Destination #7-Paris & Versailles, France

Bonjour! Je ai apprécié de Paris! Comprenez vous?

Last weekend, my friend Nicole and I went for a short weekend trip to Paris. As we have both been before, we were wanting to do something different than the usual touristy stuff. Our original plan was to go to Versailles one of the days and to a place called Mont St. Michel the other day. Unfortunately Mont St. Michel turned out to be pretty expensive to get to so we only ended up doing Versailles as something different and still ended up doing all the touristy stuff anyway!

We arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport Friday night and found ourselves in a little bit of pickle. There were military guards guarding the entrance to the train station. As neither of us can really understand French, we're assuming there was some sort of bomb threat. We attempted to find other means of transportation into the city and waited at a bus stop for 20 minutes before going back to the train station to find the guards had left and the train station fully operational...

We ventured to our hostel with not much difficulty and by the time we checked in, it was about 9pm and we were too lazy to head into the centre of Paris to find something to eat. Our hostel was pretty much in what we would have guessed was Chinatown. So naturally, we got some Chinese for dinner.

The next day, we got up early and headed over to the Palace of Versailles. We couldn't have gotten any luckier because it was an absolute gorgeous day out. The palace itself is giant and the gardens are like 20 times bigger so by the end of it, Nicole and I were only able to do a small fraction of the grounds because the place is just massive. If you don't know your history, this place was for royalty in the mid 17th century and it's where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were dragged from by revolutionaries to Paris for them to be guillotined. This is also where the Treaty of Versailles was signed to end World War II. The palace itself was beautiful and there was lots of interesting sights inside including the Hall of Mirrors. However, the gardens amazed us even more. So many beautiful sights and the more further we went into the gardens, the prettier it got. There is only so much describing I can do but you will see in pictures just how stunning this place was. I would love to see this place in the summer time!

By the time we had decided to leave, we were already exhausted from walking around so much and the day was only half over. We made our way back to Paris in the late afternoon and the plan was to walk down the Champs Élysées and climb up the Arc de Triomphe. This however, took some time. The avenue was beautifully lit up with Christmas lights but was packed to the max with people! This was because they had Christmas markets all lined up along the avenue and it was a Saturday so it only made sense. Shuffling along like snails, we finally made it to the Arc de Triomphe and made our way up. Although it was freezing cold, the sight was breathtaking. A full moon, the Champs Élysées all lit up, and the Eiffel Tower sparkling. We could not have picked a better time to go up.

After that, we had some dinner and went back to the hostel to call it a night. We were so exhausted.

The next day consisted of returning to the touristy sights and eating French food. We went and saw the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, and ate food in the Latin Quarter. This day's food consisted of croissants, pain au chocolats, croque monsieurs, crepes, and macarons. Mmmmmmmm.

That was the trip, short and sweet. Even though I've been before, it was honestly more fun this time around ;)

This last week was a fun one here in London. On Wednesday, my friends and I went to this event called Winter Wonderland. Basically, they've turned Hyde Park into this massive carnival for Christmas and it has rides, lots of food stalls, Christmas market stalls, and an ice skating rink. It seems it's quite a popular thing to set up skating rinks in the winter time here as there's also one in Victoria Park and one in Canary Wharf, Although the rink at Hyde Park was actually quite tiny and the skates quite brutal, it was still a lot of fun to be skating around again. On Thursday, our work had our Christmas party at this super nice hotel called The Mayfair. We even got greeted at the door with champagne!! I've never ever been greeted with champagne! I think? Either way, it was still so nice and the dinner was really good as well. The night then carried onto the dance floor. The worst part was having to go to work the next day. How can anybody get any work done being hungover!? I don't know why they make these things on Thursdays.

Well, it's less than 10 days until I return home for Christmas and I couldn't be more excited! See everyone soon!

Destination #6-Cardiff, Wales

Credit to my friend for coming up with this one: We had a Wales of a time...

Let me start off by saying that this was a difficult trip to plan. As we were only hoping to go for a weekend, we were intrigued by places in Wales like Pembrokeshire and Snowdonia. If you google image those areas, you'll know why we wanted to go there. Unfortunately, it proved difficult to get there with the limited amount of time that we had. So literally, it wasn't until 2 weeks before we departed that we actually came up with things to do. Here's how it went:

Because Wales is side by side with England, we decided to take a 3.5 hour bus ride there for only £9 each way. Not too bad! There was 6 of us that went, as you'll see in pictures. We stayed in this beautiful apartment while we there and it was situated pretty central in Cardiff. Our immediate thought when we first stepped into the apartment was that we wanted to stay there longer! Compared to all the small flats we live in in London, this was luxury. After settling in, we went and grabbed something to eat at a pub. We were hoping to find some Welsh dishes to try but as soon as I looked at the menu, I realized it was the exact same menu as the pub beside my office in London. Chain pub, damn. Oh well, it was still good. We then ventured over to a cocktail bar where they had a pianist playing and the bartenders put on a good show for how pricy the drinks were. The rest of the night took off from there, as I am sure you can imagine.

