Mango's new abode/birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. It consisted of nachos, not doing much, and a bbq on "boat" (it was Chris's birthday, too. Hi, Chris). This is a scene at sunset taken on "boat".

So the new abode is in Parsons Green. If you go to google maps and type in the postcode, SW6 4DX, it should give you the street. I'm trying to think of where I left off yesterday. Basically, after saying we wanted the place, we paid some sort of fee and the place is off the market. Yesterday morning they emailed us links to this online application form. The form asked the standard things; where we lived currently and the name of a contact person, where we worked and our salary, job title and contact person, and for our bank account numbers. We got a call in the afternoon from the estate agent and received word that mine had gone through (I can just envision my English credit history: "She seems to shop at Waitrose", and that's about it). Mark's is still being processed.

Assuming all goes to plan, I'll be paying rent and have an actual London address in two weeks. Which quite frankly is much sooner than I envisioned, but that's when the place was available and we didn't want to risk not getting it. This is mainly unfortunate in that there are still things I need to get done in Southampton after that, plus it's cheaper here. And I'm not even done with my literature review! AAAAAHHHHH.

So the hood. Parsons Green is both the tube stop and the name of a nearby triangle-shaped park with nice pubs and rich people on all sides. Both are about a five minute walk. The main commercial street has a Tesco Express (mini-grocery store), an Itallian deli, a couple fancy bars, a Starbucks, a non-chain coffee house, and some stores selling a variety of items. If you walk up the main road about 10 minutes you get to Fulham Broadway, where there is everything else in life, including a movie theater, Chelsea football club, a fancy gym, and all kinds of other stores. Ten minutes on the tube gets you to Kensington, where there are either the museums or the big store shopping on the High Street. You can also easily get into center of London; I'd say Big Ben is about 25 minutes away. The nice thing about the neighborhood is that its basically entirely residential, meaning its relatively quiet (although I hear Parsons Green is a happening night spot) but very amenable to the hustle and bustle you expect from living in London.

Hopefully the applications will come through triumphantly this week and I won't have to worry about trying to find another place to live. Because I'm so not up for that.