The saga of the hunt for housing...........

Although it was perhaps not the quickest of starts nearly two weeks ago, I have certainly made up for anything smacking of "lost time" to the point I am at right now having completed a fairly robust quantity of searching.  One thing you would need to know though is that the real estate situation in Portsmouth is highly segmented with  dozens of different offices.  I am not sure how many offices I've been to, but its been more than a dozen and, through an automated website, signed up for searching assist with 20 offices and to date I have viewed more than two dozen flats, townhouses, etc.  It is still very much a work in progress, there are a couple hopefuls, but I haven't moved on anything just yet.  Crazy thing is that some places are close, but is missing a little something.  Of course it doesn't help any that a house hunting trip wasn't allowed, seems obvious that this is a necessary step for a functional move.  Anyway, choosing furniture to bring with you without knowing where you are moving is a great definition of flying blind.  Getting back to those couple hopefuls that are missing something, well, the door might be too narrow, a stair way might be to tight, living rooms too small, no balcony or garden, all of which is a hiccup when considering what furniture I have brought with me.  Another difficulty I've dealt with is that I came to town at the same time as the bulk of the college students and looking for something at the same time, not so easy.  Entertaining at times, but not so easy.  It really as if we are looking at the same places, but there is some overlap and, if I want something a little larger, considering student themed houses are one of few avenues.  This brings me to the point of this story and this post.

I forget how many places I looked at last Thursday, I think maybe 3 or 4 between two different agents.  The second agent shows me a place, good enough, but another one that is in that category of student housing but something I would think about.  As we walk around the flat the agent tells me the story about the flat as I do not remember seeing it online and I've seen most any flat anywhere near my searching parameters.  The reason why I hadn't seen it was that, up to the night before, it was reserved by five Chinese students.  The students actually had a friend of a friend come down from London to search for a place and aid in the coordination, they then reserved it paying a deposit, and finally the owner (who had been living in the flat) moved out early and prepped the flat awfully well to facilitate the students moving in upon arrival in the UK in time for the school year to start.  Well, the students show up and immediately proceed to tell the agent they think it smells, that it is too expensive, they don't want to live there, they are going somewhere else because they need to move in immediately, and they don't care about the trouble the owner went through.  Sure, they have a right to do it, but they were awfully rude in how they went about doing it.  Thing is, they lose their deposit but even more crazy, there is no way they are going to find a new place and move in immediately but they thought nothing of it.  The agent is telling me all of this as we walk around and it is a nice enough place but the owner was going to charge the students 2000 pounds and I'm not paying that much.

The next day I have appointments with four agents looking at 7 properties.  I go to the office to meet up with the third agent and, when I enter the store front office, sure enough there are 5 Chinese students.  It took about five seconds for it to click, but when it did I fought the urge to laugh or scold them for manners.  The agent and I head out and in the car he confirmed that it was almost definitely the same group, real estate agents talk.

All the small things

I'm sure I will chime in every now and again with something that just doesn't seem quite right, of course that is until I become desensitized to these eccentricities.  This time around is gambling though, it sure seems awfully available.  I noticed it a number of times in the last few days but today, I chuckled with how available it seemed to be.  Sure, there aren't nearly as many opportunities in Minnesota, maybe the closest example would be Canterbury Downs and in college there were a number of generic looking OTB locations in Queens.  Here in Portsmouth?  Shoot, there are a number of storefronts mixed in the same commercial areas that are all parlaying for the public's gambling.  There are a number of locations of OTB types of activities as well as slot machines.  What's more, there are commercials advertising online applications where you can play slot machines or bingo by playing off of your phone.  Amazing.

Ok, really, where to start.....

This is some sort of surreal trip and although it may dampen in time, it is no less obvious right now!

I digress, I landed a bit before midnight late on the night of 4 September.  Without having the time or ability to make changes, I had to scramble to get a cab after midnight at Heathrow and paid a pretty penny to get to Portsmouth.  So, after customs, baggage, the cab ride, and checking in, I went to sleep sometime around 3 am Monday morning.  For the better part of Monday and Tuesday I remained in a haze of jet lag, something that I usually don't have a problem with.  Anyway, I keep strange hours for the first couple days I'm here and I also do a fair amount of walking due in no small part to getting lost twice to the tune of a couple hours each time.  Eh, I figured it was good for me to just keep on walking around for the fitness of it and to tray and learn the streets, its all good.  Something I note up front, this temperature sure is a change from the summer Minnesota has just had.  It is pretty windy and overcast and close, but not quite, Seattle type weather.  The difference?  It wasn't really cool or too damp, it was a windy setting where you weren't too cool.  My hotel is pretty close to the waterfront and is the tallest building between its location and the water so there is a fair amount of ambient white noise against the side of the building, just a reminder of how windy this can be. Monday was a haze, nothing much happened aside from walking around, but I was able to open up a UK bank account on Tuesday.  The intent was to then go walk to the car dealerships but I was promptly lost and eventually cabbed it back to the hotel.  On Wednesday I walked around with a CPO level gentleman with the RFA and he started laying the ground work for my assimilation into the local life.  This is where it began, but I go on to meet with what now feels like a million realtors but they are called letting agents in the good ole UK. One thing to mention is that that are literally a couple dozen or more different agencies and I have met with probably more than a dozen although I Wasn't counting.  It doesn't make sense Wednesday but, over the next couple days, it is increasingly obvious that the apartment or house is the key to doing everything else I need to do (cell phone contract, car purchase, etc.).  In fact, to get a cell phone with a contract you have to have a "credit check" completed, but it is pretty bogus for most Americans this check also includes how much time you've been here and, because I've only been here a few days when the first check was completed my credit check was not successful.  Weird.

There are a great number of similarities here, yet it still feels a bit foreign and I honestly feel as if I am a bit of a novelty most places I go because of my strange and heavy accent.  I still feel like I am in a bit of a tourist stage, at least for the time being anyhow, as everything is still pretty new and the "firsts" are still occurring.  Of course, to date, one thing that has proven to be fun and a little demanding for some creativity is the minimum picture a day with Animal doing something or being somewhere.  If you haven't checked those pictures out on my FB profile, check them out!

I may be leaving some gaps right now and I'm sorry for that, I swear I will write more in the future.  One parting shot though was my experience at the movie theater Saturday night.  Sure, I've been to movies in other countries before but for some reason I really don't remember anything happening that seemed out of the ordinary.  In the UK, there are differences.  Sure, there were, what seemed like, a half hour of fluff before the movies started, but that didn't seem too crazy.  What did seem a bit odd was that there were a number of commercials before the pre-movie trailers even started which seemed a bit different.  Admittedly I haven't seen many movies in theaters recently in the States, but something was clearly out of place.  What?  you might ask, well, how about among the commercials prior to the trailers including four for beer and one for condoms.    Different, definitely a little different.

Where to start............

Yes, I will add a bit more tomorrow and fill in the blanks, but I have done a few things this week, experienced new events, and have felt the need to comment but honestly wanted to wait for a week before unloading.

Stay tuned...........