Directly across from the 60s architectual wonder that is the US Embassy in London, along one side of Grosvenor's Square, stands a 9/11 memorial garden expressing solidarity with the U.S. and memorializing British victims of the attacks.

The seal on the ground in the garden's center reads:

Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is not.

Not what I'm not sure. Just not period. Not any of those things. Whatever. It just isn't I suppose.

The pergola's columns and the garden's flowers all have a specific symbolic meaning.

I couldn't help wondering, however, at the way history unfolds - the big, important kind that our kids will read in history books as well as the small, personal kind that changes the trajectory of our lives.

(Like stricter enforcement of visa-related regulations. For a start.)

I remembered back to the outpouring of love from all corners of the globe. The world cried with us that day and in the days that follow. We were victims - for a time. They planted a garden for us here.

And where are we now in the world?

Two travel cards from Ipswich to London: 110 Pounds.

One visa application fee: 65 pounds.

One day taken from work: a whole bunch more pounds.

Taking it up the ass from the federal government AGAIN: priceless.

Actually, VH1 just described it, it was prettier in real life.

Looks pretty, tastes great. And yet, the day wasn't what I thought it'd be.

There was a TV show or a movie once (The West Wing? I can't remember, but no doubt some savvy reader will remind me), in which a character discusses the incredible bill of goods sold to American children. Anyone can grow up to be the president, right? In truth, Presidents go to Yale or Harvard. Or both. They are men. They are white. They have money, or their families have money, or they have monied friends.

Not everyone can be the president.

In fact, though it may be tough for my readers to believe, I must admit that I will probably not be president. This kind of realization will cause most people to pause for a moment, say "bummer," and continue with life.

There's a harder truth, however, for government nerds like me.

I was raised adoring, far too much, the notion of our government. No really. I knew the words to 1776 before I knew the words to Grease. Other kids learned to walk. I learned to walk precincts. I love the institution of it all. The protocol, the pomp, the tiled floors and domed rotundas. More than that, I loved the concepts: we are equal, no one is above the law, the law is, in fact, by, for, and of us. We are self-governed, we are the government. To believe such is quite a heady thing for a kid - understanding the ideas without appreciating the power, watching up close as real people you've met come to office, no matter the level, seeing them serve, write laws, the whole nine. During the Paula Jones case - oh how misunderstood are those issues, knows any first year CivPro student - though I agreed with the conspiracy theories - a bit - I also believed Clinton should have been subject to the suit, President or not. No one is above the law. We have no kings, no castes, no landed gentry.

I am the government.

Except I am not.

For the second time this year, the federal government has let me down. No, I can't even blame them. I have let me down. Because I am powerless in the face of the administrative state - either at SFO or at the US Embassy in London. Faceless bureaucrats exist and I can't do anything about it. Laws - no, not laws - regulations are enforced and despite their unfair, arbitrary enforcement which flies in the face of logic, reason, public policy, and general common sense . . . there is nothing left to do. So its a double-consciousness, then - I know I am not the government, despite years of civics classes, yet I still feel like I should have some kind of say in the administration of America, and since I didn't, I failed.

In reality, there wasn't much for me to do to prepare Rob for his day spent waiting (s-i-x hours for a 15 minute interview, and that's with an appointment). There was much for him to do either.

I think our favorite part was the interviewer's expectant stare whilst he waited for Rob to produce evidence - apparently physical, place it in his hot little hands evidence - of his connections to his friends and family in the UK.

How, pray tell, do you prove you have a family and friends about whom you care? Christmas cards? Receipts from birthday gifts? An arm tattoo spelling out "Mom?"

There are so many catch-22s in this situation, it's impossible to convey them to you without more keystrokes that I have in my hands right now.

My inner-believer lives still, however. I can't help but want to close with the thought that it isn't that I'm not my government, it's that my government is no longer me. Or you. Or us.

That may be the worst realization of all.

This is Rob. Rob is mocking me. His hand gesture, the international sign for "wee thing," is directed at the spider under the glass that I made him upend furniture to capture and remove.

It is not small.


I mean, just look at it. It's HUGE and hairy and gross. That's a pint glass that it's in. Not an American pint, mind you, a British pint, which is measurably larger.

