World Tour update: Week #5
I'm writing this super-quickly because I don't want to spend too much time online today with it being my last day here. Michael has taken advantage of my using James Mason to play My Sims on my DS while it's still here.
Thanksgiving
I didn't write anything about Thanksgiving in my last post so that I could do it all in one go. We found out a couple of days before Thursday that Michael's grandparents wouldn't be able to come down which was a shame. Memere usually provides the desserts so I suggested that we made trifle instead of the Yorkshire pudding we'd decided on so that was what we did. We had fun trying to find the ingredients in the supermarkets, especially the custard which proved most tricky. We found something called custard dessert made by Jell-O which sounded about the closest so we got that. We made the jelly on Wednesday morning and were going to use a bag of mixed fruit which was in the freezer to put in the jelly but when we defrosted it, it turned out to be rather frostburned and way past its best. Cue emergency dash to Shaw's to get more fruit. There wasn't much choice so we ended up with a tin of mandarin oranges and a jar of maraschino cherries. We'd used two packets of jelly but it had turned out to be too much so the remainder got put into little ramekins. Once the fruit was in, that was the jelly done. We did the custard that night, starting off with one packet to see if that was enough. It took ages to cool down and thicken and of course, it turned out to be not enough so we had to make the second packet which also took ages to cool down and thicken. We only needed half the second packet, so we then had two ramekins of custard to go with the three of jelly. The cream was left till Thursday morning, after we'd helped to make the birds of paradise. This involved cutting pineapples in half, scooping out all the fruit and then carving potatoes into turkey heads. You have no idea how much fun that all was. We whipped the cream while watching a bit of the parade, then put it onto the trifle which was decorated with hundreds and thousands and a cherry. It was all sorted by about 12 and then we could relax for a couple of hours until the family came.
I got to meet Michael's extended family and they were all very nice. His cousins are a lot of fun and have all added me on Facebook which shows just how nice they are. We had a very nice meal, sitting down at about half four to start off with birds of paradise and pumpkin bread a la Michael, then the main course of roast turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce, twice baked jacket potatoes (you know the kind where you take the potato out, mix it with butter and cheese, then put it back in the case and cook it again), pureed squash, green beans almondine and a relish tray containing pickles (gherkins), black and green olives and marinated mushrooms. There was a bit of a break after we'd worked our way through that before we came back for pudding. As well as my trifle, there was apple crisp and brownies made with Ghirardelli chocolate. My trifle went down quite well, I noticed that at least one person had seconds! It tasted very good to me too so it must have been okay!
It was certainly quite an experience although I'm not too sure where the 'thanks' come into it. I think that part has got lost along the way, so it's all just about the food and how much you can stuff yourself with. Hmm.
Friendly Friends
On Saturday, Erik, Caden, Michael and I all made our escape from family things and found respite at Friendly's. Like you do. Despite the mountain of leftovers in the fridge, we decided to get some more. I finally tried the Honey BBQ Chicken quesadilla which was as huge as I expected. The Spanish rice was a bit bland but the rest of it was nice and at least now I've had it before they take it off the Specials menu. It was nice to see Erik and also good to finally meet Caden. It was just a shame that they both had to leave so early but we still had fun hanging out and chatting.
On Sunday afternoon, we met up with kmt0215 who Michael has been getting to know but who was a new friend for me. We met up in Peet's and I tried their Peppermint Cocoa which was a lot nicer than I thought it was going to be. It's always nice to meet new friends and I think he had a good time talking to us too.
Still Puzzling
This Harry Potter jigsaw continues to drive us crackers. By yesterday, we'd done a good half of it. We'd got all the faces done and all the background which left us with all the jumpers. Basically a big mass of slightly varying shades of grey. We had serious difficulty trying to figure out which shade of grey belonged to who but we managed to get everyone's done bar Harry's. And of course, he's the focus of the picture so he has the largest mass of grey. There was lots of "Does that bit have a crease/lighter shade of grey/distinctive mark of some kind?" last night when we were trying to finish it off and it's really hard to tell one piece of grey from another when the damn things change depending on how you look at them! We'd finally ended up sorting the pieces into two piles: one with the grain going up and down and the others with the grain going side to side and try each piece in a place one after the other till we find the one that fits. There was still a lot of "Does that go there??" though. And it's still not finished. There's 8 pieces left and they won't go anywhere. It means there's probably some in the wrong place but we've had enough.
