The religion that is Apple

I have to admit I have never really paid much attention to Apple gadgets other than the ipod and even with that I have only a working knowlege of itunes as I haven’t updated my song list since the early 2000’s.  This weekend however we were introduced to the Apple religion and think we might have become a followers.

We are in the market for a new laptop so have been doign our research but based on our specs, most things are pointing towards a Mac (insert geek gasp here)….how can I use a Mac? where is the alt key? How do I right click with one mouse button?  How can I survive if I can never open an Office document ever again? How will I know where to start without a start button!!

We decided the responsible thing to do was to go to the huge Apple store on Regent street  (that is always heaving with Apple followers) and see what they had to say about the Macbook which seemed to fit our criteria.  We were instantly sucked into the bright sleek and inviting layout of the store where we easily floated from station to station displaying the varius Apple products. 

We started at a table of Macbook air laptops which are enviably thin and portable (plus look pretty sleek).  Then we wandered over to the iMac which are essentially an entire computer smooshed into a flat-screen monitor meaning you have nothing on your desk other than this 2 inch thick monitor (at this point my hubby’s pupils morphed into little Apple logos). We finally made our way to the Macbooks and were pleasantly surprised with the size (which was a key deciding factor) and played around a bit (with the free Internet) and were pretty happy with what we saw. 

We wandered upstairs and found a theater like set up where they were running seminars…funnily enough the seminar we were walking in on was entitled ‘From PC to Mac’ (I’m sorry, does Steve Jobs also specialise in telepathy?)  We positioned ourselves at the back of the seminar and within seconds were hanging on every word the leader had to say enjoying his demonstration of their easy to use and aesthetically pleasing operating system (and cute little icons), to his bit which dispelled our fear that our printer and camera wouldn’t be compatible (it will) and that we will never be able to open or send and Office document (you can).  

By the end of it, Jeff and I had signed over our souls and first born child to Steve Jobs. We are picking up our new Macbook this week and have already picked out a sleeve to protect it when we go out.   We are also ordering our Dave (Sven) laptop table from Ikea so we have a place for our Mac-baby to rest.  Stay tuned for pictures. 

I now know why Gwyneth called her daughter Apple…

You a’ight?

An excerpt from a conversation with a colleague when I first moved here

Me: “Morning”
Them:“Morning, you a’ight?”
Me: quizzically touching my nose to see if was bleeding and quickly glancing at my reflection in a computer monitor to see if I looked particularly pale and sickly that day.  “I am fine thanks, how are you?”
Them: looking up from their computer with a marginally annoying look on their face. “Um yeah, I’m fine”

Unbenounced to me, “you alright?” does not imply that something is wrong with you as it does in North America.  There, we would use this question when someone has walked into a pole, fallen down a hole or has visible bodily injuries – certainly not first thing in the morning when you walk into the office (unless you had fallen in a hole on the way in).

Also, I learned quickly that they do not expect a response which explains why people seemed put out when I would stop and ask how they were doing - you a’ight is not an invitation for a conversation it is more of a greeting.

Thankfully I have had some wonderful colleagues who have coached me on many UK social graces and with practice,  I can now say “you a’ight?” (without the use of an ‘L’ sound) and can respond correctly using the phrase “I’m a’ight, you a’ight” while swiftly walking past the person I am speaking to….who knew I had so much to learn!

Easter in Barcelona

We had a lovely trip to Barcelona however we weren’t the only people who chose this city for an Easter break as the entire city was packed! There were queues around the corner for every Cathedral, Gaudi building and tourist bus but luckily there were enough restaurants for us to duck in to for some tapas and crowd avoidance!   

By far my favourite building was the Sagrada Familia, a church which Gaudi originally designed however has continued to be built following his death thanks to anonymous donors and the funds from the admission tickets.  It looks like something out of a fairytale and it amazed us that they are keeping true to the original design and continuing to build in the unique style (and yes, those are fruit at the top). 

I learnt a few things on the trip including that a one star hotel isn’t that bad as long as you keep the curtains closed so you don’t look right into the run down building behind you, BBC weather lies as there wasn’t one day that was 16 and sunny, a 20 euro boat cruise of the harbour does NOT incule any sort of narration and paella tastes lovely when sitting overlookign swanky boats in the Mediterranean.  