I can handle the mocking, so long as such things are removed quickly. But, ick! It was giant!

Here's at least a start on the story of my visit to Parliament. But I'll flesh things out here in a bit. . . .

No, the decor isn't chocolate, but this spangly ornament does adorn the Harrods Chocolate Bar where I had a nice sit down and an even nicer brownie this afternoon. Brownie photos are available on Flickr, if you're curious. I didn't make it through the whole thing - but I sure did enjoy it while I lasted.

This Thursday, Rob has his appointment with the fine public servants at the US Embassy in London.

To help him recover from what I'm sure will be an accusatory, unfun, long-time-in-line, frustrating experience, I'm taking him out for tea again. No, really, he adored the last tea, so I know he'll appreciate another afternoon passed in such high fashion.

This time, however, we're going to hit the Pret-a-Portea, as seen on VH1's the Fabulous Life of London. Oh, I'm such a dork it's painful, I know. But shoot, can't a girl appease her inner fashionista? The afternoon tea is inspired by the themes and colours of this year "2006" Spring/Summer fashion lines - tell me you aren't a teensy bit jealous.

And, no, the irony of the above photo is not lost on me: If I eat a bunch of cookies, I won't be able to wear their subject matter for quite awhile. I don't care anymore though. I joined a gym on my vacation and at time point, one cookie more or less certainly won't make a difference.

Because you can never have too many pictures of flowering trees . . . .

Even after I was positively gutted to discover I was a megapixel short of what I thought I'd always been, you can't deny it: the super close focus feature of my trusty Nikon Coolpix 2100 kicks some ash.

Ash! Get it? It's a type of tree! Ha haha. Shutup. I don't care if it isn't a type of flowering tree.

Sheesh.

Oh yeah, by the way, I'm coming home soon at which point I forsee being really, really unemployed. Unemployment has its perks (ample gym time) but any such perks are far exceeded by its drawbacks (no more money for shoe shopping at Nordstrom). Therefore it seems a job may be in order. Who wants my resume?

I am, of course, not completely idle here on my vacation. You can find all sorts of interesting jobs notices online.

I found one a few days ago to which my first reaction was "sweet, I could totally do this," my second reaction was "no way, what was I thinking, I have nothing to say about this," and my third reaction was, "no, no I can totally do this, dammit." We'll see. But it's good to get into the game either way, right?

As I sit here, benefitting from extra application hours (thanks, GMT!), I can't help but wonder: do job applications ever stop feeling like college applications? Do work experience questions ever feel less like personal statements - does it ever get easier?

I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

Benefit #1 of having a blog (or 5): Excellent way to procrastinate writing something else, like, oh, say, and application for a job (for which I think I'm qualified but for which I don't think I can show I'm qualified in the way in which they want it shown, grrr).

And so I present to you the blog post about which my dad asks every time I call - the long awaited Mexican-American Girl in Paris post.

Yes, it's true, on our last night in Paris, tired from a day of bracing cold and stinging rain, we decided to brave the Mexican Restaurant around the corner from our hotel. It seemed foreign. More foreign than it would be in California - where it's kinda native.

You don't have to leave the States to miss Mexican food. When I returned from WV and PA last year, the first thing I did when I work up (late) the next morning was bum rush L'Avenida for a burrito. If I had the resources, I'd overnight some Tito's to myself right now. Mexican isn't necessarily my favorite kind of food, but once you can't get something, you NEED it, right?

And so it was that we found ourselves in a Mexican Parisian restaurant, where I tried to translate the menu from French to Mexican to American to Mexican-American to British so Rob and I could order dinner.

He wanted taquitos - not on the menu - so I suggested flautas which were the closest taquito relative available.

I went with the taco plate.

Before dinner arrived, we were give A basket of chips that had been overly seasoned and some tasty but not so salsa-y salsa. Rob ordered a beer - his first Dos Equis. I ordered what was possible the most expensive, smallest, worst margarita in the history of the world. It was about 10 or 12 Euro, came out of one of those Icey like machines, and was about juice-glass in size. I felt robbed.

The food, though not really quite Mexican, made up for the bad drinks. My tacos had huge pieces of beef in them. Like stew-sized pieces of beef. They were tender and well-seasoned, though, half-covered in a melted cheese - something French and not Mexican or just less-French. Rob's flautas were tasty too and I think he's found himself a new favorite Mexican (-ish) dish.

