The tree...

So here it is... the online ordered Christmas tree. Keep in mind this picture was taken about a week ago and the tree now has probably 50% fewer needles. Ok, that's an exaggeration, but it is seriously loosing needles like they're going out of style. Also wanted to include a picture of the wreath (which was purchased online as well). It looks pretty good, though a little smooshed on the left side.

I hope everyone is getting ready for Christmas and has a wonderful holiday in store. Ric and I are very much looking forward to staying in London, and can't wait for my mom and brother to arrive tomorrow. Until then, we'll be sipping mulled wine and listening to Christmas carols... thinking about and missing all of you!

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Rachel & Ric

Just another day in Hampstead

Ric and I had a great Hampstead day today. After sleeping in, we got up to clean the outside of the house (pulling up dead plants out of the pots, sweeping the front and back porch, a little eggs and toast for late breakfast, etc). The highlight of the day, however, was walking down to Spaniard's Inn, which is about 15-20 minutes down the road, and is one of the oldest pubs in town (dating from the early 1700's). If you read the chalkboard right inside the door, you'll find out that two famous books include Spaniard's ... one by Dickens and Bram Stoker's Dracula. And people used to hide out there when London was suffering from the plague.

We enjoyed a few glasses of Guinness and then a mulled wine. After bundling up and walking to our other favorite pub, the Holly Bush, we enjoyed another couple glasses of mulled wine, which I highly recommend. It's like warm wine with spices, something sweet, and a lemon in the glass.

As we're walking out we hear music and walk around the corner to find a neighborhood group of people singing Christmas carols. Complete with horns and trumpets. What a perfect way to end the evening, and so very English village!

A dot.com Christmas

Just when you thought you had run out of things to order online... along comes pinesandneedles.com. Ric and I couldn't find any Christmas tree lots close by, and were not very enthusiastic about the prospects of stuffing a tree onto the tube to get it back to Hampstead. Luckily, we found out how the Brits do Christmas trees. They order online. Unfortunately, you don't get a whole page of specific tree pictures to chose from (maybe next year), but you do get to pick the height and type of tree you'd like and it gets dropped off on your doorstep. You could even get a fully decorated one with lights, if you want to pay a little extra. Throw in a wreath and some mistletoe and you're in business. We certainly live in an online world...

Catching up

Ric and I leave tomorrow for a couple weeks in the US. It will be my first time back since we moved to London and I'm really excited to be "home" for a little while. We'll spend a couple days in Princeton, then it's on to White Haven, PA for Thanksgiving, and then we head to the west coast for a week in San Fran.

Before we go, I wanted to give a few quick updates from the past week...

The David Gray concert on Monday was AMAZING. He didn't have an opening band and instead opened the show himself, doing an acoustic set of 5 or 6 songs that was just awesome. Then he took a 25 minute break and came back to do a full concert that lasted about an hour an a half. He played all the hits, but covered a few songs like Long Black Veil.

And I ordered my Christmas cards, planning well in advance! If anyone is looking for cute cards this year and doesn't like what they find in Hallmark, check out MOO.com. They're one of my clients and have really fun Christmas card ideas. You can either use your own photos or pick from their designers: http://www.moo.com/designs/theme/christmas/.

It's gotten really cold here over the past few days, but the sun is shining! It was supposedly -4 (Celsius) this morning, which is quite chilly, so Ric and I are trying to adjust after five years in San Francisco where the temperature didn't waver much from 65.

Happy Thanksgiving in advance to everyone!

Christmas on Flask Walk

Christmas is in the air, and the lights are on above Flask Walk... only 47 days to go!

Berlin in a weekend

For anyone who has a weekend free and wants to swing through Berlin, I would highly recommend it. Ric and I didn't have much time there, but it's a really easy trip from London and we left pretty late on Sunday, so it felt like a nice, long weekend. Here's a quick recap of what we saw and did!


Arrived on Friday night late (around 11pm) and had a drink at the hotel. That's where the celeb sighting happened, which I took as a sign that we were going to have a great weekend. Unexpectedly got upgraded to the penthouse apartment... which was almost as big as our house. Felt a little empty with just Ric and I wandering around, but now that we're BFF with Liev and Naomi, I'll definitely invite them over to the penthouse next time we're in town.




