In Between Day One and Day Two

It's 4:55am and we are jetlagged pretty bad. We have been up for about 2 hours already. Looks like an interesting start to day 2 here in London.

Before we left Vancouver we had booked a room in a flat for a week through the website wimdu.com. It's basically a rental site where people offer up rooms in their homes or income properties. We handed over about $450 Canadian dollars to a man named Marcos and crossed our fingers that he wasn't a scam artist.

When we arrived yesterday our first order of business was to meet up with Marcos and see if we in fact had a place to stay. Justin tried calling him on a payphone at the train from Gatwick, but we couldn't figure out how to use the payphone. He called from his Canada cell instead. After riding a train into the city and a tube to Liverpool station we wandered through a couple blocks of very busy streets and found Marcos waiting for us outside of 25 Widegate street.


Our temporary home is through a small red door above an Indian restaurant. When you first walk in the hall is overtaken by the restaurant and you can see right into the kitchen. We haven't discussed eating there yet, but I think we probably should.

Up 4 flights of very narrow stairs is our flat. It has 4 or 5 rooms (we haven't snooped enough to remember right now), a small shared kitchen, a toilet room with a sink (that we are not allowed to flush anything down, even TP), and a shower room with a sink. Our little room is pretty much as shown in the pictures we saw on the website, but the pictures seem to have exaggerated the size. We'll have to keep that in mind for finding out more permanent place. We have a small fridge, table, and wardrobe in the room, and the bed is pretty comfy. Our window looks onto a side street, and we just noticed a strange flashing light coming from a flat across from us. There seems to be a lively bar or house party close by as there was bouts of singing as we were sleeping.

We tried to get a bank account but we need to have proof of residence so we will have to wait until we find our home and get a bill sent there. The situation was the same for getting mobiles; we need an address before they will give us a contract. So we have pay as you go - Justin on his unlocked blackberry and me on a sweet flip phone Erika and Ryan gave me before we left Van. If you for some reason want our mobile numbers send us an email or facebook us.

Thats about all we had time to do yesterday. We had a quick shop at Tesco (cheese is really cheap and we got a can of beans for 26p), then both felt quite cranky and realized we really needed to sleep. Once the regular folk are awake we plan on making some calls to see flats, getting our national insurance number, and I have a job interview at 2pm. We're hoping to feel a bit more confident about finding a permanent home once we see a few.

That's all for now. We are going to try and sleep one more hour before rising for the day. It's a big one ahead.

Miss you all lots.
Gen