On Friday we found out that we had to move out of the place we where staying, got an expensive parking ticket and found out that most places won’t allow us to rent from them because we have no UK records. Isn’t that swell.
We spent some maniac moments driving around London with my laptop out trying to get wireless internet from somewhere so we could find a place to stay that night. We happened to pass a library–with no wireless internet service–and I ran in to use the internet. The computer access in the library is limited so when I finally found a cheap room and was booking it online the computer was literally counting down the seconds before it would shut my internet window. I was able to book the room and write down the information for the hotel just in time.
My husband dropped us off at the hotel and drove two hours in rush hour traffic to the place where we were staying to pick up our bags–our car is too small to fit all of us and our luggage. He made it back to the hotel with the luggage just in time to leave again and go to his gig.
That was our Friday. Now that I’ve written this I’m not even sure it was Friday. Maybe it was Thursday. Anyway, that was one of the days last week.
We’ve been doing a lot of apartment hunting. We’re staying with friends right now and want to get out of their place as quickly as possible. So we spend our days getting lost on the complicated streets of London and showing up late for appointments with estate agents.
Today we saw the best apartment that we’ve seen and the worst. The best was small but had a very nice kitchen. All the apartments are small. But who wants to hear about the best apartment when the story of the worst one is much more interesting.
Richard, the landlord was twenty minutes late to the appointment. This wasn’t his fault but I still thought it was worth mentioning. The apartment was on Penge Road. Penge just doesn’t have a good sound to it. When Richard finally did arrive to the appointment he forgot the keys to the flat. He let us into the building, but we had to wait on the landing of the stairs for him to come back with the keys. It was worth the wait.
The flat had just been “fixed up” so there was dust and dirt everywhere. He was bragging about the renovations when my husband noticed some rust on the refrigerator door and decided to open it to investigate. Inside the refrigerator lurched the foulest odor he says he’s ever smelled in his life.
“Everything is brand spanking new,” Richard said, motioning to the ten year old radiator on the wall.
Some of the other great features of this newly renovated flat were the dirty toilet, view of a pile of trash in the back garden and paper thin walls. Needless to say we’re still looking.
We stood in baggage claim for a good half hour watching the same bags go round and round before giving up. We were among the last people off the plane, but we thought that maybe our luggage just hadn’t been put out yet. We were wrong.
At first the lost luggage was a okay. We had to take the train and the tube (I’m so English now) from the airport and didn’t know how we would manage with three large suitcases, a bass, a tenor sax, two laptops and a bookbag. I didn’t realize how difficult the journey would be. Once we got to our friends’ house, I told my husband that he was crazy for thinking that we could do it with all that stuff.
Today only one suitcase was delivered. Of course, that suitcase belonged to my husband. That’s the kind of luck I have. The airline still has no idea where the other bags are. I keep telling myself they’ll show up. I also kept telling myself it isn’t really snowing here and I’m not really freezing.
So I’ve complained many times about my apartment complex in this blog. My first issue was when we moved in we had no running water on Tuesdays for about a month or maybe even longer. Then there was the famous Valet Waste incident. For some reason I thought that moving out would go relatively smoothly. I seem to have difficulty learning from the past.
When I went to give our thirty day notice the apartment manager suggested that I pay an extra eighty dollars for a cleaning service they “offer”. I said I’d clean the apartment myself.
We moved out today and an office person came to inspect our apartment. The first thing she said was “Your apartment smells of spices. That’ll cost thirty five dollars to fix. The burner plates are dirty and they’ll be thirty-five dollars each to replace.” The fees kept racking up.
I couldn’t believe it. It’s all a scam to get you to pay the cleaning service fee. Of course our apartment smells of spices, we cook in it. Did they expect us not to cook?
Never move into Camden Lake Apartments or any apartments affiliated with Camden Living. That’s my free advice for the day. I don’t give much so savor this morsel.
Since we’ve lived here we’ve received a dog and cat product catalog. It shouldn’t be coming to us. It obviously is meant to go to the previous resident. I used to write wrong address on it and slip it back into the mailbox, but more recently I’ve been throwing it into the trash. This morning I decided to take it home and have a look inside. I am not a pet owner so, I’m often surprised by the things people buy for their pets. I assume because these items are in this catalog there must be a demand for them.
I have never understood dressing animals up in outfits. There are so many dog clothes in this catalog it’s crazy. Shoes, sweater, sunglasses, pajamas, Halloween costumes–they’re all in there.
Does this dog look happy to you?
Another thing I noticed in the catalog was that there are very few things for cats. There are no cat clothes. I can’t imagine anyone trying to put clothes on a cat. I did find these lovely fake nails for cats. There was also a cat “Playpen” that looked more like a cage to me. The cats sitting in the “playpen” didn’t look very playful.
Too bad we’re moving on Thursday. I should’ve been looking at this catalog ever since we lived here. I had no idea what I was missing by not peeking inside.
Now that we’re trying to sell a bunch of stuff on Craig’s List before the move, we get a lot of phone calls from strangers. A large portion of these strangers don’t seem to understand how to converse on the phone with someone they don’t know. Here an example of what happens:
The telephone rings and I answer it, only because I have to. I like to let my husband deal with numbers on the caller ID that I don’t recognize. “Hello,” I say.
“Hey, what’s up?” says the male caller on the other end of the phone.
How am I supposed to respond to this? I don’t know who this person is. I usually say, “Nothing. What’s up with you?”
“Nothing, nothing.” He usually repeats the word nothing. This means that there’s a whole lot of nothing going on, I guess. Then there is silent for a few seconds. During this time I continue to wonder who the heck this person is and try to figure out a way to get off the phone. Finally he’ll continue, “I’m calling about your ad on Craig’s List.”
Who are these people and who taught them how to use the telephone? Whoever did didn’t do a very good job.
On Monday a leathery man in fuzzy winter slippers came over to buy the speakers my husband advertised. This is Florida. Why does he have fuzzy winter slippers and why would he wear them out? He talked on and on about The Who and finally bought the speakers.
Moving requires many things. Among those things are organizational skills, good judgment, brawn, and boxes. All but one of these things are abundant in our household. Since it’s common knowledge that I’m overflowing with organizational skills and good judgement, and my husband is stronger than he looks, you’ve probably guessed that we are in need of boxes.
For a normal move to the next city, I’d be fine with using liquor store boxes, but since we’re shipping stuff overseas I think that we need boxes that don’t have the top flaps cut off. First we looked on Craig’s List for someone giving away moving boxes in the area. When that didn’t work, we decided we’d have to buy some boxes. Buying boxes seems ridiculous to me. Which is funny because I’m perfectly fine with buying gift boxes.
We went to a local packing store to inquire about the price of boxes. I can’t believe how much they cost. I stood at the counter staring blankly at the laminated price sheet. It had a list of box dimensions and prices. I couldn’t believe it. The most expensive box on the list was fourteen dollars! You shouldn’t have to pay more than a dollar for a box. It’s a box for goodness sake!
The portly man behind the counter patiently waited for us to make up our minds. “If you buy multiple boxes, I’ll discount you seventy five cents per box bought,” he said.
“Okay. Could we have a copy of the price list?” my husband asked.
The man photocopied the laminated sheet and handed my husband the copy along with a business card that read Leader of the pack.
We eventually bought boxes from another place. Now our apartment smells like cardboard–expensive cardboard.
