The Spice of Life (continued)

A brief continuation of our trip to Africa...

Is he sleeping?

After three glorious days in Zanzibar (aka the Spice Island), Josh and I hopped two charter flights to the Serengeti. I say “two” rather loosely, because our second plane made about 4 alternate stops before landing at our final destination. Of course we managed to take off during a rare rainstorm, which made it feel more like we were flying in a giant yo-yo than a Cessna. Needless to say, I kept an eye on the very calm blonde kid sitting next to me. I figured, if he wasn’t worried I shouldn’t be either. And yes, the little blonde kid, with his eight years of experience, was correct in his composure, because in the end we landed safe and sound.

Our stay in the Serengeti consisted of two days on safari, which included a private guide that toted us around in some kind of Explorer (I don't remember the make, but I suppose it's not essential to the story). While en route to spot game and observe the wildlife, we got the most impressive lessons on nature, trees, animals and, most notably, natural selection.

Hiding from the boys, no doubt!

It seemed that no matter where we went, we saw a variety of antelope from Gazelles to Hartebeests to Impalas. On one side of the road we’d discover a bachelorette herd (a group of female antelope) and on the other side we’d inevitably spot a bachelor herd (a gawking group of male antelope). The set-up was not too unlike an eighth-grade dance. Boys and girls on opposite sides of the room, please. Within in each bachelorette herd was a dominant alpha male. However, if a random bachelor got the urge, he could fight the alpha male for dominance over his ladies. This is how nature ensures only the strongest genes are passed on—and as in all species, it gives men a reason to fight. 

Lilac-breasted Roller

In addition to seeing antelope aplenty, we observed an array of exotic birds, from the beautiful lilac-breasted rollers to scavenger birds like vultures, as well as giraffes, zebras, baboons and cheetahs. But of course, nothing compares to the sight of the “Big 5 Game”. They are amongst the most sought after (and often the most rare to find). These animals include lions, elephants, buffalo, leopards and rhinos. Fortunately, we saw them all because our guide was the MacGyver of the Serengeti—helping other safari mobiles out of the mud, testing wet ground for stability and locating game nearly invisible to the naked eye.

Rollin' around in the grass

When it comes to animals, I don’t like to play favorites, but I have to say the lions were the most intriguing to watch. (Out of 1,000 pictures, about 500 are of lions!) The first pride we spotted was situated high up on a rock formation. It was once again a scene from The Lion King brought to life. At the top of the food chain, the lions were the most composed, confident, suave animals in the Serengeti. I could write a blog on them alone.

I actually thought about how I might be able to board the plane with a cub in my suitcase. Would our landlord approve of a pet lion? Well, we didn’t leave with any animals, but we did leave with newfound knowledge, stunning photos and unforgettable memories from the trip of a lifetime.

A Tale of Two Cities

So here I am back at Starbucks nearly one year after The Great Internet Fiasco of 2010. It’s funny how “2010” seems like a lifetime ago, as I’m already in the process of making reservations for New Years 2012. (Let’s just say I’ll remember my passport this time.)

Last weekend I went to New Jersey for my college roommate’s wedding. While traveling via taxi to her home for pictures, the driver and I started talking about life. There’s no one more qualified to handle your personal affairs then a taxi driver (or bartender)—and I mean that with sincerity. We chatted about “the bigger picture” and doing things while you can. Carpe Diem and all that jazz. I told him about my new life in London and how sometimes I love it and other times I wish I were home. I told him that looking back on this past year I feel like I’ve been away forever, yet it’s only been 12 months. But is not 12 months a long time? I think another few minutes on the road and we would’ve defined the meaning of life.

During this deep conversation, with someone I’d just met, I ate my egg sandwich and watched the Jersey Turnpike blur by. It was the perfect metaphor for how I was feeling. There I was on my way to my friend’s wedding, remembering how nearly 8 years ago we said goodbye to Monmouth University on our rainy graduation day. My college experience was such a pivotal part of my life, something I’d been preparing for since I was 16, and now it’s just a distancing memory. As London will someday be, too. In the words of my cab driver, “It’s the days that go by slowly, but the years that go by so fast.”

I could go on and on about the irony of it all, but philosophy and time flying aside, there’s a wedding in Jersey to talk about! Of all the places in the world, I was ecstatic when our flight arrived at Newark Liberty airport. Not only because I was back in the Motherland, but also because we actually made it there alive. Before we left, our flight experienced technical difficulties, the luggage door couldn’t shut, our personal TVs were broken (causing us to miss the cartoon version of the safety procedures) and we saw a plane engulfed in flames as we lifted off the runway. It’s funny how fast a non-religious person remembers God.

