Move In Day!

So after much stress and frustration we finally got approved for our flat. We could move in basically anytime but figured it would be best to just wait until I got back from France. Before, however, we went in to sign the tenancy agreement and do a walkthrough. We met them Wednesday morning at 10am. It was the man who had shown us the flat and the landlord himself. They are both very nice and that’s who we will be dealing with for any issues we have, which is good.

                First, they walked us through the flat, taking inventory of all the furniture and any damage that is already in place. We get a copy too. Then they showed us the boiler and gas and water meters. They were very helpful with our questions. It didn’t take as long as we expected; only about forty-five minutes. Sarah had to work that afternoon so she left shortly thereafter, but I was going to show the place to my parents so I waited around. We weren’t moving our suitcases or anything until Sunday but we did bring over some of the household stuff we’d bought, so I spent the time waiting for my parents setting that up. It wasn’t much: some toilet paper, dish soap, garbage bags, etc. But it was less we would have to do Sunday. I also brought over the sheets I had bought and the blanket and housecoat my parents had brought over. So I made my bed and put a few things in my closet. It already felt more homey after getting my sheets and pillows in order. And my Batman blanket on the bed.

                Also while waiting for my parents I ordered our internet connection. I’ve never done it before. We literally chose our provider, Talk Talk because we had seen their advertisements on the tube. See, Mad Men? It does work! Also Sandra and Imogen use them, so we knew how well it worked. We didn’t bother ordering TV or landline, just simple broadband internet. Unfortunately, it will take until Wednesday to get it live, which means we are going to be internet-less for the first few days. At least we have our phones. It seems to be the cheapest provider, which is good. We don’t need anything fancy. Just a way to get our emails and watch Netflix.

                I went to the tube station to get my parents and show them around. I think they liked it but I can’t be sure. Then we left and I wouldn’t return until Sunday. Sarah booked us a minicab while I was in France. It was going to pick us up at 1pm. She had stressed that we had a lot of stuff (seriously, it’s like it multiplied over two months) and they came in a van. Yay. Then we drove to our new place. We dragged all our stuff upstairs and began unpacking. Sandra gave us a lovely moving out present: a much-needed iron. It was so nice of her and something Sarah would end up needing the very next morning.

                Sandra came by around 4:30pm to see the place. I had finished unpacking all my stuff. I showed her around and then she and I left to go walk around the neighborhood. There is so much here! There’s dozens of restaurants, several bakeries, three grocery stores, several pubs, a nightclub, a few lounges, a dry cleaners, and more! It’s very well serviced, by the look of it. Sandra was impressed with the fact that it had a lot of houses, which apparently typically has less crime. She also found that it was very multicultural, instead of there being one dominant culture. All signs point to us having chose well. She left after our walk and me and Sarah headed to Sainsbury’s to buy a few things. She finished unpacking and then we christened the flat in the only way we know how: with red wine, pizza and One Direction. We ordered pizza from the Domino’s around the corner and drank our wine out of one of our going away presents (it’s a wine glass that holds an entire bottle that says ‘finally, a wine glass that fits my needs!’). And we had One Direction night, of course. We watched their documentary, This Is Us, first (we watched their performance of Teenage Dirtbag four times because we have problems) followed by their concert DVD. We are already the worst neighbors ever (they better get used to our monthly One Direction nights) but it was an excellent and very fitting first evening in our new flat.  

Nice is Nice

My dad left on Thursday to go golfing in Scotland and Ireland for ten days or something. My mom isn’t the biggest London fan (she’s a bit better now that she’s realized it can be sunny on occasion) so before coming she had debated whether to stay in London for a few extra days or if she and I should go on holiday. After getting my current job, which has flexible hours, I was able to go away with her. We had looked at deals offered on sites like Groupon before settling on British Airways. They can be expensive but they also have a thing called Last Minute Deals, where you have to go away that month but it can be really really cheap. Then it was a matter of choosing a location: there were deals everywhere from Barcelona to Copenhagen. Ultimately we chose Nice, in the French Riviera. Ironically, almost a year ago I had suggested Nice to her in passing.

