Monday, December 20, 2010

press for champagne

i have a friend who i only see every few months due to both of our hectic schedules, and we decided we should celebrate Christmas by having a really fabulous brunch. my idea of fabulous brunch definitely involves champagne, so my friend suggested this place:


i loved the pink and gold for some reason

maybe a bit over the top but Christmas only comes once a year and i liked the general idea of being a bit frivolous for once. i got to the restaurant a few minutes early and perused the menu while i waited. frivolous indeed! it was £3.25 for a small cup of coffee! gah. it made more sense to get a cocktail, really. i wanted champagne badly, especially since they had one of these at the table:



you have no idea how much i wanted to press that button. but alas, the cheapest glass of champagne was £11.50 so i "settled" for a hot toddy since my throat was acting funny. it was the best beverage i have ever had, absolute heaven. i was lucky to find eggs benedict on the menu for only a little more than the price of champagne and ended up ok budget wise thanks to the fact that i nursed my cocktail and resisted the urge to ask for any more water. :-)

it is worth noting here that living with four roommates is what affords me the opportunity to see how the other half lives, even it is only for hour-long intervals!

p.s. they also had a power outlet at the table where they apparently plug in a TOASTER so that you can have freshly made hot toast, but it seemed boring to take a picture of a plug socket...

Saturday, December 18, 2010

white friday

so, i was scheduled to go to vevey, switzerland yesterday for a holiday lunch, which i was quite looking forward to. however, the day before we were supposed to got, the weather forecast predicted snow for london AND the rest of europe. the alarm went off at 3:55 am on friday morning and london was clear, so our team headed out to heathrow to await our 7 am flight to geneva. there was no sign of delay, but 7 am came and went and the airport staff announced that geneva airport was closed until 9 am (8 am UK time). we called the people we were supposed to meet for lunch, who assured us that while it was indeed snowing in switzerland it wasn't a "disaster" and that we should plan to fly in whenever the airport opened. our team had a spirited debate about whether we should go or not, since we had to fly BACK to london that night, and in the end decided to roll the dice and fly out for lunch as planned.

we landed in geneva to a white-out situation and found ourselves wondering if we were crazy for flying out of a perfectly snow-free city into a winter wonderland. but, the trains were still running fine so on we went to vevey! once we started to get around lake geneva, the weather cleared a little and it was a really pretty ride. vevey was very snowy and it made it look like a little postcard town:



however, as we ate lunch, it started snowing again. hard. by the time we came out of the restaurant, it was hard to see the lake that was only a few feet away:





yikies. we piled BACK onto the train to geneva and i got a text with this picture of london from adam:



london absolutely cannot deal with snow, so this was more alarming than the snow in geneva. luckily we were flying to heathrow and not city, which closes at the first sign of heavy rain. however, our flight was slightly delayed anyway because heathrow had a backlog from having to clear its runways! but, i think we were lucky to get out of geneva at all because a lot of flights were either really severely delayed or cancelled. we were only an hour late, which is pretty good given the weather on both sides.

fifteen hours after my 3:55 am wakeup call, two planes, two trains, and two cab rides later, i was back in my warm and cozy room snuggled up next to my little christmas tree. adam brought curry takeaway over, which i ate...in bed. :-) not a bad day overall albeit exhausting!



merry Christmas from london!

Monday, December 13, 2010

naked in the office

no, i wasn't drinking! we have this thing in our office called naked lunch where, several times each year, three people get chosen to give a 20-minute presentation about themselves and essentially "bare all". if there's anything scarier than standing in front of your co-workers preparing to tell your life story, i don't know what it is (except maybe teaching English to very excited adolescents OR paragliding, but i digress :-).

i was one of the lucky few this year who got picked to go naked, and i've spent the last few weeks plotting, scheming, and stressing about what to say. who am i, really? how did i get here? it turned out that some of my story was quite easy to tell and some of it was actually unbeknownst to me until i started putting this thing together:



(Current and/or ex-members of the good ship Klamath will recognise the format!)

