Moving Days

The day has finally come for Grace and I to say goodbye to our little studio. We've actually been looking forward to this move for quite some time, because the charming studio has become a cluttered sweatbox in the last few weeks.

To be able to afford something bigger than a studio, we've had to move out of the centre of London. Check it out.



We brought over the first load of luggage last night. We've thought about how to move, and since we don't own any furniture (or even bulky TV's or desktop computers), we're packing everything into suitcases and duffel bags then taking taxis over (20 pounds per ride). We estimate it will take three trips, between our four suitcases and two duffel bags. It was a minimum 120 pounds to rent a van. When we finish unpacking at the new place, we put all the little suitcases into bigger ones until we just have two big but basically empty ones. We then take the bus back home. Unfortunately its a 45 minute ride. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try and bike into work. It would be a good workout, and the bus takes over an hour I hear, plus it would be cheaper in the long run to bike, but I would need to buy all the gear first, and shower at work, which is not a tempting proposition.

We arrived in the place last night around 9 and had some trouble getting in at first. Our landlords are on vacation till the tenth, so if anything goes wrong, we might be in a bit of trouble. But after 10 minutes, we figured out how to open the door. We've moved to a safe area, so we weren't really concerned about being in the street with all our luggage.

Anyway, the new place is cool (temperature wise) and big. Grace and I sat on the couch (we have a couch again!) and I just stared to the far corner. It was a strange sensation. It seemed so far away. The new living room is about the size of our entire studio, but it seems bigger because there's so little stuff. We've got a bed plopping down right in the middle of our studio, plus a kitchen, desk, and lots of shelves poking out everywhere. Without that bed in the middle, the new living room just seemed so wide and free. You can get up and walk to the opposite corner of the room in a straight line!

We're not sure the history of our place, but its a bit old. The doorframes are not seven foot, as is common now, and my head can just touch the top of the frames of the new flat if I really stand with good posture. The doors themselves look really old, with ancient doorknobs. My theory is that we're living in refurbished servant quarters.

We are having to re-adapt to normal life in some ways with this new place. For example, we have a bigger refrigerator (still tiny by American standards), with a seperate freezer. Since there's not a grocery store three minutes walk from our new place, we won't be able to just pop over to the grocery store every day to get our dinner, as we do now. We will have to keep a well-stocked kitchen. For example, last night, I was hungry at 11 after we got back from the unpacking, so I just walked over to the 24-hour Tesco express, which is just around the corner, and bought a yogurt and a muffin. Now I'll have to keep yogurt in the house (!). Also, we have a dresser, you know, with drawers. We currently just put all our clothes on shelves, because, well, there's no dresser.

Anyway, we hope to make one run this morning and the last one this evening. The new place won't have access to internet until the landlords get back, so we might be a bit scarce for awhile on the blog, but I guess that's not a huge change of pace.