Some successes!

Our last post was written on 12 October. We have not posted much since due to the appalling computing equipment at the Marriot we were staying at and until now we haven't had much to say. But all of a sudden everything sems to be go, so this is a somewhat lengthy update! In the last couple of days we have moved to a proper apartment that we can use for a month (the reason will become clear later), which has much better internet access and equipment.

We are staying in the Clear Lake Area of Houston. It is close to the coast and about 20 miles from Downtown Houston and 20-30 miles from Galveston (Brighton/Blackpool in Texas). Essentially the area is home to NASA (aka "Houston... we have a problem") and Boeing, but it is also the third largest water bourne recreational area in the USA and a large housing area. We have been staying in a Marriot Residence Inn whilst we searched for a house. We have looked at a large number of houses. All the houses are much bigger than they are in the UK - it is impossible to find anything that is less than 3 bedrooms and everything is huge. The problem we have had is that many of them either backed onto major roads (lots of noise), were fairly horrendously decorated inside or were just too big! After looking at around 20 houses we have agreed a lease on a 4 bedroomed place in League City (pop. 45,000 - the "historic" part of Clear Lake). The house was built in 2ooo , in a quiet neighbourhood next to a golf course and is fairly well decorated, so we are pretty happy with it. Unfortunately it is not available until 21 November 2007 (the day before Thanksgiving, when America shuts for 4 days). To bridge ourselves until them we have taken a 1 month lease on an apartment, which is very nice and has high speed internet.

Adam also managed to get his Social Security Number this week - the number is the key to everything in the US. It is used as a personal identifier and is linked to your bank details, your credit history, your taxes,... basically everything. You cannot walk into a store and sneeze without it. The process of getting it involved going to a very Hispanic part of Houston and standing in a queue for an hour to apply for it and then going back the following day to collect the number. As soon as we got the number we were able to go and buy mobile phones (again - very different to the UK - you pay to receive and make calls or text messages). Fortunately we found that we could obtain a very favourable discount due to the company Adam works for, but still expensive compared to the UK. The key to buying things in the US is discount..."Can I get a discount for being English, or walking into the store at 6 minutes past 6pm...?".

Today we have achieved another major success - buying a car! The process is completely different to the UK and a real eye opener. US car Salesman are animals and will negotiate on anything. The whole negotiation process took nearly an hour and a half, over about 1000 pounds of money. Eventually we managed to purchase an immaculate nearly new Nissan Murano, with only 14,000 miles on it (everything here seems to do about 30,0000 miles a year). Once the deal is done, in typical American fashion, they bury you under about 6ft of state paper work. We had to sign no less than 15 forms (the largest of which was about 3 feet by 1.5 feet and covered with small print). But we made it out alive and take delivery on Monday.

We'll keep you informed as everything keeps happening. We understand that some people have experienced some problems accessing the blog after around 30 days, even though they have set up the required Google account. If you still experience problems you should be able to access it by going to http:\\adamandclaireabroad.blogspot.com. If that does not work then let us know on adam.h.scott@btinternet.com or ccbardwell@lineone.net and we'll see what we can do.

Take care and enjoy the great British weather for us!!!

Adam and Claire xxx

We have arrived!

We arrived in sunny Houston yesterday afternoon after a slightly nerve racking experience. Claire's passport and visa were delivered at 0805 in the morning so that we could catch the 1200 flight from Gatwick! After a very nice and relaxing experience in Business First we landed at around 1600 CST and experieced the ever so pleasent American Border Control staff (we are not longer friends with them). Since then our experience has been much more relaxing. We were greeted by a very friendly taxi driver who did not raise an eyebrow to carrying, loading and unloading our 8 bags. The hotel we are staying in is pleasent and clean and in the out of town area of Clear Lake. The weather is very good - about 30degC, sunny and not too humid.

This morning we woke up early due to the jet lag, took a taxi Downtown and collected our hire car (or should I say "rental"). This afternoon we are taking a tour of the area with our relocation agent to get ourselves adjusted.

We'll keep you all posted!

Ready to go...... almost!

The house was packed by Pickfords last week (4 days!) and loaded into a very large container in order to start the long journey by sea to Houston. We even had a little bit of room left to spare, which I am sure we will be able to fill for the return journey!

With the help of Adam's parents we then cleaned from top to bottom and decorated in places to allow the new tenants to move in on Monday of this week.

Claire went to her visa interview on Thursday of last week and passed with flying colours after a frustrating 4.5 hour wait for a two minute interview. We are now just waiting for her passport and visa to come back via courier so that we can get underway on our trip across the Atlantic.

Packing is underway

A wee bit more news from us...not so much a postcard from Texas but a bit of an update...

The packing of our possessions has begun in earnest. Last week we packed up the flat in Le Havre (for those of you not aware Adam has been working in France for the last 10 months). Somewhat chaotic as 5 Frenchmen worked manically for 2 hours resulting in 64 boxes starting their journey to Texas.

Furious cleaning followed until the flat sparkled and we could handover the keys and enjoy some yummy French food and drink.

Back in Marchwood the shippers have started to pack our house and squeeze everything into the container. It's all go as we fly on Thursday 11 October...it really is countdown to Houston!