The next morning, we took a 2 hour journey to get to a place called 'Waterfall Country' just on the outside of Brecon Beacons National Park. Now, if you look on a map, Brecon Beacons is HUGE. You can seriously only do a small fraction in one day. We were hoping to do 2 trails that had waterfalls but in the end, only did one...and I'll tell you why. We decided to do the first trail that was closest to the bus stop we got off at. The starting point of the trail was not clearly signposted so we had a hard time finding it. After walking a bit, we finally found it...or at least, thought we found it. We start walking up this hill and none of us really notice that we're not close to a river. It obviously seems now that that was common sense if you want to find a waterfall, but we kept going. Up, up, up, we kept going up this massive hill and we start going into people's farms I'm pretty sure. Something didn't feel right and was beginning to feel like the start of a horror movie. Luckily, we were out in the open so despite us actually going the wrong way, the views were gorgeous. After walking with muddy shoes and basically making it to the peak of the hill, I finally decided to pull out my phone and compare Google maps with my paper map. We were going East when we should have been going West. So we turned around, headed West and kept our ears open for running water. After some time, we finally heard the sound and we headed downhill (of course) to the river. Although we were going the wrong way, it was actually still a lot of fun to find our own pathway to the river and we still saw some great sights. Along the trail, there was one big waterfall but we couldn't get anywhere close to it which was a bummer. At the end of it, there was a miniature one and it wasn't as big as the one back home (Maple Ridge) in our backyard trail. When we had walked all the way back to the other end of the trail, we found the 'real' starting point of the trail, which was only about 15 yards from the one we had started on. Because of winter, the sun was well on its way down so we didn't have time to do the other trail. I'm a bit bummed as well because the other trail has a waterfall from a scene in 'The Dark Knight Rises'. Either way, it was still great to get outdoors and do some hiking. It made me realize how much I haven't explored back home. That night, we went and got some Tapas for dinner (real Welsh, I know) and hung out at the apartment after.

The next day, we went to Cardiff Castle. This was really interesting as it's supposedly 2000 years old! Naturally, we spent quite a bit of time there. So after doing that and getting lunch, it was already time to head back to London. I would certainly love to do Wales again to either see that other waterfall trail, see Pembrokeshire, or Snowdonia.

Well, it's officially 5 weeks until I go back home for the holidays and I am thoroughly excited! I can't believe how quickly the time has gone though. I've been here 5 months now and it's been an absolute blast. I'm heading to Paris in a couple of weeks with my friend Nicole so looking forward to that. I've also booked a trip in February for a week that will go to Prague, Berlin, and Amsterdam. Super excited for that. I've also booked a tour in Scotland in May.

Christmas is coming up and my flatmate hasn't let me forget it. She put up the tree on the weekend while I was away...even after I told her not until December 1st!! Sneaky. London is starting to look more festive and Christmas themed parties are starting to get under way. Like Vancouver, the days here are getting darker earlier and it's getting colder. At this point, I'm used to more rain in Vancouver but locals have told me that this is unusual for London to be this dry. So maybe I should hold my breath.

Next post shouldn't be as long of a wait as this one. I'll be back from Paris on Dec 7th. More pictures on Facebook and Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/125490324@N06/sets/

Destination #5-Munich, Germany (for Oktoberfest)

I'm starting to feel like the common theme for every trip I go on is Food & Drink. As you might know, Oktoberfest is mainly known as a beer festival but I was quick to learn that it's more than that. Here's a little background:

The original Oktoberfest in October 1810 was held in honour of the wedding between Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen, For five full days, the burghers of Munich were invited to eat, drink and be merry, and enjoy parades involving kettle drums and music, shooting displays and a horse race around a meadow on the edge of town. Such a good time was had by all that it was decided to stage the race (and the accompanying indulgence) again the following year, and then the next and the next. There has been the occasional pause in proceedings (usually at times of war), but this year will mark the 181st time the Oktoberfest is being held. The main Oktoberfest is held on the original meadow, named, in honour of Ludwig’s bride, the Theresienwiese (shortened to the “Wiesn”), a short tram ride from the centre of Munich.

Other than the numerous beer tents, there is lots of rides and different types of food outside. It's basically Playland but bigger, more German, and with beer tents.