                I had to wake up really early to get to Gatwick Airport to catch my flight. I had cancelled my shift the night before (good call) but it didn’t make me any less tired. I had originally requested a minicab to pick me up at 4:15am, which I later changed to 4:45am, when I realized I didn’t have to be at the airport until 6:30am because I had carry-on luggage. I took a minicab to East Croyden station, to catch a train to the airport. Because it was so early, I had to get a cab there or else leave on a nightbus at 3:00am. Easy decision. Funnily enough, I caught the train I would have been catching had I been picked up at 4:15am. Unfortunately, that meant I arrived at Gatwick just as my parents were leaving their hotel. I sat and read for awhile before I began getting nervous at my parents’ absence. They both had to check baggage and neither of them were there. They came in running just past 6:30am and we had to rush to security. My dad’s flight was boarding at 7:05am and it was really busy. We thought he would miss the flight so our goodbyes were very rushed. My mom and I actually got through security before him, because they decided to swab his iPad. Security is so lax in the UK. I accidentally left my sunglasses on my head and the only reason I got a pat-down was because the machine randomly selected me. On the way back I would leave coins in my pocket and walked through just fine. We all made our flights. We had a hen party on ours. It’s a bachelorette party. All the girls were dressed the same and were obviously really rich because when my mom asked them were they were staying they said St. Tropez. You know who goes to St. Tropez? Beyonce.

The flight was a quick two hour trip (yay for Europe!) and customs was a nonevent. Another stamp in my passport and not a word was spoken. We then had to catch a public bus to our hotel, because there aren’t shuttles. It was a little confusing trying to figure out where we were supposed to get off. I eventually asked the driver. Just in time, too, because he told me it was the next stop. We got to our hotel, the Beau Rivage, around 11:30am. Check-in wasn’t until 3:00pm but we thought we would try our luck. The girl at the front desk was really nice. Not only did she give us a room right away, she changed it from a queen bed to two twin beds. The floor in the hallways has pebbles in the design, which makes it look like you’re walking on the beach (Nice, if you don’t know, is famous for its pebble beaches rather than sand). It was really cool! Our hotel room was nicer than I expected. I always think that when you can get flights and a hotel for so cheap it’s probably going to be a bit ghetto but it wasn’t at all. It was, however, very hot. We couldn’t get the air conditioner working.

                I had been to Nice before, four years ago, but this was my mom’s first visit. Our hotel was situated in a great location, right on the Promenade des Anglais and just two minutes from Place Massena. Our first stop was the Hard Rock Café. I am one of those crazy Hard Rock people. I love going there. I love watching the music videos and I love the food. I’ve been to Hard Rock’s all over the world. My parents hate it but humor me. This one was quite nice. There was a patio area (too hot) and an upstairs, indoor area (meh) but there was also some tables inside slightly but still with the breeze from the patio and a view of the water. My mom actually really liked it. She took the seat where you could see the ocean and people and I took the seat facing the TV (I seriously like the music videos, okay?).

                Their menu is slightly different than the ones in North America, so I ended up trying a new drink. Usually I get their sangria but it wasn’t there. My mom and I both tried a drink called Pickled Tink. It’s strawberry something, vodka and pina colada mix. It was so good! We also had spinach dip for an appetizer, which they don’t usually have on their menu. My main, of course, was hot wings. I love their hot wings in general but the chef must be really good here because they were even better than usual!

                After lunch we tried walking down the Promenade des Anglais some more but it was so hot. I could feel my skin burning and even my mom was complaining about the heat. We got down as far as the Negresco Hotel before turning back. Once at our hotel we had little day naps but were very hot, even in our room. We had a tour booked for 7:00pm so we eventually had to get ready. The tour was to take us to Monaco. I have been to Monaco before and absolutely love it in the evening. There were just four of us on the tour: me and my mom and an Australian couple. Our guide was very nice. He first took us through the Old Town of Nice before heading up the coast to Monaco. I love that drive, especially as the sun is going down. Unfortunately he did not take us to the palace in Monaco, which was disappointing. The view is spectacular. All the multi-million dollar yachts in the harbor and the whole city. Oh well, at least I’ve seen it before. He did take us around Monaco a bit. He even took us on the entire Monaco Grand Prix track, which goes right through the city! Going to the Monaco Grand Prix is on my bucket list, so I thought it was awesome.