French food isn't bad, but there is a limit on the number of crepes and croque monsieurs I can eat in a 3 day period.

I'm still dying for a decent burrito though.

Juanita's as soon as I hit Claremont . . .

Relaxing on a turtle-shaped rock. Mister John looks jealous that I got the comfy seat.

From the Winter Garden in Sheffield.

Can you tell I don't feel like actually composing any blog posts today? Photos it is!

After exploring Sheffield for an afternoon, we decided some refreshments were in order and so acquired a Cuba Libre pitcher. I strong-armed the gang into opting for Diet Coke. It tasted a bit different than your normal rum and coke, but I blame the rum not the diet. But it still worked and made for a petty picture with the limes coordinating nicely with the pot and the edge of the pot's unusual flower.

From Amber's site.

Nothing says Easter Sunday like Cadbury Creme Eggs and computers!

Just after reading a factoid in a local Indian restaurant trade magazine that Brits are eating food 10x spicier than that consumed 10 years ago, I found this article in the SF Chron about Americans experiencing a similar uptick in spicocity.

Unfortunately for me.

Well, some of the new flavors are good. Some are just renamed versions of old flavors, I'm convinced. And the "Sensations" line of chips is mentioned here, but the American versions can't hold a candle to the UK editions.

I shouldn't say this - typing as I am on my own computer, my beloved Vaio. Rob got a new computer today. We had to drive for hours to fetch it. A nice little tablet. I thought he was crazy - after all, it has no optical drives, no DVD player. But it's cool. Super cool. You can handwrite on it and then it translates to typed format - pretty accurately too.

And look, he's checking out Phar! Smart boy.

He paid only 450 GBP for it. That's less than 800 American. Ohhh, now I want one. It has bluetooth. And a keyboard that attaches. But I shouldn't get one. I don't have $800. But ooooh, I want a shiny new toy too. Jealous.

But I still love my Vaio. Please don't crash.

Out on a lovely walk in the Peak District. Just us chickens with the sheep.

We're spending this Easter weekend in Sheffield with Rob's sister and best friend. Easter weekend is also Rob's birthday weekend - on Monday he turns . . . old. (Mwah!)

In between running on computer-fetching trips - more on that later - we've been planning bits of our Italy adventure which starts in a few weeks. We have the flight from Stanstead to Rome booked now, along with our Roman hotel, our Florentine hotel, and we've sorted a few of the trains we'll need to catch.

Left to plan: trains to Cinqueterre, rooms in Cinqueterre (first we have to pick in which of the cinque we want to stay), trains to Venice, and a Venetian hotel. And reserve some time at various museums that require reservations.

All in all, however, we're way ahead of the game compared to our past trips. I think this is a better way to do things.

Or Ipswich rain, as the case may be . . . . But, April showers, as they say . . . .

Rain and too much time make a girl introspective. They also make a girl think about how she hasn't posted lately - which leads to guilt, which is also appropriate during these last few days of Lent.

I just read a post over on Amber's site that linked to an interview with Catherine MacKinnon - one of the most extreme and controverisal feminist writers and legal theorists out there. I read some of her work in my sexuality and the law class. I was unswayed. But it started me thinking about the past weekend and a conversation I had with Rob over tea.

I noticed it first in Switzerland. Then menus went to Rob. The bills went to Rob (okay, shouldn't complain about that). The questions were directed at Rob. At tea on Sunday, one of the waitstaff or supervisors or cast of thousands that stopped to ask us if we were okay, asked him, decidedly not us, if things were alright. I answered yes and then realized I wasn't asked and then felt stupid and pushy for answering for someone else.

It's a subtle thing and maybe I'm just imagining most of it. Though I am generally not one to highlight perceived gender inequity. No really, I'm not. But it seems more prevalent here - this tradition of addressing the man. Sometimes it's nice, I guess, a throwback to more gentile times. Except that I can't help but answer anyway or try to insert myself into these situations when, it seems, I'm supposed to be more ornamental. No, that's not it, I'm supposed to be more fussed over, I guess. It would be Rob's job to address the shortcomings, to make sure that I was appropriately tended to. I think that's the thought anyway.

