We live in London!

We're finally on to our London adventure!

Some background: We are here for 8 months while Rob has his final management rotation with HP. Rob's co-worker, Brent Pett and his family (Aubrey, Colton (3) and Lucy (11 mo)) are also here doing the same rotation. Thankfully, they are some of our best friends from Frisco. It's so fun to experience this adventure with friends!

 We brought everything that we'll be living with here in London in suitcases with us. We had 11 in all plus a double stroller, 3 car seats and carryons. We were a circus. Here's the shuttle to the airport all packed to the gills.

There was a porter at the airport who helped us load all of our bags onto a cart to wheel them into the airport. I wish we had a picture of all of the people in line gawking at us as we walked in with our 3 kids and mountain of suitcases and trolley of car seats and carry ons. The whole line went silent and everyone stared, mouths open. It was so obvious that Rob announced to everyone that we are moving to London. After that everyone closed their mouths but still kept on stealing glances at us (and probably praying their seats weren't next to ours!).

 Our mountain of suitcases awaiting check-in

The kids did a fantastic job on the plane. They were good listeners and fairly quiet and slept when they were supposed to. We are so lucky to have such wonderful kids! We flew Air New Zealand, which was fantastic! The stewards and stewardesses were amazing and took good care of us and the kids. We also upgraded our seats to the SkyCouch which means that we got an extra seat and the bank of 3 seats by the window all had footrests that came up to create a bed for the girls to sleep on. There didn't end up being anyone sitting in the middle row we were on, so we had 7 seats total to stretch out on. The whole time Rob and I were in awe that we were actually flying to London to move there for 8 months. We were really excited and nervous to for what lay ahead!

We arrived at around 10 am London time (but 2 am our body time from California) and with a heads up from our friends, the Petts who are also here doing the same HP rotation but who had gotten into town a week earlier, we found a porter to help us with our massive amounts of luggage to haul the mile long (seemed like) walk from our gate to the point where we met our shuttle drivers. They were great and got everything loaded, so Rob and I really only had the kids to worry about. We arrived at our temporary housing where we'll live for 3 weeks until we can find and move into our permanent flat. It's really nice and much more spacious than we were expecting. We are currently living in Kew. 

Here are a few pictures of our flat:

 

 

 This is the fridge. It is tiny and built in underneath the counter and looks just like a cabinet. There's a matching freezer on the other end of the bank of cabinets.

 

We got our stuff in our flat and headed out with the Petts to explore the area a little and to get our cell phones up and running.

 

 At Kew Gardens Station waiting for the overground. Out here in Kew (in West London) the underground actually runs overground, but it's still part of the same system and we use Oyster cards for travel.

 On the tube

The first few days we walked for 3 hours, at least around trying to run errands (that sounds so easy, right?) and getting settled. I absolutely love living here already. I love walking around to do errands and getting fresh air (when it's not being polluted by a nearby cigarette) and exercise. I really wish it was more normal to live like this in the States! 

The day we got in we stayed up so that we could go to bed our normal time London time. We all were exhausted, but we slept really well, which gave us false hope for adjusting to the time change. Ben slept 19 hours straight until noon on Sunday but then for the rest of the week he was up for a few hours from 10 until 2. Ugh. He's finally adjusted.  The girls got up each that first night then went back to bed, and have adjusted really well since then.

The Monday after we got here we went out on our house hunting adventures. We had a realtor to show us around and we saw probably 8 flats. Then we went back for second showings on our favorite 3, then saw one the next day. If you want to visualize what it was like, it was exactly like House Hunters International on HGTV. I seriously felt like we had TV cameras following us, and that it was all scripted because it was just like what we've seen on TV so many times. We had a hard time deciding because there were things that we liked about 3 of the flats, but none of them had a perfect location. We settled on an unusual flat just across the Thames from Richmond (our target area), in East Twickenham (pronounced Twick-nam). It is right on the banks of the Thames with a beautiful footpath along the river right out the front door. It also has a very British style. We're set to move in on Wednesday, so I'll post pictures of it then.

 

Rob had the first week we were here off so we could get settled and comfortable with everything. It's been a bit of a learning curve for the girls to have less freedom than they did in the States, but they've quickly learned to hold hands and ride on the stroller and stay near us as we are out and about. 

One of our first outings was to Kensington Palace.

 Rob dressed as a noble in Queen Victoria's court.

Kensington Palace

One of the troubles we've had since we've gotten here is money. We didn't start the process of applying for bank accounts and credit cards that wouldn't charge us an arm and a leg for currency exchange early enough while we were in the States. Luckily Rob's debit card did come the day before we left so we at least had some access to money. He didn't however have his pin number yet. When it came to my parents' house they told us the number and we (thought) we memorized it. After a long day of touring Kensington and trying to navigate the public transportation it was raining when we got to our station. Rob ran to get some money out of an ATM while I ran into the eensy weensy express grocery at the station for some bread and milk to tide us over before our groceries were delivered. We were all a bit frazzled and neither of us had very good luck in our little errands. The pin wasn't working for Rob, so the ATM locked up and I knocked just about everything  possible off the shelves with my stroller and the hoards of rush hour commuters in the grocery. We sure were glad to get home!

So the next day, we were going to go see some sights in London, we'd realized when we got home the night before that we'd transposed two of the numbers of the pin so, armed with the correct numbers, we made our way to the station. We tried to use the card to top up our Oyster passes so we could get into London and back. No beans. We tried the person in the booth to help us. No beans. So we went to the ATM to just get some cash to pay for the Oyster top up. No beans...apparently the whole card had been locked by the unsuccessful pin attempts. The problem was, that this was an American card and we can't call America on our phones. Our only hope was a pay phone - after a 4 minute call to Capital One using our fee-laden Visa, we found out that they are actually closed, but we did get a collect number to call. By now we've been at the station for about an hour and the card support would be open in half an hour. We scraped up our remaining pounds to buy a large fish and chips, a chicken pie, a roll and a water bottle and the Sprite that Grace was begging for for us to share. Not 5 minutes into the meal the Sprite was knocked over and was lost. Awesome. With full bellies, we headed back out to the pay phone on the street. Thankfully, the collect number worked and Rob spent the next 45 minutes on the phone. Meanwhile the kids were freezing waiting outside so we found the local library to keep us entertained and warm. As soon as we got our coats off and had settled in, Grace needed to pee and, of course, there is no bathroom in the library. So I bundled everyone back up, left Benji in the stroller with Rob and trudged back to the station. Even when we got back Rob was still on. Thankfully it did get worked out, but by then, our day was shot since it gets dark at 4:30 here. Too bad, but it was so nice to have access to money again!

Rob posing at "his" phone booth

 The girlies are so cute. They love to hold hands and Grace is becoming a really good helper keeping everyone rounded up and safe. Stay tuned for more of our adventures!