So… I write this in the living room of my new home (for the next two years) in Bramcote, Nottinghamshire, UK. It’s been a crazy few weeks getting the house packed up and ready for us to leave.. but more on that later. Now that we’ve settled in a little bit (sort of), just wanted to give everyone a little summary of our move day…
We had all our bags packed pretty much the night before so that we wouldn’t have to worry about it this morning. I got the two check-in bags under 50 lb, and just loaded up the two rollies and our backpacks with the rest of the stuff.
All my bags are packed I’m ready to go…
Then, my parents came over to empty out our freezer of weeks worth of frozen chicken, beef, bacon, tamales, veggies, and homemade icecream. Once we loaded up my parents’ coolers, we dropped the truck off at Minh’s mom’s house, picked up my wedding dress from the cleaners (FINALLY!), and my aunt/godmother took us out to lunch. We went for sushi at Sagami Tei, next to the house. Was good to have sushi and a meal with my family before we left.
The driver was (about an hour) early picking us up to take us to the airport, but wasn’t a big deal.. just a little rushed getting out of the house after dinner. When we got to the airport, the Air New Zealand ticketing counter wasn’t open (supposed to open at 1:30PM, but didn’t actually open till about 1:50PM). We got to the counter and were able to check out bags without any problems, but apparently they have a weight limit for carry-on baggage too (!!!). When did airlines start doing that?!?!? I had to pay extra ($150!) to check one of the other bags because it was WAY WAY over the 7 kg (approx 15 lbs) limit. And we were able to disperse all the other stuff amongst our two backpacks and one more carry-on, so we didn’t have to pay double on the checked baggage. Probably should have checked on that before we got to the airport…. oh wells.. Minh and I got a little tiff about exchanging money (because we left it as an afterthought).. and then shared an incredible final USA meal of … drum roll … Burger King Whopper Jr and Chicken Nuggets. AWESOME!
Last meal in the U.S.A. – Burger King Whopper Jr and Chicken Nuggets
The flight was uneventful (other than the baby across the aisle from us that was on-and-off crying the whole time). And we were able to get through customs just fine and came out to SNOW IN LONDON!!! WTF? It’s APRIL! Here’s where the fun starts… Our driver from London/Heathrow to the flat was FAST… so we got there before the letting agent was available to let us in. We also didn’t have a gate code that worked… and the driver had another appointment at 3:30PM.. so we had to unload outside the gate and wait. Minh ended up jumping the wall to get us inside the car gate, but we still had to wait outside the building.
Wishful thinking that the front door would be unlocked…
Waiting for the letting agent.. in the cold wind…
The letting agent came at about 3:45PM and let us in. The flat is smaller than we remembered, but still pretty awesome. We settled in a little bit and then decided to get some groceries. We walked about 1.5miles to Beeston, with our backpacks, to load up on some groceries – apples, pears, dried pasta, pasta sauce, juice, onions, carrots, green beans, frozen pizza, salad, eggs, beer, sausage, bacon, toilet paper, brita filters, shredded cheese, butter, bread – all that for £50.50. May be a little expensive… but it as less than I was expecting for our first grocery run.
Part 1 of 2 – Moving day groceries!
Part 2 of 2 – Moving day groceries!
We walked everything back to the flat and made the frozen pizzas for dinner. Classy, huh?
Frozen pizza dinner.. was fairly decent for frozen pizza..
More on our last days in the US later.. but for now, I’ll leave you with a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! to my dad, who turned 68 today. Sorry I couldn’t be there to celebrate with him.. but we’ll be back to celebrate the big 7-0 in two years.
HAPPY 68TH BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!
Think Tran 