This post is dedicated to experiences on the tube. (A.K.A. subway, underground, etc.) Just in case you have a very limited knowledge of the spanish language, el tubo is not the proper word for tube. Or maybe it is. I'm not quite sure.
1) Two days ago, we rode the tube home from Covent Garden. Actually, we do this every day for dance but two days ago, we rode the tube home from Covent Garden with Dad. First of all, this resulted in a lot of "ARE YOU SURE, HONEY??"s and "YOU'RE TOO NICE MARCEE, YOU JUST GOTTA PUSH YOUR WAY THROUGH PEOPLE!"
Second, when we got on the district line (the one we take to go directly home), no one was talking. No one was even muttering (except Chandler, mom, and I). Before I continue, you have to understand that on the tube, you don't talk to people. You don't smile at people. You don't even look at people! But lo and behold, Dad shouts, "HONEY, WHAT'S THE DISTRICT LINE? I MEAN, WHY IS IT CALLED THAT?" Mom and I made some weak guesses but mostly ignored his unnecessary shouting. But he wasn't about to let it drop. "REALLY, SOMEONE'S GOT TO EXPLAIN TO ME WHY IT'S CALLED THE DISTRICT LINE!"
By now, we're feeling a tad embarrassed (or more). We're surrounded by smart, able, British businessmen and Dad is acting exactly as a typical American would. Finally, a nice man sitting beside me, took pity on our family and explained what the district line was and why it was called so. He did this so fully and so smart-sounding-ly that I decided that he was a nerd. This was proven true by the book in his hand. The title read, "Scientists of the DiscoWorld".
But oh, my friends. The story is not yet over. He proceeded to berate one of the gentlemen across from us for not telling him and laughing his super loud laugh. I think we entertained everyone on the train that night....
2) We're were on our way home from Covent Garden one day and for some reason, it was packed. In case your wondering, in London, people would rather stand absurdly close to you than wait for the next train. Mom was staring nose to nose with some random guy, Chandler was compressed between two men, and I had some super tall guy's knees stabbing me in the legs. NOT FUN. And also, it smelled of that BO aroma we talked about. (We think there was a soccer game...)
FIIINAAALLLLYYY, we got to our stop and we pushed our way out as fast as we possible could. We did a little dance of happiness because we had escaped. We were wrong. EVERYSINGLEPERSONONTHATTRAINFOLLOWEDUSOFF. And then started chanting. I lost my patience. hahaha.
3)Not too long ago, we were on a fairly empty tube. There were scattered empty seats and plenty of space to stand and the whole middle bar wasn't being touched. At one spot, a slightly plump, old man came in. He looked around, took in all the empty seats and space, and stood RIGHT NEXT to mom. I laughed. Then, he lifted his arm up to hold onto the overhead bar. This resulted in an chubby, aged man's armpit in mom's face. I laughed harder. For the remainder of our journey, Mom coughed, covered her nose, and tried to stop her eyes from watering. I laughed even harder.
4)Some people take animals on the tube. And when they're puke-colored cats with orange eyes who look just like they're owners, I feel like kicking them.
Maybe you all have a little better sense of what the tube is like now.
9.15.2011
birthday suits
So here's the deal.
At Pineapple Studio of Dance, there is a locker room. Inside that room, there are naked woman. And not just an "I'm changing as fast as I can and I'm too lazy to go to the bathroom" kind of naked. It's an "ooohhhh let me put on lotion and pluck my eyebrows and air dry from the shower" type of naked. And it makes Chandler and I very uncomfortable. I think that one day, it all became a little too much for my dear sister and she came up with the following rhyme. It reads to the tune of Rain, Rain, Go Away.
Naked, naked, go away.
Don't come again another day.
If you do, I swear...
I'LL PULL UP YOUR UNDERWEAR.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha.
Now, she just has to work up the courage to sing that to the ladies....
