UK Days 5-7 (8 Feb - 10 Feb)

In my previous post, I mentioned that I would be looking for an apartment... On Tuesday Sara (Booz Allen - Mclean) and I were taken to some apartments by a solicitor (real estate agent) named Terri. The first location we saw was St. Anne's Quay (pronounced "key"). There were two apartments available, one on the 6th floor and one on the 5th. When we all entered the first, I headed for the balcony to see the view... both Terri and Sara backed away since they are both afraid of heights. Anyway, the view looks out over the Tyne river at the Millennium Bridge, the Sage, and the Tyne River Bridge... not a bad view! (see attached night photo) The apartment itself is about 700 square feet and has 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The kitchen is not too big and the living room (lounge) is also rather small. (see attached pictures) After seeing St. Anne's, I asked Terri if she had anything else. Evidentially she had a 2 bedroom off Grey Street. Once we drove there, I knew exactly where it was... I had walked right by it last Saturday and had stopped at the bakery that it is attached to. Anyway, after walking into the building I said, "I like it already." It has a nice lobby. Once we reached the apartment, I decided it was the place to go... it is 2 floors and has a nice kitchen, dining area, and living room. It also had 2 1/2 bathrooms, 2 full upstairs and 1/2 on the main floor. Obviously Sara liked it as well... Terri offered that she could probably make a deal if Sara took the 2 bdrm and I could be patient for a 3 bedroom that was being remodeled next week. I decided that I needed to see it first. We walked down the hall to the end and checked it out. Turns out it is about 2200 sq. ft. It has a very nice kitchen, 3 good size bedrooms upstairs, 2 full baths (one with a huge tub) upstairs, and a 1/2 bath down. The living room has a curved wall that has windows looking out over the shopping square outside. The location is perfect as well... there is a Starbucks downstairs (which I just learned about tonight) and there are tons of restaurants, markets, and stores all around. The only downside (if there is one) is that parking is limited. That just means I'll have to continue taking taxis to and from work.

Anyway, because the rental company is having the apartment repainted and new furniture installed, I can't move in just yet. In the meantime, I am at the 6th floor apartment at St. Anne's. The downside of St. Anne's is that it isn't near much and it is significantly smaller... but it does have a nice view. Anyway, I'm told that the new apt. will be ready by next Sunday. Seems reasonable to me. Hopefully when I move over to Grey St. I will have Internet access and a telephone line to accept incoming calls (which will be cheaper than calls to my cell phone).

I couldn't stay at the Hilton because Tony Blair (British PM) was coming to town for the Labor Party National Convention. He rented out the entire Hilton for the weekend. There are 1000's of police running around and traffic is crazy.

On the work front, things have been fairly busy. My work permit has been approved. This means I have to leave the country and come back in to have it stamped into my visa. Strange, but true. My plan is to take a trip next weekend... probably to Prague, which I hear is nice. There is one direct flight per day from Newcastle to Prague. It will cost about 100 GBP or so, but Booz Allen pays for it since it is required for me to work here. I'm told that Prague is one of the only cities that was not bombed back to the stone age in WWII. It was left virtually untouched by everyone. Hopefully I will have 100's of pictures to share after next weekend.

And now an update on the latest counts:

• British men on BBC news saying "Huge tracts of land" - 1


• Micro-mini skirts in 33 degree (F) weather - 3


• Honda S2000's - 3


• Times offered a "cup o' tea" - 35


• Brits friendly to Americans - LOTS!!

Update on the "how-to-call-UK" instructions... Athena and I learned that to call my cell phone you don't need the first zero in the number... therefore, you would dial 011+44+7979+680604... if you add all that up, you get a very large number ;-) As previously mentioned, calls to a UK cell are based on "calling party pays" rules. That means that incoming calls to my cell phone don't cost me... although the rates may be higher for the calling party.

Well, it is the end of the day for me here... I'm headed out after a long and interesting week! I'm planning to head to York this weekend to see some of the sights there. There's supposed to be a nice museum and a beautiful cathedral that was built on top of an old Roman building with some really nice fresco's. My next post should have some pictures of that!

Hope all is well on the home front!
Take care!
Steve
I put the pictures where they belong... more to come in the future...)

Living Room 


Living Room 2 


Kitchen