I’ve been wandering around the city quite a bit in the past week, and taking far too many pictures. Here are a few:
Day… I’m not too sure.
I’m not even entirley sure if it’s Wednesday or Thursday, let alone what day I’m on. And as I’m sleepy and not at my own computer, I can’t be bothered to count. Heh.
I do know that on Saturday I’ll have been in London one month. As such I’ve started reflecting a bit on my time so far.
I should mention that life took an extreme detour since my last post, so some of what I mentioned in there is no longer relevant. But I don’t care to discuss that in detail, other than to say I was about ready to fly home on Monday afternoon. But after some excellent advice from some amazing people, I’ve decided to plow through it.
Anyway!
I spent 8 months in the UK in 2005-2006, but in an experience far different from the one I’m having now. At that time I was here through a Canadian univerisity, surrounded by fellow Canadian students and instructors (for the most part), living a very sheltered life. Not to say there weren’t opportunities to become less sheltered, but as a shy, awkward 18 year old, I didn’t take any of them up.
Now I find myself emersed in the British culture and way of life. It’s exciting and challenging. Challiting, if you will.
I find being here like being in a strange alternate reality. It’s like Pete’s World in Doctor Who. Everything is so similar, while being ever so slightly different. I speak the language, yet can not understand what people are saying. It’s a strange position to be in.
There are the big things that most people know about: Driving on the opposite side, the accent, the outlets, the currency. But then there’s a million little things that I’ve just been learning through trial and error. The computer keyboard, the tumble dryer, looking the right way when crossing the street, the television times, calling landlines versus calling mobiles, and the terminology.
It’s not a store, it’s a shop. It’s not a backyard, it’s a garden. It’s not a buck, it’s a quid. It’s not a resume, it’s a CV. It’s not a cell, it’s a mobile. It’s not a closet, it’s a wardrobe. It’s not gas, it’s petrol. It’s not a pharmacy, it’s a chemist. And a million other little things.
I think I’m slowly catching on though.
Day 23
I started work at my new job last week. I began training in one position, only to realize it was very much not for me. I told them so, and they kindly offered me a job in another department. I started training on Thursday and found it was a bit better. That’s not to say I’ll like the job- I really don’t think I will. But I’ll feel more comfortable with the new department at least. At least I hope!
I had the weekend off. Didn’t do much of anything during the day yesterday, and in the evening FINALLY made it to Pizza Express with Sally and Sophie. It was as delicious as I remembered, though I didn’t get the banoffee pie. Le sigh.
This morning I went to look at a room for rent, and Sally’s mom kindly came with. It was perfect for me. Small room with a bed, wardrobe, chair, TV, shelving, drawers, and an en suite, as well as an all inclusive price. I know they say don’t go with the first one you see, but I don’t think I’d find such a good deal anywhere else. The house was big, clean, and very nice. It’s also a close walk to the station I’ve been using. Plus, I could afford it! Always helpful! Heh.
So, I’m no longer unemployed and homeless! Go me!
(Not to say I was ever homeless. Sally and Karen have been amazing and put me up in their home for the past 23 days. I don’t know how I would have fared these first few weeks without their kindness and support and I am so happy to have been welcomed in to their home! Which brings me to another pro point on the new place- 5 mins from them! Heh.)
I’m still applying to jobs and am still waiting to hear back from ones I applied to ages and ages ago. But, for now, I’m getting settled, have some money coming in, a room to call my own, and the support of some amazing friends. What more could a girl ask for after only 23 days after moving halfway around the world?
Day 19
I found a job today.
I wish I was more excited about that. But, it’s at a call centre, which is what I left Niagara to escape! It’s temporary though. I just have to keep reminding myself of that. Ideally I’ll stay there for about 12 weeks, save up enough money to get a flat, and in the meantime hopefully have more gainful employment lined up. But, it’ll do for now.
Unless I suck at it, and they ask me to leave… Heh.
Other than that, things have been relatively uneventful.
Last week my friend William and I went down south to Herstmonceux Castle and Eastbourne, which was a lot of fun!
