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Published: February 22nd 2009
I have been living in London for 3 weeks today. For some reason I feel as though I have been here alot longer but time is flying by and it certainly has been a difficult road. But I am sorting myself out and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. So here is an overview of the 3 weeks that have been. Lots has been going on so get ready for a long blog.
First of all my arrival into London went well. One of the first things I discovered when I arrived here was that the place I would be living in for the first 3 weeks was a little way out of London cause it took the taxi driver almost 2 hours to get me there. I have spent the last 3 weeks living in Greenwich but I soon realised that I was more on the border of Blackheath and Westcombe Park. It was a beautiful area fillled with lovely old homes owned by some of Londons wealthiest. But for some one who is looking for the 'London experience' and wanting to be more central I immediatly found it difficult.
I have been living in a
3 storey house built in the 1800's, owned by a very helpful english couple, Doreen and Michael. They live on the bottom floor and the second and third floor was for myself and 4 other renters. I had the top attic room that had views of the main street. It was cute but I banged my head thousands of times on the sloping ceiling walls. It had a very cool walk-in wardrobe, it's own fridge, t.v and arm chair but I had to sleep in a single bed which was very uncomfortable. Just down the road was the stunning Greenwich park which was home to the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). This is a term which originally referred to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. On weekends in Greenwich they have a really cool market that has loads of awesome food. Which I have visited every eekend since I arrived.
Upon arrival I was greeted by two friendly housemates, Damien who is a Polish accountant who came to London 6 or 7 years ago to learn english and Amy, a canadian school teacher who had arrived 1 week before me. Within 1 hour I was grocery shopping
and joining them for cheap but yummy asian noodles. It was a great introduction and made me feel good about my move. The following day I met with the agency that I would be working for and by tuesday I had my first day of work. For the first 4 nights I struggled to adjust to the time and found myself wide awake at 2 am. By the third night I found myself in tears from exhaustion just wanting to sleep and feeling homesick plus getting up and going to work did not help the situation. But by the fifth night I found my way and got my first full nights sleep.
So all sounding good your probably wondering why I have moved away from such a beautiful place. Well first of all Greenwich is not on the main tube line so whenever I went out I would have to catch an overland train for 15 minutes to london bridge and then jump on the tube from there. The bad thing about this is that trains on the overland only came every half hour so you felt like you were waiting forever! Secondly, Doreen and Michael are the lovliest couple
but they need to reconsider having young people rent their rooms. They constantly spoke to us about arriving home late at night (12 o'clock), putting our rubbish in the incorrect rubbish bins and did random inspections of our rooms. Poor Amy who was a smoker was asked what time she was going to go out for her cigarette each night because she was too noisy. (she would only sit on the step by herself!) Needless to say Amy only lasted a week and half before she moved but I held out a little bit longer till I found what I wanted. I have included some photos of my first place.
In my first few weeks here London was hit with unusual amounts of snow and as a result the whole cities transport sector was closed down for almost 2 days. After spending time in lots of snow in Canada it is amazing to think of the effect such a small amount of snow had on London but it was great because I had lots of time to relax. Down side was not getting paid but it was kind of a forced break. I have worked at a number of primary
schools and already observed many good and not so good things. The children are certainly different to aussie kids. They speak so rudley to each other and will not hesitate to tell a teacher what they think. But things have not been as bad as I was expecting. Just have to be really tough and try not to smile too much. ha ha ha. Within 2 weeks I have had two of the schools that I have been working at offer me full time work till July. This is something I am hesitant to do as I am not very keen to do planning, bring school work home or write reports. But one of the schools in particular were keen to have me so they changed their offer to 3 days a week PPA which we call back home executive release. So after much negotiating about pay rates I agreed to the 3 days. This means I can work at the school or other schools on thursday and fridays or take off for an extra long weekend somewhere if I like. Best of all I will be teaching 5/6, 1/2 and 3/4 composite classes without having to plan. So Istart
tomorrow and have heard the 5 and 6 classes are pretty tough so we'll see how things go.
