sure can start....

My two weeks of having Helen in the city with me have come to an end. Sigh. No more daily dinners - although that may relieve my wallet for a while. Probably for the best.

I've decided that regardless of the teaching front, come monday I'm going to restaurants. I had to cancel the last restaurant gig interview for a teaching interview because of time conflicts. Next time, whether or not I believe that teaching does come first because that is why I am here, unless it's a PAID JOB, I'm going to schedule which ever came first around the other. This unemployment thing has to end. Now.

So my nights and days lately - well I've been getting stuff done. I did laundry for the first time in 3 weeks yesterday! and it only cost me 3.70! AND holy crap the machines here are amazing - so everything is REALLY clean and easy to fold and it was all done in 1.5 hours. Yes, i just geeked out about laundry.
Other than that, I had a pyjama day on thursday, just out of laziness and mild spite. I slept quite a bit and now feel better. Other nights out have been spent in the gay bars in soho with friends. You can't not have fun in them! One even had barbie dolls stuck to the ceiling and weird cushion-ey nook tables. very bizarre. OH and if you weren't in a nook, you could sit on a plate on top of a gnome's head. I think that place may have been the most hilarious space I had ever been in.

Last night was Covent Garden to the Maple Leaf because I figured Helen, having spent 5 years in Canada, should at least experience the Canadian themed bar. It's just so stereotypically ridiculous! Then to the porterhouse, a bar Claire wanted to try out - it was like being on a pirate ship! because it was all decks and crazy floors (6 floors high!) and then there was a band in the basement playing some of those classic bar hits that sometimes even I can't help but sing along to. Though there was too much U2 for my liking.

Today looks to be pretty mellow. YAY! I need mellow today.

I swear, they gave me the tourist fork.

I figured since I'm on an updating BLITZ of sorts, that I'd at least do another blog with photos.

Also, that waitressing job went on the back-burner. As these things tend to happen, the instant I attempt to stray from the path I'm just sitting on waiting for something to move (kind of like sitting on a stalled tube train - you think about jumping into the tunnel and attempting to hop onto another moving train - which would actually result in death - then it starts to move again). I got a job interview to teach, contract, full time, in Hackney Wick area. For those of you who may be unaware, that is the WORST area of London (so I've been told). I've been told to stay the hell away from there and to not even wander there on a whim just to see if the rumors are true. So that is where my job interview is tomorrow. They need a teacher, so chances are higher I'll be offered the job. However, I think it may be in my best interest to use this interview as a practice. I.....just don't think I want to dive in to my first teaching job in an area that's known for constant crime and violence. As much as the kids need it, I don't think that my lack of experience will help them in any way. In fact, I think it may make for a very long year and a very worn out Sarah who no longer wants to teach.

Anyways. Practice. It's practice. That way the next time I'll be less nervous. I think I'm equating it somewhat to house-hunting. You never buy the first one you find. Nor do you rent the first apartment/flat you find either. You have to shop around. I do not need a contract. I can supply teach. Unfortunately, the waitressing job interview was at the same time. Teaching/career comes first. Regardless of location. So it won out in the end. However, the coffee shop I go to on a nearly regular basis is hiring again. They're always hiring. But their food and their coffee is (surprisingly) AMAZING. And the vibe in there is really cool. So unless something ELSE pops up on wednesday morning I'll just wander there for a coffee and casual CV drop off.

On to the photographs!

Helen and I on a night out on the town. I think this was at All Bar One in Covent Garden.

Cousin Maggie and I on her brief pass through of London. This photo was actually taken to ease my uncle David's worries that I was no longer living. And here....look! I'm even STANDING!

Another night out on the town. Helen....kind of failed at the drinking of BOOZE as she sipped her tea like soup. Yes, this is how she consumed the ENTIRE cup of tea.

Same place. This is probably one of the few times I've ever felt tall in my entire life. These doorways required either ducking or, as I am demonstrating, odd bodily contortions in order to get through them. Otherwise you're embarrassing yourself by smacking face first into the door frame.

