Flats, Pizza and Pints

We've survived the first week!  Though it feels like we've been here much longer than that.

It's been a couple days since our last update, so I'll start from Thursday.  Jenny and I headed back out with our "neighbourhood specialist," Ellen, for the second round of flat searching.  There were no new entries to the market in Islington for us to see so we explored new areas.  We headed to southwest London on our first use of non-tube public transportation and looked at places in Battersea, Clapham, and Balham.  When we exited the train, I had to check the timetables to make sure we weren't dealing with times like the Metra.  We were relieved to see that they run every 5-7 minutes and almost 24 hours.  We could live in this area!

Battersea has a giant park along the Thames, but it doesn't have much more to offer in the areas with available flats.  Balham was too far south and felt like a suburb, which it is.  But we did love some of the greater Clapham area along Northcote Road.  The closest parallel I can draw is to the Southport corridor in Chicago.  Lots of great looking, unique restaurants and pubs and boutique shops.  We found a flat that's a block off of Northcote road.  They're currently renovating the top floor/ loft so it was surrounded by scaffolding and the common area was being painted, but the flat itself was lovely and all of the work is supposed to be done in the next 3 weeks.  We'll hold off on describing it in more detail for now.

So we put in an offer, below asking price, and also asked for some of the missing furniture to truly make it a furnished apartment.  And then we waited...  As of Friday afternoon we learned that the landlord is deciding between our offer and another.  Our relocation team made a strong case for us, but we certainly won't be getting a deal on it regardless.  We're back to waiting and, given our experience on Tuesday/Wednesday, we're a little nervous at this point.  We've exhausted our time out with a specialist and we love the area so this one needs to come through.  We'd be a half mile from the nearest train line and the commute to work should be about 45 minutes. 

For dinner, we were lazy and didn't want to go anywhere.  We broke down and tried out a taste of home, Domino's pizza.  It wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't as good as it is in the States. 

On Friday we slept in...again.  It's been great to catch up on sleep but very tough to get into any routine.  That will all change when work starts next week, I'm sure.  We figured out the DLR (Docklands Light Rail) and headed to the Tottenham Court Road area on a recommendation from Ellen for housewares.  We found a few cool home stores that we will head back to when we have a place.  It also appears to be the technology store section of London. 

For dinner we took the tube to the Farringdon stop and saw where Whit and Kate lived (pictures to be posted from Jenny's laptop eventually - having some Internet access issues).  We wandered the area in search of The Eagle, a gastro-pub that Whit loved, and found London's "Jewellers Row."  With the help of a friendly cabbie, we finally found The Eagle.  We arrived a half hour before dinner started so the place was nearly empty.  The bar shares space with an open air kitchen and the menu changes twice daily and is written on chalkboard-style panels above the bar.  The tables and chairs are an eclectic mix of mismatched old throw-aways, including some that look to be old school chairs.  What a cool atmosphere!  Jenny fell in love with a new beer, Staropramen, and I joined her after first trying the Eagle IPA, which was okay but not great.  By the time we ordered food, the place was packed and people were already waiting for tables.  I had an incredible dish - Huevos a la Flamenca - eggs baked in tomato sauce with ham, chorizo, and potatoes.  It was fantastic.  Jenny's dish was also really good, but not quite as unique as mine.  She had polenta crusted plaice with aioli, roasted tomato, and arugula.  We'll definitely be heading back again. 

Unfortunately they didn't have the dessert we wanted so we headed out and stopped by a couple of pubs on the way to the tube.  The first was called the Couch and Tomatoes if you believe Jenny and the Coach and Horses if you're anyone else.  At that point in the night, Jenny calling it the Couch and Tomatoes was quite hilarious.  We found a quiet corner by the door and chatted a bit.  Jenny tried another new beer, a half pint of Leffe, which is probably closest to a Matilda, and I had another London Pride.  Ah, dessert!  It was fantastic.  We split a buttermilk pudding with mini vanilla doughnuts (small, sugared doughnut balls), blackberries, and a raspberry sauce.  Oh it was good.  We hit one more pub on the walk to the tube, the Hat and Tun, and found a small table by the bar.  Jenny had a half pint of a cloudy cider (not sure which one) and I enjoyed another Guinness.  A couple of tube transfers later, we were back at the temporary flat a bit tipsy and finished watching "He's Just Not That Into You," which we started the night before.  Friday was a great way to close out our first week in London.

Today, the weather is perfect.  It's low 60's and sunny.  We've really missed the sun with how rainy and chilly it's been this week.  Glad the weather turned just in time for the long holiday weekend.  We're off to explore Greenwich for some market shopping on the prime meridian.  Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Back to the drawing board...

Unfortunately we started out the day with some bad news - we didn't get our flat that we made the offer on yesterday.  Someone else also made an offer and that person was committing to 24 months.  Now our search tomorrow will be much more important.  We're going to look in the Clapham Old Town area and back in Islington if anything new came on the market.  Keep your fingers crossed for us so we don't have to explore the fall back options after exhausting our housing search assistance.