Too Much Shopping
It's ever so easy to spend lots of money here, especially when things are cheaper because the cost of living is lower and also with the exchange rate in our favour right now. I seem to spend lots of money in CVS of all places! I'd intended to buy more toiletries, mainly things like razor blades and deodorants and so when I got a coupon for $3 off, that was what I bought. I have no idea what the sales assistant thought when she ran through 7 or 8 deodorants. I had a bit of a shock when it came to $22, but then she put my CVS card through and it dropped to $18 and then down to $15 with my coupon. That works out about a pound per deodorant!
I can't remember what I was after the other day when we ended up going into CVS but I know we got sidetracked looking at diaries. Then on the shelf underneath, Michael noticed that they had wipe clean perpetual calendars which I've been trying to find for the past two years! They weren't too big and were also fairly light so I bought one and came out having spent $15 when I'd only gone in for a drink or something! CVS is dangerous, I tell you.
Surprise!
The other day, I was enjoying a nice snooze and making the most of the whole bed as Michael was already up when he came to wake me. I suppose I can't blame him too much as he came bearing a surprise for me in the shape of a large parcel. I was rather baffled and couldn't think what it could be but it turned out to be from the very lovely psychokitten76 who had seriously spoiled me with lots of Australian goodies. It was extremely nice of her and a good job that I had already planned to send her goodies in return instead of just the postcard that she'd asked for. It's winging its way to her right now so she should look out for it landing on her doorstep!
Snow Snow Snow Part Three
The weather forecast has let me down. There has been no more snow since last week and there is none forecast for today. Hmph.
So that's it. Michael and I are going to be leaving about 2pm because it takes aaaages to get to Logan Airport on the T. I had a look on the US Airways site yesterday to see what time I needed to check in but I couldn't see anything at all. I had a look at the flight status and the system couldn't find my flight! When I looked at the list of all flights from Boston to Philly, there wasn't one at 6pm, they were all at half past the hour so I had to phone up. For some reason, my six o'clock flight is now half past five. I have no idea why it's earlier either but it's a bloody good job I checked! I'm sad to be leaving Michael that half an hour earlier but I don't think we'll notice the loss of 30 minutes in the grand scheme of things. As for when I'm coming back... no idea. It's all up in the air right now and depends on a lot of things which are mainly financial. Hopefully in six months, which makes it the end of May/beginning of June time but we'll have to see. Right now, it's bad enough to be leaving at all and it's hard to think about anything else.
Thanksgiving
I didn't write anything about Thanksgiving in my last post so that I could do it all in one go. We found out a couple of days before Thursday that Michael's grandparents wouldn't be able to come down which was a shame. Memere usually provides the desserts so I suggested that we made trifle instead of the Yorkshire pudding we'd decided on so that was what we did. We had fun trying to find the ingredients in the supermarkets, especially the custard which proved most tricky. We found something called custard dessert made by Jell-O which sounded about the closest so we got that. We made the jelly on Wednesday morning and were going to use a bag of mixed fruit which was in the freezer to put in the jelly but when we defrosted it, it turned out to be rather frostburned and way past its best. Cue emergency dash to Shaw's to get more fruit. There wasn't much choice so we ended up with a tin of mandarin oranges and a jar of maraschino cherries. We'd used two packets of jelly but it had turned out to be too much so the remainder got put into little ramekins. Once the fruit was in, that was the jelly done. We did the custard that night, starting off with one packet to see if that was enough. It took ages to cool down and thicken and of course, it turned out to be not enough so we had to make the second packet which also took ages to cool down and thicken. We only needed half the second packet, so we then had two ramekins of custard to go with the three of jelly. The cream was left till Thursday morning, after we'd helped to make the birds of paradise. This involved cutting pineapples in half, scooping out all the fruit and then carving potatoes into turkey heads. You have no idea how much fun that all was. We whipped the cream while watching a bit of the parade, then put it onto the trifle which was decorated with hundreds and thousands and a cherry. It was all sorted by about 12 and then we could relax for a couple of hours until the family came.
I got to meet Michael's extended family and they were all very nice. His cousins are a lot of fun and have all added me on Facebook which shows just how nice they are. We had a very nice meal, sitting down at about half four to start off with birds of paradise and pumpkin bread a la Michael, then the main course of roast turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce, twice baked jacket potatoes (you know the kind where you take the potato out, mix it with butter and cheese, then put it back in the case and cook it again), pureed squash, green beans almondine and a relish tray containing pickles (gherkins), black and green olives and marinated mushrooms. There was a bit of a break after we'd worked our way through that before we came back for pudding. As well as my trifle, there was apple crisp and brownies made with Ghirardelli chocolate. My trifle went down quite well, I noticed that at least one person had seconds! It tasted very good to me too so it must have been okay!