At Pineapple Studio of Dance, there is a locker room. Inside that room, there are naked woman. And not just an "I'm changing as fast as I can and I'm too lazy to go to the bathroom" kind of naked. It's an "ooohhhh let me put on lotion and pluck my eyebrows and air dry from the shower" type of naked. And it makes Chandler and I very uncomfortable. I think that one day, it all became a little too much for my dear sister and she came up with the following rhyme. It reads to the tune of Rain, Rain, Go Away.
Naked, naked, go away.
Don't come again another day.
If you do, I swear...
I'LL PULL UP YOUR UNDERWEAR.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha.
Now, she just has to work up the courage to sing that to the ladies....
9.10.2011
the first few weeks....
O.k. I am finally biting the bullet and contributing to the blog. The girls can make fun of me all they want, but I actually have important things to do around here! I understand that the blog is important. Our connection to the world. That's why I'm taking this very seriously and getting involved. Here are the, as Corinne puts it, pages of stuff I have been writing.....
week one:
Well, we have been in England exactly a week now and we still haven't received our shipment with our clothes and things. It's a little bit hard to get dressed every morning in a cold climate when all of our clothing is made for Texas heat! We keep crossing our fingers that everything will come soon.
Our move started off with a bang! We arrived in London to no shipments, which meant no bedding, clothing, dishes, etc, the ovens didn't work, Mike received a parking ticket (totally undeserved) and I had my wallet stolen--all credit cards, bank cards (US and UK) temple recommend, and drivers license. After all of that, we sat down to a totally unhealthy fried dinner of fish and chips and just laughed. There was nothing else we could do. Mike informed us that no one had died and things could only get better, to which Chandler quipped, "ya never know dad, one of us might get hit by a double-decker bus tomorrow!".
We took off and spent the weekend in the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds are gorgeous! It basically felt like we were frolicking in a fairy land full of old castles, churches and fields dotted with little lambs. Seriously, Corinne even had a bleating competition with Hercules, a lamb the girls named during our visit. It was heaven! We stayed in a little cottage with the name of Wychwood in Bruern Stable Cottages. I'm wondering why Americans are so lame? Our homes need names. I didn't know it could sound so cool to have a name for your house!
One of my favorite moments was when we went to the Bourton-on-the-water miniature village. There was a fantastic replica of their Cotswold village. It was amazing! But as we were walking and admiring the village, we saw a sign that posted, "Don't walk on the grass" (not a small sign, a full-sized one), which we all found extremely funny since everything was tiny. So Corinne and Chandler pull out their walking fingers and proceed to 'walk' on everything---from the grass to the roof-tops. Here is a nice photo of Corinne totally breaking their tiny village laws!
But we are now back to London and reality. We are trying to sign the girls up for school and get into a routine. Mike got me a car today, but I have come to realize that driving in London will be scary as all get out! The streets are teeny and there isn't any rhyme or reason to how things are laid out and no one seems to have any problem driving two inches away from another car or parking in a space that only looks big enough for a child's bike. I'm taking my friend, Tasha Siebach's advice and getting up at 5 am to try it out. My total experience so far was moving the car to a new parking space and I ended up a block and a half away from our house!
By the way, our house is great. The girls were surprised by the size and said that the pictures they had seen of the place were deceiving! :)
Week two:
The girls and I are adjusting to life here. We finally received our shipment last Friday and were able to unpack and start making our house feel like our home. It's amazing what a few familiar pictures and chotchkis can do for your morale! It finally seems like it belongs to us.
There are things I really love about the place...and things that are less than desirable. Here's some random facts about our life here:
-Our front walk is made up of black and white checked tiles and it leads to a door which has great stained glass windows.
-We have window boxes on a bunch of our windows--I need to work on those a bit
-We have three floors in our house. So when I walk from the kitchen to my bedroom I have to go up 37 stairs. I am going to have a really toned tush when this year's up!
