Museum Mile - Touring Tuesday (updated November 27, 2015)

Matt came across a map of the Museum Mile a shortly after moving to London.  It is a compilation of thirteen+ museums all within a reasonable walking distance of each other.  I don't think one is meant to visit all thirteen on the same day, but the transportation/walking links to them are pretty good so I can see why they are marketed together.  Some museums are free and others have an admission fee.

One thing I liked about the Museum Mile was that the museums were quite varied.  Also, many of them were close to Matt's office so we usually had lunch on the days I visited the museums.  I included links to the museums' websites and my own blog posts if I have them.

British Library (free) - I visited a while back, and the amount of actual books a general visitor can see is limited.  If I was researching something, then I'd have an amazing assortment of literature.  The central column of the King's Library is beautiful.  The library's treasures room is what makes the British Library stupendous.  I've seen the Magna Carta, a Gutenberg Bible, John Lennon's song lyrics, and many other first edition or hand written versions on books.  There is also an exhibition in the main space that seems to change quite often.    

British Museum (free) - I could go on for days about the British Museum.  I love the mummies, the Elgin Marbles, and the Rooms of Enlightenment the most.  The main lobby is a highly photographable location (aka Instagram gold).  I wish I could sleep here I love it so much.  

Brunei Gallery (free) - The exhibition I saw was titled Empire, Faith & War - The Sikhs and World War One.  It showed how Sikh soldiers fought valiantly for their commonwealth.  The fascination aspect of the exhibit was how the Sikh soldiers represented a tiny percent of the overall commonwealth population, yet they were a large percentage of the fighting soldiers.     

The Cartoon Museum (£7) - This small museum is comprised of, you guessed it, cartoons.  It focuses on British-based creators, and the current exhibit is about cartoons made during WWI.    

The Dickens Museum (£8) - Dickens' London house is situated on a street full of Georgian terraced houses.  The rooms are decorated in the way Dickens used them.  The museum also displays many letters and articles written by Dickens.  

The Courtald Gallery (£6) - What a delightful museum!  It is located at Somerset House and has fantastic transportation links.  I feel this museum had a nice balance of art genres: the usual religious art & sculpture, portraiture, Impressionist pieces, and high quality temporary exhibits.  I toured the museum in about an hour and felt it was worth the admission price.

The Foundling Museum (£8.25) - When I visited the Foundling Museum, it immediately found a spot in my heart.  Thomas Coram created the Foundling Hospital to take care of the abandoned children in the late 1700s.  The parents left tokens (coins, fabric, etc) as claim tickets for their children to retrieve their children in the future (sadly many never claimed their children).  The legacy of Thomas Coram lives on today next door where the Coram building provides parent/carer training and adoption services.   

The Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (free) - This museum is beautiful!  The focus of this museum is on the study of human and plant specimens in various stages of typical and abnormal.  The specimens are displayed in well-lit cases and the upstairs history of surgery exhibit made me happy to live in this day.

The Freemason Museum (free) - I'd walked by this museum near Covent Garden several times not knowing what was in the hulking building.  I did not know much about Freemasons, so I had high hopes for this museum.  The tour of this museum, which was situated on only one part of the first floor, did not help my confusion.  I thought maybe I'd missed a wall plaque or seven of Freemasons descriptions, but that was not the case.  The display cases were full of ornate medals, aprons, and other regalia.  The information about the items, while descriptive, really did not help me understand what it was all about.  I walked away knowing that Winston Churchill was a Freemason and they have a lot of ceremonies and secret ceremonies.  I did not write a blog post about the Freemason Museum since the only photo allowed was of the outside of the building.  A visit here is probably not worth your time unless you have some background of the Freemason society.  However, that is just my opinion.

London Transport Museum (£15 and under 17 free) - I took the kids here when we were still in the apartment, and it is a great museum!  The museum starts at the beginning of transport in London to present day.  We could sit in carriages, train cars, and busses.  The admission ticket can be turned into an annual ticket with for no additional fee.  That's a bargain!  We've visited several times, and it never gets boring.  If you choose not to see the museum, the gift shop is totally worth your time for Transport for London related items.  

