"Romancing Abroad (Living in London, England)" krblake's Profile

I'm about to embark on a two-month, eight-week stay in London.

Okay, I admit it. I've been in love with England since I was ten years old. I even spent a couple of months working there as a nanny (or au pair) when I was twenty. It was a wonderful experience that taught me a great deal about the country I have unofficially adopted as my own. Since the year 2000, my husband and I have attempted to make a yearly trip there. We missed a couple of years, so this year we decided to do something a little different. We decided to live there for two months. If it works well for us, and we decide we want a repeat experience, we may do it again in 2011. Probably won't in 2012 because of the Olympics, but who knows.

When I'm not traveling, and even when I am traveling, I write Paranormal Romance Novels. For those unfamiliar with the term, they are essentially romance novels with characters that possess extraordinary abilities. Paranormals, as they are more often called, are usually about vampires, witches, ghosts, etc., but they only require an element of the extraordinary, and they must end "happily ever after."

My first book was a contemporary romance set in New York City with a 200-year-old vampire as its hero. My second book, set in late Victorian England, had a wizard who could shape shift into a white leopard as its hero, matched against a heroine who was a sensitive, possessing the ability to "see" into the hearts and souls of others. My next book has me back again with the vampires as I let the hero's best friend in the first book become the hero of this one. This tale begins in a refurbished Norman Keep in a fictional English town and ends in New York City. The book of my heart is a trilogy concerning a cursed 18th Century English Duke, who has the ability to time travel. I mention these only to give some background as to my interests and the types of things I'm likely to cover in my Virtual Tourist blog. If you're interested in learning more about my books, I invite you visit my web site and browse. I have games, excerpts and some special prizes being offered right now.

My goal here, however, is primarily to entertain. I want to share my experiences with others complete with photographs and perhaps even videos that will capture the extraordinary things I discover in seemingly everyday, ordinary activities. During my two month stay, I hope to travel from one side of England to the other with perhaps a journey into Scotland, Ireland and/or Wales as well. We intend to visit Brighton, Herne Bay, Lands End, York and many other places. Where I can, I will take pictures and post them. I'll also post about our experiences through my own unique viewpoint.

Kathryn & hubby having tea at the London Ritz-2006

Note, just click any of the smaller photos to see a larger version of it

As a writer, the most important thing I'm going to pack is my computer. So, of course, how and where to pack it has become the heated topic of the day between me and my adoring spouse, who has just come into my room to request that I refer to him throughout this venture as "Carlos, the cute pool boy." I love him dearly, but Carlos he is not... I'll even sneak a picture of him in here so you can see for yourself what I mean.

Since my intent is to create a daily blog of my experiences (if possible), my needs for my laptop will be drastically different from his. I want mine to be readily available to me at any time (even on the plane) if I feel so inclined. He doesn't intend to use his until we are situated in our West Ken flat and getting ready to do our usual "touristy" stuff. We are both going to want to keep up on our e-mail, and I have a web site to maintain as well. Also, as a woman my packing needs are drastically different from his. Right? Please say yes, or nod your head, if only to make me feel better.

Our problem is not so much regarding what we want to take as it is regarding how we will manage to get it all there without bankrupting ourselves with the extra baggage or overweight fees. Rick Steves gives some excellent travel advice on how to fit everything you'll need into a back pack, Packlist but that just isn't me.

Oh, I intend to take a back pack, but that will most likely contain all the "extra" electronic equipment I will want to have with me, not clothes (other than the requisite change I'll need if my checked luggage doesn't make it to our destination at the same time we do). Rick gets a camera crew to carry all that stuff, so I really don't think his advice pertains to me. Okay, it could, perhaps, but I can tell you now that it's not going to.

I will follow up later with a photograph of our luggage, so you can laugh.

Scary Halloween Jack o' Lanterns

I love Halloween! And I will readily admit that I enjoy all the spooky stuff that is generally meant to entertain the kiddies. My hubby, unfortunately, does not feel the same way. He, like many others with more sophisticated tastes, I guess, get little to no enjoyment out of places like "The London Dungeon," while I do, right along with the younger kids. So, since we are going to be in London during "All Hallows Eve" I've gone through a lot of websites and bookmarked some of the "special" events occurring throughout the greater city of London at this time of year. I may be going to them alone. Fine! No problem. Sigh.