On Saturday we started off the day with a visit to the Jewish Museum. It was interesting and covered almost the entire history of the religion, not just specific to Germany. We then walked over to Checkpoint Charlie... the spot where the US Army would stop people trying to get from one side to the other.






Then walked by pieces of the Berlin Wall that are still standing. Pretty crazy to think there was a wall dividing the city in half, not too long ago.




We then walked down one of the main streets called Unter den Linden. It wasn't quite as pretty as we remembered, mainly because of all the construction (which is everywhere in Berlin... TONs of work being done).

After lunch a Schlotzsky's(which was just as good as I remembered it), we made our way over to Mitte and wandered back to the penthouse... stopping through a little German Christmas market and doing a tiny bit of shopping. Dinner that night involved TEN courses at a place called Horvath. It was absolutely amazing, but they took their time bringing everything out so we were there for almost four hours... Sunday was just more wandering, down by the river, and around another little street fair. And then, to our surprise, the sun came out! We left for the airport around 4pm, feeling totally walked out, but really content after a great weekend. Here are a few more pics of the city...

Celeb sighting in Berlin!

We had been in Berlin for less than an hour and were grabbing a drink at the hotel restaurant, when none other than Liev Schreiber and his girlfriend Naomi Watts walked by!!! They had just eaten and were leaving with a pretty big entourage. They stood outside for a while before getting into a nice VW Toureg and driving off.

Not too bad for our first night in Berlin!

Went to the wall today, Checkpoint Charlie and the Jewish Museum. Great dinner planned for tonight!

Pictures

I've finally admitted to myself that it's going to take a while to get all of our Italy photos online, so rather than waiting for that to be done, I wanted to put a few up to give everyone an idea of what our trip was like. It's hard to believe that within three weeks we will have visted Turin, Alba, Portofino and Florence, celebrated my 28th birthday in style with awesome friends in town, and gone to Berlin for the weekend (we leave Friday). Nothing like staying busy...

Turin

Our cute little hotel in Alba

Portofino

Ric at the Hotel Splendido before dinner one night

View of Portofino from across the bay

Santa Margarita (about 5 km from Portofino)

Florence

Our old school... Lorenzo de Medici

Amazing friends...

I was sitting at Gail's coffee shop on Friday morning with Ric, just down the street from our house, when all of a sudden I feel a hug and kiss from someone behind me. It's about 8:30 in the morning, the day before my birthday, and we don't know anyone in Hampstead so in the split second before I turn around I have absolutely NO idea who this might be. Shock of all shocks when I see Kelley and Dan! Of course I burst into tears and it took me quiet a while to process that they have flown all the way from the US to come visit me in London. What amazing friends. I still can't hardly believe it.

And it just gets better because Brantley had been in London for the week working and so she was able to stay for the weekend as well. We of course had an awesome time, eating pub food at the Flask on Friday (see pub overview below) and wonderful sushi on Saturday at Sumosan. We spent a lot of quality time together and just caught up on life, after not having seen each other for months.

It meant so much to have you guys here, thank you a million times for coming! And of course, huge thanks to Ric for coordinating the whole surprise and masterfully keeping it a secret.

Turning 28 wasn't that bad after all :)

Ciao, from Firenze!

So, in the past week Ric and I have tasted "slow food" in Turin (which is a favorite of our favorite chef, Michael Tusk from Quince), we visited the white truffle festival in Alba, we laid by the pool in Portofino and we're now in Florence rediscovering the place that we called home for four months.... a lot has happened, and I'll report on it all once we're settled back in Hampstead, but for now we're just happy the pound is doing as well as it is and are talking about whether we want a summer house in Florence or if just visiting every fall will be enough (ha!). What an awesome city with so many memories. Hard to believe it's been seven years since we first moved into town, met the other Americani living in our building... and I guess the rest is history. Have to say that my heart belongs to Firenze...

Long Live the Core Seven!!

Fancy a pub, anyone?

Ric and I have recently realized that we have SIX different pubs within a three block radius from our front door. If that doesn't sum up London, I'm not sure what does. So I thought I'd run through the list, just to get you all excited for your visits (which I know everyone is planning). And to remind those of you who have already been here where we took you.

