Hello again world. My blogging is set to emerge from a 5 month hibernation, but this time with a new look, new zeal, and even a new url. This is due to the fact that, as many of you know, I am no longer in Birmingham, so 'adopted brummie' no longer felt appropriate. Partly because every single other slightly witty web address was already snatched up, I had to settle on this one that should transcend all postcodes and, highlight the fact that as the saying goes, you can take a girl out of Seattle but you can't take Seattle out of a girl.
So hear's to the new launch! I am planning on overcoming the fact that we are stuck in the 1990's and don't have broadband at home (let alone dial-up!) and attempt to post a new gem weekly.
This week is just a welcome and an update. We've been in London now for 2 months. It's a crazy and refined city, completely overpriced and overcrowded, and addictive. I've been in England long enough to feel more like a resident than a tourist, a foreign resident with an accent, but still a resident. I finally have the paperwork in my passport now to prove it too. After sitting a test about information most British people wouldn't even know, paying £950, providing 24 documents evenly spaced over the last 2 years to verify Dan and I's cohabitation, and 4 hours in the Immigration Services waiting room, I made the cut. I can stay here indefinitely if I choose.
And how could I resist to continue to stay in London, crammed with Dan in a tiny studio flat that costs as much to rent as a ranch in Texas? This is the smallest place we've ever stayed as well as the most expensive. I, and every Londoner, am getting completely ripped off. I just have to remind myself that I chose this, and in fact, paid £950 for this.
Things I do love about London however include: great diversity of people, reading on the bus for 2 hours a day during my commute, walking around and discovering new places, and just being somewhere different. I have a love hate relationship with being foreign. It can get old, but it is also stimulating and challenging, and for now, I wouldn't have it any other way.
If you're reading this, I probably miss you, unless you're in London, in which case, give me a shout. We hope to see everyone from Brum soon, so drop me a line.
Well, that's all for now. Better keep it short so I have something to write about next week! Please come back...
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8 comments:
Welcome back to the blog world!! I miss you so much and miss London almost as much. I have so many questions to ask of potential mutual experiences in London and if you've been to my old neighborhood in Knightsbridge/Chelsea. I love you guys and I'll update your link on my blog with the new addy.
Thanks Joey, that was quick! Well done. I unfortunately don't get too deep into the hood of Chelsea that often, so there's probably not too much overlap, but perhaps...There's a new WholeFoods just opened inn Kensington I hear. Wil have to go to be transported to the lushness of Bellevue!
Alisha!
You guys are now aware of our shocking inability to keep in touch but hopefully know us well enough to realise that this does not convey a lack of love or value.
In London you don't pay for an apartment or for space but for being 'a Londoner'.
To honour my East End routes I expect you to sing East End music hall songs the next time we see you and drop at least some rhyming slang into everyday conversation.
Tim said you guys had lunch with him last week - crazy small world eh?! Anyway I must go. I'll try and check in here from time to time.
Hopefully see you both soon.
Love,
Andy (& Em & Bump!)
big up brum 'fugees - me and mays would love to see you guys - so sorry missed your shoreditch trip this wkend if you went, i was out getting muddy on a shoot.
'completely overpriced and overcrowded, and addictive! That is the best definition of london i have ever heard! Please keep me posted on this blog if it always reads this good! :)
ANYWAY, lets all hit up pelicci's in bethnal green for some greasy tea some weekend when the skies are crisp and clear?
Alisha,
This is your cuz "j" in Colorado Springs, USA. Great to get your link. My family is in Colorado Springs right now for Thanksgiving, and will be here until Friday. Gayle is swamped at work since the natural disaster in Bangledesch (sp?). My family wants to see snow while they are here. It could happen. No great political conversations going on here. Everybody wants to talk about food. The good conversations will have to wait until you and your husband get here. Come visit any time.
j
Hooray! So glad to see you, in cyber-space....at any rate.
And I'm loving the new url, perhaps you'll be moving back to Seattle soon? Jeff and I might be making an offer on a house in Ballard tonight!
Just click your heals...there's no place like home, there's no place like home.
Miss you Alisha!
what a lovely surprise finding an alisha update waiting for me monday morning! you sound like you're doing very well- i always have enjoyed your writing so keep it up! :)
great to hear from you! visiting you and dan last year is one of our top memories of 2006. so a lot has changed for us this year. we moved to wenatchee, bought a house, and oh, had a baby! her name is petra amanet and she is six weeks old and awesome.
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