Flat Hunting Story #1
So last night after a longish day at work -
did I tell you I was bloody knackered all day yesterday, guess going back to work full time after 6 months of holiday finally caught up with me, well that & staying up past midnight chatting with Jim & watching Pretty Woman - which btw Jim knows many of the lines to the movie, it kept me laughing - I jumped on the Central line over to Marble Arch to visit with MissyLou
(my old flatmate) & Jeremy
(her boyfriend who she is now living with).After arriving at their flat we immediately started cooking dinner, as MissyLou & I were rather peckish!! We had cheese & ham tortellini with spicy tomato sauce - yummers! After dinner we decided we needed a bit of sweet, so we popped down to Green Valley
(Green Valley Lebanese supermarket on 36–37 Upper Berkley Street, London, W1H 7PG - highly recommended!!!) for some baklava - again yummers! After dessert we legged it up to catch the bus to Chalk Farm area to view my first flat.
For those of you who didn't go with me last night to see the place, the flat
(location I will not post) was really nice! My potential flatmate's name is Mame, she's a Treasury accountant for a diamond company - sounds exciting right?!?!?! She is super friendly, very outgoing, and the place was uber clean. It's a 2 bedroom place with double glazed windows & a small deck off the living room. In "my room" the walls are a light violet colour with a TV, VCR & DVD player, double bed, built in wardrobe (aka closet), 2 small dressers & a huge window that faces onto the street. The living room windows face a shared garden. The bathroom, well it's a bathroom, but it has a stand up shower, unlike last year, so that's a big plus :)
Don't worry if I move in I'll take lots of photos & post them up for you to see. Louise & I had meant to take photos last night, but never got around to it, we were too busy gob-jobbing it (aka talking) with Mame. I'm just going to look at a few more places this weekend just to make sure I like this place for sure.The really cool news is that I sent Mame an email this morning explaining I really liked the flat, but that I didn't just want to take the first one I saw so I'd like to check out a few more this weekend & get back to her. Within a few minutes she replied with, "I was just about to email you to say that I really enjoyed meeting you too last night. I totally understand that you need to see what else is out there so I’m happy to hold the room for you until Monday. Basically the place is yours if you want it so just let me know." How cool is that?!?!?! Maybe flat hunting isn't as bad as I had made it out to be????? Well there is still a flat to see on Saturday at noon & a few more phone calls to be made, so I'm sure on Monday I will have at least one other flat hunting story & a decision about what to do with Mame's flat.
As for my flat which you saw yesterday which probably made you drool all over your keyboard about. Things are much better there as well, Mr Annoying (RG) as I will call him, left this morning for a 4 week trek around Thailand, which means I get my own bedroom & en suite bathroom, yippeeeee. Course if I take this flat with Mame it will sorta be a mute point & I actually think I might miss hanging out with Jim, but I can still go up for visits.
Okay I'm asking for your help now, what sort of things would you like me to blog about, aside from my oh so exciting days at work?? I know Pete was looking for flat hunting stories, but does anyone want to "see" or "hear" about anything in London or England for that matter?
Okay I'm off to read some safety manuals, I know you're all very jealous & want to read them as well - LOL - Happy Friday & have a great weekend in case I don't post again today or speak with you in the mean time via email. I miss you all, but things are starting to fall back into place - yeah!! I knew it would if I could just, let go & take it one day at a time.
Oh yeah Happy Saint Patrick's Day to ya!!!!!!!!!!
Labels: dinner, flatmates, flats
Beef stir-fry
The stir-fry I made for dinner last night turned out okay. I left work at 5pm, got on the Picadilly line heading east & was back in Arnos Grove by 5.40pm, while walking home I found a few shops where I could buy food based on what I thought we needed. Apparently I missed a few key items as we didn't have any garlic or onions at home like I'd thought so that sort of sucked but what can you do . . . stir-fry with without & deal with it, that's what I did :) Dinner was ready around 7.15pm & I was still all alone (which I rather enjoyed) so I popped the telly on & sat down to eat, when the door opened & in came Jim who was starving. We eat & attempted to watch That 70's Show. I say attempted because he spent most of the time complaining about work, he did however ask how my day was when he was done.
After dinner I did the washing up & finished my laundry before we both decided we were knackered & were going to bed. Rob did not get home till 11pm & proceeded to walk into the living room, turn the telly on & start to chat to me, I pretended to fall sleep so he would leave me alone, it worked :)
Yesterday I finally got my act together & called my old landlord who had neglected to ever send back my deposit, of course he did not answer, so I left a message. This mornine while on the tube he left me a voicemail with a good time to call him, so I will do so this afternoon. Will be nice to have £1400 to deposit into my account!!
