As you can probably tell, writing once or twice a week has been a bit difficult for me. I guess, life's too short to spend summarizing the past. Anyhow, there's a lot to update you all on and only so much time.

Shortly before my last post, my mom arrived. She stayed until June 29th with her friend Barb. We visited Edinburgh, Scotland the weekend of June 20th before heading to Parliament and Wimbledon on Monday and Tuesday the following week. English Parliament was especially interesting to see. We were able to see both The House of Lords and The House of Commons (kind of like House of Representatives/Senate). Lucky for us, Tony Blair argued in The House of Commons for the last time. For those that don't keep up with English politics, Tony retired from politics on June 28th to join the private sector. He put on quite a show during a debate over EU policy. Blair returned two days later for his final Prime Minister Q&A at Parliament (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZQKG_ff9bo) - happens every Wednesday.

Wimbledon was pretty amazing. I can still remember sitting down with my dad on weekends in the summer watching Agassi, Sampras, Ivan Lendl, Bjorn Bjorg, etc with my dad growing up. I don't know if I'll be able to see anything like that again - but hope to take my dad if I do.
My mom left a few days later...

Then, off to Krakow, Poland for a friend's birthday with the guys. Too bad my friend slept in and missed his flight. That said, we celebrated for him - Krakow is a very cool city worth visiting again. The clubs are mad and plentiful. We did spend a day visiting the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz-Berkenau. It was quite an eerie experience - walking the grounds, listening to the horrors that went on there, being lead into the gas chambers, etc. An eerie experience to say the least.

I arrived back to alwasy rainy London Monday and been working quite a lot since. A few coworkers have ended their six month stints and shipped back to the US, leaving me sitting next to empty desks. The life of the short termer strikes again.