Tonight, a rather tame night. Indian food in the Victoria neighbourhood - this was my dessert. It's some delicious ice cream with toffee in a freakin' POT (!) and that's not all....

This is the utensil I was given to eat it with. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING!?!?! Don't tell me it's a fork. It is NOT a fork. It has two tines and one horribly misshapen thing on it! Like a tumoresque tine.

SEE??

The horror. THE HORROR. I don't know what this thing is for!!!

Though, when I went up to pay, the waiter asked if I was on vacation. I assume this is the fork they hand to whomever they presume to be a tourist. I got the tourist fork. It was horrifying.

On the way back to the tube, we came across this. All guilded and pretty, just standing there. Thankfully everything abnormal (and even some normal things) have plaques explaining their existence. This is LITTLE BEN. Helen is in front of it. No it is not cold out. Yes she is cold. She is from Bermuda. Poor woman.

So. On that note, I guess I should go to bed soon and prepare myself to decline a job even though it seems to go against everything I stand for to decline work opportunities, I just don't think that this will be the best fit, nor a wise decision for myself - a newly qualified teacher in a foreign country.

Conflicted.

-Sarah

happy monday

Well, this is my second monday in London. I suppose that means that tomorrow marks an official two weeks away from home. I miss it less and less each day. Seeing as Guelph does not count as a "city" per se, seeing as it's downtown was comparable in size to the one in Goderich, (okay, Guelph's was slightly bigger, but the "size matters" debate has no place here). This is my first time in a city. A large one anyways. This means I am constantly being surprised by things or fascinated. Human nature fascinates me and to be honest, I want to spend half a day on a park bench tucked away and just watch how strangers interact when they pass each other - what happens when people bump into one another (options being appologize, ignore it, or if you're me - probably fall down)? How many people are PROBABLY lost but are afraid to admit it to the ever watching public who probably aren't watching at all? Things like that. Maybe if I some how find more money than I know what to do with, I should invest in a psych degree?

I figure with 15 minutes left before the school day starts that today is another day of unemployment for me. I think it may be time to go downstairs, wrestle with the printer, and attempt to print off a CV to work in a coffee shop. As much as I loved my job before, it's not necessarily my first priority to do that again across the ocean. BUT the dwindling numbers in my bank account suggest that I should probably do something to remedy the situation.

Ohhhh the real world.


UPDATE: it's later on in this monday morning and I have now applied online for a couple of waitressing jobs. Seeing as work in my actual profession hasn't started yet and my belief that it actually will start soon is fading ever so slightly (but not entirely), I figured why the hell not. I found one that is at a place in Notting Hill Gate where I live right now - still in a hostel - but hey, work is work, right? I  may even be able to keep the bar-tending part of the job if that is what I am hired for (assuming I get hired), when I am teaching for some extra cash - hellooooo leaving the hostel!
Also, I got an email BACK asking me to come in for an interview tomorrow at 1pm. Now that I have done this I will likely get a call telling me I am teaching, as that is the way that the world seems to work. Odd.

Would you like some chichen with your gingle ale?

Helen and I discovered some AMAZING chinese food tonight in Camden Town. Well, ok....maybe discovered is a bad, or maybe more vague (?) term...we discovered a place to EAT said food, the food itself I am pretty sure was all things we had tasted before. So, London, you have some good chinese food. The best part being that the buffet's dessert display actually had a label on it with, I kid you not, the words "THE HAPPY SECTION" on it. I snickered. Which I realized, very quickly, actually sounded like I was about to sneeze on the food. So I forced that snicker back in. 

Also, in true form, there were some really amusing/amazing spelling errors....such as "gingle" ale (I'm assuming ginger ale?) and chichen. That makes the experience all come together in wonderfulness.

