Cheerio!

This word might be the best word in the English language.

Why don't American's use a word like this? In Hawaiian there's "aloha", Italians have "ciao" and Brit's have "cheerio".

I never realized what an amazing word this was until we moved here. Why is it so amazing you ask? Because you can use it to mean anything! ... hello... goodbye... thank you... you're welcome... [awkward pause]... just say Cheerio! and all is fixed. The possibilities are endless.

A few other things we've had to get used to:

1) Cars have the right away - meaning pedestrians do not. If you don't stop for a car, they will run you over.

2) Going up the pub or restaurant counter to order food and drinks - there aren't really waitresses or waiters. If you walk into a pub and sit down at a table, you will be waiting there all night. You go up and place your order at all pubs and even some restaurants which leads me to my next point...

3) Not tipping - you don't tip when you go up to order. If someone does serve you, you tip only 10%. Talk about a "change"!

4) Buying rounds for everyone - you don't just order yourself a pint, you order everyone you are with one as well. Before you go get another, you ask "does anyone need a drink?" and everyone else does the same thing. The idea being that it all evens out in the end. This can get you into trouble... with both your wallet and your alcohol intake. But at least you'll never be without a pint in your hand!

Cheerio and Happy Halloween!!

First dinner at "home"

Yesterday we had our first dinner at "home". It has been fun eating out and trying new pubs and restaurants but sometimes it's also nice to stay in and relax. Since we have a flat with a fully stocked kitchen (or so we thought), I got some chicken, pasta and salad for dinner.

I soon realized we do not have a fully stocked kitchen as I baked the chicken on a muffin pan and we opened a bottle of wine... well, creatively. After using scissors, a knife, chopsticks and a straw, our end result was the below. It took us about 30 minutes to open the wine and another 30 minutes to pour. I like to think of this as our "Survivor" or "Naked and Afraid" survival skills... Cheers to being resourceful!

Lost in the City

Not having a cell phone has been a rude awakening. We use them daily to communicate with others, look random things up such as a nearby restaurant or navigate through an unfamiliar area, and we probably rely on our phones too much. But standing on a street corner during busy traffic while trying to read the street names and then find the tiny print on a huge fold out map will make you really wish you were staring at your little blue-blinking current location dot. I mean, when was the last time you used an actual paper map?

Front view of Covent Garden

"Floating on air" street performer

Yesterday, we decided to spend time wandering around and exploring the city. Up until this point we haven't done anything "touristy" or seen many London sites. We used a walking tour outline from one of our guidebooks and then made it up as we went.

We started in Covent Garden Piazza which is a covered outdoor market filled with tiny shops and patio restaurants. We grabbed a quick coffee and perused around. There is always some type of entertainment in the market from street performers to bands to comedy shows for a crowd. But my favorite thing was the Christmas decorations that were already hung up... I can tell that Christmas in London is going to be spectacular!

Christmas decorations inside the market

Aaron and Yacine in front of the Russell Office

Next we headed up to Leicester Square where the theaters and cinemas are before passing through a brief section of Chinatown. Continuing on we headed to Picadilly Circus which is where Aaron's office is.

Even though it was a Sunday, I got a quick peak inside since Yacine was working for a few hours. It's not as big as the Seattle office, but definitely a good size and a fantastic location. Aaron is actually moving desks in the next week so he can't get too settled into his current seat : )

We crossed down Picadilly street which is lined with fancy boutiques, high-end shops and the glamorous Ritz Hotel before strolling through the entrance to Green Park.

City backdrop in Green Park

Seattle has a lot of beautiful, amazing parks, but it is crazy to me that in London there are huge parks right in the heart of the city! Green Park was gorgeous - there were enormous trees everywhere and the multi-colored leaves fell as we walked the path and covered the ground around us. There were lots of people lounging on the grass and park benches enjoying the crisp fall day.

It's definitely the fall season here!

We walked through Green Park, finally exiting out at Buckingham Palace where tourists lined the gates hoping to catch a glimpse of the Royal family. The iconic palace guards marched in place before standing stoic at the entrance. These were the first guns that we've seen since arriving in the UK... we're not in America anymore!

Buckingham Palace Guard

Aaron and I have also perfected the self-pictures. Although he has to hold the camera since he has longer arms : )

In front of Buckingham Palace

We continued out towards the River Thames through Westminster where we stumbled upon a WWII memorial, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the London Eye. Big Ben is really spectacular in person. We walked up right as the bell was ringing 3:00pm (or should I say 15:00?)...

Time for Big Ben!

The London eye along River Thames

 Afterwards we walked along the river edge and headed back up towards the city at Trafalgar Square which was hosting a Diwali celebration. We quickly browsed through the National Gallery Museum (which is free!) and admired a few of the paintings before heading back up Regent Street to our flat. Of course, I had to duck into an iconic British red telephone booth on the way home. Cheerio operator!

