The Beginning...

After unsuccessfully cleaning/emptying of the apartment, we were off with our possessions which were contained in 2 big luggage bags, 1 small luggage bag, 2 backpacks, 1 gym bag, 2 bags, that's it..nice and simple....or that's what we thought....

Carrying around that amount of bags is no fun, quite simply getting to the bus station in Milwaukee was almost a nightmare.  First of all, carrying those bags down from the third floor is no picnic, then trying to drag them around the city, along with a very active child was almost impossible...  We thought it would be no big deal to take the local bus to the bus station but, it was pretty uncomfortable, we made everyone there uncomfortable too, probably, we were obstructing the way and taking forever to do anything..... it was ridiculous.  The bus left us a few blocks from the bus station, which would be like nothing in normal circumstances, but the way things were going, with us dragging along many super heavy bags and trying to get control of Sophia, there was no way we were gonna make it.  But some lady stopped and gave us a ride and we barely made it.  Thanks lady that was going to pick up her friend that was coming from Minneapolis!  Of course, since we barely made it to the bus that was going to take us to Chicago, we all had to sit separately, yes, that includes Sophia.  Thankfully, I was only one row away from her and I could keep tabs on her.  We had planned to take the subway to the airport, but the thought of dealing with the bags again made us change our mind and take a taxi.  Once we got to the airport, we had like 4 hours to kill, but at least we had made it.  Even checking in our bags was a pain, we had to switch things around to accommodate for the weight restrictions.  After that we just ate some sandwiches and lounged around until it was time to get on the plane.  The plane that would take us directly to London!!  In the airplane we were amused by watching tv or eating (they gave us both dinner and breakfast).  Sophie watched kid shows.  I watched a really bad comedy movie and listened to Chopin.  Chuy tested out his new earphones with good music, read and watched some football (soccer) highlights.  A few hours of sleep, and the ride was over rather quickly.

Apparently all immigration people are rude, have an attitude problem, and are mean, even in England.. 'how can it be possible that you come to live in England for a year without a place to live?!' in a very condescending voice....that's how we were received in London haha.  We were pretty tired, and still not wanting to deal with the bags, we decided that instead of taking the tube to London centre and from there the train to Colchester, we would instead take a bus directly to the Colchester with a layover at the other London airport.  We had to sacrifice some London experiences for some peace of mind, London will have to wait for us, but it will be revisited and explored soon.  Before getting in the bus, we noticed we were missing Sophie's luggage, and it was quite a struggle to get it back.  Security had to be called, but the phone number they had was wrong, it was a mess, I almost didn't make it back on time to take the bus.  At first, I thought I was too excited to fall asleep, but within five minutes we were all passing out, we were riding through the outskirts of London, so there was just a lot of green, a lot of trees and a lot of road and that's it, so I am pretty sure we didn't miss anything.  After the second bus, we were too excited about being close to our destination to even think about falling asleep.  We passed through a few towns and got a glimpse of England finally (besides airports).  Very narrow roads, like scarily narrow, and I didn't think the riding on the wrong side of the street would be a big deal, but it really does make a huge difference.  I felt disoriented with cars going all over and me not knowing which way was right anymore.  The houses are all very old but well kept.  We finally got to Colchester and even though everything in Colchester is close by... we still decided to take a taxi to the bed & breakfast we were staying at, we were tired, sore, sleepy and there's no way we wanted to drag the bags around in a city we didn't know.  We got to the Corner House, got our stuff in our double room (one full bed and one twin bed), and felt a sense of relief to have survived the long, eventful trip.

After pulling ourselves together with a shower and calling our respective parents, we took ventured out to find a place to eat. (And yes, it was raining.)  We were pretty spoiled in Milwaukee, I am not gonna deny that, we could go to countless restaurants near our house that were vegan friendly, so going out and having a hard time finding a restaurant in which we could eat anything was almost heart breaking haha.  After some browsing around, reading many menus, and feeling rejected, we found an Indian place to eat at.  It was pretty good.  We went back to our room and passed out for at least 12 hours.  The next day we woke up sore but adventurous and we went to find an electric converter for the electric plugs.  We had to ask around, and take a few wrong turns, but we finally found it.  This is definitely one of the things we would redo, buy the converters/adapters in the USA and bring a power strip.  We have to circulate all of our electricity hogging electronics through one adapter.  No fun.  After having accomplished our mission for the day, we went to have some breakfast, this time we didn't have too much trouble finding a place to eat, we did have to do the whole stepping in, looking at the menu on the wall while the employees are staring at us, and saying sorry but we are vegans and stepping out.  It's the whole stepping in, stepping out routine that vegans learn to master haha.  We had a grilled veggie sandwich, a samosa and a hummus/sun dried tomato/olive baguette.  We took a break in our room to get some info on apartments and make some calls.  After a few unsuccessful calls, we were starting to freak out about not being able to find an apartment.  So we went out to some letting offices we had seen in our search for food, and one the first one we went to we found a nice little house to rent.  We were outraged to find that there is such a thing as agency fees, which were extremely high, but we paid them almost happily for a peace of mind of not having to worry about where to live.  After that we set out to find a cellphone, and we found that they practically give smart phones away here.  For example, a Sony Ericsson Xperia was free when you had a monthly contract of 10 pounds.  That's crazy!!!  Anyway, we got out pay as you go phone, and we were set to go.  We found a place to eat, after looking around for quite a bit... we had some British breakfast meal consisting of fried mushrooms, veggie sausage, fried tomato, baked beans, hashbrowns, and bubble (potato pancake thingy).  We also got a veggie burger and chips (fries). After asking around we also found a grocery store, and a health store on the way.  We bought a few essentials and were sadden to see there was no tofu or hot sauce of any kind to be seen.  We were spoiled in the food department too in Milwaukee hahah.  After that we decided that we had had a very successful day and went to rest to our room.  (And yes, it was cloudy all day)

The next day, we discovered the Colchester Castle Park while walking about with no set place to go.  This park is beautiful.  It has several areas including a playground, it has a tiny lake and the river runs along it.  It's very green and very colorful with all the different garden areas.  And it has a castle, a real one, that was made like a thousand years ago, and I am not even exaggerating.  It is now a museum, and it's missing its upper levels, but still an impressive sight.  We spent most of our time in the playground because Sophie was really enjoying it.  After that very nice sight, we headed back to our room for some cheap lunch of instant noodles and bread hahah  We plan not to spend ALL of our savings on eating out haha.  After lounging around and watching a movie in our room, we went to buy more essentials at the grocery store.  We worked up some hunger after that, so we went out looking for Chuy's ever lasting craving of Chinese food.  It was difficult.  Chinese food restaurants here have odd hours and close in odd days.  At the end, we found one but they had no tofu dishes.  We were disappointed but we were willing to give them a try.  Out of desperation I asked if they had tofu, they said yeah, and charged us for tofu like if it was a delicacy, but at least we got our tofu!

We haven't seen the sun in three days.  It's really perfect weather here.  We are enjoying our adventure greatly until now.  Let's see where it takes us.