If you haven’t yet made the move to London, it’s just as well—you wouldn’t have been able to move around in it very easily this week.  Rail workers on strike have caused major disruptions to the Underground services, with apparently no more than 40% of trains running as of this evening.  It’s anticipated tomorrow may bring commuters some relief…I bet the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme bikes were in scarce supply this morning!  My husband decided to just run the 7 miles into work, so the mystery remains as to how he might journey back.  I must say, it certainly improved my bus service .  According to the Daily Mail:

Whether you’re moving to London alone, with a family, as a student, as a professional, with a job, without a job *inhale* *exhale* no matter how you slice-n-dice your particular relocation situation, we all have to at some point pack up and schlep our stuff across the pond.

Today’s packing tip for moving to London is annoying, but simpler if you start thinking ahead.  Basically, start to sort through and divide what will be staying behind and what should be given away.  This way, even if you’re not ready to pack up your necessities because you still need them on a daily basis at home, you can start to clear out the rest.

Every time you’re looking in your closet, try to identify things that you can donate to charity or give away to the lucky friends and family who wear your same size   I remember planting a giant box in front of my closet, so, in waves, I’d toss more and more into the box as long as I was standing right there and thinking about it anyway.  If it goes in the box, while that takes up some space, it’s not making a mess.  Do the same for accessories and knick-knacks, and keep revisiting your closets/cabinets with a fresh eye every day or two to see if you can’t part with a little more.

At this stage, it’s wise to also identify what you don’t regularly use, but that you don’t necessarily want to toss.  If you can do without these things for a while, start to pack them up as well and store them in your own storage for the time being or where they’ll reside after you move to London.  In my case, we didn’t want to pay to rent a storage unit, but we were blessed to have family willing to take it on for a few years.  The possessions we left behind are divided between my sister’s and father-in-law’s basements, and some is actually being put to use in our parents’ homes—my mom and dad are enjoying my bookshelves filled with my precious leather-bound book collection, and my father-in-law is actually using our living room set (the leather would fare better in use than sitting in storage left to dry and crack).  This infringement on our loved ones’ space shouldn’t be taken lightly, however, so do offer some sort of compensation or a generous gift.

The more these non-essentials are thinned out, the more clarity with which you’ll be able to look around and assess how to pack up the need-to-haves later.  Giving stuff away is really a good exercise to perform anyway (even if you weren’t moving) for saving space with the added benefit of helping others.  And leaving stuff behind might at first seem painful, but ask yourself honestly when the last time was that you used a certain item and just trust in the truth of “Out of Sight, Out of Mind.”  I’m as sentimental as they come, so if I’ve come to terms with it, so can you!

So in the spirit of your london relocation, put your Sorting Hat on and sort it out!

I just had a most unusually delightful day chronicling my life abroad since relocating to London.  I’m not one to really scrapbook in terms of cropping photos and edging them with decorative borders and such (why not?  Because I’m lazy.), but what I do maintain is literally a book of scraps.

If you’re moving to London, you will most likely also want to have some way of preserving the experience for future reminiscing.  It’s such a difficult task to consistently accomplish, though, when you proceed to have a busy life of work, travel, and social opportunities galore in this vibrant city.  What I personally do to stay quasi-on top of things is sort my digital photos in my iPhoto application in the meantime under different folders for each country.  I brighten/contrast them as necessary, delete any undesirables, and arrange them in an order conducive to eventually compiling in a photo album.  Facebook has been an ideal way to share these photos in the short-run with family and friends back home, and taking the time to write captions when uploading albums to this social network will save me the time to do so when I finally tackle the official photo album.  No clue when in Hades that will come about, but Kodak Gallery or other photo sharing sites online is the easiest way to knock this one out—choose an appealing album cover, page color, and individual page layout, then just drag-n-drop those perdy photographs and copy your Facebook captions or pull snippets from your travel journal (I think it’s okay in this case to plagiarize yourself ).

Speaking of which, I’ve always been a bit of the “Dear Diary” type, so am naturally predisposed to chronicling my adventures the old-fashioned way of pen-to-paper.  But if keeping a physical travel journal is not your style, my moving-to-London advice is at the very least start your own travel / living-in-London blog for taking timely notes of your experiences.  Not necessarily day-to-day, but you’ll know for yourself when an experience is something special to document. (for examples, see our London Living blogroll that lists our Londonistas’ personal expat blogs)  For as much you’ll treasure and remember of your life out and about in London and all over the world for that matter, there’s plenty you’ll have forgotten by the time you finally make time for your albums.  The details and inside jokes that could make your photo album captions entertaining and in-the-moment for others to peruse as well might instead give way to the blandness of a slideshow clicking by uneventfully (unless it’s narrated by Don Draper).

