Lucerne

So in preparation of the arrival of our sweet sweet dog Miller:

Kathleen and I began apartment hunting a few weeks ago. We had some criteria laid out that seemed slightly un-doable at first. The list included: dog-friendly, furnished, modern but ‘homey’ (yeah, that makes zero sense), near Liverpool (alas Manchester is just too far), on my train line, and good access to local watering holes.

The whole dog thing really cut out almost every advertised apartment out there. Most realtors would just kind of look away and frown. Most landlords who are renting furnished apartments do not want to have a dog come in and ruin them (imagine that). A good example of this attitude was numerous suggestions that we just “leave him in America.” Not happening. Our approach shifted so that we would not really mention the dog thing until after we saw an apartment. We saw a great place on Saturday and the realtor felt like the landlord might be amenable. In addition, he also mentioned another apartment owned by the same couple (cheaper and smaller – we don’t really need 4 bedrooms) in another area of Liverpool. We set out on Tuesday to go and view it.

As stated above, Kathleen and I were very eager (or keen as it is said here) to find a place within walking distance of bars and restaurants. We currently have found an amazing place called Paul’s (super clean décor with really fresh, sometimes organic, food and apparently serving the best Sticky Toffee Pudding in the area – but this is really another post) near our house now. However what it is lacking is some sort of bar scene. Not to say Kathleen and I can’t sit in the living room and make up stupid games, laugh, and make fun of each other, until the end of days… but cabin fever has shown its face a few times. It's not like we want to be like Micky Rourke in Barfly either, but friends are good to have, and a good place to meet new friends is at a bar. And even if we don’t really make any, a bar can give you “the illusion of friends” which some would argue is better than actually having friends. And most bars are just simply amusing in their own right: Cantab, The Abbey, The OP, Finnigans, The Library, Failures, Mona’s, Welcome to the Johnsons, Hole, Lit, etc…

Anyhow, I left work early and arrived in the neighbourhood a bit early. The place is off a small street called Lark Lane which is full of bars, restaurants, and shops. Immediately there were some good signs: a Thai restaurant at the end of the block (yeah, it will not be Tiny Thai but we can keep hoping), a wine bar called Aki’s (which is named after the infamous Purple Aki), a Mexican themed newspaper shop (who doesn’t love these), a restaurant called Jamaican Me Hungry (kind of an inside joke with Kathleen, but also very similar to a Noodle shop idea originated by Spencer/Courtney), and last but not least… a proper English pub: The Parkfield Inn. Full of elderly imbibers, I chose to wait for Kathleen and the realtor here. Within five minutes I was talking to one of the aforementioned imbibers about a book called Iceman (apparently it is about a Mafia contract killer… don’t ask).

Anyhow, long story short: the place was perfect and we put a rental deposit down on it today. Our lease starts on February 15 so we might have two places for a bit. Jeremy, you can choose which one you want to stay in and can even invite a lot of friends. It has three bedrooms so we can take even more visitors, so book soon! Here are some pics. Oh yeah and that is a working fireplace in the dining room...