Traveler’s Tip: If you see a puddle – any puddle...any...where... – assume it is urine. I really love London, so it’s out of affection when I refer to it as “the world’s urinal”. Sometimes I like to follow the stream (weird habit, I know) to see where it originated and am horrified by its extremely public genesis. In broad daylight.
Quote of the week: PPS Now in the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum). Just saw mother and daughter dressed in matching floral dresses and gloves. But they were 30 and 50. It was creepy. –CJB via text
Dwelling on it...
Ah my flat, my new home. New...to me that is. My feelings towards the place are mixed. For the last month we have been in that kind of “is this going anywhere?” stage in our relationship. I really wonder if there is a future in it. N should welcome it – really deflects attention away from directing the same question at him. Lots of pros...lots of cons (none of them recently escaped or anything...that I’m aware of). Let’s start with the good. It has cut my commute down by 30-45 minutes...each way. The number of exchanges have been reduced from 3 to 0. And it’s way cheaper. (More money to travel? Shop? Donate? Er...save?) I have very great flatmates. One is a chef so I come home to big dinners and freshly baked cakes. But there are a lot of them – well, 3...but that is a lot of people on one small space. Sharing one bathroom. And the smallest “full-sized” fridge of all time. (It’s the kind of fridge people have as a backup...in their garage...to house their beer.) I have a nice, big window in my room (that never really shuts all the way) and lets in lots of sunlight and street noise (Cough: The #N28 and N31...running all night long! Every 15 minutes!). It really is nice in the morning. The big, sunny window and my nice, new neutral coloured, John Lewis sheets really make my room feel like a zen place. I stretch, I welcome the day, thank God for my blessed life and feel at peace with the world... Until I turn my head to the left. On the other side of the room is...chaos. Basically, I have too many material possessions (Where is Thoreau when I need him?). I came to London with 2 suitcases and nearly 2 years later I have...3 cab trips worth of crap accumulated from my time at the last flat. Storage in the new room consists of a bedside table, a dresser with 3 drawers...and a wardrobe (ie a giant faux wooden box with a hanging rail...). Solid. So I supplemented all that luxury by purchasing a DIY tidy rail with shelves. That organisational eyesore is now sagging either under the weight of my clothes or do its overall crappy design. Me thinks it is a combination of the two. I’m also sad because I used to have a whole floor (as in level of my house...not floor space) dedicated to guests at my old place (big, private and furnished with a very luxurious inflatable mattress on an as-needed basis). Guests will now have to rest somewhere between the zen place (my bed and window) and the collapsing tidy rail. Have I sold you? It’s fine though...I’m just keeping my eye open for something better – a very bad habit of mine...something that, again, N benefits from the deflected attention J. But it doesn't matter where I live... I will always have my beloved hard water, that minerally goodness that hydrates all of London - which also means a lifetime of fuzzy tea kettles and bad hair.
Break of dawn baking
Alas, we had to say goodbye to our interns – which doesn’t really affect me as I’m barely above an intern myself – so they took us all out to drinks at the The Fig Tree in Uxbridge. Expect no review on the place as no place in Uxbridge really merits a review... All a long prelude as to why I woke up and baked banana bread at 5am (the only thing that I had that was homemade all week – how sad and urban of me). I got home late from the aforementioned goodbye drinks and could not be bothered to make the banana bread I promised (out of the kindness of my heart... and desperation to eradicate the fruit flies that had begun congregating around the rotten bananas in my kitchen) to bring to the interns’ leaving lunch (needy little buggers... as if drinks weren’t enough!). Lucky for me, I could keep my promise; I woke up at 4 and could not go back to sleep (severe dehydration from the un-quaffable fruits of the Fig Tree?), so I finally gave up and got up at 5am on Friday morning to make said banana bread as the sun rose. It was romantic, in a desperate housewives kinda way...except that DHs have immaculate fruit fly-free kitchens...and dishwashers. And they shower more than 3 times a week. Kidding. Sort of...
Eating-out of Africa
The banana bread was pretty much all I cooked for myself last week. I was busy this week finishing up work before my holiday (next week) so I either scratched up old leftovers, picked up some nice ready-meals from M&S (3 for £5!) or went out. Last night I went to an Eritrean restaurant near Westbourne Park tube station with some of N’s friends: Mosob, 339 Harrow Rd. Highly recommend it. It is filed under London’s best cheap eats by many. Mmm... er, would we call it cheap? Ok, by London’s standards, it’s relatively cheap. But it’s not like under £5 cheap...or even under £20 cheap (it was £22pp). However, by the end of it, we were coma-inducingly stuffed by the surfeit of food...and we had drinks. The tab also included a really great atmosphere in a family-run restaurant. The servers were great (albeit slow), and they really don’t hold it against you that you probably did not even know that Eritrea was a country before you came. But you will know that it is when you leave...as well as the capitol city (Asmara) and the joys of injera, the traditional sponge-like Ethopian/Eritrean flatbread that is used to mop up all the spicy meat and/or bean stews, flavourful spinach, cabbage and other food piled on top of it. So much food. And if you’re a vegetarian...you need to order the vegetarian platter. Otherwise you will be stuck with a meal that a lot of animals had to die for. The best way to do it is to order huge sharing platters and scoop, sop, mop – whatever - up all the food that is piled on the injera with your hands...and some supplemental injera rolls. Not the best place for a first date...or dinner out with someone who is ill or cootie-ridden* (like we did - sharing with two sick people... And N had the gall to ask for me for hand sanitizer after we shook their hands after leaving. My response: Ummm you stuffed your fat faces with food from the same giant plate... using your bare hands – whatever.), but amazing for a group of people who don’t mind making a mess and enjoying really good ethnic food. One of my favourite things about London is the limitless number of ethnic restaurants serving food from places you probably didn’t know existed, let alone have tried the local cuisine before. And often they have amazing food that is not that expensive and is staffed by friendly, helpful people who love sharing their food and culture with you. Except in Chinatown. The food is great, but they really just want your money. You can worry about the culture somewhere else... J
*Fun fact: Cooties in England are lurgies.
This just in!: Male housemate just texted to say that the hot water in the flat is broken. But being the chivalrous man-of-the-house that he is, he has promised to take care of it. Swoon.
· Notting Hill Carnival: I’m going to be gone on the main day (Monday) so I will have to settle for the “family friendly” day (Sunday). Boo. But I am excited. North Eastern Africa last night, Carribbean tomorrow (http://www.thenottinghillcarnival.com) ...and Eastern Europe on Monday!
· Budapest: Heading off to Hungary for 4 days on Monday. It’s a bank holiday on Monday so I took off Friday to make it a full week which makes it 9 days of no work. It was much needed – I mean, I haven’t had this much time off since I went to the US for 2 weeks in July (I know, I know...but please, put away your violins...I will cope... I always do...)
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