Dehumidifier? Are you kidding me?

We have a mold problem in our house. So the inept housing agency which is Pathmeads Property Management sent over “extractor fans” to rid us of our mold problem. What they didn’t tell us was that they would be sending industrial strength dehumidifiers... 

If you can even imagine, this thing was one of TWO they thought we should have in our two bedroom, 600 sq. ft. apartment. Are you joking? There was even a separate voltage converter for the thing that was about as big as a paint can! 

The guy told us that we’d need to move it from room to room about every two weeks. And since it was so heavy, he’d come back to do it...every two weeks. Sure that sounds like fun! I’ll just stay home from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every two weeks so you can wheel around our dehumidifier.

Just another day with our property management, whom I’m sure would have been sued blind if they were working in the US. Makes me miss home...

Sanjaya

So, thanks to the internet, I can happily keep up with my American Idol obsession that is being regulated by medication, but started immediately after the first season started when I was in undergrad.

That being said, I’ve always rooted for the belter. The person who can sing with such incredible power that you are sure she or he can take on any song as long as it requires a good singer. 

To that end, this season I’ve happily been rooting for...well the black people. Jocelyn’s mom called one night (she loves Idol as well) and said in a thick Boston accent, “Those black girls are wicked good.” And Mrs. Keith I agree. Melinda, Lakisha, Sabrina, Jordin and Stephanie rounded out a group of people who were actually fun to listen to because you were fairly certain that it would be beyond their singing ability that would be a challenge. The judges weren’t going to constantly talk about how they sounded, more about challenging them in other aspects of the contest. 

I too love a good challenge, so I think that I’m going to start rooting for the antithesis of these girls -- Sanjaya. I think it would be so cool to have my kids come home from elementary school one day and show me the chapter in their American history textbooks where it said the nation truly fell apart and went nuts. Forget the Iraq war, Sanjaya Malakar won American Idol as one of the biggest, most cohesive jokes American’s ever played on themselves.

How this kid is still on the show is beyond me, but I think it would be great for him to win. Simon has promised to quit (awful - but I’d love to see if it would happen). Fans are begging for the voting to cost money to stop power voters and people like Howard Stern are now weighing in on this show, which just ups it’s street cred in my opinion.

So, in hopes of seeing hell freeze over, or pigs fly or all the other crazy things that can happen, here’s to Sanjaya winning... thank God I watch Idol the next day so I can’t vote! 

Sick

I’m home on a sick day today :( Sad, I think that I could blame Nolan or Thabi and Edu, but instead I’ve taken it out on the growing mold problem that we have in our apartment. On the upside, I was really productive today, which is extremely exciting. 

Hopefully, our landlord will decide to have the mold tester come sooner than later, not holding my breath (although I probably should). I looked up a bunch of home remedies to get rid of the mold. It looks like we’re stuck with either keeping the windows open at night or getting one heck of a dehumidifier. Since I don’t want to spend £150 ($300) on anything at this point, looks like we’re going to freeze our butts off til the weather gets nicer. 

On that note, it was 56 F here today! Can’t wait for spring (Mom, don’t forget my flip flops!)

Anyone else got any good mold remedies? Weather stories? Ok, back to watching downloaded television!

Valentine's Day

Ah Valentine’s Day -- A single girl’s favorite day of the year. American’s might think that they can get away from this Hallmark holiday by coming to England, but unlike Halloween, Brits actually understand this one and practice it in the same way.

So, in order to have fun on V-Day, Sandra, Meagan, Joce, Jo, Drew and I all decided to go to an Italian place for dinner. The food was amazing and the company a perfect accessory to each of our entrees. 

Afterward, our trip to the newly opened Globe Bar, was the perfect dessert. We all went home, happy and 364 days away from another Valentine’s Day!

Snow Day in London

So this was the big snow of ’07 for London. As you can see, that Thursday was a big deal. It even made the teaser for the local London paper, The Evening Standard. 

I thought those of us from the less sunny parts of the US might find these pictures funny. Above is a picture of Dibdin House (AKA - where I live). You can see just how snowy it got. It’s a wonder we all made it anywhere.

Joce and I got up to go to our normal workout class only to get all the way there and it was cancelled (not surprised are you?) The Tube was an absolute disaster, people were late to work, college classes were cancelled, people just didn’t know how to work in this sort of weather.

Just another funny day in London!

Weekend with Sam/Blue Man Group

Yeah, yeah, so Sam came to London, stayed at the flat, we had dinner at the Elgin, watched the Super Bowl...all good. 

This blog entry is more about the Blue Man Group outing we took on Sunday before the game. First of all, don’t try to get 1/2 price tickets for plays on a Sunday in London. There wasn’t a lot of options for us. I couldn’t wait to see a wonderful musical - maybe Chicago or Mary Poppins or even the politically incorrect Avenue Q. Instead we basically had three choices. I can’t remember the other one, but we could choose between Stomp and Blue Man Group. 

Remember how I wanted to watch a story? Didn’t happen. I couldn’t bear the thought of listening to a bunch of banging on drums, so we decided that the Blue Man Group was for us. Denae went earlier this year and wasn’t impressed, but perhaps she was wrong...

Nope, don’t go see the Blue Man Group if someone gives you tickets! The inane entertainment includes some drums and basically mimes in blue faces who do stupid things like stuffing paint balls into their mouths and spitting them back out on canvas...the best part of the entire show was when the audience pulled about 200 rolls of toilet paper from the back of the theatre, where they were suspended, to the stage. It was like being a kid again and doing something that your mother was going to yell at you for, but it was still worth it. 

I’m not sure what the point of the paper was since it just sat lifeless near the stage while Larry, Mo and Curly continued to do stupid crap...not impressed and never want to be involved again!!!!

Click here to see photos from our weekend!

Bath Road Trip

So when I found out that Samantha was moving to Bath, England, I thought it would be the perfect time for Jocelyn, Drew and me to check out Bath. Unlike normal people who would book a train ticket for all involved, we shunned that idea, opting for the much safer mode of transportation -- driving. 

Hmmm, Krystin, you don’t know how to drive on the left side of the road, neither does Jocelyn. Drew just got his drivers license a few days ago, what makes this a good idea? Well nothing probably, but it was so much fun. We had the obligatory disagreements about music (thank God for Sam and another person with good musical sense). We also went through a McDonald’s drive-thru on the wrong side of the building. 

We were saved by the fact that we had a GPS in the car. We named her Bessie and she did a lovely job of getting us to Heathrow, to Bath, Bristol, back to Bath, back to Bristol, back to Bath...you get the idea.

You’ll notice that most of the photos on my Bath Road Trip page are from the car. Since we had a car, four iPods and a GPS, we didn’t feel a grand need to get out of the car very often.  Drew also felt the need to test his ability to circumvent the speed cameras that line English highways. He was caught at least twice, but since he actually rented the car on his American license...well, let’s just say his parents are looking for any suspicious things in their mailbox.

Click here to see photos from our Bath Road Trip