Final frenzy

The movers/packers showed up bright and early this past Monday morning, and left us an empty house around 4pm. (Photos to follow in a couple of days.)

Hank and I had spent the better part of the weekend sorting things into air (5-15 days arrival), surface (4-6 weeks arrival) and storage (don't see it till 9/07) piles. We only got 250lbs of air shipment so we really had to figure out what essentials we'd need for about a month. We over-shot by only 10lbs (I had thought it'd have been a lot more, actually), so it worked out alright.

Tuesday and all this morning I've been running some last errands, packing up my desk at work, waiting for the visas to be delivered (which they just were - yay!), and so on. It's definitely been pretty crazy!

Anyway, I am really excited to finally be going! It seems strange, like it's just a very, very long vacation (except for the whole having to work thing). I'll miss everyone a lot, but I know the year will go by a lot faster than I think it will...and we look forward to having lots of visitors while we're there!

One more week

We have a flat! OK, so we sorts 'had' the flat before, but I've finally received all of the documents and lease agreements for it. It's the last really major portion of our move that hadn't been truly signed off on. We'll be living in an area called Westbourne Grove. It's a 5 minute walk from two separate tube stations on 3 different tube lines, which makes it really easy to get anywhere else in the city. There are tons of restaurants, small grocery stores and even -count'em- TWO cooking supply shops within a 2 minute walk! There isn't a very large full service grocery store within walking distance, but so many stores deliver for a low fee that we can stock up on bulky or heavy items maybe once per month and just pick up fruit, vegetables and other fresh stuff at the smaller markets near the flat.

This weekend's plans (besides celebrating Hank's bday) are a lot of sorting things into piles according to shipping method (air vs land/sea), packing and generally getting more organized. The packers show up bright and early Monday morning, and we'll de-camp to my dad and step-mom's house until we leave on Thursday.

In other news, I was officially granted the UK work permit early this week, and I shipped off the permit, marriage certificate, passports other omg-please-don't-lose-it documentation to the British consulate for our visas. We can't leave until we get those back, and the timing is a bit tight, so please think positive thoughts. (How embassies get away with working 5 hours a day is beyond my comprehension. I totally need that gig.)

T-minus 10....

So we're 10 days from leaving. The number of to-do items on my list seems to grow at exactly the same rate at which it's shrinking. We're itemizing, sorting, estimating, tossing and donating. Addresses are changed, VOIP setup (we'll still have a working 408 phone number), documents signed, checklists re-checked. And with our friends, we're dining, hugging, and saying "maybe we'll squeeze in one last visit before we go."

Reality that this really is happening is setting in. I'm excited and stressed (very close to Scary-Fun for those from early Ariba days). It is funnily like going off to college as a freshman; it's a new and bigger world where things work differently, but it's sure to be an adventure.

Hank and I will be sending out email with our new address/phone number within the next few days. Our ability to be reached via phone/cell may start to get a bit spotty next week as we transfer and close up accounts, so electronic means would probably be the best way to make sure a message gets to us. We fly out Thursday 8/31 (arriving Friday) and hopefully will be all set to move into the new flat!

Doin' the Electric Slide

One of my recent debates has been whether or not I bring my KitchenAid mixer and food processor with me to the UK and buy a step-down power transformer. The transformer converts the 220v to 110v, but European wattage runs at different cycles than US appliances. Using the power of the internet, I've found just as many "it works great for us" stories as I'm seeing "we tried it and it blew out the motor of our mixer" ones.

I've discovered Craigslist for London, but don't see any for sale right now (although it could be a great place to dispose of a 220v one before I leave?).

Are there any electrical engineers in da house?? And no, as much as I try to save electricity, a wooden spoon and a hand-whisk is *not* a viable alternative. I do knead my own bread, but hand whipping 2 cups of heavy cream is not the workout I'd choose.

Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin

So, now that I'm back in California, the bulk of the relocation work is starting to kick into high gear. I've had the moving company come buy to estimate how much we'll be air shipping and how much will go by "ground" (a 20' sea container). I'm really glad to have the flat figured out and know what furniture/cooking supplies/other miscellaneous junk we'll need to bring with us. The flat will only have the basic furniture (sofa, dining set, coffee table, beds, and typical-British-not-enough-space closets. The rest will be up to us.

