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The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square
Unfortunately you can't take photos of the masterpieces inside. This has been a while coming unfortunately but here's a quick update.
I arrived in London on the 6th April and, after a long wait at terminal 5 (at least my bag did finally arrive unlike so many others), made it in to town and to a very welcome bed. I awoke the next morning to discover it was snowing which was completely amazing and unexpected. I spent my first week in a hostel that was a little more like a half-way house but had a great location in Notting Hill and included breakfast and dinner in the very reasonable price. I spent a lot of time chasing my agencies to organise work as well as sorting out Glastonbury tickets with Jason and Kirstyn and looking for somewhere to live. I also did a bit of sight-seeing and generally exploring, checking out the British museum with it's massive array of treasures stolen from all over the empire and the impressive collection of art at the national gallery. I love that the museums and galleries are free but they do still hit you up for donations and audio-guides etc. I also found time to caught up with Jess who is in
the middle of planning her Greek island wedding for the end of May. Lucky devils, I wish I was going!
By the end of the week I had a short term contract with accommodation organised and then a longer contract after that so I made the long bus-trip up to Manchester to catch up with Jason and Kirstyn for the weekend. It was great to see them again and we had a good time, sampling the great food on the curry mile down the road from them and checking out some live music. I also picked up all the stuff I'd left in their van and it was quite a nightmare dragging it all back to London.
I spent a couple of days 'dossing' at Jess and Stephen's while I started my job at Lewisham Hospital. Everyone was really nice and I enjoyed it there even if the accommodation was a bit dull and my room was on the 5th floor with a broken lift! Once I settled in I got the chance to catch up with a few people, including Stu from our tour of China a year ago.
The three weeks went really quickly and
I spent lots of it searching for somewhere decent to live, eventually finding a place in West Hampstead which is a really lovely area. I spent the long Bank Holiday weekend sick with food poisoning from a dodgy kebab and nearly fainted while dragging my stuff to my new place on the tube on the Monday. I was glad when it was all over and I started to feel better. After my less than impressive long weekend, it was off to work at my new job in Hackney which is in inner East London and, if you believe the internet, the worst place to live in Britain. I've found it a great place though to work in and I've really enjoyed it here. There's a really multicultural feel to Hackney with hundreds of different cultures in the area and it shows.
Jason and Kirstyn have been down for two weekends. The first one was at the end of April and they took me out to see a West End musical as a belated birthday present. We saw 'The Sound of Music' which was actually really wonderful even if completely over the top and cliché. the second one was for
Kirstyn's birthday and we had a great night out in Shoreditch with a fab dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant and too many drinks later at Scott and Steph Cowie's where there may also have been singing and dancing.
My flatmate's are an Australia couple from Melbourne, Kate and Travis. They're really easygoing and we get along well. Kate and I had a night out while Travis was away a couple of weekends ago, heading out for drinks in Camden before going to a gig at the Brixton Academy. The acoustics were a bit off so we didn't really enjoy the show but we had a good time anyway. The long night bus journey at the end didn't even put too much of a dampener on it. The next day I had a very lazy start but got active in the afternoon, heading out to Hampstead Heath which is a massive park/green space and a real retreat from the hectic world of city life. The other night we debated heading down to Chelsea to watch them in the final of the soccer against Manchester United in Moscow but in the end we were lucky we didn't go as they lost
Kirstyn's birthday
This is one of the nice photos before we got messy and there was a riot amonst the fans after the game...guess they still haven't worked out it's just a game.
Meanwhile, Mick has settled back into life in Mount Isa, catching up with friends and playing League again. He's bought a scooter and is cruising around on it enjoying the low running costs!
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