Sir John Soane Museum (free) - This museum is not far from the British Museum, The Huntarian Museum, or Holborn Station.  The security in this museum is by far the most overt of any museum I've visited.  Other museums have staff stationed at the doors of the different galleries, but this place takes the cake, for good reason.  I had to put my purse in a clear plastic bag to carry with me instead of on my arm.  They followed me through the rooms, which were really small and compact.  No photos were allowed and they made sure of that.  The museum is Sir Soane's former home and filled to the brim with antiquities.  There's a sarcophagus in the lower level for goodness sakes and books galore on the main floor.  If you are lucky, you'll get to see the original set of William Hogarth's A Rakes Progress in the art gallery.  Lincoln's Inn Field is in front of the house and would be a nice spot to eat on a sunny day.    

UCL Museums & Collections - The UCL Museums is a collection of two museums.  

• The first museum I visited at the UCL campus was The Grant Museum of Zoology (free) - This small museum presents animal specimens in jars and skeleton forms.  The animals presented span all species.  The anaconda skeleton is particularly impressive.  The domesticated animals are sad to see, but it's all in the name of science.  

• The Petrie Museum (free) -This museum has one of the largest collections of Egypian artifacts in the world.  Matt and I were awe struck at how the artifacts survived in tact for so many years.  At the time of our visit, they had an area set up for children to explore Egyptian hieroglyphics.  

Wellcome Collection - I had the opportunity to visit the last of the Museum Mile participants last week.  Their new exhibit is titled the Institute of Sexology.  As you can expect, not photos were allowed.  In the months after, the museum has added a few more exhibitions to the museum.  The best part has to be the reading room on the top floor.  It has a gorgeous "chaircase" that's perfect for cozying up with a book.   

Well that's it for the Museum Mile!  If you visit any of these museums, please leave a comment.  I'd like to know which is your favorite!

When You Visit London.....Touring Tips

The tourist high season in London is on it's way.  We have noticed an increase of people standing in the middle of the sidewalk with confused faces & guidebooks in their hands.

When you plan a trip to a foreign country, it is usually a big deal and you want to maximize your time.  I hope some of these tips help you to live your trip to the fullest.

Prepare for the time change!

I first wrote about this tip before we went to Germany in 2010.  In an effort to not sleep until lunchtime the first few days, you should adjust your wake up time by 45-60 minutes each day leading up to departure.  You might want to think about a schedule such as this, if your alarm typically rings around 6:30 Chicago time:

Monday 6:30am (12:30pm London)

Tuesday 5:45am (11:45am London)

Wednesday 5:00am (11:00am London)

Thursday 4:15am (10:15am London)

Friday 3:45ish (9:45am London)

The last two days are really, really difficult to do.  Get a few rom-com movies you've been meaning to watch to pass the time until the sun decides to wake up.  I'm sure you have some laundry to toss in too.  When the sun decides to get up, take a nice walk in the morning air to Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts to keep you going.  When I did this before Germany, it was a particularly rainy weather pattern, and we kept losing power.  It was obnoxiously difficult to stay awake at 4am with only the beam of a flashlight.  If I can do it in a power outage, you can certainly do so with power.

