J-Squared: Our Arrival

Jackie finished working on June 17th and Jake wrapped-up in the NYC office on June 25th. We finally finished packing the apartment on July 1st at 7:45 a.m. and our flight to Denver left one hour and 30 minutes later. Let's just say Jackie was wishing she hadn't packed the "Easy Button" at that point. While in Colorado, we were able to enjoy lots of time with friends and family. We celebrated Jake's grandfathers 90th birthday in addition to Dave and Kacey's bachelor and bachelorette parties.

We left Colorado on July 11th for a 24 hour trip back to New York where we stayed the night with Jake’s co-workers Suzanne and Vinny. They were great hosts, who performed duties such as luggage handling while we were in CO, and a last minute trip to the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru for a good old fashioned cup of American Joe before boarding the plane.

It was finally time to leave and start the next two years of our life in London. We checked in at JFK with all seven bags (that’s right, SEVEN!), and kindly donated half a month’s salary to Delta in luggage fees.

The flight went smoothly and six hours of cramped sleeping later, we landed in our new home. At Heathrow the task of moving the luggage would be easier with two carts, so we loaded everything up and headed out to the taxi line. The cabbie looked a little bit shocked by the mountain of luggage to be packed into his taxi, but we finally got everything loaded up and were off to our temporary housing, i.e. Rob and Laura’s flat.

Rob and Laura are old friends of ours from Colorado. Laura also works for PwC, which is why she and Rob are in London for the next two years and kindly offered to let us stay with them for a few weeks while we search for a flat of our own.

While driving from Heathrow to Rob and Laura's we pulled up next to a huge Harrods delivery truck. It was at that moment that Jackie knew she was going to like it here.

In anticipation of our arrival, Laura left the keys to the flat in a little garden area next to their building. She assured us that we would be able to find the Ziploc bag mixed in with all of the plants, empty beer cans and other "rubbish." For some reason, we had doubts. However, after unpacking the taxi Jake ran down the block to look for the keys and found them with no problems and we were dragging our suitcases up to their flat before we knew it.

After getting settled, we decided to go for a little walk around the new neighbourhood, an area called Fulham. It was now mid-afternoon and time to grab a local brew! We had read several articles about a pub near Parsons Green called the White Horse, or as locals call it "the Pony" and thought it was only fitting to have our first round of pints there. They were amazing and a great way to end our first, jet lagged day in London.