london guide

Here you’ll find everything useful that I’ve found before and during my London adventure. Cheers!

11 Sept – Well, the SIM arrived. The phone does work. But, I’ve been having issues getting the SIM and the phone to work in conjunction so that I can, you know, make phone calls. Problem #1: Registering SIM. It would have been easy, had I been supplied a phone number. As I was not, I had to finagle a few things, and even then, it took me several hours. Problem #2: Registering a credit card to top up SIM. Issue: Apparently, Orange’s credit card nomination/registration application is down at the moment, and I couldn’t understand the guy one the phone for the live of me, and as I need to nominate a credit card in order to top up, I can’t top up. Boo. Try again tomorrow. That strategy seems to be successful. Packing-wise, it’s not working out very well. You see, I like to bring a lot of clothes to school. I don’t like wearing the same thing over and over. I like variety. But, um, that concept and the size of my suitcase are not working well together. Right now, I’m wondering if I really need to bring pillows with me, but then again, do I really want to figure out the tube and find a store that sells pillows on Sunday, whenever I get to school? No. Maybe I’ll just bring one pillow and find another at my leisure.

3 Sept – I ordered an unlocked, quad-band cell phone (a Motorola V190 from Hassle Free Phones) from Amazon.com for my journey to London. It cost $69, if I remember correctly, and arrived in the cute blue Motorola box this afternoon, complete with battery, back, and charger. The reviews were almost entirely positive, so hopefully this will be a good purchase, and comparable/favorable to one I would have made, had I waited until I got to London. My SIM card should be arriving in the mail any day now. I did a lot of research on cell phones before I made my decision, and I found the information on thetravelinsider.info to be easy to understand and relevant, if someone dated on product information.