Day 1 - it could have gone better

I’m pretty sure I could write a book on day 1 alone. I will try to keep it to the pertinent, high-level details and I do recognize the people that would actually want to read even this level of detail is limited.  Read if you want. Don't if you don't want.

Let’s start on December 27 – our departure day:

• Call DE Express to let them know that we have ELEVEN bags. They confirm it will be an additional $10. DE Express shows up IN A TOWN CAR. DE Express must call another town car to drive us because all our luggage takes up all the space in the first town car. 
•  Arrive at airport, pay $600 for extra baggage fees
• Enjoy two free “premium” beverages in US Air lounge.
• Flight takes off and we enjoy some additional beverages. A quick goodbye video: http://youtu.be/2vxaWa-8XuA

December 28:

• Flight arrives early. No gate. Wait 20 minutes for gate.
• Wait over an hour in line for immigration.
• Collect bags and put on 2 trolleys
• Here’s where the proverbial poo hits the fan:
• Walk around for 45 minutes lugging all our luggage on two trolleys trying to find a place for me to wait whilst (new UK word) James goes to get the rental car. 
• Find place in cold, wet outdoors. 
• Turns out I made an error when booking the rental car and it won’t be ready until 11:30. That’s  an hour away.
• We decide I should take a cab to the apartment whilst James waits for car. BUT, I don’t have keys to apartment.
• Call real estate agent. They cannot give me keys without ID for both of us. James has my passport and his passport at rental car agency.
• I call cab – request large van for eleven bags. Man tells me cab (van) will be there in 2 minutes.
• 15 minutes later – no cab. Call company back. Cab shows in 30 seconds.
• Request cabbie to take me to rental car company to get our passport. James calls says realtor called him and they don’t need our ID. I can just pick up keys. YAY!
• Request cabbie to take me to real estate agent so I can pick up keys. This goes fine.
• Get to apartment. Cannot get into front door. Cabbie helps me. I am happy he turned out to be such a nice guy.
• Tour of apartment can be seen here: http://youtu.be/3hTX2FhiRww
• Unload ELEVEN bags (with cabbie’s help) into lobby.
• Walk about 15 yards to elevator. Load all 11 bags in elevator and take up to third floor apartment.
• Back and hands hurt from lugging luggage from elevator to apartment.
• Apartment is nice.
• Back at the rental car company.......... Car is not ready at 11:30. Realtor is calling James because deposit was rejected by credit  card company
• Credit card company emails me to tell me they suspect fraudulent activity on my card.
• James calls saying realtor has tried calling him 3 times.
• I call credit card company and tell them it’s not fraud. Takes 10 minutes!
• I call realtor, tell them to run again.
• I continue trying to unpack all eleven bags
• Call to try and get phone/cable/internet. One hour later, they think they can get someone out January 4!!! WOO-HOO. Much better than January 28! BUT – must first confirm no penalty for canceling with other company. Woman tells me she will call me back at 2PM (it was 1 PM).
• James FINALLY gets car squared away and arrives at apartment (NOT HAPPY).
• We must set up bank account. Go to nearest Barclays. They cannot do it. We must go 8 minutes down the road to Wilmslow.
• Make shopping list because we are going to go to Costco after bank and cell phone (Vodafone) store.
• Open freezer to check storage – entire freezer covered in ice.  Open freezer door to let melt and put towels and bucket underneath for any water that drips.
• Drive to Wilmslow for 2:15 appointment to set up bank account. Woman who was supposed to call me to get us set up for phone/internet/cable never calls back.  I call her back, but can’t talk to her so have to go through the whole process again – and 45 minutes later they tell me that they can get someone out on January 29. I want to kill the woman I spoke with earlier.
• We leave with bank account AT FOUR PM!!!!!! One hour and 45 minutes later, we have a bank account.
• Go to Vodafone (right across street from Barclays) to set up mobile (cell) phone plan. We cannot set up cell phone plan until we have lived here for 3 months. Uh, come again?!?!? We have to do pay as you go plan. Lovely. And a royal PITA!
• Drive to (and get a bit lost on the way to) Costco (YAY, Costco)
• Get a TON of stuff at Costco. US Costco card requires manager override.
• Costco does not accept American debit card and it just so happens we don’t have 540 pounds in cash with us.
• James tries to withdraw money, but cannot withdraw enough for the bill. Desiree must also withdraw money. We must pay in cash and the people waiting behind us were totally un-American (they were very friendly and didn’t mind the 10 minutes it took us to check out)
• Drive home.
• Kitchen floor is covered in water – apparently it missed most of the bucket. Spend next 30 minutes hacking away at the ice and trying not to fall on the very slippery kitchen floor. Eventually, use newly purchased hair dryer from Costco to melt ice that hasn't yet melted and covered our floor.
• Test dryer (combo washer/dryer) because I want to dry all the towels that we used to soak up the wet kitchen floor. Cannot figure out how to use teeny-tiny washer/dryer. Try various options. I’m going to need to find an owner’s manual.
• We decide on frozen pizza for dinner. Oven works VERY fast and pizza is quite crispy.  Beer was warm when purchased at Costco and freezer/fridge is unplugged so not helping. Wait 30 minutes and finally have a cold beer.
• Finish unpacking, plan Day 2.
• Gym
• Grocery store (we couldn’t get everything at Costco)
• Buy printer
• Library
• Call to try and get internet access