Not surprisingly I was very impressed with their Metro system as it was one of the most futuristic looking one I have had the pleasure of riding.  First of all the notification board telling you when the next train was coming was so accurate that it told you how many minutes and seconds until the next train and it was dead on each time.  Its waaaay better knowing that your train is coming in 4 minutes 23 seconds than just knowing its in 4 minutes! 

Once you got on the train they had little maps inside showing all the stops but each stop you had been to was lit up and the next stop was blinking to show you that you were going in the right direction and find out where you were quite quickly.  There was also a handy arrow that lit up telling you which side of the train the doors would open on so you wouldn’t be caught embarrassingly standing on the wrong side when the doors were opened.  Finally and most excitingly, you could use your mobile on 75% of the lines! 

This is a bit of a double edged sword as part (okay most) of me does enjoy a nice quiet ride into work while I tuck into my free paper free of  annoying ring tones and obscenely loud conversations but the other bit of me likes the idea of being able to send and receive email and surf the web on the way in so I don’t miss a second of the outside world.  Pretty sure though that there is little that will happen in the above ground world in the 34 minutes I spend under it that would warrant having to hear people rambling on about their plans for the day or organising with the wife who will pick up dinner. 

Bottom line, Barcelona is lovely and definitely worth a visit.

Is a gadget holder a gadget?

 

Not sure if this is technically a gadget but its a thing to hold a gadget so it technically works for me.  Anyway you can get it at Ikea (yay!) and it is a stand to hold your laptop with adjustable tilt and height (to be sure I can still see the TV over my laptop – don’t want to miss a second of computer or TV land).  The strangest bit about this thing for me is the name of the product – for years I have kept clothes in my Aneboda drawers, did my homework in Uni off my Flark desk (stop laughing mom I did study), cut food on my Legitim cutting boards and watched TV on my Liliberg sofa.  How can I now bring myself to rest my laptop on, wait for it…..Dave?

How Swedish sounding is Dave?  Was their product naming guy on holiday so they asked some North American intern to think of a name and just went with it?  Either way, I will be ordering Dave (but will refer to it as Sven) and will let you know how it works out.

PS Can’t take all the credit must credit my geek girl website geeksugar for bringing this gadget to my attention!

Tapas and Easter eggs

As we have both Friday and Monday off as statutory Easter holidays, we are taking advantage and getting out of the country and travelling to slightly warmer temperatures (hope my Easter chocolate doesn’t melt).  Have a great Easter  and I will write  next week and let you know how we got on in the land of tapas and Rioja wines. 

I leave you with an oldie but a goodie Easter cartoon….

What’s wrong with this commerical?

I have always loved watching commercials for some strange reason (pretty good thing I am in marketing) and sometimes find myself watching commercials more intently than the actual tv shows.  Anyway thought I would share some with you.  Watch the first one and tell me what is wrong with it….(more for the North American audience – yes all 4 of you)

Lovely story, all the Beverly Hills celebs only have those fancy cars for show but most of them drive Renault Clio’s right….would be a better story if Renault actually sold cars in the US.  They did years ago but stopped and have some deal with Nissan but bottom line you cannot find a Renault dealership or purchase a Clio there even if you are a celebrity (okay maybe I pay a bit too much attention to commercials).

On the subject of cars and commercials, I will leave you with one of my faves.  Again, for the North Americans in the audience, you may need to listen more than once to get what they are saying but it makes me laugh when I see these kids…and for your reference, a kip is a nap.  Enjoy!

I think I’ll walk thanks

My stomach flipped a bit when I heard on the news today that the Airbus A380 was due to land for the first time during a commercial flight at Heathrow today.

Admittedly I fly quite a bit however over the past few years I have become a bit of a nervous flyer so 2 years ago when we went to the Farnborough air show the thought and sight of the A380 made me very very nervous. I didn’t, and still can’t understand how something so incredibly big and heavy looking can travel through the air as it does. One of the main draws to the air show was that we would get to see this beast take off which i was very excited about (along with my fear comes a fascination with watching these things fly – I am terrified of sharks too but never turn down the opportunity to watch a documentary on them and really freak myself out, its therapeutic some how).

Airbus from the back – the body is very ‘ant’ like

Anyway we positioned ourselves in the stands (only meters away from the actual runway which would soooo not pass safety standards in Canada) and watched in awe as the airplane took off literally right in front of us. It was pretty neat to see the it whiz by on take off and actually feel the ground rumble beneath you however once it took off it did a nice sharp bank to the right to show off how agile the planes really are which just showed me how quickly I can go from awe to nauseous.

