Tuesday, November 16, 2010

11/15/10

    8 a.m. and I forced myself out of bed and into the shower.  MUST. FIGHT. THE. ODD. HOURS.  At this point I'm thinking my tired mornings are due more to the uncomfortable beds and hard pillows than the jet lag.  I miss our bed and blankets and pillows.  I have been trying to remember where exactly in the POD we put our bed stuff....probably not too far in since it was the last stuff to get packed up.
   Today we hung out in Chiswick waiting unpatiently to hear from Lindsay.  We strolled down Chiswick High Road imagining ourselves living here and happy with our choice of neighborhood.  The area reminds me of Jamaica Plain with the families and little kids (makes you feel like it's a relatively safe place to live) but it has the shopping and busyness of somewhere like Harvard Square.  There are so many shops and boutiques!  We already found a yoga place that we want to visit daily and restaurants we want to dine at.  Unfortunately we had about 5 hours to kill before meeting with Lindsay so we set about hopping from coffee shop to coffee shop where we relaxed, read and did lots of people watching.  The night before I bought a book all about the River Thames.  This was in line with my attempt to learn all I could about where I was.  "Thames, Sacred River" by Peter Ackroyd, is a hefty book with everything you need to know about the river and it's a lot more interesting than it sounds!  I read all day while Sean ran around doing some errands.  He checked out about getting a phone for me and switching his carrier service over to someone in London.  We also need to get a local bank. 

   We met with Lindsay at 4 and she showed us the flat again.  We actually have three options to pick from.  There are four identical townhouse type flats built in one block together.  It's a new build nestled behind the shops and restaurants on the high street.  The owner was renovating all four.Ssomeone has moved into the middle and the other three were almost done.  They just need to install a cooker and the refrigerator, plus some cleaning then it will be ready for us to move into.  We liked two of the units, both on opposite ends.  Since they are identical units it came down to which one had the best overall feel.   In the end we decided on the one that seemed to be most open to the street.  The other end one looked out into a shop and it's trash . Gross.  After taking a good amount of time inspecting the place once more we headed back to the office to sign paperwork.  It was quite a long contract but Sean worked out everything and got it all in order.  The only thing we were still unsure on was what furniture they would give us.  We gave them our wish lists of things we needed and crossed our fingers in hopes that we would get what we needed.  Once again, it felt like a big step forward but we still won't be worry free til we hear back that the landlords agreed to our furnishings and we're all moved in to our snuggley London home.  It will surely be cozy!
   After our meeting it was short tube ride back to Putney for dinner and more work for Sean.  We are getting into a nice routine of going out all day to get errands done then coming back and working on our laptops next to the warm radiator.  Our quiet hotel lounge and bar seemed to be buzzing tonight though.  We were working away quietly, sipping our spirits, only to be interrupted by a loud, talkative, too-cool dude.  From eaves dropping we figured out that he worked for the Kooks and was in town working on something for their show this upcoming Thursday.  This guy was a talker.  He talked the poor bar tenders ear off.  He wouldn't leave the nice Blegium tourist lady alone.  Then he caught Sean's ear when he went to the bar to order another beer.  I don't even know how to describe the rest of the conversation.  We introduced ourselves, but could barely catch his name through his thick and half drunk accent.  I think it was Welshie...or at least that's what Sean and I keep calling him.  He was an interesting character originally from Wales but now living in Toronto and got excited when we told him we were from Boston.  We connected over the fact that we knew where the Middle East music venue was and how Welshie worked on a show there once for Tokyo Police Club.  Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if he told us exactly what he does for these groups.  There was something about managing, then guitars and saxaphones.  Who knows!  As we continued to share stories he got more and more opinionated which I'm sure his beers encouraged.  Sean ordered a beer and Weslshie told him he was drinking bad beer. Welshie was drinking Corona which was obviously the best beer ever.  We told him where we were looking to live and Welshie told us we were living in the wrong area and paying 10 times too much.  He made fun of my purple crocs and Sean's sweater.  Um rockstar dude, we're in a Best Western hotel lounge, why don't you go party with the Kooks if we're not cool enough for you? Needless to say, everything we were doing, drinking, eating, and wearing was wrong according to Welshie.  He was amusing for a while and I was secretly hoping to get some Kooks tickets out of him but I'm glad it was 10 and our bedtime.  We said goodnight to the lovely bar tender lady and gave drunk Welshie a hug.  Oh oh oh I forgot my favorite part.  Welshie was talking how after this show he's flying back to Toronto and going up North to spend winter in his cabin.  Sean asked if he was married and Welshie pointed to the ring on his right hand.  We were both confused why it was on the right hand but he quickly informed us that his left hand is his guitar hand and that his real wedding ring flew off during a show so then the Kooks bought him a new one which he now wears on his right hand.  Ohhhhhhh Welshie!

2 comments:

  1. Hey Carla,
    Great blog! I looked up Chriswick in Google and Wikipedia says 'It was historically an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, with an agrarian and fishing economy." I think that is cool cause East Hampton is in Middlesex county too! Hope all is well. We will need your mailing address state side soon!

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  2. JAMAICA PLAIN in LONDON -- sounds like heaven to me! love and miss :)

    - lolo

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