Living in Hackney

Today it's back to work after an awesome couple of days getting to know our surroundings. So far everything is better than we expected.

Our place is awesome, the pictures pretty much do it justice, except for a strangely strong smell of carrots coming from the kitchen that I will spend today trying to eradicate. Our view of the park has turned out to be very comforting. We both think that adjusting to life in a big city is as difficult, if not more difficult, than adjusting to another country. We've already had to adjust our mindsets to different modes of transportation and smaller grocery lists. Our cards don't work in most places here (something about not having a chip? Advice on this would be appreciated) so I've found myself counting out change awkwardly and saying, "Sorry, I'm new" a lot. Also, they try to pass off fried ham as bacon here, which is absolutely unacceptable. On another note, fried ham is delicious.

Here's what we've been up to so far (I borrowed pictures from the internet to illustrate our adventures):

Yesterday we saw Lawless (it was really good) at the coolest movie theater I've ever been to. It's a very short walk from our place. We probably won't go see movies as much as we did in OKC because it's a lot more expensive than Tinseltown, but I'm sure we will go back.

We tried out public transportation in London by going to Trafalgar Square on Tuesday. We took the overground, underground, and the National Rail. It was all very successful.

We've been to this bakery every day, it's called E5 Bakehouse. I think it's going to be our place. They've got great coffee and wonderful baked goods, plus it's really neat. It's just around the corner from our place. It's the first place I ventured to on my own and I didn't get lost!

There is a ping pong table in the park! (This is it) We are going to practice our skills before it gets too cold. We've been going for walks around the park a lot and we even ate lunch there yesterday. It's a very nice and happy park.

Hasta luego

Tomorrow Becca and I finally leave the States after a wonderful couple of days spent in Pagosa Springs with my dad.

It feels incredibly strange to leave the country you've called home, even if it is for a comparatively short time. It's really hard to put a finger on what exactly this feeling is. In some ways it feels very much like an ending, the end of a vacation, the close of a chapter, and in an equal number of ways it feels like something incredibly fresh and exciting and terrifying is going on. I asked our fellow long-term traveller Deah about this and she assured me I wasn't crazy (at least, not for feeling like this).

Either way, something is definitely happening. 

Tomorrow we're going to drive from Pagosa Springs to Durango, hop on a flight to Denver, meet Becca's Aunt and cousins for lunch, and make it back to the airport in time for our 8:45 pm departure, to head directly to London. When we arrive there at 12:35 pm on Monday we'll either have to shell out for a Taxi or lug our baggage around on the over-under-all-around-ground. Then, we nap.

To all the friends and family we were able to get together with in the last month, I need to say thank you for putting up with the craziness that has been our life, because we both thoroughly enjoyed the time we got to spend with you. You guys and gals are really hard to leave.