Home Sweet Home

Ok, so I am officially in my new flat!!! And like all things that I experience, this was not what one could consider a “smooth” transition….

Friday night I get the keys from the letting agent!! Yeah!! Oh – is this skeleton key for real? Why yes, yes it is. I have a lock on my front door that requires a skeleton key for the lock. Don’t worry, there is another lock – a real one that I run over and take a look around the new place and check out the new neighbourhood.

Small glitch…the delivery men have somehow mistaken the living room – where the large TV is sitting - for the bedroom - where the walk-in closet is – and have thus left the mattress in the living room. Hmmm….interesting…. No problem, quick call to the letting agent and this is rectified in about 30 minutes.

And before you all ask why I didn’t just do it myself – that’s because I couldn’t manoeuvre the doorway and the box springs here aren’t like box springs in the UK, they actually have drawers in them…which is a brilliant idea, but does not make the logistics of moving the piece very easy.

Nonetheless, this is all fine now and the bed is now in the bedroom.

Saturday…..

I went to this great open air market on Saturday morning. I figured, for my new flat, I better stock the kitchen with some great things! So off I go to Borough Market with a friend of mine from back in the states that also now lives in the UK.

It was an absolute assault on my senses! A complete foodie heaven! I was like a kid in a candy store! There was so much to see…and taste!! Fresh everything! Now, I know that I come from western PA and that a farmers market should be nothing new to me – but this was on a whole new level!! Huge wheels of cheese, fresh meat and fish, fresh produce – some of which I had no idea what it was – I saw potatoes that were purple inside! There was honey made by Italian monks, olive oil from Greece, and wine from France and Spain, vegetables from all over! On the down side, I did turn a corner and see a rabbit and some pheasant hanging on a hook still with fur, feathers and all their parts still intact…we just won’t think on that too much.

Anyway, I got some things, but not a lot – you have to plan tactically when your only mode of transportation is the tube. But I saw everything, so now I know what I’m in for the next time and can plan ahead a bit!

After a nice relaxing lunch at the market – did I tell you that all meals here are a relaxed event? Even I have slowed down to enjoy the pace. I still contend that having to wolf down my lunches all through elementary, Jr. and High school is the reason I eat so quick to this day. But a month in London has cured me of that. The other night I had dinner with friends and we were there for 4 hours…and no – they don’t kick you out of the place or give you dirty looks. The wait staff don’t slowly walk past you with doleful looks and fake coughs that can only be translated as, “Hey- get out – seriously – I need to turn this table over – I got tips to make, man!” Here you have to actually ask to get the check or they won’t ever bring it to you – they just let you sit there and enjoy the meal and the conversation…novel idea!

But I digress….

Back to Saturday…

So I get back to the corporate apt, and pack up my suitcases, etc. and call a cab to assist with the move. I actually needed to make 2 trips though, I’ve done a little shopping and gotten things in anticipation of the new place, so I needed to reuse one of the suitcases for a second trip.

One trip down…very smooth…back to the hotel…one more trip to go…

So all I have on me is one big rollie suitcase and my backpack with some things from the fridge. I decide that instead of calling for a cab and waiting for it to come, I’ll just start heading in the direction of the new place and grab a taxi on the way there….

20 minutes later, I have once again fallen victim to Murphy and his stupid laws and the only time I want to find a taxi in London there are none to be found!!

Its about 8:30 by the time I get to the flat and I’ve made a quick list of a few things that I need to get in preparation for my Day-O-Cleaning on Sunday.

So off I head to Woolworth’s…yes, that’s right, the 5 & 10 store some of you loved when you were my age is alive and thriving here in the UK!

By the time I arrive home with my bags, its pushing 10:15.

Time for bed!!

Yeah right – I wish!! Since coming here, I have developed some sort of strange insomnia. I can not seem to fall asleep! This has nothing to do with the whole cold medicine and caffeine debacle either – that was an extreme case. But its become the norm for me to lay awake until about 1 or 2ish. I still get up at the same time, so its almost like all of the sudden I don’t need as much sleep. Which would be great if I were doing something productive with those extra hours, but since mourning the lost hours of sleep isn’t productive – we have a problem!

Anywho….I get up Sunday and go for the unpacking gusto!! Which really took about 30 minutes since I hardly had anything to unpack, but I stretched it out a bit, so it was fine.

