This is my most random e-marketing from ebookers.com. Check it out.

Dear Laura,
America has voted for Barack Obama, and now it’s your turn. We’re giving you a choice of top US destinations at election-winning prices in our exclusive three day seat sale starting Friday. On the ticket are 12 cities and a host of hotels, all campaigning for your attention. The question is, which will you choose?
PS. America’s president isn’t the only thing that’s changing — we’ve got a brand new look and feel. We hope you like it as much as we do.

Washington£259Chicago£269
Philadelphia£259Miami£269
Orlando£279Los Angeles£315

Living near Peckham, the afro-caribbean town, I was quite surprised by the Obama fever and buzz pre-post elections. Some of the Africans were sharing iPods (which is absolutely disgusting!) others were sharing the paper, people peering over shoulders to catch Tuesday's events. People were genuinely friendly with each other on Wednesday morning and many of my colleagues stayed up through the night watching the election results. In the countries that I've travelled to in these past 3 years, sentiments towards the States have sadly been mostly negative. It was truly spectacular and I've been amazed at the international interest and hope that I've witnessed. Our Tube papers continue to dedicate the first 3 pages to Obama's victory. It's been really interesting to experience. I don't know if people will say goodbye to the America bashing, but I'm hoping it becomes more passe as time moves on. Interesting times.

xoxo, L

At the end of April, Chief Bongard and the Mrs., Mary Jo came to London for a family wedding. We met up with them after they drove something like 7 hours for what should have been a 2 hour journey. Four words: men, directions, mobile phone!

Anyways in was great to see him and catch up on the Torrance Mafia. Seems like everything is still the same, good people/good times.

Bongard hung up with Fire Hat 2 weeks ago and will find himself sidelined on the football field for one of the local schools.

Oh my goodness. I'm quite excited right now. One of the downers with the Blogger programme has always been the slow download of photos matched with people's requests to SEE more photos. Hurray! I can finally make a slideshow and share for everyone without filling your inbox with countless photos that you make or may not be interested in.

I'm going to jump around for a bit and get you all up to speed. Not that I have any true excuses for the four month lag, but life has been busy.

The photos below are from my unexpected trip back home in June. I ended up at my cousin Angela's wedding. It was a dry festivity with praise music in Murrieta, detoxing can be fun, but sneaking out to the parking lot and taking whiskey shots is even better. Oh, takes me back to the good ole days.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Here is a picture of Hannah and Michaela celebrating St. Patrick's Day. I dig the shirt which states, Kiss Me I'm American. The Irish American label is not highly thought of over here and often the term used is Plastic Paddy for those who hang on to the Emerald Isle as the homeland. I think the Scots and English are simply jealous.

They're getting old.

MONKEYS!!!!

Like the tenative approach from both parties? He's thinking give me the damn peanut, lady! And I'm thinking, please don't rip my face off. These are the green monkeys that were eager to eat all of our peanuts which were smuggled in. Well worth the price of admission. The red monkeys were quite shy with us; however they were great fun to watch playing with each other.

More of the Gambia to come!

Headed to Gambia....2 weeks. Can't wait.

African sunsets, hot sun, good people, malaria, someone to bring a drink with an umbrella-ella-ella in it, monkeys, lots of cheeky monkeys.

And no work! Ya-woo!

talk soon.
Lo

My cousin, Cait, came to visit Ian and me for Christmas. She and her husband Ed wanted to hang out in London with our Charlie Brown Christmas tree and check out the sights. Originally, I had planned just to see them for about a days time, however all went to hell in a hand basket when Ian and I fell ill in CA and brought our germs across the Atlantic. We cancelled our trip to Edinburgh and stayed pent up in our room while we hosted our Toner clan guests. I don't think we contaminated the two of them, but we managed to have a couple of nights out and get a few pints in and a good pub meal.

We had a good time hanging out at London Bridge, one of my favourite spots for old school London. Cait and Ed had spent time in the City as well as tracking old haunts of Dickens. I informed Cait of the newest serialist in the UK who writes weekly in the Scotsman, Alexander McCall Smith, Sandy if you will. I told her how great it would be to share it with her English class and how sure I was that the students would get a kick out of the tales of 44 Scotland Street. (Remember, my old Edinburgh stomping grounds.) I was telling Cait that is she wanted to check out his most recent writings that I was most positive she could find some microfiche and share the stories with her students. That pesky little internet just wasn't in the forefront of my mind. What era is it?! Maybe I'm losing it, lord knows sometimes I struggle.