Aside from that, just pounding the pavement to find work!
Week One
It’s Saturday, which means I’ve been in London for an entire week already. It’s gone by fast and slow, all at once. I also feel like I’ve accomplished a great deal, and absolutely nothing, all at the same time. I hate that feeling. Everything seems so chaotic, and I’ve not been good with chaos this year, so it’s no surprise that I’ve started to lose my head a bit in the last few days. Today was especially bad, but I’m hoping that a good nights sleep tonight will help. We shall see…
I’ve been applying to job upon job all week. A few in person, a lot online, so I’m really hoping to hear back from something in the next week. I didn’t come here with the expectation of finding something right away. I know that’s not realistic! But something soon would be nice. There’s an amazing job that I’ve been short listed for so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Again, we shall see.
Today Sally and her mum took me to Enfield, where I’d never been. It was lovely. A very picturesque London borough with tons of shops and restaurants and parks. I handed out a few resumes while there, we had lunch, and did some shopping. Well, I looked longingly at pretty things I can’t afford until I find work, but, you know. I did buy a portable wardrobe. Woo!
No, I shouldn’t mock. I am pretty excited about it. I’m not good with living out a suitcase, so it’ll be nice to get my things out and organized. I’m hoping it will be help dampen a bit of chaos I’m feeling.
Shopping in Enfield when a rain storm came past.
I was invited out to dinner and a movie tonight with Sally, Michelle, and a friend of theirs, but opted out. I don’t think I’m very much fun to be around today, so it’s probably best for everyone. Plus I’ve gotten myself completely paranoid about spending money. This is also why a job can not come soon enough!
Not much else new. I have a lot of paperwork to fill out tonight (National Insurance, NHS, bank), and am hoping to get to bed early. My jet lag has been terrible, and I’ve been up until 3 or 4 every night. I got up early today though and am feeling quite tired, so hopefully I can get this sorted! Everything seems worse when you don’t sleep, and between that and my normal anxiety I’m surprised I haven’t booked myself a flight home in a moment of panic! Heh.
But, all in all, things are good. Aside from my moments (err, hours, maybe) of panic I’m feeling pretty hopeful. Give it time and patience and good things will come, right? Once again, we shall see.
Checking In
I arrived in London on Saturday after an uneventful journey over. The flight was on time, there was no line up (and I mean not a single person!) at immigration when I arrived, no bags were lost, and the Gatwick Express was waiting when I arrived at the platform.
Michelle was kind enough to come and meet me at Victoria station to help me with my things. And thank goodness! We got on the underground, did our one transfer, and shortly after the entire line shut down due to a signal outage. We had to transfer to a third train and exit at the final open stop where we then had to find a bus to take us up the rest of the line. With my 100 lbs of stuff. But we eventually made it!
On Sunday I slept. And slept. And slept a bit more.
On Monday I headed in to Central London to a new arrivals orientation through BUNAC Work In Britain. It was very helpful. They told me everything I need to do to legally work, how to file taxes, where to get a bank account, employment agency recommendations, etc. After the orientation I headed to Angel to buy a mobile and open a bank account. I’d never been to Angel before, but it was so nice! And very easy to get to from where I’m staying. I’ll have to remember that.
Yesterday I started the process of getting a National Insurance Number, NHS, applied for a pile of jobs online, and checked in with a few jobs I’d applied to before leaving home to let them know I was now here.
Today I headed in to a big shopping area close to where I’m staying and handed out my CV to anyone willing to take it! Fingers crossed that something comes up in the next week or so.
That’s about all that’s new here. I’m still jet lagged and exhausted as I’ve been having a lot of trouble falling asleep. I’m hoping that that passes soon though.
Ummm… Yeah. That’s everything! I’ll hopefully have good news on the job front the next time I post. *Fingers Crossed*
And the official freakout begins… NOW.
