Today marks one week since our arrival in Newcastle, England. On that day, our real estate agents picked us up from the airport and took us to our new British home! The flat is perfectly in the center of town, on the northeast side of the city centre. We are walking distance to everything: the downtown shopping centre, the Tyne quayside, Ron’s workplace at Centred Chiropractic, the local farmer’s market (Grainger Market), and a whole slew of nightlife options to explore!

On Friday, we took the metro back to the airport to pick up Apollo, who had flown separately to London to go through animal imports. Everything went surprisingly smoothly, and he adapted to his new home better than we could have hoped (better than any of our previous moves). Honestly, I think he was so relieved to see us again after his flight that he didn’t care where he was!

Over the weekend, we met with some local friends who took us out for a night on the town. It was a great break from all the unpacking and organizing, and gave us the opportunity to explore another new side of town!

Ron’s first day of work was Monday, and we took a traditional “First Day” photo:

For the rest of this week, Ron went to work and I researched options for my own job. Between applications, I’ve also continued to unpack our new flat. Getting everything organized is still a work in process, however, below are some photos of how it currently looks. It already feels like home… I can’t believe we’ve only been here a week!

As we're getting ready for this week's flight, we decided to make Apollo his very own passport (since his real "pet passport" is largely uninteresting...). Obviously his photoshoot was very important for this project, and we had such a hard time choosing just the right shot to use. For anyone who doesn't know... passport quality photos must be taken in front of a white background, and should be taken with a neutral expression. This sassy-pants just wasn't having it today!

​How did we do?? 

Time is going by so fast! We have another very busy week under our belts... since my last post, we have officially moved out of our downtown St. Louis loft, shipped all of our belongings to England, put a down payment on a beautiful flat, and purchased our one-way tickets to Newcastle for myself, Ron and little Apollo. One week from now, we will be boarding a plane to our new life! Amid all of these big checkmarks, we also took a trip to Ohio to visit Ron's family & have another going away party. It feels simultaneously like yesterday & 10 years ago when we made this crazy decision to move! 

Below is our loft apartment, the day of our moving sale vs. the day we checked out. We are going to miss those beautiful hardwood floors and high ceilings! We were certainly spoiled by living in this huge apartment right before moving to England, where everything is much smaller. 

Below are some shots from Ron's family's goodbye party in Ohio. Temperatures were much more pleasant for this party than they were for my own goodbye party last weekend!! (Click each photo below to enlarge)

Apollo will be flying in a pet transportation cargo hold with British Airways. He'll go through imports before meeting up with us in Newcastle. Having never traveled with a pet before, we had to do quite a bit of research to arrange this. Cats traveling from the U.S. to the U.K. must go through one of the U.K-approved flight routes, on an approved airline. Additionally, they must get a "pet passport" from their vet (not nearly as adorable as it sounds), certifying that they are up to date on all immunizations, have an implanted chip, and that they are fit to fly. They must also get a final certification from the vet within 10 days of the flight date, where he'll get a final approval letter from the vet. All of this documentation must be provided with the cat when we drop him off at the airport. Each airline also has its own set of requirements for the pet carrier. If any one of these many things are provided incorrectly, it could land Apollo in a 2-week quarantine upon arrival in England. Needless to say, we are double- and triple-checking everything to ensure this doesn't happen to him! 

With our remaining time in the States, we are finishing up selling some more of our things (my car, Ron's sports equipment, clothes, electronics), and doing some last-minute visits with friends and family. We likely won't be back home for quite a while, so we want to get as much of Missouri as we still can!