Prepare for the walking!
Chances are you'll walk more on your vacation to London than any vacation in the United States (or maybe rival a marathon day at Disney World).  Many streets are cobbled and narrow so be sure to have sensible footwear for your days of walking.  In addition to the uneven streets, the city is full of stairs.  Many Underground stations have more stairs than others, and the stairs are often full of people so your pace needs to be quick.  Also, if you choose to climb to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral (528 steps) or The Monument (311 steps) there's no stopping once you start climbing.  I recommend you prepare your thighs by climbing the stairs a few times a day at home or work in the weeks leading up to your trip.  Your legs will thank me

Money & Credit 

You'll need some British Pounds to get through your trip.  There are a few ways you can get the local currency: from your bank, the ATM, or the currency exchange at the airport.  You can exchange money with your bank before you leave.  Your bank can detail all of the fees associated with the money exchange, and I would bet the fees are reasonable.  Be prepared to wait a day or so to get your money; they do not always have a supply of British Pounds on hand.  It might be worth it so you have a bit of cash when you arrive at the airport.  Matt and I prefer to get Pounds from the ATM in London because it helps us budget our money better instead of getting a ton of cash before we leave.  We have also learned that getting money from the ATM reduces the amount of Pounds we have left over at the end of our trip.  The travel kiosks at the airport are not your friend, and they should only be a last resort.  You will pay a lot of fees to transfer your travel funds to or from local currency.

**Here's a big tip**

You can use a credit card for most things, which is super.  That is if you have the right card.  Many retailers in the UK no longer accept credit cards with only a magnetic swipe strip.  Why?  Just look up the Target data scandal from November and you will understand.  Retailers in the UK prefer (or only accept) cards with microchips.  This is a new style of credit cards from what's readily available in the US.  At this time US issuers have cards with microchips that still require your signature.  This type of card can get you by at most retailers.  However, if you can get a credit card with a chip and pin you would be golden.  If you cannot procure a chip card (and the retailer won't accept your swipe card) you should have some backup cash ready.   

Cellphone

If you are not under contract with your cell phone, you might be in luck.  It is very easy to get SIM cards for your phone in London which can give you unlimited texting and a decent amount or even unlimited data for about £15/month.  If you rely on your phone for navigation it might be something to look into.  

If you are under contract with your US provider, it's probably not worth it to add international coverage.  However, you can get by with wifi provided at your hotel or some restaurants. Here's a great tip, The Apple Store has free wifi.  

If you end up with a phone that has data coverage or are on a wifi signal, you must have the free City Mapper app.  It provides the best combinations of walking, bus, and Underground routes.  If your trip takes you to Paris, Berlin, or New York it works there too!   

Plug Adaptors

You will need plug adaptors to charge your technology, but leave your hair dryer & flat iron at home.  The 220 volt power in the UK and your hair dryer's motor do not play nicely together.  Your hotel should have one in your room, and that will provide you with more room in your luggage.  I bought a travel flat iron at the Boots (Walgreens equivalent) that was only about £15 that worked just fine.

Toiletries

If you plan to stay in London for more than 3 or 4 days, buy your shampoo & conditioner when you get here.  You will thank me when you're not squeezing the heck out of that tiny hotel shampoo bottle, and you will appreciate more room in your luggage.

Places of Interest

If you've read my blog for a while you already know that London is full of places, large and small, to visit.  So many of these places are free to visit.

If you decide to visit the big attractions that have an admission fee, please look into buying your tickets before you get to the gate.  You'll waste valuable time waiting in line for tickets to find out that the next available tour is 6pm that night or not for a few days.  In Germany we stood in line for Neuschwanstein tickets at 11am only to find out the next English tour was at 4pm.  We busied ourselves with some beer, but it was lost time on our trip.  Pre purchasing admission tickets takes away the spontaneity of your touring, but you'll thank me whilst you reminisce about all you saw that day at the pub with a pint.  The London Eye & Buckingham Palace (summer opening) are two biggies that you should really think about buying tickets before hand, and you might even get a discount if you purchase online.

Check out the Time Out London website a few weeks before you leave.  I grab the magazine each week and always find something to do solo or for the family.  It might help you tour something not many tourists know about!

Navigating the City

The Underground is a fantastic way to get around the city.  While not the most scenic, the trains are an efficient mode of transport.  Keep in mind part of the fun is the journey to get there, and if you spend all of your transport time in a tunnel you might miss something spectacular.  I've learned in the last few weeks that some of the Underground stations are ridiculously close and it is not worth it to get on the train.  Take a look at the map before you leave the hotel for the day to see if your feet are the best mode.

