Hunting for a flat is mentally and physically EXHAUSTING. It would be less confusing if I knew anything about London. It would be less physically taxing if I were more fit. According to my pedometer, last week I walked about twice as far as my stateside norm.
Day One: Saturday, August 25th
After many days looking at flats online, this was our first afternoon “on the ground” investigating neighborhoods. We went by the Google offices on Buckingham Palace Road, where we used the printer and snagged some healthy snacks. Food does wonders for improving the moods of children.
Then we tried to open a bank account, but were unable to do so. We’ll have to wait until Tom’s first day of work, when he’ll be able to get the appropriate paperwork in order. Until then, we’ll just keep using our U.S. credit card and paying the fees for currency exchange.
Just after the bank stop, rain started. It was harmless enough at first but grew steadily heavier, and since we lacked umbrellas (it had been a gorgeous blue sky moments before!), we took shelter in the offices of a letting agent. There seems to be one of these on every other corner. So many different agents! So many different websites to peruse!
While we looked at fliers about potential properties, the skies opened up. The agent we were with commented on the unpredictability of the weather and the inaccuracy of forecasts. We showed him the up-to-date doppler radar we were accustomed to consulting in North Carolina and he was amazed. Weather Underground, oh how we miss you.
When the rain lessened, we left and set off to see some of the streets with potential flats. Down by the Tate Britain, the rain intensified again. When we got tired of lurking in a bus shelter, we slogged toward the nearest tube stop. We were quickly soaked to the skin and miserably cold. Such experiences are NOT a good way to convince either adults or children of the beauty and desirability of a neighborhood.
That first Saturday afternoon we walked from Victoria Station (across from the Google offices) through bits of Westminster and Pimlico. Victoria and the area just to the west are way too expensive for us. Westminster and Pimlico have affordable properties, but our housing consultant insists that they are not for us — lots of transient people, lots of professionals who rent something there for the week and go home on the weekends, too much assisted housing, too little shopping nearby. Tom would be able to walk to work, but there probably wouldn’t be a good community for the kids.
Sunday morning we ignored housing questions and instead enjoyed the Museum of London. Well, four of us enjoyed it; Tallis grumped and complained the whole way through. We only covered the exhibits about prehistory, Roman times, and the great fire of 1666. Can you believe that the kids wanted to skip the Medieval section entirely? We will definitely have to go back.
Sunday afternoon we spent at home. There are three televisions in this flat, and the kids love them. I have a new Android, and they vie for chances to game on that. The couch cushions and drapes also make fantastic play forts, and we did pack an assortment of toys.
We are so close to St. Paul’s that Sunday before each service a cacophony of bells cascades through the open windows. Shopping for dinner just before a service, we got to watch the end of the procession of notables in fancy robes as they entered the cathedral. The cars parked beside the building were all decorated with heraldic crests. Interesting.
Monday was a bank holiday, and we spent it being low-budget tourists: we walked from our flat south across the Thames on the Millenium Bridge, then east along the riverbank until the Tower Bridge. Along the way we looked at the peregrine falcons on the Tate Modern using the RSPB scopes, the reconstructed Globe Theatre, a Tudor tallship and a WWII light cruiser, some lovely and diverse architecture spanning the centuries, the outside of the Clink Prison Museum (Tallis was oddly interested in paying the entrance fee), the London Bridge, an outdoor exhibit of large photographs mostly of people in war zones or areas of famine, many different artistically decorated sculptures of Wenlock and Mandeville, the Tower of London, a pay toilet that wouldn’t accept our coins, multiple restaurants and shopping districts that didn’t seem quite worth the effort of stopping to sample, a touchable 3D map of the buildings near Tower Bridge, construction-obstructed sidewalks, a building made out of pretty green marble, street vendors selling tempting roasted nuts, and the ruins of Winchester Palace.
We stopped to read maps so often that now Weyland puts up a fuss if we attempt to walk past a large map without consulting it. There is one every few minutes along major routes in the city, but really, do YOU want to tell the curious two-year-old that reading a map is not important?
Perhaps giving Weyland his own map to carry/consult will substitute for all the unwanted stops. It’s worth a try. You are definately getting a close up tour of some of the better known points of London.