Where has the time gone?

What a busy couple of weeks it has been since I last found time to update this blog.

I got to go and see my first West End theater show - War Horse. The horses were done with puppets, and they were done very well! It was a very impressive show, and nice to see everyone around me crying - I managed to leave with dry eyes. Maybe that says a bad thing about me though!

With long weekends approaching and having a serious case of itchy feet, I have started planning a few weekends away. I am flying out to Amsterdam on Friday for the weekend, a big group of us are going, so it should be a very fun weekend. Of course I will tell you all about it. Easter weekend is the weekend following, so me and Pete are heading to Brighton for a couple of nights to see what's happening down there. I am hoping that the weather is nice since we'll be staying right across from the beach. Jess and I are heading to Manchester at the end of April as well, she's been there before and said that it's gorgeous, so it will be a nice girly weekend away. As I start getting back on track with money I will start booking more and more trips away. There is a lot to see and do in the next 2 years!

I am no longer a gypsy! My suitcase is well hidden in my room, and completely empty. I moved in to Earlsfield last weekend. I live with 4 other people, Becky and Jenny are English, Dave is from Scotland and Nicole is from Australia. Nicole and I have already discovered there is a lot to see and do, so we are going to organise a few trips away. I really like the area and my room, although my room is a loft conversion, so i have to crouch down in some parts of it. I do have my own bathroom though, with a toilet, basin and a bath. There is a shower head though, but it hangs up over the bath spouts like an old fashioned telephone, so have no attempted to have a shower with it yet. I don't know if my arm could take the weight for the duration of a whole shower, and washing my hair would be impossible.

A couple of weeks ago I ventured out to Camden on a Sunday which was absolutely packed. There are markets all over the place, and we went to a little bar that had a nice little roof top terrace (was a beautiful sunny day) and is where Amy Winehouse used to frequent, plus a few bars on the canal running through Camden. Very pretty! 

Scooter seats overlooking the waterway

Nom noms

Enjoying the sunshine

The graffiti in the toilets for Amy Winehouse

Rick introduced me to a website where you sign up to be audience's on TV shows, so Michelle and I went along to the filming of a pilot for a dating show called "Baggage". It was so hilarious, I was in tears at one part. I hope that it gets picked up and put on air, I can add it to the list of tragic TV shows I've started watching in the UK, and be even more excited in case we're seen in the audience. Wasn't all fun and games though, it was very hard work being the audience, had to be enthusiastic all of the time, smiling and clapping and doing loud reactions.

Apart from that I have been getting back in to real life and making the most of the good weather that London has put on for me (which includes a lot of picnic's in parks), and getting settled in to life and my new house. I am falling in love with London more and more each day. I know that I am already going to not want to leave when my visa is up next December...

So many things to remember...

Ok, ok, I get it...

It's not chips, it's crisps. "Chips go in the oven"

They're not lollies, they're sweets.

They're not singlets, they're vests.

Choice of wine is not red or white, but rose.

Pant's are underwear - I guess you need to call them trousers.

All these new things I'm learning. A least a duvet is a duvet and not a doona.

The hardest thing to get used to though is when people say "Alright?" instead of hello. It is very hard to respond to at first. I have resorted to just saying "Yeah, you alirght" back to them. If you can't beat them, join them! Plus you look less stupid doing that than saying "Yeah I am good thanks, how are you?".

I am still fascinated with the supermarkets here, and at the risk of sounding like a traitor (sorry NZ) I prefer UK marmite over New Zealand marmite and Aussie vegemite ranks in last place.

Biscuits are pretty awesome - HobNob's and Rich Tea's are classic favourites and I can see why.

They haven't only still got the 5p coin, but also 1 penny and 2 penny coins. Makes for a very heavy wallet!

I have never muttered the phrase "Never Eat Soggy Wetbix" so much to get my bearings. This comes in very handy at tube stations to work out which platform you need to be on so you end up in the right direction (one drunken night almost saw me end up going the wrong way).

The weather does not feel that cold even though a lot of the time it is under 5 degree's. I am still waiting for it to snow. I do hope that it doesn't happen while I am at work though, as I know I will squeal in delight and everyone will think I'm a werido.

I had to stop myself from screaming and running away the other day when there was a fox in the middle of the road. I don't think my reaction was uncalled for though. In the paper today, there is a story of how a fox mugged a 15 stone man. He swung his shopping bags at it as it was circling him, about to pounce, but with quick thinking he threw it his garlic bread and it ran off with the bread in his mouth. Phew. That was close!

I have settled in to the work routine quiet nicely, even finishing at 6pm is starting to feel normal, and I am not almost crying when I look at the clock, see it's 3pm and thinking "I've still got just under half a day of work to go". Work is going great, and everyone is so nice. Couldn't have asked for anywhere better!

