Author:  Colleen

Finding temporary accommodation for searching London apartments - London Relocation Services - Image via Wikipedia

Hope your weekend has been fun but also productive as you plan your relocation to London. As I mentioned in my previous post on finding London accommodation for before you actually move into your new London apartment, a lot comes down to timing your trip over to find London apartments to rent and how long you can afford to stay in temporary housing.

Well, obviously the next important consideration is where to stay, and while it’s essentially impossible to provide you an exhaustive list of all the London hotels available to you in this huge city, I thought I could at least give you a list of some good values (you know, in case you’re reluctant to go the Ritz Carlton or Dorchester route):

Easy Hotel (Earls Court, Paddington, South Kensington, Victoria, Heathrow) – www.easyhotel.com
Enterprise Hotel (Earls Court) – www.enterprisehotel.co.uk
Hotel Bluebells (Notting Hill) – www.hotelbluebells.com
Imperial Hotels (Bloomsbury) – www.imperialhotels.co.uk
Mayflower Hotel & Apartments (Earls Court) – www.mayflowerhotel.co.uk
Pavilion Hotel (Hyde Park) – www.pavilionhoteluk.com
Sanctuary House Hotel (Westminster) – www.fullershotels.com
Tune Hotel (Westminster)- www.tunehotels.com
Umi Hotel (Bayswater) – umihotellondon.co.uk

While Easy Hotel is available in a few different London locations (and Imperial London Hotels offer six different hotels in Bloomsbury that range in price), lest we forgot some of the bigger, well-known chains:

Best Western – www.bestwestern.co.uk
Holiday Inn Express – www.hiexpress.com
Premier Inn – www.premierinn.com
Travelodge – www2.travelodge.co.uk

To expand on what you see above, you can also search for good London hotel rates at the following:

Superbreak.com
Travelocity

Stick with me for another follow-up post on London accommodation to consider if you’re interested in visiting London for more than a few days prior to your official international relocation.

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• Relocation to London – Accommodating for Your Accommodation (londonrelocationservices.com)

You know what also happens in just ONE DAY? London Relocation Services will find your perfect London apartment.

Author:  Colleen

If you’re making an international relocation to London, you’re likely (hopefully) researching as much about your new home as you can. London Relocation agents, for one, will play a big part in making the unfamiliar familiar to you so your relocation to London is fast and seamless. And they can speak to not just the London property market, but the local lifestyle and culture that will become as much a part of your everyday as your new London apartment. So that takes a lot of pressure off you, giving you more time to just kick and read something for pleasure.

And that’s where I come in. If you’ve read any of my previous “London Literacy” posts, you’ll know that my English teacher/reader/writer self loves any poetry or prose set in this fine literary city, and I often encounter it whether I want to or not! The UK’s just a hub like that, as you’ll find for yourself when you move to London…it’s an interesting intersection of the world. So then, while your London Relocation agent will show you 18-25 properties in just one day, I’m going to tell you about my most recent read, One Day. This has been a Kindle bestseller and is now also known for its new film version starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. It seems to be the usual case where the book is better than the movie where reviews go. I haven’t yet seen the film, but I loooved the book.

As the title would imply, One Day by David Nicholls is about one day…but not just one year. It follows its two main characters, Dexter and Emma, over the course of two decades on the anniversary of the same day they first become friends and initiate some major sexual tension. This tension ensues as life takes them on separate paths that converge and diverge while the two friends tread the fine line of platonic and romantic love. The characterization is so well developed; Em and Dex feel very real with all their flaws and virtues and the way their different personalities and intellects bounce off each other. To hate a character like Dexter most of the way through and still have him endear himself in the end is really saying something. And dialogue and narration both are tremendously witty; I don’t think I’ve ever laughed out loud so much reading a novel, so I wasn’t prepared for how much it would then move me as well. Just when it seemed like a light read, it became something very human and touching, and it’s one of those stories that lingered with me long after I’d finished.

And it’s largely set in London. (There it is! This post does have some relevance to this blog!) In addition to being a very fun read, I as a London expat of course got a kick out of recognizing the locations of its settings. Though it starts out in Edinburgh, Scotland, the book eventually features London neighborhoods like Soho, Hampstead, Highgate, Earls Court, Hackney, Richmond and…shoot, I can’t remember them all, but you’ll find out when you read it! It gives more a sense of the real London where people really live versus the big sites where the tourists frolic. And also makes you question: does the NHS still provide hideous, standard-issue eyeglasses like that? You see London from the middle-to-lower class day-to-day, just-gotta-pay-the-bills perspective to the affluent, city-is-your-playground one—and even then, all that glitters is not gold. All around, I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it, particularly if you’re making the London move yourself one day!

Earls Court is once again hosting the annual Great British Beer Festival! Spanning the 3rd through 7th of August, the event features 500+ varieties of beer from around the world, along with live music, pub food, games, and tasting tutorials.  Tickets are £6 if purchased in advance and £8 at the door.

So get those beer goggles out to better stomach (pun intended…wait for it…) the sight of grown men wearing half-tops to display the fruits of their ale-drinking labors.  Me, I can’t wait for my pork scratchings.

