One month down!

I absolutely cannot believe that it has been a month since I've moved to London, at times it feels like I only arrived yesterday.

This week at work was rather boring, I keep waiting for the trips to fabulous places. Of course, a trip to a fabulous place to work is a bit disappointing, b/c you're stuck working all day. I do actually like working in the FRAG group though, b/c it's different from regular audit in that the work we do is consulting, so clients actually want us to be there and want our opinion. It's a welcome change from knowing that the clients consider you a necessary evil and count the days until you're done. I also like that the projects are always different too. I am ready to get out of the office though, I'm getting a bit stir crazy sitting at my desk day after day. Last Monday we went to the office at Finsbury Square, the largest GT office in London, and had an all day technical accounting update training. Riveting. But really, it was good for me b/c they focused on IFRS and I need to start thinking that instead of US GAAP. I did have a rather stellar moment though, the training leader asked a two part question, to which I answered both parts incorrectly, and the leader just kind of blinked at me after telling me why both of my answers were incorrect. Awesome way to make a first impression on the majority of my new partners. I will say though, it was in the morning and I hadn't had coffee yet. And I also thought that maybe they would just think that I was a silly American who was talking US GAAP. Although, my answer was probably wrong under US GAAP too, I really have no idea.

On Monday I had my first experience at a real, full-size grocery store (the one in my neighborhood that I had talked about before is very mini, almost like a glorified c-store), and it was amazing. Seriously, I felt better after that shopping trip than I have since I've been here. It may sound weird, but some of you know how much I love grocery shopping, it's therapeutic to me. Anyway, they had everything I wanted and a big selection to choose from. I was in heaven. Then I had to walk home in my suit and heels with heavy grocery bags and I was not so much in heaven.

We got our heat fixed, after figuring out that we were in fact not idiots who couldn't work a thermostat but that it was indeed broken. The heat felt amazing! But of course two days after we got it fixed it got warm again and we haven't even had it on for the last two days. Oh well. At least we know that it will work when we need it again.

I still have not been successful in getting through the firewall on my computer so that Skype and another program that will allow me to watch live football will work. I'm really so pissed at this point and I won't be shy about expressing my contempt for the GT IT dept. for blocking Skype. I mean really, what harm is it going to do to let me talk to my family and see their faces while we talk? One word: Lame.

You know what I've really been missing lately? Chipotle. Mmmm... Also Target, although not so much Target but just the convenience of a store in which you can get everything that you need. I know that I'll find places where I can find everything that I need, but right now I would love to go to Target. Maybe I can get the ingredients for a Chipotle and make it myself.

On Friday I went out for my first big night on the town and it was so fun! Dasha, Andrea, Dan, and two of Dasha's friends came out. We started at the flat and played drinking games, a little juvenile but so much fun! We played kings and I tried to introduce P&A, but it wasn't received so well. Then we went out to a club called Studio Valbonne off of Regent Street that was stupidly expensive to get into and outrageously pretentious, but ended up being so fun b/c we were having fun together. The dancing was great, granted I stood out for most of the euro-trash techno songs, but there was enough good music that I ended the night sweaty and tired and my hair had lost all of the curl that I had spent so much time putting in at the beginning of the night. We didn't make it home until 3:30 am, and I immediately passed out. Fortunately I stuck to beer the whole night so I woke up with a minimal hangover and cleaned up the mess of our flat before the other roomies woke up. Needless to say we were all fairly worthless yesterday. But I did make more chocolate chip cookies - they're a hit!

Today I went on a run for the first time since being in London. I went in Regent's Park, where the outer circle is 5k. Didn't exactly run the whole 5k, but it was a good effort for my first run in two months. Then I went to Hampstead and met up with Janet McMullen's friend who used to live in London and is in town for about a week. We had Sunday Roast at a pub called Hollybush, it was so delicious. Sunday Roast is exactly what it sounds like - some kind of roast meat (I had chicken), then potaotes, veggies, etc (think hearty 'American' food - same theme). Mine was made up of the chicken, roasted potatoes, carrots, red cabbage, and stuffing. After washing it all down with a pint of lager I was set for the day! Then he showed me around the town of Hampstead and the Heath (a huge 900 acre park). It was so beautiful - I definitely have a place to take all of my visitors! There is a hill in the Heath called Parliament Hill where you can see out over the whole city of London. We happened to go right at sundown, so the view was spectacular.
Ok, I need to go to bed, it's almost 1 am and I'm sleepy...

xoxo,
Heather