Recipe of the Week #1: Pumpkin Spice Cake with Caramel and Cream Cheese Frosting

As many of you may already know, Nicole and I really love food - and especially enjoy finding new recipes, scouting ingredients, and sipping one of our favorite wines while putting it all together...

In tribute to our love for food - we've decided to periodically post recipes that we've discovered recently, or old favorites...

First up to bat is a recipe from the most recent issue of Bon Appetit - and was the result of us already missing Thanksgiving food, even though Thanksgiving is still a ways off... this is a fantastic cake - give the recipe a shot, it'll change lives...

http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/2008/11/pumpkin_spice_layer_cake_with_caramel_and_cream_cheese_frosting

Update to the Present!

Hello Friends and Family,

I figured it was past time for me to contribute a little update to our site, and so... without further adieu...

I was talking to my buddy from back home, and he asked me if it was starting to sink in -- that I had moved from Seattle, and was living in Europe. And for the first time, I was able to answer "yes" - I'm starting to get used to the idea, and it is truly fantastic. I definitely miss quite a few things about Seattle - the inherent natural beauty of the land, friends, family, and just "home." However, it is impossible to escape the fact that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and Nicole and I have to pinch ourselves every now and again to remind us that it is real. As I go into detail of how great it is, remember friends and family that we miss you all tons, and really hope you can make the trip over to visit!!

So, how to begin - moving into a place where we know we'll be settled for more than a few months is an awesome feeling. I counted up the number of places I'd stayed in the past 3 months - and it totals 6! That is a lot of moving around... (thanks again to those who let me crash!). We're living in a great neighborhood, lined with classic white London townhouse-type buildings, and within walking distance of french bakeries, coffee shops, multiple pubs, tube stations, Notting Hill's Portobello Market (see picture above), and last-but-not-least, Hyde Park. The non-car centered lifestyle is really refreshing, and the Underground is incredibly effective. You can literally get across town in 25 minutes, for less than 2 "quid" (pounds) - way better than fighting traffic yourself, or taking a cab for somewhere near 30-50 pounds.

One aspect of London/Europe that is still a bit surprising to me, is how long things take to process - nearly everything takes probably 3-4 times as long as they would in the States. Everything from broadband internet, tv, phone, and - especially, the job search process. It is really fortunate that my career is in a profession which is universally needed, even in an economic downturn. I've been told by nearly every recruiting firm with which I'm registered, that had I come to the UK last year - 20 job spec's would've been thrown my way nearly every day - and I could have had my choice of the pot. The effect of the world economic recession is exacerbated in London, because of the large percentage of financial service firms making up the economic output. We all know how those are doing these days... 'bout as great as a snowball in h... Anyway - the point is, instead of 20 job spec's a day, I get probably 2-3 sent my way, which has been enough to keep me busy. I've already had 10+ interviews/second-level interviews with various firms, and I have a few promising roles in late stages of the process that I'm excited about. I'll keep you all updated as to how those turn out.

Once we have the job situation nailed down - we're going to start planning our travelling lives for the next year at least. We have a list of hopeful destinations about a mile long - so it will be exciting to see how many of them we're able to hit during our time over here. We've also picked out quite a few places in the UK, and London itself, that we want to make sure to explore - we'll keep you posted on our travels. Next up we're looking at making a weekend trip to Paris, or hopefully Bordeaux for wine tasting.

Another curious difference between the US and UK - is the number of men wearing suits on a daily basis. You were lucky in Seattle to see one guy wearing a suit in a day, and usually he either worked at PACCAR, or in the Nordstrom shoe department. Over here - the (read: Pin Striped) suit is standard. You're almost hard pressed to find a guy wearing "business casual." It is kind of cool, actually - I've enjoyed joining the suited masses on the tube for my interviews. We'll see how long that lasts, once its a requirement and not a novelty... haha.

Welp, enough from me for now - better save some for another day. Miss y'all, feel free to email us with updates!

Cheers,
Matt

Second Email 10.3.2008

Here's the second (slightly edited) edition in Nicole's monthly email series to Family - provided as a bit of a 'catch-up' to the present. Cheers!
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Hey Guys!

How are you?? I hope everything is going well. I just wanted to send a quick email and say hi! And let you all know I miss you! Things are going well over here. I have been working on getting my schedule all sorted out, and I think I have a pretty good client-load. I will be working on Expedia (of course) but it does not require a lot of time, so I have a UK division of Live Nation that I will be reporting to the US, and then a large UK-listed client, Capita, that reports under IFRS. Live Nation is in Oxford, so I will get to stay there for a few weeks during busy season - and I've heard it is a lovely town. Capita has a large team of people that seem really nice and fun to work with. The office is full of people from all around the world - last week i was working with a team of 5 and no two people were from the same place, so we have many different perspectives, which is good.