This week saw the start of me looking at room's. With what I saw for the price range I was looking at, I decided that I am going to slash my original budget by half and get a crappy place, as the rooms aren't that great anyway. That will leave me with more money for traveling around.

That's all that has really happened in the last week. Today I have been paid. It feel's like I am a millionaire. I don't think I have had so much money at my disposal all my life (well for the last few months anyway - feel's like a lifetime!). I really was living off the last coins in my wallet. This allowed me to pay my netball fee's, so as of next Thursday I'll be back in to doing some sort of exercise!



Falling in love with London

Me on Tower Bridge

As I was walking to the tube station yesterday I found myself looking around and thinking "I'm glad I'm here, I love this place". It was touch and go for a while and I wasn't sure how I was going to settle in to life in London. There have been a few hard moments with home sickness and that being increased with members of my family having health issues, and although me being there wouldn't make any difference, it makes it hard to be on the other side of the world. I know that they know I am thinking of them all though and love them so much.

I made it through my first week of work in almost 5 months, doing accounts at Deluxe 142, a media company based in Soho that do post-production on films and TV shows. The people are all so nice and made me feel part of the team straight away, and the boss even declared it was Krispy Kreme Friday yesterday. Yum.

A part of working that is hard to get used to (apart from the early starts) is the commute at peak hour. Even though I have been staying in Essex, that isn't the bad part of the commute. Since it is just coming in to spring here, I am still wearing my super warm Kathmandu jacket around everywhere. As I travel down the escalator's my scarf comes off, the jacket get unzipped and I prepare myself to get squashed in to the carriage with what feels like 1000 other people. I look around and everyone else seems to be quite content in their winter wear with no such thing as personal space as you're standing there with people leaning on you from every direction, and here I am probably sweating more than I would after running a 10km fun run. The other part that gets to me is that if someone is leaning against the tube doors, the tube will stop. You will not believe the amount of times that this happens on one journey. Oh, and one other part that gets to me is that chivalry is well and truly dead these days. You'll have males pretty much pushing you over so that they get to a seat before you do.

I managed to get in a bit of sight seeing before starting work, and got to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, and now I have itchy feet and have decided that I will try and get away somewhere in a few weeks, and then perhaps head to Amsterdam for Easter weekend. I also got out to see some of Essex last week, and some of you would know about a quite tragic reality TV show called "The Only was is Essex". It is comparable to a train wreck, terrible to watch but you just can't turn your head away from it. Well - as I explored Buckhurst Hill and Loughton last week, I got to see them doing some of the filming of it, and I probably walked past a few too many times and then sat awkwardly at a cafe out on the street, with my head peeking around to watch for a bit too long.

Westminster Abbey

Last weekend I got to see some more area's around London, as I went and had dinner with a group of Kiwi's (and Pete, who is the only Australian of the group) in Clapham on Friday night. Was a great night of Mexican food and wine and discussions of doing a road trip sometime soon. Catching one of the last trains home I was literally across the road having a catch up with Melissa on the phone, when a guy and a girl stopped me and asked me if my accent was Australian (I've been getting that a lot since I've been traveling... weird). I explained that I didn't have an Australian accent and Melissa did, so she ended up talking to N on the phone (which she would have loved as she is accent crazy). While N was on the phone to Mel, I talked to his cousin T, and she said that they were heading home, but since there was a pub right across the road asked if I wanted to go for a drink. I decided that I had nothing else to do so we said our farewells to Mel and walked across to the pub. After that closed at some stage, we walked back to T's who lived just across the field from where I was staying and we had another couple of drinks (where N kept insisting he take me on a date, which I eventually agreed to). Saturday I awoke with one of the worst hangovers I've had in a long time, I blame the absence of any alcohol during the past week for it. I managed to survive the hangover enough to head to Fulham to have a pyjama party at Jess's (which was a very big mission as part of the central train line was closed, so it took me over 2 and a half hours). We planned to have a bottle of wine and get Hell's Pizza, but we ended up getting 4 bottles of wine and eating cheese and grapes instead, having a very funny night with her flatmates. The next day we went down to Putney (such a cute area) and met a few people for a beer, and then I embarked on my painful 3 hour journey home. During the week I had my date with N, which was very nice as we went to Wild Wood in Loughton and then walked down to the Hollybush pub for another beer. A lovely evening.

Today I am moving from Essex where I have been staying with my friend Richard (where I have been spoilt by him and his Dad, and their dog Archie) to the East end to take up residence on Rick's couch. I am actually procrastinating packing as I write, trying to avoid having to pack.