Back in London!

We woke up in the Ibis Northampton and prepared ourselves for the return to London on a 1 hour train ride. I knew the train was leaving roughly around 9.30am and we were about a 3 minute walk to the station. I had packed up last night but Lew hadn't as he was busy getting some references sorted for his job interview on Tuesday. As usual he was difficult to get out of bed and I was already dressed, packed and had cereal prepared by the time he dragged himself up. We didn't want to pay for breakfast at the hotel since it was super expensive yesterday and we still had everything we needed including a couple of the hotels plastic cups and some small spoons from the tea and coffee station. Sorted! It was getting close to 9.15am and I was halfway out the door with our stuff whilst Lew ate breakfast and brushed his teeth. We did a final check on the room individually - I think thats how we only managed to lose one sock this entire trip and then headed to reception. As we were getting in the lift I checked the train ticket in my pocket which said our train left at 9.24am which was in 6 minutes! Thankfully all we had to do was pass the keys to reception and then basically run to the station. Our poor Osprey bag is certainly getting a hammering as it crocodile rolled a few times scraping up the plastic some more but thankfully not tearing the material. We were worried the train was going to leave without us so we just jumped on one of the closest carriages we could which was full and the isles too small for us to continue to walk down to find a space for our bags and a seat! We were just going to have to stand for the entire hour long journey which was slightly frustrating since we did pay £32 ($62 NZD) for this trip. I poked my head out of the train doors and ask one of the station employees if there were any other carriages with seats that we could move our bags too without being left behind, he basically just shrugged his shoulder at me. Thankfully the ride when pretty quickly with Lew talking on the phone to Samuel and I wrote a summary of what we have been up to for the past 4 days. The biggest shock was when we actually arrived into London Euston and the train station was absolute chaos and we don't know if this is because everyone was coming into London for the Black Friday sales continuing all weekend or whether this is a usual Saturday. Lew even asked me why on earth we had moved to this city with a look of horror on his face and I told him just to take a deep breath and look around - Your in LONDON after all! We knew we had to catch the underground to get to our new home in Canada Water and then probably as bus so we got down into the underground another floor below and pulled over before we swiped ourselves through the entrance with our Oyster cards. I hadn't had a chance to get Citymapper to tell us what train to take and there wasn't any cell service down this deep underground so we had to fight our way through people to get back upstairs. By now it had got even busier and there was actually a queue built up to get down on the escalator. We had discovered we were taking the Northern line (black) from Euston to Borough where we would then take the C10 bus and get off at pageant steps which would be close to where our new house is. Overall it was going to take about an hour and then entire time it was difficult with all the luggage we have, especially since these stations clearly are not designed for disabled people as half the time there were no elevators and Lew had to carry the large bag up numerous levels of steps. A slight inconvenience but nothing we haven't experienced already. The bus was really good and when we got off at pageant steps in Canada Water we walked into the Acorn Walk complex and located the flat. I had messaged our two new flat mates Camille and Yolanda yesterday and Camille was going to be home to let us in. Three floors up Camille opened the door and she was an incredibly friendly nurse from Jamaica who is currently working at St Thomas's Hospital in Aged Care. She showed us around the house and gave us the story about how Continental Travel Nurse expected her to move out mid November but has since extended the tenancy and moved Yolanda in this week and then us in today only to have us all move out again by December 9th and be rehoused. There is heaps of crap in the house that previous nurses have left also so I hope we don't get stuck having to get rid of all of that when we all move out. The place has a decent sized living room and kitchen with a small toilet downstairs and then the main bathroom upstairs along with three bedrooms. We certainly have one of the smaller bedrooms with room for just a double bed, a wardrobe that looks as though it's about to fall on top of you and some drawers. All of us share the bathroom upstairs which is clean if you don't look too closely but the entire place needs to be ripped apart and redone basically with lots of water damage in the kitchen and bathroom. We weren't overly impressed and vowed we would start looking for our own place asap, although thinking back we have been quite spoilt having a place to ourselves back in Auckland. The one good thing is that it has excellent central heating so it will be lovely and warm over the winter. It was about 12.30pm at this stage and we were both starving with basically nothing but spices and a bit of cereal left in our food bag. I had done some research as to what stores had the best deals for bed linen last night and they were all in Oxford street so thats where we headed! Since it was sunny and this would be Lew's way of getting to work (when he finds a job!) we walked to the nearest station at Canada Water which is 20 minutes away. It is a nice stroll through the park and down a small river but it's not ideal having it so far away. It means that I will be taking the bus instead of the underground when I got to work at St Thomas' A&E which leaves right outside our place. But Lew will probably have to buy a foldable bike just to get him there - he's keen on these anyway. Perhaps our new place will be a bit closer to an underground station as its so key in London when you rely on public transport so heavily. We caught the Victoria line and the transferred across at Waterloo onto the Bakerloo line and got off a Piccadilly Circus. Coming above ground again there were people everywhere and you spent so much time dodging everyone as they cut in front of you, walked slowly or stopped in your way. I really wanted to just walk down the middle of the road which would be clear briefly before a double decker bus would come along. First up Lew wanted to go back to