moving

we're mostly moved in to our new place! we still have a few odds and ends at the old place to collect and move, but we have a bit of time yet. i'm at the old place now, as we're still waiting for our broadband to be switched on.

friends of mine from chicago/capital are visiting now. i'm glad they came--it forced us to unpack our boxes rather quickly, haha. we showed them around town yesterday and treated ourselves to curry. and we'll have curry again tonight. mmm. i like out-of-towners with vicious appetites for indian food.

i'm still mega-sore from all the moving; we're on the third floor at both flats, so the move involved lots of stair climbing and calf muscle pulling. it's really sad how out of shape i've become. i can hardly walk without wincing. sigh.

whistling busker

this man is by leaps and bounds my favorite street musician in guildford! he has the dedication and to be honest, is the most refreshingly original busker i've seen outside my window. he started sometime before 9.30 this a.m., as that's when i originally heard him, and he's been going, albeit with short pipe-smoking breaks, ever since; it's after 3 p.m.! and he's blind! which makes his standing in the freak hail storm, whistling his heart out, that much more sincere. this isn't his best song for sure, but you can see his pure determination, his british stiff upper lip, if you will, at belting out the notes despite the large ice balls cascading down around him!

and a picture--

so, hail! i've never seen hail in england, and it's been a long time since i've seen any in the states. we've had a few hail storms now, all in the last 24 hours. what was so freaky, especially yesterday, was the cloudless sky about 2 minutes before the hail storm, which was followed by rain and thunderstorms. and then sun. just before the hail, we'd been out walking around town, running errands etc., talking about what a lovely day it was to take a long walk--which we canceled soon after uttering the words. today was similar--sun, hail, snow flurries, more hail, sun. then more hail, snow, sun.

and it's easter, right? if not, i'm worried that people are starting to crucify everyday guildfordians at the top of the high street on saturday afternoons--

number of five-year-olds i could take in a fight

i didn't expect to do this well! i thought i could take maybe 4... but 18!? bring 'em on! thanks for the link, brian! and happy birthday today, too!

18

new flat, homemade bread...

we found out yesterday we've been approved for the flat we applied for! hurray!

i've been wanting to try this bread recipe now for months, but, as you can see from the pics, our current fridge definitely will not hold a bucket of dough. thankfully, the new flat has a large fridge and a separate just-as-large freezer... our current one is smaller than the fridge i had in my dorm in college! this is the typical size, by the way, especially in rented properties:

iron chef: supreme cuisine

i can't wait to play this on the wii! hurray for all that extra dough we made on selling in the flatmat's unwanted video games!

rainy monday

today is the nastiest weather day we've had in probably a month. it's cold, rainy and windy. kind of odd, because you expect it to be miserable all the time here, but we've had 50 degree days with lots of sun now for weeks. and of course, i didn't take as much advantage of it as i should have.

we've found a flat! we're still working our way through the application process, so fingers crossed, we'll know this week if the place is ours. it's a small, 2-bedroom flat in guildford. it's close to where we are now, but closer to the river wey, the train station and NOT on the high st! yay! i don't have pics yet, but i'll take them and post them once we have the keys.

not a whole lot else to report. we're anxiously waiting for one of our two flatmates to finish moving out, which he's been slowly doing now for what seems like an eternity. he's moving into a flatshare in london, and he never asked if he could have his room unfurnished. so he's been getting rid of basically everything he owns. only, instead of actually getting rid of anything, he's just 'leaving' it for us to deal with. this works absolutely fine for things that are easy to re-sell--video games, new-ish dvds and cds, etc., but it's kind of annoying for things like rotting tea pots and glass jars he's been collecting like some homeless pack-rat now for apparently most of his 20s. but, since we literally live 5 mins from everywhere, it's not really as obnoxious as it could be. we made more than £75 in video game credit yesterday because he is too lazy to walk 45 seconds to the game store and do it himself! doofus. but again, i'm not complaining... and he did finally recycle, i'm not kidding, at least 3 years worth of random glass jars and heinz baked bean tins he's kept in some tattered old boxes. i think we would have had to punch him if he left those behind.