The Great East Anglia Scavenger Hunt

We left Houston on December 17th. Both sets of parents very nicely agreed to take our luggage, our dogs, and us down to Houston which is where the only flight (apparently) that could take more than one dog at a time was flying out of.

Oh you poor, poor puppies... they have no idea they have 14 hours in a crate ahead of them.

We arrived in England on the 18th. Two neurotic dogs in tow. 

We were determined NOT to sleep until the evening to try to cut down on jet lag. 

Which meant when my sponsor asked if we wanted to go meet the office, I said "sure". 

Who cares if my hair was a mess (it was) or that we were so tired we were having to ask people to repeat things, or that we hadn't eaten anything for about seven hours and were starving. 

Ben calls it "Extreme traveling with Carrie".  

Everyone was really nice and the deputy of the office sent us on our merry way telling me not to come back to the office until I'd gone to newcomers' orientation, passed my driving test, found a place to live, and some transportation etc.

Thus, as my friend Chris pointed out, we have embarked on a scavenger hunt of East Anglia. 

I would like to point out that scavenger hunts by Texas law are considered hazing. 

Because we had to attend the newcomers session the next day - where we did indeed both pass our driving test -  we weren't able to really start house hunting until Friday. 

Which is when we discovered that pretty much every letting agency (the agencies that actually LET you into the houses to see them)* are closed for a two week holiday. We managed to finagle two showings - one Friday and one Monday but everyone else either didn't return my calls/emails or phoned to say that they were pretty much closed until after the new year. 

* That is NOT why they are called letting agencies. They don't say "rent" over here. They say "let" instead.

So, we've been stalking rightmove.co.uk and zoopla.co.uk. I'm pretty sure I've looked at every posting within a 20 mile radius of the base. Twice. 

Today we were at odds and ends trying to figure what to do with our time since it was Boxing Day so everything British was still closed.

We went to get Bitey and Barky (Ben's name for Lucy and Fank) registered at the vet clinic at Feltwell which is another base about twenty minutes from here. Since we were out already, the sun was shining (a rare occurrence here lately) we decided to go look at the outside of some of the houses we're interested in. 

It's a little bit like wedding cake shopping when you can't taste the cake or dress shopping when you can't try on the dress.

Our absolute favorite place (based on the pictures and our visit to the little village where it sits) backs up to a river.

That's right. It has a river! I don't feel that I can put too many exclamation marks at the end of that sentence.

With my luck it's either already let, they won't allow dogs, or it's only a short term lease (or all three).

This Baptist Church is right across the street. We're not Baptist, but I might consider it if it means we only have to walk across the street on Sunday mornings. 

This house is a door or two down the way.

Notice the grass coming up over the side of the house - I think it has a hobbit hole!

... and also some very energy efficient solar panels. There's probably a joke about Lord Sauron and global warming in there somewhere that I am just not nerdy enough to make.

Anyway. That's the house we want (not he hobbit hole house, the one that backs up to a river). I'm trying not to get my hopes up. 

Nope, that's a total lie. I keep looking at pictures of the inside and thinking about what kind of rugs we'd need and comparing the floor plan to the pictures to figure out which room our bed would fit the best in and what kind of furniture we'd need to buy.

I'll be very disappointed when we find out it was let the day we were in newcomers orientation...

Mom keeps bugging us to go check our mail. 

Mom, I promise if you're reading this, I will go and get the code for it tomorrow. There IS something in the box, but I can't tell what it is. Those little windows are tiny.

But this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't leave you with a little bit of Star Wars weirdness. 

This was in the post office.