JOY JOY JOY: for Meg

(Is it just me, or does this feel like it's becoming my blog? Meg, we'd love to hear your take on this all...)

Anyway. Last night I arrived safely from Switzerland and went straight to The Borderline to see Jenny Owen Youngs. The photos on her page don't do her justice, so I'll put one of my own here and more on Flickr, but in person she looks like what would happen if our lovely and fun friend Lindsay Mac had babies with the uber-talented Kaki King:Since Meg couldn't come with me, I promised her a setlist, complete with jokes. Unfortunately Miss JOY was a bit sick, so the set was a little shortened, and there's a bit of rambling, but she's an amazingly talented singer. There weren't a ton of people there, so I got to be up front, and weirdly a lot of them had only heard one song of hers (more on that in a bit).
1. Coyote
Jenny asks everyone to set their ring tones to g-sharp, the key of the next song.
2. Lightning Rod
Someone's phone rings, but in the wrong key. A new verse for the song is written - "I thought we talked about the ring tones."
3. A new song, I think, which I'm calling Dissolve
4. Drinking Song
Here, the English cold medicines begin to take effect on Jenny. She finishes the second chorus, then can't remember whether or not she's played the second verse. Since hardly anyone in the audience knows the music, no one can say for sure. She begins again with the second verse. Someone shouts "We've heard that bit." The third verse begins.

Dave House is in the house. He joins Jenny on stage. They play "the one with the cursing":
5. F**k was I
Jenny asks if we've brought our feeleings. Someone in the audience says, "We're English, we don't do feelings." Jenny says, oh right, you live in this country that's cold, rainy, and full of ennui.
6. Porchrail
Dave leaves before the song is even over.
7. P.S.
8. Woodcut
Now, we find out that Jenny loves the English "beans on toast," which makes their poor excuse for coffee almost tolerable.
9. From Here
Dave returns.
10. Keys Out Lights On
Jenny promises she'll put on an evening gown later, since that's what we've all come for: "If I were a crack dealer, these songs would be my pancake store. Do you have pancakes here?" An American in the audience laments the lack of Aunt Jemima to go with pancakes. We also learn that Jenny ordered flapjacks once, and got a "horrible excuse for a granola bar," and warns us all not to go to America and order flapjacks and expect that.
11. Voice on Tape
Dave leaves again. He hasn't said a single word all night.
12. A song I'm calling Avalanche, by someone who I think is called Garinne Hawk
13. A new song I'm calling The English Language
14. Another new song I'm calling I Couldn't Want You
15. Her cover of Hot in Here, which turns out to be why everone came to the show. For the first time all night, they're singing along! Too bad the show is over now.

Where we've been

We've had so much fun traveling and having visitors in November that we haven't written about it (or even put up pictures):
First, my parents came. We went to Cornwall with them for a long weekend.
Then, they left and went to France.
My sister came. She met me for lunch, then went to Cambridge to see her James. Then off to Spain with her.
Meanwhile, Meg's mom came. Then we went to Barcelona together, where we met my parents and sister and James for Thanksgiving. It was really fun, though of course without all the American media hoopla it didn't feel much like Thanksgiving. In fact, it felt so little like Thanksgiving that we didn't even all have dinner together. Still, family is (at least to me) the most important part of a holiday, so it was still good.
Next, Meg, her mom, and my parents came back to London. Meg's mom left after one day (had to go back to work) and we had a few more days with my parents.
After they left, my sister came back to London. We had so much fun hanging out. We went for a run and went to a party at a co-worker's house, but really nothing too intense. Then James came down from Cambridge, and we all had kebabs and hung out for a while longer. On Saturday we went to Borough Market and then to one of our favourite pubs - they have an awesome beer selection and an outdoor patio with heat. Monday Lindsay and I did a little (very little!) Christmas shopping in Oxford Circus. While we were out James texted me and said he'd finished his work early and wanted to come back down and surprise Lindsay. She and I went home and made this AWESOME butternut squash lasagne. I heard James put his key in the doorway and talked so Lindsay wouldn't hear it. She was washing dishes and talking to me, and he came up and stood behind her until she turned around. She was very surprised!
So that's what we've been up to...what about you? Hope to see you soon!

