Smog & Smoke & Stuff

Hi all,

Had a most wonderful first weekend in London! Spent time on Friday afternoon (is 4 to 9am considered afternoon???) at a pub near the office with some Accenture friends. I tried four different beers, none of which even compare to Red Hook, Mac N Jacs, or Widmere. But hey, I will not give up trying! :-) Later on Friday, I had my second date with a charming bloke (love the lingo here) named Adam (it only took us 90 days from the first date) - and I must say it went quite well (leaving all the gory details out of the blog!!). For those of you who know who he is, you can email me direct for the scoop.

The rest of the weekend was a bit of a blur... it's taken four days to get on the right timezone. I've been awake from midnight to 4am almost everynight... the good news is that I am getting really far into Atlas Shrugged (what a magnificent book mom - thanks for the recommendation!), but the bad news is that I want to sleep in until noon everyday. It wasn't until this morning when I set the alarm for 6am that I was able to force myself to really get to bed by 11pm. It feels good to have a schedule again. I actually woke up, read the paper, went running, showered, and was to the office just past 8am. Not bad for someone who's world has been backwards for 2 months.

I've been running everyday and for all that I already love about this city, I absolutely hate the smog and cigarette smoke. It's downright crazy... I've tried running in the early hours of the morning to avoid it, but the smog never leaves the city and smokers are out at all hours of the day. Literally - I can wipe the smog off my face with a washcloth when I get done running. Gross. On my walk to work this morning, every third or fourth person was smoking (this was before 8am!!!). I know I am being a pesky American here, but don't people know it will kill them?????

This week, I plan on taking a quick trip over to Ireland to meet with several of my new team members and to sight-see around Dublin! Fun. I love how truly central London is to everything. Next stop --- Madrid!

PS- Still working out the details of adding pictures to this site... I think it's a "user error".

PPS- Thanks for the comment Thom - they do have frogs here... perhaps if I kiss them all, one of them might turn out to be a prince! At least that's what they tell me...