Then the excitement of the day – My groceries were delivered at noon!! This is a completely novel idea to me! I ordered them online on Friday night, picked a time and sure enough, the delivery guy was on my doorstep at noon as requested to deliver my food! I don’t think I’ll do this on a weekly basis obviously, but for the purpose of stocking the basics, etc, that would have been impossible to do without a taxi ride or something – so let them deliver!!!

I spent the rest of the day cleaning a bit and organizing and reading here and there. The TV is really just mocking me at this point – I’m not getting the cable box until tomorrow, so its really just wasted furniture right now mocking me with the possibility of viewing something soon. But on the good side – no distractions to my nesting frenzy!

So around 9ish, I start to get ready to go out to a pub with a few friends to see the SuperBowl.

Houston…we may have a problem….

So first let me describe the shower situation over here to anyone unfamiliar with European bathing….there isn’t a shower curtain. There is a piece of glass that runs about half the length of the tub and is about as high as the showerhead. Also, the tubs are all raised, so when I step over the side of the tub, its like a giant step up, but then its almost murder stepping out, since you have to step really far down. I’ll show pictures later once I get my camera cords back then it will make sense.

Anyway, so I have this half shower wall thing going on and it’s a bit difficult to get used to since I’m pretty conscious of all the water droplets splashing here and there and everywhere. But up until now, it honestly hasn’t been that bad….up until now.

This is where I must publicly apologize to Jason whose bathroom might have been a bit flooded in the past, and I might have been the culprit. But in my defence, J, your showerhead is totally geared to someone 6 ft3 blocking the water spray! How am I supposed to do that at 5 ft?!!? So it’s not totally my fault…God made me short and he created water on like the 2nd day, so there you have it – it was a disaster waiting to happen.

So the showerhead at my new flat is set up as one of those jobbies that you can remove the showerhead from….so there is a vertical bar that you can move the whole shower mechanism up and down on and adjust it, and you should theoretically be able to adjust the angle at which the showerhead itself is pointed….theoretically…..

But on mine, the little tightner thing for the vertical is so tight, that I can’t loosen it – and its way at the top of the vertical adjuster bar thing. Then the little tightner thing to adjust the angle won’t tighten at all!

Yes – those were all the technical terms – ask anyone at Lowes…

So do you see that I might be in for a bit of another flood situation here….I’m not willing to say at this point that the pattern might lay with me, but there it is none the less…

So once I get the water temperature adjusted, I go to adjust the shower spray/pressure…and then it happens….as the pressure increases…the showerhead starts to raise up on its!! Since the showerhead can’t stay at the same angle since the tightner thing is broken, it starts to fly up and go straight at the back wall – and since its so high because the vertical thing won’t untighten – the water is now spraying straight at the back wall of the bathroom almost to the ceiling. It cascading down all over the place since it’s a tile wall and the pressure is so high that makes the water just bounce all over the place!!!!!!

And the knobs are in different directions here – there’s not so much the righty tighty standard, so it takes me a second or two to get the water back off!!!

Lets just say – it was not a pleasant situation…but it did happen a couple days ago, so I’m at the point that I can laugh about it now.

Needless to say, I took a quick, pressureless shower all huddled under the showerhead so as not to get everything else in the bathroom wet.

Update – I’ve contact the landlord and he will be fixing the shower unit post haste. I am also looking to find a shower rod and curtain….

So its off to the Superbowl I go!! Kickoff is only at like 11:30pm here – no biggie! The pub was mostly all Americans and we were all one in our love for the pigskin that night. I won’t lie either – the whole place broke out into song when the Nat’l Anthem came on and then again when Tom Petty did Free Fallin’!

So the 4th quarter was the best part of the game and we stayed to the last seconds. Then Thaddeus and I (he’s from Seattle – don’t let the name fool you) and I decided to head home together and share a cab since he has a flat like 3 blocks from my new place. So we start walking in our general direction assuming we would find a cab – or one would find us – relatively quickly.

Hmm…this sounds strangely like my evening before…apparently I don’t learn my lessons the easy way….