The bus is also a great mode of transport; more sight seeing for only a few pounds.  I've read that it might even be worth your time to take one of those Hop On, Hop Off bus tours.  You can visit major parts of the city whilst riding the city streets at your leisure.  I have not ridden one of these so I have no knowledge of their quality.  

Look into an Oyster card or a travel pass before you leave to see if one of these will save you money on transportation.  If you order & put money on your Oyster card before leaving home, they will even mail it to you.  Then you can easily hop on the Piccadilly line from Heathrow into the city!

If you get lost, use the sidewalk maps of the city!  

I hope these tips gave you some things to think about before making your trip to London.  Many of the tips can also apply to other European countries.  Bon Voyage!

Let's Go For A Walk - Touring Tuesday

If you've read any of the A4 monthly updates, you'll know I walk a lot.  Below is a screen shot of the last week of February and the first full week of March.  Yes, that's about 42 miles in two weeks.  I think it's probably a bit more as I only count the major walks of the day - to the kids school, the train station, grocery, etc.  The little walks from store to store on the high road are not always factored in.

I do not dread walking at all.  I thought I might get sick of it after a few weeks, but since there is no alternative I have no room to complain.  There is no complaining now especially since I can tighten my belt one hole tighter & the pants that were a bit tight in Chicago now fit.

The amount of walking that I accomplish in one week is a vast difference from what I accomplished back in Chicago (which was about 0).  The shops we frequented were not close to our house nor really each other.  The style of living we had was not conducive to walking whilst purchasing a week's worth of groceries, a stop at Target, a big stop at Costco, and the library.  We needed a car to accommodate the quantity of merchandise we bought.  For goodness sakes I had trouble carrying the package of Costco toilet paper to the car let alone the rest of the groceries.

The lack of a car makes us think differently about our shopping now.  As you read on Friday's post about the kitchen, we don't have a ton of space to store extra food.  I left a great pantry behind at The 407 which appropriately accommodated storage of cereals and canned goods.  I will say that I am a more conscious shopper knowing that everything needs a space, especially in the fridge.

While walking is a necessity for the smooth running of the household, it is also a beautiful byproduct of our surroundings.  

The other day (March 4th on the calendar above), I had a lovely walk along the River Thames after my visit to the Tate Britain Museum (that's an upcoming post).  Once I dropped the kids off at school I hopped on the Underground to Pimlico station, which is almost at the southern most point on the north side of the Thames.  My walking path is outlined in red blow.         

I have not spent much time south of Parliament as there is not much to do between there and the curve in the river.  At least I think there is not much to do, so please let me know if I'm missing something spectacular.  Other than knowing the Thames was on my right and Parliament was somewhere in front of me I was clueless as to where I was.  London, being a lovely city, had help for me all along the way.......  

When we visited London over Spring Break a few years ago I met up with a colleague (hi!) who was here for a two-year stay for her husband's job.  On our walk, she showed me how the clueless traveler (or in this case resident) can get where they need to go.  London has these great maps all over town.    

The top provides a quick reference to the nearest big attraction or train station.  The bottom is comprised of two maps - a wide shot and close up of the area.  

The circle that provides walking times is very helpful.  I also appreciate the close up map for its cityscape drawings.  I do not do well with directions of North, South, East & West; I operate best with a street name paired with turn left at the skyscraper with the two towers type of directions.  I ultimately ended my 2.5 mile walk at Leicester Square Underground.  Or as I know it, behind the National Gallery and to the left.

I'll let the photos speak for the views on my walk.....

This is where James Bond works

Flowers are everywhere!

Parliament

One of the gates into Parliament

Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Square

As the weather continues to improve, I plan to rack up the miles with more walks in the city.  The best part, these types of tours are free!

The Heart of the House - London Manor

The continuing tour of London Manor takes us to the heart of our home - the kitchen.  

