Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day
KIDiddles: Song Lyrics: Home on the Range
The joys of apartment/flat hunting. Currently, I live in Wimbledon, which is about an hour commute from LBS. The morning would not be a problem, in fact, it would be quite nice. Same routine, same gym but just take the overland train instead of the tube each day. One change at Waterloo and onto Baker Street each day. Grab a coffee at a local shop and things would be peachy. Maybe even keen.
But, it’s the evening that causes concern. See, unlike New York City or other large metropolitain towns, the London Underground stops running around 11.30 pm each evening so if we have a long study evening or decide to get a drink after a meeting then I’m either having to leave the group early (that sucks, we paid good money to make new friends) or drop a fortune on cab rides home. Ugh.
So, the search begins. In fact, it began a couple months ago but at a casual pace. Now the pace has quickened. Alissa is pretty much in charge because I tend to have personality conflicts with the erogant, self-centred careless jerks who tend to be estate agents. See, where I come from most agents work for the person looking for the apartment but not here.
It’s oh so different. The agents officially work for the landlords and it’s a sellers market so they could care less if we take a place or not.
Today was especially fun because the agent allowed a second group to come along with us during our appointment. One time a guy in Charlotte told me a grit my teeth when upset so I wasn’t surprised by the tention headache after that experience.
Over the next couple weeks I’m going to start compiling a list estate agent speak. Stuff like, ‘ yes this is a quiet neighborhood’ means there’s only a little gunfire at night or ‘no, this road is rarely used’ actually means only 20 cars travel it per 15 minute block.
We saw some nice apartments today but haven’t found the one just yet. Either two weird like the toilet sitting right in front of the shower or too loud but we’ll find one soon.