It was a really creepy feeling to see this huge plane on such a strange angle hanging above our heads. I decided right then and there that if ever I got to my gate at the airport and saw one of these planes at the end of the ramp that I would go the other way. Luckily I am not planning any trips to Singapore and pretty sure that the London to Barcelona route won’t be serviced by an A380 for a while.

Fine ‘American’ cuisine

I had a nice weekend, nothing particularly exciting but Saturday morning was quite warm so I was able to walk around without a coat on which is always a treat (ignoring the fact it rained from Saturday afternoon on til Sunday evening).  Saturday morning I headed off  to Sloane Square which is a perfect place to shop and people watch (two things I do quite well). 

There is a lovely, and fairly posh grocery store in the area that I like wandering through but this time I happened upon their ‘American’ food section which I hadn’t seen before.  I enjoyed perusing the shelves as I saw some old favourites that I had forgotten about and didn’t actually realise that they don’t sell here.  Things like Kraft salad dressing (they do sell it but only three flavours – Italian, Thousand Island and French, none of which are the same as the versions at home. and the packaging is entirely different), Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix, Jello etc. 

 

In hindsight, the section did seem mainly filled with sugary cereal, candy and cake mixes which probably doesnt’ give the English a very good perception of American nutrition but I did find myself with strange cravings for Creamy Cucumber salad dressing, York peppermint patties and bread and butter pickles (No, I am not pregnant, I am the queen of strange cravings though!) 

I had to resist though as both the pickles and salad dressing were both £3.50 ($7.00CDN) and my favourite brand of marshmallows were coming in at £2.25 ($4.50 CDN).  As they can be purchased for about half that in Canada, I think I will wait and gorge myself on these in August when I am home and spend my pounds on things I love from here – like curly wurly’s, prawn cocktail crisps, fish and chips and Magners cider!

The penultimate fortnight

 

I am becoming more English every day….I just had to use the word fortnightly in a proposal (meaning every 2 weeks for those of you not familiar with this word).  I find it funny that people actually use this word (I often picture a fort in my head when people say it) I googled it to find out where it actually came from and it apparently was an old English word meaning fourteen nights (and doesn’t have anything to do with forts like I had thought).

My other favourite word that they use quite a bit is penultimate (second last).  Seriously, who made up a word for second last, just say second last is it really that tricky? I really didn’t think you could use this word that often but I hear it on TV all the time – mainly in sports referring to the penultimate minute of the game.  I heard it most often when we first moved here and the Olympics were on as unfortunately it seemed that most of Britain’s athletes were coming the penultimate place in the standings. 

Hmm I think I am going to spend the rest of the  afternoon trying to figure out how to use both penultimate and fortnight in a sentence.  Any thoughts?

PS Dad, I thought you would like the picture!!  (For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing this place in person, its called Fort Howe in Saint John NB)

 (thanks to Dave who’s picasa album I found it in)

Any day that ends with a y

One of the biggest differences between the UK and Canada is their drinking culture.  I won’t go too much into the details of it but believe me, its entirely different.  Drinking here seems to be a regular part of the culture as snow is for Canadian Winters.  

I am not complaining though as I quite enjoy the culture as along with the drinking comes a very social atmosphere (and I am never one to turn down an opportunity to be social).  I think because people don’t have huge houses they tend to use the pub as a living room and meet up with their friends at the pub as you would have them to your house.  Plus, and this is probably why we dont’ do it much in Canada, no one drives so the ‘I’ve got my car’ excuse doenst’ work cause there is always a bus/train/tube that can get you home.

Anyway the point to my ramble is that I am marginally hungover today…yes today, Thursday because I went out with work colleagues on a Wednesday night!  Wednesday night, typically reserved at home for CSI and American Idol but here, I was out at our ‘local’ enjoying a few pints (of cider in case you were wondering).  And we were far from being the only ones there, it was busy (did I mention it was a Wednesday night?)  It seems any day ending with a y is a good day for a pint.

The beef I have with after work drinking is that no one eats!  Its like a sign of weakness if you suggest ordering food to line your stomach before engaging in a Wednesday night bender.  I blame the lack of food as the reason why I am feeling a bit ‘delecate’ today (and not the multiple pints of cider).