Below are a few examples of what I've found and might like to attend:

October 25 - Walk - London Paranormal - Spooky Smithfields and Beyond
October 26 - Walk - London Paranormal - Saints and Sinners of Southwark
October 27 - Walk - London Paranormal - The Killing Fields of Spitalfields
October 29 - Halloween at Vinopolis
October 30 - Winterwell Halloween Party: Victorian Villains
October 30 - London Walks Explorer Day to Blenheim Palace and Oxford (Horrible Happenings at Halloween)
October 30 & 31 - Ham House Halloween Ghost Tour

Others are being held over the next couple of weeks until Oct. 31
Halloween Chocolate Afternoon Tea at the Podium Restaurant and Bar - held daily 2-6pm
Halloween - the Darker Side of Greenwich - The Royal Observatory

I'm sure there are many, many more, but these are the ones I've found that I thought might be fun. As to how many I'll get to attend, that remains to be seen. I'll follow up as things get closer.

Kathryn with luggage in front of the flat

Flights: we lucked out. We had so much room on the plane from Cincy to JFK that I had a row of three seats entirely to myself. We even managed to get our own two-seat rows on the flight to LHR, which made it easier for us to sleep, though neither of us did really well on this trip.

Our plane arrived early, which normally would be a good thing, right? We were supposed to arrive around 7:15 A.M. London time (2:15 A.M.) EDT. We arrived at 6:45 A.M. and the line to get through immigration at LHR (Heathrow Airport) probably had about 150 people ahead of us. We usually land at Gatwick Airport with maybe 20 or so already in line by the time we get there (since we usually stop to use the facilities), so we were unprepared for the throngs of people that Heathrow appears to handle. It was around 9 A.M. when we met with our immigrations officer. He couldn't understand why we would want to spend two months in his country in winter. However, when we told him we were retired now from our 9-5 jobs, he seemed to accept our decision without further comment. The thought of Christmas in London just didn't do it for him, I guess.

After immigration, we were on to baggage claim and customs. Went through there without any problem, since we had a trolley (cart) for our luggage. Then we wheeled our way to the Underground. Plan: I stay with the luggage while hubby "tops up" our Oyster Cards. Good plan, except my Oyster card wouldn't register in the machine, so hubby had to see a ticket agent. We sidled our luggage over to one of the benches so I could sit, and Carlos (my cute pool boy) went over to speak with the ticket agent. He suggested we register our cards to prevent mine from disappearing from the system again.

Oyster cards in hand, we then had to load each other up and get on the Underground (Picadilly Line). At the moment Hubby was struggling to pull his bags onto the car, the handle on his brand new back pack/luggage broke. Despite the mishap, we did manage to get all our luggage into the car and then rode the train from Heathrow's Terminal 4 to Baron's Court with our hands protecting our luggage from rolling away as we rode.

Baron's Court saw us gracelessly get off the train, and struggle to get on one from the District line. We stood, since West Ken was the next stop, only to realize that to get out of that station meant climbing about 50,000 steps (okay, slight exaggeration here, but it didn't feel like it to us). We managed, with the help of some very kind strangers. Then we had a half-mile walk to our flat. Panting and hurting, we had to make several stops and luggage readjustments, but we finally made it with the ten minute journey taking us only an hour. Once there, however, we discovered we had no way to get into the flat. (See photo of Kathryn grinning like an exhausted idiot as she stands with our luggage before the door of our flat that we couldn't get in).

It was nearly 11 A.M. and we weren't expected until after 2 P.M.. Hubby walked to the nearby hotel and made several calls. We finally got hold of someone and after climbing about 100 stairs with 300 lbs of luggage (not really, but it certainly felt that way), we were in the flat. Okay, in shape, we are definitely not!

Once we got in the flat, we did exactly what we said we wouldn't do. We took a nap and slept until around 5 P.M., after which we gathered the energy we needed to unpack. Around 9 P.M., we decided to take a walk, and immediately locked ourselves out of our flat. That's what we get for napping instead of learning how everything operates. After a lot of trial and error, we finally figured out how to unlock and lock the door successfully.

That challenge met, we walked around town and bought a few essentials. After eating some chicken and fries (normally called chips in England) we'd purchased from "The Chicken Shack," we attempted to get on the internet. Please note that I said "attempted."

Finally, I gave up and went to bed after midnight. Will try again in the morning. Too pooped to be worth a d**n right now.

