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