Just like a Pill

I'm officially a geriatric...I need a pill box!  Don't get too excited, I only need it for my trip to Africa, life in my mid-twenties will resume when I return.  Now I'm no Scientologist, but I don't really use medicine.  It's not that I don't believe in it, it's just that I don't really require much, or I'm too lazy to take it.  One or the other. I've never really taken any medication on a daily basis. I mean I went to the allergist a couple of years ago and had the full barrage of tests, scratch test on the back and all. He kindly wrote me a prescription to combat the extreme allergy that I have to grass and I just found the prescription in the back of a drawer in the bathroom at my parents house over Christmas.  I had never even filled it! I rarely even take advil as I am blessed that I am not really affected by headaches or hangovers.  Tonight I got back from Boots (drug store) about 80 pounds poorer.  For the next two weeks I will be taking the following medication on a daily basis: Doxycylin for Malaria, Diamox for Altitude sickness, Glucosamine for Joint Health, Ginko Biloba for hekp with the altitude, Claritin for allergies, and I also have a battery of medicines for ailments that may creep up on me while I am there. They include Aleve and Arnica for muscle soreness, immodium (for you know what) and rehydration tablets.  I have an entire gallon sized zip lock bag full of medicine!

Like Riding a Horse

I have fallen off, but I am back on the horse.  It was not, but should have been, one of my 2010 new years resolutions to blog more! I really lost my steam there at the end of last year. I think I was just too busy having fun and enjoying myself, which is a good thing!  I have racked up quite a few blogworthy things over the past couple of months that I was on hiatus,  including : Girls Christmas Market trip to Vienna/Bratislava, Cole's visit to London for Thanksgiving, my trip home to Texas for Christmas, NYE in New York, me deciding to move yet AGAIN and my new flat in Camden, and most recently mydecision to make the return back to the iPhone (it arrives tomorrow!).  I will do my best to cover these in future posts over the next couple of months, but lets be honest, if you are really interested in any of these things then it is probably best that you give me a call and we can chat about any or all of the above topics!

This post however, is dedicated to my pending trip (5 more days!) to Tanzania!  The focus of the post will center around how I did absolutely ZERO to prepare for climbing the tallest peak in Africa standing at a mere 19,000 ft!  It will also touch on how I thought I would have very little to buy as I pretty much bought out the REI last year when I went to Africa.  Oh how wrong I was.  In addition to everything that I purchased last year (please see here http://cheeriosandmilk.blogspot.com/2008/10/granola-its-not-just-for-breakfast.html) I am now also the owner of hiking boots, trekking poles, a very fancy Opsrey daypack, a puffy jacket, about 6 pairs of hiking socks, sporty sunglasses (i'd look like a fool hiking up the mountain in my fendi's!), about 3 layers of gloves, one of those nifty wool hats that covers your ears and has dangly strings that look like braids, a pair of Keen's, a steel water bottle and personal water filtration system, a heavy duty head lamp for our middle of the night summit attempt, one pricey set of heavy duty base layers (aka fancy long johns), several tops made of breathable, wicking material, and a years supply of moleskin for all the blisters that I am sure to acquire! I am also now protected from hepatitis A for the next 20 years after getting my booster and I am a certifiably protected from Yellow Fever...and I have the certificate to prove it (that must be carried with my passport at all times).  Speaking of my passport, I don't have physical custody of it at the moment, which is slightly terrifying to me!  I dropped it off at the Tanzanian Embassy this morning along with my Visa application.  I paid extra for the express application so that it would be ready by Wednesday rather than Friday. 

Now comes the scary part. Packing! The company who we are doing our trip through, Exodus, sent me this kitbag in the mail that I am meant to pack everything for the mountain portion of the trip in.  We have to pack in these bags and they are not allowed to exceed 12 kg, that is roughly 26 pounds!!!!  I think my purse weighs more than that! How the heck and I supposed to fit everything that I just listed in a duffel bag and make it weigh less than 26 lbs?

Oh yeah, didn't I say something about training for the mountain.  Yeah, well, I didn't. At all. So that is pretty much all there is to say about that. There is one day where we will be hiking for 15 hours. I am pretending like this isn't happening, that is how I am getting through this with a smile. I'll be back on February 1st. Wish me luck :)

Blades of Glory

Last night I finally got to go ice skating at Tower of London! Christmas is great in London, they have so many lights and trees up. There are four different venues to go ice skating at in the city and I think that the Tower of London is by far the best! I mean you are ice skating in the moat of a castle that is almost 1000 years old, how much better can you get!

