expat

The W Sisters and The Story Of Lets Go To See Some Castles or Not

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One day at dinner before we moved to London I was discussing with the girls one of the things we can do when were in England. The girls love princess stories so MC and I talked up the fact that we can go see all sorts of different castles. This was something we’ve discussed several times and both girls had been excited about it.

This night T was still excited and wanted some more details. A on the other hand wasn’t so excited. I asked her why. She said she was going to be bored. She wanted to see just one castle and that was enough.

After a statement like that I didn’t really know what else to say except to confirm that’s what she meant. She did. Then I went about eating dinner…

Hello Mate

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In my walk to the tube station this dark Tuesday morning I walked past the sanitation guys in my neighborhood doing the weekly collection. I was surprised when I got a hello mate from all of them when I walked past each one.

It wasn’t on my block and they didn’t want anything. New Yorkers are pretty friendly however maybe not so outgoing. This was an encounter that I never had in NY.

So you want to move to another country Part 5: Finding a House Conundrum

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Most of the other things I’ve written about are completely possible or even required to be done out of the country. There is only so much you can do regarding finding a place to live without actually looking at houses. M is really fantastic at looking at online listings and narrowing down what she wants and what she thinks won’t work.  So basically she did all she could do remotely.

Even with M’s house investigation skills we realized early enough in the house finding process that we needed help. Based on a recommendation or two we settled on a relocation agent. Their job was to help us find a house to live in. We had several criteria. We wanted to be an area with a lot of green space. We also wanted a house with the backyard. This is something that M has wanted for a while and we promised our kids. One of the biggest priorities was proximity to good schools for the girls. We also wanted to be a reasonable commute will be located. And obviously we had a budget to stick with. With all that information in hand we let our relocation agents go to work. At the same time I had spoken to several friends from work who currently live in or around London. I also spoke to a friend of mine who is in New York who was relocated from London. After a lot of back and forth we suggested to the relocation agents that we felt our criteria would be met in a few specific neighborhoods.

After their research the relocation agent’s agreed with us. We then started focusing our efforts on the surrounding neighborhoods that we felt were a fit. The relocation agent sent several house examples to us. They were only examples since we learned that most property gets rented very quickly so we needed to see what was people out there however we would not have the specific listings we were going to see or possibly rent until right before we went to look.

Finding a house however does require some on the ground work. All of the research that M has done and all the work done by the relocation experts leads up to an on-site house viewings. The question became when could we go. We knew that when we started finding the right time to go was always a big question. Originally we were hoping to go in early October however childcare was a challenge. We also learned that to rent a house you need your visas done already. Our visas weren’t ready in October. We also learned that you have to view a house right around when you want to take it since they go quickly.

Early on in the planning my mom had said she would take the girls while we went to look for a house. The best week for her was the week of Thanksgiving. It only required hard to do the school routine two days and then go to my sisters the rest of the week until we got there. That gave us the entire weekend before and four days, Monday through Thursday to do what we needed to do. The relocation people said that the timeframe could work since property would be available for viewing then that we could rent in December. We preferred to rent for January however this was the only time we could go.

Other things we figured out was that you cannot get into a school right away so having a property rented and then starting the process to get the school sorted in December was appealing. The overlap in cost with our apartment in New York was frustrating however one month wasn’t the end of the world if it got us what we wanted.

With our dates settled we booked travel. We waited a bit too long and tickets were going to be pretty expensive for airfare. Then we had the idea to use reward tickets. We each had enough points for round trip ticket and there was availability the days we wanted to travel. The only challenge we had was we had award points on different airlines. We ended up booking the tickets and flew separately. Going out to London our flights were only about 30 minutes apart. Coming back however it was about 2 1/2 hours.

Due to delays M only arrived about 15 minutes before I did and waited for me and read a book right past customs. We were able to ride together to the hotel.

The way the schedule worked while we were in London for our house visiting trip was we had Saturday to rest from our overnight flight to view the neighborhoods we were interested in. We also hoped to find any last-minute houses that we wanted to view on our own. We walked around the high streets of two neighborhoods. We also spoke to one realtor and lined up two houses to view on Monday.

We were only able to view one house Monday since the other one we could get into. The house was lovely however it was right adjacent to the train and we were concerned about that. I thought I would be more concerned about that then it turned out to be however the bigger issue with the house was its distance to the train. It was three quarters of a mile walk. Without a car the girls would have issue doing that anytime we wanted to go anywhere.

Monday night we met up with a friend of mine from work who lives in the neighborhood we were looking at. By Monday afternoon the relocation agents had emailed us the itinerary for our marathon viewing sessions on Tuesday. We were originally going to try to do some houses Tuesday and some houses Wednesday however the schedule worked out that it was all done on Tuesday. Fun fact we learned that house viewing in England is best done on a Saturday or weekdays that are not Monday. Apparently Monday is when they reconcile offers made from weekend viewings.