What a day. I can tell you, we are handling it like champs. A few pictures can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151330876859653.506441.755859652&type=1&l=5341f74a1f. As I was at the apartment dealing with the credit card company about the fraud, the real estate agent, the phone/internet/cable people, and trying to unpack, I realized how much I love James. I just wanted him to come home to me and hug me and know that we could handle this together. We have been given an amazing opportunity so even though DAY 1 could have gone better, it is a day I will never forget for as long as I live (or until I get Alzheimer’s). It is 11:11 PM GMT (6:11 EST) as I write this. James is asleep beside me and as I look forward to DAY 2, I am amazed that with only about 3 hours sleep on the plane last night, I am actually awake and typing!

As you know, I may not have internet access until January 29^th so I’m not sure when I’ll actually be able to post this, but I’m sure I’ll have more stories. Until then…………

P.S. for those of you who have asked, our address is

15 Wolverton House

George Street

Alderley Edge

Cheshire

SK9 7EB

It's official.....only 12 days left!!!!!!!!

Our visas have arrived:

Plane tickets have been purchased (we depart at 8:50pm on December 27). We agreed on an apartment - same apartment as in the first post - and are working on getting the lease signed. We have a car lined up (it's a "Vauxhall Insignia or similar" - somehow I don't think we're getting the one in the picture). Companies that lease cars in the UK will only lease for a minimum of 2 years. We toyed with buying a used car, but I don't really want to deal with the hassle of selling it when we are ready to leave. So we are renting a car for the year.

We are not sure how we are going to get our stuff over there, but it looks like we will be checking a lot of bags as opposed to shipping boxes. We just need to figure out how much can fit in our transport to the Philly airport and how much we will be able to fit in our Vauxhall Insignia once we are there! We are only bringing our clothes and some toiletries, but we have A LOT of clothes :-)

We went into Philly to get fingerprinted and have our photographs taken for our visas on December 6. These, along with our passports and a bunch of other documents, were sent to the British Consulate and we received them back with our visas on December 13. A very quick process!

For those of you wondering how we will be speaking, here is a link to help. I expect all of our friends will understand us when we come home because they will have thoroughly studied this link:  http://www.effingpot.com/slang.shtml

Some are quite funny (please refer to "fanny") and those of you that watched Graeme McDowell on hole 16 in Tiger's tournament will be familiar with the term "wanker" and the associated hand gesture (Graemey unnecessarily apologized). We will likely also stop using "z" and replace it with "s," will add "u" to words unnecessarily like "colour," and we will call the letter "z" "zed" from now on. I now work for A-Zed. Please feel free to leave your favorites in the comments.

James already has some trips planned - I believe London the first week in January for a couple days as well as trips to Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland the first few weeks in January. He got his list of key countries that he'll have to travel to - in addition to the aforementioned (and the rest of England), he will be traveling to places like South Africa, UAE, Turkey, France, Spain, and many others. When he read the list to me I replied "I would like to go to all of those countries as well." We'll see how many I actually make it to.

We remain extremely excited and although both of us seem to be drowning with work, we are looking forward to spending time with our families and our friends over the next few weeks.

Cheers, Mates!

It was just over two months ago that James called me and said that his company asked if he (we) would be willing to relocate to the UK. It's been a whirlwind and I can't believe we are leaving in less than a month. We go to Philly on December 6 for a "biometrics" appointment where we are fingerprinted and photographed. After that, we need to send a bunch of information to the agency that is helping us to get our visas, including our passports and loads of other documentation. That gets sent to the British Consulate and, allegedly, we should have all our paperwork, including our visas, by December 14. We will plan on flying over the night of December 27 and should be back for Christmas 2013. We'll also be back throughout the year - US Open in June is a definite. 

James has been in the UK for a week and we are filling out an application for an apartment (flat) tomorrow (link with pictures below). Fingers crossed it all goes well and we can get this one as we both really like it.

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/property-history/15/wolverton-house/george-street/alderley-edge/sk9-7eb/19443663

We still need to arrange for a car (which we have a lead on) and get a bank account opened (which some have said is very difficult and others have said is quite simple). We are both really excited and plan on taking advantage of being over there and close to so many great places to visit. Already on the docket: The Ice Hotel in Sweden and Chianti, Italy for a friend's wedding. 

Stay tuned (if you're interested).
James and Des