London Town

Trish & I had a great time in London. It's been our first trip together to Europe and we've had a great time together. Our hotel is near Paddington Station near the Northern border of Hyde Park. We took the Heathrow Express into Paddington and then found our hotel.

After checking in we crashed for a bit to try to regain at least a smidgen of energy. Before long our little crash turned into a bit of a medium crash. We finally wrestled ourselves out of bed and into the town. I think we strolled toward Hyde Park and along Regent Street before eventually using the Tricia Navigation System, known as TNS, to get us to Liecester Square to check on cheap show tickets for the evening. Wanting to see the Lion King we had to continue on to the Lyceum theatre to get tickets. We managed to score the VERY last row. It was still great and I'd see it again in a heartbeat, though maybe I'd try for the second last row.

On our next day we again strolled through Hyde Park, enjoyed coffee in our duplex and then went on to Camden Town to visit its' markets. We had lots of fun exploring them and seeing a new area of London. That afternoon we tried to go to the London Museum, but due to an extended nap and poor scheduling on my part we didn't make it there in time. Quickly coming up with an alternative plan, Tricia used her TNS to get us to Oxford Circus and then into SOHO where we decided to find some dinner. We found a nice little place, Aperatifo, which was fine but nothing too special, especially the service.

Read more about our adventures @ The Boulevard to Paris.



Cheers.

Black Tuesday?

A mammoth day on the global stock markets as the Chinese government moved to stem stock speculation and former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, sparked concerns of softening Chinese and U.S. economies and the affects that would bring also hardship to the rest of the worlds' economies.

Greenspan's chatter sparked the worst single-day losses in many markets since the terrorist attacks of 9/11! The U.S. markets, measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Index (DJIA) lost over 400 points! The Shanghai Stock market lost nearly 9%, it's largest loss in over a decade! (Fortunately, it's already Wednesday in China, and at writing of this blog, the Chinese markets are headed slightly higher lead by Financial Blue Chips.)

Other markets around the globe also felt the drop, as economists, traders, and investors alike were forced to consider more closely the chances of an impending recession as the U.S. economy continues on one of it's longest periods of expansion ever! Greenspan's primary point was that things cannot go on forever and that more and more signs are pointing to the 'R' word by as soon as the end of 2007.

We'll have to wait and see when the right time is to pull the trigger and buy stocks again or to just put that money in your ING account.

The Hair is Back!

That's right folks, the Vancouver Canucks have reaquired the Hair from the Los Angeles Kings. It's been a couple years since he's been around, but I'm sure he'll be able to fit right back in with the boys without too much difficulty. Who is the Hair? Why it's Sopes, Brent Sopel that is.

End of 2 Eras

Hard to imagine, but two eras came to a swift conclusion since the new year. The first was planned, the second was a bit of a shock to many.

On February 9, 2007 we sold our first home with the help of our realtors. Wierd feelings, but now that its' had time to settle in a bit we're really happy about everything. The place was only on the market for about 10 days when we received our first offer. We accepted it, and here we are, a couple weeks after the fact starting to pack up our lives. As to where we'll be next, that's a good question. Let me know if you have a good answer for it. ;)

February 22, 2007 saw the end of the other era, The O.C.. Seth, Summer, Ryan, Taylor, and the rest of the gang will have to live on in our hearts and DVDs. The summer-time series that could, could no longer. But the series finale was one of the best conclusion-style episodes of any show in recent memory. A few surprises, but overall a good wrap-up of the questions we all had.

World Travels

Ever wanted to have a great big map that charted your world travels? It's definately something I've always wanted as I really enjoy travelling and it's always nice to know where you've been, especially when charting where you're going to go next.


Well, wait no longer, you don't even need to go out and make a big purchase. You can just use this great little mapping tool I found on the ol' interweb.



Here's the places I've now been, all 33 of them. It looks like I need to do quite a bit more travelling, especially in Eastern Europe & Asia, South America, Africa, and the South Pacific.

So, where to next?

Accomplished...

Last weekend was the big day, the day Tricia had been working towards for the last 4 months.

We headed over to Victoria on Saturday morning and boarded one of the busiest ferries I've ever seen; being Thanksgiving weekend the ships were packed.

Once we arrived in Victoria we stopped by one of our favourite coffee shops, Pure Vanilla, in Oak Bay. After our little snack we checked into our
hotel which was not willing to provide a late enough check-out, but we checked-in anyways, choosing to "deal with it later".

Since our check-in was done we headed for the registration of why we were in Victoria in the first place, the Victoria Marathon, Tricia's first full marathon.

After the registration we took advantage of Victoria and went shopping in their downtown.

Before dinner we took a quick trip of most of the marathon's route so Tricia would have some mental comfort with her enormous task of the next morning.

To cap off the evening we headed over to The Tapas Bar with the whole family and some other friends that came over for the race. The company was great, however we weren't as big fans of the food, which was satisfactory but didn't blow us away.

After a good night sleep, and early morning, and a healthy, pre-run breakfast Tricia was off and running. She managed to complete her first marathon in very good time and in very good shape.

A quick lunch at Med Grill capped off our Victoria experience and then it was off to the ferries for our trip home.

Listed

It's been a little while since I've updated the blog as we've been so incredibly busy trying to complete the renovation of our condo (pictures at dwellhere dot blogspot dot com). Well, it's done, and as such it's now just been listed with our realtors.

I guess it's now time for us to get back to all those little things we neglected over the last few months.