essentially this 9-up = brand Jennifer and even though it is not the prettiest thing, it felt like an accurate representation of ME. what is all this stuff? from left to right, starting with the top row:

top left
the big fish in a small bowl stands for who i thought i was in cincinnati, loving my job and my life but knowing i wasn't being challenged enough. the little fish was who i aspired to be, even though she is smaller, she has a bigger bowl to swim around in.

top middle
the fab deca logo. andy rodgers got me into this and it was the one extracurricular that taught me how to write a speech, give presentations to thousands of people, and got me on the right path. i know you were all thinking it was my part time job with the Colonel that got me where i am today, but i really think it was deca that acted as the springboard.

top right
the track stands for how much i love running, even though i am STILL burned out from the flying pig marathon and not sure if i ever want to do 26.2 again. running is something i enjoy with my dad, something that gives me a sense of place no matter where i am, and something that keeps my crazies in tact. the smell of that track in the late afternoon sunshine takes me right back to 7th grade and the milford eagles racing crew...

middle left
my passport = a girl's guide to freedom. i have to thank my parents on this one for letting me go to spain when i was 17. that travel bug bit me right in the ass at a young age and has never let go!

middle middle
i love reading, writing, and everything in between. i adore bill bryson and secretly (or not) long to be a travel writer.

middle right
this wall in cusco is red, just like the little piece of my heart that will always remain in the amazing sacred valley of peru. the trip that changed my way of looking at the world...

bottom left
if i was going to be a muppet, it would totally be beaker. i love to make stuff, which is always an experiment and makes me feel like a mad scientist sometimes (especially in the kitchen). coupled with the fact that i get really high-pitched sometimes, well, can't you just see the correlation? meep, meep!

bottom middle
my eternal mental age. i had the wisdom of my twenties (parents stop laughing at me) but the ENERGY of a twenty-something. it's orange because i have synesthesia...

bottom right
EC1...the postcode...stands for being that little fish in the big bowl now, traveling to random places for £24.99 on easyJet, drinking random beers just because i can, and most importantly, where i met my Ads.

so there you have it. if you ever needed written explanation of my nuttiness, look no further.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

birthday celebrations

the lovely adam celebrated his 32nd birthday on thanksgiving day last week!


wednesday night we had dinner with friends at our favourite italian place, ciao bella


the group got a bit rowdy after too many bottles of value-priced house wine


friday afternoon it was off to a seaside town called brighton, about an hour away on the train. we stayed in a wonderful little b&b called the cavalaire, which was in a restored victorian mansion. breakfast in the mornings was amazing, everything from a Full English to salmon and scrambled eggs! i didn't want to leave.


our first stop in brighton was the fish bowl pub, where we feasted on giant fish finger sandwiches and seasonal ales.


since it was really, really cold in brighton, our second stop was at a cosy pub called the bath arms, where we sat by the fire and enjoyed more seasonal ales and a lovely woodford reserve.


saturday morning we braved the cold for a walk on the beach and down to the famous pier. the ocean was beautiful...too bad we were wearing ski hats!


that blurry thing in the corner is my MITTEN, which i wore to the BEACH


heh, heh. the brits call cotton candy "candy floss" which makes absolutely no sense to me


cheeky illustrations on the side of the women's bathing house


i tried my hand at some skee ball in the arcade, although the game was actually (appropriately) called "ice ball"


after a very cold morning on the pier we walked back down the beach to a place called mdtea, which i didn't take a picture of because the staff wasn't very friendly and they scared me. that aside, i had the BEST cup of tea there ever. it was a peppermint and chili infusion, absolutely amazing.


adam's friends mike and amelia drove in from kent to have dinner with us saturday night! we went to a great seafood restaurant called english's, where we dined on oysters, scallops, and fresh lemon sole. the meal took 3.5 hours, so we really got to enjoy every course and not feel too rushed.


i would smile here but my face is actually frozen

snowed in

in case you haven't caught the london weather lately, it's bloody freezing here and snowing to boot. it snowed all day yesterday but it didn't stick much within central london. however, in kent where adam lives, they have over a foot! needless to say the trains aren't running and he is stuck in greenhithe for the foreseeable future...