This trip was booked with BritBound who partnered with Topdeck so I basically didn't do any of the planning for this trip. We left London Friday afternoon on a coach travelling to Munich. It was 18 hours... but in all seriousness, it wasn't as bad as it sounds. The coach contained about 50 BritBounders, so basically all Canadians, Aussies, and Kiwis living in London on a visa...I think that makes for a pretty good bus ride and pretty good trip! Saturday morning, we arrived at our campsite in Munich and it was a little hectic because everyone got next to no sleep on the bus and we had 20 minutes to settle in, change, shower, do whatever you need to do before we headed out on our walking tour of Munich. Luckily, tents were already set up for us so we just had to unload our stuff and get changed. The boys got into their Lederhosen and the girls got into their Dirndls (not everyone dressed up).

We then headed off to the centre of Munich where we got a bit of a walking tour from our Topdeck tour guide. I'll touch on a few of the sights we saw later as we revisited some of them on Monday. After a couple of hours of walking around, we made our way over to Oktoberfest. Just want to mention as well that the weather was absolutely fantastic on this trip. Not a cloud in the sky and it was hot! When we finally got to Oktoberfest, we all tried our best to stay together, even though our tour guide advised against it. We arrived there at about 11:30am and the festival was packed already. We eventually did split up as we entered the grounds of one of the tents and there was no space at any of the tables. A few people snagged some empty spots and then everyone naturally split up into different groups. My group decided to go to a different location and ventured over to a small restaurant where we had our first beers. After, we walked around, got some food (sausage I might add), played some bumper cars, and then the rest of the night was pretty much food and beer around the festival.

The next day, a large number of us decided to go to the festival early to go get a spot in one of the tents. The bonus of the trip being Topdeck was that we got a free breakfast to wake up to. My friends and I arrived at our choice of tent, Lowenbrau, at 9am, ready to get started. Don't laugh, there was plenty of people already there! Oktoberfest is crazy on weekends too so once you decide to leave a tent to possibly explore more of the festival, your chances of getting back into that same tent later to re join your buddies is slim. So basically, we were in for the long haul. Don't forget, they serve full litres of beer, not pints. That's about as much as I'll say about that day as you might imagine the rest. It's all good fun though, as the day progressed, the whole tent would just break out in song or dance many times and it is a neat experience.

Monday was a bit more tame as a few of us walked more around Munich, although saw a lot of the same things we saw the first day. At 11am, there is little show of these tiny statues in the Town Hall dancing around. This is called the Rathaus-Glockenspiel and dates back to 1908. Not sure if you can see them in the picture but they're higher up.

We also went for lunch at the famous Hofbrauhaus and the place is huge! My friend and I decided to share a pork knuckle, also huge, and it was delicious. After that, we decided to head back to Oktoberfest for one last look and following that, we were on the coach back to London.

I already had friends before the start of this trip but I made a heap load more during. These kind of trips remind me of my band trips to San Fran and Disneyland back in highschool, they're so much fun...especially when you're travelling with like-minded people. It was sad to come home afterwards! Although I don't think 240 pounds is worth camping, a return coach, and free breakfast, I had the time of my life and I would do it all over again.

3 Months

Yesterday marked 3 months of me being here in London and I'm quite astounded by how quickly time has flown by. It feels like yesterday that I arrived here but strangely feels like a lifetime ago that I left home. More and more everyday, I miss home and the people that come along with it but more and more everyday, my love for this city grows (don't worry Mom, I'm still coming home). The other night, I went and saw Shakespeare's 'Comedy of Errors' at the Globe Theatre, and while I had to stand the whole time, it was all part of the experience, which was amazing. Before and after my friends and I attended, we took note of all the cool bars, pubs, and restaurants around the area as we had yet to venture over this way. You must remember that while the Globe Theatre is considered central, London is huge and I feel that I haven't even scratched the surface yet. My friends have told me a saying they have called "Heathrow Injection" and it refers to a metaphor for the weight one inevitably gains when one migrates to London for an extended stay. I have to agree with this saying simply because, like the other night, I am constantly finding new bars & pubs or constantly being shown them and therefore, how am I supposed to just go home right after work!? There is just never a shortage of something to do in this city...or maybe, never a shortage of booze to drink...

I am now settled into my new flat and it's going well. My flatmates and I have 'flat dinners' every Monday where one of us is forced to cook a meal for the 4 of us and it forces us to sit and eat together as well. I think it's brilliant (yes, I said brilliant) because we are actually comfortable talking to each other and do not hesitate to come out of our rooms every now and then. It is quite common here to be part of a flat where everyone literally stays in there room the whole time unless to go out or go to the kitchen. This was the case in my previous flat. Other than that, it is great as well because I am by a tube station that has the 'District Line' which has a lot of popular stops on it for central London.

