Tuesday, November 23, 2010

11/20/10 Move-in Day!!!!

Well, I thought I hit "publish" when I was done with this but I guess it didn't work.  It's been sitting here ready to go.....now I need to catch up on the three days I missed!  

 Saturday move-in day!!! I could barely sleep last night, in fact I think I only got about four hours worth of rest.  I couldn't tell if I was nervous, excited, uncomfortable or what but sleep just wasn't happening.  Finally at 3:30 am I caved in and took a nyquil just to knock me out.  I had too big a day ahead of me and I couldn't be cranky and tired.  I'm such a little kid.
   Waking up wasn't too bad.  On the weekends the hotel serves breakfast till 10:30 so I hit snooze a dozen times then got my butt out of bed.  Eating breakfast alone was terribly boring so I quickly downed some eggs, mushrooms, special K, and my fair share of coffee.  I needed to be strategic with what I was going to carry over to the flat today.  I didn't want to take trips back and forth but I also didn't want to go empty handed, that would feel like a wasted trip.  I figured I could get laundry done so I packed a suitcase full of dirty laundry, towels, and bed linens and then headed over to Chiswick.
   The tube was crazy today so fussing around with a big suitcase was a tad annoying but nothing fell in the gap.  I minded the gap.  Chiswick is buzzing on the weekends apparently!  The sidewalks were filled and everyone was out shopping and eating and walking around. There's at least three daily fruit and veg stands set up in Chiswick.  The prices of produce look pretty good and I'm looking forward to having a mini farmers market a few blocks away.  I've become a veg snob after our CSA box an everything in the grocery store (home and here) just looks disappointing or fake.  But as I was saying.  Chiswick was movin and grovin today.  I quickly stopped in to the real estate place to pick up the keys and the contract.   It took me a good five minutes to figure out how to open the door to the flat.  To open it you have to jam the door handle DOWN really hard then on the way out to lock it you have to JAM it really hard up.  All in all the place looked good! It smelled like new paint and pizza (there's a pizza joint 5 feet from our front door).  I took my time looking around and making mental notes of things.  There was no office furniture for Sean.  No desk yet, no chair, no futon, but supposedly it's being delivered Monday.  The landlord had put up curtains, which we thought he wouldn't, so that was a nice surprise to see dark purple drapes.  Purple;  Sean's favorite color after poop brown.  The washing machine was installed in the utility room so I  dumped the stinky suitcase in front of it.  I headed upstairs to the kitchen/reception room.  What a cute table and chairs!!!! It's perfect!  They put a "couch" and "chair" up there too which made me literally laugh out loud when I sat down in them.  I don't know how to describe them.  First of all they had wheels on the bottom, which makes sense seeing that the landlord probably doesn't want to ruin the new floors, but you sit down and go flying across the floor.  They are so hard and stiff.  They are also incredibly tiny!  They are a good size though for my American Girl Doll.  Too bad I'm not 7 years old still. I don't think covering them in pillows and blankets will work.  So yeah, the kitchen looked great and I was shocked to see how much space we still had after everything was in there, granted the couches were mini size.
   Heading up to the third (technically called the 2nd) I held my breath.  The moment of truth.  What kind of bed did we get? My heart sank when I saw it. Our lease agreement said  we were going to get a king but there is no way that's a king, even here in London.  My king size sheets (which were freshly washed in the washing machine) from Tk-Maxx were hanging off the sides.  I don't mind a small bed but poor Sean has to deal with his feet hanging off the edge.   If I were him I'd be cranky about that.  I jumped on the bed, thinking that maybe it's at least a little bit comfortable.  I literally cried.  Now now, I know, I know, I'm spoiled with our nice fluffy couch and heavenly bed back home but this thing was AWFUL.  It made the rock hard hotel beds feel like a cloud.  I tried to cheer myself up by realizing that at least it was brand new and hadn't been used by numerous tenants before us.  Maybe I can get a dozen of so of those mattress pads to help cushion the coils that were jabbing into my rib cage.  I'm sorry if I'm sounding like a bed snob but after you have a good nights sleep on a good mattress and you wake up completely refreshed and happy you never want to sleep on anything else (unless you're camping!) There was one dresser in the room which again was very tiny.  Along with the bed and couches it too was on wheels.  I pushed it around and had some fun rearranging the room.  I also climbed into that little odd nook and discovered that I can spy on the neighbors from there! I felt like I was in Amelie when she watches the old man painting Renoir copies in the apartment across her.  It was exactly like that.  MMMmmm I wish I packed that movie, I have the urge to watch it now....such a happy colorful movie.
   I made my shopping list and headed out to Sainsbury, the supermarket that's just right around the corner.  It's a pretty decent store and it will be  nice to have a relatively cheap place close to home.  I bought laundry detergent, sponges, rags, soap, and a drying rack oh and reusable grocery sacks.  The flat was sill covered in a lot of construction dust so while doing laundry I planned on giving the place a good wash down.  I threw some laundry in without reading the instruction manual, because I hadn't found it yet, and got to work dusting.  I kept running back downstairs to check on the washing machine.  I was nervous it was going to flood, or catch fire or explode since I just dumped in detergent, pressed buttons then turned some dials.  About an hour into the first load I found the instruction manual hiding in the cupboard and realized that it was also a dryer!!! Gah! After I bought a fancy schmancy drying rack! This whole time we were told it was going to be just a washer.  Well that was a pleasant surprise but I'll still use the drying rack, in fact I left it full of laundry to dry overnight, figuring I'll save some electricity.
   I made sure the fridge was working.  It was. It was cold.  It also made a low growling sound like a dinosaur, but I didn't mind.  It reminded me of 27 Anawan, that fridge made noises sometimes.  I tested the stove top, yup put my hand on the burner while it warmed up, but was at least smart enough to remove it once I felt the slightest bit of heat.  The showers worked. The toilets flushed. Check, check and check.  The kitchen has a little mini balcony thingy with cute french door that open up so I flung those open to make sure they worked.  There's an insane amount of light switches in that place so it'll take a while to get used to them. I'm excited for Sean to see the place and can't believe he's missing move in day!
   Right now I'm sitting in the hotel lounge, as usual, drinking a glass of wine, minding my own business when in walks in a very interesting group of folks.  They're all dressed up...there's a smurf, Mini Mouse, Batman, Popeye, Luigi, Mario, Sleeping Beauty and a girl wearing the Twister spinner board on her head.  Interesting. Not sure what that's about......
  Cheers! Goodnight! Last night in the hotel!

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