This is 1 Dec

I've been avoiding posting, so here you have a few very stream of consciousness updates on our life in London.

1. We still have no shower. It has now been 40 days that we have not had access to our en suite. We are super lucky that we have a second bathroom (which has a tub only). However, it has effectively now been 7 weeks out of the 8 weeks we have lived in this flat that we have been shower-less. In the last 7 weeks, I've taken three showers, which were in Rome. I recognize that we are very lucky overall and that this whole ordeal is a real first world problem, but it's also really stressful, obnoxious, and driving me crazy.

2. My ugly feelings toward plumbers has reached an all-time unfathomed high.

3. I am still working! In fact, on Friday, I worked an 11 hour day and won my first court case. Well, the barrister "won" it, but I did a lot of work with my colleagues and I was present at the hearing, so it felt very satisfying. Its good to feel like a real lawyer.

4. Our obsession with the International Street food fair on Sundays has plateaued. We still love it, but it has been kicked from being the highlight of the week.

5. We managed to find Americans to share Thanksgiving with us. On Thursday, we hit up Pepperdine's group and had a lovely Thanksgiving meal with our fellow law students. It was really nice. On Saturday, I baked three pies and a sweet potato casserole. The store only had pink and white marshmallows. We made it work. The pies turned out excellent. We took the sweets to a feast with our new British/American friends that we met in September. They've turned out to be lovely friends, and they introduced us to even more really lovely people. It was a great day.

6. My two new favorite phrases that will forever be incorporated into my verbiage:

"cant be bothered" = cannot bring myself to do that

 Example, "I cannot be bothered to do the dishes right now." 

"muppet" = a person who is worthless  

Example, "Those plumbers are a buncha muppets!" 

7. Brian and I shared the one year of our engagement last Friday. We were in Rome and it was a lovely day. Brian had never been to Italy, so we had a great time. I met a colleague from working in Madrid and spent wonderful quality time with her. On Saturday, we were filled with sentimental thoughts about where we were one year ago and how much has happened since then. I look back on that weekend with the fondest of memories with our closest friends and family. I was filled with warmth all weekend, still reeling from the event even if it was one year ago.

8. Grey doesn't bark like a Brit. Not yet, at least. But she has learned to pee on concrete. And she actually likes the cobble stone. Great success!

9. I think that Starbucks holiday cup "scandal" was one of the stupidest things in the 21st century.

10.  Brian and I will be in Cincinnati and Chicago for about one week around Christmas. I will be eat Chic-Fil-A at least ten times, Brian will demand Skyline at least fifteen times, and I will spend over two hours frolicking the aisles of Target.

Dressing Whoever You Are

Halloween is about grim and gore in this country.
I lost count of how many dead brides I saw. I found this the most disturbing. Halloween is definitely celebrated and the American trick or treat tradition is growing in popularity here. 


This year, unfazed by Britain's take on the holiday, Brian and I were party animals. I dressed as a cat, and he wore this awesome elephant onsie. Brit told me I would have been better off as a "dead kitty," and I wanted to slap him. That should not be an acceptable thing! I did, in fact, sadly, see a "dead kitty" on the Tube. Somethings I will never understand.

On October 31, I was roaming around the streets of our neighborhood attempting to distinguish between who was dressed up and who was not. We live in a very hipster-y neighborhood. There are about 20 Vintage clothing stores within a few blocks of our apartment, and their customers are quite characters. The collection of clothing you may see on any one individual in the same motley outfit is actually remarkable. I haven't kept a precise count, but I know I cycle through the entire rainbow in hair colors every day or two. Sometimes, multiple colors on the same person! Green and blue, or purple and black. So you can understand how I wasn't sure as I walked past the other pedestrians, are you dressed up, or are you not? The streets around here haven't changed too much. I like that. I like I live somewhere that everyone gets to dress as they please and tell a story with their appearance and just rock it. So, I often walk Grey in my Alabama sweat pants and my hair in a rat's nest on the top of my head, and it's fine. Because its Shoreditch, and all things are "cool." Shh, don't tell me otherwise... 

We went to a party with Pepperdine students doing the program that I did in 2013. It's very weird to think about the mountain of changes that have happened since I was a Second year law student. I didn't realize how much OLDER I've gotten since then until I was standing there. We felt two beers behind all night and a bit like uninvited chaperones that didn't belong at a college party, buuuuut we had a great time and had a good, long laugh when we processed the whole thing the next morning. 