With our list of houses we reviewed them with my friend at a pub by the office. We got the lowdown on the streets where the houses we wanted to see were. Based off of that and the details from the relocation agents there were no matter what and some that we were really excited to see.

On Tuesday the first house we saw was a disaster, literally. There was what could only be described as a hole in the floor of the kitchen. There were some sort of water damage that had been addressed yet and the entire kitchen was buckled floor. It was a good start of the day. The next few houses were okay but nothing spectacular.

Before lunch we viewed one house that was M’s stand out favorite. The street was nice, the backyard was nice and it was pretty spacious. What we learned was even though we only need three bedrooms the houses we viewed you really needed a 4th bedroom. The reason for that was the last bedroom be it the third or fourth was always super small. We could have survived on three bedrooms however my dream of a home office in a guestroom would’ve been dashed. The rooms were just too small to hold more than a desk or more than a single bed. The single bed even wouldn’t have been enough since we want guests to come and that means usually more than one person at a time. Apparently this size room is typical in prewar houses.

After lunch we saw another house or two we liked. One house with really good location to a fantastic school was just horrible. The last house we saw as M said had terrible curb appeal. It was off of the main Street was a little bit further of a walk than what we liked however it was doable. The thing with that house was once you are inside it was fantastic. There was a pretty open floor plan first floor. The living room was pretty big and there was an eating kitchen. The backyard was huge. So large to the point we could not see the end of it due to the way it was laid out. I wasn’t a fan of the bedroom configuration but it was okay enough.

In the end the decision boiled down to two houses. One was a big four-bedroom with a huge backyard with a swing set. It had if I recall an eating kitchen and a garage with off street parking even had a dryer in the garage. That apparently is very rare for England. It hardly did not come with appliances however the previous tenant had left appliances we could use with no warranty if we wanted.

The other house was M’s favorite that was close to the train on a cute Street. It was a three bedroom that had the attic converted into a master bedroom with en suite bathroom. It did not have off street parking however you can get a permit so parking hopefully should be manageable since not just anyone can park.

We put an offer on the four-bedroom with the converted attic. The final straw was it had several school options that were good. The other house we light had really only one school option and if we didn’t get into it we would have to travel pretty far for in other school. One of the things we said we needed that the relocation agent suggested was a high density number of schools in case your first and second options don’t work out.

Since our original plan was to view houses Wednesday and we had an offer out we had a free day. We went to the Tate and Borough Market along with walking on the river for a while. It was generally restful day before we flew home on Thursday.

As of the time of this writing we have our house. We got the house we wanted and were pretty happy. The relocation agents have already started the process of getting our utilities and other things set up. There helping with things I didn’t realize they would help with. Well I guess I realized that since I did read the terms and conditions however you forget the details. I was getting overwhelmed with the things we need to do and there taking care of many of them.

By the time this blog post is published we should be already living in her house.

Hi, I am New Here…

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Hi I am new here and I would like to play. Maybe now, maybe latter, or even all day. I will make you laugh deep down in your belly and we will go together like Peanut Butter and Cupcake.

My kids love that book. Being in a new city and country made me think about that since we are the new kid for everything. Hopefully we make friends as easy as Peanut butter did.

Our First Family Outing In The UK

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On our first outing in our new country we decided to inspect the damage American culture has caused so we went to the Mall in Stratford. I will say this the British have made the Mall civilized by offering a bar. We did not partake today but totally filled that away for future reference.

At Least My Amazon Tap Is Ready For London

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I followed a how to on Reddit for how to get my Tap working in the UK. It wasn’t straight forward like an Echo since it apparently is not sold in the UK. I was prepared for a challenge however it worked on the first attempt. For the next day i have to remember the time it gives me will be in GMT. MC and I are also going cold turkey and have the Tap giving us weather in Celsius. Apparently its a thing. Thankfully the Tap can convert stuff for us when we have no clue what it is telling us in Celsius.

A Good Old Fashioned American Diner

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The other day I wrote about “American Food” and trying to get the girls into eating some American staples so they at least have a memory of it as we move to the UK. That topic brought up a few other things I started to wonder about. Most importantly is were can I find or even is it possible to find some foods we love and take for granted in the US? My friend A (lets call him A since he is a security minded person) is from the UK and lives in NY. He has been a huge source of information. Other friends from work who live in the UK have been other sources of info. A has said that there is at least one place i can get a decent bagel. I think he also mentioned a BBQ place too. The Expat group i joined did also discuss good Souther BBQ and what options there were.

But what about the other foods? I am not a huge Indian food fan but I know getting good food in London is no problem. Sushi, sure should be ok. Thai, I am not a huge Thai fan but I have eaten good Thai food in london already so no problem. So what local American items are going to be an issue.

Pizza for sure will be a problem. I am pretty positive i can get Pizza. The issue is how good is it? Lets face it I live in NYC. When i goto my in-laws in the Hudson Valley i am always surprised their pizza is good since its not NYC. When we go to their place in Tampa the pizza not so good. I always heard its the water but who knows. I do know that good Pizza will be a challenge.

