Living in England, Day 1

I want to try to keep track of everything that happens with this adventure, and there is too much to capture in a Facebook status, so I'm going to try blogging it.

My flight arrived into MAN a few minutes early after an uneventful trans-Atlantic flight.  It felt weird explaining my situation to the border control officer, but she stamped my passport and let me in the country.  I went right to Hertz to pick up my rental car, and as soon as I saw what they'd assigned me, I had an "Aw, hell no!" moment.  It was a Ford Galaxy MPV - WAY too big for me to handle!  I had to go to the counter, but they were able to change me into a more reasonably sized Mercedes B180 diesel hatchback.  The car is fine, but it's a fuel-efficient engine that shuts off when you idle, and the first time it did that to me, I thought the car had stalled out.  After a day of driving around, I'm used to it.

I drove into Altrincham and after looping through the city once, was finally able to find a parking lot and get myself parked.  Waiting to cross Regent Road, a little old lady came up to me and said she would cross with me if I was going across.  I said I was, so without further ado, she linked her arm through mine, and I helped her navigate the curbs and the street.  Once across, she gave me a warm smile and said that was lovely and went on her way.

I went to the property management company's office at 11:00 AM to sign my tenancy agreement and pick up the keys to my new place.  The walk-through with the leasing agent afterwards was a disappointment.  The place was not "move in" ready; fortunately, the agent agreed with my assessment and said he would make sure everything got fixed.  So now we're working to a punch list of items that need to be addressed.  Good thing I'm not actually moving in until after Christmas!

I got to my hotel around 2:00 PM and was able to check in early for an extra £10.  I'm staying at a Travelodge for the next 4 nights, and it's a budget hotel with a £49/night rate, so I was totally comfortable paying that little extra to have access to a room sooner rather than later.  I chose this place just because it had the highest TripAdvisor ratings of all of the places in Altrincham.  It's not fancy, but it's clean and functional, and the staff are all super-friendly.

I broke my normal rule about not napping on the day of arrival and took an hour-long nap.  Then I took a really long, hot shower, and I felt 100% human again.  I headed out in the car again, this time hunting for and finally finding a small pet supply store that turned out to be right across the street from my new (rental) house.  The lady there was really nice and she helped me pick out new things for Mona Kitty.  Mona's regular brands of cat food and kitty litter don't exist in the UK, so we're going to be trying some new stuff that hopefully she'll like.  I'll find out tomorrow after she arrives.  I dropped the stuff off at the house and assembled her new scratching structure.  She has things from the USA coming over with my sea shipment, but I needed stuff now.

My next errand was my first shopping excursion.  I tried Sainsbury's this time.  I was able to pick up a few things I needed, like a 220-240V hair dryer with a British plug.  Sainsbury's was where I had my "WTF?" moment of the day when I saw an aisle labeled as "SQUASH".  I thought it was odd to have an entire grocery aisle dedicated to a plant, so of course, I had to walk down that aisle.  No, apparently in the UK, "squash" means concentrated fruit juice.  I don't think anything like it exists in the United States.  We Americans tend to like our fruit juices highly diluted with water and high fructose corn syrup.  ;-)  The SQUASH aisle was next to the "FIZZY DRINKS" aisle.  At least I could figure out what Fizzy Drinks meant without walking down the aisle.  Just what I need -- another word for pop/soda/coke.

My shopping excursion made me realize how hungry I was at this point.  I hadn't eaten anything since the breakfast served on the plane before landing.  I parked my car back at the Travelodge, carried up my purchases, and then headed out for food.  I chose a place listed in CAMRA's "Good Beer Guide 2015" (courtesy of Kristin P) that also had great reviews on Yelp -- PI, a small pub that serves savory Pieminister pies and mash (mashed potatoes).  The place was perfect!  Cozy, friendly, good beer selection, great mix of music and delicious pie.  I ordered the Chicken of Aragon, a free range British chicken, smoked bacon & tarragon pie.  SO YUMMY!  I washed it down with a pint of Stout No. 5 by Saltaire Brewery Ltd (Shipley, West Yorkshire).  Cheers!

And now I think I can safely go to bed with my internal body clock forcefully adjusted to GMT.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning when I'll be able to pick up Mona from her separate journey.

This picture is of the Altrincham town centre at night with their Christmas lights.