Yesterday, we hit an Italian restaurant just up the street from my hostel. Holy. Mother. Of. Crap. That place was astoundingly great. The home-y feel, the warmth, the lively staff, and the food....oh man. THE FOOD. It was a work of art. WORK. OF. ART. I almost didn't want to eat my meal it was so beautiful. However, hunger and biological necessity (ie, the requirement that I take in nourishment in order to maintain my cells along with oxygen and whatnot...) won over in the end and in it went.

London is making my stomach very happy. Thankfully, I walk around all the time. So my pants still fit. Sadly, the only other pair of jeans I brought has a broken zipper. Don't be fooled, I still wear them fly open and all - however, those are the days when long shirts are very necessary. Otherwise....if you stare in the right place at the right time you get to know the colour of my underwear - which if I were to pay attention, I may just tell you anyways. 

So. London is good. It's growing on me each day. The more places I see, the more I like it here. I'm sure eventually it will feel like home and I'll urbanize myself. Crowds still frighten me. AND moving to the city where there are stairs everywhere....and uneven sidewalks....and devilish tufts of grass....mean that I still fall down all the time. I'm essentially an embarrassing person to walk beside. Or dangerous, depending on whether or not you get in my way.

I hope I work tomorrow. Unemployment gets old really quickly.

-sarah

another day, another fantastic viewing of this city

So, excitement of all excitements, my friend Helen from Bermuda whom I met while I was at Guelph has moved to England too! She's in London for the next couple of weeks and then is off to Redding, but for the meantime I have a familiar face!! This makes me very happy. So for the last two evenings, we've been making use of the short period of time we have to do tourist-ey things before they become silly as we'll eventually just be locals.

Tonight, we went on the London Eye! That giant ferris wheel that's on many of those postcard shots of London. They called it an "observation wheel" but really, it's a gigantic ferris wheel. I mean, come on. It's a ferris wheel.

Anyways, the view from the eye is AMAZING. We did the ride at night, and it was totally worth it. The lights, the buildings all lit up from HIGH above. So great! So pretty. Magestic?

Here are some photos of that....

we are ready for the ride on the eye!

first we needed to buy tickets. and who was waiting to greet us? Pavarotti!

anyways....

first here, we have the grid work that holds the whole thing together. and next...onto the views!!!

i wish i knew what each building was. but really i know the clock tower and houses of parliament.

to the other side, there were more lights along the river. mmmm.

almost to the top!!!

a little fuzzy....but still, everywhere you looked out of the pod we were in there were city lights. it was amazing! gives you an idea of how HUGE this city is

see? ENORMOUS! it's just light after light as far as you can see.

behold....the TOP. and this is the pod that we followed around in a very identical pod.

these are two very excited tourists....who can only reasonably be tourists for a short period of time

so begins our descent

i zoomed in on this. it's a stadium that was very much far away from where we were (you can kind of see it in the picture before this one...about 3/4 of the way up on the left side of that picture). like i said, you can see everything from up here!

i am a pod person! with the houses of parliament behind me all lit up gold.

That was so worth the money, I don't care what you've heard. It's worth it! The views are amazing. Just amazing. And it's dorky fun all around.

The reason we didn't go yesterday was partly due to Helen fighting off jet lag and partly because yesterday, it POURED RAIN. The photo below is of one very drowned-rat-looking me.

oh and a ridiculous sundae that we devoured quite willingly. We were perfectly fine with taking our time with dinner yesterday. It was time spent out of the downpour. It actually rained hard enough that one of the tube stations shut down due to flooding. I thought it rained all the time over here...? Wouldn't that mean that the Brits would be ready for such a thing? 

Silly British.

Can you see the rain now? After dinner yesterday we toured by Buckingham Palace, because it was just right there at the Green Park station. So, for scale, here is me in front of it. I'm a tiny woman and those are some big gates. Oh, and I'm completely soaked. See that umbrella I'm holding? It did diddley squat. However, it redeemed itself on my walk home. I noticed later on that a bird had relieved itself on my umbrella, which meant that it missed me. So, umbrella, you only served one true purpose....shielding me from bird excrement. Rather than rain. In the rain, you kept inverting yourself. Therefore, you are a failure, umbrella. A. Failure.

