Well, we made it! Sorry the update took so long, but we haven't had internet access until now. We arrived on Sunday, January 11 around 8:00 AM. We flew from Birmingham to Dallas then into Gatwick. It was a long flight and we didn't get much sleep on the plane.

That morning started off a little interesting. One of my suitcases had split open (we packed so much in an attempt to save shipping costs) - thankfully it was just one of the zippers and I could zip it up with the other one. We had a little trouble carrying our luggage to the train at the airport, but we managed. Once we got off the train in Victoria Station, we took a cab to our hotel - yeah right.

The cab driver couldn't find our hotel. We finally got him to drop us off at a different hotel so we could regroup and find the place. The cab ride cost us all of our money (we only had $100 US dollars worth of English money (about 50 pounds)). We finally figured out where to go and got a cab that took credit cards. Once we learned our way around, we realized that we should have taken the train from Victoria Station to Richmond, and then taken a cab to our place.

Our hotel room was about as big as my closet back home - and with so much luggage in the way, we had about three feet to walk around the place. We took a nap for a few hours then I got a call - I was informed that I would have to go to work the next day to fight some fires. We took the tube to Earl's Court that night and saw Justin Timberlake. Go ahead and start your jokes - but I'll have to admit that he and his crew are extremely talented - it was a good show. Jill said that all you girls back home would have loved seeing JT.

I took a train the next day to one of ntl's two data centers (Winnersh - located southwest of Richmond - a 50 minute train ride) on Monday and worked until about 11:00 PM. I was extremely tired since we didn't sleep much the night before. Jill spent all day looking for agents to help us find a place to live. She took care of some business - she had made several appointments for us for the following day.

We looked for places to live on Tuesday and Wednesday. All of them were small, and most were pretty far outside of Richmond (Richmond is where we wanted to live because it is one of the nicest areas in London, it's safe, there are many things to do in the area, and it's on the southwest part of London toward the place that I will work). There was only one place that caught our eye - the most modern and the largest of the ones we saw, but of course, it was too expensive. We decided to put a low offer in on Wednesday night anyway. Well, we got a call on Thursday morning and the offer was accepted. Great news! It only took us a few days to find a place to live - a huge burden was taken off of us.

We moved in the very next day (Friday) and began trying to get everything set up. Most things work quickly around here, but some things do not. Our phone still isn't connected - they said it was ready to go, but it doesn't work. We are going to have to call them on Monday. Our TV won't be ready until Tuesday (but only if our phone works by then - otherwise, they cannot install it). Without our phone, we cannot order broadband fast internet access, so we are still waiting on that as well. Once we get our phone working, it will take at least another week to get broadband. We will have to use dial-up service in the meantime, but I don't have a working phone yet to even get that done.

Our place is a one bedroom flat, located in a house with three other flats. When you walk in, you are in the hall facing our bedroom at the other end of the hall. Our bathroom is on the left and our den/kitchen is on the right. The den and kitchen are one big room (big to us, but most of you will think it is extremely small - but it is definitely big enough for company - we have a couch and an aerobed mattress, so we can sleep three people with no problem - and even more if you don't mind sleeping on the floor). We will post some pictures up soon. We are thankful to have a washer/dryer in here, although they are pretty small. The refrigerator is one of those small ones that people use in college, but it will have to do. We have a microwave, oven, and stove, but no dishwasher. We do have central heat, but there is no such thing as air conditioners in London - but they probably won't be needed anyway. Our shower is interesting - no shower curtain - not even a pole to hang one up. The shower head is the kind that you pick up and use, not the kind mounted in the wall above your head. The floor gets pretty wet, so either I'll have to rig it up or we'll have to learn to take a shower London style.

During our first night in the flat, we realized that we had no sheets. We washed the only blanket that was in here and slept on it. We had to cover up with the only towel we had and used shirts for pillows. We bought pillows and a sheet the next day. We have 11 boxes of stuff that were shipped yesterday and should arrive on Wednesday (thank you so much Jackie (aka Mrs. Nelson) for getting all of the boxes together) - it was a mess - customs requires that every piece in every box be described in detail and written on the outside of the box - we have 11 boxes with about 600 things in them, so you can imagine the task.