Running from thirty

Yes, the rumo(u)rs are true. I'm turning thirty. As a gift to myself, I'm running a marathon. Anyone who's crazy enough to want to (or is in danger of a birthday ending in "0" themselves) is welcome to join me. Anyone who's more sane (or has already passed their own midlife crisis) can join Meg.

Uncivil liberties

We received the letter below in the mail (er, post) yesterday. The places I blacked out are where they gave the exact address of the residence in question.



There was a copy of this letter for each apartment (er, flat) in our building. Nothing like a little public shame to discourage drug use (just one activity in the list of Anti-Social Behaviours, which places the need to shut down crack houses only slightly above the requirement to cut down your high hedges).

I've found my people

Who knew I was from Cornwall? Check out this photo - it looks just like my Aunt Ruthie!

The sounds of home

Our friend Jo came to visit us this weekend, and it felt like being in NY again. We sat on the people tree, ordered takeout, drank wine, and watched the NFL on TV. (Jo, you'll make the blog in more detail as soon as we have pictures!)

Then last night, we saw Uncle Earl, a string/blue-grass/new-grass/old-time band who brought us lots of old Americana plus a few of their own new songs. Here's the ticket to the gig. Note that it says "Plus special guests"; this will be important later.
Let's check out some photos:

That's Kristin Andreassen on the left and KC Groves on the right.

Here's fiddler Rayna Gellert:

I didn't get any good pictures of the woman playing bass for them, Laura something-or-other, because it was really dark and crowded. She was completely amazing, though.

Let's check in with the banjo player, the amazing Abigail Washburn:

Wait - who's that guy in the background? Playing the mandolin? Isn't that? No, it can't be, yes it is. Ladies and gentlemen: John Paul Jones. He produced their latest album and played the better part of the set with them. Surprise guests? No, surprise rock god is more like it.

Welcome to the 21st century

It's been very interesting to me to see so many sites from "history." Coming from California, a comparatively young state in terms of the stuff you learn about in school, I was fascinated when I moved to Chicago, then New York, to finally be able to get a visual idea of what it might have been like for George Washington crossing the Delaware. So to come here, and walk across Tower Bridge to the Traitor's Gate, has been really interesting.

It does have its downsides, though. Some things are strangely antiquated. We light our stove with matches. One of the bedrooms has a coal fireplace.

Case in point: we're trying to get our internet connection at home set up. This requires a phone line to be rented from BT, which can't be done until you have a bank account with direct debit. Then it takes 2 days for them to magically throw the switch for your phone line to be turned on. Then you wait 5 days for the internet company to see your new phone line. Then you can call them, and they will send you something in the mail which you can use to turn your internet on. Sometimes you just wish for AOL to send you an unrequested CD in the mail!

The best, though, was this morning. Our electricity inexplicably wen't off around 3am. When we went to speak with our neighbors (we had no idea who to call), she suggested that to get ready for work, we "boil a cauldron of water" and asked if we needed to borrow matches. Maybe it's just the time of year, but I'm suddenly more concerned for our safety...

music I'm listening to these days

I'm currently obsessed with a few bands - some you'll know, some you won't, but all are worth a listen... it's funny, my iTunes account has been getting a workout since I've started working in an office by myself... if you take a look at this list, you'll probably see that I have a real thing for girls with guitars. :)

The Cliks: think Sleater-Kinney meets Justin Timberlake...
Jenny Owen Youngs: quirky, tongue-in-cheek, punk-folk - she sounds (and looks) a bit like Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley but substitutes the angst for hilarity. I heart her.
Kaki King: A guitar goddess, a real innovator. We saw her in concert in a tiny club in London a couple of weeks ago, but have been fans for years since I saw her at Bonnaroo and she left me speechless. Check out a youtube video of her here.
Carbon Leaf: the only dudes on my list. Jammy, bluegrass-inspired goodness, in the same vein as Dave Matthews. Makes you want to sing along.
Rachael Sage: East Village meets Tori Amos
The Ditty Bops: take inspiration from old-time folk and rag-time, and put a modern spin on it. did their last cross-country tour, travelling by bicycle. quirky doesn't begin to describe them, but incredibly catchy and lovable. you'll find yourself singing their songs in the shower.

What's wrong with this picture?

We went to see the Dolphins play the Giants at Wembley Stadium yesterday. It was my first-ever live NFL game.