We did a two-for-one deal/combo thing with the ride on the eye. We got tickets to Madame Tussaud's which should prove amusing and hilarious and awesome. 

Other than that I haven't much to update. I should be getting work any day now, which thrills me to no end. 

Having a friend in this city even for a short while made the homesick feeling disappear really quickly. I'd say pretty much instantly. 

Oh London, every day you change.

-sarah

it's a wonderful day in the neighbourhood....

I've now moved into my new place. I'm in the Notting Hill area near Portobello Market. Which I have now wandered through a couple of times. I love it here! So I've got some more photos from around the 'hood.

my street (took this while walking back towards my hostel)

this looked fancy.....but wait...there's more! that sign there, it could get you all hopeful (though I'm not)

because it says......

seriously. doubt. it.

Portobello market with its colourful and beautiful buildings

more market

the market on a different day - more vendors, these jewelry and antique vendors are ALL OVER the place selling some amazing things! for cheap!

a beautiful home on the corner near the market

back to the walk homeward - this is a street with some amazing buildings and plants. with a beautiful old church at the end there (you can see the steeple)

just another part of the walk to and from the market.

Honestly. this new neighbourhood is pretty great. The new room - it's definitely nicer than the last one. it's one of the old rooms in the hostel - i had the choice to be here or in a newer/refurbished room, but those were more expensive per week (by about 6 pounds). So I chose these. 

Note to dad - this was the last charge on the card. they wanted payment before they gave me my key and I was carrying about 70lbs of crap on my body - so rather than trek uphill to get some travellers cheques cashed, and then come back, i opted for the last (i promise!) charge on the card. for real! at least i have a place to live :) right? right?

Last night I found the canadian themed pub in covent garden. all i can say is....they did something horrible to that keg of sleemans. because it was NOT RIGHT. so not right. that's a beer that i have developed a long and loving relationship with and it was not right. tainted!

Should be teaching soon. I HOPE. (then dad, i can send you some money to pay for my living fees....!!)

more exploration to come, i'm sure. one of the next places I intend to go see is Westminster Abbey. Maybe I can even find some old churches to poke around.

OH - this blog is equipped with comments - so feel free to comment on anything. Let me know you're reading! ;)

-sarah

another day on the streets

So, today was spent mostly wandering around London trying to find hostels to stay in. The first one I tried, Belsize, was up in the Camden town area. They were full and wouldn't have anything until saturday. My time here at Piccadilly hostel is growing short....in that I have to check out of here tomorrow at 10am. However, the desk clerk at Belsize phoned over to Bowden Court near an area I visited yesterday. And they have rooms! So I visa'd my deposit of £100 (sorry dad!!!! :( ) and now I have a place to live, instead of on my suitcase in a park somewhere. They feed me there too. Which is nice!

Speaking of food - first of all, last night I went to an Indian food restaurant around the corner from my hostel. A-MA-ZING. So delicious! so so delicious! Tonight I'm not sure what I'm going to put in my belly. All I know is that it is telling me that food (not just pick up and go food - it's talking the real deal) is a necessity. Since I'm on a tight budget, I've been keeping my meals to essentially one a day and maybe something small otherwise in order to save on money and still meet the demands of my body.

On the plus side, I found Primark today. And bought a towel. For cheap. Now I can dry myself on something that is not my t-shirt. This, this is a big deal.

My stomach is becoming audible to more than just myself. That's my cue to go eat.

-sarah

drank a bottle of wolfblass and passed out in the tall grass on portobello road

despite what the title may have you think,  no I was not intoxicated and wandering around this afternoon. but it's the lines from a song - the only song i could think of that mentioned portobello road. which is where i was this afternoon. 
First of all - the only thing I can think to compare it to is Kensington market in Toronto. But bigger. And more of it. And more variety. 


