We have arrived!

We left JFK Wednesday around 7:30pm and arrived in London Thursday morning 6:30am local time. As we approached Heathrow, there was a brilliant red sunrise streaking across the sky. Looking down, I could see a patchwork of various shaped green fields all neatly bordered by darker green-- either trees or shrubs -- and lots of red roofs on all the houses.

Thursday was a bit of a blur. We slept a few hours at the hotel, then we met with the realtor at our flat to get the keys and do a walk through, we introduced ourselves to the porters of the building, we bought some groceries locally, and we tried out a French restaurant - Cafe Rouge - on St Johns Wood High Street. We also bought a cell phone for me, bought two Oyster cards (for riding the tube), and made calls to arrange for a telephone and cable tv service. One needs to have a licence (not license) to operate a television. And our telephone line cannot be installed until sometime at the end of this month because they are all booked up till then. (It looks like the phone company is the same everywhere.) We also made numerous calls to customer service for our new Capital One credit card, because it kept being rejected at stores. (Apparently the customer service people in India don't talk to the customer service people in the U.S.)

In addition, we placed an order for a load of groceries to be delivered on Monday. I have never bought food from the internet before - and it was an interesting experience selecting the British brands - most of which are very different from the U.S. (The web site is www.ocado.com if you want to check it out.)

While we are here, all of our large purchases will have to be delivered - as we have no car and will be walking or riding a subway or bus everywhere.

Fortunately, we are able to access the internet wirelessly in our apartment. We do, however, plan to get broadband service later.

At the end of the day, we returned to the hotel to sleep; the movers were due to come early the next morning.

Today, Friday, the movers did arrive on time with our items from home. They unpacked everything and took all the packing materials with them. If they had not done that, we would have had to pay to have the materials removed. (No more putting it all in the garage until the garbage man comes.)

After we had put away most of the items, we took the tube to Carl's new office to pick up our new bank cards that had just arrived. Then we took a different train to the John Lewis department store on Oxford Street. We purchased all the electric appliances that we couldn't bring from home because of the different plugs: a toaster, an iron, a coffee maker, a vacuum cleaner (or "Hoover" as it's called here).
We also bought two television sets, a tv stand, and an area rug for the living room.
All the while, we were having the same problem with our credit card being rejected.

Picture this: while I am looking at rugs and tv stands, poor Carl is sitting on a chair in the furniture department talking ONE MORE TIME to the customer service rep trying to get our new credit card unblocked. Finally he worked it out. FRUSTRATION!

All of our purchases will be delivered on the same morning - fortunately.

Tired and with aching feet, we took ourselves onto the tube and back to St. Johns Wood where we made a brief stop at the Tesco's express market to pick up items for breakfast tomorrow, then chose Tino's, an Italian restaurant, for what turned out to be a delicious dinner.

This is a whole new way of life with no car and no driving -- just walking and 'tubing' everywhere.

So far, though, we are very happy and loving it. The apartment is very nice. It is roomy and has all the basics one could need. And I think it will become warm and inviting after we add some more accessories. There is sunlight coming in all day long - and the view in the front is of the beautiful park. At night, we can see the city lights in the distance. I am still learning to identify the different buildings.


The British people we have interacted with - mostly salespeople or service people so far -- have been very helpful and friendly. Everyone is very polite -- even a beggar we saw on the tube. He came to our section of the train and addressed the crowd asking for some money. He didn't make eye contact with anyone, and he didn't hang around to make people feel uncomfortable. He was very matter of fact as he delivered his 'speech.' Then he apologized for taking up our time and moved on to the next section of the train where he repeated his speech before moving on again. In a way, he was very impressive -- definitely a British beggar.