London.. Feels like Home...

I mentioned to Rhiannon as we stood on the train heading back to our stamping ground of Willesden Green, that it felt amazingly like being home. In fact, more so that I suspect going back to Melbourne, or Canberra, or Wagga, or Albury would just now. I'm not too sure why.

Anyway, it was a long day once we left our gorgeous apartment in Paris, and you'll see below that getting back to stable accommodation here was a bit of a cock-up.. in fact we're not even there yet.


(I stole this from Rhiannon's email, as she wrote it, not I.)
Got to Willesden Green station and called for our pick-up as planned. Had to wait 45 mins in the rain (instead of the 15 we were told), as the guy went to the apartment instead of the station. So, already in a bad mood... we got to the apartment. The keys didn't seem to work and some were missing. There was a washing machine, but no dryer, the wifi didn't work in our room (because our room was off outside the main building), no microwave, etc. The guy there was really embarrassed and kept apologising and even saying that he'll talk to the office and we should call them because it was not what we paid for and not as advertised.

After he left we called the office and spoke (fairly sternly) to a guy there about our concerns. He did do his best to try and resolve the issue, and we're fairly happy with the outcome.

The are absolutely no studio apartments available at the moment (apart from that one - which, he even said we couldn't stay in... even for tonight). There is one in Kilburn available from the 26th. His only real option to help us was to pick us up and take us to another place with a much nicer room and all the amenities that we need (especially wifi), except it's just a room and there's shared bathrooms. At least there's several bathrooms and these are just for one person at a time and they lock. We can survive like this for a week. The room is actually quite large with a BIG bay window. Would be wonderful with an ensuite.

He then took us to see the Kilburn apartment to see if we want to sign a lease for that and transfer there on the 26th. The Kilburn apartment is 180 a week, instead of the 145 that we were going to be paying... but it is much larger (heaps bigger than the last place we had), Kilburn is really where we wanted to be (powers bar is right there, lots of shops, etc) and it's only a few minutes from the station... so all will work out in the end. We'll be happier being in that area and it's definitely worth the extra money... Just hope we can stay all year.


We then went out into the rain again to get Andy's clothes from the storage place. We got there and despite their website stating that they have extended hours from 6pm to 9pm every day so people don't have to take time off work to get stuff... it was closed. Fuck! So, back in the even heavier rain. Andy got soaked. And we have to go back again in the morning. Hopefully the rain has gone.