You Didn't Move Here for the Weather

After the rainiest April and June on the books, the rain continues stubbornly into July and the outlook is not good.

They say that England is in a drought, but it's flooding so we are a bit confused on that one.

Here's the next week's forecast and reminder that we didn't move here for the weather. Looks like we will have to get a tropical sun vacation on the books ASAP.

Le Gai Paris

One of the wonderful things about living in London is access to the rest of Europe. Rumour has it that you can pop down to Paris and back for dinner, and while that might be a stretch, it's definitely an easy weekend trip.

David and I spent last weekend in Paris. We took the Eurostar there, which goes under the English Channel to Paris in just over two hours. I'm pretty sure it took us about two hours to get from Santa Monica to Hollywood on a Friday evening once when we were living in LA, so this is amazing.

We had a fabulous time eating, drinking and exploring. We didn't do a ton of touristy stuff, but we did climb the Eiffel tower (about 400 steps up, and then back down) to have a glass of champagne at the very top.

We did walk around and see many of the big hitters (which we had seen before when we were students, but that was long before Instagram!).

Pompidou

Arc de Triomphe

Notre Dame

David's future car (basically a glorified golf cart).

And what trip to Paris is complete without some escargot? We had a delicious dinner at Le Coupe Chou. Paris, we will definitely see you again soon!

A Royal Birthday Indeed

Royals. What an interesting topic as an American. They are something we really haven't grown up with, and have only watched with fascination from afar. I can remember thinking that the Brits sure do get a lot of bank holidays for things like weddings and such. But now, we have actually experienced it ourselves.

For those of you who don't know, this year was the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. She's been on the thrown for 60 years. In celebration and recognition of this, the people of the UK were given not just one, but two days off. The four day weekend was filled with events such as a river floatilla where 1000 boats paddled down the river (in the pouring rain I might add). There were street parties, church services, parades, and all sorts of fun.

This also happened to coincide with David's and my birthday on Monday, June 4. And what a party it turned out to be! On that day we attended a street party our friends were throwing. It was a blast. There were probably 100 people, over 200 bottles of champagne, and a table full of cupcakes. It was epic to say the least. We couldn't help but get into the spirit. Check out some pictures from the weekend below.

Samira at the river front for the floatilla.

Floatilla happenings. Note the jumbo screens. They were playing movies of the queen when we were there.

The streets were all decked out.

Even Mattie got into the Jubilee spirit (against her will really).

We'd like to think all of this champagne was for our birthday. 

Let them eat cake!

Getting into the spirit!

The street party.

It's still raining...

The wettest April on the books, of course occurs our first year here.

Even Mattie can't take it anymore:

I guess we didn't move to England for the weather :)

Life on the Island: Day 121

It hasn’t stopped raining in weeks. The dog is depressed because her park hours have severely declined. Our vitamin D levels are dropping by the hour. But that hasn’t stopped us from making the most of our time so far.

Photo Credit: Frédéric Fabry

We’ve just officially finished four months here and it seems that we are finally getting to experience the English weather that everyone warned us about. 

Despite the rain, we have been exploring London and the surrounding sites as much as possible. Just this last weekend we did our third nine mile hike with the UK Explorers meet up group. Each month we go about an hour out of the city and have visited Kent, Surrey, and Buckinghamshire. On this last hike I learned a valuable lesson about approaching bulls. On the previous hike both David and I learned what Stinging Nettle is (and luckily its cure: the Dock leaf).

David has been running every week with the Hash House Harriers, and recently took part on a relay team at the Milan marathon. He’s now training for his first half marathon, taking place at the end of may in the Isle of Wight.

We’ve also gone on the Jack the Ripper tour, a day tour to Stonehenge and Bath, and spent Easter at the Plumpton horse races with our friends Brad and Katie.

Our English friends say that we have seen more than they have, and we aren’t slowing down!

So far, life in London suits us – that’s of course if it stops raining! 

Mattie and the Ducks

Went on a hike, Mattie indulged in a bit of duck chasing. Nuff said.

The NHS

The National Health Service. It’s like an exotic animal to most Americans who just don’t get the concept of nationalized healthcare. Is it socialist? Do you have to wait for months to get a doctors appointment? Well today I will answer all of your questions.

Most of you know that I’m a type I diabetic on an insulin pump. This of course has been one of my bigger concerns with moving to a new country. Will they have the same medications and treatment options? What if they don’t?

Why is there a picture of a white tiger in the middle of this post? I don't know, it seemed exotic.

The Adventure Begins…How it typically works is that you have a medical practice that is “yours” based on where you live. You go in, register with your practice by showing your passport and proof of address and then 24 hours later you can start receiving services.  

Last Tuesday David and I went and registered. That day I was able to make an appointment to meet with a nurse the following week to get my prescriptions sorted out.  Yesterday I went for that appointment.

I arrived to find out that apparently there were some clerical errors. I wasn’t properly registered, then they couldn’t find my appointment. Despite this, I was still able to meet with a nurse at the same time. Then the nurse informed me that I shouldn’t have met with her first, but should have had a New Patient exam first. Whoops.

So we get down to the reason I was there, to get my prescriptions. Did you bring the UK equivalent of your medications? Um…no.  So the search begins. She takes a look at the drug names and searches the computer database, no answer. Now we turn to books. Meanwhile I take out my hand iPhone and begin googling. Want to take a guess on who figured out what the UK equivalents were? That would be me.

Snafoos aside, within about 30 minutes I had prescriptions for two medications that we think are the equivalent of the US versions. Let the experimentation begin! Oh and did I mention that there was no co-pay or any cost for meeting with the nurse?

I then walked to my local pharmacy and dropped off my prescriptions. One of them I was given a three month supply of absolutely free. The other will cost me £7.40 per month. £7.40 per month, that’s like $12.

In the US our monthly medical expenditures between monthly insurance coverage, co-pays for prescriptions and doctors visits, deductibles, uncovered costs, etc. were probably costing us on average about $350 per month because I am lucky enough to have a pre-existing chronic illness. Here it will cost us about $52 (I also have private insurance coverage which costs about $40/month).

We don’t have it all figured out yet, but so far it seems pretty amazing. I have no idea how the private insurance works, or if we will need it (I’ve been told that it’s a fast-track ticket to specialists, and gives access to private doctors and hospitals). Nor can I really speak to the socialist nature of it, but it’s an amazing feeling to have your basic health needs taken care of as a right, not as a luxury.