We made it a month!

In honor of us making it abroad for one month today, here's 30 pictures for 30 days:

We found some coffee shops.

We went to Hogwarts! (Just kidding, but we did go to King's Cross Station)

We went to a neat bookstore in Marylebone.

Broadway Market on Sundays just around the corner from our place. It's like a farmers' market/ arts festival every week!

We found this pretty Mosque. The picture really doesn't do it justice.

We took a train to Oxford.

We explored Oxford...

... and went to the History of Science Museum.

This is the Ashmolean Museum.

We saw Einstein's Blackboard!

We found out that Oxford is OU too.

We've spent time in the rain...

...and the sunshine.

We took Flat Stanley to Westminster Abbey.

We also saw Big Ben. Jake tried to convince Becca to go on the London eye, but she's not going.

We went to the Hard Rock Cafe after a 45 minute wait to get in. It was worth it for the free refills.

Becca broke two of the glasses in our apartment, which is kind of a bummer because we didn't have very many to begin with :(

We went to Olympic Park in Stratford.

We've been on lots of pubic transportation.

We had a picnic in Hyde Park and saw this horse!

Hyde Park was pretty.

We went to the Natural History Museum in London.

Jake occasionally goes to work at the Google building.

It's hard to tell, but this is a picture of Becca jogging in the park.

Jake finally let Becca cut his hair, and she did a great job!

Sharie (Jake's mom) came to visit!

We had a fun day going to a play at the Globe Theater and seeing the Tower of London.

We climbed the (very narrow) stairs in this clock tower...

...out of the tiny door...

...to the top! We saw our whole section of the city from there

 
On this side of things, living abroad for as long as we can seems a lot less scary. We are learning some things, but so far, not as much as we thought we would. I guess you could say we learned that we know ourselves and each other about as well as we thought we did, and the world isn't too surprising of a place (which we think is a good thing!). 

Of course, we miss our family and friends. Jake misses his work friends and Becca misses working with kids (she can't get a job here or volunteer to work with kids because we didn't get visas). We knew these things would come up --and it doesn't necessarily make them any easier-- but we know we want to be open to where our lives are taking us. Right now, we are grateful to be where we are!

Here's to another month!

Sharie's Visit

Mom stopped by for a whirlwind of a visit. Good times were had by all, and it was definitely great to see her. 

We got a chance to do some fun things with her. On Friday we went and saw a play at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, and then for a completely different experience went to the Tower of London to view both torture devices and the Crown Jewels. Holy crap right? Throw in an aquarium and a pirate ship and we would've just about seen everything there is to see. The day definitely added to the surrealness of my life.

Speaking of my life, Moms visit helped me put into words this feeling I've been trying to peg. For the last month I have to keep reminding myself that this is my life; that I don't need to wake up. My life is currently made up of living in London, working from home, and being married to the best wife ever. It has been feeling like living in a dream. What I figured out when Mom left is this feeling is very similar to the feeling I get when I'm on vacation in some incredible place, but when on vacation that feeling is always coupled with an impending end, it has a definite end and it's quickly approaching. So I have the feeling of life being awesome without the pressure of its brevity.

And it's weird.