+'s and -'s

We took possession of our flat this weekend. Not sure if you call it that when you're renting, but we have keys and are allowed to sleep there, so I don't know what else to call it.


We haven't spent much time there yet, since our shipment of stuff (including bedding, towels, dishes and other essentials) hasn't been delivered yet, but there are already pros and cons that I've come across.


Pro #1

We get to have old timey keys, which makes it feel all the more like we're living in London (see picture below).



Con #1
It takes 4 keys to get into the place - 2 for the front entry to the building and 2 to our flat (see picture above). There are actually 2 more if you count the key to get to the backyard from inside the house and the padlock on the door from the backyard to the street. This could be a pro item for the moms - Safety First!!
Con #2
It is a little tight. The hallway is not quite wide enough for Jenna and I to stand next to each other. Also the rooms are just generally smaller than our place in Dallas.
Pro #2
It is significantly bigger than most of the places we saw (no cot in the living room).
Pro #3
The landlord was only required to put in a bed, a kitchen table, and a couch. He put in 2 couches, and also added a coffee table, 2 bedside tables, and patio furniture, all which we were planning to have to buy.
Con #3
We just realized that there is no microwave.
I'm sure there will be more things that we'll come across, but those are a couple from the first day.

Impressive, but a Little Excessive

So last weekend we made a visit to Buckingham Palace. It is only open for 2 months of the summer when the queen is in Scotland, so we thought we'd better get over there first thing. We did the full tour, which included a small art gallery, the mews (stables, coachhouse, and garage), and then a walk through the state rooms, including the throne room and the banquet hall set up for a state dinner (these were the ones worth mentioning).

Overall, it was pretty impressive. If I've been a good blogger, there is a link to some pictures that we took. If they aren't there as you read, its because we've been too lazy to upload them, so come back later and they'll eventually be up. They don't allow photos in the palace, so they will be a little limited. Everything in there was very ornate and grand - I guess what you'd expect from a palace. It takes them 2 days to set the 200 seat table for a banquet, partly because the 6 glasses per person has to be the exact right distance from the plate, silverware, etc. Yes, there are 6 glasses per person - champagne toast, water, white wine, red wine, dessert champagne, and port. All are the exact same size, but you wouldn't want to mix your water with the remnants from the champagne toast, of course.

Also of note - there are 240 bedrooms but only 78 bathrooms. I wonder who shares? Wouldn't it be pretty weird to be walking down the hallway in your towel after a shower, and whoops! there's the queen?!

Somewhere between the table and the 6 reception rooms (that we saw) and the 4 royal coaches (that we saw), I started to think that maybe it was too much. I'd really like to know what these people do, other than of course get born to the right family. The PM and the parliament run the country, so the royal family literally has no purpose other than to attend events and make appearances. It amazes me that the citizens here are okay with funding all of this. Granted, the buildings have been around for a while, but the upkeep has to be ridiculous. There is one department whose entire job is refurbishing the royal coaches that (maybe) get used one time per year. It takes a full year to do one coach, so there is just a rotation. I guess you'd say that at least they're creating jobs?

There are something like 6 royal palaces throughout the country that are at the disposal of the royal family, so the taxpayers here have to pay to keep them looking good on the off chance that Harry might need a place to sleep it off. Crazy. And all the while, there are about 3 homeless guys sitting outside the closest Tube station, and all I can think about now is the fact that I paid about $60 to look at all of these empty rooms while they are sleeping on the sidewalk.

Pictures

So I finally figured out how to link pictures to this stupid blog.

I say I figured out, but I really just looked at a buddy's blog and sort of reverse engineered what he did. Either way, I think we now have a way to link all of you glorious readers to the pictures that go along with the words. See link to the right.

London Real Estate

So finding real estate in London (buy or rent) is pretty much the most retarded process I've ever experienced.

So you'd think it would make sense to sign up with an agent and have them show you places that are within your price range and specifications. That would make sense.

Instead, you pick an area of town that you want to live in, then you have to go sign up with agents in that area. Each agent only has access to show the places that they have listed in that area. So you basically get off of a Tube (subway) station, and there are between 15 and 20 agencies within a 3 block radius. You have to go into each agency and sign up to view properties, and each will have 1-2 flats that are within what you want.

So for us, we scoped out a few areas of town and decided on about 4 that we liked. These 4 areas compromised less than 25 sq. miles total, so basically the size of a suburban middle school district. Within that area there are a lot of places available, but they are spread out over about 50 different agents, all of which we had to sign up with in order to see apartments. It is really about the most stressful and annoying process imaginable.

Luckily, Jenna was able to do a lot of it while I was working, and she actually found a place in our #1 area. So I guess the moral of the story is that if you're moving to London and need a place, make sure your spouse has time to look so you don't have to deal with it.

From Jenna:

So anyway, it wasn't that stressful to me. We only started looking at places on Saturday with several different agents, we found one that we really liked, made an offer and then found out Monday morning that another offer had been made on the same place, bummer!

Sunday we went and looked at a few places, nothing that we loved.

Then today I went and looked at 7 different flats. 6 out of 7 were rubbish, mostly too small, in the wrong area or really old and nasty. The last place was in a cute bldg., in a nice area, where we wanted to be. It was totally refurbished on the inside with lots of storage/closet space (for London). It even has a washer and a dryer. I fell in LOVE! So I put a down payment down without Aaron seeing it or even knowing that I found something. (The reason I did not tell him was that he doesn't have a cell phone yet and there was no way for me to get a hold of him.)

We are pretty excited that we found place that we like! Aaron will get to see it tomorrow night.

We hope you are all doing well and we will be moving in 2 weeks so we have someplace for you all to stay when you visit!

And here are a few pictures of the place (added after the original post), to let you see where we'll be living - 71 Grayshott Rd, SW11 5UB! 

The Arrival

So we made it.

Our flight was interesting - 4 suitcases, two nearly 50 pounds and the others about 70, plus 4 carry-ons. If you imagine how hard it would be to get those through the airport, it was about that bad. Our driver who picked us up just stared in disbelief (yes, he had a sign with our name on it - check off one Life Goal). It all fit though and we had a good drive through the heart of London to our apartment.

It is pretty surreal. We are literally a block from the Tower of London. You'd think we'd have some pictures of that, being so close, but we don't. Here is one of the Tower Bridge though, which is right next door to the Tower itself and happens to be what I walk across on the way to work everyday (also pretty surreal).


My office is right across the river from the Tower, so right now I am sitting at a desk, looking out the window where I see the River Thames bridged by this large ornate tower structure which crosses over to a castle that was built hundreds of years before America was discovered (unless you count the Indians, which I don't 'cause it sounds better).  The pics below are both of my office, the one in front is with a few of the other GEP participants that we toured around with on our first day in the city.

We've had a little bit of time to sight see, but we haven't actually gone into anything yet because it is expensive and we assume that when you guys come to visit, you'll want to go see them and we didn't want to pay twice. Here we are at Big Ben (and somehow I flipped it when trying to rotate, so imagine this as a mirror, Jenna is on my right).


We also have several other pics of Buckingham Palace, Westminster, etc. We loaded them all on snapfish, which I thought I'd be able to link here, but I can't figure it out. If you are really interested, I'm sure we could email them to you or something.

Right now, we're mainly just worried about finding a place, which is a nightmare, but that is for another post...