In no particular order:

Flask Tavern - The interesting thing about this pub is that it's split down the middle by a wall, but the bar crosses into both sides. The reason for the wall is that in the old days there were two different entrances to the bar... one for the poor people and one for the wealthy people. The bar was divided so that those two groups didn't have to mix, but the bar tenders served both. This place has recently been redone, but we were happy to see they kept the "poor" and "wealthy" sides separate... we, of course, hang out on the poor side. It's about a block away from us.

Horseshoe - The Shoe, as we call it, is a gastropub, which means it's been completely updated with a more modern feel and serves pretty decent food. My favorite part, though, is the great wine list, most of which you can get by the glass, and the fact that they have Anchor Steam by the bottle. Ric and I stop by The Shoe at least once a week, if not more. It's starting to feel like a home away from home (not sure if that's good or bad) and the people in there definitely recognize us. This one is about two blocks from our house.

Hollybush - The Hollybush is always a crowd pleaser and it's much more of a traditional English pub. The best part about this one is the walk to get there. You walk up these skinny little stairs and through winding sidewalks and all of a sudden you're at the top of a hill and have discovered this hidden treasure. And you get a great view over London on the way. We also hear they have fires in the big fireplaces and warm mulled wine in the winter. Can't wait!! Hollybush is about two blocks away, but the second block is straight up a hill.

The Wells - This is another gastropub that has been redone to feel much more modern. One of my favorite things about this place is that people come in on Sundays with all of their newspapers (there are about 18 different papers for London), spread them out, and sit back on the couch for the rest of the day to just relax and enjoy a beer or two. We don't hang out here quite as much as the others, but they do have good wine, and the food is pretty yummy as well. It's two blocks away and you pass it walking from our house to the Heath (which is the huge park/natural area in our neighborhood).

Duke of Hamilton - This one we discovered by accident one night when we were walking from the Hollybush to Ye Old White Bear and it's a truly English pub. The last time we were there we saw a couple of old guys playing cards, lots of neighbors gathered to watch "the rugby," and everyone in the place knew the bartenders. It's very cozy and British. Haven't been here a ton, but they also have a great open patio in the front that's nice when the weather is cooperating. This is about three blocks away and I read that it's been around since 1721.

Ye Old White Bear - Last, but not least, is Ye Old White Bear. I like this one because I think it's funny to call pretty much anything "Ye Old." Like "Ye Old" computer. "Ye Old" mash potatoes. "Ye Old" wine glass... You get the picture. Anyway, this one stays open the latest out of all these pubs, and even that isn't very late. We can probably get away with being there until about midnight, but then they turn the lights off and threaten to lock the door. This one is also very British (which you probably could have guessed) and has a small back patio. Ric is a huge fan and it's two blocks away.

You're probably wondering how all of these can be within two or three blocks, and it's a little hard to explain until you see our neighborhood. There are tons of little streets and passages so you can walk in almost any direction and within about three minutes you will hit a pub. Walk two more minutes and you'll find another one.

It's such a nice little cosy neighborhood and we can't wait to show you all around. Just ask those who have already been here (Ric's mom, my brother, Ric's dad and Lora), they can vouch for it!

Bye Tillie, we'll miss you

I have some sad news to report... over the weekend, Matilda Beemer Yarmey, the beloved family dog, passed away at the old age of 17 (or 119 in people years). Tillie had been with us since the Providence Country Club Charlotte days, moved out to California, then back to Charlottesville. Towards the end she couldn't see or hear, or smell very well, but she still seemed to be a happy dog and boy did she always love a treat. I think she just decided that she had lived a long enough life and was ready to move on.


Tillie was a great dog and she will be missed dearly.

Where's Ric? And I missed homecoming...

Not a whole lot to update since Ric's out of town and I've been hanging out on my own for the past few days. I did participate in a "Silly Games in the Park" event on Saturday put on by my very distant cousin, whom I met for the first time in London a couple weeks ago. Something called "Klub" was played, but I opted to lay in the sun instead. Also went to dinner with some Americans, one of whom went to Wake with me (Evan Remmes, for you Deamon Deacons out there) and I have to admit that it was nice to spend some time with a few fellow Southerners. They were all from NC/VA except for the one guy who was born and raised in San Francisco. How perfect!

