So although this blog has so far been full of the stuff I have done and the things I have seen, life's not all roses in England. (Huh, England and roses. Just got that now, with the rose being England's national symbol etc). And I could have said UK instead of England - probably should have actually - but London's in England so it's fine. Could have just said London actually. Anyway you get the drift!
In between the interesting bits to see and do, is the more humdrum aspects of living here at the moment. I am extremely fortunate to be able to stay at Jeremy & Rachel's until I am able to find my feet, which means minimal accommodation costs (though I keep telling Jeremy I should be paying some kind of board - I have got them to stop paying for everything on my though, I think!). The trade off there is I sleep on a single air bed which isn't long enough for me (my feet and ankles dangle off the end - just like being a kid again!) and I sleep in a sleeping bag which thankfully is a double, giving me more room than a restrictive single although it doesn't fit on the air bed. And I sleep in the Kitchen/Lounge/Dining/Laundry room, which is a small space - so I have to tidy the air bed and my stuff away each morning so the space is useable and not get in the way of Rachel & Jeremy. Luckily it's easy enough to access clothes etc from my suitcase while it stands upright.
Job wise, there hasn't been much of any bites so far - but that's not unexpected, I was warned that there probably wasn't going to be much until all the businesses come back from the short Christmas break. Usually I take care of most "admin" stuff in the mornings, and with Jeremy and Rachel both working I have the afternoons to try and fill in somehow to stave off the boredom.
I have been to a few Museums now, during these afternoons - some were better than others, some weren't quite what I expected (both good and bad). So far (from memory) I have been to the London Transport Museum, the Science Museum (lots of wow there - Puffing Billy, oldest steam loco in the world; Rocket, the steam loco which won the 1829 Rainhill trials; the actual plane which was the first to fly across the Atlantic; the actual Apollo 10 capsule), the Natural History Museum (lots of real dinosaur skeletons, taxidermied animals from when that was acceptable including taxidermied Elephants), the British Museum (basically a museum of World treasures, not of the UK - Egyptian mummies and statues, statues from the Parthenon, the Rosetta Stone etc); the Imperial War Museum (excellent WW1 display, not so much on WW2 and Cold War etc but the Holocaust section was extremely well done); the London Museum (which traces the history of a London from pre-Roman times to the present, and is right next to a Roman wall) and the British Library (which I think houses a multitude of very old books - odd place, you can't rent out books and you couldn't see any books on a Sunday except those in a historical display). Most of these are free, too - which helps when you don't have an income coming in!
Travelling to them does cost though, and in the process I'm learning about the nuances of the London transport system. Bus is cheapest - especially if you can find buses which go far out into the zones. Double decker buses are the norm, and they have an automated voice-over system telling you the name if the next stop. The tube is faster and more convenient - and cheaper if there isn't a direct bus For longer distances, but not so cheap for shorter hops. The London Overground is almost as cheap as the bus - but rarely goes where I want to go and is frequently overcrowded (mind you some Tube lines are too). Walking is cheapest if all, sometimes it takes the same amount of time as the bus but is really only good for short to medium distances and I've got to be careful not to aggravate my ankle which played up after I got here. You can catch commuter trains too other than the Overground, faster than the tube but tricky in trying to figure out if they stay within the Oyster card zones or not. Else, you have to get separate tickets which are expensive if you get them on the day so they require planning in advance.
The weather is decidedly cold - and there's been maybe 5 days in total in the month I've been here that the blue sky has been visible. No snow yet, but they say it's coming. Also I don't know anyone here apart from Rachel and Jeremy - hopefully that will change once I get a job and more established. So on the whole, while it's exciting on one hand to be here, it's not one huge party of fun and awesomeness. Not yet, anyway.
With little sign of the job situ improving between now and Christmas I've made plans to do a little travelling to give Jeremy and Rachel a break from me crashing on their floor and to make better use of this dwell time. Today, I have a day trip to York to visit the National Railway Museum and whatever else York has to offer; tomorrow, I disappear to the Harz Mountains in Germany to freeze in the snow for a few days while trying to photograph steam locos, while I have the time on my hands to do so. Both should be interesting in their own way, and we'll have to see how they go. I'll come back from Germany 2 days before we head off to Swansea in Wales for Christmas, and we're there for 4 nights; then in early January we're off to the Canary Islands so lots of travelling ahead which will be fun, but chew into the money reserves. Honestly, I can't wait until I'm earning money - I'll feel much more secure and be able to settle properly.
That's it for now - probably another post or two in the next few days about my travels.