Next weekend, I am headed to Munich for Oktoberfest. It is 5 day trip, although I feel half of it will be spent on taking a return coach! Not sure if I am looking forward to that part of the trip...especially on the way back. At the moment, there are no trips planned for the month of October. Perhaps this is a good thing while I try to get the numbers back up in my bank account. November, I am possibly planning a weekend trip to Wales! I'm not sure if it was a big story back home, but Scotland had a referendum this last Thursday to gain independence from the UK. 55% of Scotland voted to stay with the UK and I believe it was a happy day for many Brits as I cannot imagine all the ramifications that would go along with Scotland being independent. Just think about the UK flag to begin with! It was curious as well as I know it was a happy day back in BC at the same time with the teacher strike being over. Glad to hear! Also glad to hear my brother is home, safe and sound after being part of Hurricane Odile in Cabo. I hope everyone back home is doing good as well. Ta (as they like to say here).

Destination #4-Bruges/Brussels, Belgium

Well, it took me a couple of months but I finally took a trip outside of the UK. To be quite honest, before I came over to London, I didn't really know much about Belgium and it was therefore, not really on my list of places to see. Yet, due to a simple "yes" from a friend's invite, it happened to be the first non-UK destination I went to.

Three companions set out from London, Friday eve......

Two friends that I have met over here, Sasha and Nicole, both Aussie's, joined me on this journey. When we arrived in Brussels, unfortunately none of us had really planned out what to do after we got to the airport. As stressful as the task may have seemed, it turned out to be quite easy to get to our hostel. Luckily, we got on the right train to central Brussels and hopped in a cab from there to our hostel. I'll be sure not to make that mistake again though. The hostel we stayed in that night was actually pretty decent. I think it was almost brand new and the staff were quite friendly. My poor friend Nicole, however, got barely any sleep due to some loud snoring in her room. Stay tuned to here how the rest of my sleeps went.

The next morning, before we departed for Bruges, we got some breakfast at a cafe. Not sure if they just pumped a lot of butter into it, but I probably had one of the best cheese omelettes here. This is also where I decided to do my Belgian Dip. You'll need to have seen Austin Powers 2 to understand this.

We then took the train over to Bruges and arrived safely at our hostel. Although this hostel didn't have a "new feeling" like the other one did, it was actually really nice and we had no issues with it, apart from having a snorer in the room for the 2 nights and me getting barely any sleep. After settling in, we ventured over to the city square of Bruges, or rather, 'Markt'. The square is quite beautiful and I really got a feeling of almost being there as if it were the 18th, 19th century. While filled with lots of people, there was also plenty of horse drawn carriages going around that only added to the amazing personality I was observing of Bruges. Next, we wandered over to a museum called Choco-Story. It was basically about the origins of chocolate and it's journey to present day. All we most likely cared about was the fact that at the end of the tour, there was a chocolate making demonstration and we got to try one of these freshly made chocolates. And yes, it was delicious. For dinner, we went to what seemed like a traditional Belgian pub. You should have seen the selection of beers this place had. The book looked like a large photo album. Finding it too hard to make a choice, Sasha and I settled on a beer taster consisting of 4 different types of Belgian beer. And yes, that was delicious as well. Somehow, and this will be prove to be a common theme in this trip, we decided to ignore how full we were from dinner and went to a chocolate store following dinner, bought a bag of chocolates each, and ate nearly half of it in the square. AND YES, those chocolates were amazing too.

After grabbing a few Belgian beers (as you might gather, this trip was mainly eating and drinking), we headed back to the square again as there was a lightning storm, but it was not raining.....yet. All three of us decided to be super cool (note the sarcasm) and try and catch pictures of the sky while lightning flashed. Believe it or not, all three of us were able to grab pictures of the millisecond of lightning that flashed across the sky. Our patience in trying to grab these pictures came back to bite us in the @$$ though. We were standing in the square and literally looking at the top of this building where a light was shining and through the light we could see heavy rain pouring down on this building. How strange though, we weren't getting rained on....nevermind! Took us a second to process what was going on or what was about to happen as we ran for cover.

The following day, after a very filling breakfast, we decided to climb the Belfort tower as it was probably best to try and get some exercise whilst eating all the food. It ended up not being too bad climbing the thing as there were breaks in between and the view at the top was worth the journey as it provided stunning views of the city. This building was also built sometime in the 1400's so that made it all the more interesting.