It did mean that I missed my five year college reunion (not "anniversary" as I had been calling it all weekend)... But I guess that's part of living across the water.

So Ric's probably mid-seminar right now. Everyone send him good juju. If I had to guess, he's answering questions about the "credit crunch" and how it's going to impact the housing market and, tangentially, overseas investments in foreign oil.

In other news, here in the UK the fifth largest mortgage lender (Northern Rock) had to call in the Bank of England because of fears that it couldn't remain financially solvent. Kind of crazy because people over are lined up for blocks and blocks to take out their life savings... 2 billion pounds in the past couple days have been withdrawn. They're afraid that the company won't be around for much longer and they'll lose all of the money they've saved. I went to lunch this afternoon and thought people were waiting for a theater show, maybe a store opening or some celebrity book signing. Or maybe (hopefully) the iPhone was being released and they were all "queuing" for blocks to get the first one... which happens to be something the British people do very well...queue. However, once I noticed the median age of the group, I knew that couldn't be the case. Hundreds of people worried that they were going to lose their life savings and waiting for hours and hours in line to get it back (and put it "under the matress" as one woman was quoted as saying). Industry experts are saying that nothing like this has happened here since the 1930s. Obviously it's the UK media, so things are exaggerated, but it's still a pretty big deal.

Watching the Emmy's right now (one day late) and the guy from Lost won best supporting actor. What in the world is he wearing??!! A fluorescent pink shirt and black sequined tie?? Really? I don't think that have that store on the island...

What else...

Since Edinburgh, a lot as happened. We had a great visit from Ric's dad and Lora. Celebrated Lora's birthday. Had Donna from Sparkpr in town. And I had a huge event for work. And that was all in the same week....

The following Monday I collapsed from exhaustion (literally) and had to stay home for the day, laying on the couch and FINALLY finishing my book. Feeling much better and trying to take it a little easier this week.

Other updates... I've been asked to sit on the advisory board of a company called Avenue7, which is a fashion/social networking site for girls aged 12-17. And Ric's been working really late this week preparing for his seminars in the Chicago area. If anyone is visiting the Windy City next week, make sure to look him up!

Edinburgh Fringe Fest

On our first ever "bank holiday" in the UK, Ric and I headed up to Edinburgh Scotland (which I've been told should be pronounced Ed-in-bra, not Ed-in-burough as I had been doing...) for the annual Fringe Festival. It's the largest arts and theater festival in the world and lasts for over a month with 2,000 shows on at any given time. Ric and I didn't quite manage to see all 2,000, but we caught 4, all of which we enjoyed.

Here are the pictures from our trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachelbremer/

Edinburgh is an absolutely gorgeous city that I would highly recommend visiting. It has the charm of a medieval castle and the beauty of the green highlands and ocean (or North Sea? I'm horrible with UK geography... is Scotland even in the UK?)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

As I'm sure you all know becuase it's pretty much a national holiday (or should be), Ric is celebrating his birthday today. He turns the big 2-7, which means we're officially the same age until October 27th (go ahead and mark that date on your claendar too...).

Also want to wish my dad a Happy Birthday. And no, I didn't marry Ric just becuase he has the same birthday as my dad, although it does make it easy for me to remember...

Je Vous Paris

I think that means "I love Paris," but can't be totally sure.My French is horrible and my attempts at a French accent are even worse. Ric and I spent last weekend there and had a wonderful time. The highlight was definitely the Ve'lib service that we used to rent bikes and ride all over the city on Sunday. It was a little hard getting started, but you know what they say...

Here are a few pictures... more online at Flickr: www.flickr.com/rachelbremer

Church St. Germain De Pres



Creperie...yum



Sacre Couer



Arch de Triompe



Louvre

And the bikes...

Lots to report...