Matt and I moved last weekend and are settling into our new place. It is in a great location in Notting Hill/Bayswater with a lot going on. Our flat is close to 3 tube stops (within .5 miles) which is great!! In addition, it is very centrally located, so the commute is not bad. The building we live in is older, but our place was recently refurbished with all new appliances. Our sea-shipment has arrived and is waiting to clear customs- to be delivered next week! I can't wait to have our kitchenware to cook with!

I have been enjoying walking to the tube in the morning. Also, in London they have 4-5 free papers that they hand out on the streets by the tubes. It is great to grab one of those and read while on the tube, and they keep me up to date on the latest world economic developments.

As most of you know, we headed to Munich for Oktoberfest last week to experience the festivities with one of my friends who is working for amazon.de for a year. Some of his German friends had a table reserved in a tent, so we were able to join them for the true experience. We had a great time and drank tons of beer (in liters), and ate about as many sausages as you'd ever want to in one weekend. There are approximately 1600 people in each tent (and there are 16 different tents)!! Check out Facebook, or the Slideshow posted on this blog if you want to see pictures from our trip. The table we were sitting at was really close to the EY reserved table for the Munich employees! I got to meet a few EY'ers working in Munich, which was cool. Overall, great experience with liters of beer, singing and 'prosting' (cheers in German).

Matt has been interviewing almost every day since we got back from Munich (including 3 the day after we got back)! All of the recruiters have had great things to say about his interviewing skills and he is in second round interviews with a few of the companies. We will keep you updated with the company/role he decides to go with. We are very lucky that the business world still needs accountants with everything going on.

Please keep me updated on all your lives too!

A few new British words for your repertoire: "chased up," "proper," "keen," and "bloke."

Regards,
Nicole

First Email 9.3.2008

We got a bit of a late start to our blogging - but can fill in the first few months with the emails Nicole sent to close friends and family... cheers!

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Hey Friends and Family!

So, I arrived in London last Thursday and was 'collected' from the airport and taken to my 'interim' accommodations. I'm placed in an area call "Canary Wharf," which is the new business/financial district in London. The location is not ideal in terms of culture, but the apartment is really nice, and has a gym! (Rare). I spent the first few days exploring around and met up with some of the other GEP'ers. We roamed the city trying to get acquainted with the tube, find the EY offices, and just gain an understanding of the general city areas (there are tons!). The main EY office is located very close to the Tower Bridge (most people think of it as the 'London Bridge') and is in a very nice building. We had wonderful weather on Saturday to welcome us to the city, however it quickly changed for Sunday. So far I'm enjoying exploring a new city and learning the cultural differences.

I started work on Monday (Labor Day in the US) with corporate 'induction' at the smaller EY office in Becket House. The major thing going on over here is the consolidation of many areas into the new EMEIA (Europe, MiddleEast, India, and Asia - I believe) area. This occurred in July '08 and many people are still getting used to the idea. It is an effort to bring in global business and unify the way things are done in the area. As you might imagine this consolidation is not an easy task with the multiple languages, cultures, and religions being brought together. Another major topic covered was EY's place in the London market. It seems like a very exciting time to be over here with all the changes going on - except for the struggling economy. (Although I'm watching the pound go down against the dollar daily and hoping it continues - my paycheck will appreciate that!)

For my second day of work, I woke up to a down pour and although we have rain in Seattle it's much different when you are walking .4 miles to your tube stop... and then another .4 to get to the office. You might think .4 miles is not all that far, but I was soaked up to my knees! I'm going to need to invest in some really good boots! I obtained my computer yesterday, and it was nice to be connected again - I also found out that in addition to Expedia, I will be on Live Nation Music and NewsCorp Fox, which should all be interesting.

Matt arrives on Sunday evening and I'm very excited for him to join me over here! We will be looking for a flat in the next week, so we will have more information to come very soon.

A few Londoners words that I have noticed are quoted above and others I didn't manage to fit into this email, but are used quite often are: 'lovely' ("Oh, lovely!" and "What a lovely lunch!"), 'loads' ("there are loads of places to see here" or "I've go loads of work to do"), 'weary' ("my legs area bit weary today").

Miss you all very much! Keep me updated on US activities!

Cheers,
Nicole