The Adventure Continues...

It is difficult for most of us in North America to conceive how small apartments in the UK really are... for example, Omair and I can hold a perfectly normal conversation without having to raise our voices from opposite ends of our current suite.

For most people who know Omair, they know that he can't sit still and has a habit of roaming around places. Today, he came into the kitchen where I was making lunch and said: I'm trying to roam around the apartment but not getting anywhere. It was cute.

I've been cooking regularly. Yesterday, I made cheese tortellini with a red sauce from scratch and spicy ground beef (shown below). It turned out pretty good and we had enough leftovers for lunch today.

Our first Friday night in London was pretty tame. We were both too exhausted to go and do anything as we had spent the day out: setting up a bank account, getting a cell phone number for me (which we still don't have) and looking at potential areas where to rent our apartment.

Today, I slept in. We had initially planned on going out and looking at apartments but we really didn't have much time so we've been home all day just researching areas and apartment prices.

A little while ago, I noticed that our floors and carpet needed vaccuming so I called the conceirge and asked them to bring up a vaccum cleaner. This is what they brought:

I thought it was the cutest thing ever! Doesn't it remind you of Wall-e?

We plan to go out tonight. Lets see where we end up.

An Apartment Tour

So there are some things about London apartments that I wasn't prepared for; namely
1- Everything has a door, including the kitchen and the family room (am I the only one who thinks thats weird?)
2- The washing machine is MINISCULE as you will see in a minute
3- The dishwashers are tiny
4- Everything is hidden (I'll show you in a second)
5- I miss home!

Here are a few photos of what our temporary London apartment looks like:

Omair enjoying our little dining nook

Our family room

Kitchen

Now you don't see it....

Now you see it... OMG there's a washing machine in the kitchen!

Hmmm... I wonder if any of the dishwashers at home are missing a baby...

I lost all my food :(

Oh wait. There it is behind the cupboard door

And yes, I have fallen off the wagon and am back to consuming my drink of choice during times of stress.

Day 2

We finally got meat and I finally cooked.

I used Farah's parting gift and made Chicken Tikka Masala with tomato rice. Surprisingly, it turned out great.
I've posted a picture below.

Maybe I'm not so hopeless after all.
More to come tomorrow....

The Adventure Begins...

We arrived in London at around 10:30 AM on Tuesday.

Our flight had been delayed for almost 2 hours leaving the airport but it wasn't a problem because Omair upgraded both of us to Business class. The flight was super comfortable thanks to the reclining beds and amazing service.

Our serviced apartment is not bad. Its fairly spacious by London standards with a bedroom, a living room, kitchen and a bathroom. The hardest part was getting our luggage (4 pieces weighing 70 pounds each) up the flight of stairs since there was no elevator (lift in UK lingo).

Omair and I had both slept on the plane so we decided to go exploring. We walked up to some small shops, bought a bus pass and then randomly got on a bus which took us to the Hounslow city centre. It was a nice area, lots of halal shops but also regular stores like Marks and Spencer, Primark and whatnot. What we were looking for was a big grocery store and we found a big ASDA which is like the British version of SuperStore.

Grocery shopping was very difficult. First of all, none of the packaging is the same so you can't pick products at a glance. Not very many brands are common to North America which meant we had no idea whats good and whats not. Finally, they call things by different names; for example, tomato paste is actually tomate puree and when I asked for tomate paste, the sales person gave me a weird look :S

Anyhow, 2 hours and 90 pounds later, we piled our purchases in a tax and headed back. Halfway home, we realized that we had forgotten to get meat. Go figure.

By the time we took all the groceries upstairs, we were too tired to make anything and ordered butter chicken and naan from a local restaurant. Yummy! Indian food in London is AMAZING.

After dinner, we called home and talked to both our parents and by 10 PM, called it a night.

Our first day on our own was done and all in all, it hadn't gone badly.

Tomorrow, I might have to cook. That should be interesting.