As all of you avid readers of the Bremer Blog may have noticed, we've been on hiatus for a little while... Lots happening over here in the old Blighty (which, according to Wikipedia is a term of endearment for Britain). We had our very first visitor, Ric's mom, I chopped off my hair, we booked a trip to Paris for the weekend, booked our anniversary trip to Italy, and have gotten further adjusted to life across the pond. So, in attempt to make up for lost time, here are a few updates/observations:

1. Having visitors is great - we want more. Please come see us. We love showing people around our neighborhood and it's really hard to picture what the place looks like until you've seen it in person. Ric's mom can attest to that. We had wonderful, hot sunny weather, went to two different market (one shopping, one food), saw the Lion King (which I HIGHLY recommend) and had some wonderful meals, the best of which at a restaurant called Fredrick's where we ate on a garden table in the back lawn: http://www.fredericks.co.uk/

2. My hair is really short. Not much to say here, so I'll just show you a picture:

Before (with Tillie)



After



3. London is different than America. Here's why:

a. They don't do online shopping. The big Walmart equivalent here (called Argos) sends out a catalogue twice a year that you can order from. Think back to the Sears catalogue and you'll get the idea. No cute little websites for clothes shopping either. I'm having to adjust.

b. British men take their shirts off in public when the weather gets warm. And I've been told that they keep them off while riding on the tube, but have luckily not witnessed that myself yet. Can't imagine the smell.

c. They read more - I'm not sure if this is actually true, but there are a TON of advertisements and billboards for new books. I don't know if I've ever seen a book advertised in the US other than Harry Potter. This must mean that people read more (on the tube?) otherwise the companies wouldn't spend so much money on advertising.

d. They don't work in the summer - I've always been told this, but it's actually true. Not a whole lot gets done. We've had a hot water issue this week and had to call three plumbers before we could find one who's not on holiday. We've also been told that many of the shops and restaurants in Paris may be closed because Parisians leave for the entire month of August...

e. They go to the pub every single night of the week - another stereotype that we've been able to prove the validity of. And it's not actually just during the nights or evenings. When the weather's nice, people start gathering at noon. I'm not actually sure whether they ever make it back to work or not.

Hope everyone feels back in the loop on Bremer happenings... I'll check in again when we get back from Paris!

Spark comes to Europe (as SPR Europe)

Nice little article in PR Week UK about the best thing to hit London since meat pies!

US agency kicks off Europe bid with London office
Aug. 1, 2007
http://www.prweek.com/uk/search/article/674693/

San Francisco tech firm Spark PR opened a London office this week as a base for expanding its European operations.

Senior director Rachel Bremer has relocated from San Francisco and is curren­tly looking to recruit a full team for Spark’s new Conduit Street office, which will be called SPR Europe.

The US-headquartered independent agency has res­ponded to a demand for pan-European PR services from its client base, which includes both tech start-ups and large venture capital companies.

‘It seems like there is a need for good PR firms with really solid tech experience in London,’ Bremer said.

She described the comp­any’s London move as in ‘phase one’. She is currently the sole employee, working with her San Francisco coll­eagues on UK accounts.

The agency’s profile in Europe has grown steadily since its 1999 founding, and clients now includes FON, the global WiFi network, and Viagogo, the second-hand ticketing website. Its venture capital roster includes Index Ventures.

New SPR Europe acc­ounts include Moo, a UK-based web start-up that all­ows users to load digital photos and turn them into professionally printed stic­kers and greeting cards, and Openads, an open source advertising programme.

This month high-tech firm Schwartz Communications, which operates out of San Francisco and Massachusetts, also announced its intention to open a London base in October to complement its Stockholm office.

Pictures of the house

Here are a few pics of the house now that we have (almost) everything unpacked. Will put up a few of the upstairs once it's done!

This is the kitchen table area:



This is the view looking from the kitchen area towards the front of the house:

This is walking in the front door and looking right:

Walking in the front door and looking straight ahead:



Walking in the front door and looking left:

The kitchen:

And that's all for now!

Feels like a home...

After two days away from work and an embarrassing number of trash bags filled to the rim, we're finally feeling "moved in" to our new house. It's pretty neat to see all of our things from San Francisco in totally new surroundings. The green cabinet next to the desk... the table from the kitchen holding up our TV. My goal is to take pictures and post "before and afters" comparing the house now to what it looked like before we moved in. Pretty drastic change.