Well good times were had by all. Ian is planning on joining Ed and his family on the cattle ranch one of these days and living out his dreams of becoming an american cowboy. Coughing and sniffles aside, it was good to hang with fam and ring in the New Year.

xoxo.

Lo

Lo

Tube tales....London sucks the soul

That pretty much sums it up. I have concluded that it's sucking my creative juices from me as I have been confined to submitting to the daily commute becoming a drone, a scurrying rat, a band geek that marches through the Tube interweaving with the masses as if it's been choreographed stepping in time without touching the soulless beings that criss-cross me, but dare to touch. This new London life is quite different that my previous life in Muswell Hill where I simply rolled out of bed walked up a hill and a flight of stairs. Black taxis, double decker busses and Tube journeys were simply for my weekend explorations and all inclusive of the adventure. Now, each day I awake knowing that I will fight my way from bus to train to Tube to bus attempting to knock 1 minute off the commute. Head down and hands in my pockets, I set my sight far in the distance. I have learned that making eye contact is a sign of weakness and only slows me down. I am able to glide through the stations with ease and quickly reach my spot where the Tube doors will open and welcome me to take my place amongst my new best friends. Every day brings an unknown as I enter the train. Sometimes I make close friends that are so close too close we could be married in some countries, other times I make Martha Graham proud with my shape shapes. I have practiced my snow boarding skills and tested my balance to conquer the train as it bobs and weaves. I have amused myself with the fantastic thought of free falling into the crowds to watch the people roll like the tide. Somehow I don't think they would be that amused.

It's a young city because it's a hard city; the greedy stay and the wise have abandoned it. I just got here though and so did my furniture, I can take it a little longer. The country awaits me.

Toulouse, France

up top, Warwick (War ICK)

xoxo,

L

My move from the OC to London.

So I was home in October for 7 days and most of my time consisted of documenting everything that I saved in boxes 2.5 years ago or have been saving in some form of a box since I outgrew items. This could possible have started 27 or 28 years ago. It's quite debatable. Let me tell you of the great dilemna of "what stay's? and what goes?"

What stayed? Strawberry Shortcake dolls, stuffed animals, school notes (not the ones from classes, the ones from boys, Valentine's, etc.)

London: Furniture of course, Kindergarten painting of a Leprechaun, WEDDING pics, Storm Trooper helmet, barbie corvette and Winnie the Pooh bookends! Oh and the grand daddy of them all The GREEN Machine! Bow-chica-mow-wow! I feel the jealousy across our 8,000 miles.

Ian unfortunately is not of the cultural background to truly understand the power of the Big Wheel. It could be that due to most homes, like ours, lack of a garage, basement or any storage for that matter Big Wheels could be seen as slightly excessive...such a strong word. Well certain items came with intent and others well I think my mom was just sick of storing my boxes and paid Bekins a few extra dollars to add Barbie and Star Wars. P.s. Don't forget the baby blanket that amounts to a few pieces of fabric held my 4 stitches of yarn.

I digress. My prize possessions came on 20 December. The perfect storm had occured. A huge project was due at work on the 20th....our bedrooms closets were being built requiring all items to shift into the other 2 rooms...our flight was on the 21st to LA....and my cousin and her husband would arrive from Chicago on the 26th. Good times. So again, my prize possessions came and guess who knocks on my door with his three lovely colleagues. Do you see this picture? Does he look like your typical moving crew? Actually this dude is famous and I just couldn't take their picture with my camera b/c it would have validated the ridiculousness in front of me. Of the 4 movers, two were on there way to greet the grim reaper and I'm most certain one of them walked with Gandhi, and the other 2 jokers walked like my niece. Hyperventilation set in when we were down to the piano and my grandparents china cabinet. I paid the truck driver (who looked like a mover) to get out of his truck violate his union and coordinate this shower of idiots because they had no ramp and would have to lower the goods down 5 feet to the ground. I love all of god's people, I like the Serenity prayer, I like rational thought, I like the phrase "give it to god" and I like whiskey in the wee hours of the morning when a work paper is due and a doo-dah parade is outside.

