Can't You See This Is The Land of Confusion?

A smattering of updates on life in the UK...

We have officially ordered our Volvo V50. We even were able to pick a color from three choices (grey, gold, funky blue) and we went with the Titanium Grey Pearl. We HOPE to have delivery in about 2 weeks but I will believe it when the car is parked out front. We got a 1-year lease for 20,000 miles. We pay a bit extra for the "non-standard" means through which we were forced to go, but really not a bad deal. Rachel has forced me to take on as captain of the SS Lexus 430 and sail all over Hereford. I have been practicing driving with my right hand (I almost always drive with my left) so that my left hand will be ready for shifting the manual tranny.

In my ignorance, I didn't start thinking about car insurance until the 11th hour. I called the company in town that supplies our renter's insurance and they quoted us about triple what we expected. Long story made slightly shorter: I ended up finding a company that had no problem with our non-UK driver's license and gave us a good deal -- I actually found 3 companies that were OK. They have an interesting insurance service here called CallConnection. You call them and they figure out what companies will actually give you insurance and then they somehow transfer your calls all over the UK to different companies as you get quotes. Nice.

The next big step (once car is in hand) is we have to start working on getting first our UK provisional driver's licenses and then we have to take a couple of tests, including a driving test that lots of people fail multiple times. We have until April 18 next year to complete this. Training and testing are both apparently expensive. Amazon UK carries quite a few 'pass the test' books and software packages to help you pass. Big annoyance: the UK has reciprocal agreements with many countries through which you just trade your home country's license in for a new UK one. They won't do it with the USA, but they will with Canada, Japan, and Zimbabwe (for example). Huh?

Yet another company here floored us with its complete lack of customer service. Again we were told that this 'wasn't represenative' of how the company normally works -- and I am trying to believe them this time. This time it was NatWest, the 2nd bank we tried to get a joint account at. Here is how it went: We completed an app over the phone, received paperwork in mail two days later. We then went to local branch, stood in line, then supplied proof of ID and address to complete application. Couple days later our account advisor called and said all was in order and we should have our cards and such in about 3-4 days. Cool. Then, nothing shows up. I call NatWest and find that our account advisor has had some sort of 'crisis' and is away from work indefinitely. Her voice mail gives a new number to call (which had two digits swapped) for a guy that now works somewhere else. After a week of calling NatWest everyday I FINALLY got a call back from a branch manager. Our paperwork, he thinks, was locked in said missing person's desk and un-obtainable short of "jimmying the desk". This past weekend we were forced to go to the bank in person, again, and start the process over. The only saving grace was when we walked and said we had an appointment, the lady immediately responded, "Mr. Edwards?" Whew -- now we are getting somewhere! We walked out in 30 minutes with our account open and our account numbers in hand.

Rachel and I both have our National Insurance Numbers (NIN), now. I even have a very official looking card. These, by the way, allowed us to open Cash ISA accounts at NatWest -- I think these are basically the UK equivalent of tax-sheltered Roth IRA accounts. Don't tell Uncle Sam but my money will be hiding in there.

There, now you know more than the average customer service agent here.