Life Updates (a wee bit behind on publishing…)

Since I’ve been rather hard to get a hold of recent–nine hour time differences sort of complicate communications, I thought I’d copy in part of an LJ entry onto Facebook to update people and let them know what I’ve been up to since I departed for Austria in July.

After a twenty-four hour travel which involved flights in the US, Ireland and Germany, I finally made it to Austria for Phil’s graduation. It was really nice and I got to meet a bunch of his family, including his grandparents and older half-sister. We relaxing in Austria after that, taking a few short trips to Innsbruck, Italy and London over the period. Italy was particularly nice-we relaxed on the beach and in the pool a lot as well as took a trip out to Venice, Murano and Burano. I posted photos on Flickr and Facebook, and you don’t know the links by now, just let me know.

We’ve just settled into our flat in London–moved in on Thursday. Initally moving in was a bit of a nightmare. We got an email shortly before boarding the plane to London that the shower and washer/dryer had just broken. The shower was fixed the same day, the washer/dryer was not. We also walked into a flat that had not been cleaned as was required in the lease. Turns out the cleaners were supposed to come at six in the morning before we moved in but hadn’t been able to get in due to the bottom lock being on. Our first day in the flat was spent watching cleaners scrub down the place and a new washer/dryer being moved in to replace the water-filled old one. The second day was spent having the carpets cleaned as apparently the previous tenant had no objections to smoking in their bedroom, or putting using the carpet to put out cigarettes. Thankfully, the stains all came out with the carpet cleaning. We also spent the second day scrubbing off extra persistent sticky spots on furniture that the cleaners missed. Apparently the previous tenant was some sort of an unwashed heathen who I imagine as having sticky tentacles that spread a goo on everything they touched. After a little elbow grease though, the flat is now clean and sticky goo free.

I really love our flat. It’s the most perfect location in central London. It’s only about a ten minute walk to the London School of Economics (again, ohemgee, did I really get in there?!) and maybe fifteen minutes to Covent Gardens, twenty to Leicester Square, fifteen to St. Paul’s, twenty to the Tate Modern, and on and on. It’s amazing being right in the heart of London (we actually live in ‘the City of London’ even, not one of the little villages/bouroughs that compose London). The flat is very cute and homey–you can see pictures on Facebook now–and we’ve settled in quite nicely. I think it’s going to be a wonderful home for the next year. If you have the means, please come and visit us, we’d love to have visitors.

I still have some time before the semester starts–it begins the first of October. I have registration sometime around the 25th or so, I can’t remember right now. I’m looking forward to starting again–I feel as though I have done nothing constructive all summer and while that was nice to a degree, I’m feeling a little bored with reading news articles and composing mental retorts. Perhaps I should start doing some constructive writing again, but on beautiful rainy days in London, it’s hard to want to do much more than sip on a cup of tea from under a blanket.

So that’s life at the moment, rather slow paced but soon to change I’m sure with the advent of a new school year. At the campus bookstore they have bumper stickers with LSE’s crest that read “I survived the London School of Economics and Political Science”–we’ll soon see I’ll be able to claim the same. I hope everyone else is well–please update me on all your lives as I miss you all.

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