Jet Lag(ging) behind

So I'm still not on schedule yet and neither are the kids. I woke up at NOON today...I don't think I've ever woken up that late before in my life! It sure felt strange to eat breakfast at noon! Lunch was at 3 pm and now we just finished dinner at 9 pm...so I sort of caught up but all the meals were squished together today! Well since it would be too late to tour anything today we opted to walk into the town centre again and look at some different shops. We went to two parks today, which the kids enjoyed exploring as the equipment is quite a bit different than typical American playgrounds. We stopped for a nice strong cup of European coffee--mmmmm! The family at the table next to us chatted us up for a while and let me know that they sell Chicago-style cheesecake somewhere nearby. Which isn't it "New York" cheesecake? She said there was a Chicago pizza place somewhere around here, too. Her kids (4 and maybe 2) took an interest in my kids, which is funny because they must sound strange to them...and I have to say I love hearing the little kids in their accents! Although I suppose we're the ones with the accents now... I still don't have the washer dryer figured out completely--it's taken all day to wash/dry this one load...hopefully soon I'll have it figured out!

From sparks to water...a nerve-testing day

Well today started off with a *bang*...literally! I plugged my blowdryer into the adapter and that into the converter and turned it on--and barely a wind came out of it. So I turned to "high"...and POOF -- sparks flew out of that socket like no other. Not only that but it blew the fuse on the microwave, dishwasher (mid-cycle), washing/dryer (mid-cycle--argh!), and the fridge! My blowdryer is toast and it was soooo worth it as once we were out and about it rained quite heavily -- can you sense my sarcasm here?? So preparing for a bad hair day I didn't want to venture far. We needed a few things from the grocery store and I desperately needed some coffee by that point so we settled into Starbuck's for a mid-morning snack. I ordered a mocha, although it tasted different than home, as near everything has so far. Of course this couldn't be without incident as the stroller had to tip backwards twice with Ava in it, of course, and the one and only teeny bathroom did not lock. When a line had formed poor little Ava was still on the potty when the lock-less door was opened! I was sweating by the time we left there! On to the supermarket where the stroller once again tipped...it is just so heavy with the grocery bags, umbrellas and jackets, even when I enlisted Braden, age 6, and Skylar, age 9, for carrying help. Once we had our purchases I felt all must go well from here...and then we stepped out into a downpour. Well, what's a little rain, I figured, after a day like today!? It felt very Seattle-esque in that it was simply "rain" and not the crazy thunderstorms we experienced this summer back home. Obviously rain doesn't phase the Londoners as they bike, smoke, walk, and carry-on. It sure felt good to get out of our waterlogged clothing once home! After Mike got home, we put our nerves to the test as he drove for the first time here and we headed to Tesco, which is similar to Walmart. Not only is it strange to 1.) drive on the other side of the car, but it's even more strange to 2.) drive on the other side of the road, and 3.) it's hard to drive somewhere where you are completely unfamiliar! After several roundabouts and motorways, a couple U-turns and many red-light runnings, we arrived at our destination. Phew! After the drive I felt my brain was fried so trying to sort through all these different products took some time, as none looked familiar. We did find some soy and rice milk and even soy yogurt and pudding. I'm still holding out to visit Waitrose for some more products, but am happy that I found what I did. A couple things to note--the traffic lights are a bit different. When the light is just about to turn green it blinks yellow and then cars start accelerating. There are several word differences, of course, such as buggy instead of stroller, trolley instead of shopping cart, and car park instead of parking lot. I have also been approached a couple times for directions, which means I must look like I know where I'm going. After I tried my best to help them (or so I think) they happily thanked me with "Cheers!" On that note, I have some chores to do and absolutely must take the rubbish out straightaway. Cheers!

Walking Windsor -- Day One

Well, we're all settled in our temporary flat here in Windsor. We'll be moving this weekend again to our bigger 3-bedroom flat. We are still experiencing bouts of jet lag, but the kids are sure bouncing back quickly! The flight was around 8 hours and they did fantastic! They happily watched a couple movies (Toy Story 2 and Diary of a Wimpy Kid), read, slept, and ate. The kids all have food allergies so I planned their food ahead - pre-planning their meals and bringing our soft-sided cooler on board ended up working out perfectly! We're discovering some of the differences from home already--the washer/dryer combo is in the kitchen and I'll surely need to read the manual to figure out how to use it! The convection oven (in Celcius) also needed some manual reading. Another thing that I love are that the windows are without screens as there are no bugs! Now if only I could figure out how to dry my load of towels in the washer and use my converter to charge my laptop--arghh! Today we made like true Europeans and walked to a grocery store. That's right, no minivan pulling up to a ginormous grocery store with endless options! We simply walked about a mile to Peascod Street to the local Marks & Spencer. While trying to grab a "trolley" (that's a shopping cart to us Americans) we realized they were all locked up. We inquired with the cashier who informed us we needed to insert Pounds to unlock it--luckily I had brought along some reusable shopping bags so we opted for that instead. After stocking up on a few things, we walked around Windsor and ate just outside Windsor Castle on one of the several benches, which is amazingly HUGE, I really can't believe how big it is. But the odd thing is it is set literally *right* on the road...I figured it would have more land around it. Windsor is such a neat town to walk around, although the stroller on the cobblestone streets made for quite the bumpy ride for Miss Ava! All in all it was a good first day and so fun to watch the kids' excitement about everything. Even if Braden does still think people talk "London" and use "London Money" ;-)