With the address of a man I had never met, I left my job, my super-cute apartment, my family, and my stalker ex-boyfriend.
With a backpack and $1,000, I boarded a flight to London.
Grown-up town.
As Heathrow approached, I peered out of the tiny plane window and was gobsmacked by the greenery.
Having grown up watching London-based crime dramas religiously, I had expected a concrete jungle.
Luckily, my new landlord — The Mex — was super cool, had a very dapper apartment in Chiswick, a serious job, and drank like a fish. Talk about landing on your feet.
(No one ever asks about his nickname. I know why. I can’t say.)
The Mex introduced me to pints, Sunday lunches, bacon sarnies, chip shops, and curries. In no time at all, my disco pants had shrunk, my sun-kissed skin was pasty white, and I had developed an extra layer of fat to keep me warm.
Having outstayed my one-month free rental agreement by about three months, I bid farewell to The Mex and moved into the craziest phase of my London life.
The flat
A couple of weeks after arriving — knowing no one — I secured a job at an investment bank so I could continue paying for board, chips, and pints.
I found a flat on Fulham High Street shared with three people: an Irish lady, a Liverpudlian, and a chap from Hull. It wasn’t a place you would invite your mother, but it was home for the next few years.
I moved in on a holiday weekend. The housemates had all gone home, leaving me alone in an unfamiliar house until Monday.
I had a tiny room with a single bed, a window, and a door with a lock.
Everything was going well until I realised I could not work out how the toilet flushed.
It was Friday.
Mortified, I spent the next three days visiting the local pubs with a purpose.
The housemates
An Aussie girl, an Irish lady, and two Englishmen walk into a bar —
and don’t come out for two years.
Life in the flat was brilliant. No judgement, just laughs, booze, and a lot of EastEnders.
We lived across the road from three pubs, and there was an Indian restaurant downstairs.
Enough said.
I’ve thought long and hard about our time in that house and realised I can’t relay most of our shenanigans here — out of respect for the children of the original housemates, and more realistically, due to my lack of memory.
Some highlights:
- Coming home to the entire staff of the Indian restaurant partying in our living room;
- An exiting flatmate advertising her room as having a roof garden — accessing the weeds required two men to hoist you up and a strategically placed mattress for the fall back down;
- Surfing on ironing boards. As the token Aussie, it was my job to teach the inmates how to paddle and stand. At least fifteen ironing boards were replaced. The party trick never got old. I’d never surfed before in my life.
Lifelong friendships were formed, and more than twenty years later, we still stalk each other regularly on Facebook.
With the Heathrow Injection* well administered and my face now resembling the moon, it was time to move on.
Next stop: Scotland.
* Rapid weight gain experienced by a non-British person upon settling in London, attributed to a busy schedule encouraging the excessive consumption of beer and chips.