We made it!

So, we finally got here. Several things have happened – some good, some not so good – but my mother-in-law would tell me that’s a good thing because otherwise we wouldn’t have any stories to tell. So in honor of you, Diana, let the stories begin…

We’ll start our story at home before we even leave for the airport. We did successfully manage to pack up our suitcases, and by the way Travel Space Bags Rock! One note of caution, however, they make your suitcases heavy and the airline might charge you extra to ship them. We also packed up all of the items that we plan to ship once we find our permanent apartment – 9 boxes total. The sad thing is that our house doesn’t really look like we packed up 9 boxes worth of stuff. Perhaps that’s because much of it is usually stored in cabinets or closets, or maybe just maybe it means we have too much stuff. I don’t know, just speculating. Oh well, I supposed I don’t have to self evaluate too much about that for another 12 months or so.

We finished packing on Wednesday night in time to get to bed by 9:30 pm or so, then we were up before 4 am. We had arranged for a Town Car to take us to the airport, and I had spoken to the driver twice during the week and given him directions. He was supposed to pick us up at 4:30 am. At 4:35 we were a little worried. At 4:40 I called him and found out he was about 10 miles away. He had not followed my directions very well. For those of you who are familiar with Kansas City, I will say that it is not difficult to get confused when trying to follow US 169 – especially when it crosses and runs along US 69. Needless to say, he was not where he needed to be. We got him straightened out and he finally got to our house at 5am. Now since we had luggage to check, we had to check in at least 45 minutes before our flight so we were a little concerned about making it on time by the time we got our luggage in the car. The Happy ending to this story is that he got us to the airport in record time – 43 minutes – which is not bad at all for a 50 mile trip! I didn’t even look at the speedometer on the way there. I didn’t want to know. All I know is that we got there safe, and in plenty of time to check in.

We had a short layover in Chicago, but our flight from KC was on time and we got off the plane and realized that our connecting flight was scheduled to leave from the gate across the aisle. It was lovely; no running through the airport for us. Yay!

The flight itself was uneventful. We did get upgraded to business class, so that was nice. Warm towels, nice food, wine; what’s not to like about that? We were delayed out of Chicago a bit, so we arrived in London around 11pm local time. It was about midnight by the time we finally arrived at our apartment. The taxi we took was cool – not at all like taxis at home.

The short-term apartment we’re staying in is sort of like a hotel suite with a kitchenette. There’s a mini everything in the kitchen, but that’s ok since we’re only cooking meals for two. There’s also a washer/dryer in the kitchen. It’s an all in one unit – very interesting. I’ve been studying it, and we bought detergent and fabric softener today, so maybe I’ll try it out tomorrow. From the looks of it I’m going to have to wash clothes almost everyday because the machine looks only slightly bigger than a large coffee can. I’ll let you know how that goes.

It took us a while today to find out how to hook up our internet, but we finally got it going. So the good news is that I can send/receive e-mail, and update the blog. Now for the bad news…

A month or so ago we switched our phone service to Vonage. It saved us a fair amount each month, but more importantly allowed us to have a phone anywhere we had an internet connection. It also allowed us to keep our local number, get a virtual number in London, and doesn’t cost anything to make calls to the UK. We’ve really been pleased with it so far, and we were really excited to get our phone set up this afternoon once we got the internet up and running. We have a universal power strip that plugs in to a UK 220 power outlet. It is not a converter, though, so for any item we have that is not dual voltage we have to have a transformer. Well, we knew that. That’s why we bought a transformer before we came here. But in our hurry to set up the phone we failed to verify the voltage needed for the Vonage phone router.

Now for a little lesson about dealing with voltage in a foreign country: When you’re plugging something into an outlet and you hear a buzzing sound (you know that sound that a mosquito makes when it gets caught in the bug zapper?) that’s the time to remove the plug from the outlet, hopefully before you do any serious damage. It is most certainly not the time to look at each other and say, “Hmmm, what is that weird sound?” Because by the time you’ve finished the thought you’ll have heard a popping sizzle and see smoke coming from the plug. Trust me on this one, I’m speaking from experience. So now I’m in the doghouse (although I’m sure that Michael would have done the same thing had he picked up the cord before me) because the router for the phone was also our wireless internet router. Now we can’t be on the internet at the same time, so we keep passing the ethernet cord back and forth – not easy when you both depend on communication via e-mail. Tomorrow we’re going to look for a new power cord. Maybe we’ll get the phone set up in the next few days. I’ll let you all know when we do. Once we do, our regular home phone number will work and will ring here in London without charging you an international long distance fee. So for those of you with unlimited long distance plans that means you can call me in London for free! Just remember the time difference, please. Normally we are 6 hours ahead of Central Standard Time. However, Daylight Savings has been extended in the US, so from March 11, 2007 to March 25, 2007 and again from October 28, 2007 to November 4, 2007 we will be 5 hours ahead instead of 6.

Other than trying to fry our power cords and finally getting our internet set up, Friday has been a productive day for us. We got some information about setting up our local bank account, so hopefully we’ll get that taken care of next week. We also found the library, and a variety of little shops. Wine seems to take precedence over food. I laughed today when we walked by several places with signs proclaiming “Wine and Food” and they put the wine up front in the store.

This evening we went out with some of Michael’s Lombardi colleagues. We met for drinks in a hotel bar just off Trafalgar Square. The Square was easy to find. I mean it’s huge – you just follow the signs (I’ll have to rant about street signs another day because it’s getting late) and you run right into it. Unfortunately the hotel was a little harder to find. And when someone from London gives you directions and tells you to go past the museum and then take the tunnel on the right, please clarify. It is entirely possible that they meant a small road or side street, not what we might think of as a tunnel. This was true in our case. We wandered around the corner of Trafalgar Square looking for some kind of tunnel. Of course I should also mention that Michael was the one to get directions, not me, and it is entirely possible that he misunderstood the directions. At least I have a husband willing enough to ask directions, though, so it really doesn’t matter.

After drinks we walked to Covent Garden and had dinner at this fabulous Turkish restaurant. After more wine and terrific food – I highly recommend the lamb brochettes, which are marinated pieces of lamb skewered and grilled – we decided to call it a night instead of following the rest of the party to a bar. We found our way back to the Leicester Square Tube Station and headed for home. We were a little worried because several of the locals we were dining with told us that the Underground shuts down at night. I’m not sure what time that happens, but we were on the Piccadilly Line from Trafalgar Square to Earl’s Court from 11:30 pm to 11:55 pm and it didn’t shut down on us.

They are closing all of the Underground Tube Stations this weekend for repairs, so I think that we’ll stick close to the apartment tomorrow. I will say that we have done a ton of walking today. That’s good for both of us, though. I’ll let you all know what new exciting (or absolutely mundane) things happen over the next few days.