Boulder to London

So we arrived in London almost a week ago.  We spent the first few days getting over the jet lag, or maybe we were just recovering from a solid month on the road.  We couldn’t view properties on Monday because apparently it takes a day to set up properties to view and if you do it on Friday, you risk them not being available on Monday as things tend to come and go quickly.  The piece of this that I can’t figure out is that as near as I can tell, letting agents generally don’t work weekends (we have tried to set up showings for the weekend and that isn’t possible).  In any case, we spent Monday cruising around London.  We met with the Art Academy where Melisse will be going to school and it looks like a pretty cool place.  She will be one of about eight people in the new class and one of about twenty-five people in the three year program when she starts.  We also had the opportunity to run over to my office to pick up a UK compatible cell phone that they were nice enough to provide me prior to the first day of work.  While Monday was nice, we were really itching to see some apartments and get settled.  We were told that we would be picked up at 10:00 on Tuesday to see places. 

Tuesday morning came and we were picked up as promised.  We headed to an area called the Docklands where we saw a number of nice new places that were available immediately.  The problem is that we didn’t really like the area.  It was nice enough, but it was also empty.  There were some office buildings going up, but it really didn’t have any of the history or activity that we came to London for.  We also noticed that most people we met will pretty much agree with you whatever you say.  When we said we wanted to see the Docklands, people said it was nice.  As soon as we said we didn’t like it, they said they would never live there and told us all the things they didn’t like about it.  We must have seen 30 apartments that day with the last one being in the city in an area called Borough.  It was a great location, but we really didn’t like the apartment.  We returned home worn out and a bit demoralized from the day.  We set out into the neighborhood and found a fun pub with an outdoor beer garden.  The sun was shining so we sat outside.  After a few pints of Guinness we decided tomorrow would surely be better.

On Wednesday we got a late start as we had scheduled a lunch with a few of my new co-workers.  The lunch was nice, the co-workers were great and it reinforced that this was going to be a wonderful place to work.  Once lunch was completed, we dropped by another office to pick up the original copy of my work permit that I would need to get my visa and entry clearance.  We picked up the document and headed to the meeting spot for another round of apartment shopping.  Today we focused on an area called Clapham.  We say about fifteen apartments and found two that we liked.  Since we hadn’t really had the opportunity to talk over any of the places, and the relocation person was on his way out of town for a wedding in Belgium, we decided to take the night to talk it over and make an offer in the morning.  We had been warned repeatedly about how quickly places can go and we were both feeling a little anxious.

On Thursday morning we woke up, had some coffee and started calling the office at 9:00 to place our offer.  We couldn’t get anyone to answer the phone until well after 9:15 and the person we were told to talk to, Johnny, was not available.  We left a message to have him call us.  About an hour or so later, Johnny called back and we let him know which property we were interested in.  There were a few things we wanted to discuss such as move the move in date and the furnishings, so he put in a call to the letting agent to find out some details.  We waited all day before calling the office at 4:00 to see what was happening.  We were told that the landlord objected to one of the clauses in the contract and that the move in date would have to be in early August.  We told Johnny to go ahead with it.  Johnny called back a little later and told us that the landlord wanted to get back to us tomorrow morning.  We said that was fine, but the earlier the better since we were leaving town and wanted to put an offer in on a second place if this one was not available.  We called into the office around 10:00 on Friday to see what the status was.  Johnny was with another client and we were told that we’d get a call back soon.  About 11:00, we got a call back, but the message was that they were still waiting for the landlord.  We waited another few hours and finally called back around 2:00.  Johnny was with another client and we could not reach him.  We decided to take the time to head down to the neighborhood that the apartment was in.  We found that the neighborhood was not quite as great as we thought it was.  The tube stop was a little further away than we thought; the main street was also not very close.  While we liked the apartment, we started to have second thoughts and eventually decided that we didn’t really like the neighborhood at all.  Now rather than checking the phone to see if Johnny called, we actually hoped that our offer would not be accepted. 

We left the first neighborhood on the tube and traveled north to look at our second choice.  The neighborhood was much better.  People were out and about, the apartment was on a good street, the park was crowded, and we found a large variety of pubs and restaurants within a short walk of the place.  As we walked the phone finally rang about 4:30.  It was Johnny letting us know that the first apartment was not available as the landlord had accepted another offer for a two year lease.  We told him we were very disappointed, but that we would like to put an offer in on our second choice.  He called back about an hour later to let us know that our second choice was not available either as it had been pulled off the market by the owner because his relocation to a new job had been cancelled.  By this point, it was too late to see any other places, put in any more offers, or otherwise make any progress in finding a place.  We found a pizzeria on the way home, had some dinner and returned to our apartment to pack for our early morning departure.  We’ll return to London in a few weeks to make another run at it.  Hopefully our next few outings will yield better results!