                As part of our package we had booked the tour with a three course dinner. It was an okay Italian restaurant. The Australian couple did not book with dinner but ended up joining us anyway. It was not as awkward as I thought it would be. She was a big talker and her husband was one of those adorable men who just sit there thinking to themselves while their wives talk forever. Dinner came with ¼ bottle of wine each. My mom doesn’t drink wine so I got hers too. It was actually half-decent wine. For our starter we both got ravioli which was really good. For our mains we had a choice of fish or veal. I don’t like either but figured I’d be safer with the fish. I was disappointed. Salmon is growing on me but I still am not a fish fan. I don’t like the texture. For dessert my mom had a tart and I had crème brulee for the first time. It was so good! I’ll definitely have to get it again sometime.

                Dinner took ages and by the time we had finished we only had about an hour left in the city. We headed up to the famous Monte Carlo Casino. I actually really remember my way around Monaco from last time so I was able to lead everyone up there without any difficulty. We had to go past the hairpin turn from the race track, then up through some gardens, before finally finding the casino. It is truly a spectacular building. The architecture is just breathtaking. Even if gambling isn’t your thing, go in for a drink or something, because it is really something. The Australian lady had forgotten to bring any ID so she and her husband didn’t go in. My mom and I did. It costs €10 to enter and you must have ID. I knew this from last time so it wasn’t a big deal. Last time I won €40. I wasn’t as lucky this time. I played until I was back at even, but we didn’t have a whole lot of time to do anything else, so I just played some more and eventually lost it all. I wasn’t playing with very much so it wasn’t exactly devastating. The second time I played I at least acknowledged that I was going to lose and my mom was okay with it.

                We had a little bit of time before we were being picked up so we walked around looking at all the fancy cars parked out front. The people of Monaco literally drive their cars up there so tourists will take pictures of it. There is so much wealth in Monaco it’s ridiculous. On the drive back we got to see a town called Eze all lit up. It’s on the hillside and looks really beautiful at night. We got back around midnight to our hot room and would only have a few hours sleep before our next tour.

                The one thing I missed out on on my last visit to Nice was going to Cannes. I love movies (duh) and Cannes is famous for the Cannes Film Festival. I didn’t know enough about Cannes to go on my own so we booked a tour that would take us to Cannes and through Provence. Pickup could be any time between 8 and 9am so we didn’t get much sleep. Especially since it was SO HOT. We basically sweat from the second we landed in Nice to the second the van picked us up. Even with breakfast (one of the better hotel breakfasts’ I’ve had) I still felt crappy. For the first leg of the tour it was a struggle to stay awake. I was tired and I’m fairly certain I had mild heat exhaustion. We first stopped in Antibes for twenty minutes to look at the harbor. You should see the size of these yachts! They are bigger than houses! I want one. I want a big one, because you won’t feel the waves as much. And, because, of course I’d want the big one. They were insane. From there we headed to Cannes.

                My biggest complaint about this tour is that we didn’t have a lot of time in Cannes. Only about forty minutes. For someone who really wanted to see Cannes, it was not enough time. We were very rushed the whole time, basically running from spot to spot, taking a picture and leaving. We were dropped off at the Festival Palace, where all the film premieres take place. We walked into the shop where I bought a cool-looking t-shirt about the film festival. They had handprints outside in the cement, like on Hollywood Boulevard. Had we had more time, it seemed like we could actually go inside. Instead I just took a quick picture of/on the steps to the cinemas, like in all the premiere pictures at Cannes. We then headed to a kiosk nearby. I needed to get my body temperature down, and to have some caffeine. I grabbed a Red Bull and some Diet Coke, which actually did the trick. We walked towards the beach and found the spot where the stars do their photocalls before their premieres. I took a few pictures. There was even a cruise ship in the background, like in a lot of the photos I see! We were about ten minutes away from pickup time so we had to get walking down to the pickup point, which was kind of far. We got to walk past all the hotels along the beach, where they have posters for the films premiering at Cannes. There were none right now, of course, but I could picture it.

                After our way too short visit in Cannes we headed to a village up in the hillside of France. We would get two and a half hours there, which was annoying considering how little time we had in Cannes. It was a cute village but we could have done it in an hour. First my mom and I walked around, trying to find a place for lunch. I wanted escargots but she really wanted something with carbs, so when we found a restaurant overlooking the hillside that had a club sandwich for her and ravioli for me, we decided to eat there, figuring we would be able to find escargot in Nice that evening. We grabbed some ice cream for dessert at a little shop and bought a macaroon. My mom had never tried one before. I really like them! Then we sat around waiting for our pickup time. Seriously, they should have given us ninety minutes in Cannes and ninety minutes here. I don’t even know how the other six people on our tour killed time, because they didn’t even have lunch.

