The Flat

Even thought it means neglecting my photoblog, I'm posting the pics of our new flat here instead. There are definite pros and cons to living in a basement flat (which some of you might already know) but the area we're in totally makes up for it. It's so weird to be able to walk for less than 5 minutes and arrive in a place as grand as Kensington Gardens. Between that and all of the restaurants, pubs, and shops we will never run out of things to do in our own little neighbourhood.

Tonight we met up with a new friend, Eve, from Germany. She was on her way home a few nights ago and found me sitting on the front steps of our building (typing a blog post). Concerned that I'd locked myself out, she asked if I was okay. We ended up chatting and it quickly became obvious that we'd be friends. She's a little older than us (31) but has a very close friend who's exactly my age. The four of us went over to a pub in Notting Hill that has this beautiful roof terrace and cheap food & drinks. Sat there for several hours talking and listening to the DJ playing music from the 80s. We kept laughing at how old the songs were - the DJ was really good and mixed in newer music occasionally too.

I can't say what a relief it is to meet people (even if it's only two) who I know we'll hang out with. Both girls have talked about things we "have" to do together - shopping in Portobello Market for plants and secondhand clothes, going for a picnic in the park, hitting this great Australian pub called "the Walkabout" that "everybody" goes to.

Not to sound whiny or homesick but it did make me miss my girls (and my mom) back home - I would love so much to be able to do things like that with them. Someday we will again...

So it was a fairly quiet weekend. Good, but quiet. I look forward to the days when we can afford to go out and do a few more things, but since we're here for so long we can definitely be patient. For now I'll settle for watching movies on Jeremy's computer and having quiet dinners at home, trying to use the TINY kitchen as best I can. As you'll see from the pictures - the toaster oven is pretty high up in the air. The stove is on top, so I have to stand up tip toes to see inside the pots as I'm cooking. Was a lot of fun making spaghetti sauce last night...

A couple of different shots of the kitchen / living room area. The space you see through the doors is all enclosed and apparently ours to use. So of course I have big plans to set up an old table (if we can find one on the street I'd take it) and a bunch of plants. If you turn in the other direction you'd see our sofa bed & dresser (that is doubling as a computer desk right now). It's small, but cozy.

The bathroom is shaped kinda funny so I couldn't capture all of it in this picture - shower's to the right and toilet to the left. It's actually the most spacious bathroom we've seen in all of the flats we've lived in / looked at. We really like the bathroom, but I'd give about a million dollars for a bathtub...

As you can see our bedroom is literally just that. A room with a bed. There is no space for anything else in this entire room. In the left corner, you can see part of the wardrobe they left for us (that currently has no hangers in it) that pretty much takes up the rest of the room. We're planning on getting a few shelves installed on the walls so I can put my books and alarm clock (and my Canada stuff when it arrives) up on them. I thought we'd feel claustrophobic, but the bed's very big and the window makes the room feel bigger.

Outside, looking in. This is the outdoor space. It's not fancy and when the rain comes, a LOT of water falls into it. But after putting a few things (as mentioned above) into it, I know it'll be a nice place to sit and enjoy the fresh air.

I had to add my little Canada bear because he's the only decoration we have in the flat right now. He was a present from my mom and has a little heart inside filled with things from Ella Lake... like part of a hot dog stick and sand from our lake. It's the perfect reminder of home and I'm very glad I brought him. Not sure what his name is yet... maybe Canuck or something.

I was going to post pictures of our street, since it's full of trees and nice buildings, but that kind of advertisement of where we live just didn't seem smart. Just imagine huge trees and elegant, white buildings with shops at the end of the road and a pub around the corner.

So that's the tour of our flat. I was sneaky and took pictures before we unpacked so nobody can see how terribly messy it is right now. When you have limited space, it's so much easier to make a mess - we're already learning to do dishes as soon as dinner's over and put our things away as soon as they're not being used. Wow, my mom must be so proud - she's been trying to get me to do stuff like this for years.

Until next time...