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Published: February 2nd 2008
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Oxford Street
from the top of a double decker bus. Greetings from sunny London! It's not really sunny, as I'm sure you can guess. In the last few weeks I've been getting myself organised, jobsearching, not studying and seeing London, although I have definitely been guilty of procrastinating on the tourist front (I have six months... yeah yeah). My classes are quite interesting, I'm taking Social Psych, Developmental Psych, Cognitive Neuroscience and a masters level course on Transport planning. The classes are far more independent and flexible than the American system, and you are definitely required to think for yourself, rather than remember and regurgitate like the American system. I have only nine contact hours a week, and I haven't had much assessment, because most of the marks come from the final exams in late May and early June.
I have a job in a traditional English pub called the Fitzrovia (on Goodge street off Tottenham Court Road), and have been working about 20 hours a week there. It's a good job; it's not too stressful but the time goes quickly because I am always busy. The pay is pretty low, but beggars can't be choosers. Also the pub closes at 11pm every night, which is standard in London. I
The Protesters
lying in the street. applied for heaps of jobs, but I only heard back from two, the pub hired me on the spot, and I had a group interview with a catering company that does events. It was a fairly long tube trip away (the tube is really expensive too), and I already had the pub job and an essay due that afternoon, so I was tossing up whether to go, but I decided to give it a chance.
I was greeted at the office by a very gay French guy. I was early, so I had a flick through their files that were on display and apparently it was a glossy magazine - celebrity wedding type company. I had to sit through an hour of dvd's about the events that they have catered and the interviewer's bragging about all the rich and famous people that they have catered for, while sitting with my arms folded and frequently looking at my watch. After more than an hour of telling us about how amazing his company and his work (sorry, "play") is, he gave us a form to fill out. We had just discussed how important attention to detail is in waitering. Under weaknesses,
I put that I'm not much good with details (which is true- no need to lie), and in the section that asked why they should hire me, I resisted the temptation to write "you shouldn't" and just left it blank. Needless to say, I didn't get offered the job. The pay was only slightly better than the pub, and the extra time and money to get the tube would have more than cancelled that out. Working for Christophe didn't particularly appeal to me either.
London is really really expensive, but you can eat cheaply if you're careful. I joined the Squash club, bought a racquet and have played a few times, and I have been going to fitness classes at the gym, partly because they are free and partly because I don't have the motivation to push myself without someone there yelling at me. I've also been running in Regents Park a few times, which is officially the nicest park I have ever seen. Too bad about the weather... There are a bunch of statues and rose gardens - it should be amazing in the spring.
I have a list of things I want to see and do
Trafalgar Square
and the National Gallery. in the UK and it is far longer than the credit section of my NatWest bank statement, or the pages left in my diary until I come back home. I've seen a handful of tourist things though, most notably the National Gallery by Trafalgar Square, which was incredible. I saw paintings by Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Turner, Holbein, Claude, Rembrandt, Rubens and others.My favourite was a Hans Holbein painting with two french diplomats and a skull on the floor that you can only see from a particular angle. I've also been to the Houses of Parliament (Big Ben), Westminster Abbey and Downing street, Buckingham Palace, St James Park, Camden Market and Oxford street. Last night I went to a student night at Fabric, which was pretty good. I have a ticket to go on a trip to Stonehenge and Bath in a couple of weeks. There's a Radiohead concert, a Police concert and Glastonbury in London at the end of June, so I might have to come back to London for a week in the summer for one or more of those.
A couple of weeks ago I went on a sightseeing trip to Westminster with my flatmate Martin
and my friend Tamar, and we passed by Downing Street. There were dozens of protesters outside the gates, and a handful of police (some with automatic rifles) standing by. The protesters were protesting a bunch of different thigs, some the situation in Kenya, some Iraq, Palestine, and some SOCPA (whatever that is). We were just leaving when we saw a huge group of protesters move out into the street, blocking the heavy London traffic. After a few minutes, about 15 cops marched down the street single file, and with the cops that were already there started dragging and pushing people onto the pavement. There were about a dozen protesters though that were lying down, and the police didn't touch them. Occasionally one would go up and talk to them, but they wouldn't remove them. This went on for about ten minutes. As we were leaving, I think they eventually did drag them off but I don't know why they didn't straight away. So that was exciting...
It's still quite surreal being in London and I keep reminding myself that I have to make the most of it, because it'll be over before I know it.
I hope everything
is good back home. I miss you all heaps.
Love Renan.
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