London calling

This past weekend Brian and I took our first holiday together since we've been living here and flew to London to see Brian's sister Amy, her husband Jamie and our new 4-month old nephew Felix. The weekend involved lots of Indian food, people watching and walking for hours around the gigantic city. While we were there we spent some time by ourselves exploring London (we'd both been a few times before so we skipped most of the tourist stuff) and on Saturday got to hang out with Amy, Jamie & Felix on the waterfront of the Thames River. Felix was great, he barely fussed at all and seemed to enjoy the company of his new aunt and uncle.

It was a short but really nice trip and it was great to meet up with the Gambell's on this side of the world before they make their big move to Los Angeles in September. I've posted some of the highlights below:

Brian, Jamie, Amy & Felix talking about our plans for the day

Mom & son

Brian and me on the London tube

Enjoying the park in our brightly colored shirts

Brian and me in front of a big Lion - we were 10 feet up or so

When Brian and I were first looking into moving abroad, we had considered London an option - so it was really interesting to go there and see how different our lives would have been had we moved there instead of Amsterdam. Although we both think London is great, we were pleasantly surprised how much more at home we feel in the Netherlands. To me, London is more like New York - full of opportunities and culture, but gigantic and money-driven. It takes forever to go anywhere in the city, even with the Tube, and our standard of living would have been much lower if we'd moved there because everything is so incredibly expensive.

Amsterdam is quirky - full of long, windy staircases, people who don't necessarily go out of their way to help you, and completely unpredictable weather. Nothing is ever perfect - grocery stores don't have the same thing from one day to the next, the showers are less than luxurious, and nearly two thirds of all bikes in Amsterdam are stolen at some time or another (Brian's was taken last week). But both Brian and I have found that the quirky, laid back attitude here really fits us, and we're glad to be here in the city where guys and girls alike sport their skinny jeans, big Nike high tops and pea coats even on the hottest of summer days.

- Krista