The retro stores were really really neat - vintage everything. The little fruit and veggie stands look like places that if I land a place to live, I'll be going to shop for fresh things there because that's a little bit nicer and easier on the planet.
I managed to get re-connected to the world via telephone today - so if you want my phone number, you'll have to email me for it. I forgot my other cell phone in Canada - and for a lot of people that i talk to and text, i THINK i know your phone numbers, but in reality I never actually physically dialed them, I just found your contact and pressed send. SO I'm only semi-connected. 


I still want to wander around again tonight. Maybe actually sit down and have some British beer. I've managed to get the hang of British coffee - you have to order AMERICANO because that's what they think our coffee over in north america tastes like. Otherwise you get swill. 


It's past dinner, and I smelled/passed by some delicious indian food restaurants and now I have cravings.


-sarah

look around you.

I figured before I set out to see more of London today before work starts and I'm pretty much confined to the indoors for the daytime, I'd show some of the photos from yesterday.

This was the first thing I saw yesterday (aside from the airport and the tube station). I got off the train, as I said, to stretch and walk around a little before continuing on towards my hostel. This is what I saw when I got out of the Hyde Park station.

This sign made me laugh. And by sign I mean this was painted on a post outside of a bar.

This is a little park that I stopped to sit down with a coffee in while I was waiting for check-in time to happen. It's called Soho Square. It was little and shaded and cute.

 Canada geese! :) Just like home.

Pelican! This was the first time I'd seen one outside of a zoo or some bird show.

Buckingham palace. The stonework is just amazing. The whole building. Gorgeous!

I'm off to do some more exploring today. I'll see what I can find!

Landing in London

Well, I made it. I'm here.
The flight - not too bad. I wish they hadn't forced me to close the blinds at my window....but what can you do. I got to open them for the important part, that being watching the plane go THROUGH a cloud! ....Give me a break, that was my first time ever on a plane! Not to be the last (obviously - I have a definite return flight homeward at Christmas, then back, then back to home again - not counting visits to other European countries!).

So London. I didn't have expectations when I was coming. Clearly I knew that certain things were going to be within an accessible distance for a day trip. So thus far I've poked around Buckingham Palace, St. James Park, Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, Soho, and just a short jaunt out by London Bridge (yes, I was lost.)

The archetecture on these buildings is unreal. It makes everything we have in Canada look shamefully dull. Attention to detail. Intricate stone work. Things done for a purpose by a talented hand. Just amazing! And the parks.....!!! Just beautiful. One thing that has surprised me is how CLEAN everything is. In a city that's three times the size of Toronto, I've found everywhere I've gone so far to be clean. Not pristine, obviously, it's still a city, but it's clean. And there are very few intolerable odours. Usually it's just the regular subway steam or someone who has over-scented themselves with artificial musk.

There is so much to see though. I do have my meeting with my agency tomorrow. And I would also like to find a different hostel to stay in. Ugh. Then I have to HAVE TO find a job. Just to have that security. It's nice to play vacationing tourist for a little while, but I've got to keep in mind this is where I live now. Yikes!

Off to do some more exploring - possibly to Covent Garden to see what's what tonight. It's close to where I'm staying (ish) so that's really the deciding factor. So....onwards and outwards!

If this is it....

It's my last night in Canada for a considerable amount of time.
I've started up this blog to keep all my "homies" up to date. What I'm expecting is my own meandering thoughts and experiences to pop up here as I trek across London, the rest of the UK, and Europe bit by bit over the next year.

The paste couple of weeks have involved quite a few "see you soon"'s, as goodbyes seem silly. I'll be back before you know it. Possibly with an accent, although hopefully not so much that it's annoying.....or wrong.

Now approaching: my last sleep in my comfy bed before it's cars, trains, and airplanes for the next little while.