But alas, we made it and I’ve come to love hearing, “Welcome home” at customs. It’s as if the security guards are even happy to see us. It was a breath of fresh air to be amongst old friends and family again. To be in a place where people knew our names. I felt like Norm walking into Cheers everywhere I went. Mostly because everywhere I went things were familiar. The NY-style pizza, the glittering city skyline, the Greek diners along the highway, the wacky 5 o’clock whistle on Z100. It’s those little pieces of your former life that you start to miss when you’re away. Those things that you take for granted or even those things that start to annoy you (please reference 5 o’clock whistle) that suddenly feel like a warm embrace when you go back home.

We did, however, bring a bit of London to the States in the form of our Bikram practice, dragging my dad along for the ride. Having never tried it in the US, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to give it a go. It was a great session and my dad was able to endure the 105-degree heat like a champ. One Bikram class and pizza pie later, and we were off to Kristen and Steve’s rehearsal followed by what we would consider a real Italian dinner. Though many would disagree, there’s no better place to find Italian food than North Jersey.

The following morning, I woke before the sun to get ready for the wedding. My mom did my makeup and drove me to a nearby salon for my hair appointment. While I love Jerseylicious, I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the teased out up-do I left with. And by “not exactly thrilled” I mean red-faced and near tears, muttering something about alien antennas. The directions: pin half back, leave the rest in soft curls. The result: a feathery tease, jumbo “prom” curls and a bunch of random twists. I was ready for an interview at Area 51. The hair lasted through the 5-minute car ride and was quickly transformed into a simple down-do thanks to my mom’s deft fingers and crafty pick work.

In short, the wedding was beautiful. We danced until our feet hurt. Ate well. Fought over the plated cannolis. And partied like rock stars. After which we went home to catch the Mayweather/Ortiz Pay-Per-View fight. (Comments on this controversial fight are welcome below.)

By Sunday, I was holding back tears as we boarded our flight to London. Not that I was sad about returning, but I was sad about leaving home. When I first left New York on September 25, 2010, I was so excited I didn’t so much as shed a tear. These days, I depart fully aware of what I’m leaving behind. No longer taking things for granted. Not even that damn “Friday” chant on the radio. On the flip side, I still have one more year of adventure, vacations and summer Olympics to come. So now I look ahead to a fun-filled future. And this year, when things go awry, I will heed the words of my adopted home and try my best to “Keep Calm and Carry On."

I Love London

I realize that since moving to London things haven’t always been perfect. I like to think of it as, “moving pains”—a first cousin to “growing pains”. But what I’ve also discovered is that once you live in a place long enough, you get to know the ropes and those aches and pains slowly start to go away. It can then be said that in order to be part of a city you just have to know the rules, and every city plays by their own.

While we may still be learning, there are lots of amazing things we have had the pleasure of enjoying and experiencing as Londoners. Sometimes these amazing things just happen to get eclipsed by a robbery or hot water outage or rancid meat pie, but it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. In fact, just last week Josh and I went for a 6am, 3-mile run to Victoria Park (there’s a first time for everything) and when my endorphins kicked in, there was nothing in the world that could bring me down. Sunshine, green space, flowers, puppies… I was in the epicenter of serenity. This inspired me to think about all of the wonderful things in life, including the many reasons I Love London:

10.  Parks, parks and more parks—and let’s not forget frisbee in the park, BBQs in the park and random dogs who steal your soccer ball in the park.

9. Sunday Markets and market food, from scratch-made noodle dishes to Turkish pizza, green juices and fresh breads. Very European!

8. Historic events, like The Royal Wedding and the 2012 Summer Olympics. (With tickets to see the Olympic men’s soccer semifinals in Manchester!) 

7. Oxford v. Cambridge Boat Race (and pre-post Boat Race activities).

6. Fenton’s Rink for curling—my new favorite sport.

5. Easy Jet—so long as you have a free weekend, a 56x46x25cm carry-on and your tickets printed in advance you can go just about anywhere!

4. 20(+)-day vacation policies.

3. Free Emergency Room services, discovered after nearly cutting off my fingertip in a mango dicing accident.

2. British reality TV, such as The Apprentice UK with Lord Sugar and The Only Way is Essex.

And lastly, but most importantly...

1.  The amazing people I have met and friends that I have made… thank you for showing us the many reasons to love London!

Highway Robbery

Hello Loyal Blog Readers! I'm sorry it's been so long since my last entry. You might be wondering where we've been. Questioning what sorts of English shenanigans we've been up to. I'd like to say Josh and I have been involved with London life, ya know, striking against the budget cuts, protesting the Libyan government, sitting outside Buckingham Palace hoping an invite might drop out of the window. Alas, I have no idea about that stuff. I don't even know who's designed Kate's wedding dress! I'm shamefully out of the loop (and haven't watched Super Nanny USA in weeks), and it's basically because I got a J-O-B. No exotic, adventurous explanation here. I got a job, got busy, and my Life as a Londoner became just Life. 

