is the wall street of London." Well, it would be the wall street of London if wall street sat on top of a massive shopping plaza, surrounded by water in a simultaneously nature enhanced yet incredibly modern urban lanscaped conglomeration. That may sound like a load of nonsense, but when I can stand in one spot and my senses are bombarded by a sea of suits, gentle waves, the soft screeching of a train above, the traffic on the road directly ahead, seagulls flying in the air, and the endless diversity of people entering and exiting the tube station or mall entrance... what I just wrote happens to be the only written articulation I can come up with.

I started attended classes for my program at Uni and while the redundancy of it all is annoying as hell, it happens to be a necessary means to an end and so I'll suck it up and deal. I have met some pretty fabulous people and that's been wonderful.

The last incident that deserves very specific mention is the lovely anti-american, crazy, woman-hating, abusive man suffering from any number of psychopathologies that threatened me in the equivalent of a mall food court. I won't get into specifics, but he towered over me while I was seated spewing curses and looking as though his head would pop from anger...complete with bulging eyes and pulsating veins. Oh yeah, and he also told us to go to McDonalds . Oh man, I forgot quite how nuts he was. I got security, der.

So I'm going to wrap this up with an honorable mention to my magnificent roommate Julie. While this move would have been just fine to do alone, as were my original intentions, I truly can't imagine after making the decision to move with another person, doing it with anyone but her. Our friendship is seamless and I appreciate everything about having her here with me.

Tomorrow, watching the Yanks stomp the Twins again  and reveling in the good fortune we've had with this awesome weather!

Go YANKS!!!!!

(yes, this is the closest I can get to Yankee colors without spending HOURS haha)

Till next time...

"Life is not a journey to the grave with intentions of arriving safely in a pretty well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming ... WOW! What a ride!"--Anonymous