This happens at home too, of course. Usually at higher end places - the fancy hotels and 5-star restaurants of New York, etc.

I have no great cultural observation here. No comment on the nature of interaction between the sexes or socity's attitudes on such.

Just a thought . . . .

There's some stuff over at Metroblogging London, Dublin, and soon Paris (I hope), if you're curious.

Or if you're really bored - look, I have archives over there too.

Jacked from Josh and Marisa's travel blog:

'The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes 'sight-seeing.'

-Daniel J. Boorstin

I go "sight-seeing." Is that wrong?

So you're telling me I can get Dior AND a platter full of salmon in one store? I'm so in.

London: With the Ritz booked, Rob suggested the Savoy as a nice place for afternoon tea in London. We weren't disappointed. Despite having overdone things a bit on Saturday night (we blame these crazy kids), we rose as early as we could and took in one whole exibit at the V&A (more on that in a bit) before grabbing a cab over to the Savoy.

Though Rob suggested the Savoy, he had no idea what we were actually in for - expecting just a cream tea in a fancy setting. Nay, this was full on afternoon tea - high tea as I would have called it. Thinking some hair-of-the-dog was in order, we let our server talk us into the champagne tea.

Champagne was followed by tea - Margaret's Hope Darjeeling for Rob, Savoy Blend for me - and then a tower of treats. On the bottom tier, a selection of little sandwiches: tomato and hummus, beef and mustard, white ham and gherkin, salmon and cream, and stilton with grape and walnut. Shockingly, no cucumber cream sandwiches to be had. On the top tier, two currant and two vanilla scones - with clotted cream and strawberry jam, of course. In the middle - a selection of tiny desserts like cream puffs and cakes. Best part, they will refill everything as many times as you want.

We went a little sandwich nuts and I was out by scone 1, but it was all delicious. And if your tea cup approached half-empty, the staff was on you like they had tea-dar to top you off.

We were seated next to the grand piano and had our own personal piano man for the hour. The staff solicited requests, but we thought he was doing find on his own. Then he busted out the Bette Middler. Still, overall, excellent song choice.

It was a splendid afternoon. I think Rob got even more of a kick out of it than I did, which made it all the more fun.

To see London properly, you need two weeks, not two days, but we did our best. Here we are on the London Eye - which is quite a ride. More details coming soon . . . .

Rob's mum brought home a brochure about London Walks - a whole mess of London walking tours covering every conceiveable interest from murder to pubs to politics to America.

We think we'll arrive just in time to catch this Old Knightsbridge Village Pub Walk and then see if we can fit in another walk over the weekend if we like Friday's.

But we already have a list of like 3000 museums and sites. Plus our tea reservations. Plus Palm Sunday services.

)And Mom, yes, I'll take the damn grayline tour, but it might not happen this weekend. I don't mind doing those alone, but musueums are more fun with a friend.)

Colin offers a link to the debate over whether British judges should continue wearing white wigs.

He chooses a rather cheeky title for his post, "I think it's cute that Britain is trying to join civilization," to which I'm fairly sure all Britons would respond, "Uh, we invented it."

And the shoe update: On a shopping trip to Ipswich town with Rob's mum today, I learned that I wear between an 8 and a 9 UK size, or a 42 or so in European sizes. At Marks & Spencer I found some cute, tiny-heeled, round-toe black suede shoes. At Next, I found some cute, tiny-heeled, black leather pointy-toe shoes, but they didn't have my size. They can be ordered. Problem: suede in a rainy country = problem; tiny-heeled in charmingly cobbled country = problem; crappy ass exchange rate turning 30 GBP shoes that would be $30 shoes into $50 shoes = big problem.

London and Italy await . . . must . . . resist. . . .

It's an odd thing to realize you have a forgotten favorite flower. I have long known my favorite shade of rose, that I like sunflowers (and who didn't in the late 90s), that I am fond of the gardenias sold on San Francisco flower carts.

But I had forgotten the daffodils until spring sprung - with all its snowy glory - in Ireland last month and the countryside was lousy with 'em.

It's much the same here. All highway medians, all sidewalks, all gardens, all window pots and dining table vases are stuffed with the sunny blossoms.