Guy Fawke's Day was November 5th. Fireworks were randomly going off throughout the week. On Saturday, I went with friends to this giant fireworks show in Victoria Park. I felt very oddly like all the sudden it was 4th of July and I was at home. It's amazing how many celebrations translate across cultures. Somethings are just undeniably amazing. There is something about that little explosion of light and color in the sky that makes everyone's face mirror its glow. No matter who you are, it's likely that fireworks in the sky will make you gasp in awe and bring a smile to your face. Something about sharing that with other people is a cool feeling. Instant. Happiness. 

pantyhose and paychecks

I recognize this need to beautifully package some kind of theme in order to blog. Perhaps the readers of this blog would prefer I just use it as a pure communication tool of updating on our life here. This blog has never been that, but it could be that. So, hey, reader, express what you'd like to read. And I'll write that. 

We moved into the flat previously mentioned just over two weeks ago now. We really love it and I promise to post photos soon. It's not all perfect and we are currently boxing with our landlord (another post entirely), but everyone has reassured us that all landlords are bad words and that there is no good landlord. So, fine, we will become better boxers. We had dinner with friends last night who shared us their landlord nightmare. I couldn't tell if it comforted me in that "it could be worse" or terrified me to think "it may get worse." Indeed it is getting worse, but I have hope it will get better. 

As some of you know, I had a very miraculous email exchange that has lead to me working here in London. For me, especially in the particular situation where his arose, I consider most miracles to be gifts from Mom and she outdid herself on this one. On HER birthday, nonetheless! In 2013 when I lived here as a second year law student, I worked for a human rights law firm and they had this immediate need for some paralegal work. I started just two days after we landed in London. 

It's a dream job in many ways and I feel completely powerless to complain when this fell out of thin air without me lifting a finger. Not to mention how many of my friends have been slaving over application after application after application and are still jobless. However there is a balance between having a job and having a good job, or more importantly, the RIGHT job. 

I was hired on a temporary, project only basis, for not great pay. Obviously I was so thrilled to be employed within two days of landing without submitting a single job application, I didn't care! As the project has dwindled down after five weeks (it was initially thought to be about two weeks only), I've felt my intolerance for uncertainty absorbing substantial mental energy. But I'm hoping for some conversation with the managing partner that results in a permanent job offer. Lots of prayers. 

In the meantime, it's been a lot of fun to get paid for legal work for the first time ever and soak in the new experience. I learn so much about British culture from work. There is another American in the office, and several American trained attorneys so its a very welcoming environment. There are no cubicles so we all just work right next to each other at adjoining desks. I feel part of a team thats working on some really cool projects, and I'd love the opportunity to stay there!  

Mimosas in the Sun

We got the news on Wednesday morning at 6am that we both passed the NY Bar!! Now we just have one more hurdle of paperwork to complete to pass the "moral character" portion of our application to the bar. We've already completed and passed the Ethics exam, and obviously the July exam was the biggest mountain to overcome. It's an incredible relief to have received this news and I have tremendous gratitude for so many of you that helped me accomplish it. I feel very emotional thinking about it. Thank you to those of you who fed me, helped me, encouraged me... All of it. Thank you the most for the prayers. God is good. Thank you. We did it. Together. 

All summer, my background on my computer was a Walt Disney quote, "it's kind of fun to do the impossible."

Sometimes at the end of a journey, it's easy to forget just how difficult the road was that got you there. This summer had a lot of dark days. I was doubtful, I was discouraged, I was beaten down. I was faced with memorizing literally thousands of laws. I wasn't scoring where I wanted to be; I wasn't improving like I thought I should. I had no gold star to show for my achievements even though I was working 10 hours a day. It was absurd. It was grueling. It was REALLY hard. 

The days leading up to July 28 and 29, I listened to "here comes the sun" about 2893748 times. The words "it's been a long, lonely winter... Here comes the sun, little darling, it's alright." I couldn't get over the irony of feeling that summer had actually been a long and lonely winter. But I had to hold on because the sun- the wedding, London, being an attorney- it was coming. 

Apparently, some study has been done where women polled overwhelmingly chose the Bar over pregnancy as the most stressful and painful thing they had ever endured. The women said they would do child birth again, but they would never repeat the bar. Besides that, you have a beautiful baby at the end when after the bar, all you have is 3+ months of second-guessing and insecurity. As Brian said, it would be like if on Christmas morning your parents said, "you know how you were really good for 3 years and you were always on the good list? Well, this year, you don't get any gifts. And all that time you were good was pretty much for nothing." 

