where in the world...

are rich and olivia?

yesterday we were in nyc.

today we're in ohio. 

the next 3 days will be spent in michigan.

then back to ohio.

then back to new york.

i guess the 10000 hours spent in a car are the appropriate way to cap off a year spent in:

nyc

massachusetts

maine

disneyworld

disney caribbean cruise

castaway cay in the bahamas

key west

cozumel

grand cayman

england

scotland

wales

greece

i. love. travel.

bring me more, 2012. bring me more!

posts on all of these places coming your way....i have to pick up this guy first:

not a joke. totally serious. he is alllllll ours.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

old to new

we left our home in nyc for the uk on july 16. 

on november 29, we left our new home in the premier inns all across the uk (seriously...50+ different hotels over the last few months) for my childhood home in massachusetts.

there. is. nothing. better. than:

.

there is nothing better than your mom picking you up at the international arrivals gate.

there is nothing better than pretending to ignore your dad when he comes home, which only works until he says "what's up, mah bitches?!"

there is nothing better than sleeping the deep, deep sleep of the jet-lagged. 

there is nothing better than doing literally 90 pounds of laundry.

there is nothing better than seeing american money and for a split second, honestly not knowing what it is.

there is nothing better than constantly looking the wrong way when crossing the street/driving (except remembering that it's the wrong way and not getting killed).

there is nothing better than my dog.

there is nothing better than my dad's baked goods. i have eaten no fewer than 5 magic bars/day.

there is nothing better than going to bikram yoga with your parents and witnessing firsthand where your lack of flexibility orginated.

there is just nothing better.

(except maaaaaybe going to our own apartment early next week...cannot. flipping. wait.)

(except i'm also sort of nervous and overwhelmed at the thought of basically moving back in...oy.)

(how many ellipses could i use in one post? i wonder....)

(i'm lame.)

26th Birthday

(hi new friends visiting from suzy krause! thanks for hopping over- i hope you stay! isn't her design genius?!)

i was born on thanksgiving day, 1985, in an emergency c-section. the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck, i couldn't breathe, and i was literally the color of an eggplant when i was born.

today, 26 years later, i'm in london with my husband on the last day of our 4.5 month uk tour. wow!

i'm thankful for lots of things on my birthday, and especially grateful that the last year has looked like this:

25th birthday with my beautiful fam the day we got back from paris / 25th birthday with beautiful friends at home in nyc / christmas in our apt

(key west / funniest photo of the year / grand cayman / on board the disney magic / with minnie in castaway cay in the bahamas / market in cozumel, mexico / disneyworld!

fam & friends in maine & massachusetts for the 4th of july/our second anniversary

stonehenge / edinburgh festival fringe / greek islands x 3 / athens

london / celebrating at bohemia on the island of jersey off the coast of france

i am so grateful to have been in all these places this year (9 countries, 7+ states), and even more so to have been  in them with so many wonderful people.

now off to wander london for the last time before our final show in dunstable tonight.

tomorrow, we are going home.

27, i am coming for you. watch your back, son!

quickie!

whoa! i disappeared under a mountain of thanksgiving in london, billy elliot, guacamole, flying to the island of jersey, celebrating my birthday at my first michelin-starred restaurant, and playing wardrobe consultant to rich in topman. more coming soon, but here is a photo that best sums up the last several days:

also!

i turn 26 tomorrow!

also ALSO!

we are going HOME on tuesday. aka the day after tomorrow. how it's possible that 4.5 months have gone by remains a mystery.

also also ALSO!

the word "also" looks like a fake word if you type it often enough.

be back soon!

integration now!

when i see this photo after 4 months in the UK, i do not think:

a. sweet car

b. awesome movie 

or

c. you are in for the ride of your life.

i now think:

AHHHH!! YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD!

totally assimilated, i'd say.

(image via here)

highway angel

“Don't be afraid; people are so afraid; 

don't be afraid to live in the raw wind, naked, alone...

Learn at least this: What you are capable of. Let nothing stand in your way.”
― Tony Kushner, Angels in America, Part 1: Millennium Approaches

The Angel of the North is an enormous steel sculpture designed by Antony Gormley 

that overlooks the highway in Gateshead, England.

And I mean enormous: it is 66 feet tall and its wings measure 177 feet across. 

It can withstand winds over 100 mph.

We drove by one afternoon and I was agog. Luckily, we followed the same route back the next day, and as it was a gorgeous sunny day, we stopped to see it up close and personal.

Totally, totally amazing and awe-inspiring:

i felt so small.

and safe.

xo, liv

soho you di'int!

you're welcome for the post title.

we had some more time off in london and spent a few hours wandering around soho.

it's like nyc's soho in many ways, and therefore we loved it/were homesick.

i'm learning how much blogging influences your day (mostly a fanatical need to document everything with photos), so i tried to not be staring at my phone all night.

can i sew? 

sort of.

did this shop fill my head with visions of making all of our clothing a la maria von trapp?

yes.

do i like pastry and sugar that i know is called demerara here but i call chunky brown sugar?

duh.

and that's it. that's all that's in soho.

sewing supply shops and patisseries.

they should call it sew-ho.

i've clearly been spending too much time with rich. 

