me, myself, and i

saturday morning i woke up to the beautiful sun shining and a mild 45-degree temperature outside. what better to do on this perfect day than...hunt for flats. :-) i had no saturday appointments scheduled so i hopped onto my vast array of flat hunting sites, found some places with phone numbers, and became a woman with a mission. this is how the hunt panned out:

Flat #1 - Bethnal Green
bethnal green was a bit north of town, about an hour's walk from clerkenwell (clarkenwell if you're local) through the hip and trendy areas of hoxton and shoreditch. however, the "street" i looked at had four buildings of council flats surrounding an overgrown patch of grass, which was encircled by a rusty wrought-iron fence. i had to wait a good 10 minutes for the leasing agent and got to enjoy the cacophony of yelling neighbors and yipping dogs. the flat was good sized but had no living room and even thought it was advertised as a non-smoking building, there was a very full ashtray on the table. nonononononononono. i didn't even say goodbye, just backed slowly out the door asking where the nearest underground station was. :-)

Flat #2 - Angel/King's Cross
fantastic location? check. good commute to work? check. cute neighborhood next to the canal? check.



hookah on the kitchen counter???? hmm, ok. i might have been able to overlook the housemates' shisha habit but the place didn't have a lounge (living room) and it was a single bedroom. bah.

i walked BACK to clerkenwell, had a nice Skype chat with my dad, then headed out to meet Christine, Beth, and Lou who had been cycling all day. our restaurant/bar of choice was cafe kick (foosball bar from last week), because they had an amazing tapas menu that we wanted to try! i got there a few minutes early and ordered a double G&T from the bartender, who i swear could have been eddie vedder's much younger brother. things were looking up.

we had a fabulous dinner...chorizo, grilled calamari, Spanish tortilla, goat cheese, quesadillas...mmm. afterwards we rocked a few more games of foosball then left to go watch some big title fight on TV at the hobgoblin. i know nothing about boxing but we walked in just as they were announcing the winner, who happened to be from england. the bar erupted into cheers, which was actually quite cool. the DJ started up then, playing de la soul (which seems to be standard at clubs), so of course a dance party broke out for the next few hours.

we got kicked out sometime after 2 am (bars close here???) and the gang was headed to lexington, but i was drunkety drunk and TIRED from walking around all day, so i called it a night. 3 am found me full of leftover fajitas, passed out happily under the blankets. :-)