-I don't have a cookie sheet small enough to fit into my teeny ovens
-We have three refrigerators, and still don't have as much space as our fridge at home
-I have to go to three rooms to get ready every morning since there isn't enough closet/drawer space in any given room for our clothes
-Our garden has tomatoes and herbs--love this!
-We have a different set of keys for the front door (which has three locks), the back door (three locks, two keysq), the front shed, the back shed, the back gate, and other random things. It's almost humorous
-We have to walk 10-15 minutes to get anywhere...the grocery store, the tube station, the bus stop...pretty much anything. This is probably my biggest challenge right now. I'm having a hard time getting used to this. For example: the girls and I left an hour and a half before their dance class so we would have time to walk to the tube station, take a tube to Earl's Crossing, change tubes and ride to Covent Garden, and then walk to dance. You have to allow time for traffic, rain and a myriad of things. People just allow a lot more time to get everywhere. Mike's office is less than three miles away from our house, but it has taken him an hour to get home because of traffic. Crazy!
-We are enjoying observing our neighbors. Everyone walks everywhere so you observe a lot. One neighbor has an awesome VW van that is bright yellow with heart stickers on the sides.
-there are tons of small children on scooters and bikes riding around town. Sometimes they have little baby dolls in backpacks or on the back of their bikes. And I adore hearing them talk with an English accent!
-no one, and I mean NO ONE, has convenient stores like the ones in the states. But I have been able to buy Dr. Pepper zero in bottles at a couple of places. Dad, I'm sure you feel my pain!
-I'm learning how to drive on the wrong side of the road. Mike bought me this amazing navigation system which tells me everything to do. She tells me how fast I'm going, if there is a camera taking pictures of speeding cars, if there is a lot of traffic and I need to take an alternate route, etc. I couldn't get anywhere without her! I say "her" because it is the voice of some lady with an English accent. She and I are becoming quite attached.
I'll tell you more things later. I'm also totally entertained by all of the names here. I've started a running list. Here are a few:
Duke's Head
Slug and lettuce (the girls and I ate lunch here)
Nag's head
The Bitter and Twisted
Porcupine
Goat in Boots
Tooting--we have people in our ward that live here and I chuckle every time I hear it :)
Wagamama
We received a flyer for a restaurant giving out free poppodoms and chutneys (what ARE poppodoms?)
Rocket--some kind of lettuce used on many things
Biggest pain of the week:
Right now I have to go outside every single day and move our car to another neighborhood (between 9:30-10:30am) because we don't have a permit for our street yet.
Week Three:
Well, the girls and I had a big break through this week. In the last 48 hours we have had not one, but TWO people who have stopped us on the street and asked us directions. What? We might actually look like we know where we are going now!
This past weekend we went to The National Gallery twice. The first time we went with Mike and ran out of time. Since it is huge and we love love LOVE it, we went back to see more on Monday. We saw so much good stuff (Boticelli, Michaelangelo, Renior, Rembrandt, Watteau...just to name a few) and it still feels like we've barely scratched the surface, but the cool thing is....we can go back.
week one:
Well, we have been in England exactly a week now and we still haven't received our shipment with our clothes and things. It's a little bit hard to get dressed every morning in a cold climate when all of our clothing is made for Texas heat! We keep crossing our fingers that everything will come soon.
Our move started off with a bang! We arrived in London to no shipments, which meant no bedding, clothing, dishes, etc, the ovens didn't work, Mike received a parking ticket (totally undeserved) and I had my wallet stolen--all credit cards, bank cards (US and UK) temple recommend, and drivers license. After all of that, we sat down to a totally unhealthy fried dinner of fish and chips and just laughed. There was nothing else we could do. Mike informed us that no one had died and things could only get better, to which Chandler quipped, "ya never know dad, one of us might get hit by a double-decker bus tomorrow!".