Next, can you guess? More food. We for some reason thought to go to a fry museum. In the end, it was really all about the end because you can purchase their 'famous' fries. We, of course, did not miss out on this opportunity. Now, the next part of this day I'm going to tell you about...in fact, the rest of this trip is really all about food, so if I'm making you hungry, stop reading. All the while, we did do lots of walking around between these stops, honestly! The city is absolutely stunning with all the old architecture and the canals that flow around. Some of the views were breathtaking and you will see that when I post pictures, although pictures won't do it justice. After walking around, we did a tour of an old brewery. Pretty cool to walk around the deep underground levels they had to make beer and all the intricate steps it took to make the brew. How people came up with idea in the first place to make beer is beyond me. The tour guide was this old lady who I thought was grumpy at first but she turned out to be hilarious. Of course, the end of the tour resulted in being the best part as we got a free glass of beer. After dinner that evening, despite our stomachs telling us they couldn't handle anymore, we decided to seek out some Belgian waffles due to the fact that it would be preposterous if we went home without having a Belgian waffle. Eventually, we found a place that our tour book had suggested and as good as it was, it was too much. Where I just had chocolate and ice cream on top of mine, the girls had ice cream, chocolate, and strawberries. We went back to the hostel that night defeated and ready to burst.

The next day, we headed back to Brussels before catching a flight back to London. It's funny to point out that I think Brussels is more well known than Bruges and our tour book made that clear as it made a huge deal out of Brussels and Bruges was merely a side note. Apart from visiting Brussels city square, which was beautiful as well, and seeing Mannekin Pis, a famous Belgian statue, we really couldn't find anything else to do in Brussels and it was no where near as interesting as Bruges. I would definitely recommend Bruges over Brussels if anyone plans on visiting Belgium. A day in Brussels, however, did not exclude more waffles and beer.

When we were flying back to London, the three of us shared a strange feeling. We weren't flying back home, but we told people we were because I guess London is our new home, for the time being. When really all I was doing was continuing my extended holiday back to where I flew from, it was a comforting feeling we were headed back to London. I'm having a hard time putting this into words really. I guess I want to say that usually at the end of vacations, you hate that you have to go back home. Well for all three of us, going back home was London and we were totally okay with that.

Further to my last post, I will be moving into my new place on Sunday. The following day, I will be showing up to work at a brand new office. I'm super excited and it's going to be great kind of hitting the reset button. I have signed the contract so now I'll actually get paid to go on holidays but the worse part is that I get paid on a monthly basis. I guess it will force me to budget. Next trip is Brighton (again) in a couple of weeks and then Oktoberfest in Germany at the end of September. If anyone wants to catch up with me directly, please do not hesitate to email, facebook, whatsapp, iMessage me, I love hearing from people back home. If you want to skype, I would welcome that as well but it will depend on hour of the day/how busy I am but I would certainly make time for it.

These photo's are courtesy of my iPhone and Sasha. I will hopefully upload all my pictures next week on both facebook and flickr.

Destination #3-Brighton, England

Brighton: The coldest city I have been to yet.

Situated on the south coast of England, Brighton is very easy to get to, being only an hour train ride from London. Some of you may be familiar with Brighton Pier (see below)

and no I did not take that picture. As you might make out, the beach is pebbles. While possibly inconvenient to the odd sand lover, the pebbles are actually surprisingly comfy. From that picture, the sky is beautiful. Unfortunately, this was not the case on our short trip. While the sun did make appearances, it was still quite chilly out due to the wind being relentless. I would hope that it's not like that all year round because I do actually plan on going back in a couple of weeks to catch what might be left of summer! Now, I think I might be fooling myself when I say that it's still summer. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what happened here in London. Through all of July, I never needed a jacket and I was reluctant when I had to put on jeans. Now, it might seem a little insane if I left the house without a jacket. So hopefully England is just going through a bit of cold streak. If this is normal and happens every year, then someone needs to break the news to me gently...


Anyway, back to Brighton. It was my friends' birthday, or rather, birth-weekend. Not much to be said on the activities we did as it mainly consisted of eating and drinking. Walking along Brighton Pier is quite beautiful and the old, retro style gives it a lot of personality. This was built in 1899! When you first walk along the pier, there's lots of venders with your typical carnival food consisting of cotton candy, ice cream, crêpes, and fish & chips. After, there is a dome shaped building with lots of arcade and casino type games to play inside. My friend Robert was adamant that he win a stuffed minion (from Despicable Me) playing that claw drop game. Took him quite a few attempts and probably ended up spending a solid £20 getting the claw to finally hang on to the thing. We were all thrilled for him though. After the arcade, there are more vendors and then you come to the amusement park part of the pier. There's lots of rides including roller coasters, bumper cars, and your other typical carnival rides. However, it is expensive and we did not venture to this part of the pier this time.

Not much else to say about this trip really. My favourite part was probably the 6 of us having a picnic on the beach on Saturday, despite the clouds, wind, and very average outside temperature. I had a great time and the people I was with were tonnes of fun to be around.

