26-4-08 Saturday

26-4-08 Saturday

London Time: 7.44am

Ahh. Finally its Saturday. And soon I’ll be able to start work on Monday! But I gotta go down to the bank during lunch time to get my bank account done. Wonder if I’ll have enough time. I’ll probably bring my big luggage down to the new apartment today. But I’ll come back to Mrs Mary’s place and stay for one more night. Cause she’s getting paid by Rolls Royce for each night I stay here. So I gotta stay for one last night.

Well yesterday after having breakfast, Giuseppe came down and picked me up. Weird name right? He’s the land lord of the new area where I’ll be staying. He looked around 40+? He had graying hair and a really large nose. And he’s in need of breath mints. Well we took his tiny little car down to the place where I’ll be staying.

In the car he told me that the rent was 315 pounds/month. And I had to pay an administration cost of 100 pounds, another 300 pounds for bills and tax on the building, 50 pounds for the remainder of the month I’ll be staying and another 50 pounds for miscellaneous stuff like bedding and stuff like that. Oh yea there’s a deposit of 200 pounds that I need to pay but will be refunded once I move out of the place after 4 months if there’s nothing wrong with the apartment. That was A LOT of money. Gosh I’m gonna be broke. So I worked it out, excluding the deposit that will be refunded, I’ll have to pay around 440pounds/month. That is A LOT of money. Ahhh!!!
As he drove along the road towards the city, he turned right at a round-about where normally if you’d drive straight you’ll reach the city. And he told me to the left was Rolls Royce. He drove for a couple more minutes and turned in to a smaller road. As he drove on, he pointed out to me which of the nearby houses was currently occupied by Rolls Royce people.

Surprisingly the area was quite new. The houses were quite modern. Compared to the houses nearby The Manor Hotel that were quite old. The area where I’d be staying looked like it came out from the show, Desperate Housewives. The road was clean and new, so were the houses.

He pulled up at a house at Gala Drive. And the house was labeled 2. As we got out of the car, he mentioned that the houses around the area were only 3 years old. He also explained to me that currently there’s an Italian (whom I can’t remember the name) from Rolls Royce that was staying at there. He was also a intern there but was offered a contract for one year after he completed the internship. And currently his girlfriend was over visiting him for a few days.

He rang the doorbell but no one answered. Kinda expected cause the Italian guy was probably working at the time. So he took out a bunch of keys and started trying everyone of them. After 5 minutes he finally got the door open.

The door way was quite small. Cause around 2 feet of the door way is a stairs leading upstairs and to the right was a door. He opened the door and it revealed a living room with 2 couches and a big LCD TV. The living room wasn’t very big. There was a guitar beside the sofa. Whoo. I probably could pick up a few tunes from the Italian dude. Inside the living room there was another door at the back. A kitchen was behind that door. The kitchen was slightly bigger than the living room. There was an oven, microwave, fridge, stove, cupboards, and a washing machine. Well almost everything needed in the kitchen was there.

A door in the back of the kitchen led to the back yard of the place. It was a small grassy area with a pavement through it.

Then we went back to the door way and he told me to take off my shoes and proceed upstairs.

There were 3 doors here and one of them led to a giant bathroom. The bathroom was sparkling clean. There was a giant tub that could fit 2 people there as well.

Awesome.

Through another door was my room. It was a pretty small room with just a double bed there without any bedding on it and a chair and an unconstructed table that was still in a box. He told me that it would be best if I could fix up the table myself, he’d provide the screw driver.

So we went back out and he said that the other room was occupied by the Italian’s girlfriend.

There was a third floor as well but we didn’t go up. Cause he said that the room up there belonged to the Italian and there was a bathroom for him as well.

After all that was done. We went out and took his car back to The Manor Hotel. He told me that it was easy to get to Rolls Royce. I could buy a bicycle from him and could sell back to him after my 4 months here. That was quite a good idea cause bus fares were very expensive. (12 pounds/week for the weekly pass).

When we got back, I signed the contract and paid him 300 pounds first. The remaining will be paid when I got my bank account done up and manage to cash in the cheque from Rolls Royce.

After that was done with, I got my stuff and prepared to go to Derby City for lunch. Similarly for the past few days I took bus 60 to the city center.

When I got there I went back to Subway and ordered the a foot long Turkey Breast and Ham Sandwich with bbq sauce, lettuces and some black little veggie. No idea what that’s called. I packed half of it into my bag and had half of it there. Then I went around and took a couple of photos and went to get a microphone headset. That cost me 5 pounds. And I topped up my SIM card for another 5 pounds. In all, I spent 25 pounds on phone alone this month. My SIM card now has 11 pounds remaining. Bloody ex. That means I’ve already spent 14 pounds on calls.

Then I went to the bus stop. It seems that I just missed bus 60 cause the next one would come on 37 mintues. But there was bus 61 that would come in 4 minutes. I thought 61 would get me back as well, so I took it when it came. Big mistake.
As I sat in the bus all the way, after 45 minutes I was still wondering why we haven’t reached. Then I noticed that the bus was going back to the City Center. So I asked the driver if the bus went to Chellaston. He said we just came from there! Shit. I guess bus 61 didn’t go by my bus stop. Damn. So I got off and went opposite and waited for bus 60. Lucky for me this time I only had to wait for 5 minutes for it to come.

So I got back to The Manor Hotel and played my PSP and had my other half of the Subway for dinner before taking a bath and going to sleep at around 9pm.
Oh yea. My address for the new place:

2 Gala Drive
Alvaston, Derby
DE 248YA

Here are some pictures I took in the Derby City