There are variations. You'll see them in the Mersea Island photo set from their horticultural society's garden show. Some with palest yellow halos around truer yellow centers. Some are so pale they are near white. Others have rings of organge or orangey-pink glinting out from the center.

Me, I'm a traditional girl. Yellow, yellow, yellow. Straight green stalks and a burst of yellow straining against the April wind and showers.

I'm not really one for frilly things either. I'll take the Georgian streets of Bath over fussy Victorians in San Francisco. I'll take streamline moderne over both in a heartbeat. I like simple tulips, smooth orchids, graceful rosebuds, or the smooth round joy of a head of hydrangea blooms.

Daffodils are all crinkled edges and layers of petals.Maybe it's that they form a star. Or more likely, that I mastered drawing them from a book called "How To Draw Flowers" I received in a book order in elementary school.

Whatever the reason, I could live in spring forever to enjoy their cheeriness.

Pretty.

On a completely unrelated note: I fixed it! I fixed the archive links. Myself too! This is while my roommate back home fixed my CMC project that apparently wasn't too broken but I'd have never gotten it myself. So archives are fixed, feel free to appreciate my past work at will.

Well, I was running more last year when I was training for a marathon. That was January through the summer.

Oh, so how far was that?

26.2 . . . miles.

And how much did you do.

The whole thing.

And you finished?

Yeah. [Thanks.]

First on travel writing:

There's a reason so much great writing, fiction and nonfiction, centers around travel. Perspective, discovery, conflict between man and nature, man and man, man and self - travel offers it all. Travel internationally and you have the obvious tensions between custom and culture across borders. Travel at home and there's the same tension, yet the writer can spring it on the reader as something unexpected.

The danger is great travel writing, however, is that, well, it's already written down.

This is only a danger for subsequent writers, of course.

Case in point: killing time at LAX before departure, I explored the travel writing section of the book shop and stumbled upon a trove of Bill Bryson volumes. I decided I wasn't hitting enough of the countries he covers in his European romp and so puchased Notes from a Small Island. Notes is entirely about life in England from the perspective of an American who lived here for over 20 years, on the eve of his return to the States to live. It's wonderful. It is also, as far as I can tell right now, highly accurate.

And there's the rub.

I seem to come to points in the book just as I encounter them in life. So on the way to the gym, there's an example of Chapter 7, which I won't read until I'm on the way home from the gym. And thus, the well is poisoned. Can't unread the good, published writing, can't really weave it into my own (we call that plagerism, I think). So what if my writing on the same topic afterward is really just an interpretation of Bryson's views of British life instead of my own? Sadly, there is no way around that.

Now on the British, and still a bit on the first point as well:

I'm shortly going to excerpt for you a long passage from Bryson's book about why the British are so damn happy all the time - and they do seem to be. Except Duncan - but we still love him, and you need someone to highlight the happiness, no? More than half of my frustration while snowboarding was that no matter how discouraged and frustrated I became, no matter how much my inner bitch spilled out over the fresh powder, my damned cheerful boyfriend never got angry with me - the meanie. It takes a certain kind of disposition to live like that.

A lot of the happiness, I think, comes from food. Specifically, it comes from cakes, biscuits, and the endless assortments of sweets Brits - and I really should change this to say, the English - use to pass the time. I'll return to a discussion of food shortly, but for now, a selection from Notes from a Small Island (all typos are mine):

One of the charms of the British is that they have so little idea of their own virtues, and nowhere is this more true than with their happiness. You will laugh to hear me say it, but they are the happiest people on earth. Honestly. Watch any two Britons in conversation and see how long it is before they smile or laugh over some joke or pleasantry. It won't be more than a few seconds. I once shared a railway compartment between Dunkirk and Brussels with two French-speaking businessmen who were obviously old friends or colleagues. They talked genially the whole journey, but not once in two hours did I see either of them raise a flicker of a smile. You could imagine the same thing with Germans or Swiss or Spaniards or even Italians [I would disagree here. -ed.], but with the Britons - never.