Adam's monster truck, covered in a mountain of snow

thanksgiving in london, year two

for the second year in a row, my american friend beth hosted a lovely thanksgiving meal for us turkey fans who are far from home. beth's friend michael also joined us, along with adam, who was also celebrating his birthday!


a wonderful spread to be thankful for


good company to share the meal with


eating my veggies...mama would be proud!


birthday candles for my sweet boy (guess who made the pie!)


happy thanksgiving everyone!

london weekend

two weekends ago, i decided to spend some time getting to know my little city a bit better. i started by having dinner at a chic-chic pan asian fusion restaurant called cocoon in piccadilly circus. normally i wouldn't go near piccadilly unless i have guests in town OR if i needed to visit the anthropologie store, but it's Christmas and there are nice lights up, so i braved the crowds for a friday evening out with the girls:



saturday night adam came over and we embarked on a mini ec1 pub crawl. we realised that there are about 50 pubs in my postcode (or more. no joke.) and that we only go to three of them, even though there are a bunch we have always wanted to try. we found that a few of them were closed (ec1 is next to the city, which is primarily a mon-fri community) but we did enjoy delicious beer at some new local haunts:

the rising sun, a samuel smith pub with a fireplace - score!

the castle - not bad, but smelled like a club and was playing bad music

betsey trotwood - they let me try the beers on draught before making me commit

the wilmington arms - oh my. this one smelled like bleach, which makes you wonder WHAT they had to clean up that required the involvement of chemicals. we didn't linger in this one.


the reigning champion of the evening, the rising sun






enjoying the sights along the mini pub crawl

on sunday we headed up to chapel market where we hit our favourite butcher shop, the fresh meat market, for a leg of lamb and some pork chops. we also braved the horror that is sunday afternoon at the islington waitrose, so that i could get cans of pumpkin for thanksgiving! finally a local store is stocking canned pumpkin and i don't have to go all the way to stoke newington!

with the groceries purchased, we embarked on what i hope will be the first of many "monthly cultural outings". this month we went to the museum of london, which is a 10-minute walk from my flat and is also FREE. we only had an hour to spend but got too see some really cool displays on what london was like millions of years ago.


exploring the museum

all in all it was a fun weekend and a great reminder of the variety of things london has to offer! if i ever get bored here, it is my own fault...

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Meece

Yesterday was my monthly turn at the cleaning rota, and I usually tend to do OCD things like wipe under the microwave, move the 57 bottles of olive oil so I can wipe under them, attempt to clean the George Foreman grill that no one uses yet is inexplicably dirty, etc. I sometimes find interesting things like rubber bands, crumbs, and one time, an olive. However, yesterday, I got an unwanted surprise when I discovered...mouse droppings. A lot of them. We have had mice in the garden and the garage since Summer but I had never seen any evidence of them in the main house. Ew, ew, ew. I grabbed the bleach and went to town, then planned to send an email out to my housemates regarding our new pets.

After 2.5 hours of cleaning (most of it in the kitchen), I went to take a nap and was awoken by a loud crash. No one was crying or yelling, so I figured I would let it be and went back to sleep. Adam came over a little while later and we went to the kitchen for a quick snack before heading out for the evening. We encountered one of my housemates making her own snack, and she mentioned that she and another housemate saw two mice earlier (meece :-), which was what resulted in the crash. Gah. She also said she had found a hole in the wall in the hallway where she thought the mice had come in. She had put a lot of duct tape over the hole, so we hoped the problem would be solved for the time being.

Everyone was chatting merrily over our food when out the corner of my eye, I saw a tiny grey thing scurrying down the hall towards the bathroom. My initial instinct was to scream, loud, which prompted Adam into action and he scuttled after it with one of Ly's shoes. I had just mopped and I REALLY wasn't in the mood for a massacre, so I screamed some more while he played whack-a-mouse to no avail. It was looking for the hole we had taped over and when it couldn't get through, it came BACK down the hall towards the kitchen. And towards me. I hollered again and hopped up onto a kitchen chair as Adam and the mouse chased each other down the hall. My housemate, who had been cooking, was quiet but also up on a chair, watching with interest to see how the situation would unfold.