We had tons of fun, even though the NFL vastly underestimated the love of American football here. They ran out of most of the merchandise before the game even started. Several concession stands ran out of beer (they don't serve beer at football [soccer] matches because the fans are rabid enough already). Weirdly, though, there were tons of empty seats even though it was sold out.

More photos on my Flickr site.

Things that are different

Here are some things we've noticed that strike us as funny examples of the differences in culture:

• Cough medication. They have medicines for every possible variation in cough. Chesty cough? Tickly cough? Dry cough? Perhaps you've got a cough and a sore throat.
• Television. Both more highbrow and more lowbrow (if that's possible) than US TV. And sometimes, somehow, both.
  
• Lunch break and other examples of work-life balance. Our colleagues (well, mine - see Meg's last post) nearly always go out for lunch. At the very least, they take a half hour to walk to a sandwich shop a half mile away. I bring my lunch from Tesco, because if I don't I won't eat. Sad, and yet an unchangeable habit.
  
• And on that note, drinking at lunch. And again in the pub at 5pm after work. Needless to say, I have not yet fully adopted these habits.
  
• Politeness. They even tell you which way to look before you cross the street.
  
• The mail gets delivered 4 times a day. Mostly, unless they're on strike.
  
• And finally, the pub on Knightrider Court. Even once visited by David Hasselhoff.
  

too much working...

My current work situation is that I'm a "party of one" here in our London office. While there are times this is a wonderful thing -- like when a good song comes on my last.fm player (check this site out folks, it's brilliant) and I can have a one-Meg dance party; or when I'm writing a report or proposal or something and I need to not be interrupted by folks wanting to see if I want to go to four-bucks for a coffee.

However, there are times (like now), when I'm wishing that I had someone to pitch in and help me with the mountain of work I have to do. I'm also still trying to sort out some personal, logistical crap like "how do I pay my gas bill?" and "when will our bank account get opened?". These things take time, and the owner of our company is seriously about to have kittens because I'm behind on some deliverables that we promised to some potential clients. I never thought I would feel this way, but I need a boss - here in the office. Not because I need to be told what to do, but more because it would be incredibly helpful to have someone in the office to help me prioritize and bounce ideas off of... it's tough when your sounding board is 3500 miles and 5 time zones away.

thoughts on sports...

Wow, what a weekend... South Africa wins the Rugby World Cup, the World Series teams have been set (let's go Rockies!), and the Chicago Bears go 97 yards on the final drive of the game to score a TD with 9 seconds to go, beating the Eagles 19-16!

Upcoming travel and visitor plans

Megan and I have a busy winter planned. We both have several European work-related trips on the schedule (me to Frankfurt in November for a conference, and Megan to Switzerland and Germany for client meetings through the end of the year). November will see visits from Megan's parents and sister, as well as my mom. December should be action-packed, as we're planning an extended visit to the U.S., and I'm also going to my brother's graduation from Army basic training, followed by a few days of fun in Puerto Rico with my best friends...

However, we don't have much planned for the late winter or early spring at this point. We're always excited to have visitors, and could also meet you someplace besides London for a few days of European fun! Hope to see you soon!

Belgium Trip - Part 2 of 2

Day 3: We woke up this morning, and had breakfast at the B&B, where we learned that our Michel, one of our hosts, was a previous holder of Belgium’s Mr. Leather title. Turns out that he won Belgium’s Mr. Leather competition the first of time he ever wore a leather get-up, which earned him a trip to the International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago. He got 21st place – and retired from competition. Now, he works for Brussels’ sanitation department. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Our first stop of the day was the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM), where we saw several beautiful examples of historical instruments, ranging from tribal drums that were more than 1000 years old to electronic instruments from this decade. From there, we made our way over to St. Boniface, which is in the heart of a trendy, diverse neighborhood with lots of interesting shops and restaurants. We stopped at one and had lunch, before continuing on to the Fortis district, which is near several universities. We window-shopped there for a while, particularly noticing the numerous second-hand comic book stores in the area (though comics weren’t invented in here, the Belgians are great aficionados of them). By then, we were ready to get off of our feet for a bit, so we found a bar and had some beers.