Pilgrams Pizza for lunch since we had been craving pizza ever since we left Italy. It was a lot busier than last time we had been here but it was a Saturday today and we would have come mid way through the week last time. We got a spot outside squeezed amongst everyone else on a large rectangle table. I of course ordered something with anchovies and Lew something with salami, the pizza came out quick and we were finished eating within half an hour of arriving. We asked for the bill and when we were looking at it we noticed a service charge added on of £1.80 ($3.52 NZD). Down the bottom of the bill it talked about the “optional” service charge but why was it added on if it was optional? I decided to ask the waitress when she came over but she was Italian and she didn’t understand what I was trying to ask. She ended up asking whether I thought the service was bad but I replied that it was great but it’s saying the service charge is optional so why has it been added on? She only charged us for the food and allowed us to take off the sevice charge. I think it is a tip for the staff but in that case you should have the choice of adding on this tip. Awkward but hey we are unemployed and we worked hard for our money! Lew had spotted some Adidas shoes on sale online and since he had trashed his current pair he decided this would be a good chance to get a new pair. We went to that shop first before we had to drag armfuls of bed linen around with us also and he sneakily purchased a pair of blue one for £50 ($97 NZD) on sale instead of £90 ($174.50). All of the bed linen shops I found last night - House of Fraser, Debenhams and John Lewis happened to be right next to each other and we went in and out of all three trying to work out who had the bests value for money for duvets, pillows, sheets, towels and mattress protectors! They were all busy and the homeware section tended to be on the 4th floor which meant finding the escalators amongst the hoards of people also here for the sales was a mission. I must say it was stressful but I hope we managed to get the best deal on things even though we spent about $500-600 NZD and it seems none of this stuff is cheap here! I never thought I would say it but I really missed Briscoes! Later we found out when talking to Lews mum Averill that we had been hitting the expensive stores and there were a lot of places with much cheaper bedding around! Not to worry I'm sure my mum will agree we did the right thing and brought a good quality duvet as well as 400 thread count cotton sheets which will be much nicer than what we had in Auckland. The funniest thing was that we suddenly realised why none of our Airbnbs in Europe had top and bottom sheet and that is because that isn't the norm and in fact when we went to buy sheets you had to buy the top and bottom sheets seperate! Plus we had been very confused as to why we couldn't find any Queen bed sheets and it turns out there is no such thing in the UK and the equivalent is a King bed. So in-fact we had to go back and look for pricing for super king duvets and king sheets! Just to confirm we weren't buying a ridiculous sized duvet there was one half out of it's box so we pulled it out and lay it down on the double bed next to us since there weren't any staff around. It was going to be the right size and thankfully didn't trail on the floor since we currently only have a double in the flat and we would have to hope the next place had a larger bed. It had got dark and we started buying things from different stores and then heading to the next one having to drag it all around with us. Iv never missed having a car so much until now when you could just go throw your purchases in the boot and continue onwards. Once we had finished at about 5.30pm we then had to walk to the underground and cart it through the train and a bus to make it home. We wouldn't have time to wash the sheets and there wasn't a drier in the place so we could just have to sleep in them smelling a bit nasty like a factory. The bedroom did look a bit better since we made the bed but it was still a small place for the two of us to hang out. Shortly after we headed out for dinner as it was 8pm and the place was about 20 minutes walk away. Ollie's girlfriend Zan had lived near Canada Water so she was able to give us a few local joints to check out. We had chosen a Vietnamese Restaurant called Cafe East for dinner tonight which was crowded with a lot of locals on a Saturday night. Lew had talked to his mum during the walk and hadn't quite finished as we reached the restaurant so I sat down and ordered for us. There were so many good options but I decided on a beef bowl with vermicelli noodles and guessed Lew would most likely pick the same one anyways if he was here, plus we would absolutely come back so there is a chance to try something else next time. The food was quick and the portions large for £9 ($17.45 NZD) and went well with the Chinese tea I had ordered on the side since there were a lot of signs around the place stating they don't serve free tap water. The meal was excellent and left us feeling rather full and also missing home when we used to have Vietnamese takeaways with Lews family occasionally. Since we were close to Tesco's we walked 5 minutes down the road to check it out since it closes at midnight anyway. We guessed this was going to be our local supermarket but it was more like the supermarket and the warehouse combined it was so large and had such a variety of things. Sure enough they did have really cheap bedding but it wasn't that nice looking I told myself I'm sure the sheets will be worth the £52 ($100 NZD) we paid for them! We did buy some snacks keeping in mind that we now only have one cupboard and one shelf in the fridge when we are used to an entire kitchen to ourselves....I don't like this shared flat idea already but I am sure we will get used to it over the next two years! The checkout guy was too interested in talking to his colleges about how many chicks he pulled the other night that he didn't even bother charging us for the plastic bags we were using - they charge you 40 pence ($80 cents NZ) over here every time you want one. We carted it all back with the plastic bags ripping through our hands and I caught up with my mum this time during the walk. Once we arrived back at the flat our other two flatmates were fast asleep seeing as it was 11pm and we tried to be as quiet as possible. We put the groceries away, showered and snuggled in to our overly warm duvet which we thought was possibly overkill due to the excellent central heating in these places and had to turn the heating off and open the window haha! Goodnight! xo