It was certainly quite an experience although I'm not too sure where the 'thanks' come into it. I think that part has got lost along the way, so it's all just about the food and how much you can stuff yourself with. Hmm.
Friendly Friends
On Saturday, Erik, Caden, Michael and I all made our escape from family things and found respite at Friendly's. Like you do. Despite the mountain of leftovers in the fridge, we decided to get some more. I finally tried the Honey BBQ Chicken quesadilla which was as huge as I expected. The Spanish rice was a bit bland but the rest of it was nice and at least now I've had it before they take it off the Specials menu. It was nice to see Erik and also good to finally meet Caden. It was just a shame that they both had to leave so early but we still had fun hanging out and chatting.
On Sunday afternoon, we met up with kmt0215 who Michael has been getting to know but who was a new friend for me. We met up in Peet's and I tried their Peppermint Cocoa which was a lot nicer than I thought it was going to be. It's always nice to meet new friends and I think he had a good time talking to us too.
Still Puzzling
This Harry Potter jigsaw continues to drive us crackers. By yesterday, we'd done a good half of it. We'd got all the faces done and all the background which left us with all the jumpers. Basically a big mass of slightly varying shades of grey. We had serious difficulty trying to figure out which shade of grey belonged to who but we managed to get everyone's done bar Harry's. And of course, he's the focus of the picture so he has the largest mass of grey. There was lots of "Does that bit have a crease/lighter shade of grey/distinctive mark of some kind?" last night when we were trying to finish it off and it's really hard to tell one piece of grey from another when the damn things change depending on how you look at them! We'd finally ended up sorting the pieces into two piles: one with the grain going up and down and the others with the grain going side to side and try each piece in a place one after the other till we find the one that fits. There was still a lot of "Does that go there??" though. And it's still not finished. There's 8 pieces left and they won't go anywhere. It means there's probably some in the wrong place but we've had enough.
Too Much Shopping
It's ever so easy to spend lots of money here, especially when things are cheaper because the cost of living is lower and also with the exchange rate in our favour right now. I seem to spend lots of money in CVS of all places! I'd intended to buy more toiletries, mainly things like razor blades and deodorants and so when I got a coupon for $3 off, that was what I bought. I have no idea what the sales assistant thought when she ran through 7 or 8 deodorants. I had a bit of a shock when it came to $22, but then she put my CVS card through and it dropped to $18 and then down to $15 with my coupon. That works out about a pound per deodorant!
I can't remember what I was after the other day when we ended up going into CVS but I know we got sidetracked looking at diaries. Then on the shelf underneath, Michael noticed that they had wipe clean perpetual calendars which I've been trying to find for the past two years! They weren't too big and were also fairly light so I bought one and came out having spent $15 when I'd only gone in for a drink or something! CVS is dangerous, I tell you.
Surprise!
The other day, I was enjoying a nice snooze and making the most of the whole bed as Michael was already up when he came to wake me. I suppose I can't blame him too much as he came bearing a surprise for me in the shape of a large parcel. I was rather baffled and couldn't think what it could be but it turned out to be from the very lovely psychokitten76 who had seriously spoiled me with lots of Australian goodies. It was extremely nice of her and a good job that I had already planned to send her goodies in return instead of just the postcard that she'd asked for. It's winging its way to her right now so she should look out for it landing on her doorstep!
Snow Snow Snow Part Three
The weather forecast has let me down. There has been no more snow since last week and there is none forecast for today. Hmph.
So that's it. Michael and I are going to be leaving about 2pm because it takes aaaages to get to Logan Airport on the T. I had a look on the US Airways site yesterday to see what time I needed to check in but I couldn't see anything at all. I had a look at the flight status and the system couldn't find my flight! When I looked at the list of all flights from Boston to Philly, there wasn't one at 6pm, they were all at half past the hour so I had to phone up. For some reason, my six o'clock flight is now half past five. I have no idea why it's earlier either but it's a bloody good job I checked! I'm sad to be leaving Michael that half an hour earlier but I don't think we'll notice the loss of 30 minutes in the grand scheme of things. As for when I'm coming back... no idea. It's all up in the air right now and depends on a lot of things which are mainly financial. Hopefully in six months, which makes it the end of May/beginning of June time but we'll have to see. Right now, it's bad enough to be leaving at all and it's hard to think about anything else.