It was Saturday night, and that meant England v. France in the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup (held in France this year). So we picked up some take-away kebabs, and headed to Churchill’s, an English bar in Brussels, to watch this fierce match. It was truly an epic defensive battle, though fortunately, England came out on top with a 14-9 victory over the French hosts. Belgium is a popular destination for French holiday-seekers, so even though we were in an English pub, the fact that we were in Brussels meant that most of the other patrons of the pub were French. Aside from a few English ex-pats in the bar, we were pretty much the only England fans in the whole place. After the English victory, several of the French fans came over and shook our hands, wishing us “Bon chance” in the final.

Day 4: This morning, we got up pretty early (at least for us) and took a train to Bruges, a town whose history dates back to the middle ages. It is only about an hour’s trip from Brussels, and for the past 150 years, has long been a popular tourist destination. It is a little touristy, but the architecture is lovely, and weather-wise, it was a gorgeous day. Megan took a lot of great photos in town.

Our day in Bruges began by visiting the Markt (central square), followed by lots of wandering along the canals and through the parks, and stopping for lunch in a small square where we could watch horse-drawn carriages walking by. Here I had the chance to use some of my “advanced” French. Sitting next to us at lunch was a older couple with their dog, who were travelling around Europe in their “camping-car”. I complemented them on how well-behaved their dog was (he was sitting under the table during their meal), and told them that we also had a dog. They asked what kind of dog he was, but high school French didn’t teach me how to say “pug” en français… After lunch, we took the long way through Bruges to the Brouwerij De Halve Maan (“Half Moon Brewery”). We had a beer in the courtyard before taking a tour of the historic brewery – the original location of the Maes (a prominent Belgian brewer) brewery. On the tour, we met Nancy, an American woman who was travelling on her own. After the tour, we were given complimentary beers, so we invited her to join us at our table in the courtyard. We started chatting, and it quickly came out that we were both from Chicago. Crazily enough, this woman was also originally from Flossmoor (the tiny little town where I grew up)! She left the town when she was still in junior high, so she didn’t remember my family, but we still had a great time talking about our home town! File that one under “it’s a small world”…

After leaving Nancy in Bruges, we grabbed wafels, and headed to the train station for the trip back to Brussels. Tonight was the South Africa v. Argentina semi-final for the World Cup. Since we had a wonderful time at the pub the previous night (giant projection TV, delicious beers on tap, friendly service – what else do you need to watch a match?!?!), we decided to head back to Churchill’s for the second consecutive night. Unfortunately, South Africa crushed Argentina 37-13, making this match not nearly as exciting as the England/France match.

Day 5: Our last day in Belgium – and really just a half-day at that. We slept in again, and then headed to the Flanders Museum, a really weird toy museum. We thought it would be a sort of look at toys throughout history, but actually turned out to be some creepy old guy’s HUGE toy collection. It was a short visit. We then walked to the Botanical Gardens – on our way, we accidentally stumbled across the hostel where I had stayed during my previous visit to the city back in 2000 with Kate. The gardens were still as great as I had remembered, and we wandered around here for a bit, before heading back into Central Brussels, where we finally got frites in a cone – the best French fries imaginable, topped with mayo (not as gross as it sounds), and served in a paper cone. Megan was wanting to get these for our whole trip (they are iconically Belgian), and considering how it was our last day in town, I finally caved in…

We then headed back to our inn, grabbed our bags, and took the metro back to Gare Midi to catch our Eurostar train back to London. On the train back to our new home, my Spanish-speaking wife was ordering beers in French “deux Stellas, s’il vous plait”, which I think is the most important phrase an international traveler can learn when abroad…

Belgium Trip - Part 1 of 2

It has been about 3 months since we moved to London, and aside from our numerous work-related trips of late, we have yet to leave the country on holiday (a nice British-ism that we have adopted). Lamely enough, our work schedules are both so hectic that we were forced to put time in our schedules to force ourselves to have some “quality time”. Anyway, after deciding that our only criterion for a vacation was that we didn’t want to travel to our destination by airplane, we decided on spending a long weekend in Belgium, which is only 2 hours and 20 minutes from London on the high-speed Eurostar train. Belgium proved to be just the break we needed - here’s a recount of what we did this past weekend, broken into 2 posts for easier reading...

Day 1: We met Thursday after work at London’s Waterloo station, where we caught the train for Brussels. After a couple of beers on the train (the first of MANY on this trip), Megan needed a nap, and I did a bit of lingering work that needed to be wrapped up before I could ease into vacation mode. We arrived at Gare Midi (the international train station) in Brussels pretty late, so we just took a taxi to our hotel, giving me the first chance of this trip to use my high school French: “uh... Je voudrais… uh… aller… à l’hôtel Sheraton Four Points (insert silent prayer that the taxi driver understands me here)???”.