                We then headed up through the hills of Provence. We saw a village made out of stone, which was pretty cool, and drove up to Gourdon, which is a village famous for gingerbread. My mother decided she spoke French better than me so when I insisted a shop sold gingerbread she didn’t believe me. It was actually really funny. The shop owner gave us a taste of the gingerbread which I really liked but my mom didn’t because apparently only gingerbread men are good. She’s weird. We then drove to Grasse to visit the Fragonard perfumery. I could have visited that before but I am really sensitive to smells so last time I sat outside with the hungover people I was with. This time I decided to go in. It was included in our tour so I figured if I got sick I could just leave and it wasn’t like we had bought the tickets. I made it through the tour. It was interesting, kind of. They showed how they make and bottle the perfume. As someone who can’t really wear it, I don’t really care. That was the last stop on our tour and we headed back to Nice.

                After a quick rest in our hotel my mom and I went walking through Place Massena to find a nice place for supper. Remember how I had ravioli for lunch because I figured we’d find escargot for dinner? My mistake. Nice is full of Italian restaurants (I guess because of its proximity to the country). Had I wanted ravioli I could have eaten at any number of restaurants. We did have a nice walk through Old Town during our search, though. We had resigned ourselves to return to the Hard Rock (my mom, ironically, was encouraging this – apparently because she really wanted another Pickled Tink). I had seen a restaurant on the same block that looked promising earlier, so we checked out their menu first. It had escargots! Decision made. It was called Balthazar. It’s typically a piano bar but today it was set up to watch the World Cup, which had started the day before (I saw some of the opening ceremonies in Monaco). I seem to always end up in Europe during the World Cup and always watching the games at some restaurant or bar. It’s kind of fun, because everyone gets so into it. My escargot were delicious! They were very traditional, which meant I had to pull them out of the shell. For my main I got some duck, which wasn’t very good. But I had my French meal and that’s all that mattered.

                Saturday was our last day. We had originally thought to stay until Sunday, but it would have been harder for my mom to get back to Calgary. We didn’t really need the extra day, anyway. Maybe if we had been in Barcelona or someplace, but I felt like three days was enough. The tricky thing was that our choices were limited to a 7:30am flight (to early) or 7:30pm (a little too late). We laid in bed until check-out time, which was noon. Then we headed to the Hard Rock for lunch. We tried the bruschetta for our appetizer this time, which was probably the best bruschetta I’ve ever had. We ate in the upstairs section this time. We chose poorly, because for some insane reason there was a birthday party happening for a five year old. What five year old has a birthday party at the Hard Rock? Anyways, there were a dozen screaming children running around. It was annoying and loud. But the food was good.

                We still had time to kill before heading to the airport. We weren’t really sure what to do. We had seen these trams on the Promenade des Anglais the last few days so we went to check it out. It turned out it was a little hour-long tour of the Old Town and up to the ruins of a castle. It wasn’t too expensive and we had nothing better to do, so we took it. It was actually really enjoyable. The audioguide was actually quite informative and the views of the city from the top of the hill were breathtaking.

                From there we walked down the beach and through the streets for a bit before heading back to the hotel to get our luggage and get on the bus to the airport. We were two hours early for our flight which turned into even longer because the plane was delayed. I only brought one book and their free wifi was terrible. I also missed my last train in London, so I didn’t get back until 1am. Sigh. But it was a nice trip with my mom, who headed home the next morning to Canada.

 

The Weekend and Also, My Parents Came to Visit

Friday

I had to line up a lot of work because my parents were coming to visit so it was a pretty busy week. I started on Saturday and had applied for work for the next week. My job apparently decided I was working too much (I see I’m taking time off the next week, they see a really tired employee come day six) so I ended up getting the Friday off before my final Saturday shift. Sarah and I saw this possibility coming (she also had Friday off) and had decided to use the magical world of StubHub (www.stubhub.co.uk) to see if we could get half-decent, day-of tickets to see One Direction. That’s right. We woke up to find that tickets had dipped to our pay limit (we were going Sunday already so we weren’t going to pay more than a certain amount to see them Friday). The boys were playing Wembley Stadium for three nights and this was their first show. Our tickets were in Standing Yellow, which was in a back corner of the football pitch.

