It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I am at last officially in London, with a visa, with a place to live, and with broadband service. Pretty much all of the above was more difficult than I anticipated, but I am glad to finally be here.
As anticipated, there have been quite a few challenges to moving and getting things up-and-running. There are typical moving challenges (i.e., “how did I accumulate so much STUFF?” or “the deposit is HOW much?!”) to the challenge of learning about a whole new country.
A slightly shallow example is TV and Broadband service.
In the States, I must admit that my husband and I may have been the only people still living without cable TV. We don’t spend a lot of time in front of the television, so despite the fact that we ended up being out of touch with certain elements of pop culture (not always a bad thing- Jersey Shore), we just never found it necessary. We also have used mobile phones in lieu of a landline for several years.
London has already changed both of these scenarios. In terms of television, we were quite surprised at the price of a license (required “if you watch or record TV as it’s being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder.”) At the price of £145.50/year, it comes with a bit of sticker shock.
We also turned on our TV to find that we have absolutely NO channels without subscribing to some sort of provider.
Life as a couch potato?
There are free channels, but even they seem to need some type of viewing card. I still need to do some research around this, but as of now, we’ve gone with Sky TV and have way more channels than we need. Deep down, I say, “YaHOO!”
When it comes to phone service, we planned to get new mobiles and call it a day. This has proved to be difficult so far as well. First of all, we want broadband in our flat. The only option I’ve found that will offer this without a BT landline is Virgin Media. They require a contract and from what I can tell so far, having the landline with broadband service will be less expensive. We also can opt for a landline service (again with Sky) that allows unlimited calls to the US, Canada, and 20 other international destinations for £5/ month. (I’ll check this one out and let you all know if there’s any hidden charges!)
In addition, we’ve had trouble getting new mobiles so far based on limited (no) UK credit history. I should’ve prefaced this by saying that we are trying to get iPhones and as they are expensive, the provider wants proof that we can pay the contract. Not easy without a credit history…
I’ve been using a pay-as-you-go, which is fine to some extent, but seems to run out of credit at the worst time!! I think that this problem will correct itself with a bit more leg work, it’s just one of the funny things we didn’t expect…
Anyway, after all of this (plus the delay of getting someone out to set up the TV, the phone, etc.) here I am sending this blog using my new broadband service, which is serviced through my new landline, next to my 10-billion channel TV.
And despite what sounds like a lot of grousing, it feels pretty great!
Victoria Westcott
kikimoo