Our kitchen is one of the nicest that we looked at over many, many house tours.  Some of the other houses had more modern appliances or brighter spaces, but this room fits our family's needs perfectly.  Do you remember all the boxes we had on move in day and the comment, "You must have had a massive kitchen in the states," from the mover?  Well I'm still working on finding a permanent home for several items.  Some super infrequently used items are repacked into boxes and stored in Oldest Kiddo's closet. 

Ours is an open style kitchen/dining room.  At The 407 the dining table was in the living room, and there was not good space for anyone to hang out while I cooked.  Now we are all together and the kids often play Legos or make a craft while I'm cooking.  It's a good slice of togetherness during the day.  I have to use all surfaces and nooks to their maximum because it is lacking in built in storage space.  Those baskets on top of cabinets might look nice, but they also hold a myriad of kitchen tools.  I actually can't tell you what I put in there, so I bet they will go unused until they are packed up when we move back.  

We reused a shelf from The 407 to give us additional storage space.  It houses the microwave and other big items that I had no space to give in the kitchen area.  The big basket on the third shelf holds all of my large baking tools.  I read many blogs that love open shelving in the kitchen, but I'm not sold on the concept.  For now, it prudently uses what we brought with us and serves a purpose.

There is one spot in the kitchen that I was thrilled to create.  See that ugly curtain to the right of the shelf in the above photo?  Behind it is my broom closet.  The quantity of fabric in the panel allows me to store my hoover (British for vacuum), broom, and mop with nary a thought that anything was behind it.

We purchased a new dining table when we moved in.  Our old one at The 407 was from our college years.  When the kids first started using utensils for their meals, the poor table received many a fork tine scrape or spoon whack.  There are even a few remnants etched in the wood from some raucous Pictionary drawings.  The new one is solid American Walnut, and it is bigger than we initially thought about buying.  However, the larger floor model was significantly cheaper than the smaller size.  The room can handle it & it's beautiful.  We must keep its size in mind when we house hunt the next time.  We will never get rid of this table.  

Our fridge/freezer is small, but with creative organization it works for us.  It is persnickety about temperature.  Food items in the back of it often come out partially frozen.  It also quickly goes from full to empty.  Two days of school lunches and dinners depletes the inventory down to condiments and yogurt.  Yes, I grocery shop two to three times per week.  The freezer is a series of drawers that is the perfect size for us.  I keep a few packages of ground beef (they call it mince here), chicken, and bagels on hand at all times.

Our landlord recently replaced the stovetop because the original one had a faulty burner.  When one cooks with gas, a faulty burner is not a good thing.  The replacement is not much better as it has persnickety temperature settings.  I've found adjusting individual burners to be an exercise in patience.  A millimeter turn of the knob makes big changes.  They are very powerful burners, and even the low-output burner can quickly burn things.  When I need to use more than one burner, the stovetop is quickly cramped quarters.  

It took me a few almost burned meals to realize I have a convection/fan style oven.  I have to adjust the temperature down by about twenty degrees for everything I make.  This is because the fan constantly circulates the heat around the food to make it cook quicker.  At least that's how I understand it.  An 8x10 dish barely fits in the oven.  The handles of the glass dish fit in between the rails of the oven rack frame.

I decided to use the stove hood for travel magnets.  We certainly plan to increase the quantity of the magnets in the next two years.  Now we have to buy a Chicago one when we visit home :)

That's the heart of our manor.  There's just a few spots left to share!

A4 Update - February 2014

'Ello, 'Ello!  February is our three month mark in London.  

At the beautiful Buckingham Palace.  The Queen wasn't home.