Okay, so I’ve got my travel journals and my photos standing by in iPhoto and Facebook, but the one nasty task I finally stared down this morning was getting caught up on a year-and-a-half’s backlog on scrapbooking.  This is where my previously mentioned book of scraps comes in.  Years ago, my family had given me a beautiful Creative Memories scrapbook with a tapestry cover designed like an antique map of the world.  I was still living in the States at the time, but often traveled internationally, so that’s clearly what they had in mind.  Well, I could never figure out which of my destinations was most worthy of a quality book—it stood out as something so special compared to my others.  Who knew back then that my London relocation was what I was waiting for (and here I thought I was just procrastinating…).

Anyways, my book of scraps does have nice patterned pages to save me that effort, so all I do is pull out my double-sided tape and start arranging and affixing all those receipts, tickets, pamphlets, beer bottle labels, coins, candy wrappers—whatever random stuff it is that gets shoved into my purse during trips or sightseeing in London.  On the first pages, I even have our plane tickets and luggage tags  from that flight over to officially live here…my God, I had even snapped off the handle of a Marks & Spencer plastic fork (that I’d actually rewash) for our use before our moving boxes arrived.  The best part of my day (next to getting to relive all those amazing travels) was scrapbooking to the sound of two books-on-CD by the Bronte sisters:  Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.  I’d read both of them before, but this was such a calming way to reunite with those characters as I reunited with my memories.

It’s our second Weekend Warrior weekend, so today I’ll be moving right along through Britain’s history from the early Roman conquest that established Londinium to the time of Anglo-Saxon London.

An Anglo-Saxon cemetery was evidently discovered in Covent Garden in 2008 that confirmed their presence in London as early as the 5th or 6th century.  Though they didn’t dwell on the same exact site as Londonium, the settled just outside the Roman walls in what they called Lundenwic—today, the approximate site would be along the Strand from Trafalgar Square to Aldwich!  These people were known as the Middle Saxons (the namesake for present-day Middlesex), though were eventually absorbed by the kingdom of the East Saxons.  Under King Ethelbert of Kent (the first English king to convert to Christianity), the very first St. Paul’s Cathedral was built in the year 604, albeit of far more modest stature than the one now standing on this site.  Indeed, as it was only made of wood, it already burnt down in 675, about two to three decades after Christianity was established permanently in the kingdom under the reign of King Sigebehrt II.

If you’re moving to London on a budget, my fellow Londonistas and I have been starting to compile some cost-saving ideas over at London Living to help you pinch your pence once living here—this is particularly useful if you’re moving to London with children or as a student or otherwise without a job (which certainly happens in the case of dual-citizens or Tier 1 visa-holders).

I’ve mentioned before how Living Social is an easy way to catch daily updates on good deals throughout London, and lately some friends of mine who are also American expats in London have been giving the heads-up on other resources. Groupon, like Living Social, offers exclusive savings on any number of dining or recreational activities, and morelondon will keep you in the know on free events.  For a growling stomach, don’t feel you need to live on Marmite and toast alone—treat yourself to a dinner out!  Toptable and OpenTable are your go-to resources in that case.

None of us who aren’t originally from London are kidding ourselves—it’s an expensive city.  You’ll be paying through the nose enough on housing in London (but remember the time and money you’ll save on hotel costs if you use our relocation services to find a London flat!), so don’t do the same for what can still be a pleasurable and indulgent lifestyle

If you’re thinking of moving to London and not yet in the hardcore logistics phase when everything that is preoccupying you about the city is where to rent a flat in London, how to move your belongings here, where to work or go to school, etc., etc., then you’re hopefully in  the delightful honeymoon stage of dreaming…thinking of all things Britain that meet your fancy—the cultural scene, the history, the jaw-dropping architecture.  Well, the following is a little factoid that may appeal to at least the latter two interests.

Yes, I’ve been back reading my London’s Strangest Tales book again.  Can you blame me?  It’s fascinating!  And so utterly random…this is stuff you definitely don’t hear on the London city tours, well, not most of it anyway.  At any rate, when visit or move to London, an inevitable walk you must take is along the River Thames in the city’s center.  As you walk along London’s Southbank, the striking component of its Northbank view (indeed, a site that has dominated the skyline for centuries) is one of my favorites, St. Paul’s Cathedral.  If you haven’t seen it in ‘person’ yet, surely you can remember its front steps as where the sweet old bird lady fed the birds in Mary Poppins?

(as a little London literacy lesson for you, “tuppence” was Victorian/Edwardian English slang for “two pence”)

This soft little ditty floats to my inner ear whenever I’m cutting through the bustle of London’s financial district and trying to quiet the noise from my mind to admire this magnificent structure.  It simply cannot be overrated, nor should it be taken for granted.  As my book relates, the Blitzkrieg of London between 1940 and 1941 devastated so much of the city’s historical structures, and you can be certain that St. Paul’s made an ideal target.

