Category London
I’m a sucker for pretty, clever things
I went to the department store looking for a set of dishes and was put off by the high price and boring aesthetic. I figured I would just get the basic IKEA set and move on. Then I stepped into In-Residence, the lovely little boutique across the passage from my flat. I met the proprietor, […]
Priorities
When you’ve just moved in and don’t have dishes, bed linens or toilet paper, the first thing to get is a jar of lilies and a mobile.
Fire and fury
My landlady’s definition of a proper clean and my definition of a proper clean are not the same. I had her clean the flat twice before I moved in, and while the second attempt was a much more valiant effort, the bathroom still wasn’t habitable. Because mildew. Even after two allegedly “professional” cleans there was […]
Almost chez moi
It’s official — I have a place to live!! Tenancy agreement signed, check-in inspection complete, and keys in hand. And oh, what keys! The reader-of-gothic-novels in me got childishly happy when the leasing agent handed over two skeleton keys. It just feels so, well, English of me to be living in an 18th Century building full […]
The Tempest at the Barbican
There are posters all over town advertising the Royal Shakespeare Company’s current production of The Tempest. I would see them in the subway or on the sides of buses and think, “Oh, I should see that” only to forget all about it when I was back at my computer and able to do something about […]
Adios, Madrid — hello, London
Today was a travel day, but full of a somewhat unusual luxury: time. My flight wasn’t until mid-afternoon, but Madrid on Sunday is sleepy and I had work I needed to catch up on anyway. So I slept a little later than normal, went for another long morning run, and then headed to the airport […]
Rainy day at the gallery
What to do with a rainy Saturday in London? Sleep late, breakfast on Nutella and English muffins (here they’re just called “toasting muffins”), and head out to see some of London’s indoor sights. The Churchill War Rooms were at the top of my list, but the line — I just couldn’t even. So I went […]
Turandot
Major bucket-list item checked off today: I finally saw Puccini’s Turandot. Been on my list for years. It’s a pretty great opera, too. It’s Puccini, so the melodies are gorgeous, but he was also trying to modernize Italian opera, so it has elements of the German tradition (massive orchestra with a story-telling function separate from the […]
Homeless! Homeless?
You guys. It’s a travesty to all that is bloglike that I have not been live-blogging my flat search here in London. Talk about trials and tribulations! To catch you up, let’s start with the cast of characters. Where would you rather live? New River Head — A tiny one-bedroom flat on the third floor […]
Look who was here this week!
We did nothing “interesting” at all — just dinner together very night after work, lots of walks through London to visit the neighborhoods and flats I’ve been eyeing. He saw Kew Gardens without me and waited ever so patiently while I worked (first on actual work and then on lease-related stuff) most of the day […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 