First Week in London

Shane and I were initially hesitate to start a blog; we didn’t know if we would have time to keep one up, but after being in London for a week, we decided a blog might be the easiest way to not only keep track of our life adventures abroad, but also share our adventures with family and friends.

Shane arrived in London on November 10^th and I arrived in London on November 19^th. As I am the one writing this post, we’ll start with my time here.

Martha, the pup, and I flew direct out of Chicago. Martha was a trooper. From what we could tell, she travelled great! Our flight landed at 11am and Martha cleared customs at 2pm. The process was very smooth.

Shane met us at the airport and took us back to our temporary housing in Kensington. Martha and I were exhausted from our travel so we slept, a lot -  we didn’t wake up until 10am on Friday!

On Friday, we explored Hyde Park while Shane worked. Martha quickly stood out as an American pup as she was the only pooch in the park on her lead (leash). London dogs are extremely well behaved and stay with their owners off-lead. We don’t trust Martha enough yet to let her off her lead but we hope we can get to that point.

On Saturday, we moved - by way of three Ubers - to our permanent housing located in Belsize Park. It was great that Shane was able to find us a flat so quickly as our temporary housing was tiny. Our agent showed Shane 13 flats across the Hampstead, Belsize Park, Primrose Hill, Regent’s Park, St. John’s Wood and Angel/Islington areas. We settled on the flat located in Belsize Park for one reason in particular – a garden for Martha! Belize Park is in northwest London located within the Camden Borough and is directly in-between Hampstead (to the north) and Camdentown (to the south). We are in walking to distance to both. We are also in walking to distance to two great parks, Hampstead Heath and Primrose/Regent’s park.  A fun fact about Belsize Park is that a handful of celebrities live in the area including Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Kate Hudson.

Other positives about our flat is that it is about a one minute walk to the tube station and has a second bedroom. We are hoping for lots of visitors! A negative about our flat is that it came unfurnished. We are in the process of collecting/ordering/shipping various pieces of furniture and hope to have a furnished flat by mid-December. Pictures of our unfurnished flat are below.

On Sunday, we did housekeeping things. Purchased WiFi, signed me up for a UK phone plan and had an unsuccessful trip to the supposedly equivalent of Target, John Lewis. The things that we needed to purchase were too expensive so we resorted to Amazon.

On Monday, I started work and Shane started his second week of work. On the work front, so far, so good. We both are slowly adjusting to our new jobs and settling into a routine.

Our biggest accomplishment of the week might be finding our ‘local,’ known as the pub you visit most frequently in your area. A pub called Sir Richard Steele is about a five-minute walk south towards Camden and they allow dogs. We have few other pubs to try out before we settle on our favorite but so far Sir Richard Steele is a front runner. See below for Martha and a pint.  

With the travel, move and work, it has been quite the week. We are very much looking forward to this weekend to explore the neighborhood (and go to IKEA).

Until the next post - Jen