We have arrived... a retrospective.

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Geo: 51.3287, 1.41078

So we arrived November 15th, Thursday. The ride over was not all that for being business class. Food was not great, movie selection stunk but I did get sleep. Probably because I was exhausted! It was a bit of a fiasco at the airport before leaving. We were allowed two 70lb pieces, one 30lb piece checked. Plus one carry-on. That's each. This was a good thing as we had all the loose ends from the house plus a bunch of beer for friends plus clothes, bedding, air mattress, etc. Well, we ended up being those people at the airport with luggage open on the floor trying to decrease the weight of certain pieces of luggage. Somehow we managed to get it all in. Although the fear of broken beer bottles soaking our pillows haunted us.

Once through passport control.... Stamp, stamp, "work permit, please", stamp. We were in like flint. We have arrived! Got the rental car, a Vauxhall something or other. Started driving, it should take us about 1.5 hours to get there. We arrived in Ramsgate about an hour before our appointment to check into White Cliffs so off to the pub we went. The Artillery Arms is a block away so we popped in for a pint of Guinness. That's when it hit me... this overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. After our pint we went over to the house and checked in with a person from the letting agency and Louise from Locate. The place was freezing! Don't turn the heat on or anything! All looked good. Louise then took us up to the local HSBC in town to open our accounts. In the States this process should be somewhat quick, here it took forever. We deposited our traveler's checks, got some cash and were off. Louise offered to take us to get phones but we (I) was spent so we came home and started blowing up our bed. I was starving and Locate was kind enough to bring us a small bag of groceries, cheese, crackers, milk, eggs, cereal, jam, etc. They forgot one essential things.... Utensils! We had nothing to eat with. I had cheese and crackers but needed something more substantial. We brought peanut butter with us (heard theirs sucked) so I decided to make a PB&J, with a cracker as a knife. I forgot that the peanut butter we brought was natural so it required some stirring, not going to happen with a cracker. My darling husband suggested washing then using scissors... BRILLIANT! I managed to make a PB&J with scissors. Once I had something in my stomach I needed to nap. Steve let me get in about two hours before his boredom forced him to wake me. I'm glad he did, I needed to get on the proper time. We went for a walk toward town and found another pub, Churchill's Tavern, so we went in. Huge place but quiet at the main bar. We had a pint and then went back home to get more sleep. Which we did until 10:30 the next morning!!

Friday we got our air shipment. Yea, utensils!! Steve made us a fabulous breakfast with the food Locate had brought. Now off to get phones. There is a "mall" here in Thanet (that's what they call this little peninsula we are on) called Westwood Cross. They have everything. Louise told us that many shops have moved out of the towns to Westwood, kind of sad. We went to CarPhone Warehouse. Now, let me explain that because we are new to this country we don't have any credit rating. It's like starting over. Regardless of how great your credit was in the States, it means nothing now. We wanted a plan not pay as you go. Pay as you go offers decent rates to the US (5p per min) but is expensive to call in the UK (50p per min). I will cut to the chase, three and a half hours later we got phones! We had to leave £150 each as a deposit that we will get back in six months provided we pay our bill. Steve commented to the nice Brit helping us, "This sort of thing would have happened in the US twenty years ago." The Brit replied, "Welcome to the UK." Speechless. We also stopped at PC World while up at Westwood. Steve forgot to pack the power supply and converter for the computer speakers. This may seem trivial but his plan was to hook up Guitar Hero so that he and Beth could play on Thanksgiving. We must have speakers. On the way home we stopped at the library to try to get on the net. The Ramsgate library is in temporary housing which I recently found out is because the old building burnt. They are rebuilding though. Couldn't get internet but we got our library cards and Steve took out his first book. Gordon Ramsay, go figure. After going home to drop off the wears and hook up the new speakers we headed for Canterbury. We found Beth's place and then went out for dinner and drinks. It was great to see Beth. When Steve asked what she missed near the top of her list was, "customer service". Day two and we are already realizing that. Little did we know it was only going to get worse!

Saturday was low key. We had to go back to Westwood as the speakers Steve bought no longer worked. We also stopped at Wickes (a home improvement store, kind of like Home Depot but not nearly as good!). The french doors that go from the lounge to the patio leak terribly. So we wanted to find Seal and Peel. We have bought it at home (Lowes). It's a silicone that you seal up the window with in the winter then come spring you can peel it away. The person we asked looked at us like we were crazy. You would think that with the age of the buildings here things like this would be readily available. Nope. After Westwood we headed for Canterbury again. We had made plans to watch the Michigan, Ohio State game at a fellow ex-pats home. He has the Sky sport package so he gets several of the games. Well, Michigan lost much to Beth's delight. After the Michigan game the State game came on. They were playing Penn State and Steve tried to get Beth to place a bet. If State wins I will wear a State tattoo all day on Thanksgiving, if State loses you wear a Michigan tattoo. We brought these tattoos from home. I thought it would be fun. Beth wouldn't take the bet. She should have.... State won!! Congrats Beth!!

Sunday we went in search of internet and found the Belgian Café in Ramsgate (see www.belgiancafe.co.uk). This will be our source for internet until we get ours hooked up. Good beers, good menu. It's a bit rough and there are some interesting folk hanging around but we love the place. I took some pictures while out smoking, have a look. The rest of the day was spent doing laundry in our tiny washer while Steve spent 3.5 hours on the phone with British Telephone (BT) trying to get our phone and internet. Five business days was the soonest we could get it. Hey I am not complaining. Beth is still waiting for internet and just got her phone (one month later). Dang!

Well, that is my retrospective of last week. My plan is to try to make an entry weekly on either Saturday or Sunday. I figure it will give you all something to read over your Monday morning coffee. I promise they won't be as in depth or day-to-day as this has been. Now on to this week's entry.

I also included photos from the move and our going-away party. Enjoy.

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