London Life!!!

Its blog time! I'm adjusting pretty well to life across the pond. There are still some culture shock and homesickness times, but hey- that's to be expected! I'm finally getting more settled into my apartment, got pictures posted and all my clothes unpacked and a bunch of kitchen stuff bought. I still need to get a duvet cover (the blue plaid they provide us with just isn't going to cut it for a year) and a hamper, but its finally starting to feel like "my room." I share my room with a girl named Emily from Wisconsin and we get along really well. Our room is one of the biggest in the program and it is set up so that our dressers kind of divide the room in two and we each get our own little space.

This is the view of my room when you walk in the bedroom door (Emily's side)

Dressers/Room Dividers

This is my half of the room!

My bed is right up against the window (on the 6th floor) and its really cool because I can see a little futbol pitch from my window! One annoying thing is that we can only open the windows (and balcony doors) 10cm. Its some dumb British rule because we don't have a technical "head of household." It can be quite a nuisance when we want to cool the room off and it makes for weird air flow so sometimes the windows and bedroom door with bang open and closed unexpectedly.

Its hard to tell with the glare but you can almost see the little futbol pitch in the middle left of the picture

My roommate and I have a bathroom in our room and our flatmates share one in the hallway. Its a really nice bathroom and its great because it gets cleaned once a week, but the shower has some issues. Mainly it has a serious design flaw and its really easy to get water all over the floor and then there isn't good/any ventilation so we are having some mold issues...

Showers should have walls- the water goes everywhere.
The little glass part is actually a door that opens so water can get under that too...

Here are some more pictures of the flat.

The view as you enter. The door on the right is the boys bathroom and the one straight ahead is their bedroom.
To the left is the living room and to the right is my room.

The living room. We got lucky and have one of the biggest apartments and more couches!

The kitchen at the back end of the living room

Our Washer/Dryer combo machine located under the sink. Haha

The weekend of Aug. 28-29 was what is called a "Bank Holiday" weekend over here. Basically like Labor Day weekend or Memorial Day weekend, expect all of them are called bank holidays. In addition to getting Monday off work this particular bank holiday coincides with the Notting Hill Carnival, which is the biggest carnival/festival in Europe with around 1million people attending. It is a Caribbean themed event and it was basically a gigantic (10blocks ish) club outside - music, dancing and drinking in the streets- mixed with a parade with awesome costumes and traditional Caribbean Food- think jerk chicken, rice, fried plantains! There were SO many people and everyone just left trash everywhere- lots of it was in neat piles, but still, so much garbage! 

People as far as you can see

Creative trashcan

My favorite parts of the two days we went to the festival were 1. the costumes and parade- we didn't get to see them the first day and I was really excited when we found them on the second day, although my camera died literally as soon as we saw the first float. My second favorite thing was when this girl climbed a tree next to one of the outdoor dance parties and the DJ stopped and started yelling for her to get out of the tree. She was really drunk and wouldn't get out of the tree and before long the whole crowd was chanting "1.2.3. monkey outta the tree" and the DJ was yelling "what country  you fink dis is?!?." It got scary when someone threw a beer can at her, but after almost 10 minutes someone was able to safely push her out of the tree. It was weird but definitely memorable!

On Thursday I had a work assignment to go around to other shoe stores and find out if they stock the brand my store specializing in, and to check out their customer service and prices. All in all it was an ok adventure. Did a lot of fake shopping by myself, including in overwhelming Harrods and Selfridges, but it was a good experience and a beautiful day so I was glad to be out of the office. I turned in the write up on my "market research" today and my boss really liked it so that was good too. Oh I also got registered for the National Healthcare System so that if I get sick I can see a doctor for free!

The next major thing was my 23rd birthday! We went out Thursday night to a local bar and that was really fun, Friday (my actual birthday) my roommate brought me a double chocolate cake and gummies, my friend made me nutella frosted cupcakes and we all went to dinner at this ADORABLE rooftop Italian restaurant! I had delicious delicious bruschetta and it was great- they even brought out a giant piece of tiramisu with a candle and sang happy birthday!

Birthday Presents!

Delicious Birthday Dinner- Bruschetta, cheese, olives, veggies etc!

Adorable rooftop restaurant where we went for my birthday dinner. 

Halfway through the giant piece of birthday tiramisu!

Lets see- what else has happened? Oh booked a hostel in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day! Pretty excited about that- there is a big group of us going and it should be really fun!

My friends and I have a favorite bar called B@1. Its great and we have decided that we want to become regulars and have the bartenders know us by name. It is the perfect blend of bar and club- you can stand or sit or dance or talk- the music is great (think chumbawamba, oldies like twist and shout, etc) and its just so fun!

 

Grocery shopping here is what makes me the most homesick. Its really not that different from home, but for some reason all the little differences about it really add up. For example most everything comes wrapped. Individual cucumbers, packages of 2 bell pepers etc. I miss big bins where you can just pick the produce that you want. Also, if you go on Sunday like I did there is a good chance that they will be out of nearly everything. Also all the stores have different deals and it is hard to remember where it is best to get what. And it is really a killer when you start converting pounds to dollars and you realize how much money you are spending! The end result is that I basically go shopping for a few things every other day (which is also needed because you have to carry everything home and it gets heavy) and then eat the same thing for a few days and switch. Its really not that bad, but since differences exist I feel like I might as well acknowledge them!

And the last thing for today's blog post is the story of my bus ride this morning! Got to the bus like normal, excited to be making it to work on time, but then, halfwayish through the journey, traffic is at a standstill. No idea why- there were just about 6-8 buses stopped in front of us. We literally did not move for 15 minutes. I was texting my boss to keep him updated but I still felt horrible because I was so late to work. I never saw what caused the delay because my bus ended up turning. I didn't even think about the fact that public transportation could make me late to work! Luckily my boss was super understanding about it!

Alright, well thats enough for now! Hope everything is going well for everyone! 

bus stoppage