We took off and spent the weekend in the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds are gorgeous! It basically felt like we were frolicking in a fairy land full of old castles, churches and fields dotted with little lambs. Seriously, Corinne even had a bleating competition with Hercules, a lamb the girls named during our visit. It was heaven! We stayed in a little cottage with the name of Wychwood in Bruern Stable Cottages. I'm wondering why Americans are so lame? Our homes need names. I didn't know it could sound so cool to have a name for your house!
This is Hercules
This is Corinne and Chandler at Gloucester Cathedral in the hallway where parts of Harry Potter were filmed. We all felt the magnitude of this important event.
One of my favorite moments was when we went to the Bourton-on-the-water miniature village. There was a fantastic replica of their Cotswold village. It was amazing! But as we were walking and admiring the village, we saw a sign that posted, "Don't walk on the grass" (not a small sign, a full-sized one), which we all found extremely funny since everything was tiny. So Corinne and Chandler pull out their walking fingers and proceed to 'walk' on everything---from the grass to the roof-tops. Here is a nice photo of Corinne totally breaking their tiny village laws!
But we are now back to London and reality. We are trying to sign the girls up for school and get into a routine. Mike got me a car today, but I have come to realize that driving in London will be scary as all get out! The streets are teeny and there isn't any rhyme or reason to how things are laid out and no one seems to have any problem driving two inches away from another car or parking in a space that only looks big enough for a child's bike. I'm taking my friend, Tasha Siebach's advice and getting up at 5 am to try it out. My total experience so far was moving the car to a new parking space and I ended up a block and a half away from our house!
By the way, our house is great. The girls were surprised by the size and said that the pictures they had seen of the place were deceiving! :)
Week two:
The girls and I are adjusting to life here. We finally received our shipment last Friday and were able to unpack and start making our house feel like our home. It's amazing what a few familiar pictures and chotchkis can do for your morale! It finally seems like it belongs to us.
There are things I really love about the place...and things that are less than desirable. Here's some random facts about our life here:
-Our front walk is made up of black and white checked tiles and it leads to a door which has great stained glass windows.
-We have window boxes on a bunch of our windows--I need to work on those a bit
-We have three floors in our house. So when I walk from the kitchen to my bedroom I have to go up 37 stairs. I am going to have a really toned tush when this year's up!
-I don't have a cookie sheet small enough to fit into my teeny ovens
-We have three refrigerators, and still don't have as much space as our fridge at home
-I have to go to three rooms to get ready every morning since there isn't enough closet/drawer space in any given room for our clothes
-Our garden has tomatoes and herbs--love this!
-We have a different set of keys for the front door (which has three locks), the back door (three locks, two keysq), the front shed, the back shed, the back gate, and other random things. It's almost humorous
-We have to walk 10-15 minutes to get anywhere...the grocery store, the tube station, the bus stop...pretty much anything. This is probably my biggest challenge right now. I'm having a hard time getting used to this. For example: the girls and I left an hour and a half before their dance class so we would have time to walk to the tube station, take a tube to Earl's Crossing, change tubes and ride to Covent Garden, and then walk to dance. You have to allow time for traffic, rain and a myriad of things. People just allow a lot more time to get everywhere. Mike's office is less than three miles away from our house, but it has taken him an hour to get home because of traffic. Crazy!
-We are enjoying observing our neighbors. Everyone walks everywhere so you observe a lot. One neighbor has an awesome VW van that is bright yellow with heart stickers on the sides.
-there are tons of small children on scooters and bikes riding around town. Sometimes they have little baby dolls in backpacks or on the back of their bikes. And I adore hearing them talk with an English accent!
-no one, and I mean NO ONE, has convenient stores like the ones in the states. But I have been able to buy Dr. Pepper zero in bottles at a couple of places. Dad, I'm sure you feel my pain!
-I'm learning how to drive on the wrong side of the road. Mike bought me this amazing navigation system which tells me everything to do. She tells me how fast I'm going, if there is a camera taking pictures of speeding cars, if there is a lot of traffic and I need to take an alternate route, etc. I couldn't get anywhere without her! I say "her" because it is the voice of some lady with an English accent. She and I are becoming quite attached.