A few updates on my London life:
a.) I will be moving into a new place on September 1st. The house is in a good location, the rent will be cheaper, and the roommates seem pretty cool. One guy is from here and the two others are girls from New Zealand, basically having come here and doing the same thing as I am.
b.) I have been offered a permanent position within the company I had been doing temporary work for. I have accepted the offer and will hopefully be signing a contract soon. I'm really enjoying working with the company and better yet, we are moving to a brand new office September 1st as well. So Sept 1st will almost feel like I'm starting over again here.
c.) My very good Canadian friend, Robyn, has been here and will be coming soon to visit again. It was so refreshing to be and talk with a friend; one who I've known for more than 2 months. It was amazing to think as well that we were both on the other side of the world together. Perhaps that is something you as the reader may not understand, but we both marvelled at the idea of it.

This particular post has taken me longer than I thought it would take me to write and the original plan was to write my Belgium experience in the same go. That will have to wait though, so keep an eye out for another post in the next few days....hopefully.

Small Update

Not much to update here. Most recent adventures include having my first Indian dining experience, a trip to some greyhound dog races, doing the Harry Potter studios tour, and a day trip to Brighton. Indian food wasn't too bad, could have been spicier to be honest. Dog races were interesting...lower class version of horse races basically! Harry Potter studios, amazing...pictures coming soon. I bought Professor Snape's wand, a chocolate frog, and a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. And I must say, it was NOT a bargain! Brighton was pretty cool...it was so nice to finally breathe in fresh ocean air!! I am going back in a couple of weeks and then sometime in September again so this will not be the last you hear of it! Unfortunately, I must say that from now on, probably the only blog posts I am going to write will be about trips outside of London. There's only so much I can say after a 5 day work week and going to grab a few drinks with friends really. Do not fear though! Like I said, another trip to Brighton is in a couple of weeks and then the following week, Belgium!

I know there is a few of you without facebook, so I have uploaded my photos to another site for viewing:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/125490324@N06/

It uploaded them in reverse order so you will you have to start from the last photo and work your way backwards. I've decided to include some pictures I had of Bella and Ruby!

Enjoy! I miss everyone! Apart from family and friends, I'm missing spicy caesars, keg steaks, Bella, fresh air, fresh water, and I actually miss driving my car!

Destination #2-Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Bath (Destination #1 was and is London...)

Wow. I apologize for how long it's been since my last post! Time is flying by and I didn't realize it had been two and a half weeks since I wrote an entry.

Where do I start? I guess I can start off with probably the biggest venture so far. About a week and a half ago, I visited Bath, Salisbury, and Stonehenge! A few friends and I went on a tour and I have to say, I wouldn't recommend it. The trip itself was cool, the tour guide however was a different story. I felt like I was in school again! If he was talking through his microphone on the bus and god forbid somebody else was talking, he would wait for us to shut up! Nobody says we have to listen to you bud! Among many other things he did, all mainly rude, he glared at this little 3-4 year old boy who walked across the shot when he was taking my picture!! The guy was just brutal. Anyway, we first went to Bath, which was nice but other than the Roman Baths (which I didn't see), it didn't seem like there was much to see. Then we ventured over to Salisbury Cathedral which was pretty cool. I could have sworn the hallways there were filmed in Harry Potter but I guess you can say that about any architecture here. After that, we visited Stonehenge, which was the highlight of the day. Some people say "they're just rocks" but I found them really cool to look at, knowing that they've been there for possibly 5000 years. I got lots of pictures of that (I'm sorry, still don't have the camera cord to upload photo's).

Luckily, one of my friend's can upload pictures!

As some of you may know from Facebook, I have my first trip planned. Well I guess that's a lie since I already had Oktoberfest planned. Anyway, my friend Nicole (girl beside me in picture) and I will be heading to Belgium at the end of August for 3 nights. We're mainly going to be in Bruges but we will be checking out Brussels for a day as well. If anyone has been before and has recommendations, let me know! I've heard I need to brush up on my French.

Like I said before, time is whizzing by here. I'm quite busy at work every day so the days go by super quick and before I know it, it's the weekend. I am enjoying the job, except being on the phone can sometimes be difficult. 

A.) Because the customer's are difficult themselves and

B.) I cannot understand them with their accents! Especially the Irish...they might be Welsh sometimes too...can't really tell...

Some fun things I've done in the past couple of weeks:

-Went to this Fawlty Towers Dining experience, which was hilarious and awesome despite never watching the TV show

-BritBound had a James Bond themed party, however I chose not to dress up because it was simply too hot out to wear a suit

-Went and saw Phantom of the Opera for the first time ever. Not sure I fully understood the whole time what was going on but was enjoyable nonetheless

-Went to the London Film Comic Con in which I waited in line for 5 and half hours!!!!!!!! Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a life long dream to be there but I had nothing better to do that day and I didn't think it was going to be that long of a wait to get in! After waiting that long, I only actually spent an hour and a half in the convention where I bought some Game of Thrones paraphernalia. This is also an event where lots of people dress up so there was loads of people in Star Wars costumes, Game of Thrones costumes, 300, Hunger Games, you name it...all the nerdy stuff.