• The kids had a week off for half-term break.
• Holly walked 58 miles (again) - way less than hoped due to a four-day homebound stint with a full-family flu.  Pushing for 65 miles in March!
• Matt took a few work day trips to North England, but he was home every night.
• London logged 50.55mm of rain for the month.  The average is 38mm.
• Our internet and DVR got installed!  We've only waited since December.  The kids are thrilled to have the Disney Channel back in rotation.  I even missed Phineas & Ferb.  
• Planning our first holiday out of England.  We are having difficulty booking hotels since the entire country is vacationing at the same time, but I have full faith in Matt's hotel-booking skills.
• Oldest Kiddo finished the final Harry Potter book.  She's ready to go on the Warner Brothers Studio Tour.
• Youngest Kiddo loves letters and sounds.  He's always finding small words they learn at school in what we read at home.  

Hardest Part of an International Move

An international move is extremely stressful.  For the most part, we had to close everything in the USA before leaving for the UK.

Prior to leaving the USA

• cancel utilities, bank accounts, and set up mail forwarding
• sell/donate unneeded furniture, clothing, and home goods
• pack up items to store with family until our return
• sell the house
• pack the remaining household items
• get medical records for all family members
• leave family, friends, and jobs

After arrival in the UK

• tour with a relocation person for a house
• live in limbo in a corporate apartment while the homeowner has a mid-life crisis
• tour again with a relocation person for a house when the first place falls through
• apply for schools in the area
• secure furniture to replace what was sold or would not fit
• unpack the boxes from the US, and figure out we brought way too much
• find doctors and secure private health insurance
• get utilities set up*

In it's most basic form, that's what we had to do.  You'll notice the asterisk on the last bullet point.  Our relocation consultant set up our electric, water, and gas service.  She was unable to set up our telephone and internet. The telecom company is persnickety about having the resident calling.  No problem, it can't be that hard can it?

<insert foreboding background music here>

I'll try to make this as simple as I can, but it's messy....

• Matt called the big telecom company the day our tenancy agreement (lease) was signed in mid-December.  The first possible date for them to install was January 2, 2014.  No problem as they gave us proper access to the city-wide internet access.  We had to be near the window, but it was better than nothing.  They sent the hardware to the house in anticipation of the technician's arrival. 
• Technician arrived on January 2, 2014 only to tell us that we had no live line to the house.  He had to put in a repair ticket back at the ranch.  It will take "a while" to get sorted out.
• Still not a problem since we had the cloud wi-fi to use.
• Telecom Co rescheduled us for Monday January, 20 to resume the install
• On Friday, January 17 our cloud wi-fi stopped working
• Telecom Co emailed to say our order was cancelled, several calls cannot uncover the reason for the cancellation
• Since Matt works all day, I was given the job of trying to get the service reinstated
• Was told that the original order could not be reinstated because the service was terminated and have to start all over with a brand new order.

<insert yoga breathing and choice words for Telecom Co here>

• The first possible date for install was Monday, February 3.  She'd make a note on our account so they did not resend all of the hardware.
• A new set of hardware arrived at the house on January 30.
• On February 3, the Telecom Co technician arrived and installed the internet router, and we were online!
• Later on February 3 another set of Telecom Co technicians visited not knowing that their compadre had left an hour prior.  One guy checked the former technician's work while the other guy made small talk.  
• We relish in the wi-fi and the corresponding DVR for the television that needed the wi-fi signal

Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would take 8 1/2 weeks to get internet installed.  Gracious. 

Making the Most of Time - Touring Tuesday

There are many reasons why we accepted the London assignment.  The most prominent reason was the ability to visit beyond the border of the UK.  Yes, England has many, many, many worthwhile sites to visit, and I look forward to seeing many more of them over the next year and nine months.  See?  The time is ticking away as I type!  However, the rest of Europe and Africa are at our feet screaming for a visit.

The question arises of when do we take a holiday?  It's actually quite an easy decision since most European countries have strict rules about school attendance.  If school is in session, your child is expected to be there.  If you choose to sneak away because airfare is cheap, get ready for a potential fine from the school council.  It can be a few hundred Pounds if the school council is persnickety.