And the British are so easy to please. It is the most extraordinary thing. They actually like their pleasures small. That is why so many of their treats - tea cakes, scones, crumpets, rock cakes, rich tea biscuits, fruit Shrewsburys - are so cautiously flavorful. They are the only people in the world who think of jam and currants as thrilling constituents of a pudding or cake. Offer them something geuninely tempting - a slice of gateau or a choice of chocolates from a box - and they will nearly always hesitate and begin to worry that it's unwarranted and excessive, as if any pleasure beyond a very modest threshold is vaguely unseemly.

"Oh, I shouldn't really," they say.

"Oh, go on," you prod encouragingly.

"Well, just a small one then," they say and dartingly take a small one, and then get a look as if they have just done something terribly devilish. All this is completely alien to the American mind. To an American, the whole purpose of living, the one constant confirmation of continued existance, is to cram as much sensual pleasure as possible into one's mouth more or less continuously. Gratification, instant and lavish, is a birthright. You might as well say "Oh, I shouldn't really," if someone tells you to take a deep breath."

I used to be puzzled by the curious attitude of the British to pleasure, and that tireless, dogged optimism of their that allowed them to attach an upbeat turn of phrase to the direst inadequacies - "Mustn't grumble," "It makes a change," "You could do worse," "It's not much, but it's cheap and cheerful," "Well it was quite nice" - but gradually I cam around to their way of thinking and my life has never been happier. I remember finding myself sitting in damp clothes in a cold cafe on a dreary seaside promenade and being presented with a cup of tea and a tea cake and going "Ooh, lovely!" and I knew then that the process had started. Before long I came to regard all kinds of activities - asking for more toast in a hotel, buying wool-rich socks at Marks & Spencer, getting two pairs of pants when I really needed only one - as something daring, very nearly illicit. My life became immensely richer.

I had meant to blog this while we were still in Switzerland, but just remembered I never did (as I sit and watch a Top Gear race to a Swiss destination).

Here's the Wikipedia entry for Switzerland which immediately clarified why Swiss net addresses end in .ch. The country's official name is Confoederatio Helvetica - the Latin version of Swiss Confederation. Using the Latin saves any linguistic favoratism in this country with signs in a minimum of 5 languages - none of them English, thanks. There are 4 official languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh - a local dialect spoken by just a few, according to Wikipedia.

German seemed the dominant language where we were, at least. Except for "thank you" which was "Merci" in Landquart and either "Merci" or "Danke" in Davos.

Switzerland is a republic, so they're cool like us. They are also neutral, which makes them either cooler or like the annoying kid on the playground who won't pick a side and would rather sit in a corner with a book and simply broker lunch swap deals among the cliques.

Swiss women have been voting at the federal level in Switzerland since . . . 1971. 1971? Minus a few points there, you crazy cheese-eaters. The first cantons - analogous to our states, it seems - granted women the right in 1959. The last canton granted the right in 1990. Nutty.

Switzerland is not part of the EU and they still have their own currency.

Both their flag and their coat of arms is the easily recognizable red field with a white cross.

The former coffee shop in midtown Sacramento in the old fire station was called the New Helvetica after the name given to the area by that guy with that fort. So Sac was New Switzerland. Or something like that. That's not in the wikipedia article.

So there, consider yourself slightly more (superficially) educated about Switzerland than you were 5 minutes ago.

So, Gym & Trim ended up the winner after all. Through a fortuitously timed set of emails, I got them to agree to give me the student rate despite being 2 years too old to qualify according to the paperwork. So this shiny new gym, complete with studio classes, is all mine for a mere 30 GBP. That's aboout $50. Not bad for a single month membership (they'll always be overpriced compared to yearlong commitments).

As mentioned before, this place - besides having a rather goofy name - is also atop a Mexican eatery called "Chimichanga." From having hung out extensively with Brits now, I can say with a comfortable level of certainty that few have any clue what a chimichanga is. Burrito and taco are easily confused as it is.

While debating the gym decision with Rob's sister, Sarah, over Skype, I started referring to this gym as the ChimiGym.

I have now decided to call it simply Chym, the gym above the Chimichanga. Has a certain poetry to it, no?

No complaints so far. It's your average gym in your average strip mall. Very easy to get there on the bus (next task: get monthly bus pass).

Actually, one complaint: no incline ab bench or medicine balls about, which means I can't do the one ab exercise I actually almost enjoy. Crunches on the big ball it is, I guess.

