Yorkshire Pudding and Whatnot

Ryan and I arrived in London early to look for an apartment which took us all of one day to find. The rule of thumb around here is, if you like it, don’t hesitate. So we didn’t. Here are some pics of our apartment… 

The Grand Hall

The Receiving Room - You could be sleeping here!

The Guest Bathroom - You could be relieving yourself here!

The Grand Suite - Good thing Ryan likes to cuddle! It's a double bed.

The Master Bathroom

The Servants' Kitchen - Oh wait, the servants are us.

It's just like Thailand! This Thai food stall is just across the street from our house.

 With our shipment still out at sea, what to do with the 2 weeks until work starts?  So far we’ve visited the British & Natural History Museums, seen a play at the local Hampstead Theater (right across the street from our house), gotten library cards (right across the street from our house!), signed up at a yoga studio, acquainted ourselves with grocery stores Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, gone running (ok, walk/running) at Primrose Park and Regents Park, and eaten at various pubs and restaurants.  

Breakfast.

This theater is right across the street from our house. Loyalty is the first play we saw in London.

Primrose Hill Park - This park is a 5-minute walk from our house!

We are quite enchanted with the city of London so far. Frankly, we’re just happy to NOT be sweating as soon as we step outside. We don’t ask for much! We love how green the city is, all the parks, the ease of public transportation (who doesn’t love double decker buses?), walking to work, the variety of restaurants.

Are there things we don’t love? Of course, but so far they are limited to: taking over 2 weeks to set up internet, filling out paperwork to change our banking address (who uses paper anymore?), and uh…rioting! We walked into a phone shop in Tottenham Court last week, and the shop keeper said as he was closing the shutters, “We’re closing. We’ve heard there’s going to be a riot and our store is being targeted. I suggest you leave the area immediately.” That was almost as fun as being woken up at midnight in the fall of 2006 by our friend Leah saying, “Don’t leave your house, there are tanks in the street. Thailand is having a coup.” Why does trouble seem to follow us wherever we go?

Other minor annoyances include:

-       Transportation is so efficient, Ryan can’t follow his rule of accomplishing only one task a day during the summer.

-       Killing the one mosquito that was flying so slowly, Ryan was able to kill it with his feet.

-       Spending at least an hour and a half reading the newspaper every day because the articles are incredibly well-researched, well-written, and relevant to the world. Take that, SF Chronicle & Bangkok Post!

-       Having to decide between all those good beers.

Our impression of the Brits so far is that they are quite friendly, apart from the rioting and all.