Day 1 - Down two appliances

Cheerio! This is your favorite couple checking in from our charming cottage flat in the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. We successfully arrived to London around 7 a.m. this morning. The flight was okay, with the exception of the two "male chatty kathy's" sitting in the row behind us. We were both unable to get a lot of sleep, however we did learn a great deal about Florida, St. Augustine, Tim Teabow, Welsh decent, Karl Rove and a million other topics that were discussed between these two men. After we arrived we had to stand at the UK border for about an hour until we finally got our passports stamped. After that we exchanged our currency, picked up our bags and headed for the taxi cab line. Our lovely cottage owner, Miranda, gave us a few options for arriving at the flat. We were so tired, we just wanted to hop in a cab and not worry about it. We arrived between 9 and 9:30 a.m. and were greated by the lovely Miranda. The cottage flat is outstanding and was perfectly represented in the photos that we saw. After a three hour nap and a quick shower, we decided to go venture out. During our "freshening up" process Brittany decided to straighten her hair - unfortunately her lovely chi straightener decided to get a little too hot and completely quit working. The chi is a 45 watt appliance and the converter/adaptor she was using specifically states in the instructions that it should not be used with appliances over 25 watts, yet there is a hi/low setting for appliances that are over 25 watts. Explain that one to us? Seeing as how all of our appliances are over that amount, we need to get a converter/adaptor that actually works. After that debacle, we started exploring our charming little neighborhood. It's located right off of New Kings Road and the streets are lined with upscale interior design stores featuring everything from chandeliers, rugs, furniture and even some antiques.

We were a bit hungry, so we stopped into a small pub called "The Southern Cross." It wasn't very crowded due to the time of day, but it was what "we Americans" would call an "authentic English pub" and they had a lunch special. I ordered the burger and a pint special and Brittany got the chicken and ham sandwich on the lunch special. They were pretty tasty and we enjoyed the atmosphere. The Guinness that they poured was amazing and put most places in the states to shame. After our lunch we walked around a bit more and headed back to the flat for some down time.

We haven't been able to find a coffee shop near our flat yet, so we decided to use the French press that we have in our kitchen. Brittany decided to get the water boiling and filled the lovely tea kettle. She asked how to turn on the stovetop. After demonstrating, she put the kettle on the stove and waited for the water to boil. Instead of the "screaming tea kettle," I heard Brittany screaming "fire!" I go into the kitchen to see the tea kettle and stove with a small out of control flame. I quickly turned off the oven and stuck the tea kettle into the sink and doused the flames. Turns out the bottom of the tea kettle is plastic and is heated by a small warming plate that is plugged into the wall. So, there goes appliance number two, only this time, the tea kettle was not ours. After cleaning up the mess, we finally got our coffee made. We'll be letting Miranda know that we'll be replacing her tea kettle and Brittany will be staying out of the kitchen for the time being.

We're doing a little bit of research and we'll probably grab a quick dinner and have a quiet night before starting our first full day of sight seeing tomorrow. Stay tuned for more adventures and hopefully we'll be able to keep all of our appliances working for the duration of the trip and hopefully we don't have any additional fires.

We'll post some pictures of our flat in the next post!

Cheers from Abroad!
Winston and Rosemary