Hi friends!
Happy 12th of January! Today is my beautiful cousin Amber’s birthday (Happy Birthday!) and for the first time in a long time I felt like writing so here is what feels like a long-overdue London Life Update! I’ve been feeling a bit guilty about my lack of desire to write, but honestly, things have been a little hard. Settling into a new life is always a bit stressful. When that new place is also a new country there are added layers of stress and when there happens to be a global pandemic and most of the world is shut down well…you get the picture. We haven’t had reliable internet because we still don’t have a permanent home–more on this in a bit. We spend hours every day searching property listings while hesitant to venture outside because Londoners don’t really wear masks or social distance and Covid cases are continually on the rise here despite the vaccine.
It’s chaos and I often feel that so deeply that I have to remind myself that we’re taking brave steps here! Of course it wasn’t going to be easy–I might not have registered how difficult, but I’m determined to keep finding the light in this time no matter what!
So new(ish) site! In my attempt to remember the beauty of London I thought it would be fun to move this blog from Tumblr back to my old friend WordPress where I kept a blog during my last trip to London in 2016. All of the posts were assignments for my British Libraries and Archives class, but they’re filled with treasures if you’d like to peruse them–including the time I cried over Shakespeare and sniffed Sir Edmund Hillary’s Everest expedition boot!
So what have we been up to? A lot of walking/working/flat hunting! London is massive and knowing exactly where to live can be hard. Add in the fact that all of our expeditions are limited to where we can get on foot because we don’t want to take the Tube/bus right now. We’ve waffled with moving to Oxford or Cambridge or Edinburgh because what’s the point in being close to London’s tech centre if everything is online right now and might be for the rest of the year? We’ve considered Westminster, Islington, Hoxton, Wapping, and the City of London itself among others. It’s exhausting and at times demoralising when you finally find a flat worth viewing only to arrive and see that the photos greatly exaggerated…everything. We moved into a hotel in September of 2020 and have been rather unmoored ever since. My heart longs to be settled more than I can say.
Also, no one lets you know how hard it is to set up a life in a new country. We still don’t have proper phone plans because we don’t have the required UK bank account to get one. Know what you need to set up a bank account? A bill in your name. Guess what you’ll need in order to rent a flat and set up bills! A bank account! We’ve had spotty internet and so many minor hiccups like this that it’s almost laughable at times!
On the absolute upside, all of our walking has lead to some pretty amazing sights! We’ve walked past Buckingham Palace so many times and through St. James Park. We’ve seen Westminster Abbey, Parliament, and Big Ben (though he’s currently hidden by scaffolding at the moment). We walked to Covent Garden on Christmas because I desperately wanted to see decorations. I’ve cooked a lot of meals and the food here is just phenomenal. I know that people say that British food is bland, but their vegetables are all top-knotch. We’ve rarely ordered in, but when we have it’s been wonderful, and just outside of our window we see those iconic red double-decker buses constantly traipsing up an own the street. It’s a constant reminder of the changes we’ve taken and how lucky we are to be here right now. Oh! Another major perk is that the beautiful green parakeets of London love to sit in the tree outside of our window! It always makes me happy to see them 🙂 I’ll try to get a picture some day, but for now I just see them as a reminder to pause and seek beauty!
Lore by Alexandra Bracken: I needed a book to take me out of my reading slump and this fascinating take on Greek mythology was exactly what my heart needed!
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien: Okay this is a re-read, and I’m far from finished, but sometimes hearts just need a journey to Middle Earth.
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis: I have to admit I don’t remember how I started re-reading both of these at the same time, but I have zero regrets.
Morbid: Somehow Brittain turned me into True Crime fan, and I’m obsessed with this podcast–Kyle finds it concerning!
The Last Dance-Netflix: We’re finally watching this documentary on The Chicago Bulls and it’s amazing.
Bridgerton-Netflix: Of course I’m watching this! Of course I love it! I finished The Duke and I (book 1 in the series) in December and it was delightful!
Alright friends, that’s all for now! Please share any fun recipes or books or podcasts. Movies/shows anything you like 🙂 We’ll be in lockdown 3 for quite sometime and I’m always looking for new fun things to occupy our downtime!
Next time I promise to share the tiny stack of physical books we brought with us!
xx
The Bookish Wanderer 