How did it survive?  I don’t think anyone really knows, though I know what I’d like to believe.

Homes, offices, and shops like the historical Paternoster Row booksellers were obliterated in Paul’s immediate surroundings.  Just behind the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Financial Centre still stands the ruins of a smaller church that was bombed out by a missile surely aimed for Wren’s grand cathedral (though the stone shell of it remains, the interior has been converted into a peaceful garden where you can sit and gaze to the sky through what would have once been the roof).

This all I’d known, but what I didn’t realize is that a bomb did fall frighteningly close to St. Paul’s on September 12th, 1940 and surely would have brought the cathedral to the ground…had it not failed to detonate.  Embedded deeply in the ground, right up against the foundations of the southwest tower, the bomb required three days of caaarrreful excavation to remove it intact.  It was afterwards transported slooowwwly to Hackney Marshes where it was more safely set off, leaving a crater of over 100 feet wide.

As I dwell in my Victorian era terraced house, it is difficult to imagine the air-raid sirens and utter terror its WWII residents must have felt.  When I take the Tube, I rarely picture the Underground as a bunker protecting masses of the huddled and fearful.  Tourists taking the Jack the Ripper tour will complain about how so few of the buildings from that era still exist on the blocks they visit in East London, likely not giving thought as to why they no longer exist.  It’s challenging to believe without seeing sometimes, and perhaps some things are best left forgotten.  But you know what they say about history being doomed to be repeated, so I say do what you can to remember it.  Remember that St. Paul’s is a miracle next time you notice its dome watching over you; view the church nearby that was not so lucky; inspect the sphinxes guarding over Cleopatra’s Needle on the north Thames walk and poke your fingers through the holes penetrated in the bronze by shrapnel; notice the damage dotted along the Victoria and Albert Museum‘s exterior walls.  Take it even further and not only look at but walk inside the Churchill War Rooms, where Churchill and his cabinet strategized as the bombs flew overhead.

When you move to London, England, its past will become a very real part of your present.

Today kicks off my new weekend series of blog posts geared to help you prepare to move to London on two levels:  on Saturdays, I’ll offer a quick tip on packing/other moving logistics so you can attack the weekend productively.  Sundays, then, will be reserved for little historical tidbits on the “warriors” who fought to build London into the city it is today since antiquity.

It’s just something I’m trying.

So, for Weekend Warrior Saturday, allow me to start offering packing advice.  My husband and I had to pack for our own London relocation immediately following our honeymoon, so I appreciate first-hand how daunting a task that is to first undertake.  You are probably staring down your entire household and just trying to fathom how all that is going to go all the way over here.  This becomes more complicated when looking all around your home environment with strong feelings of sentiment and sadness over having to say goodbye.

When you move to your new London home, you will be needing to recreate that same sort of sentiment.  So, while you’ll likely have to leave some things behind (especially if you’re moving from a house to a flat), don’t pressure yourself at this stage to leave everything behind of meaning to you.  Yes, you ought to identify what items are most necessary to a basic living, but don’t discount the intangible value ascribed to those simple things that, though they wouldn’t help keep your body alive in a desert-island scenario, would certainly help sustain your soul (hey, it’s arguable that the locket-photo Tom Hanks had of his fiance in Castaway is what kept him alive, after all )

So, today, before all the elbow-grease nitty-gritty of packing truly commences, I’m asking you to already reflect on those little sentimental somethings that help make you, well, you.  Not that we should define ourselves by material possessions, but there are those tangible objects that are symbolic of the people that we are and/or aspire to become.  And because these items will likely be precious to you personally (if not monetarily) and therefore irreplaceable, I recommend you set them aside for packing into your carry-on, not moving boxes.

My husband and I had to wait 3 months before we were reunited with our moving boxes in London, so I was grateful that my carry-on contained a photo album, travel journals, and my beloved stuffed animal panda for a little bit of home-comfort And sentimental schmuck that I am, I should have likewise stuffed it with more photos and a few favorite books and other pleasures to put me at ease and feel more like myself.

While this all might sound too touchy-feely for practical moving advice, I promise you you’ll understand where I’m coming from once London Relocation Ltd. has placed you in your London flat and you feel the immediate need to seek the familiar in the unfamiliar.  Happy weekend!

In my previous post, I mentioned attending my first Sikh wedding over the weekend and this, in turn, made me think about the UK’s cultural diversity.  While its rural areas still predominantly fall under the government’s classification “White British,” its capital is a world city comprising so many different nationalities, races, and ethnicities that have come to meld here over the centuries.

