The Great Flat Search

In June, I will finally move out of the dorm I live in now. I can't wait. Séverine and I have started looking for flats. There is a craigslist for London, but everyone here uses Gumtree.

Fortunately, most flats seem to come at least partially furnished. It's a bit strange to move into a furnished place, but I don't have the time, money or inclination to purchase furniture while I'm here.

We went for the first time to look at a flat this morning near Archway. It was ok. It had pros and cons, but, being our first flat, we weren't inclined to jump on it. Tomorrow we have four viewings lined up. Two are really close to where we are now, one is near Kings Cross and one near Islington.

Kings Cross and Borough (which is where we are now) seem like the best possibilities for places that are affordable and still within walking distance (for me, anyway) of central London (where I work). So I'm hoping we can find something in one of these areas. If we fall in love with some place further out, then I'll just have to join everyone else in this city and become a regular tube user.

London Eye

Kate sent me some photos from their visit. Here's one she might consider entering in the London Eye photo contest:



For that matter, she might enter this one of Flat Stanley and Thin Lizzy:



Still waiting for the prints from her Holga.

Persillade

I've been making Pommes Persillade, from a recipe stolen (as recommended on the previous link) from the cookbook "Jacques Pepin's Table". I say 'stolen' because I don't actually own the cookbook, I just used Amazon's "Search Inside" feature. Anyway, it's yummy and easy and quick, though the first time I made it, I didn't cut the potatoes small enough and I think I also didn't use quite enough oil.

Pommes Persillade

• 2 large potatoes, peeled


• 2 Tbsp canola oil


• 3 cloves garlic, peeled


• 1/4 cup (loose) fresh parsley leaves


• 1 tsp. salt


• 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Cut the potatoes into 3/8 inch cubes. Rinse well and cover with water so they don't turn brown.

Heat the oil in a large skillet. Drain the potatoes and pat dry with paper towels. Saute the potatoes over high heat until browned on all sides.

While the potatoes are cooking, chop the garlic and parsley together (together is key) until finely minced. Add the persillade along with the salt and pepper to the potatoes and serve immediately.

Last Day for my First Visitors

I stand corrected: It's Thin Lizzy with a y, like the band.

My visitors have (presumably) left by this point. It was great to have them here and sad to see them go. I'm sure Flat Stanley will miss having Thin Lizzy around too. Here they are with Matt in front of the Tower Bridge.

We had several aborted sightseeing attempts yesterday. We went down to the Tower Bridge and Tower of London, but decided not to go into either. Then we thought we'd see if we could go up in the 30 St. Mary Axe building, but they wouldn't let us. From there we headed to St. Paul's, but decided the admission price was too high (unless you're there for a service, you can't even go in and walk around without paying first) for that late in the day.

So we ended up at the British Museum. I love just walking into the British Museum. It's so beautiful. Here, Flat Stanley and Thin Lizzy (with some support from Matt) check out the Rosetta Stone. I learned that the Egyptian hieroglyphs consist of some phonetic components, followed by a picture. They had an example -- the word for cat is three phonetic symbols (which, together, make a sound like meow) followed by a picture of a cat.

After browsing through the Parthenon galleries, (this horse's head reminds me of The Godfather) we went to Chinatown for dinner before our second attempt to see some theatre in London. We were not plagued by power failure this time and had no trouble with our visit to the Criterion Theatre to see "The 39 Steps". Everyone enjoyed it, so I think it was a good choice after all.

After a week of beautiful weather in England (Briana was disappointed that she didn't get a chance to wear her new rain coat), the New Yorkers are heading home to a mid-April winter storm.