Nobody Said Moving Would Be Easy

...and it hasn't been. It has been very tough, but it's been an adventure.

We finally have a home, but it's still very much in the works. After moving in on Saturday, we discovered that we had no heat or hot water. You think all you really need is a roof over your head and food on the table, but the minute that your house is freezing or you can't take a shower, you realize there a few other things you don't want to live without : )

After sorting out both of those issues yesterday, we discovered a few more. Last night, we tried to cook dinner in our oven, but it's actually a gas oven and was a little tricky to start. We got it going and let it cook for a few minutes until one of our detectors started beeping. I'm convinced that it was the carbon monoxide detector which is actually pretty scary. Thank goodness our flat has a working detector otherwise things could've ended very badly! Then today, I tried to do a load of laundry, but our washer wasn't starting. It could be user error, but I also tried a few trouble shooting suggestions from the manual and I believe it's an issue with the water connection.

And we still don't have cell phones or bank cards. We've been without phones for two weeks now which has been really frustrating at times. Cell phones make life easy and information immediate, and we've had to come up with workarounds for everything. We can't look up when buses are arriving or leaving so we have to go to the bus stop and look at the timetable. We can't look on our GPS to get directions so we have to use our paper maps or ask someone for help. We can't text each other if we are running late or have a quick question so we have had to find other ways to communicate. And I'll admit that I can't upload a photo, check social media sites or chat with friends as easily as I'd like to : )

But I've been trying to see the silver linings in all the frustration, confusion and adjustment. Silver linings like:

• There's something very satisfying about arriving at your destination by your own accord.
• We are really figuring things out for ourselves and not just relying on immediate information.
• And the most important is that there are a quite a few things we would've missed out on had everything been easy. Like an adorable little store called "Cotton and Cologne" that I stumbled upon while trying to find us bedding. Or London's equivalent of the Dollar Store called "Poundworld" which is amazing for buying cheap kitchen items while we wait for our US shipment of dishes and cookware to arrive. Or the great pub we found last night where we met other Americans and watched all the NFL games until midnight (go Hawks!) just because we don't have TV in our flat yet. 

We are disconnected from the world, we are confused by a lot of things and yes, we do get lost.

But maybe that isn't such a bad thing?