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Visiting parents and random notes

Famous England weather. It is not too cold, just cold enough to be unpleasant, and with wind, dark skies and intermittent rain, it is hard to will oneself to go outside… We still do, though. My parents arrived for their very first visit to England, and I am using my…

New Year in Switzerland (part 2)

If you have not read the first part of our report, you can do it here. Otherwise, read on. The first full day in Switzerland met us with springtime-like weather, warm and sunny. Internet reports told of very little snow on lower mountains, and since our family – Becky excepted…

New Year in Switzerland (part 1)

Well, we’re back! We had a great time, despite having driven more than a thousand miles overall, and entered new year on a high note. Hope you all did the same! (I don’t mean driving) Our sortie to Switzerland ended up being quite a successful expedition (with the unfortunate exception…

Christmas time

If anybody has a chance to go see Mary Poppins on Broadway – we highly recommend it. Going by our Travelog ratings system, ♥♥♥. Magnificent production, great songs, fun all around. In a word, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!! We went to the city rather late last night, so as to not tire the…

It’s a foggy Christmas…

School is out! Vacation! I have not been so happy about it since I was a pupil myself. Because it means that I do not have to wake up at 6:45 and drive Becky to school! Actually, I kind of overslept for two days in a row. Well, not really……

New camera

On Saturday at 6:45 in the morning, we were woken up by the loud knocks on the front door. I ran down the stairs in my sleepwear ensemble – that’s as far as I am willing to go into intimate details at the moment – and accepted the package with…

Hairdressing and casual Mufti

You know what we used to employ the flat-iron for? Kids arts and crafts projects. The shirts were dropped at the cleaners and returned back to us pressed and starched. Now, the flat-iron is being used at its most original designation… Over the weekend, I got myself a haircut. Not…

Saturdays out continued

Natasha made a fantastic stir-fry today. Somehow, she disregarded my preference for having meat at dinner… After foolishly expressing my dissatisfaction, I had to work overtime to praise leftover spaghetti with ground beef to avoid going altogether hungry… For the second Saturday in a row, we were greeted by pleasant…

A wary blogger

Four days without a post is hardly a way to keep the audience engaged. An article in Economist recently was talking about people who make blogging their main occupation and actually build huge followings by writing about their everyday life. How exactly do they do that? I struggle to find…

Parks and malls

I almost appeared in a British tabloid! When we were leaving St Paul’s Cathedral, there was a rush of guests arriving for a wedding in one of cathedral’s chapels. The guests were of the young, bold, beautiful and restless kind. You know, thin leggy women and disheveled cool dudes. While…

London Heat

Technology Christmas party left me with quite a headache, and the next morning my first local hire was starting. I am afraid I was hardly a presentable boss. The only mitigating factor was my own boss, visiting from New York, whom the party left in a much worse shape… When…

Brief discourse on transportation

The cover story in this week’s Economist talks about British transportation problems. While the angle is more towards fixing the roads, the article also mentions in gory detail the issues with rail networks. Incidentally, I am starting to believe myself that my earlier high marks to public transport were misbegotten.…

Kids happy, parents content

Starting with an announcement today (especially for those who may be coming directly to the blog, bypassing my front page): The Guestbook feature of the website has been decommissioned – as writing comments to my posts is a better place for guestbook entries anyway. I also created a separate Guestbook…

Random happenings

Over the last weekend, I triumphantly assembled the new wardrobe that Natasha had bought in IKEA… Well, ok, ok, it was a really pathetic performance, comprised of 36 steps according to instruction manual, that took over 2 hours to complete. But I did raise my arms in triumph when it…

First museum Sunday

The weather is a bit overdue turning to the worse, but it’s catching up. On Saturday, several downpours alternated with bright sunlight, but the rain won. On Sunday, the rain continued to come and go. It is not really cold yet, but there were a couple of days during the…

Things we take for granted

Taking a break from describing events of our life, I want to let a bit nostalgia in and recite some things that we so gotten used to in America that we never considered their importance. Without further ado, here are some things that we clearly took for granted in the…

Another good Saturday

The weather on Natasha’s birthday was beautiful – a bit crisp and windy, but bright sunny skies. We did not want to miss an opportunity for a day out, so we decided to take a train to the city, visit a museum and then stroll around… … but the train…