Apologies for the novel. Cheers! (Now starting to say that a lot) 

Pictures

Almost forgot. There's some pictures as well that I have. I have a lot more but unfortunately I left the cord that connects my camera to my computer at home. So, I'm on the search to find it at a store here. These are just from my phone.

From Tourist to Local

As some or all of you know, I am finally settled in to London with a job and a place to stay. I'll start off with the place. I'm situated in South East London in zone 3. For those that don't know about the London zones, basically zone 1 is the most central and the further away you go from the centre, the higher the zone. Zone 1 or 2 was ideally what I wanted, however, you can imagine how expensive it can get in those zones. The area is not too shabby. I'm about an 8 minute walk to a train station, that takes me right into the heart of London in 30 minutes. Literally 1 minute walk to a beautiful park. I have a pretty spacious room considering the sizes of rooms you'll find in London. The house is with 3 English fellows who kind of keep to themselves and have their own lives. Now, it's only for July and August which is what I want. Ideally, I want to be closer to central London and potentially also share a place with people a bit more social come September.

The job. I apologize if I bore you or just lose you altogether. I've already worked two days and to be honest, I still don't even fully understand the company I work for. The name of the company is called Gemserv, and from what I gather, they're a consulting firm. There are many sectors to it and I particularly work in just one of them. The area I'm in is called the Microgeneration Certification Scheme or MCS for short. Still with me here? MCS is something the government created so that people installing renewable energy source products are protected by this scheme and the installations have standards. One of Gemserv's job is to administer MCS on behalf of the government. My job is to answer customer queries through phone and email and while that might seem super easy, I have to know the answers to the questions they're asking and know what I'm talking about. At the moment, that's taking some time. Luckily, they're putting me through training. The position was given to me as temporary for 2-3 months but they could offer me an extension, depending on how well I do. The company seems fast growing so from what I've heard, I most likely will be offered an extension. It just doesn't make sense to hire and train somebody for only 3 months when the company shows no signs of slowing down. Anyway, sorry to bore you with all that!

Other than starting work and moving in, this last week has kept all of it's fun as well. Tuesday, my Canadian friends and I celebrated Canada Day. There's a Canadian bar in London that we went to go to but it was absolutely packed and lined out the door so we went to another pub, although not Canadian, across the street and it was packed with Canadians. Wednesday night, I went and saw War Horse and it was awesome! Dare I say I teared up a little. Mom, you would have loved it. Friday night, I went and saw a contemporary play called Mr. Burns...and it was interesting to the say the least. Saturday, I went to this food festival in Southbank and I probably could have eaten everything there. It's dangerous too because they do it every weekend in the summer. There's always so much going on in this city, it's hard to keep up. Without being a part of BritBound, I can't say I would be discovering as much as they've shown me and I can't say that I would have as many friends as I do now. I've already signed up with them to go to Oktoberfest in September so I'm looking forward to that. Now that I'm settled in, I'm going to try to do as much with my weekends as much as possible. My not too distant future plans are to go see my friend Robyn in Dublin, see Stonehenge, visit Brighton and other parts of England, and possibly venture over to Amsterdam, Paris, etc. The list goes on!

After One Week

"You alright?"

While I knew coming over here that that was what they said in place of "How are you?" I'm still caught off guard every time somebody asks me that question. They say it so fast!

It's amazing how quickly every day goes by here. Although, I will say that it seems like forever ago that I was back in Canada. I've been so busy this week trying to get a job going and trying to find permanent accommodation while all at the same time, keeping up with a social life. I've seen about 8 places so far that are renting out a room and I must say, haven't been all that impressed with either of them. I am currently staying in this student building at the moment. I would love to just stay here, believe me, but it would be a little too expensive. I am feeling a little bit of the pressure though. I'm only here until Tuesday so I basically need to find somewhere for after that. Since I am struggling with finding permanent accommodation, I do have 3 options for flatshares that are available only for July/August, which is probably the best as it will give me more time to look at somewhere for Sept 1st that might be more relative to wherever I'll be working. On that note, I did have an interview on Wednesday with a recruiting agency and that all went well as I got a spot on their roster. The lady that interviewed me actually sent out my CV (resume) to a company that day and I was supposed to have an interview with the company the following day. Unfortunately, they really liked the person they interviewed on the Wednesday and just hired that person instead of going through an interview with me. No matter though, I am hopeful I'll get something this week.