I asked a trainer there if there was one around and I was just missing it. She said no, they usually just shove a piece of wood under a regular bench to tilt it up. Sounds effective, but I passed anyway.

Tomorrow I have my first complimentary training session. Probably pointless as it's the "step on this scale please" kind. My basic gym rule applies here as well as in the states: you come at me with calipers and you get a caliper up the nose. I don't need to know my body fat %. It's too high. Frankly, even weight is secondary to the more concrete metric of "how small a little black dress can I get into," which is always an accurate measure of success.

I've been twice so far and had relatively good workouts. Man, has it been awhile since I did any serious treadmill time. I hate to say it, but I think my last real work out was just a few days after the Bar. Lame.

The goal - and one I feel fairly confident I can accomplish - is daily attendance Monday through Friday. There's really no reason not to go. I'm not doing much else aside from wrestling unsuccessfully with setting up yet another website (not for me, for the great Stag/Athena good), and trying to plan our Italy trip.

Speaking of trips, however, our immediate travel plans include visiting London this weekend. Sadly, The Ritz was completely booked for tea (argh), so the Savoy will have to do. I plan to go back, though. I don't relish the thought of going to the Ritz for tea alone, but I will do what I must. Flippin' expensive, but it's the Ritz, so really, what do you expect (I'll gladly set up a paypal account should anyone feel a burning need to subsidize me actually staying in any of these fine establishments). Keeps out the riff raff (wait, I'm part of the riff raff as a vulgar American, aren't I?).

I still haven't given up plans to catch The Berkeley's Prêt-à-Portea, despite numerous eyerolls from old foggies, er, I mean, adulter people than I. It's "the fashionista's afternoon tea," and while I don't think I really have fashionista street cred, I'd be doing it for all my girls because, dammit, it sounds kick ass [cue patriotic runway music here].

So that's the plan, Stan. London advice welcomed - leave me a comment or shoot me an email . . . .

No more cheese, dear god, no more cheese.

A whole gaggle of us hunkered down over the fondue packs Rob and I hand-carried across Europe from Switzerland last week. It was goooooood. And I don't mean NO more cheese, but I think I need a cheese break.

And speaking of food stuff (the amount of time I'm about to have on my hands combined with my many pictures of meals across the world makes me wonder if this blog will start looking like Colin's world o' sandwiches and gym discussions) . . . .

Visited Tescos today. My first British supermarket. It was more like a SuperK - digital cameras and Weetabix, etc. I picked up some yogurt (which, despite daily practice, remains one of the few words I cannot pronounce Brit-style) and some granola for breakfasts this week. I also picked up some individual yogurt cups in toffee and hazelnut flavors just out of curiosity. Saddly, however, I couldn't find chocolate yogurt. There was tons of the stuff in Swizzle and I remember it so fondly from childhood that I'm desparate for more. Note to America: what gives? We supersize and chocolate coat everything - where's the damned chocolate yogurt.

Next time I think I'll try the goat's milk yogurt. Had goat's milk butter the other day - yummy. Very delicate flavor - not so different from the cow kind, but delish.

Tomorrow also marks the first day of my Ipswich bus riding adventures. Privatized bus systems means that locating decent information and maps is about impossible. I'm also going to hand the driver a pile of change and look at hime with hopeful eyes to see how much it costs to get there. I've heard theories of a 3 pound return fare (return = round trip in brit-speak), but that seems steep. Probably accurate though - damned valueless American dollar.

Destination: Fitness First.

Vacation schmacation - this girl has a college reunion and she wants to eat pasta and drink wine in Italy which means I literally must work my ass off between now and the end of April. No fooling.

Having achieved moderate fitness success in the past makes it more, not less, difficult to get back in the harder core habit now. Knowing you can do something makes not doing it more of a let-down.

The first gym I toured today was above a Chimichanga restaurant and between a MickeyDs and a KFC. It would never have done. This Fitness First place is next to the local football team's complex and away from fast food outlets. It is also 15 GBP cheaper to join for a month. It wins.

Not like I have much else to do as Rob returns for a brief stint at work.

So, more working out now, more [tempered] pigging out in Italy later.

Probably because he knows I'm going to fall down any second.

But that is, in fact, me in the background. Proof that I was doing what I said I was!