Thinking and Thanking

Apologies for my terrible blogethic these past few weeks.  I have been so busy enjoying life and have had plenty of blog worthy moments, but I just haven't had it in me to get back on the horse.  With my 2nd Thanksgiving in London come and gone, I couldn't go without a Thanksgiving post to remind myself what all I have to be thankful for.  Luckily, it is a lot and I don't need a holiday as a reminder.  Although, it is a great holiday and a great reminder!  A year ago had just celebrated my first Thanksgiving in London with some new friends and I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of my family for their first visit.  A year later, yesterday, I celebrated Thanksgiving for a second time with those same people (although they are much better friends now and we had the lovely addition of Haper Rose Money celebrating her first Thanksgiving at only 3 weeks old!)  I also had the fantastic pleasure of celebrating with Cole, he gave up his Thanksgiving with his family to come and visit me in London!!  So even though I wasn't with my family on Thanksgiving this year, I was definitely in the company of my "London Family" and I had a HUGE piece of home with me since Cole was with me as well!  If I can't spend the day with my family, I can't imagine a better group of people to be with in their place. 

This year has brought me so much to be thankful for. I have really settled in here in London, I have amazing friends and I absolutely am loving my life!  I gained another neice, Ainsley Kate, who I can't wait to cuddle with in a couple of weeks!  My relationships with my family and friends back home are still strong as ever (thanks in part to modern technology!)  I have travelled to some amazing places and I have some really fun trips planned to look forward to in the coming year. I've had lots of fun visitors in this last year (Mom, Dad, Lindsay, John, Hayden, Lindsey H., Melissa, Courtney, Mom (again!), Aunt Linda, Cole!!)  and I hope to have many more next year (hint, hint to anyone who wants to come).  There is much to be thankful for :)

A Wee Bit of Fun

Well my friends, I'm not sure whether you would call this Spontaneous or just downright Irresponsible.  I'm sure it's a little of both, but either way, I am glad I did it.  It was late Sunday night a little after midnight and I am sitting on a Night Bus on my way back to my flat from Kings Cross wearing the very same outfit that I left the house in Friday evening to meet a few friends for dinner.  How, you ask, did I arrive in this situation?  Good question, lets rewind 48 hours to the beginning of this little story. 

It's Friday, I rush home from work, shower, change clothes and head out to meet friends for dinner at The Blues Kitchen in Camden and then for drinks and dancing at Proud.  I get to dinner and there are a few new faces there...Bill, just moved here from NY and is friends with my friend Kevin...and Jill, is over visiting Bill for a couple of weeks from NY.  I end up sitting next to Jill at dinner and we start chatting.  She mentions that her and Bill are leaving in the morning to go to Scotland for the night.  I mention that I haven't been to Scotland yet and I am hoping to go soon.  Soon, you say...Jill says she thinks I should go tomorrow.  I say, Oh but I can't I don't have any clothes, etc, etc.  She says you can borrow mine...I say, Okay!  We book my train ticket on Kevin's iPhone, finish dinner, go dancing at Proud, I crash on Bills couch and we are on our way to Kings Cross to catch the train at 7 am, a mere 5 hours later.  Jill has lent me a comfy sweater to throw over my outfit and given me her travel toothbrush that she acquired on her flight over, I'm set!  By 10 am we have made friends with some lovely (read rowdy) Englishmen headed to Newcastle for a football game.  They like us and share there Jack Daniels with us freely.  Did I mention it's 10 am? Sheesh!

We roll into Edinburgh around 1 head to the hotel to drop off our stuff ,what stuff you ask, oh that's right I didn't have any "stuff"  Then we head to a pub for lunch and decide to pass on the Haggis.  Google it if you don't know.  Then we are off to the Castle for some site-seeing.  The Edinburgh Castle is smack dab in the middle of town so it is easy to find.  After wandering around the castle we did some shopping on the Royal Mile...aka Tourist Trap Row.  Then we settle into another pub and meet some locals and a smattering of Norwegians...which is quite ironic since Jill is half Norwegian! After that we headed to dinner at Pizza Express (the Scottish fare didn't hold much appeal for us) and then we went to Bar Kohl a Vodka bar where I rediscovered my love of White Russians.  We tried to rally and make it a night for the books, but when we ended up at Espionage, think underground KGB-ish club, we realized that we had started way too early in the day.  So we cut our losses and headed back to the hotel before midnight.