Then, on top of THAT, I decided to have LASIK surgery. From which, I experienced very obnoxious and inconvenient complications. I also had wedding tasks that just had to be accomplished during our bar studying time. We also were trying to prepare the Atlanta house to go on the market. Oh, and, we had just moved from LA back to ATL and still had to prepare for our move to London. During the bar study months, it was impossible not to work on our visas, our flights, our honeymoon, etc. Literally, it was insane. And we did it. We did it. The wedding was beautiful and an amazing day. And now we are in London, settled in, employed, and we passed the bar exam. What?! I mean, what?! 

I catalog all of that to remember. To remember just how hard it was; and that if I can do it, you can. And that it really is "kind of fun" to do the impossible. The sun is here and it's shining and it's just lovely. 

a flat out nightmare

I was unprepared.
This is an ironic way to start this blog post considering the day of our move to London, I posted a status on Facebook about the ridiculous preparation that was required for survival of May 2015 through September 17, 2015. And then, we landed in London.
I lived in London from August through December of 2013. Not once during that entire period do I recall experiencing what is commonly called, "culture shock." I still cannot bring myself to call it that, because it's just not an appropriate label. No, I had culture shock in Africa. No, I love culture. I love being shocked by culture. That's not what this was. This was a nightmare.

This is the story of how we learned London's leasing market by doggy paddling in the deep end. 

Nearly every sale or let (aka lease) in London goes through some agency. Agencies charge a lot of money. The agents are practically anti-tenant/pro-landlord, as they get paid by the landlord to get the highest possible offer. So basically, we put in an offer and then its totally unprotected and can get outbid. The list prices are all up for negotation. This is supposedly the busiest time of year in the London leasing market and the leasing market here has been repeatedly ranked as one of the worst in the world. Didnt know that! But know i believe it!! Letting in London is much more synonymous with buying a house than what we think of "signing a 1 year lease." 

We learned that agency's fees were basically unavoidable. We scheduled viewings after work and saw about ten properties in five days. Multiple times, in the short time between booking a viewing and going to the viewing, the property was let. The market is HOT. Additionally, properties on the market now aren't actually available to move in immediately. Some aren't available until late October or even early November. Landlords are also dog-averse. One landlord wanted a £2,300 deposit for Grey. FOR GREY!! 

Last thursday, we found this wonderful place, great location, with this huge terrace for Grey. Brian viewed the property at 5pm and then I came after work and viewed it around 6. We went to dinner, thought about our offer, and went to the office first thing Friday morning with our offer. We had been told by all our London friends & coworkers that asking price is negotiable and no one really pays asking price. So in our offer because of the absurd experience we had all week with flats getting scooped up like crazy, we offered a 2 year contract at asking price. Within the hour we submitted our offer, someone had come in and given £40 MORE PER WEEK. That’s like almost $300 more per month!!! I mean, WHAT?! 

So then the pressure was on big time. Saturday, we went to a second viewing of a place I had reallllly fallen in love with earlier on in the week but that had a crappy location but with so much character and space. We placed an offer and left nervous because they had several other viewings and the agent wouldnt stop viewings or reject other offers until our offer was accepted by the landlord. With little hope, we carried on with our planned schedule and saw two more flats. We liked BOTH of them! At the third place, we put in an offer immediately after viewing. Totally spur of the moment, feeling super crazy, knowing any second the other landlord could accept our first offer and we’d be in big trouble. As soon as we left that place, we called and withdrew our first offer. Feeling like crazy people, emotionally drained, we carried onto a FOURTH viewing for the day because we were afraid our offer wouldnt be accepted. About five hours later, our offer was accepted by the landlord! 

The battle was just beginning. Even after our paperwork and holding deposit finalized, OUR property was still on the market. For three days, we were nervous that someone could put in a higher offer and knock us out. The idea that this is legal under contract law just baffles me. The agency requires the 10 week deposit to come from a UK bank. Well, thanks to the complicated nature of an international wire transfer, we learned that the bank's restrictions would be unable to get the 10-week deposit into our bank account in the strict timeline we had to preserve our hold on the property. Meanwhile, our temporary housing requires 7 days notice of any extension or cancelation. Not knowing whether or not we would be able to move in on Saturday, because we legitimately do not know whether or not we have the flat, we will now be paying for next week's rent in two places. A blessing of a problem to have compared to being kicked out of any housing at all! With quite a bit of thankfulness, we were able to sort the money out and it was deposited to their account today. This whole thing has just been CRAZY. 

Now, we are waiting on a bit of finalizing loose ends but we are expecting to move in on Saturday. 

However, I will not feel reassured until I have those keys in my hands. As you tap yourself on the back for finishing this really long post, say a prayer that we will actually be able to move in and that we are not flat-less in a few days. I'm so anxious to put this flat battle behind us and start settling in!