(more more more more london coming up!)

sleep tight

we have stayed in a premier inn every night for the last 6 weeks. they are nothing swanky, but they are always clean and since every room looks the same, it does help us feel less like homeless people wandering from place to place. the other major bonus is that all of the beds and mattresses are the same, and they are insanely comfortable. like, comfortable enough that we looked into buying a bed and mattress and shipping it to the states. apparently, the Queen sleeps on one of these bad boys. i want to stay in it all day long, and i am not really a stay-in-bed-all-day kind of person. 

(i prefer the couch + an intervention marathon.)

we bought a new bed frame in the spring, but left our craptastic tiny mattress on it because we knew we were leaving and didn't want to spend the cash. now, these mattresses (hypnos, btw), plus some time lounging around on the tempurpedic beds in harrods (yes, literal lounging around...we were trying to only spend imaginary money), have got me thinking about mattress buying.

i've come to the conclusion that the world of mattresses is way too big and stressful and i want an organic mattress but they $2873682.00 and maybe i am brainwashed into buying everything organic and can't someone just tell me which one will be the comfiest for someone who sleeps on her stomach in a position not unlike a symbol most associated with a german political party during wwii?

then i came to another conclusion:

i will sleep on rocks as long as they are piled up on this bed:

this is the jonathan adler woodhouse bed and it is my dream.

not my dream bed.

just....my dream.

i wouldn't even need a mattress with this bed. 

i will happily sleep on the floor, knowing that headboard is above me.

siiiiiiigh.

oh and by the way....

my birthday is november 28th.

just in case, you know?

xo liv

(dream bed image via here)

Brighton

In mid-September, we spent the afternoon in Brighton 

(should have been an entire day before the show that evening but we missed the first train because I was 

working out I mean reading Proust I mean saving children I mean  

putting my hair in milkmaid braids. 

Shameful.

It was the greatest place ever. We were so, so, so mad we didn't have more time there 

(Rich was very nice to me even though it was my fault). 

In just a few hours, we ate some incredible food at a farmers' market, tried on and purchased 

a vintage turban (why not?), saw the royal pavilion, 

and enjoyed the crazy little shops. 

sidenote: i am almost always disappointed when someone touts the "amazing shopping" in any location. i just don't understand what that means. maybe it's because i live in nyc and am spoiled for choice (you can buy customized bubblegum- fo' real), but 99% of the time, people say "oh just wait til you get to blankity blank- the shopping is ahhhhhhhhmazing" and then it's either zara and h & m and a weird place i keep seeing called the chocolate hotel or junk you can buy on the street in union square. do not get me wrong: i love me some zara and junky trinkets but that is not exciting. brighton is one of the only places i have ever been in which the shopping actually was seriously fun and unique. yes!

tomatoes are so pretty, but so gross to my tastebuds.

bread: both pretty & delicious.

this was ridiculously good. it was like lavender/raspberry/lemon vegan goodness.

mmmmmmmmmm

the royal pavilion simultaneously reminds me of:

james and the giant peach
sweeney todd
&
the taj mahal.

weird, huh?

one of the tastiest things we've ever had to eat, with the most inspirational menu!

my new sweet friends from the market.

how british can you get?

and last but not least. the infamous turban (in front of the london eye):

how could i resist?

I would love to visit Brighton in the summer on a beautiful day when the beach is hopping and 

dotted with colorful umbrellas and have a farmers' market picnic on the grounds of the royal pavilion. 

Next time!

back to school

class is in session, my friends! i hope you have your TI-83 calculators and 5 star single subject notebooks.

(seriously, though....people who can actually use a TI-83 calculator in the way it's intended boggle my mind. i could never ever ever get the hang of it. the only thing i could do was store formulas in the notes section so i could cheat on tests and play space invaders...usually during the test because math beyond the basics is not something my mind can grasp. i had a testing method of answering the problems i could solve, then leaving the rest blank and playing space invaders until the last few minutes in which i would just write some numbers and letters in and hope for the best. anyway.)

one of the things that confused me most when we moved here was the difference between all of the terms you hear tossed around to describe the countries and people of these islands. i was like "who is british? who is english? are they the same? are we in the UK or great britain? what is the deal with ireland? how long will it take to meet prince harry and make him fall in love with me and have a polygamous marriage with rich and me?"

and other such important questions.

as explained to me by the other puppeteer, fitchy, and without getting political or too in-depth, here are the absolute simplest definitions* and a map to help you visualize:

Great Britain is England, Scotland, and Wales.  

the United Kingdom is technically the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state comprised of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

the Republic of Ireland is its own country.

residents of Great Britain can identify themselves as British, or as English, Scottish, or Welsh. it's a matter of personal preference as to how one refers to oneself. for example, fitchy is very proud of the United Kingdom, and refers to himself as british first, then english.

therefore, we are technically touring Great Britain as we are not going into Northern Ireland (boo!), but calling it a UK tour is perfectly acceptable.

and in case you've forgotten what a union jack flag looks like, ginger spice is here to jog your memory:

and that's that. now i am going to the cinema on a rare night off (yes! plus two nights in the same hotel! utter luxury!) with a brit, a scotsman, an aussie, and an american. the best part of the night is definitely going to be the inevitable moment (usually after a few beers) when we all start trying to talk like each other. trust me, it's pathetic and offensive and hilarious all at once.

cheers!

xoxo, liv

*disclaimer: if i effed up any of the definitions and offended any brits, i am very sorry. 

i am punished enough by the horrible exchange rate. please forgive me.

colored pencils image via here

uk map via here

ginger spice image via here