I think it’s safe to say that my official freakout over moving has begun. I’m trying to rationalize that all of the things I’m freaking out about aren’t as catastrophic as I’ve made them out to be in my head, but my right and left brain are not finding any common ground. Current freakouts include:
Money
I know, I know. Who isn’t freaking out about money. This is the first summer since I was 15 that I haven’t been working 40+ hours a week. In fact, I’m working no hours a week, as I don’t have a job! Or, I should say, I have a job that has no hours. Same difference at the moment. My place of employment for the past 5 years went under, leaving me with a decision at the end of classes late last month: Find a job for 6 weeks, or travel. At the time travel won out, but I am regretting that decision a little bit at the moment. My trip was fantastic, but chewed up most of the savings I had put away. But, realistically, it would have taken me a couple weeks to find a job once I got home, and I would be handing in my 2 weeks notice right now. This leads in to my 2nd freakout…
Finding A Job in the UK
“What?! You don’t have a job in the UK before moving?!” Yes, this is very true. But, in my defense, my rational is that my choices were to find a min. wage job in Niagara and be paying a fortune in car insurance, payments, rent, etc, all the while not being anywhere near where I want to be finding my career. Or, I can move to London, find a min. wage job right away, work as much as I can while living very cheaply w/ friend before finding an apartment and the whole time be actively looking for a job in the city where I’m residing. Might be crazy, but I’m hopeful that it will work out. My main concern in finding an internship, but as I’ve already gotten offers that I couldn’t take because of my current location, I’m hoping my odds of finding something will be even better once I’m there! Right? Sure, why not.
And as for finding something right away – I have been applying, have friends asking around about openings, and have access to the SWAP working holiday employment program. I’m still completely freaked out, but I feel that I might be okay in the end.
Getting There
Going back to point number one – I have no money. And getting to London can be very expensive. Thankfully Air Transat has these fantastic seat sales where you can get a one-way ticket for $2. It requires a great deal of patience though, which is not my strong suit. I’m holding on though! My visa starts in 18 days, and their website sales section is slowly getting closer to my departure date. Just have to keep my fingers crossed on this one, as it’s really pure luck at the moment.
If not seat sale? Well, I’ll be shoving $900 on to my Visa card and figuring out how to pay it of later… Always a brilliant plan!
OMG WE’RE HAVING A FIRE sale
I need to sell my car. And my couch. And I need to donate or throw out about 3/4 of everything I own because I can’t bring it with me, or keep it here. In summation: My inner hoarder is losing it’s shit right now.
My Awkwardness
I’m awkward. Like, painfully so. If you know me, you know this. I’m okay with it about 99% of the time. However, this is the 1%.
Some wonderful friends have offered me immediate shelter and eventual flatmate status, and my brain is freaking out that when I get there no one will like me, and people will revoke said offers because I’ll turn out to be a pain to live with, and I’ll wind up homeless and broke and having a panic attack in the rain in the middle of Trafalgar Square with all my possessions. Slight overreaction? Of course. But, it’s my immediate assumption, so there you go.
Rational brain is saying it’ll be fine, even if we don’t get along swimmingly, things can be easily worked through, blah, blah, blah. I know. But, I’m awkward and crazy and don’t see the world the way I should.
Missing Home
I’m going to miss home. But, this is the sacrifice one makes when deciding to move halfway around the world. You leave family, friends, and familiarity. It sucks. But you do it in the hopes that the trade off will be worth it. You lose a lot, but you hopefully gain a lot in return. I’m hoping to spend the next few weeks spending as much time with family, friends, and Tim Horton’s as possible ; )
And thankfully the wonders of technology make separation less difficult. Skype, FaceTime, free international calling, and social media leave the ones you love closer than ever. It’s not the same, of course, but it’s still pretty awesome. Now, we just have to help my mom find that darn “Answer” button on her Skype!
The Gamble
At the end of the day, this is a total gamble. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. But, I know that if I don’t try, I’ll regret it forever. And maybe, just maybe, all the pieces will fall in to place. Bring it, London.
Disclaimer
I’m going to go ahead an apologize in advance for any over-blogging that occurs in the next few weeks.
