Sunday, 24 January 2010

The move

Yesterday was the day I moved out of Dorothy and Alan's house in Princes Risborough and into Hampstead in London. I was quite sad to leave and I think they were a bit disappointed too.

Luckily, because I'm a smartie, I had already taken some of my luggage to the new place so I didn't have to carry around too much for the move. It was still one very very heavy thing to drag around and I am thankful for all the nice guys who asked if I needed help up and down the stairs in the underground because I sure as heck did. So the train from Princes Risborough left at 2:06 and I got into London at 3, dragged my stuff into the underground. I like the way that sounds... into the underground. Okay, sorry, anyways I had found out last week that there were going to be some major workings done on the tube lines and that many of them were inoperable in spots. Well could you take a guess at which one wasn't working? Mine? Pretty much. I was able to take the tube to a certain point but then I had to drag my luggage out of the building and over to the bus stop so they could finish the route.

Eventually I made it to my stop, and walked onto the main road (Hampstead High Street) which was packed with people. The street is so cute. It's lined with lots of stores, a fruitstand!!!, and a quite a bit of restaurants. The flat is also pretty nice. There's no lounge, unfortunately, but it has a kitchen, bathroom, separate toilet, a kitchen table in the hallway area, and 3 bedrooms. Mine is very TINY. I can deal with that no problem though. It's not like I have a lot of belongings. From the window in my room, I can see part of Hampstead High Street which is neat, although I've noticed that it can get pretty loud and I hear almost everything on the street-cars and people. I think the windows are paper thin. The kitchen has everything but a dishwasher which I can deal with. It also has...get this...a 2 in 1 washer and dryer! I am totally psyched about that. Who knew they made such things? I did a load of clothes last night, and it goes through it's cycles and when it turns off, your clothes are dry- no switching of clothes from one machine to another, no forgetting about your clothes in the washer and then when you need them they're still wet, and no pressing buttons to change from washer to dryer. Lovely.

After I dragged my crap inside, I left to explore the street and look for a grocery store. It's really quite a lovely area (as I'd been told). Only problem was at that point is was 4:40 and most shops close at 5. Can you believe on a Saturday shops closing at 5? Such a bummer... I walked into a couple stores just to have a look around. Everything here is just so expensive so I haven't bought anything for myself yet. Eventually I came across a grocery store. Their stores are so weird. All their fruits and vegetables are packed in bags or plastic containers which is odd to me. Even bananas are wrapped in plastic. Why? Groceries here are really cheap (except probably not if I converted the price into US dollars). I'm excited about finding weird British recipes to cook.

My flatmates are quite nice. Eleanor works at the same school where I'm interning. She seems a bit quiet or shy, I'm not sure which yet. The other isn't either and she'll talk a lot. I have trouble understanding her accent. Last night we were talking and had mentioned that Eleanor might not be around saturday. She said that Eleanor's friend was around, but because of her accent I heard that Eleanor's friend had drowned, so I'm like oh no that's horrible! She looked at me funny and then I realized that wasn't what she meant. Ha! At least it was funny. Aren't accents just great?

So today is my day to explore Hampstead. I'm planning to go to Hampstead Heath which is supposed to be gorgeous.

Until next time,
Britt

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