Today at 12, we have our weekly seminar session, which should be interesting. Have I told you I get to go to Thailand for free, yeah I know I have I'm just so excited about it - hopefully I'll have enough data by then for a poster as well . . . how cool would that be?!?!?!?
I just found out that
Daylight Saving Time is kinda weird this year, so right now I'm only 4 hours ahead of you'll in EST!!!
Off to read, "A critical role for neutrolphils in resistance to experimental infection with Burkholderia pseudomallei" by Anna Easton (awesome girl I work with, who just got her PhD about 2 weeks ago),
Ashraful Haque,
Karen Chu (post doc who I will be working with when she gets back from holiday), Roman Lukaszewski (from Defence, Science & Technology Lab in Porton Down) and
Greg Bancroft (my boss).
Labels: dinner, scientific paper
Just over 48 hours
and I'll be getting to the airport to start my trip to London :) I'd be getting more excited about it, if it weren't for this darn cold which has left me deaf in my left ear & spending most of my time blowing my nose. And what is up with everyone recently choosing restaurants that have nice white cloth napkins, making me run to the bathroom to get toilet paper Kleenex?!?!?! I mean if you're not going to have paper napkins at the table the least you can do is have a box of tissues in the bathroom, right?
Chuck E Cheese was a blast yesterday with all the kids, Jacob, Owen & Maya got along really well. When I went to pick up Jacob & J I found that Vanessa & Uncle Jeff were coming along as well, so that was cool. We got there around 4pm & stayed till almost 6pm. J also taught me a short cut on how to get to his & Matt's place, which was pretty sweet, course I'm leaving soon, but as he pointed out for when I come home & visit I'll know.
So last night's dinner at Ruth Chris' was fantastic!!! The bill on the other hand for the 5 of us (Rog, Patti, me, Patty, & James) was over $300, not so fantastic, but my adopted dad picked up the tab, Matt S will be disappointed he missed such a good meal. Patty & I had buffalo steaks with Cajun mustard sauce and for dessert Patti & I shared (in honour of Susan C) chocolate lava cake - yummers!
Allrightyroo, I'm off to Patty's to start organizing my suitcase & make sure everything is going to fit, if not I'll just make up a box for her to mail, once I've found a place to live. Also gonna pick up some NyQuil, sleeping last night was not fun without it :(
HOLY CRAP, I just realised today is March 1st, where has the time gone?!?!?!??!?!Labels: dinner
our dinner
What is that saying about the best laid plans . . . well yeah I should have expected I was too organized & ahead of schedule. Matt texted me around 2pm to say he'd had a bad day at work & really wanted pizza. Since I was in the store shopping, I returned what I'd gotten that far & went to buy stuff for pizza. After filling the cart another txt came through, "how about eastside" meaning he wanted to order a pizza, LOL, so I returned all that stuff & left with only a few things I wanted. When I got to his place I learned that Jay had had to go to an HSBC bank (only 4 in the state so he had to drive like 45 minutes) to get his tax return check cashed so he & Vanessa would not be joining us. Around 4.30pm Matt ordered a cheese pizza, at 4.50pm I left to hit up the post office, East Center street market to pick up ice cream & cigarettes (no, don't worry not for me!!), and then to pick up the pizza at East Side's.
The pizza in CT is typically cut in squares even though it's a round pizza, which to be honest, I'm not a fan of, but when Matt ordered he asked for "pie cut" so that was good. I had gotten Hidden Vally Ranch dressing (an essential item for most meals) so we had our pizza on his new really nice dishes (which he got free from John's dad's condo in Avon). Jay stopped over when he was back from the bank & chatted for a bit, they had decided to make vegetarian lasagna, which sounded really good but I was stuffed from the pizza & knew that apple crumble with vanilla ice cream was on it's way.
I must admit I was rather tired when I got to Matt's so I'm sorta glad I didn't have to cook & semi entertain J&V. As I've said before I guess all things happen for a reason, this is just yet another example of that. Thanks
Zee for the links, I'll def have to try those when I get a chance to cook next, they look really yummy!!!
Now I'm back home waiting for 9pm to roll around so I can watch
Grey's Anatomy.
Oh, I know something else that I haven't really posted about yet, my flight back to Londontown. As you may recall I had a rather long trip out to Portland at Christmas, but for compensation they gave me free vouchers for future flights. In order to use them you have to call up USAirways directly, book the ticket & then bring your voucher in person to a USAirways representative, aka the airport. So I have a flight out of Bradley International Airport on Saturday 3 March at 5.10pm arriving at London's Gatwick airport around 8.30am Sunday 4 March. That's correct I will miss my graduation ceremony, but I will be able to spend a bit more time with friends here in the states who I haven't really seen while I've been home.
Alrightyroo, I'm going to make a phone call or two & get set up to watch Grey's . . . tarra & toodle pip (that's just for you Susan)
Labels: dinner, tv