I met Sarah at Oxford Circus at 3:00pm to go grab the tickets. In Canada, when you get tickets off StubHub you get them emailed to you and you just print them off. Here you go to StubHub’s last minute ticket center. Which meant we got actual tickets! They were really cool. They had One Direction’s faces on it! We then walked to find some food which ended up leading us on the scenic route to Baker Street, where we eventually settled for some little cafeteria. I got some crappy lasagna (my mom makes the best lasagna all other lasagnas suck) and fries. Sigh. Then we headed up on the train to Wembley. You can always tell who is going to a One Direction concert because they are female and probably wearing their faces everywhere. We weren’t, but only because I left my hoodie in Calgary (and Sarah’s One Direction duct tape). The scene at the train station was madness. There were girls everywhere. The gates wouldn’t open until 5:00pm so we had half an hour in the craziness. That being said, the view from the train station was pretty cool. The stadium is in full view across the pathway, there were double decker buses riding on the bridge in front of it, and a giant One Direction billboard plastered across the front.

We waited outside longer than necessary, until Sarah realized that Wembley Stadium was outside. It was organized chaos to get in. We all had specific entry gates and they would only let about fifty people in at a time. The arena itself is huge. Normally the area with concessions is jampacked but it was so big in there it didn’t seem very busy. We sat on some couches we found and listened to a radio program that was recording from the stadium. Everything got pushed back half an hour so it was a lot of sitting. Their opening act, 5 Seconds of Summer, also opened when we saw them in Vancouver. We skipped them then, too.  Finally, at 8:00pm we went to our standing section to wait for the concert. They played some really fun music while we waited, like Bruno Mars’ Locked Out of Heaven, which definitely made the waiting easier. Then it started. I screamed and danced and freaked out. It was good times. I love Harry Styles. And I’d get to see it again Sunday!

Saturday

The next day was a bit rough, mostly because we didn’t get in until late as we missed the last train and had to take the night bus. I had to get up at 10am to work. When I’d finished at 8pm, Sarah and I headed to Trafalgar Square to meet my parents, who had just come in from Canada. They were jetlagged and tired and had been walking around all day so all we did was walk to Covent Garden so I could grab some Shake Shack to eat. It was a tasty burger.

Sunday

                Sarah, Sandra and I had all cleared our schedules to hang out with my parents all day. We started off with Sunday buffet brunch at Babur, the Indian place Sarah and I had eaten at nearly two months before. We were cautious not to fill up (Sarah and I have learned from our mistakes). From there we took the train down to London Bridge. My parents really like walking, and I don’t, so I tried to find a happy medium. The walk from London Bridge to Waterloo takes about forty-five minutes and has a lot of nice things to see. On the walk you pass Southwark Cathedral, Shakespeare’s Globe, Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge, Oxo Tower, ITV Studios, BFI, and more. My dad wanted to see The Old Vic, so we walked a little past the station so I could show him. I also freaked everyone out by pointing to a restaurant and giving the exact date Harry Styles ate there. Oops.

                From Waterloo we headed to my parents’ hotel, the London Edition. First we stopped to pick up our second round of One Direction tickets. We were in the stands this time, in Club Wembley. Everyone but me and Sandra had a nap at my parents’ hotel. We got to Wembley Stadium around 5:30pm this time and there was far less of a crowd waiting outside. We walked the whole arena again before grabbing some surprisingly tasty pizza and some not so tasty popcorn. We skipped 5 Seconds of Summer again. They announced that the boys would be coming on at 7:45pm, but it was more like 8:30pm again. This time Sarah and I could see the whole stage, though the boys themselves were very very small. That’s the problem with arenas. There’s not really a good seat. If you’re close, you can’t see all the action. But if you’re in the stands, you’re far away just because of the size of the place.

                This concert was even more fun than Friday’s. I danced around and screamed and acted like a fourteen year old. It was really great. Did I mention I love Harry Styles? We had to catch the train because everyone needed to get up early. Again, it was organized chaos. They didn’t want everyone rushing the station so they held us back until everything was clear. The police were so well-prepared. They brought a microphone and a record player and started playing One Direction songs through the mic! It was funny and thoughtful of them.

