Finding a Flat

Before leaving Wellington I had done some extensive searching on the London flat finder websites. As we only want to stay in London for just over three months finding a place willing to take people in for this long was really tough. Fortunately I stumbled across a flat that suited our needs nicely. The four bedroom flat is in Camberwell which is ten minutes south of London by train. The girl in the flat called Emma is traveling to India for three months and her travel dates correspond almost exactly to ours. I had talked to her from New Zealand and had arranged to contact her when we arrived in London to view the room before agreeing to stay.

Cruising the snowy streets of London

On Sunday after a brief rest and some food we headed out to Camberwell to meet Emma as she was busy with work for most of the week. She meet us at the railway station and led us to a local pub to meet a few of the flatmates. They were all very friendly and one even worked as a software developer. We were soon talking about everything from exotic Indian viruses to the benefits of Java code compared to Visual Basic. After a beer we walked up to the flat which is on a very traditional looking London street. Camberwell is apparently a very interesting area with nice parts and very dodgy parts. Fortunately for us the flat is located in the nice part but we are told even the dodgy parts are really great to go visit during the day.

The flat occupies the second and third floors of an old house and is very nice. The room is fairly small but as we only have two packs space is not a problem. Emma has given us use of her linen and everything needed to live happily is available (including a small bar). Just to top everything off they have a wireless network complete with a high-speed connection which means I can do all my work and keep in touch with everyone without any problems at all.

Emma leaves for India on Monday morning but she has invited us to her farewell party on the Sunday night. This has left us with five spare nights to fill in so we have decided to go to Bath, a seaside town southwest of London. Accommodation is cheaper out there plus there is plenty to see and do. We are leaving on Tuesday around 1pm on a train from Paddington Station. Two return tickets has cost 70 pounds which is a little steep, but we figure its best to see some different parts of England before Emma begins work hopefully next week.