No can do for the tubes - they close at midnight. So off we go…and go…and go…OH man!! We were walking for like 40 minutes!! It was so cold! And we kept thinking we would find a cab soon, so we didn’t call for one. Besides, if we called for one, then we would have to stay in one place for about 20 minutes until one came to us! So we kept walking! Thankfully Thaddeus has a decent sense of direction. It was late, and I was tired, and we were in an area I was unfamiliar with – so I was of no use to the directional efforts. Anyway, long story short, we left the pub at 3:10 and I got back to my place at 4:15, and we did end up getting a cab, too. We were generally going in the right direction, but we walked a bit too far north and not enough east.

Bringing us to Monday….which, thankfully since my little fingers are tired of typing was a bit uneventful…

I started the day off with a crappy shower and headed out to work on a measly 4 hours of sleep….how did I do this in college?!!?

So here are a few email excerpts that chronicle my day:

From Rebecca, the letting agent at 2:45pm: “I am not sure if you are around today but a neighbour has reported a gas smell from your house, we have booked a contractor to go in as soon as possible just in case it is a leak. I just wanted to make sure it would be OK and to see if you were around to collect the keys?”

From Gemma, the shipping agent at 3:18pm: There has been a slight delay with the vessel, and the shipment is now due to arrive tomorrow evening. I will be in touch with my agent again on Wednesday morning to confirm the arrival and I'll let you know as soon as I have a response.

From Rebecca, the letting agent at 3:21 pm: The Landlord does have a spare set of keys so they are going to enter via his keys with the plumber, to be honest I wouldn’t worry about it too much as we did complete a gas safety check back in November which came back OK so there shouldn’t be any worries.

So once I call Rebecca around 4ish, she informs me that, in fact, there was no gas leak, the landlord’s wife left HER hobb (oven) on and that was the cause of the smell…lovely.

Finally, that brings us up to speed for today…..

7:50am – call from the letting agent saying that the delivery people for my couch and chair called to tell them that they might be around prior to 8am

Oh crap – I wasn’t even up yet!! They could be here any minute!! Must find something other than PJs to answer the door in!! Is my hair sticking straight up?

8:00am – no sign of them

And I can’t get in the shower, but I need to be in at 9am today for a meeting – a meeting I’m running, so I can’t be late!

8:30am – so still no delivery guys….if I get in the shower now, I can possibly make it to work in 50 minutes and be on time for my 9:30

8:40 – AAHAHAHAH Where are these stupid illiterate freaks who can’t tell time? Did they think they were in a different time zone or what – which 8am were they referring to?!?!

8:45 – OK, sod it – I am going to wash my face and hair and be done with it. I can still make it out the door by 9.

9am – still no delivery men – using the term men loosely now since a real man knows how to tell time – no thoughts to disparaging these men!!

9:05am – have left a message for the letting agent – and am on the way to the tube.

9:29am – into the office, drop off my stuff and straight into my meeting.

11:15am – call from the letting agent – the delivery deviants finally arrived around 9:30 – obviously not 8am!! The chair went in fine, but they had a “spot” of trouble with the couch – didn’t fit through the door!! Then to make matters worse, the agent tells me that the delivery guys were like 18 years old, and totally inept – see I knew it! – and not only were they not able to fit the couch through the door – they got it stuck sooo bad that they had to call a couple of the guys from the office to come help them unstick it!!

Apparently not only do they have trouble with numbers and time, they obviously are not spatial thinkers either – do they not teach geometry here?!?!

Update - So now a new couch and chair have been ordered and hopefully the chair can be delivered in a couple days – this would be nice since the only place to sit in the entire flat right now is my bed! The couch, though, is not coming for like a week…they say this is because it has to be made…I believe this might be an argument for the need to have ample stock on hand! The table and chairs are on their way, but we are looking at a week for their delivery as well. Granted – I am really glad that all this stuff is brand new – but maybe, I’m just pointing out here, that possibly, there might have been an opportunity to have this settled all before I moved in….just maybe.

So there you have it, in summary, the flat is great, I haven’t taken a decent shower in 3 days, my bathroom floor is spotless due to the flooding…I mean…cleaning that I gave it, there is nowhere to sit and might not be for a couple days, but that’s OK, since there’s no TV to watch either.

Somehow, though, I am laughing as I write this and it seems more crazy than annoying and I wonder how it seems that nothing is ever really easy for me…nit that its always hard mind you…its not…its just not ever smooth is all…but then again smooth is so boring…..