By this point, our other three housemates had come down to see why I was screaming (no need to send that email any more). We discussed possible ways to get rid of the critters:

- Open the door and let them run outside (quickly dismissed, as Adam mentioned these are not like pet cats and probably more would come in while the door was open)

- Feed them poison bait (still under consideration, although we don't want dead ones in the garage or the walls)

- Get glue traps (dismissed as inhumane, since this doesn't kill them quickly)

- Get snappy traps (still under consideration, but no one wants to clean up the carcasses especially since their heads tend to snap off in these things)

We decided to contact the landlord and everyone went their separate ways for the night.

Fast forward twenty four hours and I'm in the kitchen again with Adam and a different flatmate and I went to use the downstairs bathroom before we started roasting our leg of lamb (£6.99 y'all). I was facing the sink when suddenly, a tiny grey creature rushed at me. Talk about an invasion of privacy, hello mouse! Not in the loo! I screamed bloody murder and we danced around the tiny bathroom, then the dumb thing finally ran behind the toilet. I came out of the bathroom to a chorus of "shut the door!". Adam then went in with one of Ly's finance magazines and shut the door behind him to avoid further infestation.

There was a lot of scuffling and Ads emerged five minutes later, only to announce that there are holes where the woodwork is unfinished:

- Behind the sink (big one)

- By the radiator (two small ones)

- Behind the toilet (medium size one)

He then rummaged around the garage, found...something, and used it to plug one of the holes.

I'm not a fan of these encounters with nature. I know we live in the city but come on. I've given five people near heart attacks with my screaming and Adam said his ears are still ringing. My own heart is pounding and I find myself looking suspiciously at the refrigerator and the bathroom now. I bet no one goes in there for a while!

Anyway, hopefully the landlord will sort this out quickly, especially since I've decided to stay here for the time being and not go spend 75% of my income to live in a shoebox. :-)

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Close, but no cigar

I ALMOST had a flat. Almost. It was huge (practically a one-bedroom), in the location I wanted, AND wonder of wonders, it had a washer. I REALLY wanted it and am still sulking over the loss while quietly cursing my agent.

The story goes something like this. Agent sends me pics of a flat to look at, which is decidedly out of my price range (and if I'm honest, it was kind of not that nice looking in the pictures). However, agent said he could get the landlord to negotiate the price closer to what I could pay so I agreed to have a look.

The paint was peeling on the outside of the building, the street was really noisy, and I had to walk up about five flights of stairs, but then we opened the door and the heavens smiled upon us. There was a HALLWAY and A SEPARATE KITCHEN. The studio room was beyond huge and the bed was nowhere near the stove. And it was QUIET. No more listening to cement trucks barrel over speed bumps, or my personal favourite, listening to the recycling man throw bags of wine bottles into the back of his truck at 6 am on a Saturday.

I tried to play it cool but we agreed I would make an offer via email when I got home. We spent all afternoon farting around over price, and I finally capitulated and agreed to pay the top end of my price range WITHOUT BILLS. Mind you, the price I originally offered was WITH bills but nevermind. I was willing to sell my soul for this one. Eating is overrated anyway (kidding, it wasn't that bad).

Sadly, after four hours of back and forth via texting, blackberry email, and phone calls, the agent wrote me and said the landlord wasn't so willing to negotiate on price like he thought. (Remember, this apartment was WAY out of my price range and I only even looked at it because the agent said it was negotiable).

Dumbass. He's on commission and would've gotten a fat check from me, so I know he tried. But still. He's a dumbass. Maybe so am I, because I think I was punching above my weight on this one. That place was totally out of my league and worth what the landlord was asking...

However, I have made a massive breakthrough in that I've come to the realisation that I can no longer live by the "I'm not spending more than 1/3 of my income on housing" rule. Apparently this doesn't actually work when you live in a big city and your salary is so low that people do a double take when they hear what you earn.