“Altogether, more than 300 languages are spoken by the people of London, and the city has at least 50 non-indigenous communities with populations of 10,000 or more. Virtually every race, nation, culture and religion in the world can claim at least a handful of Londoners.”  – guardian.co.uk

One remark friends always make each time I visit home is, “I don’t hear an English accent yet.”  Well, why would they?  I’m not Madonna, after all   Besides the fact that I work with people from America and Australia and return home to my American husband, from an anecdotal standpoint, since relocating to London in 2008, I’ve observed that I probably only hear English spoken in a British accent maybe one third of the time when out and about in the community at large.  If the language spoken is even English at all, the accent coming across is often North American for first-language speakers, or any myriad of nationalities when applied as a second language.

Depending on the neighborhood to which you move, international cuisine will abound in far more excess than the local; sure, traditional British cuisine can be had in the pubs, but most restaurants are inspired by the culinary achievements of nearby continental Europe or from the further reaches of the East:  Thai, Vietnamese, East Indian, Middle Eastern, to name a few quite generally.  (tip:  head to Brick Lane or Edgware Road for a superb concentration of Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, Lebanese, Turkish [and on and on and on...] cuisine)

While I can’t speak for other nationalities, perhaps, I can vouch that a lot of Americans moving to London do so with the expectation of immersing into a kingdom of tweed caps and pipes, of Dickens and Shakespeare; the highly touristed places of interest continue to center on Britain’s royalty and Anglo-Saxon past, the literary/political genius of the “dead white males” so dominating our childhood curricula.  Don’t get me wrong—this is all very much a part of celebrated British tradition, but it isn’t the entirety of it, nor will be all that comprises your existence here as an expat.  The exoticism of Britain’s imperial past comes through with all the immigration from those old territories, right down to the curry you can dip your chips in at the local chippy.  When I briefly substitute-taught on the city’s northwest side, my ear met with British accents mixed with Caribbean and Somalian dialects.  (coming soon, I’ll be writing about the Notting Hill Carnival held later this month, which carries on that neighborhood’s past Caribbean demographic)

Now, for better or worse, I had referenced Bend it Like Beckham in my last post, which from a Sikh perspective may contain a lot of generalities and stereotypes as films tend to do.  Yet I do think its popularity raised awareness in the Western world of the cultural clashes and fusion that can occur in a melting pot like London.  Being bookish by nature, I can also recommend a few texts that lend a multicultural perspective on this city: some I’ve already read include Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, and Yasmin Crowther’s The Saffron Kitchen, and one on my shelf that I’ve yet to read is Gautam Malkani’s Londonstani.  Interestingly, all of these are debut novels populated by non-British characters who negotiate their identities within the UK.

Entirely coincidentally, I am now off to meet a friend I haven’t seen for a year—last I knew, she and her long-term boyfriend (both Indian—or Asian, as they actually say here in the UK) were in a holding pattern because, though they were both born in England and, along with being very Westernized, are not particularly religious, their parents who immigrated here are divided between Muslim and Hindu; consequently, my friend and her significant other had maintained their relationship as a secret from their families for seven years, as they feared being disowned by their respective sides.  I guess I’ll get the updated scoop tonight.

At any rate, your move to London will entail much cultural tolerance and compromise as well (albeit hopefully on a less dramatic level than that relationship!).  Not that the country you’re moving from doesn’t share in the same dynamic, but not all clients that we relocate are coming from big cities or otherwise heterogeneous areas.  The best advice I can give to anyone making an international trip or move in that case is to stay open-minded and understand how cultural diversity can enrich your life.

As I continue to have fun tinkering with our new customer management system, I don’t want to entirely neglect our blog, so here’s a quick tip on saving £££ in London:  Living Social (http://livingsocial.com/).

By signing onto Living Social, you will receive daily email offers on top-notch London restaurants, spas, and events.  This isn’t your usual annoying, spammy email; they’re genuinely great offers for genuinely great London venues, giving you an insider’s advantage on substantial savings.  If you expect to be moving to London soon, this is an ideal site to check out now!

In London before 18 July?  If so, you can still catch the E4 Udderbelly festival at London’s  Southbank Centre, sure to be one of the more random venues you could encounter in your life…unless, of course, you’ve already viewed live music, comedy, and theatrical performances inside the belly of an upside-down purple bovine.

From the site:

“E4 Udderbelly at Southbank Centre is grazing in its special pasture just off Queens Walk South, between the Royal Festival Hall and London Eye – the perfect place to eat, drink and soak up the unique festival atmosphere. Come down and enjoy the Magners Pasture from 12pm daily, with great food from the Laughing Stock and Pizza Express.”

Tickets are on sale for what remains of the 60+ events this festival has been packing in since May, but they sell fast, so get a MOOOOVE on!!!  (I pun without shame)