My UK visa starts in 20 days (OMG) and I have 5 billion things to sort out before then. I’ve also only just returned from an almost-one month long holiday which I want to post a bit about at some point. So, be prepared for travel blogs, freaking out (I’ve made a HUGE mistake /GOB) blogs, procrastinating for said 5 billion things I need to do blog, and, what the hell, maybe even some excitement over moving blogs.
There’s a pile of things I want to write about now, but aside from real life, I’m also weeks behind on updating SJF. And since that takes my mind of real world freakouts, I’ll opt for that this evening!
10 things I need to do to survive in London Town
If all goes to plan, two months today (August 21st) will be my first day waking up in the city of London. (UK, not Ontario, which I need to clarify often). It’s come up so fast and so slowly, all at the same time. “Yikes!” it’s the best way I can describe it at this point.
Disclaimer- It’s still not official. My application and passports have been in NYC for weeks now and I’m just waiting for final word. Through this entire process I have been assured that my chances are good, but I still can’t say for sure which way the cards will fall. I’d say I don’t want to get my hopes up, but let’s be honest here- My hopes were up a year ago, the second I decided I wanted to do this!
Anyway, I’m currently trying not to succumb to heat exhaustion, and realized I hadn’t blogged in ages, so here we are!
10 things I need to do/learn to survive living in London:
1. Find a job. I’m poor. Actually, I passed by poor about 5 years ago and can’t even see it anymore. But, such is life after 6 long years of post-secondary, so I’m not going to spend too much time fretting over it. However, I’m also not going to get myself in denial about it! I need to find a job within 2 weeks of arriving to London, and I have every intention of doing so. I’ve been applying like a mad woman, and am h0ping to have something lined up with a temp agency right away. Finger crossed.
2. Become fashionable. I like to imagine that I’m not completely fashion inept, but there’s a good chance I might just be. However, Canada itself tends to be a little fashion inept, so it’s never been an issue. London, however, is not. It’s fashionable, trendy, and my poor little Canadian self will stick out like a sore thumb. Thankfully London seems to also make being fashionable very cheap and accessible, so I hold out hope of this being a possibility. Dear Primark and New Look: I see a great friendship in our futures.
3. Get over my irrational fear of public transit. I have this completely irrational issue with public transit that I’m going to need to get over if I’m to survive in London. It’s not the public transit itself- I can manage on timed things like Coach Canada and GO just fine. It’s the not-so-clear ones like subways and buses and streetcars that get me very anxious. I think I might be okay to handle the Tube and National Rail, but the buses might take some time. But, I think I can handle it! I hope so anyway… Heh.
4. Drink tea. So, I’ve never had tea. Ever. And I feel this may be an issue. I’ll work on it, I promise.
5. Don’t overdue the traveling. One of the amazing things about London is that you can travel to almost anywhere in Europe for next to nothing. As I have a bit of travel addiction, I’m going to need to work on spacing out trips, setting aside money for it, and, generally just remembering that I have 2 years so there’s no need to pack it all in the first 4 months.
6. Learn the slang. Thanks to many of my closest friends being from the UK, I have some slang down. But, I’m sure there’s a hundred more things I’m going to get there are be completely lost on. However, Orla did buy me an Irish slang dictionary for my birthday, so any trips to Belfast are taken care of.
7. See Jedward live. You’re probably asking why this is necessary as a survival technique in London. Well, I suppose in the grand scheme of things it’s technically not, but how on Earth can I spend 24 months there and NOT see Jedward? That’s just unacceptable! As such, it’s on the list. If you don’t like it, tough.
8. Get out to the country whenever possible. London is a big, lively, and sometimes overwhelming city. And the English countryside is only a short drive or train ride away. I feel that short breaks from the craziness of it will be necessary, easy to do, and good for my general mental health. Unless I wind up in that town from Hot Fuzz.
9. Stay in touch. I’ve lived away before, and have friends all over the place, so I know how easy it is to stay in contact. I also know how easy it is to not. So, I need to make sure the former is how it’ll go. If we’re not on each others Skype, that needs to change. I’m also a huge fan of snail mail, so don’t be surprised if your mailbox if constantly being bombarded. I also love getting snail mail, so, keep that in mind… ; )
10. Visitors! You! Yes, you! Come to London! I’ve had so many people tell me that they’ll come to visit, but I know that for many of them it probably won’t happen. I hope to be proved wrong, but I also know that life happens, and money stuff happens, so while I’ll be upset, I completely understand. I will be working and can’t say whether or not I’ll get time off, but you’re welcome to stay and see the city that stole my heart!