This first night in Brussels, we stayed at a generic hotel, because we couldn’t find any B&B’s that had availability. However, this place had plenty of charm, as you will see from this photo of the “art” hanging on the wall of our room. Remember people, this was not a flea-bag, one-star place with the bathroom at the end of the hall. It was actually a ridiculously expensive Starwood hotel, so it caught us a bit off guard to see this hanging on the wall. After all of this excitement, we were exhausted after a full day at the office followed by our trip, so we ordered room service and went to bed.

Day 2: We slept in and decided that we would spend the day getting our bearings in Brussels. Megan had never been to the city, and it had been about 7 years (and innumerable brain cells) since I had been in the city. So we started our day by wandering through the neighborhood around our hotel, grabbing coffee and making our way over to the Mannekin Pis (Aside: If you don’t know what this is, it’s a ridiculous, yet iconic statue of a little boy peeing. The Belgians dress him up in seasonal costumes – when we saw him, he was dressed like Christopher Columbus, presumably for Columbus Day, which I had always assumed was an American holiday, but whatever. Like I said, it’s ridiculous, but to go to Brussels and not see him is like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower.). From there, it was just a short walk to the Grand Place, which was Brussels’ central market several centuries ago, but is now very touristy. The buildings around the square used to be guild houses; some of the notable ones around the square formerly housed the baker’s and the hat-makers guilds. We had lunch at a non-descript, yet typical Belgian restaurant in the Grand Place, where we paid a small fortune for a couple of beers and salads.

After lunch, we did some more aimless walking, taking in the sights, grabbing a wafel (a sugar-coated waffle – absolutely delicious), and generally hanging out. It was absolutely wonderful to not have to think about work, or household chores, or any of the day-to-day b.s. that tends to consume any couple. We got to actually talk – about things that really mattered, o r that didn’t. But there were none of the “what do you want me to get at the grocery store?”, or “did you pay that bill?” conversations. What a luxury! We got to have some of these conversations at one of the oldest bars in Brussels, a place called Mort Subite – such a notable bar, that the Belgians have even named a type of beer after it!

Later that afternoon, we headed back to the Sheraton, picked up our bags, and made the journey across Brussels to the Court Guest House, a lovely B&B just outside of central Brussels. The proprietors of the hotel (Joris and Michel) live upstairs from the inn, which was the site of the original Godiva factory in Brussels. Throughout the common areas of the inn, they have displayed a wonderful collection of photographs of workers producing chocolates in what became their home, as well as other Godiva memorabilia from that era.

We had dinner that night at a restaurant near St. Catherine’s church, where we enjoyed Belgian beers, moules frites (mussels with fries, a Belgian specialty), and the company of a couple who were on vacation from Georgia. Another early night for us, so we took the metro (Brussels’ incredibly efficient subway system) back to our inn.

More in part 2…

Like ships in the night

Apologies for the lack of posts. Meg and I have been mostly passing one another in the airport these days, so we're looking forward to an amazing holiday in Belgium coming in a couple of days.

This weekend we settled ourselves in our new flat. Some people, including our landlords, are packrats. They tried to do a very nice thing and leave things to "keep it from feeling too bare" when we moved in. It's just that they have a pretty traditionally English view of things, with pictures on every conceivable wall, more furniture in a single room than was in our entire apartment in NY, and overgrown plants on the patio. Let's just say that's not really our style, so we put a few things in storage for them, and hung our own things on the wall. We're a bit afraid we've decorated ourselves out of a flat, but it's how we like it.

We also went to the local Farmer's Market. Quite nice, if not as big as Borough Market. They did have, though these "Candy Beets" which were completely amazing.


The next day I was reading one of the free London papers (of which there are approximately 1,000,000, all competing for your eyes) and there was a story about a guy who spent a week eating only food that had been grown within the reach of the London tube map. Eating local at it's best. Anyway, the photo that accompanied the story was of those very same candy beets.


Meg is off to NY so we're on separate continents again...

We've finally settled

We're finally settled (sort of) in a new flat. It's for sale, but we're hoping no one will buy it, because we really like it.