After Amy left, the house was very quiet but within a few days Amys friend Brittany arrived from Canada as well and she moved into Amys old room. She is also a teacher. This was great timing because this week has been mid term break and all schools are closed for 1 week. So Brittany and I have spent the week wondering around London having lots of fun.
We headed to the Big Ben and Brittany asked me the funniest thing 'omg is this where the Queen lives?' What a crack up. I just lost it in barrels of laughter. Then to Westminster Abbey, I put her out of her misery and took her to Buckingham Palace then we headed to Harrods.
We must have spent 3 hours in the food hall and after searching through the 5 food halls decided to share a gelato at the gelato bar. We had to line up to get a seat at the bar and when we were finally seated we were really undecided as to what to have. There were soooooo many wonderful options.
mmmmmmmmmmm
Chocolate and vanilla gelato with meraingue, cream, chocolate fudge and caramel coated pecans.We finally decided on this chocolate thing. It was amazing and Brittany and I gutsed it in 5 minutes flat. We felt very sick but it was well worth it.
This week I have also made my way to Covent Garden and watched all the cool street performers, Brick Lane for classic Indian food and the best thing of all watching a football (soccer) game at Emirates Stadium. I got to Arsenal a bit earlier and took the opportunity to check out the diehard fans. They filled the streets with red and white. People actually set up stalls outside their homes selling memorabilia. I must say that it has been a long time since I saw so many good looking men in 1 place. But unlike myself, they only had their mind on one thing- FOOTBALL. A friend of Jessica, Simon, got VIP seats in the members area through his work so we headed straight to the members stand and took our awesome seats in the stadium. What a sight and what a sound. The crowd was relentless in their cheers and almost sounded beautifully harmonyous. They had a fenced off section for supporters of the opposing team which was
heavily gaurded by police and extra security and lots of the spectators aggressively shouted taunt after taunt. I really don't know why cause it's not like the players could hear but they certainly share their opinions. It is easy to get caught up in all their bantering and I soon found myself yelling out at players missing simple opportunities. I must admit I did have a little giggle at the thought of my grandmother and how good she would be in such a place. She is constantly giving her opinion to the TV when watching the football at home. ha ha ha At half time we got free beer in the members lounge which I thought was pretty cool. I am slowly aqcuiring the taste for the stuff since I have spent almost every night in one pub to the next. After half time we settled back to watching the game and after a few beers all the crowd seemed even noisier. But security is so tight you feel very safe. There were a few interesting characters that proceeded to stand on chairs but the police were constantly on to them threatening with removal from the stadium. The game ended
in a nil all draw and it was rather boring to watch but I am glad I went and would really love to watch a major match. After the match we went to another pub and had dinner as I have been quick at learning PUBS are everything in london.
So this weekend I have also moved into my new place at Canada Waters. It is closer to central london, only 5 minutes from london bridge. It is a new area of London that reminds me of Darling Harbour on a lesser scale. It is the area where all the major banks have their offices so there are lots of people around during the day and it is nice and quiet in the night. I am renting a room in a duplex house with 2 italian guys. They work at a restaurant in the evenings and I work during the day so our paths rarely cross and best of all they cook and everyone knows how much I hate to do so it is a match made in heaven. I will put some photos up in the next few weeks.
Well thats it for now. Not sure if I will
be doing anything blog worthy in the weeks to come but I am heading to Italy in April so it may not be till then. Hope to hear from everyone and that you are all well.
So those who need my new address its- 43 Ann Moss Way, Canada Waters, London SE16 2TJ
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Sheila McCarthy
non-member comment
Sounds Super!
Hi Rachelle Just read your 'blog' and looked at photos - so glad that you have settled and are now looking forward to your new 'home' - those italian guys sound O.K. (especially working in a restaurant!!! Loved all the photos - stay away from those HUGE ice-creams - think 'lycra'!!! The school teaching (3 days) sounds great and will enable you to have 'long weekends' away - so many places to go and 'things' to see! I know you have been to Buckingham Palace, did you see the Changing of the Guards? Really a spectacular sight, if you haven't, go early and get close to the gates - you have to wait, but it's worth it! Keep on having a great time and look forward to hearing (and seeing) from you soon. Stay well and happy, Love Sheila