Calve's Liver and Knuckle of Lamb + Don't Touch Me on the Inside

Wednesday evening, 28 October 2010 - we got the bed all set up and then tried to conquer the heating problem.  The way boilers work here is that the boiler for hot water is the same boiler as the one used for heat.  Each room has a radiator that is activated by the boiler.  If you run the hot water, the heat turns off.  Well, to make a very long story short - we tried everything imaginable to get the heat to come on to no avail.  Without a mobile phone number and no Internet access, we had to wait till morning to ask Natalie the Landlord how to make it warm in the house.  So, we decided to go out to dinner at the pub.

Turns out the two pubs closest to our flat do not serve food, only booze (how very English of them).  On the heels of that discovery, we found our local Italian restaurant, That's Amore.  We met one of the owners, Gianni the Musician (the other owner, Bruno the Cook, was in the kitchen), who plays piano and sings on the weekends and waits tables and tends bar during the week.  The dinner was delicious, with Debbie especially enjoying her plate of Calve's Liver sauteed in butter and sage.  Jon tried it and didn't immediately vomit, so it was a good sign that it was good liver.  Debbie absolutely loved it.  Jon the daring ordered Spaghetti.  Upon departure, Debbie received kisses on both cheeks from Gianni and we promised to return.

Back to the flat, which was quickly becoming known as 12B Freeze-your-ass-off Road.  We tried for another hour to get the heat to work to no avail.  After a bit more unpacking, Debbie donned her flannel pajamas and Jon dressed like Nanuk of the North 2 layers deep (apparently you can take the Colorado out of the boy).  A new anecdote surfaced - Jon's hands were very very cold, so he tried to tuck them into Debbie's flannel pajamas.  This was not a good plan.  Debbie jumped and said "Don't touch me on the inside!".  We laughed for a while at that one as we drifted off into sleep.  We slept quite warmly in our new bedding.  In fact, we slept for 10 hours straight - our first night in an actual bed in 10 days.

Day 2 started with a trip into the center of London to meet Jon's bosses for a welcome-to-England lunch.  We ate at Daphne's, a great Greek restaurant, in Camden, where Jon's office is located.  Debbie took Amos the Boss's recommendation and order the Knuckle of Lamb.  According to Debbie, it was the most tender and delicious lamb ever served.  Adventurous Jon had the Chicken.

The next several hours were filled with two critical activities - getting a phone number and a bank account.  We had been told that you can't just walk into a bank in England and open an account. We, in disbelief, set out to prove everyone wrong.  Success!  We have a bank account now.  It has a balance of £0 while we wait for a wire transfer to make it across the pond...we also have a phone number.  The way it works is tricky: to get a bank account you have to have a phone number, to get a phone number you have to have a bank account.  Catch 22, eh?  So, we slept with the Bank Manager.

We got our appointment to get Broadband and Television in the flat - first available installation date is 23 November!  So, we can only blog and check e-mails when we find a WiFi hot spot (just noting this so you don't think we are unresponsive).  During all of the banking, phone, and broadband activities, we learned from Natalie the Landlord that we were doing everything right for the heat, but you sometimes have to try it a couple of times to get it to kick on.  We were inspired and hopeful that night 2 would be heat filled.  We stopped off at the store on the way home and got some yummy 3-bean spicy soup and rolls and had our first dinner at home. 

Turning in for the night, Jon suited up in the Nanuk outfit again (that's right, the heat was still not working and it was down to about 50 degrees [Fahrenheit] in the flat).  With Jon being sure not to touch Debbie on the inside, we put on a CD and shivered off to sleep.

The first 38 hours in England have been different, unusual, amusing, and sometimes frustrating (mostly the heater), but worth the wait!

Hoping to blog from a heated point of view soon,
Deb & Jon in South London