While we want you to have fun, London Relocation Ltd. also encourages you to drink responsibly for the health and safety of yourself and others.  Cheers!

Walking to Earls Court tube station this morning, the large banner outside the Earls Court convention center caught my eye—it’s that time of year again:  the London Book Fair!  I say this full-knowing it may be a tease for those of you who are book enthusiasts such as myself.  When I first discovered this event last year, I was practically jumping and clapping at the prospect of getting to navigate a labyrinth of bookshelves and peruse infinite book titles, but, alas this is more of an industry event.  Booksellers, publishers, agents, authors, etc. galore gather for the largest international networking event of its kind; if you do work in the industry, then, this is an ideal platform to keep in mind for establishing contacts (something to remember next Spring if you’re still in the process of moving to London).

Likewise, if you’re an aspiring writer or have already written a book and are considering self-publishing and ways to market yourself, they are holding a series of seminars on applicable topics—workshops are likewise available to students, illustrators, librarians, booksellers, film producers, and such.  I attended a seminar last year and found it very inspiring (and intimidating!) how many individuals are out there pursuing their dreams and joining in the celebration of the expression of creative thought through the written word.  Just knowing this congregation of people are concentrated here in London seems to send a hum of literary energy into the atmosphere.  It gives me pause to reflect on the impact this country has had on literature over the centuries—the pubs and cafes you frequent may have been the old haunts of Charles Dickens, the streets you walk once traversed by Shakespeare…I’m personally giddy over the fact that I live down the street from where Beatrix Potter brought Peter Rabbit into being.

If you can ignore the diesel fumes, you just may want to breathe a deep inhale of that London air and let the literary spirits be your Muse.  London Relocation Ltd. will proudly help you find your new home in this cultural capital of the world.

Find more photos like this on London Living

Earls Court was pimped out Monday evening to welcome the biggest names in the British and International music scene for the 2010 BRIT Awards (UK’s Answer to the Grammys).  Earls Court’s versatile convention facility that one week houses the UK’s largest beer fest then showcases the latest in baby products the next (and is slated to house volleyball tournaments in the 2012 Olympics) is practically unrecognizable on the inside with the elaborate set designs on stage and opulent table seating for the stars and industry-connected—reserving the upper nose-bleed balcony seats for the regular schmucks like me.  I don’t think a majority of the public realizes that you can, indeed, attend the award show for a mere £75 per person.  Sponsored by Mastercard, when the tickets become open to the public a few weeks before the event, Mastercard holders get priority access for the first week or so before it then becomes a free for all.

And let me tell you, it is SO worth it:  it’s an excuse to get dolled up in the sparkles and bling that you bought for fun but really never have any place to wear, and you can bring your wine or beer right to your seats to sit back and just enjoy the show.  Even for me, whose musical tastes are more alternative than the pop stars the awards seem to glorify, there’s nothing like a live performance—and we all know that sometimes the top mainstream hits we like to pretend we hate are now and then the ones we bust out singing and/or dancing to when we’re alone.  Nothing wrong with indulging guilty pleasures once in a while.

Speaking of performances, the bass was booming in the house and throbbing in my chest when the likes of Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Dizzee Rascal, Florence & the Machine, JLS, Kasabian, Robbie Williams, Lily Allen, and Lady Gaga graced the stage and emitted their total energy through the microphone (I deliberately leave Cheryl Cole off this list as it’s been speculated she was the lip-syncer…there’s always one, isn’t there).  The award presenters in themselves are a treat to see, such as Dame Shirley Bassey (she’s a legend!), the Spice Girls (well, at least Scary & Ginger), comedian Alan Carr, and the gorgeous Cat Deeley (people in the States may know her from So You Think You Can Dance; speaking of guilty pleasures, that show is one of my faves).

Lady Gaga really cleaned up with her 3 awards for International Female Solo Artist, International Album, and International Breakthrough Act.  Her own performance was a bit of a shock—rather than delivering one of her better known hits like “Just Dance” or “Paparazzi,” she shifted gears to sombre, avant-garde renditions of “Telephone” and “Dance in the Dark,” which she dedicated to her friend and fashion designer, the late Alexander McQueen.  Almost as shocking as her towering blond bouffant was the electric orange wig worn by Lily Allen when she accepted her award for British Female Solo Artist—evidently, she was so convinced she wasn’t going to win that she deliberately disguised herself so the cameras couldn’t capture her disappointment if she lost.  She herself had delivered a darling performance of “The Fear” (I could listen to that song set to loop for ages…), reminding me very much of a darker version of Madonna’s “Material Girl” with her black leather leotard and combat soldiers parachuting down holding dainty pink-trimmed umbrellas.  Florence & the Machine’s unlikely pairing with Dizzee Rascal for their duet overlapping Florence’s “You’ve Got the Love” with Dizzee’s “Dirtee Love” was a glimmering spectacle for the eyes, and my other favourite was Jay-Z and Alicia Keys thumpin’ out the edgy urban soundscape of “Empire State of Mind.”

So there’s one more item to add to your list of London Things-to-Do when you move to England.  Look forward to it next February, and, in the meantime, to have a comfortable set within which to stage the performance that is your rockstar life, contact London Relocation Ltd., the London relocation specialists, as your home search provider.