So, as you can see, if for some reason my visa is denied, I’m going to be completely heart broken. But, let’s not cross that bridge until we come to it. Which will hopefully be never!
London 2012, Part One
It’s closing in on 2 months since my London trip (WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?), so I figured I should probably get the promised blog up! It was a rather long trip, and I’m not too sure if WordPress will let me put all the pictures I want to in a single post. We shall see!
I left for London on February 14th, and came home on the 26th, making it the longest single trip to London I’ve ever done. And I had a marvelously wonderful time!
I landed on the 15th, stood in line at immigration for nearly 2 hours, and then headed out in search of Sally. 3 trains, and 2 extremely graceful falls later, I found myself Hertfordshire, in North London, where an extremely cold Sally sat waiting for me for hours (I didn’t anticipate the 2 hour immigration line and had no way to contact her!) We then made our way back to her house where I promptly collapsed after 15 hours of travelling.
The next day (Thursday) Sally, Michelle, and I headed to the country for cream tea, shopping, and lots of general tourist-y things.
(As always, click on pictures to enlarge)
Cream (Creme?) Tea:
The Roman ruins at St. Alban’s:
That night we decided to take on the daunting task of making Orla a TARDIS cake for her birthday as a surprise!
And the finished product, a good 6 hours later:
(Don’t laugh- making a TARDIS cake is not as easy as it seems!)
Picture Op!
The next morning, after a whopping 2 hours of sleep I headed in to central London to meet up with Orla and Aideen. With two pieces of luggage, a backpack, and an enormous tupperware container holding the cake, I ventured out solo and somehow managed a bus, two trains, and about a kilometre of walking. Eventually I made it to our hotel to find Orla semi-conscious in the lobby waiting for me. She was early, I was late, and the hotel was in my name. Woops! But, we checked in, managed to not pass out, and actually ventured back out to find food!
Later in the day Aideen arrived and we set out on an evening stroll, got some dinner, and headed back for some much needed sleep!
St. Paul’s Cathedral at night:
Saturday was jam packed. It was Orla’s birthday, so we’d planned a pile of fun things to do! In the morning it was raining, but we headed out to Camden regardless to wander around the markets and grabbed some lunch.
After Camden we headed to Oxford Street to find the Hummingbird Bakery. Unfortunately it was packed, so we opted to come back another day! Still, the rain had let up, so we wandered around shops for the afternoon. That evening we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the birthday festivities. Cake, out to dinner, cake, GloZell, cake, out dancing, and, of course, more cake!
(Please ignore our friends behind us: Mr. and Mrs. Dryhump)
Sunday was the last full day with three of us, but we were also exhausted, so we opted to have a full, but relaxing, day. We headed to Kensington Gardens, saw Royal Albert Hall, wandered through the shops in Kensington, and then went to see The Muppet Movie!
Monday we headed back to Oxford Street to get cupcakes at the Hummingbird Bakery. Well worth going back for!
We then walked to Covent Garden, and back to our hotel. A carnival set up under the London Eye:
Aideen headed back to Dublin that evening, and Orla and I transported ourselves from our fancy birthday weekend hotel to the Travelodge. And we, thankfully, had a much better experience that this Travelodge (Southwark), then we did on our last trip to London (Travelodge Waterloo). On Tuesday Orla and I headed to the Olympia for.. *drumroll* THE DOCTOR WHO EXPERIENCE!
Mock us all you want, it was amazing! They had everything there. We even got some sort of Platinum package, which means we also got a bag of nifty-gifties, including a certificate saying we flew the TARDIS. That’s right, be jealous.
WordPress is starting to freeze, so I think it’s time to end this one. More in Part 2!
Sloane Square | Being Alive 