Our First Guests...

Lucky for me, Jimmy isn’t a told you so kind of guy. I thought we should get rid of Ashlynn’s bed and mattress because I didn’t think we’d have space in London, but I was wrong. Just 10 days after moving into our new flat, we had the guestroom ready for our first guests: Veronica and Brett, or I should say Dr. Brett. Brett and Veronica had been living together in Exeter since September, but he had just finished and defended his PhD. His next step was to head to Hamburg for a mini-postdoc before moving to Paris. We were happy that we got to see him before he moved off the island.

Jimmy was thrilled that he got to finally try his new toy: an electric pizza oven. 

The pizza was excellent! 

The following night we went to the London Coliseum to see the English National Opera perform The Handmaid’s Tale. The seats were horribly uncomfortable and the singing helped confirm that I really don’t like opera. However, I thought the show was incredible! The way that the horrific conditions that the women were living under and what would have been graphic violence in a book or movie was depicted on stage was truly remarkable. I think Margaret Atwood would have been proud. 

Earlier that day, Brett bought a used Brompton foldable bike for his future life in Paris where he’ll be doing a postdoc for two years.

 

Low Tide...

After having our first Sunday roast at the Prospect of Whitby in early February, Jimmy noticed that the tide was low and that a beach appeared in front of the pub. He thought we should investigate if it was possible to walk along the beach to our building. Turns out it wasn’t, but we soon learned that there was another access further down the street in the opposite direction. We were warned to watch out for quicksand.  

Luckily the staircase down wasn’t too slippery and we were able to avoid getting sucked into any muck. It was cool seeing the back of our building from up close...

…although it was still difficult to see our patio, which is on a 5th floor addition added in the 1990s. 

The following weekend, we bought a lovely print of our building from a local artist. 

Moving Day!

It was an early start on January 31 as our moving truck arrived at 8:15am from The Hague via the ferry with two Dutch movers who were met at our building by a local mover. 

By some miracle the movers were able to get everything into our building’s tiny elevator...

…except for our two wicker couches which they had to carry up the stairs. Our bedrooms are on the same level as the lift, but our living space is up a set of stairs within our flat, which luckily were wide enough for the couches. 

In under five hours, they had the truck completely emptied...

…and our flat overflowing with boxes.

Since we had to pack and move ourselves into storage while Jimmy was still just a temporary employee, the movers weren’t responsible for any unpacking or furniture construction. We were relieved that it wasn’t too expensive to hire the movers to assemble our dining room table, beds and  armoires, which was definitely worth it as they cranked through the pieces very efficiently. 

By 3:30pm, the movers were done and we would be unpacking enough so that we could spend our first night in our own flat. Cooking, however, would be too ambitious, so we had dinner at The Captain Kidd, a pub with amazing views but mediocre food. 

After 217 nights, we were thrilled to finally got to sleep in our own bed again. I recruited Veronica to make this infographic for me detailing how much we had been bouncing around. 

A Night in Bermondsey...

While staying at Thomas’ studio in Bermondsey, we took some long walks. One night we went to the Bermondsey Arts Club, which Jimmy had been to before but I had no idea what to expect.

Little did I know that it used to be a public restroom, but was converted to a cocktail bar in 2014.  

The bar was charming, but as a mixologist Jimmy was disappointed that the drinks were premixed. 

Rise Up Rhino

Afterwards we walked along Southbank and enjoyed seeing some more incredible sculptures by Gillie and Marc, who specialize in putting wildlife and conservation into their public art. 

The White Rhino was Thinking Ahead with Dogman’s Encouragement

The African Elephant Never Forgot What He Learned and Neither Did Rabbitwoman

They Were on a Wild Ride to a Safer Place with Rabbitwoman and Dogman 

This was the most impressive due to both the location and the interactive sculpture itself.

 

Our New Neighborhood...

When we stood on the deck of our new flat, we looked across at a pub in Rotherhithe that seemed familiar to us. Then it dawned on us that it was where Thomas ended his trail for London H3 in October while Jim was visiting from Berlin. 

Jimmy then remembered that I had taken a series of photos when we witnessed a cruise ship being turned around right in front us while standing on the pub’s patio. Little did I know that I was taking photos of our future flat in the smaller building just to the left of the tugboat. 

While we can’t see the Tower Bridge or all of The Shard from our new flat, this lovely view is less than a 10-minute walk away...

…and just a few minutes further away is St. Katharine Docks. You can expect that I’ll be posting lots of photos of similar views.

While there are five pubs in Wapping, three of them on the river, we have designated The Prospect of Whitby as our “local” not just because its the closest, but because we really like it.

We were rather shocked when we saw a noose hanging outside, but at least there’s a logical explanation. The pub was a favorite of The Hanging Judge, who regularly had pirates hung and eventually died himself in the Tower of London.

Not that this map covers our entire giant city, but you can see our new district on the far right along the northern bank of the Thames River.

Wapping Overground Station is just a five-minute walk from our flat and is connected to the Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel in the world built under a river for transportation. More on that later...

The platforms at Wapping Station are very narrow, but at least there are nice historic panels throughout.

 

Canary Wharf Winter Lights...

The following day we checked out our local Saturday market. It mostly consisted of food trucks/stalls with plenty of seating, which was convenient as we were in search for some lunch.

The market is along Shadwell Basin, a remnant of the historic London Docks...

….with nice views towards the City of London.

Later we walked to Canary Wharf, London’s financial district built in the early 1990s to replace much of the dilapidated London Docklands. 

Our goal was to visit the Winter Lights Festival. It wasn’t as impressive as Amsterdam’s Light Festival, but still entertaining.

We especially enjoyed walking through these long strands of changing colors.

This wasn’t actually part of the show, but some cool lighting that Jimmy spotted by one of the Tube stations. We had assumed we’d eat at one of the food halls, but they were too crowded. So we walked back to Wapping, arriving at 9pm, to learn that all of the five pubs close their kitchens at 9pm. And the Italian restaurant serves until 9:30pm, but was full. At least the local minimart was still open, resulting in our second dinner in our new flat being a baguette and hummus.  
 

Finally, Our Own Flat...

After four months of being a temporary employee in London, we were thrilled that Jimmy was offered a three-year contract starting on November 1. Thus it was finally time for me to start looking for a rental. After seeing quite a variety of properties, I knew instantly that this flat was perfect for us and we went straight from the viewing to sign the paperwork. We had to wait a long two months before it was available, but on January 26, we received the keys to our own place: a beautiful flat in Wapping, in East London between Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf. After a walk-through with the company responsible for inspecting the condition of the apartment, Jimmy headed back to work. 

We met back up later that afternoon to see our first sunset from our new patio on the 5th floor of a converted banana and tobacco warehouse. You can imagine how excited we were to find an apartment with such an incredible view. The tall buildings in this shot are in the area called Canada Water.

We can also see a bit of Canary Wharf, which looks like it’s across the river, but it actually also on the northern bank of the Thames, which is so curvy that it creates a lot of optical illusions with buildings seeming to change banks as you travel along the river.

It was especially exciting to see our view at night for the first time, which we celebrated with some bubbly...

…and a picnic dinner, which is our usual tradition when we move into a new place. We had considered sleeping on the floor, but Thomas said that would be silly since he’d be on a ski trip and we could easily stay at his place in nearby Bermondsey while waiting for our shipment to arrive on the 30th. We truly appreciated his generosity and the comfort of a bed.