Babbles from Britain: Getting Acquainted

Time flies when you're having fun! I can't even begin to describe what has happened over the last few days. Basically, we have been getting to know the area, which can be either as large or as small as you really want it to be. Dartford has a lot of nooks and crannies that are waiting to be discovered. The main street is called the "High Street" and cars are not permitted here; there are pubs and grocery stores and a lot of other small town shops as well. I would like to point out that a lot of hairdressers and barber shops can be found around here... so I've been keeping an eye on them and decided to try one out today and it was a success! I must admit that getting my hair done was one of my worries and so I am very relieved that this risk was not a disappointment. As you walk south from the High Street, there is a rather large park in central Dartford which is the home to the "football pitches" and lots of colourful gardens. If I was to compare Dartford with a place back home I would liken it to Peterborough because it has a lot of older buildings in the downtown core, with newer developments sprouting up around the outskirts of the city.

We have done A LOT of walking in our time here so far. Being from small town Grafton, we have to drive if we need to get somewhere and so we were initially very uneducated on local transit. Somehow, us small town folk have managed to begin mastering the art of getting around. Our hotel is not in the most convenient location but thankfully we discovered there is a bus that comes out this way and takes us to downtown Dartford. Our time has been spent riding the transit system to and from the hotel, and also into the next few towns over. There is a bus that takes us from central Dartford to the Broadway Shopping Centre which is in a place called Bexleyheath. This is a smaller mall than Bluewater (which I mentioned in another post), but it is home to all the local amenities that one needs to survive. It boasts an ASDA (which is owned by Walmart!), Marks & Spencer, H&M, Starbucks, the local cinema, and many other pubs and restaurants.

Bexleyheath is also a much newer town than Dartford, making it a very posh and appealing place to live. I also think I have found a home there! The search is still on, but on Friday we viewed a room in a house that is owned by a lovely woman named Julie. The house was completely refinished from top to bottom about 2 years ago, making it much more contemporary and like something you would expect to see on TV. Not to mention it is located within a block of the Broadway Shopping Centre! We will be viewing at least one more place just so we can make some comparisons, but mom and I have a very good feeling about me living there, so stay tuned for updates on that!

All in all, we are having fun exploring what the area has to offer! I will dedicate a post to London... we were there on Saturday!