View out the Sitting Room Window

Didn't do too bad. Got up at 11am, made coffee and toast and tried once again to get on the internet. Hubby's computer worked just fine being connected directly via cable to the Broadband LAN. I attempted to connect via wireless, with a modicum of success, but AVG's firewall didn't want to play with the new broadband. I'm not comfortable driving without a seat belt, or surfing the net without a firewall, so, I tried again, this time through the same cable hubby was using. AVG still didn't want to put up their firewall for me, so I gave up on them and re-enabled the Windows firewall.

While my computer rebooted, I took some pictures of the flat. The picture I've uploaded here is looking out onto the same parking lot I stood with the luggage in the above picture. Now, it's off to the shower for me, then it's off to Tesco (The Kroger of London). "Let's go Tescoing" almost has the same ring to it, but not quite.

We will definitely be getting our exercise while we are here. Tesco's isn't that far away, I guess. Though it would have been a lot closer if Kensington Gardens would have allowed us to simply walk through their area. Because it is a gated community (not to be confused with Kensington Palace), the guards did not feel comfortable allowing two semi-reputable Americans to walk through their "privately guarded" area. I guess if I lived there, I wouldn't want non-Gardenites to walk through my area either.

So, we had to take the "long-cut" to get to the supermarket. It was very large, but we had fun doing some comparison shopping. With the exchange rate at about $1.59 per GBP, there were a few items that surprised us, like grapes that translated to be about $4.00 a lb. Most of the times the exchange is dollar to GBP, meaning if something cost $1 in the states, it cost 1 GBP here. When we left, we were able to purchase grapes for .99 a lb. Anyway, to stock our small kitchen with staples (milk, salt, soda and papergoods) and items for dinner, we spent nearly 70 GBP. That's about $111.00. We were not cheap dates today.

As we gathered our items, we realized that we would need to carry 5 bags between the two of us. Since we still hadn't recovered from yesterday's luggage fiasco, we had to stop several times just to rest our arms and fingers. Managing about twenty stops then resting, we got back to the flat around 9 PM and after collapsing just to catch our breath, we unpacked then fixed dinner. We finished eating around 10 P.M. (very Continental of us) and now I'm sitting at the computer.

Tomorrow, we have a few more things planned. Purchase tickets to see "Wicked" next month, then see if the tkts booth has anything available at discount for us to see Friday night.

Picture of TV and corner of hubby's computer table

I love London and England, I really do, but sometimes my stomach just doesn't agree with my heart and mind, and today it was arguing voraciously. So, yesterday's plans for today fell right back into bed along with me. Hubby got up and read some touristy books, took a nap, then went out alone to forage in the city. He brought back some neat stuff, while I lay in the bed and slept. Such a party pooper!

One of the things we found was a small store that actually carries Mountain Dew. I am a "Dewer." Love the stuff, even though it is probably one of the worst things I can drink. You just can't find it in England, but we did! Yay! Only to discover that it is being imported from Poland and all the writing on the bottle (except for the name) is in Polish. I may just need to bring back an empty bottle for show and tell.

Another thing worthy of mention is the high-sided tubs they have here (will need to include picture later). Normally, not a problem. But when your legs are already aching from all the additional walking you aren't used to, they tend to protest mightily when you make that one giant step into tubdom. Once there, you need to figure out how to operate all the various knobs and handles. The ones in this flat are fairly straight forward. It has a hand-shower with three settings which is nice, though water pressure is lower here in order to conserve precious resources.

Tonight, we are eating in and enjoying the fruits of hubby's foraging. Most likely ham, turkey and swiss sandwiches. Not exciting exactly, but something we often do at home. I managed to get some editing done, and took a couple videos of the flat, which I will most likely use for scavenging photos since I'm a pretty poor video taker.

Not sure if I should bother to say this or not, since plans change, but tomorrow we intend to take a bus to Picadilly Circus and do some of the things we were supposed to do today. My bad.

Hubby's computer table - I get the kitchen

Looks like Carlos and I just can't get our schedules together. We were both up around 9 A.M. Not too bad. Had Cheerios, toast/crumpets, and juice for breakfast. Then hubby started to feel the same way I felt yesterday. He went back to bed and slept until around 4 P.M. With most of the day gone, we decided we would look through the travel store on Regent Street, then check out tkts for possible theatre tickets tonight.

