October 2 we arrived in London on a redeye. We had not slept and rented a car straight away with no sat-nav. We drove straight to a realtor (or estate agent) in Newport, Wales- having not lined up a hotel or an apartment beforehand, just hoping something would work out. We were both sleep deprived and stressed to the max. Poor Zack had to hop in thatdriver's seat on the wrong side of the road. A near miss here and there, but nothing went wrong thankfully. We met with a realtor called Matt- our "first friend in the UK" we called him because he came into work on a Saturday for us and walked us straight to the flat we ended up signing on that day. It was fully furnished and was a block away from an ASDA superstore. We were all set!
In the following few weeks we had many more stresses- setting up a bank account, getting used to a tiny fridge, learning the bus system, getting Zack into school and started on projects. We took a trip to Abergavenny, tasted Welsh cakes (yummy) and Welsh faggots (truly disgusting with a bit of bone in the meaty wad- just douse it with gravy, it will be fine), mushy peas, chips and crisps, and found our tiny ward of about 50 people, mostly old.
My favorite memory from October, though, was riding the bus on a rainy evening to Llandaff, near Cardiff for a walking ghost tour. It was cold and rainy and a little creepy. Halloween isn't as big here as in the states, so that was our little celebration. Zack took this photo hoping to catch a ghost or two. I tried to look scared just in case anything showed up, and I was a little spooked, but not too bad.
