Tea and Machine Guns

On my walk from the Tube station to the office, I pass by the Saudi Arabian Embassy. There are two British police officers that stand on the sidewalk outside the tall black iron gate holding some very impressive-looking machine guns. This morning, I noticed cups of tea in their non-machine-gun-holding hands. Ok, they may have been drinking coffee or even hot chocolate for that matter, but I would much rather imagine that it was tea. I would have taken a picture of them but there's something about their fully-automatic firearms that doesn't seem to welcome photography.

From Midtown to Mayfair

I know I haven't posted in a while but it has taken me some time to take everything in. Today marks the end of two work weeks completed and so far so good. My office is in Mayfair which is in London's borough of Westminster and steps away from the beautiful Hyde Park. It is land of hedge funds, private banks, and wealth managers and rents are among the highest in London. In many ways, the neighborhood is nothing like Midtown Manhattan where I used to work-- no skyscrapers, no traffic, and no bustling crowds of people. Instead, think cobblestone lanes, tree-lined squares and Georgian townhouses converted into offices. And yet I'm still within a short walk of many of the same lunch/snack spots-- Pret a Manger, Starbucks, a New York style sandwich stop, and Chop'd (London's version of NY's Chop't).