My piano is standing and needs a tuner. My china cabinet is proudly displaying its crystal.

And "yes" to all of the nosy people, it was cheaper to ship it then buy it all here!!!

Jeremy visits London!

Jeremy and Krista visited London prior to my trip home in October. We had a quick visit with them before Ian headed to New York and I packed up my belongings making London my latest and greatest home.

Jeremy, former Torrance intern and now friend, is the second of the COT intern mafia to come and visit. Kimahn was here earlier in the year, but time lapsed and she never made the pages.

Jeremy took his picture with the newly erected statue of Nelson Mandela, swore that UK escalators were faster here than in the US, and saw London's pumpkin size mushrooms at the Borough market.

Here's Kimahn so she doesn't feel sad. Kimahn took a crazy coach-tour around Europe over a 14 day period and stayed in each stop for only 12 hours. I'm too old for these travels. We met up at Cafe Belgo for the last taste of euro cuisine before she headed home to start at Deloitte in Sac-to.

Well I'm home!!

Ya-woo! I'm very excited. Job offers came in last week and so I hopped on a flight to CA and landed Sunday. I'm home until the following Sunday to coordinate the international move, but more importantly see my family and friends. I met Michaela for the first time last night and that was exciting. Hannah unfortunately was quite shy and her memory failed her from our past encounters so I must rebuild our bond with games of peek-a-boo, baby einstein, piano playing and noise making contests.

I haven't decided on the job just yet, but by the end of today a decision will be made and life will move ON.

Please call my parents or mom's mobile to reach me.
HOme 714 956 5414
Mobile 714 883 0658

Look forward to seeing people.
L

Buyer's Remorse???



You never really know what you're getting yourself into when you buy a house. You don't know what the area is like to live in, you don't know your neighbors, transport functionality, basic logistics and how day-to-day life will pan out.



One recent trip to our local proved informative.



2 pints of lager = $5

Admission into the lounge for live entertainment =$12

Bartender serving beer in bath robe plus towel on her head = Priceless



In my area I can buy a goat's head, ox tongue and a dried chicken. I have stepped over the Bob Marley look alike who was exhaling an odorifous amount of mary jane and appeared to just be chilling on the sidewalk. I have sung along to "How Great Thou Art" while shopping for veg on the high street only to realise that the hymm was getting louder from the people walking beside me. (a possible Fame episode could have broken out.) I have relied too long on grocery store signage and need to learn the different fruit and veg as most of the world knows the difference between a mango and papaya. I live near Netto, it sounds like Ghetto and is a lovely grocery store I'm sure, but like I said, it sounds like ghetto. I have given to those with there hands held out needing a little help.



Recently a woman approached the car as we were turning down the street. She looked quite upset and approached the car in hysterics asking for money to help feed her children. She stated she needed nappies and milk. Ian looked over to me and so I tried to get the fiver to her as quickly as possible. She took it and off she went. Quite proud of my good deed, Ian said, "what are you doing? she said she needed to feed her kids Nappies and Chips! Who buys there kids Chips? She's a crackhead! You just subsidised the poppy fields in Afghanistan. Nice work!"

Well Kuwait was interesting to say the least. I took a red eye from London and arrived first in Doha, Qatar and then to Kuwait City. Doha was amazingly hot and humid, heat that I have never experienced. My flight was full of travellers headed to exotic destinations and did not adequately prep me for the adventure. Pretty hungry I took advantage of the coffee shack and made a trip to the ATM and pulled out 100 Qatari $. 30 of these smackers got me the coffee and pastry I needed to hold me over until the Kuwaiti hunger strike. 30, I'm really hoping that wasn't $30, better yet, I'm really hoping that the coffee wasn't 30 Pooounds! Note to self, check Torrance credit union when I arrive in Kuwait. I soon headed north and landed in Kuwait City, this airport is not so international. The Arabian Knight get up is very daunting to say the least. Well I pulled another $100, but this time Kuwaiti dollars (KD) from the ATM. Who knew that Kuwait recently separated from the dollar? Who knew it surpassed the British Pound? Who knew it was a 1:4 ratio? Who knew that I only needed 2 KD for incidental tips for my 3 day stay? Live and learn. Well it was bloody hot. And despite being told that the hotel would happily serve me food behind closed doors, this didn't exactly happen. I joined my Muslim brothers and sisters and partook in the Ramadan fast. Begrudingly, yes, but a days feast awaited me at sundown.