British telephone booth

Our evening ended with dinner at an Italian restaurant, Grappa and some American football : ) There was an NFL game in London so we got to watch it without having to wake up at an absurd time of the day.

I'd say it was a pretty successful walking tour of London even if we did have to navigate with a good old fashioned map!

Living in Fulham

We finally found a flat!! Cue the music, balloons and confetti!

It's a 2 bedroom, huge bathroom flat in the Fulham neighborhood just outside central London. Aaron's commute will be by bus or tube and will be about 40 minutes (we think). It's a 10 minute walk to the Fulham FC stadium where we have season tickets and the flat is in really great condition; new carpet, just painted, great furniture, as I said earlier amazing bathroom. It's the perfect amount of space for us and the neighborhood nearby is very cute. They call it Munster's Village and it has a few parks, restaurants and shops.

It's nice to finally have a flat to call home, but we can't move in until earliest next week and our hotel was sold out so yesterday we moved to an Airbnb flat (similar to vrbo). I let the flat owner know we would arrive around 2pm. So yesterday we took a cab with our 8 bags and got dropped off outside the place only to then realize the flat owner was nowhere to be found. We called and she was having an emergency but would be there soon. We looked very out of place as we sat on the stoop for a good half hour, and I swear the building we were staying in had by far the most pedestrian traffic going in and out the front door!! How awkward we must've looked : )

We also experienced riding the tube for the first time on Friday and let me tell you, now we are pros! We didn't get lost once and got off on every stop we were supposed to- a New Yorker would laugh but coming from Seattle where there's no public subway system in the city, that is something to be proud of.

Today we are doing a little less worrying about no cellphones or a bank account, and a little more exploring. We are going to wander the streets of London... but this time we won't be homeless!!

Flat Out of Luck

We did not get flat number 7 so it's back to the drawing board. We've set up appointments with two property management companies and one more half day of viewing with the company that was hired to "help us find a place" ...but by help us find a place they mean they can't show us more than 15 flats so once we hit that benchmark, we're out!

It's easy to look back and see what we would change if we could do it all over again; we would ship more so we'd have less bags to travel with, make a trip to London in September so we would have a place secured, and go into a bank and cell carrier on our trip over so that we would know all that needed to be done to set these accounts up. It would be so easy if we just did it all over again : )

Unfortunately, we had more bad news that our hotel is completely sold out on Saturday night so we will be moving places once again. Both of us are feeling unsettled and we just want to unpack already! We've been living out of suitcases for two weeks and have stayed at five different places... six if you include our change of residence this Saturday. That is a lot of moving around!

The one upside to all of our flat searching has been that we are getting a good feel for each of the neighborhoods by talking to people and hearing their thoughts. We've been able to see the outskirts of the city and learn what makes certain areas unique.

In between the stress of not having a place to live, we've also found a little time to have fun! We went to a delicious curry dinner on Tuesday night with Aaron's work friend and his girlfriend (who is British... It was so hard not to talk in an accent!). We also went to see The Book of Mormon yesterday and have started checking off places in our "Fancy a Pint?" book that is a compilation of all the best British pubs... so life isn't too bad : ) but we are hoping for more luck with a flat tomorrow and Saturday!

Finding a Flat to Call Home

Yesterday we spent the entire day flat hunting. We saw 9 places in 6 hours in 3 neighborhoods... what a way to spend a Tuesday!

It started off exciting... we couldn't wait to see the fun places London had to offer! The previous evening we had gone through our list of must haves: a place big enough for friends to stay, close to the Tube line, good amount of storage, nice neighborhood (extra points for a pub nearby), and a clean bathroom. Then we had a list of nice to haves: dishwasher, washer (dryer would also be nice), 2nd bedroom (not a deal breaker though) and windows for natural light. We didn't think our list was too picky but when we hadn't seen anything we really liked by the 6th one, flat hunting became exhausting and draining. We were both getting very discouraged.

The flats had up until that point been either incredibly tiny (a small kitchen/living room area, bathroom and one room big enough to fit a double bed) or in bad condition (smoker, mold on the walls, gross carpets). We found one flat that was a little small but in a great location, however Aaron's feet hung off the short bed (tall people problems haha). It seemed we were either going to have to give up on space or cleanliness... until we went into flat number 7. Two bedrooms, a huge kitchen space, large couch and living area with a fireplace, nice appliances, small patio out back, tons of storage, pub nearby and 5 minutes walking distance from a tube line. We were both sold. We put in an offer yesterday, but found out this morning that they already have another offer on the place. So now we play the waiting game. 

We didn't see any other flats that we really felt like we could live in so if we don't get this place, it will be back to the drawing board. And considering we only have our hotel until Saturday, can't open a UK bank account until we have proof of a UK permanent address, and can't get UK cell phones until we have a UK bank account, I may need to change this blog to the Homeless Newlyweds Abroad...

Trying to open a UK bank account has been another nightmare in itself but I'll save that story for another post. Here's to hoping for some good news soon!!

