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!