Back in London!

It's already half way through January!  That's crazy.

Already a lot has happened in 2006.  Laura and I flew back to Canada on
December 21st.  We surprised Laura's parents because we arrived a day early.
Actually coming home a day early kind of surprised us too, but I won't get
into that.  We had a great time visiting family and friends, and eating.
And driving and visiting and eating.  And visiting, eating and driving.
Then later we did some eating and visiting and driving.

Highlights from our Canada trip include: (in no particular order)
Tortiere at the cottage, Nonna/Josie's cooking, Conversation and Swiss
Chalet sauce with Aunt Kathleen, New years at Mike and Marta's with
Portuguese popping things and interpretive dance, Poker and thin pond ice,
Bunnies at Waterloo park with Jamie and Sonya, the near excess of the
McCran Sister potluck, Seeing Alan and Jen's future wee-one (in the form
of tummy lump), Tia and fam's hospitality and stories from Argentina.

Apart from the socializing and galivanting, we accomplished a fair bit by
tieing up loose ends on the Canadian side of the double life we've been
leading. Not surprisingly we also untied all sorts of ends that will need to
be tied up over the next little while.

I didn't take too many pictures during out time back in Canada, but I'll
post them as soon as we have an internet connection again.  As some of you
have heard, Laura and I found ourselves in a familiar position when we
arrived back in London.  Homeless and dependant on the kindness of friends.
Or as some might say, mooching vagabonds.  Our friend Julie once again put
us up for a few nights while we got on our feet.  I must say, this time it
was a lot easier finding a place to live for many reasons: we had mobile
phones, we knew London, we knew where we wanted to live, we have a little
more money and we both have jobs.  What were we thinking in May!?

As was the case when we first moved to London, the first flat we visited
was the flat we chose.  It's a nice two bedroom flat on the south-east side
of London.  It's in Depford, which is immediately south of Greenwich.
About 1 minute by the DLR (Docklands Light Railway (an overland part of the
Tube)), or a 10 minute walk to Greenwich.  We share it with a nice Auzzi
couple, Simon and Jodi.  We have a private bathroom and there is a gym and
a bar/restaurant in our block of flats.  The complex is about 3 years old,
and is very new by London standards.  Really it's quite the step up from
our last place.  It has a proper kitchen and our bathroom sink is larger
than a cantaloupe. In fact I'd say it's larger than a watermelon (1.5
times).

The windows unfortunately overlook the DLR tracks, so we get train noise
when the DLR is running, but it's a new system and there is no "cha-chunk,
cha-chunk" of most Tube trains.  It's more of a "Wrrrr" as it goes by,
quieter than a truck on the highway.

I've been able to intermittently high-jack a wireless internet signal from
someone in a flat adjacent to ours, but it's not a very good connection,
and it's in a moral grey-zone so we're without Internet for the time being.
When we have a reliable connection in two weeks (darn British ISP's) then
I'll post pictures from Canada and of our new flat.

In fact, by that time we'll have come back from Ireland.  Thats right, this
weekend we're off to Ireland to visit my parents!  They are staying outside
of Limerick/Ines in the west-central part of the country, County Clair.
We're going to fly into Shannon Airport on Friday and come back to London
on Sunday.  1 pound tickets from Air Lingus. By random chance, my parents
and Laura's parents are going to Ireland at the same time for separate two
week treks around the land of Blarney.  I'll dutifully post pictures upon
our return.