Our flat is in Richmond, which is in the southwest part of London. Mick Jagger lives right around the corner from us. It is about a 13 minute walk to the tube (subway) and train station. There are many restaurants, shops, and things to do around our place. It takes about 20 minutes to get to central London. I will be taking the train into Hook a few days a week for work - it will take me about an hour. When necessary, I will take a train into the Winnersh and Guilford data centers. All three of these locations are southwest of Richmond. Jill will be taking the train into central London each day looking for a job and taking dance classes.

On Saturday (the time of this writing), we went shopping to get things for our flat. It was weird carrying a TV around the streets. We had to get a few dishes, cooking stuff, cleaning supplies, food, and other new home startup stuff - we couldn't carry everything home so we had to get a cab. Jill cleaned the whole place - she is incredible!

We never realized what a pain it is to get a bank account overseas. Apparently, since 9/11 the US has created many new rules regarding overseas bank accounts. We basically cannot get one unless we have lived here for three years. Thankfully, our contact in London (Sam) pulled some strings and got us an account set up with HSBC. We should get cash cards, credit cards, and cheques (one of many words they spell differently around here) late next week. This will be good so we won't have to use our credit cards from the States anymore (and won't have to fool with the dollar conversion).

Getting a mobile (pronounced MO-BILE) phone is not much easier - we cannot get service until we prove that we live here - we have to wait to get a bill and bring it to the store before we can get this set up. They are not as generous as the US with their mobile minutes - no unlimited minutes here - and the largest package they have is 1000 minutes per month (and this package is extremely expensive). We will be getting a package of 200 minutes. The good thing is that incoming calls do not count as minutes of use. We aren't sure if minutes are deducted when we make calls using a calling card, but we think they are. Once we get new mobile numbers we'll let you know. It's much cheaper to call from the US than it is to call from here. We'll be doing our calling on calling cards from our landline phone.

Our contact information has been updated - click here to view it. Our phone number is shown, but the phone isn't working yet - hopefully it will be working on Monday. That page will provide information about how to phone us overseas (people over here don't "call" anyone, they "phone" them).

We have a few more startup items to get tomorrow. Most places are closed around here on Sunday - actually, things close very early around here - it's crazy. We were walking around the shops a little while ago, and the shops were already closing - tons of people everywhere at 7:00 PM on a Saturday night and the shops were already closing - seems like they are losing so much money! I guess everyone is trying to get to the pubs.

Some miscellaneous things we've noticed thus far. The people here drive fast - and on the wrong side of the road. But they will slam on the brakes for a crosswalk and let you cross. Walking down the sidewalks by the streets - very narrow - Jill and I walk one behind the other instead of side by side. Public transportation is great - we can get anywhere very easily. There are tons of trains, tubes, and buses all over the place. They don't know what real football is - they think it's soccer or something like that - that's all that's on TV. We've ordered satellite TV, but it will only have NFL football and not college. Thanks to my wonderful wife, I will be getting live broadcasts of the college games - she gave me this for Christmas - I just have to find an internet site that has college football broadcasting before the season starts. The only thing is that most games will be in the middle of the night - I'll be looking forward to the Jefferson Pilot early games. Even the NFL games will be in the middle of the night - we're six hours ahead of Alabama time.

It's cold and it rains a lot - but it actually hasn't rained as much as we thought it would. It hasn't rained really hard the whole time. It has only rained lightly off and on, but about three days have been without rain at all. Planes fly in about every 60 seconds - and that includes only Heathrow and not the other three airports around here. Every food place sells wine - we haven't been to McDonald's yet, but we won't be surprised if they sell it too. Last night was the first night we actually slept all the way through the night - the jetlag has had us waking up around 2:00 AM and not falling back asleep until around 5:00. Hopefully we are over it now, but we'll see tonight.

We'll post some pictures of our flat as soon as we get everything all set up. Once we get internet access, we'll be generating these updates more often, so check back soon! We miss you all very much - give us a call and send us some email and pictures (we apologize for not responding to emails lately, but we have not had internet access for a while). We're not even sure when this will be posted since we still don't have access at the time of this writing. We hope that everyone is doing well. Take care and God bless!