.....and now for the rest of the story

What a whirlwind this first week has been, let me give you some of the low down

We arrived on Tuesday afternoon, around noon London time. We got through immigration smoothly and got a rental car with no problem. We decided with 5 suitcases, 4 bags, 3 dogs, and 3 dog crates that it would just be easier. We then proceeded to the cargo area to pick up the dogs. For those of you who don't know how much trouble we had getting the dogs across with our vet, that is a whole other story in itself. So, anyways, of course there were problems. Not the problems that we had anticipated. No, originally Dr. Sokol had given us medication to give to the dogs before we left (for ticks and tape worms). After some further research we found that she had to give them the drugs, after a long hassle we got her to give the meds. Well, she never changed the paperwork. So the UK had to get in touch with her to have her fix the papers. The UK girl said our vet is very "cheeky", meaning a smart ass. Not good at all. We had to wait at the cargo area for 4 hours before the dogs could leave, which meant we had to pay a penalty for them being there more than the allotted 3 hours. At least they were able to come home with us and not have to spend the night there.

It took as over 3 hours to get our keys and find out flat but we finally did, and now it was closing in on 9 pm. We were not at all happy with the place, didn't feel safe at all. So Wednesday morning we got up to go to the leasing agents office. We still had the rental car, since it was past 6 pm the night before, so we decided to return the car today. Well, of course we had a parking ticket, another thing gone wrong so far. Greg dropped me off at the leasing agents office to get started with them so he could get the rental car returned by 11 am. Well, I sat in Paul's office and cried alot, explaining how we did not feel safe and such. He listened, we discussed, we saw some properties, etc. In the mean time it took Greg until nearly 1 pm before he returned, at least he did. We saw a property that we really like, newly refurbished but only 1 bedroom. It was now after 6 pm before we made it back to the flat, and we were physically and mentally exhausted.

We waited around most of the day on Thursday, Paul finally got in touch with us and picked us up from the flat at 5 pm, to take us and the dogs to meet the landlords. They were really nice and there only concern was the noise the dogs might make. We really wanted this new place.

However, on Friday morning when we left to run errands the dogs were going crazy, barking and crying. So, we talked about it and felt a lot more comfortable at the original flat so we decided that we didn't want to lie to the new landlords and would just stay at our original flat. It is not the best and there is some work to be done but all in all we felt like we made the right decision. There are dogs all around us along with loud kids so we don't feel badly at all about the barking and crying, plus it is bigger and closer in.

Let me take the time to mention now that since we arrived on Tuesday, we have not had a shower head at all, therefore we could not take a shower. They kept telling us that they were going to get that repaired. So, finally at 6 pm on Friday, our property manager, told us that we needed to just go buy a new one and he would reimburse us, this is of course after all of the stores are closed.

Saturday morning we got up and headed out to find a shower head. We walked and walked and walked, at least 2 or 3 miles. Could not find a place with a shower head, did not realize how different there stores are here until this moment. It was almost 11 so we decided to just go out to Ikea to get some essentials for the place. We still did not even have sheets or dishes, since we had been sleeping on the futon this entire time. We spent a couple hours at Ikea and got all of the basic things we needed to live. When we got off of the train and were headed to the bus stop we found a place with a shower head, woo hoo, I was going to be able to take a shower. Well, don't get too excited, the shower was cold. We didn't know anything about the gas here, we thought it was on and we just had to get it switched over to our name.

We ran back out and went grocery shopping, still not knowing anything about the gas. We were so excited, we were actually going to get to cook supper, since we now had cookware and dishes from Ikea. Well the stove would not work. This is when Greg decided to call the gas company, around 6 or 7 pm on Saturday night. Well, we found out that we are on what they call "pre-pay" gas. We have to take our gas card to a designated spot and put money on it. We finally got that going on Sunday. Then we didn't know anything about the boiler so we still did not have any hot water, at least we had the stove though. We did decided to take a little time for ourselves to go and watch Harry Potter, we needed to unwind from the stress of everything.

While in town on Saturday we had also decided to go ahead and get a mobile internet card for the computers, so we could work on Sunday. Well, you have to have a UK checking account in order to do this, not a credit card. And of course the banks were closed since it was 5 pm on Saturday.

Sorry for the jumping, Sunday we had the stove but no hot water. We finally talked to the property manager on Monday after several calls and he had to call the previous tenants since he couldn't get in touch with the landlord and they told him about the boiler, what fun. We finally got it figured out and realized we were out of money on the pre-pay gas card. We were able to get into town and open a checking account and get mobile internet cards all before time for us to start working on Monday, we are finally making some progress. We worked all day, ran out around 6 pm here to put some money on our gas card.

Tuesday morning, almost a week after our arrival, we have finally gotten a hot shower. Thank you!!!!! We can only think that things are going to continue to get better from here.

We do not have any pics yet because we haven't done anything too exciting. This weekend we are going to do a few toursity things so we should have pics then.

Take care and we love everyone and miss everyone. T & G