 

Monday

                I was working Monday night but I had the morning and afternoon off to hang out with my parents. My dad had booked a Rock & Roll Tour of London in the morning. It was very informative. It took us all around Soho, Highbury & Islington, and Camden, showing us many sights of the British music scene. They tailor the tour to your interests, which is good and bad. Nobody said they liked The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin, so we, unfortunately, did not hear much about them. I said Joy Division, though, and they actually found a way to incorporate them into the tour, which was impressive.

                Our tour finished around 12:30pm in Trafalgar Square. We went to Covent Garden to meet Sarah and introduce my parents to the wonders of Nando’s. They were impressed. Afterwards Sarah went back to the flat and my parents and I went shopping briefly, before I went back to their hotel to get ready for work and they walked down to Harrod’s.

 

Tuesday

                Another early morning as Sarah, Sandra and I headed to Victoria to meet up with my parents. We had booked a coach tour of Stonehenge and Bath. The coach wasn’t completely full, which was nice. Everyone mostly slept on the drive out to Stonehenge. Even our guide stayed quiet, after acknowledging the fact that everyone was probably going to fall asleep. Good call. We got to Stonehenge in about an hour and a half and had an hour to look around. The tickets were included in our tour, as were the audio guides. You have to take a shuttle partway up to Stonehenge and then walk for a bit. Sometimes I really like audioguides but today I was just not in the mood to listen, so Sarah and I just walked around. You’re not allowed to get close anymore, because people suck. They would try to push the rocks over or deface them in some way. That, and the ground is unstable after all these centuries. Stonehenge has actually been a tourist attraction since the 17^th century or something like that.

                It was pretty cool to walk around something so old, but it’s also kind of overrated. I thought it would be bigger or more imposing; that I would somehow feel insignificant when standing there. But honestly, it’s just some old rocks in a cool pattern. My dad thought we were going to Easter Island and kept asking where the giant heads were. After we took the shuttle back down to the Visitor’s Center and went in the exhibition. It was basically a museum dumbing down what was said on the audioguide. What is Stonehenge, why did they build it, etc. My favorite room was a room of theories about Stonehenge’s existence. It’s up for debate and I like conspiracy theories like that. Then we were back on the bus to head to Bath.

                The ride to Bath took another hour and we sometimes drove through some countryside villages. I was more excited to see Bath than Stonehenge. The city is beautiful. The buildings are a mix of Roman and Georgian architecture and it’s a really cool combination. They also primarily use these kindof gold-beige stones which are so pretty. When we got off the bus our guide took us on a walking tour of the city. We saw the exterior of the Roman Baths, the Royal Crescent (which I found really cool) and some other famous landmarks. Mostly I just really liked walking around the city, taking it all in. I don’t think I could spend more than a day there, but it sure is nice to look at.

                We had forgotten to book tickets to the Roman Baths with our tour except for Sandra who booked separately from us. By chance, there was one token to enter left over, so Sarah and I used the two to see the baths. They were really cool. It’s basically the ruins of a spa. After walking through it they have a miniature of what the baths would have looked like. It was really cool to see how it would have looked. It really did look like a spa with a bunch of swimming pools and hot tubs.

                After we finished at the baths (we skipped the audioguide again) we met up with my parents and went looking for a bite to eat. We visited a pub which actually had some really good chicken wings. It’s really hard to find good hot wings in England. They are my favorite. But these were fine. We did a quick walk through the shopping area which turned into us almost missing our bus. There wasn’t anything left to the tour after that, just the drive back to London.

Wednesday

                Sarah and I spent the morning at our new flat (more on that in another post). I met my parents to show them the new neighborhood and then we headed to Camden. My parents had taken an interest in it after our Rock & Roll tour so I took them to the high street so they could check out the markets. It, unsurprisingly, wasn’t really their scene. We did shop at H&M for a bit and grabbed some lunch at Wetherspoon’s. My dad tried the veggie burger and loved it. My mom tried the purple drink and loved it. Then we headed down to Oxford Circus where we shopped at H&M (again), Debenham’s and TK Maxx.