We left the apartment around 5 P.M., walked to Olympia Station on Kensington High Street and took the number 9 bus. It was almost empty when we got on, but both levels filled very quickly. We got off at Piccadilly Circus and were amazed by how many stores we used to visit in the area were no longer there. Has to be the economy.

After we finished gawking, we took a leisurely stroll down Regent Street and got to the Tourist store around 6 P.M. Unfortunately, they close at 4 P.M. on Saturdays. I recalled that they closed early (only open until 6 P.M. weekdays) but I didn't realize they had such an early closing time on Saturday. Have to note that down somewhere for future reference.

Since we were already out and about, we trudged along Haymarket over to Leicester Square where they were holding a fair with some pretty amazing rides for such a small area. Hubby said he'd watch if I wanted to attempt one of them, but I wasn't feeling quite that adventurous. Lots of screaming and yelling (from people on the rides) that I'm sure the folks at the tkts booth found thrilling to hear all day long. As we checked the boards to see what was playing it started to rain. The temperature was in the low 50s F, which wasn't bad when dry, but quickly turned chilly when the rain hit. Since it was too wet and cold to window shop, we opted to simply return home to our cozy little flat.

Got back around 7 P.M. and gave ourselves a few quick lessons on how to operate a British gas stove. I still don't think we've quite gotten the hang of the microwave, but despite our lack of savoir faire, everything we've heated has been edible. After dinner and clean-up we realized we still didn't know how to work the dishwasher, nor did we have any dishwasher only soap. So, back to the store hubby went. He came back with... ta-da "Fairy dishwasher only" soap made by P&G (a Cincinnati, OH based company). Don't think the "Fairy" brand would work well in the USA, but it seems to sell just fine here. We have it for regular dish washing also.

Turns out our dishwasher still thought it was on the cycle run by others on Wednesday and its blinking lights indicated it was still drying. We tried recycling it, but it wasn't until our 3rd try that we had any success. Dishes are washing nicely now, thank you very much.

Need to get a bit more work done, then I'm calling it a day. Tomorrow we have a theatre walk scheduled.

Kathryn's work area in the kitchen

Today was the theatreland walking tour given by the Society of London Theatre, and we covered most, if not all, of London's West End. Our tour lady, Diane Burstein, really knew her stuff. As an example of the interesting tidbits she shared, Diane told us about the ODEON cinemas, which were created by Oscar Deutsch in 1928. According to Diane, and the Odeon publicists, the name of the cinemas was derived from Oscar's motto, "Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation." Although, admittedly, Wikipedia doubts if this is true. One thing that definitely is true, however, is that the Odeon in Leicester Square is the largest single screen cinema in the United Kingdom and one of the few with its circle and stalls remaining intact.

Diane also told us about the Donmar Warehouse, a not-for-profit theatre located near Covent Garden, which was established by Donald Albery and Margot Fontayne as a private drama studio and rehearsal room for Fonteyn's London Festival Ballet. The Donmar is still called a warehouse since the theatre was created from what was once the vat room and hops warehouse of a brewery. As a theatre, the Donmar has hosted some well-known personalities, one of the most memorable being Nicole Kidman's nude scene on stage. One reviewer quoted her appearance as being the equivalent of "theatrical Viagra."

Despite the fact that both of us were a little sore after we finished our tour, we decided to get adventurous and try some new buses. There is a particular bus that terminates right in front of the Earl Court's Tesco. We had seen the big signs touting that the store was open 24 Hours, so we thought we'd pop in and buy a few groceries for dinner. We had a rather long wait when we switched buses, but the bus dropped us right off at Tesco's front door. However, the "Open 24 Hours" store was closed. That's when we noticed that the big sign touting this claim had, in small print at the bottom, this qualifying statement "From Mon 8 A.M. until Sunday 5 P.M." So, it is open 24 hours, just not daily. Sigh.

We ended up getting "Pronto Pizza" for dinner. Surprisingly enough, it was pretty good. I'd never considered having pizza in England before, but this little pizza place offered two for the price of one, with a choice between thin or thick crusts, with a lot of flavor. Even if the toppings were a bit on the sparse side.

We got back to the flat around 8 P.M. had dinner, then hubby went into the sitting room and watched a little telly as he caught up on the American NFL football scores. Not a bad day at all, I'd say.

Daily updates continued in the Personal Album - click the link below.