"Just" a housewife

The Office!

Day two...

An office is pretty much an office where ever you may be. People still don't load the dishwasher, there's dirty dishes in the sink and the anticipation of an sporting duel with Azerbaijan is all anyone can talk about!

Mmm...well maybe the last one is less universal.

England are due to play Azerbaijan tonight in a qualifying match for the 2006 World Cup (soccer to those Americans that don't know what the World Cup is!) and the buzz in the office today was great. Everyone talking about where they would watch it and which local pub afforded the best view of the Plasma screens. So I have to type quickly and get off 'down pub.'

Although today is day two, I made a few mistakes yesterday. I was told the IT crew were at the end of the office on the left and it turns out the nice gentleman in the baseball cap couldn't help me get my power strip working as he was Head of EMEA credit control rather than IT. Oops. The whole day felt like the start of a new school year. You kind of knew what to expect, you know, same school, but the people were different and some things weren't quite the same.

Today was interesting, I found out my first task on one of my new clients was to pitch analyst briefings, write a briefing document and write an award submission. Mmm...interesting development challenges for me.

However, on a more exciting front, I've just booked flights to Amsterdam to visit one of the client teams I work with. It just so happens that I need to be there next Friday and it coincides nicely with a weekend trip David and I had planned to visit his 99 year old Grandfather who lives in Rotterdam. Gotta love combined business/pleasure trips.

Then on April 22 I'm off to Munich to visit another client. Shame I won't get to see much of the city on that trip, but I'm sure when I'm touring Germany for World Cup 2006 I'll get to see it all.

And there I end this blog, where I began - footy.

We've Landed!

March 27.

Well we've landed. After 10 hours flying, a game of scrabble, filet mignon and copious amounts of water (I was hungover remember) we finally landed in London. With the luxury of priority baggage claim (we flew business class - upgrading using airmiles!) we were sat in our rental car less than an hour after landing. This English lark might not be that bad!

However, I'm not sure Joanna Moore could live here. Let me explain. Joanna was talking about the differences between living in SF and NYC. She explained that she missed NYC because SF wasn't open 24 hrs a day, you couldn't get a coffee at 2 a.m. in the morning and night clubs closed early.

Well try London Joanna!!! Arriving on Easter Sunday at 8 a.m. NOTHING WAS OPEN. Try getting a corkscrew on Easter Sunday. Try buying a saucepan to cook the soup in that you've just bought at a gas station (yes beautiful little apartment in a perfect location, but no pots and pans!) Try buying anything on Easter Sunday and you'll have to fly to NYC. Oh and did I mention Easter Monday - it's the same on that day too.

Drunkle before Eng-er-land

I am drunkle. I have had many sangrias. I have had a good time. I love my colleagues. I love Ali. I love Kari. I love James. I love Brad. I love David. I love everyone.

36 hours to go!

36 hours to go and I finally started packing! It's been a mad week. 4 client meetings in 4 days. 4 dinner dates with friends in 4 nights. And more hours of stress than calm, soothing moments contemplating our new adventure. The thing that's kept me going? Spending Easter Sunday with my 2.5 year old neice eating a Dora chocolate Easter Egg.

I'm filled with excitement about spending so much time visiting friends, Sheffield, Holland, Paris, Dover, Derby, Cheam, Hampstead etc. but also filled with fear about the new challenge. Today it's all gotten a bit much and the prospect of getting on that United flight on Saturday and sitting back drinking myself into a Champagne oblivion sounds very appealing right now - yes David and I did the very smart thing and upgrade ourselves with airmiles to Business Class.

I said goodbye to a bunch of people in the office tonight (many people aren't in tomorrow due to client meetings) and I got quite emotional. Yes Text 100 SF I will miss you...

A Wet Night in SF

So the life of a 29 year old living in San Francisco isn't always that glamorous! As David and I sit here in our apartment, the rain lashing on the windows, I have two options; 1) enjoy the Kendall Jackson Merlot watching a movie or 2) enjoy the Kendall Jackson Merlot while completing the fourth part of my online traffic school!

Unfortunately, I have to do the latter. It's the price I have to pay for racing back along highway 80 at 9 p.m. one Thursday night after we'd skived off from work one day to go skiing to Tahoe! The California Highway Patrol Officer didn't think doing 81 miles an hour was acceptable!

P.S. We didn't really skive off work - it was a duvet day!

Oh my gosh!

I am now truly a geek. I've succumbed to the world of blogs. I might have avoided joining the iPod fan club, but I've not managed to avoid the throngs of bloggers.

The purpose of this web log is to keep my US friends and colleagues up to date with my three month secondment to London. Back home...well not really...home is now SF.

Who knows it might be interesting, and then again it might be immensely dull! We'll have to wait and see.