Otherwise the day was great, albeit rainy.  We wandered around Harrod's for awhile and enjoyed the unique items for sale like the personal watercraft (check out our picture link).  If only I had an extra 80,000 GBP lying around!  We had great hummus (again) and chicken schwarma at a Middle Eastern place for lunch.  And we wandered through a few other stores while trying to avoid getting soaked.  Jenny was ecstatic about checking out the Orla Kiely shop in Covent Garden.  So much good stuff in one store.  And she claims she fulfilled a lifelong dream. 

We also met with our personal banker in Knightsbridge and should have our account opened in the next week.  Andy, our personal banker, was a great guy to chat with.  We learned that he's going to try water skiing for the first time on Monday.  Josh and Scotty will appreciate the fact that it costs 30 GBP for 15 minutes.  It could be a costly trip if it takes him awhile to get up on skis!

We met one of my co-workers from Chicago, Annie for dinner in Chinatown at the Four Seasons (not to be confused with the hotel chain).  Jenny got a quick pic near one of the street entrances.  Despite the rain, it was still a bustling area with lots of great dinner options to explore in the future.  The Four Seasons is known for its roast duck and crispy duck and they were both fantastic.  We've done a great job of exploring world cuisine so far and I'm sure that will continue indefinitely.  Jenny has become a big fan of Tiger beer and I've enjoyed a few Guiness pints already.  It still amazes me how much better it is here.

We're going to relax with some British TV and hopefully turn in early so we're well rested for a full day of flat hunting tomorrow.  Cheers from the UK!

An epic comeback.

One of my favorite things about London thus far is the fashion. Four words. Stirrup. pants. are. back. YES! My 6th-grade self is stoked. Stirrup pants are everywhere - well, all types of leggings are hugely popular, way more so than in the states, which also excites me - however, I have a special place in my heart for stirrup pants. I have been super-tempted to ask people on the street if I can take their picture to post on the blog to give you all back home a taste of London fashion (which, I realize, may only be exciting for a small handful of our blog-followers) so stay tuned in case I grow the cajones to do so. Other than stirrup pants, pretty much anything goes in London, which I love. People-watching here is pretty awesome and I think I could spend all day taking note of the different styles. No one wears running shoes (we believe you, Whit and Kate) - lots of flats or heels. Layering anything and everything seems to be key, especially since the ever-changing weather here is giving Chicago's crazy weather a run for its money. I have no idea what stores are "cool" to shop at yet, but I have discovered that you can buy expensive things at one of the grocery-like stores; I saw jeans at our local Waitrose for 190 pounds! Also, they sell Uggs there. Too funny. But enough about fashion for now.

Today, we spent time searching for our flat with a lovely woman named Ellen. We looked in the Angel/Islington area (still our favorite by far) as well as Hoxton, White Chapel/Shoreditch (not so much our favorite area: think Bucktown meets the South side). The rental market here is nutty - places go so quickly that if you don't make an offer (yes, offer - you can negotiate your rent to some extent) immediately, you could lose the place. I realize there may be properties like this in Chicago, however, it seems ALL rentals (or lettings, to speak proper English) are subject to this unofficial policy in London. We ended up making an offer on the last place we saw today and should hear back tomorrow if our offer was accepted. We still plan to head out to see more places on Thursday with Ellen so that we have a back-up plan if the first place falls through.

After flat-searching, we came home and went on a quick run in Canary Wharf, which took us from urban to rural, literally. There is a community-sort of farm/garden in the area southeast of our flat in CW, complete with cows, sheep, pigs and llamas - and you can run/walk right through it. We took some pictures and hopefully I'll figure out how to link the blog to Picasa soon so we can share pics.

Time for this girl to put her feet up. Will post again soon, hopefully with good news regarding our flat!

Cheerio friends!

Greetings from London, UK! It's still a little hard to believe that we're here...and that we're staying here for awhile. Our trip over on Friday was relatively uneventful - we flew out of Chicago at 9am and arrived at our temporary flat around 1:30am, settled in just a bit and slept until 2pm on Saturday. Our temporary flat is in Canary Wharf, which is walking distance from the KPMG office. We're hoping to only be here for 2 weeks, but given the information we've gotten from our relocation company (read: apartment finders), it sounds like we may be here longer because there is a shortage of immediately available rentals on the market currently.

Yesterday, we explored some of Canary Wharf near our flat, picked up some groceries and then met up with friends of Matt's - Nick, Mike and his wife, Sandy - for drinks at a somewhat shady, albeit lively "Spanish" bar for a few pints, then to a fab little Indian restaurant for dinner and to the Three Greyhounds for more pints after dinner, which is in Soho, what I would equate to our Boystown.

Today, we spent some time wandering through the Clapham and Angel/Islington areas, which are 2 neighborhoods we're considering for our permanent residence. Loved Angel/Islington, not overly impressed by Clapham. We did, however, meet a group of hilarious British gents, who entertained us with some ridiculous stories over lunch at a pub in Clapham. Unfortunately, most are too inappropriate to share on our blog.

So far, we've successfully skyped with my parents and Jason - so nice to be able to see familiar faces, but strange to know that we are so far away from each other. It definitely set in sometime over the Atlantic that we were actually MOVING to London for 18 months. We are feeling more and more comfortable with each little adventure/exploration and expect that after a few weeks, we'll feel much more confident.

I think that's about it for now. We have been terrible about taking pictures so far, but promise to improve and post some pics soon. We miss everyone and hope all is well back in the States!