Nov 8th. Keeping busy in Kingston

The week just flew by. Kids and I showed up to school on Monday but found Georgia's closed on the account of Inset Day. Apparently vacation by a different name is still a vacation. So another mom, a Chinese lady, shook our heads and took our excited kids back home to continue their break.

Romik, Polinka and Maechka came on Tuesday. We went out with them to Cocoanut, Thai restaurant located in an old pub. Scenery was great but food was not too memorable. The next night adults did some bar hopping in the surrounding bars: Bishop, The White Swan, & Druid's Head. Looked into a few others but they did not seem as cozy. Kids are having a blast catching up too - the apartment is filled with weaving projects, paintings, and other stuff. The weather was not super welcoming to our guests as it rained every day for at least time period. But there were some periods of sunshine too.

Kingston University is having their graduation ceremonies. We are trying to figure out the timing - as far as kids school's timing goes, they are in a middle of the first semester. Graduates were hanging out in the streets near Rose Theater dressed in full cap and down get up.. for the last 4 days. Parents and all, taking pictures. Maybe different departments do it on a different day, but in those outfits they looked more like a picket line. Maybe it is a custom to wear your cap and gown until you get your first job?

Our boiler and heater continues to not work. Landlord sends in a chubby boiler gnome that does something and it works for the next two weeks. Then we get to take a warm shower. This time around we tried to turn on the associated radiators, and found that they do not work. A higher ranking gnome came in and we overheard his discussion with the landlord on the phone. They were talking about contacting someone in China to order to manufacture some part that is no longer available now that the boiler line has been discontinued. Not terribly warm thought to contemplate.

Georgia's school in US had sent her a large pack of letters from teachers and students. It was amazing. It was like getting many many presents all at the same time. We sat on the bed and read each one of them. This is way better than the radiator. While on the same topic, the more people we have in the house the warmer it is... hint hint :)

Dima has some things that need to be taken care of. So he will probably leave sooner than expected. If he will, it will be very very very sad!

We went to Yami for dinner tonight. I found some items on the menu that we did not try yet and went through some irrational exuberance trying to cover them all. At first the quantity seemed overwhelming nothing is the limit if you are thorough and consistent. Need to brave finding another great Korean place.

Tomorrow we are going to drive to Cambridge. Should be pretty interesting. Falling asleep!!