Why was I there? I was recruited for an MBA Talent Recruit position. I would be travelling to the top universities to find talent that would come and work for Alghanim Industries, a huge conglomerate based in Kuwait whose span is far reaching. While the role sounded exciting and the people were great, who knew Kuwait just wouldn't appeal. The one benefit of working there would have been honing my marketing and sales skills....painting a picture of Kuwait to the most recent graduate of Harvard...who could resist the proposition? Driving around was very odd. There are parts Kuwait City that look like LA, new strip malls, the biggest SUVs, the worst food chains...Applebee's, Fuckruckers and Chi Chi's. I mean really folks, Chi Chi's? That's a Mexican food restaurant that I would every so often visit when I was at Uni at St. Norbert's in Wisconsin! Wisconsin food chains have no business every going international, let alone an ethnic restaurant with no Mexicans anywhere close to the midwest. I digress. But it did appear that every poor food chain had capitalised on the war and introduced itself during the rebuild. As for the rebuild, a lot of construction is happening and cranes fill the skyline. So I did receive my first job offer, but destination Kuwait is not in the cards for me. I'm not ready to give up the Euro lifestyle, live inside for four months every year, regard the GYM as a night out on the town, completely detox.

Also, the flight back was a little intense. Can we say, "fish out of water?" I first approached the customs desk where I was asked to show my Kuwaiti visa, "um, what if I packed it?" the gruff look was enough for me to start praying to Allah to please for the love of god and all that is sacred and holy may I find that Kuwaiti visa in my purse. The shout out to Allah, Buddha and MOses must have worked. Then as I'm waiting for the x-ray screeners some fool walked through with 2.5 gallon jug of water. Here I'm thinking, "Um sir, that's how a bunch of crazies in London grounded all flights, tried to blow up air fleet, and made me smuggle lipstick on board for the past year." I appreciate this man's pilgrimage, but not cool.

Then every which language being spoken and the little Arabic that I've learnt from Howard Stern just wasn't cutting it. We boarded the plane and not only was I a young, lovely American female there was about 109 years difference between me and the other 3 ladies onboard. Hmmm, this might cause some distraction to folks. Sing along folks, this next tune is from Sesame STreet.... "Which one of these is not like the other, which one of these is standing alone, can you guess which one is not like the other...can you guess which one?" So as the plane engine began to roar, behind me were two fools praying aloud. While I appreciate god fearing people, I really like to know what's being said, another fool is putting on his scented oils that began to kill my nostrils yet heighten my awareness to a few key things learnt from Barbara Walters on 20/20 post September 11th, and the mad tripper sitting beside me was looking at me and then back over his shoulder to his friends, back and forth, back and forth.....oh holy moses! The exit door on my right was looking pretty good and yes, I have read my Worst Case Scenario handbook and you better be damn sure that I know how to open that door. Serious angst, bad voodoo and a lot of smelly men later, I soon arrived back in London sans my Ambien and completely knackered.

I can't tell you exactly what it was, but Kuwait is not the place for me. I had a few people think I was Lebanese, Syrian and/or Palestinian. Who knew?

Enjoy the sounds of the Imam whose prayers are amplified around the neighborhood.

Have a rockin' Ramadan.

Salam Malakim,

Laura

I'm headed to Kuwait!

I'll check it out for everyone and will report back.

I'm thinking it will be hot, I'll have to wear way to many clothes and I'll be hungry until 5 p.m. Little do they know that I snuck a few rice cakes and peanut butter.

Hopefully, many photos to come.

Love, L

Putty, The High Five G-G-Guy

Does everyone remember Putty from Seinfeld? Every time he greeted or parted ways with someone, he was quick to extend the high five. Well since then and the end of my sporting days, I've been quite put off by the high five.