The good news is that we've acclimated enough to say that life in London feels fairly routine. We get up, go to work, run at the gym (sometimes), make dinner, leave the dishes in the sink and catch an hour of Two and a Half Men before falling into the deepest realm of REM sleep humanly possible. Not exactly the most exciting schedule, but I guess it means that we've made it. On March 25th we hit our 6-month mark here and it officially punctuated the day we went from being "foreigners" to "locals". We no longer need a map to get to the grocery store; we accept the likelihood that a transit strike, signal failure or planned engineering work will screw up our commute; and we know that when a menu boosts pancakes we're likely to get a short stack of crepes. I even find us saying things like "let's take the lift" and "cheers" in place of thank you... 

Then came the robbery! And with that horrific act of injustice, I instantly felt like I had been transported back in time. Back to those first few months of chaos and calamity. To the days when Starbucks was the only place with a functioning Internet and IKEA was truly a 4-letter word. While Josh thinks the robbery was our final rite of passage (get robbed, get respect), I've come to think there's some sort of English Poltergeist trying to scare us into going back home. 

But after the instantaneously feeling of dread and despair, I actually felt rather calm in a rather short period of time. Maybe it was the Gemini in me or maybe it was as if all the crazy experiences we had in the first 6 months trained us to deal with just about anything. Perhaps everything we'd been through was just practice for the big game. I've come to expect the unexpected and accept the unacceptable. As they say, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Not to dwell on the details, but for the sake of the blog, here's how it went down: I was at work. It was 6:10pm. The sun was still casting a strong stream of light through the city - the best part about a "spring ahead" time change. I'd forgotten to put my phone on silent, so when my ringer went off I immediately dropped what I was doing to mute it. Of course I had to rummage through my purse first, spilling out lipsticks and receipts and mixed currency until I found it buried underneath my arsenal of supplies. In the process of paralyzing the volume I also managed to hang up on Josh, who I noticed had called and texted me several times in a fifteen-minute period of time. I took a moment to ponder why he was so desperate to speak with me (I guess I really am that cool)… then my phone rang again and I answered it before anyone in the office located the source of the disturbance. 

"Josh?" I whispered in a low raspy voice. To be clear, it wasn't a sexy, phone-operator rasp, but the kind of hushed tone you use when you have your head under your desk so no one knows you're on your cell phone taking a personal call. "I'm still at work. What's up?" I expected him to ask what we were doing for dinner or tell me that he missed me so bad it hurt (well, maybe not in those exact words). Instead he said, "Did you hide the computer?" Of course I didn't hide the computer! I left the computer exactly where I always do: in the living room on the couch near the radiator - right where one would expect to find an expensive piece of modern machinery. To that he replied, "Oh, well, don't panic... It seems like the laptop is the only thing missing and nothing's messed up, but I think we've robbed." Though it wasn't so much as a "thought" as a reality. The busted door frame and crowbar dent were evidence that I wasn't playing hide-n-seek with our Mac Book Pro and we had officially been burglarized.  

When I walked in I hugged Josh and then went about accessing the damage. Looking through as much of my things as I could without actually touching anything. The police had informed us to sort of float about and use our magical powers to open draws and such until they were able to dust for fingerprints. 

The assessment yielded the following positive results: The TV was still in place (thank God), the PC was hooked up and our new plants were shaken but unharmed. The place was indeed a mess, but that was our fault. I was actually kind of worried the police would walk in and think the bulgars threw our clothes around and left toast crumbs in the hallway so they could easily find their way out. But they didn't seem concerned by the mess and, unless I'm being paranoid, I really don't think they were concerned about any of it. They didn't so much as shake our hands, give us their names or extend an apology. It even occurred to me that they might be the robbers! I've seen Home Alone. A fake badge, a couple of walkie talkies and you're a cop. 

The next day the SOCO man arrived, aka is the Scene of Crime Officer. On a side note, I think SOCO sounds like the name of puppeteering school that teaches people how to entertain with hosiery. "CSI" is way cooler. Anyway, he came and dusted for prints and found none. This surprised me because he never took our prints nor did he take anyone else's who had been in our flat. How did he know that the prints he found didn't belong to the robber? It was all smoke and mirrors as far as I was concerned. I knew, as well as the police, that the odds of cracking the case was as great as our odds of getting a FedEx package. 

And that was that. Within 48 hours life went back to normal. I didn't (and don't) feel scared. I'm not mourning over my things. And I'm genuinely happy that no one got hurt. In fact, I find it rather ironic that when we first moved in I complained via blog that we had way too much stuff - and one too many hats - anyway. So maybe on some level this was the universe's way of sorting out the clutter and letting me know it reads my blog... and if the universe is reading your blog, you'd better write something.