The next morning we woke up, showered, I put on the same clothes then headed to do the Underground tour of Mary King's Close. You see, Edinburgh was built up rather than out. They built streets and buildings ontop of one another so there is a whole underground world underneath the streets from many many years ago. You can still go down there and wander around. They tell you some of the history of the town and what life was like back then, all about the Plague, etc. I'll tell you what, if I had to go back in time to live back then, my one luxury item would have been a pair of golashes! I'll spare all of the gory details, but lets just say they didn't have sewage plumbing back then! YUCK! After the tour we had a few hours to spare before we had to catch our train back to London so we did a little more touristy shopping, met William Wallace, drank in a couple more pubs then were on our way back to London around 7 pm. It was a whirlwind of a trip, but a lot of fun and I'm so glad that I went! I now how two new friends and a lot of Scottish memories! Scotland, check!

Pics from the Castle....

Because everyone needs a picture sitting on a cannon!

Just checking to see if the rumor is true...

Meet Bill and Jill

EEK...I am such a geek!

William Wallace was one chatty fellow

I'll leave you with a very Scottish image...

A Halloween Miracle

I finally recovered from the week spent on my death bed, and just in time for Halloween!  It was a true Halloween miracle!! I spent all of last week quarentined in my bedroom with a terrible sore throat and fever for 4 days straight, it was miserable!  I was so worried that I wouldn't be better in time for Halloween, I LOVED my costume that I had bought for this year and I did not want to miss my chance to wear it!  Luckily I came around on Friday with a miraculous recovery!  Ever since Britney's Circus tour this year, I knew I wanted to be a Ringmaster!! I found the Perfect costume and was so excited!! I wasn't trying to go as Britney, but so many people thought I was that I just gave in by the end of the night.  This year I had two parties to go to.  The first was at Kim and Langfords flat and was a Tube themed party...Mind the Gap!! Everyone had to come dressed as a Tube stop or a Tube line. It was really fun to see how creative everyone got!!

Christine as "Chalk Farm" Frances as "the Bakerloo line" Me as "Oxford Circus" and Kim as "Greenwich"

After the Mind the Gap party I headed into the city to a party sponsered by the Texas Exes.  It was a huge party with a bunch of Americans, so much fun!! I met up with Annie, Colby, Meg and Jackie!  Meg and Jackie are lifelong friends from Connecticut and have spent every Halloween together for as long as they can remember...aren't they cute little flappers!  It was a great Halloween, my only greivance is that I left my whip in the cab between parties..boohoo!

Meg, Me, Jackie and Annie (as Beyonce!!)

Me, Colby (as a cat) and Annie

aren't we cute!

The Future Lauren

You know those times in your life when you feel like not much is happening, but in reality there is a lot going on around you?  That's what the past few weeks have felt like for me.  I guess that means I'm finally really settling in here and London is starting to feel like my home.  All the things going on don't feel new and exciting anymore, they are now just a part of my everyday life.  That is not so say I am bored, by any means!

The possibilities here are endless, this rang true when I realized something the other week, something that I didn't even realize I was doing.  So most people who know me probably know that I like to change things up from time to time, I'm not a fan of routine.  I get antsy doing the same thing too long.  I had no idea I was doing this until the other day when I was walking home from the tube, but in the 9 months I have lived in my new flat I have probably gone to work or come home about 10 different ways.  I'll get stuck on one route for a few weeks, then inevitably I'll change it up and start taking a new route a few weeks later.  It is so strange, I really never made a conscience decision to change my route, I just kinda took a different way one day.  I guess this city is good for a person like me, there are about 5 different bus routes and 3 different tube routes to and from work for me...and that doesn't include all of the different ways I can walk. 

I have also found myself worried and stressing about the future, something I traditionally have never participated in.  I have always been one to live for the moment and let future figure itself out.  However, for some reason I have been so focused on the future lately.  Whether it be which trips I want to take a year from now, when am I going to end this London adventure, what area of London do I want to live in next, what job I want to have 5 years from now...I have been stressing on every little detail of these questions trying to plan out several different scenarios for each.  I don't know when this started or why, but I am going to make a conscience decision to live in the now and enjoy each day without really worrying too much about what the future holds...as my new friend Meg taught me..."I'm going to let the Future Lauren worry about that"  Some may call it reckless, but I am ready to embrace the old me, I know she's in here somewhere!