New flat

At long last I’m in my own flat. Well, my own room at least. So far it seems ok, although it is quite a bit louder outside than I thought it would be. It faces a courtyard, but it’s a courtyard where everyone enters and the noise really echoes. So right now I’m listening to a chorus of slamming doors, door buzzers, a howling dog, and airplanes flying over head. Hopefully once I get a loud fan it will drown out the noise. The planes are really loud flying overhead, I must be under a flight path. Oh, if only I wasn’t so neurotic about outside noise! Maybe I can train myself. At least I didn’t sign any kind of long-term lease, so I can always move if it gets to be too much.

I did make it to Benedict Arnold’s grave yesterday, after a long pilgrimage with Francis. It’s at this random church in Southwest London, nowhere near any tube stops. And it’s just this relatively unextraordinary grave in the cemetery next to it.

Flat hunting

Day three here in the UK, things have gone ok so far. I looked at some flats Friday and Saturday, and have settled on one in a pretty cool area right on the cusp of Clerkenwell and Holborn. There are a ton of bars and restaurants around, so it should pretty much be the polar opposite of Roosevelt Island! It’s a good location because it’s a 15 minute walk to work and a 15 minute walk to SoHo, basically right between the two. So no having to take the tube ever!

I looked at an apartment in the Barbican that was truly amazing. The Barbican is sort of like Roosevelt Island, a planned community with its own stores, a movie theater, arts center, etc. It was a gorgeous 4-bedroom apartment with some amazing modern amenities and a huge balcony. The other rooms were three guys. The only downsides were the room faced a fairly busy street, and it was the kind of deal where it was clear it would be heavily dependent on me getting on with my roommates. This other one in Holborn, on the other hand, is a very big bedroom in a 3-bedroom flat with no living room. So it will be kind of like my studio in Chelsea, sort of like having a studio with a shared kitchen and bathroom. The owner is an older Eastern European guy, and the other renter is a girl about my age who is also a finance journalist, and she seems nice and says she hardly ever sees the older guy. This other apartment also requires no long-term commitment, so I’m free to go at any time. The Barbican one required 6 months.

Land ho!

Well I'm officially here! They let me in and everything. I am now officially a UK legal worker, like a green card holder in the US. I wish the UK cards had some kind of cool color. Alas, they don't.

I narrowly missed catastrophe this morning when I was on my way to JFK Airport in a car service, and sudenly got the urge to check my info to make sure I was indeed taking off at JFK. I came to find out I most definitly was not, my plane was actually leaving from Newark. So I had to scream "Newark!! Turn around!!! It's Newark!!!" and we had to race through the tunnels, through Manhattan, over the NJTP, it was a mess. But, thanksfully, I made it. Thank god I checked otherwise I'd still be in New York tonight!

It's 3am here and I can't sleep. I felt bad that all my tossing and turning for the past 2 hours has been keeping Aaron, who I'm staying with, awake, so I just took an ambien and went into the living room to write a blog while I wait for it to kick in. Jet lag is tough.

Tomorrow hopefully SOMEONE will show me their flatshare, noone has been responding to me. I must not be selling myself very well, is it the American thing? Maybe they don't want to take on a foreigner. Maybe my search radius is just too small, but I really want a flat in Clerkenwell, where my office is. Maybe I just need to have a little patience.