Catalyst for Change

A thought I had yesterday: sometimes the best catalyst for change, is change itself.

Despite feeling sick for what seems like half my time here (I had a minor cough for about 2 weeks that was just annoying and not sickly, and now my nose is running and I feel like I'm getting the flu!) I'm actually in a really good head space. So heaps of you know me as being a little bit unpredictable, not always sure whether I'm happy, sad or just content. Over here I seem to be all about the happy. I'm relaxed and genuinely excited about what's going to happen over here.

I'm just waiting to get my first pay from work. I want to know how much I've got to work with so I can start planning weekends away. Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Scotland, Wales. The list goes on. I got myself a 16-25 railcard today too which gives you 33% full price fares for National Rail. So now it's going to be a whole lot cheaper when I go travelling to other parts of the UK. Speaking of which, I'm visiting Canterbury this coming weekend, my first trip out of London.

At the moment I can't see myself wanting to go home. I feel settled, and I know it's only been a month, but I haven't even come close to feeling home sick. To be honest, I don't think I'll ever get that feeling...

It has been a week

A whole week since my last update. A lot has happened in the last week.

- I had an interview for a job.

- I then got an offer of employment for said job, of which I accepted.

- I started work (today) and things are looking good.

- I set fire to the oven mitt. No, not on purpose.

- I went to the Natural History Museum, but I was more interested in the guy I was with. Also it was school holidays and there were kids everywhere, so we left early and went to the pub.

- I went to the movies and in comparison it was super expensive at £13! However, X-Men First Class was amazing.

- I went to the 'A Taste of Spain' festival in Regent Street. Got some brochures on parts to travel to, ate some amazing churros and that was it. I was disappointed by the lack of food stalls.

- I went to a party where I only knew two of the hosts but I met some cool people, had a few beers and had a great night.

I finally have a debit card too except no pin number yet. It really does beg the question, how far can security go? It's frustrating. The funny thing is, in the "name of security" I can't even take full photo identification and login details into a branch and just get me a pin. No it must be sent out. The girl on the phone couldn't even tell me if the pin is being sent to my Australian address or my address here. In the meantime, I'm getting slugged with fees and I can't use my Commonwealth Credit Card on some websites (like the O2 phone top-up site) because it requires a netbank sms which of course I can't get because THAT PHONE IS DISCONNECTED.

Anyway the people at my new work are lovely people and I'm sure I'll get on just dandy with them. Looking forward to the next couple of weeks where I will start to really know what I am doing and can start planning some weekend outings. :)

Things I miss

I've been here two weeks now and even though I'm not doing too badly there are still a few things I miss. You know, there are days when you feel like you're on top of the world, then days when you actually feel that you're on the other side of the world. Today is one of those days.

I miss my dvd collection, because it's times like this that the right movie can perk you up and make you feel the way you want to feel. Instead I'm stuck with blogging!

I miss the kitchen at my disposal, knowing that everything I needed was there, and usually mine. If I were at home right now I would probably be whipping up something nice to eat.

Andy I can't believe I miss you. I thought I hated hearing the playstation all the time (let's face it, it was pretty loud) but I actually miss just falling on the couch and having half conversations in between you killing bad guys or watching Supernatural.

I guess it's just a few creature comforts. Comforts I will eventually come to replace with new ones. Also I miss Kraft Peanut Butter - never oily, never dry. And they never lied abut that.

Half Settled

I have my own room now and a place to dump all of my stuff.

It's nothing special but it's a place to live. The train station is anywhere from a 17-22 minute walk away depending on many variables such as my energy levels, the wind and the shoes I'm wearing. But it's keeping me fit.

Bought myself my first pair of jeans that fit properly. Typically my jeans are too big around the waist in order to ensure they are long enough in the legs but I found an awesome pair that fit just right. Combined with a new leather jacket and a haircut I'm feeling pretty good!

Okay so to be honest the reason for the nicer clothes (nicer as in 'not a hoodie') is because I went on this date with this guy. Then we caught up the next night and we're seeing each other today as well. This is all before the originally planned "first date" for Tuesday, which is apparently still going ahead. :)

I still haven't done any food shopping, except for absolute basics. I currently have some soy milk (they had sold out of lactose free *sad face*), some muesli, some pasta, pasta sauce and some mushrooms. THAT'S IT.

It still feels a bit weird jumping in this random kitchen when I'm used to "owning" the one at home.

All is good so far. Job interview on Tuesday which I really want/need! Meeting some great new people so things are going ok.

The area I'm in also isn't the best place in the world. For the first two weeks living with my mate I didn't think it was that bad, but since then I've seen a freshly burnt out car, smelled the fumes of another one and seen cop cars galore. It's just like Werribee! But to be honest I'm thinking I'll serve my 6 months at this place and move out when the contract ends, into something nicer as I'm sure I'll be earning enough money by then.

We won't be doing that again...

Today I took the advice of someone I met and I went back to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard, a daily event at this time of year at 11:30am.

It was windy, it was cloudy, and within ten minutes of me getting there and joining the over-excited masses at the gates it started to rain.

I stayed for a whole 30 minutes which I thought was a proper fine achievement. In the end the rain whipping against my neck was too much and I trudged off to the Abercrombie & Fitch store to get a glimpse of the guys there.

If anyone needs something to do in London at 11:30am, I definitely rate an excursion to A&F and the lovely (oh so lovely) boys that are in there.

Pity the clothes are mega expensive. Also their cologne aftershave 'Fierce' is amazing. But at 60 quid I think I'll have to leave that one alone.

Til next time...

P.S. I got told off by a friend for calling it cologne. Apparently it is only to be referred to as aftershave.

The Artefacts of Humans Past

I went to the Museum yesterday. The British Museum. It's actually quite huge, enormous, gargantuan.

So anyway I decided to do the whole tourist thing just to get about London and do something other than job-hunting and house-hunting for a while.

Look, museum's are great, and as far as The British Museum goes it's probably right up there with the best. But let's be honest, there's only so many stone tablets I can look at. It's fantastic that the peoples of long ago thought it would be bitchin' to go recording their thoughts on stone. They were probably the revolutionary bloggers of today. One stone is great, two stones is good, but once you see the 27th one you start to wonder why you still haven't found the exit.

It also didn't sit well with me that I paid almost 3 times more for a bottle of water than I did the previous day at the local convenience store. Lesson learnt.

Anyway that's what I did for half a day. I shall leave you with a picture of a real dead body in a grave. It looks cleaner than the house I looked at today.

Same Same or Out with the Old...?

Today I have been plagued by what to do on the job front. I have pretty much walked into some Temp work with Ticketmaster, through a recruitment agency, but I guess the problem with that is that it is just temp work and no matter how good you are there's no guarantee of future work.

That's not bad in my opinion. I get here Saturday, make a call on Monday, they bring me in on Tuesday and suddenly "yes we can use you" and I sign my life away. I want a full time job, but who doesn't! So I'm still pouring through job sites, looking for something else. Why Ticketing? It's because it's all that I know, and I'm not half bad at it, and there's the Olympics and how amazing would it be to say that I was part of London 2012!

On the flip side I'm thinking about another dream I have had for a while. I've always wanted to own a pub. So, why not start learning how to run one? I thought I didn't want to do bar work, but upon further thought maybe it's not a bad idea. You can easily have fun and be serious about what you do at the same time. Sure the hours are terrible but I'm not in Melbourne anymore. I keep asking myself if I could work at Walkabout, the Aussie pubs. There would be footy (AFL) and it could be a good change, so maybe I do have it in me.

I guess only time will tell?