The only two casualties from the move over were the box spring and the bedroom dresser, both of which couldn't fit up the tiny staircase. But we got a new mattress base (as they call them here) and a new dresser arrives on Monday. By the time Ric's mom gets here on Thursday (which we're SO excited about) we should be all set.

It hasn't rained yet today and there's actually been a little sun shining. Trying to enjoy it while it lasts. According to the Guardian, the UK is having more rain this summer than it has had in 200 years!!! Here's the article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/jul/27/1

Hooray for Harry!

Potter that is... Ric and I have been on the couch all day with the newest (and last!) Harry Potter book. We reserved our copies (yes, that is copies purlal...didn't want to fight over who got it first) about a month ago and have been eagerly anticipating this day. And it finally arrived! It's 600 pages, called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and so far (I'm about 1/3 of the way through), it's amazing! The action starts right on page one and just keeps going. I'm trying to pace myself so I don't finish it too quickly... have to drag it out becuase there (supposedly) won't be any more after this one. Anyone else out there as excited about this as we are?

I did read that they've set up special helplines for kids in the UK to help them deal with "emotional issues" that the book may cause. If that doesn't build up suspense about the ending I don't know what does!

Happy reading!

Our furniture has arrived!!

Hurray! It pulls into the dock today and then just has to clear customs (fingers crossed). Now comes the fun part... unloading all of the boxes.

What a Weekend!

After my run-in with the neighbor, we had a seriously pro-London weekend... here's just a glimpse of what Ric and I were up to, if you'd like to see all the pictures (there are quite a few from the Tour de France and art fair), go to our Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachelbremer/

Tour de France
It started in London this year, and after not realizing how early things kicked off, Ric and I were running down the street to a viewing point hoping to see everyone before they rode by. With just about 4 minutes to spare, we got there in time and it was SO cool. Hard to explain because it's just a bunch of people on bikes, but the crowd was really excited and it was really neat being there with so many other people just to see these guys ride by.

We watched this right by the Tower Bridge and there were a ton of people lined up on both sides of the street:

And here's a picture of Ric and I afterwards, down by the River Thames

Vauxhall Art Car Boot Fair

(which means people were selling art out of the boots, or trunks, of their cars)

This was a really quirky little art fair that we went to in East London. Absolutely hilarious display of British humor. Here's one of the exhibits where they're selling Gin and Tonics out of a trailer, and also selling puzzle pieces (which is what they're standing in), both for a pound.

And here is Ric's favorite exhibit - the Carbon Footprint, where you put your foot in carbon and stand on the piece of blank paper.

And here's another funny one... a guy was selling countries for 3 pound each. Once a country was purchased he would put a little orange sticker on the map to show that it was no longer available. Someone bought Paraguay while we were standing there.

Another thing you may have noticed in these pictures is the lack of umbrellas, dark clouds and rain. It was a wonderfully sunny, warm weekend which made these festivities even better!

A friend to the environment... but not the neighborhood cats...

So I'm on the front porch, really excited about cleaning things up... you know, the usual weeding, sweeping, etc, and one of my lovely British neighbors walks by. If you've been to the UK recently you'll understand how CRAZY they are about this whole "green" thing, but if you haven't, there's really no way for you to comprehend the fanaticism. I'm all for saving the environment, I guess, but it's taken to a whole new level here.

Proof in point... this neighbor who walks by, whom I've never met or seen before, stops because out of the corner of her eye she spies a spray bottle of some sort sitting on the porch. She picks up the bottle, realizes it's weed killer and proceeds to lecture me about how it's bad for the environment AND it's bad for the cats who like to hang out on our front porch at night.

There are two things wrong with this conversation:

1. I don't really like cats and they should not be hanging out on our front porch any time of day.

2. If neighbor-lady wants to save the environment by using weed killer that doesn't work, be my guest, but in America, we have a little something called Freedom of Choice. I chose to use actual weed killer that kills actual weeds.

And I think we're now officially known as "The Americans who don't care about saving the planet" and that does not go over very well... I'm actually more worried about the neighborhood environmentalists than the Al Qaeda.

Global Warming Hysteria

Just when I thought the global warming fears couldn't get any worse, now it snows in July and inevitably we'll have to deal with Global Cooling worries (again)!

-Ric

The aftermath of the storm Rachel pictured earlier: