Edwin Kramer, Director of Food and Beverage of the Four Seasons London, shares his feelings about house-hunting, and how it feels to return to a familiar (but strange) Europe. The tables have turned.

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Edwin Kramer, Director of Food and Beverage of the Four Seasons London, shares his feelings about house-hunting, and how it feels to return to a familiar (but strange) Europe. The tables have turned.

After thirteen years abroad in non-western European countries, I moved to London last summer, as Director of Food and Beverage, Four Seasons London. Moving from Damascus, Syria, where we opened a Four Seasons in December 2005, it meant back to Europe, back to a known life.

Back to reality.

Or was it? The Park Lane location, perfectly located for lots of great central London entertainment, meant not living around the corner, as so many previous locations had allowed.

It also meant finding a real estate agent, or even better, a few of them. In Damascus, on my familiarisation trip -- long before I started the job -- the one and only local agent that dealt with decent properties had his car parked outside waiting to drive me around town. A house was found within 2 hours.

At the first apartment I looked at in London, I wondered about the space and size, and I asked the agent where the living room was?

'You're standing in it,’ was her reply. Thoughts of selling half of my furniture right out of the container began to cross my mind.

But eventually you find a place you like, as you do everywhere. In our business, we’re lucky to have hotel rooms we can stay in until that moment. With so many great restaurants in London, the room service menu doesn’t get tired quickly as it has in previous destinations. The vast choice of dining opportunities is very welcome after living in spots where the only innovative F&B activity took place in your own hotel.

Once back, there’s also the need to think about getting to and from work. Buy a car? Last time I bought one I took our lawyer who spoke only Arabic -- in a taxi with a driver with one leg -- to the Chinese embassy to buy a used tax-free car.

The lawyer undertook the negotiations on my behalf, without knowing what I wanted to say. He carried out a conversation in Arabic with the Chinese seller, who didn't speak English either. So the seller in turn had to speak to his Chinese assistant who then had to translate for me. Needless to say, it was a long meeting. But, yes, I got the car in the end.

But in London, isn't the bus to work so much easier?

Then come the details. Try opening a bank account without a proper address, when a temporary hotel address is NOT registered as a proper address. Not even a debit card, let alone a credit card was offered. ‘The computer says no,’ is what the bank manager told me. But a little bluff learned abroad at another bank helped, and within a week I had new friends at the bank around the corner. Although skipping the line because you're the only obvious expat in the bank doesn't fly here in London. A warm welcome though, having rules and regulations again, knowing what can and can’t happen.

A TV licence? Right, I had a very distant memory of needing one twenty years ago in Holland, my home country. I had to be reminded by official warning letter, though.

Some new rules. An avid cigar smoker, 'the bigger the better' was more or less the motto in Damascus when lighting up. And it didn't matter if you were in a government building, at the airport, in a taxi or in a shop. Smoking is part of daily life. So being dropped in the UK right after the smoking ban was introduced was a change. But I must say, life is healthier, and it’s less smokey.

The common language

It still is strange sometimes, knowing there are so many nationalities working and living here. English is the common language, even though for many people English isn’t their first language. Hearing all these foreigners including myself speak one common language, instead of ‘them verses you’. Never a secret conversation, or the feeling that you’re being left out of a topic on purpose. It makes life a lot easier and transparent.

Expat life comes with a lot of perks, but moving to London as a European is a welcome turnaround. This move has probably been the easiest to adjust to in many years, as there is a general atmosphere of well being and acceptance all around, of being part of a society, as opposed to being part of a small group of expats that come and go. A Western European has returned home!