Then there is a good old fashioned American Diner. MC and I both love them. Were the menu is a book. The portions are huge. If you order pretty much any mainstay item it will be greasy delicious. I typically get the same thing (most of the time but not always). Some sort of burger and onion rings. I just don’t think we are going to be getting that in London. I envision getting off the plane when we come to America to visit and stopping by somewhere on the way to wherever we are staying in NY. Just to get our grease fix. I may not be far from the truth on that. I hope I am wrong.

Those are the main food genre’s i can think of now. I am sure i will think of more or someone will sadly remind me of one. When i do i will add it to my list. For no particular reason and not for keeping score i plan on periodically writing pro or con posts on life in London. I guess you can consider this a potential entry in the con category however I have to get on the ground and explore first to be sure.

A Test of The HorcruxNet

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When explaining my Resilio personal cloud setup to someone at work they replied that i have my own personal Horcrux minus the killing.  I liked the idea so I think i am naming my Resilio backup setup HorcruxNet.

The network is having its biggest test this week in its 3 or so years of existance.  I am moving.  Movers are packing up our stuff tomorrow.  That means i am putting my electronics into “Cleaning Lady Safe Mode”.  it is what i used to have to do when our cleaning lady showed up.  I would unplug everything so she didn’t mess stuff up.  She did a few times.

I have expanded my network to have replica or partial replica copies on my laptop.  I also have 3 working remote sites thanks to friends and family hosting some nodes.  While we move and my two primary full nodes (my Synology) and mac mini) will be offline for about 4-5 weeks.  During that time my remote hosts will hopefully keep humming along.  With my home network offline i doubt there will be much changes however since my laptop has a partial replica if i do make changes it will propagate out.

I love a nice well configured computer system if I do say so myself.

So you want to move to another country Part 4: The Visa Application

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Once I signed my employment contract for the relocation things started happening pretty quickly with my companies human resources and mobility groups. They got all the information they needed together to send The lawyers who are working on my visa application.

The visa application process was much more stressful than originally thought it would be. From reading the EU Rules on citizens relocating it seems pretty straightforward that we could move. The lawyers initially had major concerns because I was the one with the job yet I was not a citizen. As we got into more details they quickly came back and said our application should be pretty straightforward. However they were being lawyers initially and to me seemed all doom and gloom. It boils down to the more information we gave them when they asked for it the better our chances became that this would be pretty straightforward.

Surprisingly the hardest part in this entire process was the time zone difference with the lawyers. The other challenge was around document Catherine. For the visa application I needed to provide a huge amount of documentation. Most of it was pretty straightforward however I ran into a snag with my bank statements. Generally are use an online bank for most of our finances. It works great and I typically have no problems. The only time I recall there being an issue was when we bought our apartment I needed a bank certified check that I simply could not get from them. For the visa application the UK government requires a physical copy of statements. I opt to get electronic distributions of my statements. The lawyer said that’s not a problem print them out and have the bank sign and stamp them to certify they are authentic or simply order print outs and have them delivered. That was easier said than done. One bank we use housing for a walk down the street and have some statement signed and stamped in 15 minutes. Do you mean online bank however originally gave me a lot of back-and-forth on that they would not even do what we needed.After finally getting fed up with the back-and-forth I actually got results by sending a Twitter message to their support group. They confirmed that could go to a branch and have documents printed stamped and signed. Like I said they are an online bank however they do you have a few branches in the United States. Big challenge for me is the nearest branch is an hour and a half drive from New York City.

MC and I opted to drive out there together with the girls and make a morning of it. She took the girls to play playground while I got the documents printed. We then met up with her parents for lunch. They lived only about 30 minutes from where we were so we thought was a good opportunity to see them.

In the end things worked out and I was able to get all the documents I needed however it was extremely challenging pulling all the information together. I was glad that I keep really good records of things. Not having lots of readily available digital copies of information to send the lawyers would’ve drawn out their preparations.

Once we got all the documents together we all had to go to a visa processing center to get pictures and fingerprints. Only my youngest daughter who is under five did not need to have her fingerprints taken. I’m glad for that since she barely would look into the camera to get her picture taken.

After we had that done the application was submitted with all the documentation to go along with it. We were concerned that we wouldn’t get it back in time for the trip we were planning to house hunt in London. The guidance we were given what is up to 15 business days to get a reply. It turned out we got an email saying the visas were being printed within two days of it being submitted. Total duration between when we submitted the paperwork to the lawyers and when I picked up all the papers and the pieces was one week or five business days. It was a major relief.

But wait we’re not done. What I learned on this process started because you get a visa for six months that get you to United Kingdom. Once you’re there you apply for five your visa that you can only apply for if you’re actually living there. This might be different depending on your situation however for that type of visa that we are getting at is what we had to do. That means once we get there we start the process over again. I’m not sure what documentation we need to provide for that however i’m assuming it’s going to be as much or more information then we’ve already provided for the first visa.

In the next part of the series talk about money. I am told they don’t take US dollar:)