Obviously we slept in until around 11:45am because we were so exhausted but we figured we might as well get a move on because the shops close fairly early in England on Sundays. Some of the smaller shops and banks don't even open at all. Our first stop was back at the mall to get some breakfast. The food court there takes up a whole level of the mall. It's insane. There's restaurants and diners and every fast food place and coffee shop under the sun. We chose to go to a diner and order a typical egg breakfast. Once we were fuelled up our mission was to find stuff to stock up the apartment with.. but on a BUDGET!! I tried googling dollar stores in Southampton but it was coming up blank so I worried they didn't exist. Then it dawned on me.. they don't have dollars! They have pounds! So we googled pound store locations and found quite a few. One was a 20 minute walk from the mall so we went out and made the trek. It was so beautiful. We were able to walk through the city core for a bit and there are so many neat buildings that look like castles, and green parks everywhere. The city is so green I love it. We went through two gorgeous parks on way to Pound Xtra and took tons of pics. Pound Xtra turned out to be in a bit of a dingier part of town and it was basically a hole in the wall. But we did stock up on cleaner and some kitchen utensils and laundry detergent. Then our way back home, we passed by a store called Buyology. I was intrigued by the name so we went inside and it's basically a store of basic needs at discount prices. We found everything we had purchased at Pound Xtra for cheaper which was unfortunate but at least we got to know the city a bit more and go through the parks by going to Pound Xtra. Anyways, we stocked up on more stuff at Buyology and got my favourite purchase of the day: Moon Chairs!! They are basically rounded camping chairs that fold out. They are pink and hilarious but only 9 pounds!! So we slung those over our shoulders and trekked home with allll our goods. It's definitely an experience doing all this without a car. We are always limited to buying just what we can physically bare to carry home which depends on the length of our walk and the weather. When we got back to the flat to drop everything off it was just after 4pm which left us in a tight spot. The grocery store and IKEA both closed at 5 and we wanted to go to both. So we grabbed our backpacks, ran to ASDA (grocery store near West Quay mall) and grabbed some essentials like eggs, milk, etc. We then tossed everything into our backpacks and ran to IKEA but didn't make it in time. So we turned and headed home to unpack all our purchases of the day and eat. It seems like we've barely eaten since we got here! Tonight was a very good feast. We made Pad Thai and naan bread and tomato mozzarella balsamic salad. It was sooooooo delicious and we made so much we have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Another neat discovery of the day is that also across from our flat is a convenience store that sells some groceries and alcohol!! They have Smirnoff vodka, so I'm going to be all set. I barely have to leave my apartment and I can get Subway, vodka, and some drinks and snacks haha.
Tonight so far I had a big Skype session with my love Matthew Haucke which was absolutely delightful. I gave him a tour of our place and he got a good laugh out of our toilet room.
I've also been trying to unpack my clothes a bit and solve our shower situation.
The shower situation is funny. Last night we discovered our shower does not work. It's a weird shower, it's like electrical or something and you turn it on through this box inside the shower. But only little drips come out. We tried again this morning and nothing. We don't actually know our landlords phone number yet so we've been in a pickle. All we want to do is shower and wash our hair!! So I went poking in the boiler room closet and found a switch that was in the off position. When we turned it on, it made a terrifying and loud noise but the shower worked!!!
We decided to wait until morning to actually shower in case our neighbours can hear the noise and we're going to ask around and find out if this a normal thing here in England. So being clean will have to wait until morning unfortunately.
It's just past 11pm here now and we have a big day tomorrow with lots of errands and meetings so I'm going to head to bed soon.
I miss everyone at home so much!! But it helps that the city is so beautiful and we like our flat a lot. It's been really fun to conquer everything. Everyone needs to send me tons of emails and messages with updates please! Don't let me get homesick.
Love,
Katrina/Kat/Meddy
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