Most of the rest of our belongings will go into storage for the time we're away. We're trying to divest ourselves of a couple of automobiles (anyone want a VW Jetta or bus? or both? We'll strike a really great deal if you take 'em both...) and sorting through drawers and closets for a big drop to Goodwill. I know we'll get back home next year and look through all the stuff we haven't needed for a year and wonder what to do with it, but I always have a hard time getting rid of things before moving. True that it does make more sense to get rid of things before having to lug them around, but since I'm blissfully NOT doing the packing this time, my motivation is not quite as strong.

Homes Sweet Homes

We've got a flat! We're still finalizing the paperwork with the letting agents, and I'm in a sort of weird limbo state with the US and UK bank accounts, but for the most part we're there. It's nice to have a major piece of the puzzle figured out. I've posted a couple of pictures on Flickr, but I have to say, it was definitely the kitchen that sold me. ;)

The building is still being built - the photos I posted are of the flat one floor above us. Our flat is not quite finished, but it'll be ready (fingers crossed) by the time we move around Sept 1. The landlord agreed to furnish it (a surprising number of places around here are rented with furniture), and allowed me to pick out the furniture. I spent most of yesterday dealing with pre-moving details - measuring the flat for the furniture, picking it out, and banking.

Ooh, banking.

Dealing with banks in the US is not one of my favorite activities. Trying to deal with 3 banks across 2 countries definitely counts as even lower on that list. I called the UK branch of the bank today to try and arrange for the deposit to be paid to the landlord, but since my account was setup last week, I don't have the bank card, just the account number. Every one of the three times I've called the UK bank to ask them if I can setup payment, or get online of access to see if the deposit has been made to the account, I explain I don't have the card so I can't gain access to my account online. And then each time they ask me to verify my card number. Ummmm...

I also have to say that for money to be all electronic these days, no electrons move slower than the ones belonging to banks.

I'm hopping a plane tomorrow to fly back to the States. It's been a long trip and I'm ready to be going home. But after the last three weeks here, London is also really starting to feel like home as well. I'll have to start thinking of a new definition of what I call home.

Flat world

I know I’ve been in London a whole week and a half and I haven’t updated yet… part of the reason is that I’ve been waiting for something interesting to happen. I’ve been busy working and interviewing scads of people last week. A few folks were in from the Mountain View office to help, so we had a few group dinners (I highly don’t recommend figuring out how to split a bill 20 ways, with some of them paying with credit and no one else having the right amount of change). But I’ve gotten to know more people from the London office, and had a first meeting with the developers coding the projects I’ll be working on over the next year.

Today I met with the relocation specialist who showed me a number of different flats in different areas of the city. Mostly I’ve been interested in Marylebone which has a really nice, quiet high (translation: main shopping/market) street and shady tree-lined residential areas. We also looked at some flats on Westbourne Grove in the Kensington area. Just as in the US, flats are priced based on location, building amenities (one I looked at had a plasma screen TV, a good sized pool, gym, sauna and *gasp* a free parking space!), distance from the high street or tube station, etc. The same priced flat in one area was brand new with a very modern kitchen and had tons of space, while others in a different part of the city had teeny matchbox bedrooms and dark kitchens. Because London is such an old city, they tried to make the best use of space as possible, and some buildings have flats below ground level. I looked at a few of those because they often have more room for the money, but the trade off for available light probably is too much for my taste.

London has been having a heat wave since I arrived – it’s been very humid and in the 80s and 90s every day. On Saturday it felt more like New York City when the day gave way to a mid-day rain storm to cool things down a bit. Everyone here keeps telling me how rare it is, how much I should enjoy it because it won’t last. Having always lived in California, I know I take for granted that we can keep the windows open most of the year and that it’s consistently sunny. So when I’m touring flats today and thinking how dark it is, I have to believe it’ll feel about 100x more so in mid-February when I haven’t seen the sun for more than 5 minutes since September. I have to say that although I know I’ll miss the warmth, I am really ready for the temp in the tube to get down below 85 degrees at 9am in the morning (and worse that evening!).

Start of a visit

I arrived in London Thursday morning and was checked into my hotel by about 1pm. Unfortunately the guy on the flight next to me who was insanely fidgety and the turbulence, I didn't sleep much at all. I slept for about 12 hours last night so I'm feeling pretty decent today, thankfully.

The hotel I'm staying at is in Kensington, and I haven't had much time to explore the area yet, but there are tons of nice looking bistros, small grocery stores, a nice Waitrose grocery store just past the tube stop (sort of on par with Whole Foods quality but less organic/natural-ish) and some independent shops. The sheer lack of independent retail stores here was a shock - all of the High (main) streets in the towns have the same chain stores, so there's little in the way of local character. But Kensington seems to be a bit different and definitely more "posh."