If I'm really broke and/or really miserable after 12 months of studio life, I reckon I'll re-evaluate when the lease is up. But in the meantime, when else am I going to be able to selfishly spend money like it's water? Maybe never again. I've saved a lot of money walking to work this past year, not to mention living with four other people is relatively cheap as well. So here goes nothing. I'm upping my search criteria and not even going to CONSIDER living in a basement apartment where the oven also doubles as a headboard.

Stay tuned... :-)

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Indonesian treats!

One of my flatmates is from Indonesia and was kind enough to bring all of us pressies back from her last visit home. She hand-picked gifts for everyone, so we all got a mix of stuff depending on our tastes. My packet of goodies included:

The cutest wooden spoon/fork set - the handles are fish!


Tim Tam chocolate cookies


Sesame seed cookies

Plus the coolest ramen noodles I have ever eaten


Seriously. I eagerly busted into the package that I couldn't read, boiled the kettle, dumped the water and the noodles into a bowl, and realized...I don't remember how to actually make ramen. I know it's not hard but I think I missed out on a critical step, like boiling them on the stove or something.

Any way, it didn't matter because the noodles eventually cooked and I was able to mix in the FOUR packets it came with:

Peanuts
Chili powder
Some sort of sauce
And some other sort of sauce

It tasted really good and put Instant Ramen right to shame. Even if the flavour hadn't been so good (which it was), I actually had quite a fun time just assembling the ingredients. I reckon I might be easily entertained...

Monday, November 1, 2010

oh, the joy

while jen's motel has certainly been a comfortable home for me over the last 12 months, there comes a time in every girl's life when she just wants to be able to take a shower. no seriously. i have been showering at night for the past month in order to avoid the grumblings and the queues that take place in the third floor hallway each morning. it's a bit ridiculous.

when i was looking for a flatshare last year, i used sites like moveflat.com and gumtree.com where you can find loads of people looking for a housemate. it was relatively safe because you could tell right away whether something was the real deal when you showed up at the front door (either there were people living there looking for a housemate or there weren't).

however, looking for a studio is different. there are lots of scams aka people just posting pictures of pretty apartments online and claiming they have a flat to let. there are elaborate schemes to take your deposit before you even view the flat, and then voila, there isn't actually a flat and you're out £700. i had heard about these scams but had never witnessed them myself until last week when i got the SAME strange email from two SEPARATE potential landlords:

---
Thanks for your reply.I would love to meet you, get to know you and show you round the flat so that you can see what you are renting but I have had problems with time wasters who could not keep to there end of deal despite the fact that i have made the rent so low considering the economic climate.Its really time wasting because i am a very busy person and do not really have much time to waste. Please understand that i am NOT asking you to pay for what you have not seen.People have told me that they will pay upon us meeting if they are satisfied but mostly they don't have the cash at hand to pay me,everyone of them is looking for a free or cheaper flat to rent despite the fact that i have made the rent Cheap.
Can you please answer the following questions?

-Are you really serious about the renting the Flat?

-If you love the flat when you see it and interested in renting, will you make the payment to hold it against your move in or would you like to move in the same day?
Kindly get back to me about an idea on what we can do so that we can arrange a meeting for viewing.
---

seems normal enough (except the "move in the same day" part), if i was willing to overlook the fact that, like i said, i got this EXACT email from another dude the morning afterwards. i replied back that i was serious, etc., etc. (to both dudes actually) to see what would happen and i got THIS back from BOTH of them:

---
I was discussing with my colleague about the idea on how i will be so sure that i will not be disappointed and to avoid time wasters.She advised that we can work out something via Western Union.
All i want to know is how sure are you to pay me the money if you intend to rent the Flat and just an evidence that you have the money because i need a surety that my tenant will pay me at least the first month rent and deposit.

She adviced that you can visit any Western Union outlet by sending the rent and deposit in your friend or partner's name to your name as the receiver in London Via Western Union which you would cash after viewing. The relevance of this transfer is to show that you have the agreed rent or deposit at your disposal to cash after viewing.
The transfer charges would be refunded to you when we meet at the point of viewing whether you decide to take the property or not.
After viewing, if satisfied with what you see, then we would both go to the nearest WU outlet, you will collect the money out and pay me in cash in exchange for the keys to the property and all other documents signed.

