lost™

i spent friday pouring over gumtree and smallworld.com to try and find a flat. online flat hunting is what i imagine online dating might be like. you read an ad, then you send the poster a brief description of yourself pretty much begging them to let you come and view their flat. then you wait. will they write back or won't they?? i sent out about 10-12 emails on friday and heard back from 3...hmm. this could be due to any number of reasons such as:

- the ad was old and the space already filled

- i'm an american and i advertised this - figured i may as well be forward as people on these flatmate sites seem to have very specific nationalities they want to live with (or not)

- i'm just generally offensive sounding and scared off most would-be flatmates with my vulgar use of the English language (kidding :-)

at any rate, i mapped out three places to look at - two on saturday and one on monday. i was pretty excited.

saturday started with a walk from our flat in clerkenwell to a pub in angel to watch the spurs/arsenal football (soccer) match. christine showed me some of the sites along the way such as a really cool open-air market and a store called "lie down, i think i love you". after a bit of walking around, we arrived at hobgoblin's and christine's friends beth and lou (who have kindly adopted me as well) presented each of us with our very own tottenham hotspurs mugs! yay for presents! i can definitely support this team because they have a nice logo!



we watched the match and enjoyed pints for about an hour before christine and i had to head for the angel tube. the route looked simple. take the tube north to holloway road, then follow a few streets around finsbury park to find the flat. i had reviewed the route carefully on google maps but didn't have an ACTUAL map to carry around with me. how do you think this song ends?

the appointment was supposed to be at 2 pm.

at 2:10 i called the girl and told her we were close, probably running about 5 more minutes late.

at 2:20 we stopped a policeman and asked for directions.

at 2:30 we stopped another policeman for directions, only to be told that they weren't from this area and were brought in for crowd control following the spurs/arsenal match (the arsenal stadium is near finsbury park).

at 2:40 i called the girl again and got some different directions.

at 2:45 we asked some people waiting for the bus for directions.

at 2:55 i called the girl again.

at 3:10 i asked someone on the street if we were going the right way. we weren't.

i think we arrived around 3:30 or so. augh! we were supposed to be in clapham at 4 pm, so i frantically called our NEXT appointment, who was very gracious and even told me the best way to get from finsbury park to clapham (which are on opposite sides of the city).

the flat was in a cute victorian area (check), on a quiet street (check), and at the top of the building (five flights of steep stairs...oy). i just kept thinking, how am i going to get my 70-pound suitcase up these stairs???

since this was the first flat we looked at, i wasn't sure what to benchmark it against. i know our clerkenwell corporate housing is WAY nice and that i shouldn't use this as a comparison. but are all the fridges over here so SMALL? the one in my parent's camper is bigger for heaven's sakes! and really, i have to turn on the hot water heater before i shower?? ack.

we only stayed about 15 minutes since we were running to clapham, and the walk to the tube was through a sketchy bad bridal shopping area and took 20 minutes. bleh.

christine and i were so exhausted from walking for two hours straight, and i felt terrible for taking up her entire afternoon and getting so very, very lost. i have never been that lost before, not even in rome.

we were a bit ragged when we got out at the clapham tube station but perked up pretty quickly:

- the directions we had were super good and there was no way we could get lost

- the neighborhood was adorable and quiet, with it's bar district safely around the corner

- the flat we were looking at was a...house

- the housemates were so cool and even gave us a glass of water (we probably looked like something the cat dragged in)

- the room was good sized, the kitchen modern, the freezer SEPARATE from the fridge, the garden huge, and there was space in a few places for my various friends and relatives to throw an air mattress down when they visit

the only downside is the 30-minute commute to clerkenwell but it's all by tube, so i don't think that's so bad. i'm more interested in not living in a dungeon and having nice people to greet me in my pajamas each morning.

think i'll email my boss today and maybe one of my other colleagues to confirm that the neighborhood isn't filled with serial killers. will have to do this via blackberry as cincinnati have helpfully changed my LDAP password without telling me. :-)