I'll tell you more things later. I'm also totally entertained by all of the names here. I've started a running list. Here are a few:
Duke's Head
Slug and lettuce (the girls and I ate lunch here)
Nag's head
The Bitter and Twisted
Porcupine
Goat in Boots
Tooting--we have people in our ward that live here and I chuckle every time I hear it :)
Wagamama
We received a flyer for a restaurant giving out free poppodoms and chutneys (what ARE poppodoms?)
Rocket--some kind of lettuce used on many things
Biggest pain of the week:
Right now I have to go outside every single day and move our car to another neighborhood (between 9:30-10:30am) because we don't have a permit for our street yet.
Week Three:
Well, the girls and I had a big break through this week. In the last 48 hours we have had not one, but TWO people who have stopped us on the street and asked us directions. What? We might actually look like we know where we are going now!
This past weekend we went to The National Gallery twice. The first time we went with Mike and ran out of time. Since it is huge and we love love LOVE it, we went back to see more on Monday. We saw so much good stuff (Boticelli, Michaelangelo, Renior, Rembrandt, Watteau...just to name a few) and it still feels like we've barely scratched the surface, but the cool thing is....we can go back.
This was a copy of a Van Gogh painting which was outside the museum---it was made out of live plants and was HUGE!
Corinne, Chandler and I head to Covent Garden almost daily to dance at PIneapple Studio. It's located in a pretty fun and happening location, which is great for me because there is lots to see and do while the girls are dancing. The other day I tried to take the girls to see some cool sights after dance and it was a bank holiday so many things were shut down. But alas, the day was not a total loss as we were able to witness this totally cool alien bottle man.
totally cool alien bottle man and totally cool Lohner girls
My crazy names/words list cont.:
nappys--diapers
plasters--bandaids
boot--trunk of a car
rubbish--garbage (which you probably already know, but we are continually amazed at how many times a day they use this word)
baps--potato rolls or dinner rolls
9.09.2011
update
I don't have much to say here-- at this point I'm mostly avoiding school....
It's been a while since anyone's written on this thing. Mostly though, nothing's happened! We're just getting into a routine. Dad's working as hard as ever, Mom has fully decorated and made our home beautiful, I've started seminary every morning at 6, a dance schedule is underway, and Chandler and I have immersed ourselves in our studies....kind of.
Mom is meanwhile writing pages of stuff that she "will put on the blog ASAP". I don't think she quite understands what ASAP means but hopefully, you will have something a little more detailed to read in a few months!
Chandler and I have some exciting news though! We went to a Jazz class the other day and at the end of it, we got offered a spot in Alex Turner's dance school. We're not quite sure what that entails exactly but at least we'll have a place to train. It's really very flattering(:
The missing of Texas has dulled slightly excepting a few things:
1)michael mckay
2)ashlie
3)david
4)tiny dancer
Though actually, none of those things are in Texas anymore....
Also, I would like Chick-fil-a and some QT (Ashlie is not alone in her sufferings).
thank you.
It's been a while since anyone's written on this thing. Mostly though, nothing's happened! We're just getting into a routine. Dad's working as hard as ever, Mom has fully decorated and made our home beautiful, I've started seminary every morning at 6, a dance schedule is underway, and Chandler and I have immersed ourselves in our studies....kind of.
Mom is meanwhile writing pages of stuff that she "will put on the blog ASAP". I don't think she quite understands what ASAP means but hopefully, you will have something a little more detailed to read in a few months!
Chandler and I have some exciting news though! We went to a Jazz class the other day and at the end of it, we got offered a spot in Alex Turner's dance school. We're not quite sure what that entails exactly but at least we'll have a place to train. It's really very flattering(:
The missing of Texas has dulled slightly excepting a few things:
1)michael mckay
2)ashlie
3)david
4)tiny dancer
Though actually, none of those things are in Texas anymore....