There is a solution for families that want to travel!  The kids have four terms in a school year - fall, winter, spring, and summer (until mid-July!).  Within each term the kids have a week off that's called Half Term.  Quite appropriately named, eh?  During that time families can travel as far as they wish, as long as you are back in school when Half Term ends.  All of the school councils in England (at least it seems) have Half Term at the same time, which means EVERY family is scouting airfare at the exact same time.  Obviously air carriers know this and the prices are higher during half term than other weeks.  

I know that we don't have to travel for Half Term since we live in an amazingly historical city.  We were happy to spend a majority of it at home this time.  Everyone is still recovering from a nasty flu from almost two weeks ago.   For one outing, I took the kids to a play in Greenwich (Gren-itch) on Thursday, rode bikes in the neighborhood, and played at the park.

On our journey, our train passed through South Kensington Station.  This is stop where you alight (get off) for all of the big museums (Natural History Museum, Science Museum, and Victoria & Albert).  I was astonished to see the number of people queued up just to climb the steps of the station, and I imagined the same crush of crowds shuffling along the museum halls.  Huge crowds are extremely unpleasant, and I was happy to pass on by that station.

Now we are trying make our plans out the next few Half Terms.  To pigeonhole the British, they are major planner-aheaders.  Weekend events for things such as the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Tour, are booked until April.  If I plan two weeks ahead, I think I'm doing great.

Now we are looking for some sunshine since England has had the rainiest winter since data gathering began.  I sympathize with my midwest USA friends who feel an equal animosity to the snow and bitter cold.  Also, we are looking for places that have activities/museums/attractions will keep the Kiddos entertained as well.  Oldest Kiddo is up for anything and if she can learn anything along the way she is game!  So far, we are thinking of Spain or Italy.  Airfare will probably help make our decision easier.

Where have you visited in Europe & Africa?  We're looking for the good, bad, and awful to make our Wish List.  Leave us a comment of your ideas!

Act fast!  The Brits are booking airfare now!

A Peek Inside Domestic Bliss - London Manor

A peek inside our London Manor continues.  This week we will take a little tour with a couple of the mechanicals that keep the manor humming.  Laundry is the job that never ends.  However, we are lucky that our house came with a washer and separate dryer.  Yes, we are lucky.  

The washer is a standard issue front-loading washer.  It does not fit much in the way of my top loader at The 407, but it does a fine job cleaning.  The pièce de résistance is the tumble dryer.  On our home searches very few had dryers, and I did a happy dance when we realized we picked a place that had one.  I can give up a lot of things, but a proper dryer is not one of them.  It is a difficult idea to wrap your brain around if not having a dryer is an extremely foreign concept.  I know, for a fact, that many households do not have dryers at all.  How do they do laundry, you ask?   Those without a dryer have two alternatives: 

• A washer and foldable drying rack - Everything gets hung to air dry.  I like to hang a lot of my clothes to dry, but there are some things that deserve a warm dry.  I certainly think socks and undies deserve a warm tumble as air dried laundry items have a certain crunchy element to them.

Laundry from back in the apartment - never a good spot to put this

• A washer/dryer in the same unit - When the wash cycle ends, it switches into heat mode for the dryer.  We had one of these in our corporate apartment; it was not ideal, but better than nothing.  If you've ever tried drying laundry with a hair dryer you have an idea of the quality.  I ran clothes through a dry cycle then hung them on the foldable rack so I could do more than one load of laundry per day.  

The dryer at our house is not without it's own idiosyncrasy.  This bad boy is known as a condensing dryer.  The vapors do not vent to the outside, they magically condense back into a water tank that has to be emptied every three to four loads.  The condensing reservoir is a little heavy and unwieldily to empty.  I always get the back door open before I remove it so I don't spill all over the floor.  

The reservoir is full

I think it weighs 5kg (about 10 pounds) when full 

I'll use the water for the flowers when we get some

All in all, it's a creature comfort I'm glad is at my house.  Stay tuned for next time; we can explore the kitchen!  Try to not lose sleep whilst you wait.