We have arrived!

After getting on a plane yesterday at 6:50pm Sunday, we touched down in London at about 1:30pm on Monday. The reality that we were moving abroad slowly began to creep up on us as we were driving to the airport and it really hit when we were looking out the window landing in London. We had a stopover for a wedding in San Francisco this weekend and up until that point it had just felt like one of our weekend getaways to visit friends. Now that we've arrived, there's no pretending we are headed back to Seattle anymore.

The most difficult part of our traveling hasn't been the flight length or so-so airline meal; it's been lugging around our 8 bags. It truly feels like "baggage" and not in a good way. Maybe our stopover has made it harder because we had to load the luggage onto the first plane, bring them into a friend's house for a night then check into a hotel room; only to check out of the hotel, load them on a second plane and check them into a new and much smaller hotel (we are literally walking all over our luggage right now to go to the bathroom, enter our hotel room, get into bed, etc; it's a sea of bags!). They've also been an added expense that we didn't account for from the rental car in San Francisco to international baggage check fees to the £80 cab ride we had to take into the city. We are not "luggage cart people"; I've always prided myself on how well I can pack and this has hurt my pride... I mean, we were the people that only took 2 small carry ons to South Africa for our 2 week honeymoon!  I will definitely be remembering this when we return to Seattle : )

I also experienced my first moment of feeling completely lost as we were trying to find an HSBC bank and apple store. I have a pretty good sense of direction but could not get my bearings at all! Luckily though, Aaron had his and that's why we are doing this together.

So now after a long stopover and a lot of traveling, we are fighting the jet lag. I was exhausted at 7pm and now I'm wide awake at midnight. Plus there's all of the emotions of change. Tomorrow we are going flat hunting and we are really excited! We see 12 different places and hopefully, maybe, possibly one could be our new home in London : )

Officially Moved Out and Along for the Ride

Well we have finally finished moving everything out of our rental house and have turned in our keys. Since we also don't know where we are living when we get to London, we are now officially "homeless" but hopefully this will only be for 7 days since at this time next week we will be flat hunting. Luckily, we have amazing friends and family that are opening their doors and letting us and our 8 bags stay with them : )

We still have a lot of goodbyes to say and like most people, I am not fond of goodbyes. These past few days have been extremely hard and I am not imagining that the next will be any easier. I keep saying it's a good thing it is so hard to leave because that means we have such wonderful friends and family here. I'm hoping after the next three years we will be able to say the same about London!

There's so much to think about when moving internationally: bank accounts, cell phones, credit cards, storage, cars, etc. But there's also only so much you can plan for. We've been trying to get into this new mindset of "rolling with the punches" and figuring things out as we go. It's all an adventure and we are just along for the ride ...which will begin on a plane in three days!

Shipping, Packing, Posting, Selling, Donating

Lately my main priority has been categorizing the things we own into five different piles...

Pile #1) Shipping - all the items that we will ship to our new flat. This includes frames, dishes, cooking items, clothes... this has already left our place and is on a boat somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. It will arrive a month and a half after we sent it off (which is a ridiculously long amount of time if you ask me. It has to be driven across the US, put on a boat, clear customs, I get it, I get it). We've had people come over to our house since the shipping items have left and have asked, "Geez, did you ship anything?!"

Pile #2) Packing - all the stuff we think we want to keep right now but didn't think we needed to ship. In 3 years we will open these boxes and go "wait, why did we save this?" Or "wait, are you sure this is ours?" Or "oh my gosh, I have completely forgotten about this! I'm so glad I kept it." Our reactions will most likely be one of the earlier two.

Pile #3) Posting - furniture we own that we think we can make a profit on by posting to Craigslist. This includes TVs, dressers, our guest bed, desks, chairs, futon, a bookcase, and a nightstand. So far, the hot commodities have been my dresser and our TVs. I have communicated with some very weird people over Craigslist during these past few days...

Pile #4) Selling - I have also taken it upon myself to drive around to a few select shops in the area that sell the stuff I'm wanting to get rid of. Such as used book stores, video game resell shops, consignment stores, etc. Yesterday, I drove 6.5 miles to a used book store hoping to sell 30 books in good condition. After waiting for an hour, they took 6 books and I was the lucky recipient of $8.25!!

Pile #5) Donating - Everything that doesn't fit into one of the piles of the above goes here. Would you like a tax receipt with that? : )

WHAM!

Everything happened like that.

Funny how we left ourselves so much time to plan and prepare, and the time just went by in a whirlwind. We accepted the offer to move and begin our new life abroad over four months ago, and now in exactly two weeks we will be in London.

We don't know where we are living. We don't know where I am working. We don't know what we are doing. But we are doing it together.

We are writing this blog as a way to keep in touch with family and friends back home, and capture all of our adventures and memories over the next three years. We hope you enjoy this little glimpse into our life as newlyweds abroad!