Well, as most of us Americans aren't aware, it's World Cup season in Europe, and this year it's being hosted in Germany. It's five weeks of matches between countries, and every time there's an England game, normal life sort of stops. People pile into pubs to cheer our boys on. There are "come on England" ads and posters everywhere and nearly everyone's work has a raffle on. To my eyes, it's kind of like the Superbowl or "World Series Baseball", just stretched across five weeks (who'd have guessed there were so many countries over here!)... so far England's doing well, and is still in the running, although isn't the top pick for finalists just yet. I'm sure most of you aren't interested in "Soccer" so, I'll just move along now, god knows I'm having trouble getting excited about it (although for fear of being lynched, I'm keeping my ear to the ground). Waiyee and I had our first BBQ of the season during England's first game-- we invited all the other non-footie fans and had a nice relaxing afternoon.

So, Waiyee's friend Sophie was kind enough to get all of us tickets to Mary Poppins at the Prince Edward Theatre the other night. I normally don't go in for musicals, but it was a cute, light-hearted evening and anyway, it's Mary friggen' Poppins, so since I'm living in London, I thought I would have no choice but to see it! I think all the American tourists had a similar thought, as the place was jam-packed with Yanks.

We're going away to Portmeirion in Wales next weekend, Waiyee's kind and thoughtful gift for my birthday, coming up on July 5th. In case you don't already know, Portmeirion is this quaint little place with all sorts of buildings transplanted from Italy and various places, and was the set for the obscure 1960s British television show The Prisoner. It was a truly great show, very intelligent and challenging, particularly for its time, starring Patrick MacGoohan (he played the vicious King Longshanks in Braveheart, among other roles). Anyway, I've wanted to visit Portmeirion ever since I saw the show-- it's about a 5 hour drive, so it's not that close by, but hopefully we'll have nice weather as the area is supposed to be just beautiful.