The best part about my experience so far is the overwhelming amount of people I'm meeting. Tuesday, BritBound had a pub lunch so I met a completely new round of people and this bunch was a fun bunch. Aussies, Kiwi's, and of course, Canadians. Can't go wrong with that. Wednesday, I met a couple of guys in the same flat I'm in right now and one of them happened to be from Burnaby!! Thursday, although not meeting somebody new, I met up with my buddy Chris from the Keg who's doing a euro-trip for school this summer and we watched the USA/Germany game. Friday, BritBound had a boat party. As you might have seen on some facebook pictures, yes, it was tennis themed, and yes, it was as fun as it looked. And of course, I met even MORE people there because the boat was packed with BritBounders. Today, I went to the London Pride Parade with a few new friends and of course, it rained. Parade also didn't really compare to Vancouver Pride Parade. Vancouver's got a lot more floats and a lot more music. It was like mainly a march in London. After the parade, we headed over to Trafalgar Square where they had performances. Now, I didn't care for any of the performances... the main reason I was there was to see Sir Ian McKellen with my very own two eyes. Even though he only talked for a good 5 minutes, it was awesome to see him in person and hear his magnificent voice.

Sorry for the lengthy read. I plan to make a decision tomorrow on accommodation so hopefully this week moves in the right direction in both that area and job wise! Canada Day is on Tuesday and I will be wishing I was back home. I'll have to try and find some poutine and a spicy caesar that day.

The Journey Begins

Just got back from eating some fish & chips and then topping it off with watching a gorgeous sunset on the River Thames. It almost got ruined by a different view, and those who saw my instagram photo know what I'm talking about!! So after my last post, I said that I was on my way to the BritBound info session. They provided some decent info and seems like they should be a valuable resource. They have events that they put together every week so I'm sure if I attend those on a regular basis, I should have no problem meeting other travellers and making friends. After the session, all the other BritBounders and I headed over to a pub to have a drink and I made a few new facebook friends!! After that night, I was able to correct my sleeping pattern (I think). Yesterday, Paige, a few of her friends, and I all went to Greenwich Park for a little BBQ. So in the UK here, you can buy these disposable BBQ's, they're small and cheap but they work!! I don't know why they don't have them in Canada. Well, maybe we don't really need them over there and to be honest, we weren't really allowed to be bringing that into the park anyway!! We could see why after when we realized we had left a rectangle shaped patch of black grass. A lot of fun though, and I got to meet even more people. However, the annoying thing about the past 2 days has been my allergies. They are 10 times worse than they were in Vancouver. That didn't stop me today though as I did some more exploring of Greenwich. First, I took a trip to the Greenwich market which was cool but expensive at the same time. Then, ventured over to see Cutty Sark, the Royal Naval College, and the National Maritime museum. Pictures coming soon. Now begins my process of finding work and accommodation. It looks like the best option, and also a popular one in the UK, is to rent a room in an already existing house/flat share. I'm going to be looking at places that have tenants around my age and hopefully, be like-minded people. Still unsure of what I want to do for work. BritBound said that 80% of employment in the UK is done through recruiting agencies. So, the plan is to send my resume to them, and then they'll forward them to agencies, and then hopefully these agencies will have jobs for me that match my resume. Tomorrow, I'm going to set up a bank account and set up my phone as well. BritBound is having a pub lunch on Tuesday so hopefully, I'll meet more people there. One last thing, I greatly miss the tap water back home!!

Welcome to London

I must say, It's been a crazy past 48 hours. Actually, the past 3 weeks have been all around crazy. I was fully booked every day but it was worth it. I had so much fun seeing family and friends and saying goodbye to everyone was not easy. As much as I have wanted to do this adventure, I cannot see myself not coming back to Vancouver. I love it there too much and everyone along with it. Anyway, enough of that. The flight over here was pretty good for how cheap it was. There was, luckily, no one to my immediate right so I had some space. I, of course, only got maybe a few minutes of sleep. When I landed, I chilled at the airport for a bit to re-organize my luggage and prepare myself for the long trek to my friend Paige's place. Now, it may not have seemed like a long trek to some people but I had a massive (and heavy) suitcase, a massive (and heavy) backpack and another small (and heavy) backpack. I managed to stumble across town to Paige's and was exhausted by the time I got there. Nobody was home and without hesitation, I took a nap and woke up to find quite a few messages from Paige and my other Canadian friend, Natasha. I journeyed back across town to meet up with the two and it was a great sight to see a couple of familiar faces. We ventured over to a pub to have a few pints and eventually, watched the England/Uruguay game. Despite the loss, it was an awesome experience to witness a World Cup match at an English pub with everyone yelling, "Come on England!" and "Roooooney!" Unfortunately, Natasha had to fly out the next day for a visit to Vancouver (funny how that worked out) so I won't be seeing her for a few weeks. Fun first night but jeez, first day waking up in London and already hungover. Today is the SWAP/BritBound info session that I signed up for and they'll hopefully be a good resource for finding somewhere to live and finding a job. Wish me luck!