Finally here at London

Well, finally the day has come.

Last Monday after a very busy week followed by an even busiest weekend we have moved to London. It wasn’t all that simple, though. In the morning I rushed so much between Milan, Samarate and Gallarate that I haven’t had time even to breath.

At 1 PM we have been taken to the airport by our former neighbours, the family of my former landlady. I was feeling a bit sad about leaving them. They are so nice people and have helped us so much during all these years.

We have then checked in for the flight. Our 4 bags where weighting more than 80Kg, with the biggest one amounting for more than a half of that. We are allowed by Alitalia to enter only 40 Kg on the flight (for two people) and they gave us a bonus 10Kg, so, we paid 30Kg of luggage excess.

We took the flight, it was a nice and pleasant flight. It was also my first Alitalia flight to take off on time and to serve a decent snack on board. The flight headed to East London and then crossed to the west passing by the centre of the city. It was fairly clear and we were able to see the entire city, from the Millennium Dome, passing by the London Eye, the Docks, the St. James Park, the Buckingham Palace, the Hide Park, the Kensington Gardens then we say our building, standing right in between the Kensington Gardens and the Holland Park. It was beautiful to have a view of our new city from the sky. We have arrived at London, quickly cleared at the immigration officers as my wife carries a Brazilian passport, quickly taken our bags (very quick indeed) and got our cab.

When already on the cab I called the lettings agency girl as accorded previously by e-mail, but she wasn’t in her office at that moment. She said me to come anyway to the building and talk to the porter as he would have the key for the apartment. He did had the key and after a half an hour she arrived and dropped us our two key sets.

The apartment was clean, well sorted and very nice. My wife liked it and we were happy for the way we found it. It was professionally cleaned up in the morning before we entered and everything was just clean and on place as expected. After a short recognition we rushed for our new home’s Starbucks to take a coffee. I really needed that… :-)

After a warm cup of coffee we decided to take a walk on Kensington High Street for my wife to know our new neighbourhood. I did expect that she would be impressed, but she was more, she was very happy seeing all those restaurants, shops, supermarkets, services, entertainment, people, cars, life, city life just after our door. It was already dark and Kensington High Street was showing all its splendour with all its lights, high and illuminated buildings, Christmas offers and so on. Then she understood why when I saw this apartment it was love at first sight. She was delighted and so was I.

As on the apartment’s furniture they haven’t included a TV, we have then stopped by the Argos store just on the ground floor of my building. They always have everything cheap and now they have X-mas offers even cheaper. We have taken a X-mas catalogue that is near 180 pages long. Imagine the full regular catalogue… :-D

After walking, walking and more walking we went home and quickly left again to the Pizza Hut nearby to have diner. We eat a yummy spicy pizza topped with a lot of things. After that we passed by our Safeways store to get our first things and also took a look on where we will park my new car when it arrives next month.

Yesterday we woke up at 9:10 AM after a well deserved sleep and went straight to Starbucks to have breakfast. After a big cup of cappuccino and a double chocolate muffin I was OK to start the day. We started shopping. I bought my TV (very good and very cheap), TV cables, plug adaptors, pillows and cuvet cover sets. The fun is that every time we move country we get a new and bigger bed, so, all our bed dressing don’t fit any more and we have to buy new ones. This time my bed is “super king size”, which is very big.

Yesterday I have also activated my BT phone line (just a quick call from a public phone and after a couple of hours I was already using my home phone) and have called Wanadoo to order my ADSL connection. They told me that they would be enabling my connection in up to 10 working days and the wireless kit with router and everything I need should be arriving in the next 5 days.

We went to Safeway to take shop for food and other needed stuff and got some ready to eat Indian food… Not that good… Spicy and without taste. :-) I’m starting to miss the Italian cuisine.

Today I’m ordering my TomTom Go so to make sure that it arrives before I get my car.

Well guys, these are the latest updates on what’s happening with me and my wife. I’ll not be posting a lot these days as I’m not willing to pay internet connections on public places. You can expect however to see me full back in motion when I get my home ADSL working.

Cheers from London, UK.
Paulo