The plan for this weekend is to go on an area tour with Allen, a co-worker expat who moved here about 2 months ago. He was even kind enough to bring me a little present - a book on learning to understand the Brits, both in behavior and cultural nuance. There's an incident with some pants he related to me that hopefully I will just learn vicariously.

You're so money...

I've had the pleasure of gaining some understanding of how confusing taxes are when you're an expat. There are specific residency rules for California, the US and the UK - depending on the number of days you work in a certain country you're eligible to pay certain taxes, etc. The bonus is that I get out of doing my taxes for two years! Woo!

I'm heading to London for 3 weeks starting the 13th, and I'm going to get started opening the various bank accounts I'll need. My current bank doesn't have any European branches, so I'll be setting up a US account and a UK account with a bank that does. I will be paid in US$ (pray for a strong dollar!) and will then have to transfer money between accounts whenever I get paid. This should get interesting, with my luck dealing with banks lately. (For those who missed it, when I was in the UK last time, my bank turned off ATM access to all UK ATMs 3 days before I left even though I'd told them I was leaving, and took over a week mailing me a new card. I was able to withdraw cash if I went into a bank branch and asked them to do a cash advance against the credit card portion, but found this out Saturday at 3pm in a small English town where banks didn't open again until Monday morning and had already checked into a B&B that didn't take credit cards. Grrrr.)

Complimentary customer service... for a fee

Hank and I are jet-setting a fair bit before we move in September. We're heading to Kentucky next week for 5 days to visit Hank's family (and I'm hoping to taste some really excellent BBQ!). I'll be in London for work/flat-hunting from July 12 - Aug 3. Although Hank is invited to come with me to look for flats, I think he's opting out of the trip. I mean, being cramped into uncomfortable plane seats for 10 hours to be hauled around house-hunting just to fly back 10 hours and then have to do the flight all over again in less than a month - seriously, I just cannot understand why he wouldn't want to go! :P

Most of you are aware that I test software for a living, and let me just say that for my recent efforts attempting to book a ticket with British Airways, I found a few doozie bugs and was charged $20 extra for my efforts. (I'm kinda used to getting paid for that skill, so this was a shocker.) I was getting an error message on the booking page attempting to pay for the ticket, so I called two different help lines, and after an eternity on hold, spoke with a woman who told me to try it with a different browser. Sure, no problem - I went through it, still happens. She tried it on her system, and found a ticket $500 more than what I was seeing. I tried it again on my system, and this time, the SFO - LHR ticket price showed up as $-41!! Somehow it does seem fitting that airlines should pay you to fly on them. The return ticket price turned out to be the full price of the round-trip ticket plus the missing $41. So it still came out to be the same price.

No, it didn't let me 15 one-way tickets.
Yes, BA did charge me $20 to book the ticket with the "helpful" website support person to book the ticket because their website sucks. Gotta love customer service.

London calling!

I've been asked by work to head to London for a year to help build and get my team started across the pond. Woot! It's something I've been wanting to do for years, and Hank was willing to make another huge move for me, so here we go! My start date is September 1, 2006.

I will post to this blog periodically over the next 18 months or so to document our moving process, our adventures living in the UK and traveling abroad.

Here's the FAQ of what we know so far:
Who's going?
Me and Hank at first.

But what about those adorable, well-behaved kitties of yours?
If we don't want to put the cats in quarantine, they have to wait until 6 months after a rabies shot & blood test they got about a month ago. So they will be staying with some friends of ours in Mt View until about November when they'll come over.

How often will you be back?
I may fly back somewhat more frequently for work; I'll let you know when that happens. Hank and I also get one trip back we'll have to use before March. Again, I'll let you know what we schedule. We will most likely spend the holidays over in the UK.

What will you do with the house?
Dunno yet - we might rent it, we might not.

Where in London will you live?
I'm heading over there in July for a few weeks and will look for places while I'm there. Many flats come furnished, so most of our stuff will be in storage.

Will there be a spare room? Cuz I'm totally coming to visit!
We'll definitely look for a 2 bedroom place. No worries. Reservations will be on a first-ask first-served basis. ;)

What'll Hank be doing?
That's still being sorted out. He'll have a work visa for England, so no slacking for him, even if he says it's for "research".