The brief rundown of an undocumented period

There's really been a lot happening in my life, and unfortunately, I haven't seen to it to document it here. I am not sure why. Perhaps laziness and frustration or even just forgetfulness.

I love England and London. I had a lot of preconceived notions about what it would be like to live here and the people I would meet here. I don't really think it's unusual to have these. I am pretty sure every person I've spoken with from North America has their own preconceptions. I don't even think these can be dispelled through a short visit. I learn more about my new home the longer I am here, and unlearn what I thought I knew about both the country of my birth and the country of my choice.

We've done some sightseeing. I see Big Ben and the London Eye on such a routine basis, it does indeed sometimes become routine. But I still get awed, even by these sights that are now common to me if I stop and reflect for a moment. Or if I see them from a different viewpoint. I think people who have lived here all their lives still get that awe.

When I used to live in one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the last American city I lived in, I'd often try to think about what the buildings were like 100 years ago. What the avenues looked like at night before it became lit by street lights. What it felt like to travel from one community to the next well before these smaller settlements became eaten up by the growth of the city and they became just different neighbourhoods (a journey that now takes less than 10 minutes by car). I'd find ruminants of this past in the old wrought iron gates that had spaces for lamps to light the paths and carriageways. Or where there was a stepping stone to mount your horse more easily. Or a boot scraper still embedded to the stoop in the older houses.

If you try to do that in London, it becomes overwhelming. Even when you pick things apart to the place where you can place things in their respective eras, you have to remember that so many times the city was renewed after a great destruction. Yet, you can still visit the Roman wall that dates from almost 2 millennia ago.

So every trip here's an adventure to me. We've done a lot of exploring, but I doubt I will see even a fraction of the UK, even if we live here the rest of our lives.

I'm adjusting to living with an extended family. Christmas was fun, but I felt a bit detached from what was going on. Financial stress in the larger family didn't help things. After the holidays, we decided to readopt a whole foods, no grains, sugars, or starch way of eating, and it's going well. Once we meet our health goals, we may move more towards "Nourishing Traditions" but haven't totally decided.

I miss a lot of my friends and family from the US. It's not even that I saw many of them often. It's just that even calling them is a little difficult due to time zone differences. Dad's also not doing well...even the mention of that makes tears well up. But I am committed to this, and I do not regret my move one bit. I think I was meant to live here, even sticking out so much with my broad accent and, when it comes down to it, yank values. By this I do not mean political conservatism, consumerism, focus on self-interest, or anything else that we like to see as critiques of the US and her citizens in general (believe me, we aren't exclusive owners of those traits, and we didn't invent them). I am talking more along the lines of the hypersensitive sense of justice, expectation of fairness, frankness, and general extroversion. But again, I don't think we own exclusive rights to these things, nor did I realise how powerful the culture we were raised in could be.

I finally got my auto-drip coffee pot. Hot damn, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe whenever I want! I am totally off black tea now. It's funny, I used to drink black or green tea a couple times a week. In fact, I went about 6 months just drinking tea in place of coffee. But somehow, I got so sick of tea (our family drinks it instead of water), that I won't touch it. At least for now anyway. I am a bit addicted to a few Twinings herb teas. Yum.

Smoke-free for about 3 months. I didn't bother writing the date down because I guess I didn't think I'd stick to it.

We're planning a possible trip to another EU country this year. I am really looking forward to it. In the next few weeks, we might take a trip to the coast.

My new Senseo machine

Senseo machines have been sold in the US for a few years now, and there's really not much more you can say about them. Or so you'd think. Most people probably haven't tried coffee from these machines. Whether it's because the pods aren't sold everywhere and are expensive, or that the single serve machines are competing against more practical and much of the time cheaper automatic drip coffee pots, many people I've mentioned them to have never had a cup of Senseo coffee. Philips was likely trying to address this problem when they handed out a bunch of free machines to people across the country during the past year. I had signed up to be considered and forgot about it. Eventually, I got my machine, and making good on my promise to them, I am telling people about it.

First, if you are looking for cheap coffee, Senseo isn't for you. The pods for the machine cost anywhere from $0.25-$1.00 and you have to use two for most mugs of coffee. There are some refillable pods you can buy, but they seem messy. Much messier than automatic drip coffee makers with the potential to turn your entire kitchen into a disaster area if they cause the machine to pop open during brewing. And even with refillable pods you are using more coffee than you would for automatic drip, press posts, or other coffee making methods.

Secondly, if you are looking for really high quality coffee, the Senseo isn't for you. I've only tried the "Senseo" brand pods made by the Dutch coffee company Egbert Douwes. Two flavours came with my machine, "French Vanilla" and "Medium Roast". I later purchased "Dark Roast". The medium roast had the very bitter quality of high Robusta content. It also lacked any depth to the taste. Bitter was about it. The french vanilla was passable. I dislike pre-flavoured coffees, but this was actually drinkable and the flavouring masked the bitterness. The dark roast was also better than the medium roast, but was still bitter. I have some Sumatra blend on order, a coffee promised to be 100% Arabica. I am not expecting high quality, but if it is anything better than poor, I will be sure to update this entry.

Again, I could buy my favourite coffee and fill refillable pods, but I don't think it's just the quality of the coffee that is flawed. This machine makes coffee very fast with water that isn't super hot. I don't think the coffee has the chance to really brew. Then there's the foam. To Philips this is a selling point. It's not crema. It doesn't taste like crema or behave like crema. Instead of being slightly oily and delicate like crema you get from esspresso or even in press pots, this stuff is dry and never goes away. You can stir it for 10 minutes and it will still be stiffly bubbly and staring up at you from your cup. I can't imagine why someone would think this is appealing. Maybe it's a visual thing. To me, it's a bit unnerving.

After years of making coffee in press pots (and dealing with that mess) and never really finding a replacement for my Braun coffee pot, I really wanted to love this product. The machine itself is very stylish, but it's got a huge footprint. It also needs enough vertical clearance to load the pods. Filling and cleaning really is easy and I doubt it'd ever produce a cup of coffee with that stale coffee taste that some coffee pots get even with the most diligent cleaning. Premeasured pods, while expensive, take the human error factor out of coffee making. And admittedly, even the highly bitter coffee this machine produces is better than instant.

If you are the only coffee drinker in the house and you find yourself reaching for instant more often than brewing a pot of coffee that sits there to be mostly tossed out after a few hours, then this is probably a great product for you. You may, however, want to check out the tcups instead. While not as well known as pods, you can order tcups from Green Mountain Coffee and Coffee People as well as smaller coffee roasters.