We’re in the final countdown (why, oh why, does my head insist on immediately going into 80’s hair band mode as soon as I hear that phrase? It’s just not right) for our move into our long-term flat over in Kensington. Wait, scratch that. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. There, doesn’t that just go trippingly along the tongue?
I haven’t been posting much because, well, we’ve been busy. You know, moving continents and all. Well, us moving. Not us moving continents in a continental drift kind of way. I can barely get The Max to go to bed when it’s time; there’s no way I could get Europe to budge an inch.
We have nothing. Literally. Just some clothes and some toys for The Max. We’ve been looking at kitchen things and have finally decided on some towels (multi-colored, if you were interested) and two pillows. Everything else we own is still back in Chicago and, at this point, we’re not sure what we’re going to wind up moving over here. The furniture we have left is definitely not coming. My books? Doubtful. When we go back for a wedding in March, we’ll probably just get the rest of our clothes and more Max toys.
Which leaves us with…nothing. Does it even make sense to bring over any of our kitchen things? Probably not. What about our artwork? Therein lies the rub. Our collection of artsy stuff is really what makes our place…our place. My giant hanging frog. Our paintings and photographs. The big dragon for our mantle (of which we have none now, instead having just this flowerly wall-papered fake fireplace area sans mantle). My dad’s chess clock. Things like that. Perhaps we just store it all since we have to keep a storage area anyway and collect it when we go back to the states, whenever that is.
Of course, what happens if we decide to stay expats? I dunno. My life right now actually seems like a giant ball of “I Don’t Know.” Which is better than a giant ball of suck, so I suppose I can’t complain. I can just wonder.
We did buy Max a box of Legos to hold him over so he’s good.
But I guess I should share some of the interesting stuff, right? Rather than just general kvetching? We have been trying lots of restaurants, though quite a few were chains (just not chains that we’re familiar with) because they were open during the holidays. The UK shuts down quite a bit over the Christmas / New Year’s timeframe.
But I have to say, even the largish chains do things pretty well here (at least the ones we went to). Let’s see, there was a great meal at Zizzi (an Italian place) with a great Spanish waiter named Jorge. He was very friendly and told us his fav spot in the area is Camden. That’s definitely on my list to visit. Then there was Nando’s, which wasn’t anything like I thought it was going to be (and probably my least favorite of the places we tried, though the chicken was pretty good). Pommodoro Rosso (i.e. Red Tomato) over near our new place which had some AMAZING freshly sugared and nutella-d doughnuts. Oh my heavens, they were good. Everything else was good too and the staff there were friendly. And Pizza Express, which actually has very nice pizza, even though it sounds like a terrible place just based on the name. And…um, Patara, a really nice Thai place with what Tony called the best curry he’s ever had. There are only three or so of those, so it’s not a huge chain at least. Then a lovely French-style bakery called Pain Q-something-or-other which I would not at all have thought it was a chain except everywhere we go we run into another one. One place that wasn’t a chain was called Napket and they claim to be Snob Food. The food wasn’t bad, but service definitely wasn’t great and the overall experience there doesn’t make me want to try it again. Um, and also the Haha Bar and Grill. I’m not sure why it’s got such a funny name (ha, ha), but it was okay. Mostly The Max ate there, but he gobbled up the fish and chips, so that was a success. Oh, and Tony has been picking up meat from Jamie Oliver’s Barbecoa butcher shop and I gotta say, YUM. Well, you know, after it’s been cooked. I’m sure I’m forgetting some places, but that’s all the ones I can think of off the top of my head. London is a great town for foodies and I can’t wait to explore some non-chain restaurants.
Thank heavens we have no car and have been walking tons. Otherwise I’d already weigh a bazillion pounds.
Anyway, that’s it for now. I will try and be better about updating, though it will be easier after the 12th when we get real Internet again. The Vodafone dongle thingy works, but sometimes it is terribly slow.
P.S. There will be no pictures for the forseeable future as our Samsung camera is once again on the fritz and I had to send it all the way to New Jersey to get it fixed. Hopefully they can fix it. Hopefully they won’t try to claim it’s out of warranty when we’ve only had it 9 months (and this is their second time fixing it). Hopefully my sister won’t mind sending it back to us (we had to put in a US address, since Samsung wouldn’t send it back to us here in London).
Though I guess that ditches my excuse to buy new clothes….hm.