The Hunt is On

Day 4
Location: Hackney, London UK

Well to say that I hit the ground running might be an understatement. I arrived first thing Wednesday morning, spent quite a while waiting in the line to get through customs. I then took an epic journey involving me, my incredibly heavy luggage, two trains, the Central line tube, the overground rail, several unhelpful help desk agents and 3 flights of stairs. However despite all of that I eventually made it my destination.

Right now I am staying with relatives of relatives. A lovely theatre couple, the aunt and uncle of my cousin Sarah, who live in Hackney. I got to know all of them, including Sarah who I had only met once previously and that years ago, over dinner that evening. By the end of the day, after all of my walking around and exploring, I was ready to fall asleep as soon as I crawled into my sleeping nook. However, after making it through the whole day I believe I have mostly beaten jet lag.

Yesterday was another eventful day. I visited the school for the first time, met my roommates for the first time in person and we began our apartment hunt. Now, apartment hunting is a bit of a task at normal times. Add to that moving to a new country, not knowing the area, not knowing your roommates very well, and the fact that this is one of the busiest times of year for the housing market, what with all of the students moving back for school and you'll begin to understand the task laid out for us. In several cases as soon as we walked in to a housing agency they would tell us we were far too late in the game and there was nothing left. The properties that were available to rent were usually rather expensive, quite far from the campus, in high demand, or in reality too small for 3 adults to live in. A couple of times we were not the only group of students looking at a property at the same time.

However, even against all of the odds, we struck gold at the end of the day. We found a beautiful apartment, big enough for the 3 of us, with a decent sized kitchen and living room, and a yard. We couldn't believe our luck. All of that and it was within walking distance of the school, and within our budget. Incredible. All three of us have done enough apartment hunting in our lives, and had seen enough properties in London, to know that we really were not going to get anything better. So, needless to say, we pounced on the opportunity. That's right. Less than 48 hours in and we found a place. I'm kind of in shock.

At to top it all off I got to spend the evening at the theatre. Thanks to some amazing amazing amazing friends back in Seattle I had tickets to go see Kevin Spacey as Richard III at the Old Vic on my second night in London. And the production was pretty darn incredible.

I am not sure I could have had a better first day here. Now instead of spending the next 10 days worrying about where I'm going to live once the term starts I get to relax and explore London. I cant wait. Museums are free here, which is incredible, so I plan on going everywhere! I met a few other students yesterday, including at least one other student in my course, as well as my roommates. Hopefully we'll all get a chance to hang out and get to know each other better. I still have a lot to figure out with school, and learning how to live here. There is quite a lot that is different from the US that will take some getting used to. I need to get a phone and a bank account, figure out finances and get to know the metro system. I'm still a bit overwhelmed by everything, but I think its going to be an awesome year. I cant wait to get started with everything!