A Wiedersehen of old Friends and Rain

On Saturday we drove down to Laguna Beach with Alan to have a very late lunch by the beach. In fact, it was so late that we watched the sun go down, see the pictures below which were taken with the iPhone, you can imagine what it would look like with a proper camera. Next time! Laguna Beach has plenty of nice restaurants and cafés, really hard to choose. I wish we had such a choice up in Irvine. Think we are turning a little American though, In Cologne we would never drive 20-30 minutes just to have something to eat and here we are slowly getting used to it. We do have lots of places around the appartment complex but they are "fa(s)t food " places, burgers, greasy kind of stuff..Not really places you would pick on a Saturday night.

Here is the view we had

While having lunch (I actually felt a little chilly for the first time, NICE) we got a txt from some friends we met in Germany who were up in Santa Monica asking if we wanted to meet up. Of course! So, drove back  home, picked up the new stools on the way from Pier I. One step forward making the flat look a little more homey:)

Yesterday we had some rain!! And it rained all day, so cozy! It was all over the news, warning about the driving conditions, flooding, delayed flights...a little bit like when it snows in Cologne ;)

The day started off very well, Liverpool won against Chelsea, such a close game towards the end. And 100 million pounds sitting on the bench doing nothing most of the game. Glad hubby came home with a smile on his face. I on the other hand,  made a some delicious smoothie while watching the game. My new breakfast. With all that great fruit here, it would be a shame not to buy it. I saw some plums the other day, big as apples! I will buy some and take a picture next time. Never seen plums like that before.

Here is the result of my first raspeberry, strawberry and banana smoothie in the new mixer. Bought some mangoes yesterday (again, so cheap and delicious looking here)

Also, bookshelf arrived yesterday. Don´t have enough books to fill it yet, but if our consignment ever arrives, we will.

We had everything packed and picked up end of September and still, there is no sign of it. It took me a long time to pick a moving company, I received a lot of quotes, most of them coming from UK based companies. I assume the competition is quite high in the UK as it turned out that all UK based companies were a lot cheaper than the German ones, even after converting the price into euro. Eventually we did pick a British one, based on price, professionalism and the overall quality of the quote they sent us. However, that was nearly two months ago, I have since then been contacted by 3 different people claiming they are my primary contact persons and now no one can tell us when the boxes will arrive or where they are. One of these contact personsn is now on maternity leave, one can only hope she reads all her mails just like me:)

Lesson learnt: Do not choose The Removal Company. Pay a couple of hundreds euro more and pick someone else.

What if they don´t arrive before Christmas? Diasaster!! We have at least 3 boxes of Christmas decorations...the motto for Christmas is ALWAYS the more the better. And I would start putting it all up next weekend. Also all our pots and pans....definitely needed for Christmas. I bit the bullet and bought a new muffin tray and we have some new frying pan, and a new turkey tray (I am sure there is a proper name for it, they sell them everywhere)..but other than that. EVERYTHING is in those boxes. The bikes, bed linen, pictures, clothes and books - we will survive a little longer without all those things. Kind of getting used to the minimal living. Also, all the candles and candlesticks, another month delay would not be a disaster, even if I did miss them yesterday when it rained..BUT the Christmas decorations and the pots etc, we don`t even want to go down that road and think about it not arriving in time.

Also sent a parcel with DHL nearly 5 weeks ago to be exact. Still hasn´t arrived. And the worst thing with that box (apart from it contains all my DVDs, incl. the whole Sex and the City series, all six seasons..) is that I can´t remeber exactly what is in it apart form the DVDs. Some Swedish books for sure, but I remember putting all kind of things in it which couldnt fit in any of the suitcases. I have tried to track it, but DHL needs at least 3 days to get back to me, then they have a question, I reply, and then they need 3 days again. This has been going on for nearly two weeks now and I am getting slightly annoyed. And worried.  We will use UPS in the future. Certainly they are more expensive, but they are fast, reliable and well reputed on both sides of the Atlantic.

This is also the fourth week of me waiting for my debit card. We will have a joined bank card for the first time, which should be interesting;) We did try once before in Germany and ended up paying 50 € overdraft charges. The monthly fee was 5 € and eventhough we agreed to transfer a certain amount every month to the account, we didnßt. So after 5 months, we got charged 5 € and the bank closed the account automatically. We shall see how it goes. I will pop to the bank after Thanksgiving and see what´s up.

We went for lunch at the Cornery Bakery cafe. For a minute I thought we were somewhere else, it surely didn't feel like California with all that rain pouring down outside but it wa super cosy. Also managed to buy some stuff at Bed, Badth & Beyond (used THREE coupons, total savings of 30 $, haha) and did some food shopping at Ralph's. I am becoming the queen of coupons because I dug out 7 of them for Ralphs, worth 8 $ and double points. Who would have have guessed I would become a coupon lady. Actually, I would much more prefer shopping without coupons, packing my own bags, have some places for returning shopping trolley on the car park and no free plastic bags.That would probably cut prices too.