Being an Adult

Obviously, the blog postings have been a rarity recently and that is not due to lack of having exciting news but rather the lack of broadband....STILL.

With that being said, being an adult is not always fun. Since moving into my flat I have been dealing with bills, stupid companies, and of course, incompetent people. I guess I am growing up and I do not really love it. Probably because I am currently just dealing with the expenses and not the part of making an income. Soon, that will change! I have learned from several experiences thus far a little more about how the Brits work. Obviously, the water leaking through my bathroom ceiling was an example. No worries though because it finally got fixed and we have electricity in the bathroom.....3 weeks later!
My newest issue has come with trying to get broadband and switching mobile providers. Almost all companies for broadband require a 12 month contract. Not a big deal, unless you have no idea where you will be in 12 months like me. I originally thought that is what we would have to do and signed up for Sky on 3 of January. On the 12th of January, Sky contacted me to inform me that the process had been stalled because I would have to have a new active landline and needed my approval. I called them instantly and gave my approval. At this point, I figured that Wifi would soon be ours! On the 27th of January (yes, I waited 2 weeks. Maybe a little long) I called back to see what the heck was going on. That beautiful Friday morning, I found out that my order was still not active. Basically, the Sky worker that I spoke to on the 12th did not activate the account again. In being concerned about customer relations, the new Sky worker offered me the promotion that I was currently a part of already (the Internet promo that made me choose Sky oh the first place). After I told her that, she said that she would talk to the first Sky worker who messed up my order. That definitely made me feel better. Anyways, it is fine now because I canceled Sky yesterday!

I canceled Sky because of that ordeal and that we would not have broadband for another 2 weeks and because I was just fed up with them. Instead, Bianca and I opted for a monthly contract with O2! Monthly= way better for us! In signing up for O2, we were offered huge discounts if we were O2 mobile customers. Being that neither of us were customers, I decided to switch! Good times ahead. I went to my current providers, Vodafone, to cancel my account. At the retail store, they told me that I had to go online and send an email though their website. Obviously, I don't have wifi so hearing that was frustrating but easy enough. At home, I purchased 24 hours of wifi and went to their website to discover that it was down. Sooooo I called the customer helpline. The customer helpline was very informative and told me that their website was down (obviously) so I asked if I could cancel via phone. No- of course not they told me. So I had to wait 24 hours for their website to work so I could cancel. I am just going to say it but that is just not what I am used to!


Anyways, enough venting. It is canceled and Wifi is mine in 5 days!

Cheers to being an adult!
<3


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Closest thing I will ever get to the Olympics

Thursday night in London town.....was of course spent at the North Greenwich Arena, the official site for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

While everyone has been asking me if I am going to the Olympics, I will now tell you that the answer is-No. Unfortunately, the tickets for the Olympic games have been sold out for a while now. The tickets are released in a lottery style session for those who have signed up. I do not have tickets though and will probably not gain any because I do not work for a company who will still receive them or know anyone in that type of place.
Regardless, Carolyn and I got to go to the site where the indoor events, gymnastics and basketball will be taking place and we got to see the final qualifier for gymnasts. Sadly, there were no Americans competing in this event.... because they have all already qualified!! The first qualifier was in Japan a few months ago and this final one was for the remaining countries whose team was not complete from Japan's event.
Carolyn and I were able to see men compete on floor, pommel horse, and rings and women compete in uneven parallel bars and the vault! while everything looked great to us, we were able to learn a little bit more about the point system and method for judging.

While I am still not a connoisseur of the sport, I look forward to cheering on Max and Louis from GBR (the only names I remember) at the Olympics this summer.

New Year, New Flat, New Sheets!

One of the most frustrating and difficult things I have had to do while in London was locate a new flat. We absolutely loved our old flat (minus the bed bugs) but our let was only until December and then we knew we would have to find a new place. Moving into the first flat, our landlord communicated to Bianca and myself that they would probably have another opening in the same building and it would not a problem at all to find a new place. Clearly, he just wanted us to move into the first flat and was lying. With weekly emails to the buildings realtor, we quickly learned that ‘Kelly’ would be zero help and that we were going to have to find a new flat ourselves. Bianca likes to tell me that our first flat was like winning the lottery (great location, size, price, etc.) but that now we would have to think like the lottery ran out. Our flat hunt was gruesome as no flats were really on the market and the ones that came on in the morning were normally gone by the afternoon. The flats we looked at were either in poor locations, too small, too expensive, too “post war”, & seriously laughable because they were so awful! Finally, we thought we had one but needed to find one more flat mate. When that fell through, I had about committed to living under the London Bridge. Luckily, Bianca looked at a flat the day after I left for the U.S. and committed to it so we could have a new home. Our new flat is in zone 2 but has 2 bedrooms and a huge grocery store 1 block away. It is in a real residential area so we are now living with the locals! So far I have been manning the flat by myself, which has been a huge adventure in itself.

1.    1.)  HEATING

So the first day I moved in, I guess I never noticed how the heating wasn’t on as I was moving around and running to the store, etc. That night though, I returned and realized that it was freezing in the flat. I checked the radiators and they were definitely not working. So I began to search out the flat. I checked the thermostat, which I had cranked up to 24 degrees (like 80 degrees Fahrenheit) and I knew that something was wrong. When I opened the closet to find a massive water heater, I felt the heat coming. Unfortunately, after turning on everything, nothing was still working. My first night in my new flat was spent, with me wearing full body clothing including scarf and socks beneath the only 2 blankets I had at the time with my 2 winter wool coats on top, shaking cold and mad because my friends were in a warm hotel. The next morning, I stayed wrapped in the fetal position reading the Hunger Games until the 2 heating repairmen came. They must have felt really sorry for me as they discovered what I had not turned on, gave me a tutorial on how to work the odd British heating system, and left without charging me. The flat was great from then after UNTIL….

2        2.)  LEAK

My friends returned from Paris to join me in the flat for a few days. It was nice having them back and after returning from St. Paul’s that first night back, Kelsey began screaming in the bathroom. I thought it a little odd, asked her what was wrong and she came running out screaming that water was dripping all over her! –NOT a good sign!—

Open the bathroom door and sure enough there was a steady waterfall coming down from the light fixture in the bathroom. Ironically, we had just purchased pots and pans so their first use was immediate- to hold the water flooding into my bathroom. Long story short: I met my neighbors above me and they are so nice! The repairman didn’t show up until the next morning. The water hit the electrics and tripped our lights so we were in the dark, and I am now waiting for a new light fixture for the bathroom and fan! 

U.S. & Back Again

What a perfect Christmas I had. It was a truly perfect holiday as family, friends, and love surrounded me. I cannot begin to say how thankful I was to go home. & then the real adventure began as 5 of my college girlfriends returned back over the pond with me to spend New Years in London. 

Overcome with jetlag, we pushed through to be the typical American tourists in London and see all the sights-first being Buckingham Palace.

The Queen was not in but Kelsey was able to get some great pictures above the crowd for the changing of the guards.

 I am truly blessed to have an incredible friends group who support me in all that I do and continue to communicate daily and pray for me 4,000 miles away. #BBB