One Week 'til Christmas, Two Weeks 'til London

The countdown is officially on. Both of them, actually. This week is Christmas; next week we’ll fly out to London. We’ll literally be flying right into the face of the new year. Who knows, we may even be 30,000 feet over New York City when the ball drops in Times Square. Brittany sends her regards, as she’s battling a cold that has limited her opportunities to celebrate the end of her semester at San Jose State University (SJSU). I must say, I am SO proud of how hard she’s worked and how well she’s done. I think her GPA is going to be phenomenal this semester. More importantly, we’re discovering how talented she is as an artist. I always knew she was a great photographer, but some of her paintings were shockingly brilliant.


For one of her assignments (above), she was to paint something about herself that contained multiple elements. Although there’s no point putting more holes in the wall right now, this will be one of the first things I hang on our wall when we return to the states. The background, obviously, is the Union Jack—the flag of the United Kingdom. The figure at the bottom is a silhouette of the London skyline, including Big Ben, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the London Eye. I love the twilight sky fading into the deep blue of the flag.

You can also see more of her artwork on her website she created for her digital media class:
http://dma.sjsu.edu/art74_1/09_bkl/

While we’re in London, she’ll be taking a semester of photography classes during a study abroad program at Roehampton University. We both get a kick out of the fact that this will her fifth college (West Valley College, Foothill College, BYU-Hawaii, SJSU, Roehampton). She’s very excited to explore London and around Europe for inspiration for her photography. When I’m not working, I’ll tag along with the camcorder Santa Claus is delivering later this week. Hopefully, I’ll be diligent in posting some of the videos so that you can share in the fun.

We also found out where we’ll be staying in London. We’ll be in a nice apartment in Kensington Square—a really beautiful, safe location. We’ll actually be just a few blocks from Prince William’s and Princess Kate’s palace after they get married in April. Brittany’s considering camping out to get a nice view of the wedding processional as they parade through town. We’ll also be close to Brittany’s friend Paige, who’s doing a semester abroad at the BYU London Centre. We’ll be able to walk just a few minutes to the tube (subway) station, lots of shops, restaurants, markets, etc.

Each of our daily commutes should only take about 30-40 minutes, which was tough to pull off. KPMG’s beautiful new office in Canary Wharf is on the east end of the city, while Roehampton University is on the southwest side, close to Wimbledon. Our Sunday commute to the Hyde Park Ward will be much shorter, though. The church building is only about a mile away, right next to the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A). One of the biggest reliefs will be to have a washer and dryer IN our apartment. It’s funny how you take that for granted, but for two years we’ve had to trudge up and down stairs and wait in line for our turn to use the shared laundry facilities. Now if we spill something on a shirt, we won’t have to wait two weeks until we’ve got a full load to wash.

It’s getting increasingly more difficult not to think about this next stage of our life. I've just got a few days of work left in the US, and craiglisters are quickly picking away at the furniture we don't want to put in storage. I even listed my car for sale to see if I can get any bites. We just figured the less we have to pack, move, and store, the better. We’re going to get a storage unit for our things, we just don’t know how big it needs to be yet. If things don’t sell, no biggie. Just means we’ll have to figure out what to do with it until we get back at the end of July.

Brittany should be done with most of her classes in early April, and my work assignment in London will wrap up at the end of June. In addition to taking some weekend trips throughout that time, we’re taking advantage of the opportunity to do some traveling free of work or school for the last month. Any suggestions on where we should go or what we should do/see during July?