Our neighborhood is a bit up-and-coming, so there are lots of cute boutiques and restaurants to the south of us, and big box chain stores and fast food joints to the north. It's a nice mix. Our street is quiet, with a library at one end and a big park at the other, but it's a 5 minute walk to the tube and the main part of town. We're looking forward to visitors!

Out of time sequence

I know we've been trying to catch you up on what we've been up to since began this journey, but I'm going to just skip ahead to today for a minute.

I've been traveling more than ever before. Mostly it's to Switzerland, so I've decided to try to learn German via podcast. So far, I know how to say, 'I have nothing to declare' (not at all useful as Swiss border patrol is nothing if not lenient) and, 'I would like a coffee with milk and sugar' (very useful but a limited set of words). Also, the audio podcast isn't that useful in learning to read German.

Today, after my meetings were done, I wanted a little bite to eat but didn't feel like hotel food. I wandered a bit until I found a grocery store. Notice that my words did not include anything about the different kinds of beer and cheese, nor do I know how to read anything that isn't a rough approximation of the English word. I wound up with: Babybel (because it's the same around the world), Italian grapes (even I know what Italien means), and this. It's a good thing I like Hefe-Weizenbier.

Sports in the UK

One of our first outings here in the UK was attending the England v. Wales rugby match, in preparation for the upcoming Rugby World Cup in France. England dominated the Welsh 62-5 at Twickenham, the home of England Rugby. Since it was a blow-out, the match stopped being interesting fairly early. However, we really enjoyed the atmosphere at the stadium, which basically turns into a huge beer garden for the day of a match. Needless to say, we partook in numerous delicious beers, and even tried a famed Pimm’s Cup (the traditional English summertime cocktail, we aren’t big fans). I think we’ll visit the stadium again, perhaps to catch the Barbarians play South Africa later this year.

Being huge rugby fans (most of you probably know that we met playing rugby for Chicago North Shore), the ability to catch test matches in person is an incredible luxury, and almost makes up for the total lack of baseball in this country. The only baseball we get to see is on espn.com or the occasional game that we get to watch on TV. Sky Sports gets the ESPN feed for the Sunday and Wednesday night games. However, since we’re 5 hours ahead of the East Coast and 8 hours ahead of the West, we rarely get to catch them, unless we’re fighting a battle with insomnia. Needless to say, we are terribly missing the Cubs attempt at making the playoffs… LET’S GO CUBBIES!!!

Photoblogger

I'm the assigned visual documenter of our move. Meg mentioned our numerous trips to Borough Market and the amazing foods there.



Here's a photo of some of the delicious jams - the red onion marmalade that's closest to you is one of my favorites. More photos on Flickr.

We're alive!

Hello friends and family! Many of you have asked for updates of our UK travels/adventure so far. We’ve been here for about 6 weeks, and certainly a lot has happened. We’ve both been very busy with work-related activites, but wanted to reserve space in this blog to account for our more fun, personal activities. So let’s see, where to begin…

We began our adventure at the end of July, travelling on Silverjet (an all-business class airline – VERY highly recommended, especially for you folks over 5’10” out there). We stayed at a hotel in Mayfair for a couple of days before moving to a extended stay hotel. Our room in this hotel is very nice – more of an apartment than a traditional hotel. It’s especially nice, because it has a fully outfitted kitchen, allowing us to cook many of our meals at home. This is one of the biggest ways we’ve been able to save money over here. As you may know, the exchange rate is about $2 to £1, making everything feel very expensive. However, since we’ve been here, we’ve discovered numerous ways to save money, including “self-catering” (that’s “cooking” for the Yanks), and booking travel online.

Contrary to popular belief, we’ve found the food here to be pretty good – certainly there is a fair amount of nasty stuff available, but overall, we’ve been quite pleased with the quality of the produce and other grocery items. One of our favorite places to shop is Borough Market, a farmer’s market that’s been operating in London for several hundred years. You can buy things like green beans and aubergines (that would be an eggplant), but also more exotic items are available, as well as a wide variety of prepared jams, pasta, hummus, etc. The prices are very reasonable, and we frequently return home with a backpack full of goodies. My favorite stop in the market is Utobeer, a beer vendor who sells all sorts of beers I've never heard of... but more on beer later... :)

Well, that's probably long enough for now. We'll post more soon!