London Calling
After a couple of weeks of thinking about it and figuring out certain logistics, I feel I can finally talk about something I’m considering doing later this year. But first, a little back story.
I’ve lived my entire life in Los Angeles. I grew up in the suburb of Northridge my first 27 years or so, then I moved about 25 minutes south east from there to my present home in North Hollywood. While I’ve traveled all over this country and the world (my current country list includes Mexico, Tahiti, American Samoa, Western Samoa, Fiji, Switzerland, Italy and England), I’ve never lived outside of Los Angeles. And as an adult, I’ve never been outside of Los Angeles for longer than a week (most of those trips I listed above were made before I was 18). So while I feel I have a “worldly” perspective, I sometimes feel like maybe I’ve missed out on something by not living somewhere else. So, I started thinking it over and came up with a plan.
Later this year I’m considering going to London to live for up to two months. It’s longer than your typical vacation and shorter than living there. When I visited London last May I was there only for a week and it definitely wasn’t enough time to really immerse myself into the country. I really loved that city and would love to spend even more time there. By going for two months I accomplish a couple of goals. First, that amount of time requires me to actually live there. I’ll have to do laundry, cook my own food, clean my living space, etc. Basically, I’ll need to figure out how to live in London. Staying in a hotel for two months is way too cost prohibitive, so I’ll be doing the sublet thing, which will feel more like home. Second, it also affords me the opportunity to (relatively) cheaply spend some time exploring Europe. I’d love to visit Scottland and go on over to Paris and Amsterdam. Traveling from London to those destinations is a hell of a lot cheaper than flying from Los Angeles.
Now, in order to make this possible I need to be able to continue working and support my business and its clients. I’d say about 75% of what I do can be done from anywhere in the world, as long as I have a decent Internet connection. Another 20% of my work involves answering and returning phone calls, going to the post office and the bank. The final 5% is my irregular client meeting. The most important thing as far as clients goes is having a way for them to contact me that won’t require them to make a long distance call. I may have found a way to do that. Packet 8 offers a means by which you purchase a piece of hardware from them, sign-up for their service and connect said hardware up to your broadband and voila, I can have my own Los Angeles area code phone number anywhere in the world, provided I have broadband. Pretty nifty. I could have a 213 telephone number in my London apartment. I’ve ordered the product and need to find someone in London with broadband who’d be willing to let me send it to them for a quick bit of testing. As long as it works, that solves one major problem. I can also get a Blackberry device which would give me access to the world from pretty much anywhere, as well as a multi-nation cell phone with both US and London #’s (it’s getting much cheaper to do this).
The other things are all pretty manageable. My Mom offered to help me out by going to the PO Box twice a week to pick up checks and mail as well as make any check deposits that need to be made. That’s very nice of her and solves that problem.
The only other issues I’m working through now I may not have any control over.
First, I need to find out if my Apartment Manager will allow me to sublet my apartment while I’m over in England. If I can find someone to sublet my apartment those two months I can cover the extra costs of living easily. And why wouldn’t someone want to sublet this place? It’s a big ass apartment with WiFi, DirecTV (with all the movie channels) and TiVo! It’s freaking Disneyland in here! That would be terribly helpful in keeping costs down.
Second, the US Dollar is sucking hard against the British Pound. According to this Web site the current exchange rate is $1.8295 for every one pound. YIKES! When I visited in May it was $1.62. When you consider subletting a flat with broadband in London could cost 250 pounds a week, well, that translates to $457 in U.S. scratch. $2000 a month in rent makes this trip not so affordable. If the US dollar doesn’t regain some strength in the coming months, it may make this trip a no go.
When would I do this? I have to attend both Comic-Con International and Wizard World Chicago this year, so it has to be after convention season is effectively over. WWC runs August 13th – 15th, so I’m thinking I can leave anytime late August and I’d return home by the end of October.
That’s where I’m at. Nothing definite, but it’s something I’m seriously considering right now. If anyone has suggestions on where to find sublets (I’ve already perused Craig’s List and it appears there are regular sublets available for my needs) or any other ideas, please feel free to leave a comment.