NOTE- No monies would be sent to me, it would be made between you and any of your friend.I just need the transfer as a proof that you have the money available.

I was made to understand that you can send me the WU transaction proof for confirmation on WU website so as for me to be rest assured that you have the money to pay me available at WU.
https://wumt.westernunion.com/asp/orderStatus.asp?country=global

PS:I am sorry for the lengthy mail.I only want to explain myself better.
---

everything from the "i was discussing with my colleague" to the "PS" was identical!!! sigh. needless to say, i didn't write back.

i then came to the conclusion that i must go with an agent to find a property and quickly learned that:

1) most properties on agency web sites have already been let

2) i am not of much value to anyone given the tiny amount my rent would be AND the fact that there are 1,000's like me looking for the exact same thing

i think i've contacted about 10 agents over the last few days, some have been helpful, some not so much. i spoke to a really lovely guy today and told him i wasn't keen to rent a studio where the bed is like, in the kitchen. he promised to email me a property later that day, which he did...and sure enough, the bed was in the kitchen.

so, we'll see what happens but i have to say i'm not too optimistic about the search. at least i'm not on a deadline like i was last year...

Summer post, a few months late

Yes, I know my visit to Cincinnati was five months ago (!) but I found some cute pics that I thought y'all might enjoy:

Happy Halloween



No dressing up this year, but Adam and I did celebrate Halloween by carving the world's smallest pumpkin! Our little friend lasted about 20 minutes before we roasted his seeds and made a pumpkin risotto out of the rest of him. Mmmm...

Monday, September 13, 2010

the ives in st. ives

september has been an action-packed month so far! my dad, pam, and tim came to visit last week and got the whirlwind tour of london plus a trip to st. ives (get it?) thrown in to boot. i had never been to cornwall before and wow. it was like a whole other country. rather than boring you with the usual picture + explanation, i'm trying my hand at something new...exporting my iPhoto pics into QuickTime movies. yes, i know it is very small but that is all i can get to upload for now. it has an exciting soundtrack, if that makes it any better?

also, for your romantics out there, the pub shown in the last 20 secs or so of pictures is where adam and i had our first date seven months ago. :-)


Sunday, September 12, 2010

36-hour reunion in barthelona

my friends jenifer and jule, who i have known since i was five, crossed the pond to spend a few days in spain and france. the spain part of their trip fell during the august bank holiday, so i flew to barcelona for a whirlwind, fabulous reunion. we were so busy catching up that i don't think i saw one famous landmark. unless you count the naked guy standing on the corner by the beach a landmark?




i arrived saturday night around 9 pm, took the bus into the city, and met my girls at their hotel. none of us had eaten dinner yet, so we put on our finest and went in search of the perfect paella. i was planning for it to be an early-ish night.


however, every time i hang out with these chicas, we always accidentally end up staying up way later than planned. dinner ended around 11, followed by a cab ride to the beach (i was able to have a conversation in Spanish with the driver the whole 10 minutes!), drinks by the beach, then dancing at a random club with some Frenchmen the girls had met the night before.


after a few hours of mind-numbing techno music and G&Ts, i ended up in the mediterranean for a quick dip (in my clothes) before we headed back to the hotel. the paella we ate wasn't really holding us over, and we were all starving! but nothing was open at 5:30 am for us to munch on, so we pled with the hotel manager to feed us.


kind soul that he was, we got a nice (albeit random) plate of chorizo, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, and ciabatta bread. i woke up at 9 am at the foot of the bed, covered in egg shells. this is what the "snack" plate looked like the next morning.


we finally got out of bed at 1 pm, at which point i poked my head outside to see what the rest of the world was doing.


despite not seeing any famous landmarks, i did get to see the side streets and back alleys of barcelona on a our long, lost walk to lunch, which were pretty cool in their own right.










we finally ended up in a tasty cafe around 4 pm, where we gnawed on crepes and sarnies (that's English for sandwich).




we spent the rest of my first/last day in barcelona relaxing at the beach. i had to hold the camera up really high to take this shot, because everyone on the beach except for us was naked.