Week of April 9th, in Review

This past week was surprisingly spectacular!

Monday, April 9th

Got in Monday night, dropped off my luggage, and went for a walk to just enjoy the weather. Its beautifully warm here, still hasn't rained (am I really in London?), and flowers are blooming everywhere. Yes, it was 11PM, but still gorgeous. Grabbed a bit of dinner at the local neighborhood mart and back to the flat. Got settled and off to bed.

Tuesday, April 10th

When in London, there are four of us on our little work team: me, Kevin, David and Sandip. There are two other simultaneous projects going on of US BearingPoint (BE) folks, including my flatmate, Sally, for a total of about 20 of us. Kevin's about my age and a lot of fun, so if you haven't heard of him already, you will, b/c he's become my partner in crime inside work and out. David is a great guy, but a few years older and more quiet. He's married to one of our "bosses" also here, so though we enjoy him in the office, we don't see him much outside. Sandip is also awesome. He's a local (well, now... he's an Indian transplant) and though historically hasn't played much with us, we saw a lot of him this week. All three are doctors, so I'm the lone non-doc. Our big boss, Tuck, jokes that I'm here to keep the docs on track so they don't spend all day holding "faculty meetings" ha, ha. They're all brilliant, so I'm a good addition as project mgr to keep us all focused and ensure all our great ideas actually make it to paper.

Since Kevin was traveling on Monday, David was home in the US and Sandip on holiday in India, I decided to "work from home" on Tuesday, which made for a nice transition. Took my time getting up, got groceries, nice leasurely day. Not to much to report. Just adjusting. I'd hoped to attend a "Pastorate" (like a small group) for church that night, but seems they're on a break. Maybe in a few weeks. So I just spent the night at home, lounging, adjusting, and watching Scrubs and the 70's Show. That appears to be the staple here when bored at night, b/c one or the other is ALWAYS on. Never watched them in the States, but funny.

Wednesday, April 11th

Kevin arrived Tuesday night, so we had to work more "traditionally" on Wed... and yet, we so totally didn't. We started out about 9 or 10AM and took our laptops to St. James Park. St. James Park is an absolutely delightful park, between Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace. Its one of my most favorite places in all of London (thus why we ended up there). We rented two little lawn chairs and set up shop, overlooking a beautiful garden with a pond behind it. We actually got quite a bit done. The fresh air allowed our creative juices to run and the ability to process aloud was quite helpful for what we were working on. The BearingPoint office is all "hotdesks" which means its a giant cube farm, first come, first serve. Unless you get there early, its hard to get two desks together and if you chat too much, you get dirty looks for being disruptive. Offices and conference rooms are extremely hard to come by. So... the park.

About mid-day we saw this odd commotion. I giant white pelican was trotting down the footpath and drawing lots of attention. We was a magnificient creature; I've never seen anything like him (he was HUGE!). He was also quite tame, allowing us to come over, pet him, take pictures and the like. We named him Oscar. I'll have to make pics and the video we took available as soon as we can get it off Kevin's camera.

We stayed in the park until about 3 and then returned to my flat to work some more and take a few conference calls. Went into the office about 5 for a bit and by 7 were out the door and out to dinner w/ Sandip, who'd also returned late Tuesday. Went to Cafe Rouge, a fun little French cafe about a block from my flat. It was delightful. Went home, got in my PJs... and about 10PM got a phone call. Kevin and some guys from the other BE projects had all gone out and wanted me to come out. I resisted... for all of two seconds... and then joined them at this fun wine bar right behind the cathedral. Of course I had to stop and stare at the St. Paul's on the way b/c the only thing more magnifient than it during the day is how it looks at night. We had a grand time, though I was on the only girl, so you can only imagine the razzing I took. I think I secretly enjoyed all the attention. :)

Thursday, we thought we'd go into the office, but decided.... nah.... and went to Regents Park instead. This park is up be where I used to live after college. We had an equally wonderful day. Kevin kept saying how London is growing on him. He HATES being here, but he's also done nothing to enjoy it and has had no one to play with. I told him to just stick with me. ; ) We tok some time to walk all around the park. This park is larger than St. James, kinda like Central Park. A lot of different areas with a variety of environments to see. At one point we actually thought we found a wireless internet signal (which would have allowed us to stay all day). It was coming up on our computers as "the cloud". We tried to follow "the cloud" for a time to pick up a strong signal but failed. It was pretty amusing though walking around the grand park on a gorgeous day, in business suits with a laptop open like a GPS. We gave up and had lunch at an outdoor cafe overlooking another brilliant garden. Did I mention the flowers are EVERYWHERE! Its so cool. In fact, I'm making it a habit of always having fresh flowers in our flat b/c they're so easy to come by. And after having to leave an amazing bouquet at home after Easter, I feel I just must make up for it... over and over again! : )

Later in the afternoon we went to the client's office for some meetings, which were painful (long story), but then back to BearingPoint's office and got a lot done before again hitting the town. Set out as just me and Kevin but ended up being about 9 of us for a wonderful Indian dinner and then out at a pub until midnight and then back to a coworkers flat until 2AM. Its not taboo here to talk about politics and religion. In fact, I'm sensing its required of any good night out at the pub. Turns out Jovan, one of the UK team members on one of our projects, is also a solid Christian, so that conversation got interesting. Ended up him and I completely defending our faith againt the others. Its was interesting and I think we did well. Pray for hearts to open. I was mostly out with the UK crew which may be tougher to reach, but pray both for the UK and US part of the team, that Jovan and I can be a witness and have more opportunities. The political conversation was pretty boring. As the only American (Kevin and Ted were had both fallen asleep) I think they were trying to push my buttons and show arrogance. I didn't fall prey. I know I'm ignorant, most American's are ignorant, when it comes to the truth about politics. The best we can do is be humble enough to admit it. Gave him NOTHING to work with, ha, ha.

Kevin left today, Sandip was in other meetings, and David is still at home, so I could plan my day for myself. I decided to sleep in and then go to the gym. Good thing! Because later in the day everything hit the fan with my "US job" and ended up working until late in the evening. It was fine though. I had enjoyed the week and tomorrow would be off to the country, so it was a good night to head back to the flat and just go to bed. Or I should say at least try. I guess those are some other prayer requests I have. It may be partially due to my late nights and late mornings, but I have yet to adjust this trip to the time difference. Even if I don't go out, I struggle to get to sleep, often up until 2 or 3 with no effort. I've been able to go to sleep naturally (without Ambien) all week. In fact, I tried to switch to Tylenol PM and its simply not strong enough. I'm also having some allergy issues, which is also giving me some tummy problems, so if I fall asleep, I have trouble staying asleep. Its tough b/c I'm tired a lot and living on coffee. Nice, huh? Coffee to wake up; Ambien to go to sleep. Not a trend I care to continue.

Well... that's all for this posting. I'll tell you about my grand weekend in Kent soon. Love and miss you all!