Also, I would like Chick-fil-a and some QT (Ashlie is not alone in her sufferings).
thank you.
9.01.2011
From the Sunny Shores of California
I just want to be a part of this. But I'm not in London. I'm in California. So quite frankly, my adventures are nowhere near exciting. But they don't have THIS in London...
No, this Pez Museum is found only 20 minutes from my house. I know. You're jealous. And they don't have THIS in London...
But actually, they don't have that in California either. That is why everyone should just give in and go back to Texas.
Thank you,
me.
theothersister
afailingdomestic
No, this Pez Museum is found only 20 minutes from my house. I know. You're jealous. And they don't have THIS in London...
But actually, they don't have that in California either. That is why everyone should just give in and go back to Texas.
Thank you,
me.
theothersister
afailingdomestic
channychannychanchan
I think it's about time that Chandler go public.
sistersblog
She's really very funny and manages to get all the little stuff I don't write on this one. Why she doesn't just post on this one is the real mystery since they basically say the same things. But go check it out! It will be entertaining.
Speaking of entertaining Chandlers, I don't think you quite know how entertaining our Chandler is. The other day, for example, she was singing Mercy and swinging around a spatula in the kitchen. We weren't using a spatula at the time... Then, walking home from Starbucks, she quoted Kid History and the Harry Potter Songs the entire walk home. At the top of her voice. Sometimes she spends time debating which of THESE are the best episodes. The Twilight is the reigning champ so far. (Re-enactments are included in the debate.)
The best part of all of this? Things like this have become such a hourly occurrence that Mom doesn't comment anymore, let alone try to stop it.
Now, to spare Chandler a little, I will say that I participated in many of these activities (and still do). It's just that Chandler's more entertaining. Which is the whole point of this post.
PS. I know- the amount of links in this post seems overwhelming. But you will love me. If only you will click on the link....
sistersblog
She's really very funny and manages to get all the little stuff I don't write on this one. Why she doesn't just post on this one is the real mystery since they basically say the same things. But go check it out! It will be entertaining.
Speaking of entertaining Chandlers, I don't think you quite know how entertaining our Chandler is. The other day, for example, she was singing Mercy and swinging around a spatula in the kitchen. We weren't using a spatula at the time... Then, walking home from Starbucks, she quoted Kid History and the Harry Potter Songs the entire walk home. At the top of her voice. Sometimes she spends time debating which of THESE are the best episodes. The Twilight is the reigning champ so far. (Re-enactments are included in the debate.)
The best part of all of this? Things like this have become such a hourly occurrence that Mom doesn't comment anymore, let alone try to stop it.
Now, to spare Chandler a little, I will say that I participated in many of these activities (and still do). It's just that Chandler's more entertaining. Which is the whole point of this post.
PS. I know- the amount of links in this post seems overwhelming. But you will love me. If only you will click on the link....
8.28.2011
Mormons in Britian.
Today is Sunday. Today we went to church. Today we realized that LDS people in Britian are far and few between.
It's actually quite unbelievable! There are SEVEN Young Women in our ward.
S E V E N.
According to the leader, 6 of them are active. (Though admittedly, she said that when they all show up it's a miracle)
Chandler and I are a novelty. They're all sooooo excited. The moment we walk in a door, they're saying, "OH! You must be Corinne and you must be Chandler. You guys are from Texas right? 15 and 13?" To which we replied, "Uh.......yeahhh." What can I say? We're cool.
It's actually quite unbelievable! There are SEVEN Young Women in our ward.
S E V E N.
According to the leader, 6 of them are active. (Though admittedly, she said that when they all show up it's a miracle)
Chandler and I are a novelty. They're all sooooo excited. The moment we walk in a door, they're saying, "OH! You must be Corinne and you must be Chandler. You guys are from Texas right? 15 and 13?" To which we replied, "Uh.......yeahhh." What can I say? We're cool.
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