So this morning as the fog parted and sunlight busted through, I decided to go for a run. Living at the bottom of hill, I trudged up the street once again, I was thinking that I should be way more buff for enduring these hill runs which I equate to San Francisco or Edinburgh. As I reached the peak quite out of breath and sounding like Jason of Friday the 13th, I turned to find the Mommy and me stroller (pram) brigade headed my way. As I approached, I checked out the kids and the one closest to me I sized up as a cute, little 2.5 year old girl, big eyes, and ringlet brown curls. As I edged around them, the cutest little hand reached out from the stroller, fingers stretched offering the high five. I couldn't let her down, and I reciprocated....High 5 Ggg-guy. It was good stuff.

No pics for this one, just think of the lil hand.

L

Well summer has come and gone. Despite the heavy rains and flooded, I still enjoyed my time out and about. The summer kicked off with Her Majesty's stamp of approval for my extended work visa. A lot of good that's doing me right now. I'm feeling it, jobs are just around the corner. Please pray that the stars and moon align and I do well on my upcoming presentation. I pounded on the doors of the Big Four, and one of them is going to let me in.

Highlights included travelling to Athens, Chicago, Edinburgh for graduation, Ireland with mom, La Roche Barnard (Bretagne) for Ian's Dad's 75th and Edinburgh for the festival. Weekend festivities included Innocent's Village Fete (hung with MBA folks,) seeing Scissor Sisters, going to the Proms (the BBC summer symphony,) walking 7.5 miles to Columbia Market to buy some flowers (we got transport back and this is where i buy more flowers that vases-one of the City's best kept secrets,) mom and dad's visit-kicking Ian out of the flat (for their arrival,) Le Tour de France, and of course not having a job. I'll have to go back and see if I ever shared the experience of La Roche Bernard; it was an amazing little village that I highly recommend if you're on this side.

Remember $400 flights! Just think the money you save on the flight will help toward the Pound/Dollar conversion that is not quite working in my favor.

I'll have you know that I did celebrate Labor Day, I have to stay true to my American roots and there was no way I was about to work. I'm keeping it real, right? Well it sounded good, but I didn't have a job to go to anyway.

Signing off, come visit, don't be a snooze fest.

LO

Is it starting to sink in???

Ian and I bought a house! Ya-woo. I'm quite excited that I will soon stop living like a step above the Parade of Horribles in Paris. Oh yeah, so I guess that would mean that we are back together. I think Ian is the only one really concerned that love has been professed on the blog. I have no idea where I will land a job, but at least I'll have a home that can host all of my friends and family in sunny So Cal. Flights are cheap people, Brit Air for $400 or so from LA. I've got ya thinking now, don't I?

So we will be living in Nunhead, a stones throw from Peckham and East Dulwich. I'll include a few other pics, but my sisters are quite disappointed that the interior resembles a house in Irvine; it's been gutted and properly restored. Hassle free for me! It's kind of amusing considering if we opted for the true 1890's version, we'd have an outhouse. I'll take irvine any day, sans poltergeists and 1960's kitchens. This house is Clean!

And P.S. I'm not telling anyone about the house purchase. It's on the blog, there will be no favoured emails. Keep up.

Alright, I'm testing this out to see if the video stream will work. It's a new feature for the Blogger and I'm quite excited. Let me know if it bogs down your systems or if it's just like viewing other nonsense on YouTube.

Assuming you can check out the video you will soon learn that most of my videos run 2 minutes long. Originally, I had assumed that (key word assume) my camera maxed out at 2 minutes. Au contraire....definitely user error and due to a weak index finger.

Well I have learned over the past 2 years what endears me to certain countries over the another and often it comes down to music. While the memories may fade of fabulous meals, accents and daily excursions, I have found that often it is the music in the background that pieces my life together.

One of the greatest highlights of my China trip was stumbling (not in the drunken sense) into this bar to find a great Chinese band where the lead singer performed One Night in Beijing. Despite the fact we were really in Shanghai, my Shanghai sidekick, Cecile and I took in the scene. It was an obvious crowd pleaser and a little english went a long way. Blending modern and traditional song and voice, this song set the backdrop for my trip.

Let's see if it works.

Kisses, L