                Sandra met us down at Oxford Circus and we went to supper at Belgo, the mussels restaurant. I’d been to the one in Bromley with Sarah but this time we went to Covent Garden. The food was just as good (my mother is hard to please and she really liked the mussels) but the restaurant was really crowded and loud. Oh well, it was still a very satisfying final meal with my parents.

               

Flats Flats Flats

                So we’ve ticked getting jobs off of our list and now face one big obstacle: finding a flat. We’ve been hoboing it up on my aunt’s couch for a month and a half and it’s time I start sleeping by myself. The only problem? Finding a flat is really hard and expensive. The BritBound Facebook page frequently has people advertising rooms but it’s never what we want. Either it’s only one room available or you’re sharing with too many people. I kid you not, I saw someone offering a room in a 3-bedroom flat where each room has three girls sleeping there. NINE people in a 3-bedroom flat. I actually am pretty sure that’s illegal.

                We had already toured our dream flat, the one in West Kensington, but it was time to get realistic. Today was the second day of our weekend and we had purposefully set it aside for flat viewing. We saw three places today. The first two we viewed through an agent. The first flat, in Sydenham, was okay. It was a bit old – the furniture looked very worn – and the second bedroom was basically a closet. We moved on to one in Forest Hill. It was a 3-bedroom but the price was ridiculously cheap. This is when we realized that we would not be using an agent. To get a flat through an agent you have to pay £150 each for referencing. Then you pay a £200 holding fee. All this before you even move in, at which point you surrender ten weeks’ rent. We were expecting a deposit but all those extra fees are just ridiculous. Not to mention you have to prove your combined income equals rent times 30. As in, a combined income of 36-39K. It’s ridiculous. There’s only 12 months in a year, why do we need to prove we can pay for two and a half? The second flat was nice-looking but I hated the building. It looked very estate-like and not very homey until you actually got inside. It’s also smack in the middle of two train stations and picturing walking home late at night, I didn’t feel safe.

                We were feeling pretty dejected about the whole thing when we went to our third viewing in Gants Hill. We had found this one through Spareroom (www.spareroom.co.uk), a flat website where you pick your requirements. The rent was ridiculously cheap but the flat is quite far out of the city: in zone 4 (we were hoping for zones 1-3). The road it is situated on is quite nice. I could definitely picture myself walking it late at night and not worrying about getting raped and murdered. It’s also about five minutes from the tube station. The night bus is excellent, with stops through all the major points of central London. Did I mention the rent is cheap? It’s furnished and two-bedroomed, like we wanted. We would need to buy a couch and a TV but we’re saving so much money it doesn’t matter. It looks like that might be what we do. I just have to find out what the utilities cost and then we’ll give them permission to reference us. Hopefully we don’t get screwed there. We still can’t make times 30 (we’re more like times 28) but I’m going to hope for the best. Who knows? I could have my own flat in the next week or two!

I Has A Job!

                Finally, after sending out an insane amount of job applications with no response (or at least no good responses), I was starting to lose hope. How long can Sarah and I stay in London if we are unemployed? On a frustrated whim, I applied for a job advertised on the BritBound website Wednesday morning. That afternoon they called me and we had a phone interview. I was invited to attend a group interview Friday at their offices. Finally! Some progress. The only frustrating thing was I had to purchase their standard uniform before the interview. Which meant Thursday Sarah and I ventured into Bromley to visit The Glades Shopping Centre and pick up the articles of clothing. Sarah was getting some too, as she had applied for the job shortly after I received my phone call.

                Before we began hunting for clothes we ate at a restaurant recommended by Imogen several weeks prior, called Belgo (www.belgo-restaurants.co.uk). I love mussels, which some people know better than others (my Mexico peeps) and I have been talking about wanting mussels for awhile now. It was the perfect opportunity. They have a ridiculously cheap lunch deal where you can get a half-kilo of mussels and a drink for £7.95.  Needless to say, it was delicious and I will definitely be going back. After a satisfying lunch we started looking for the items we needed: a black tie, a black long-sleeved collared t-shirt, and black pants. The pants and tie were found easily at Marks & Spencer. The shirt was difficult. First, it took forever to even find a men’s plain black t-shirt. Then we had to figure out the size. How do guys do it? And how do girls figure out their guy’s shirt size? I am not built like a man and I have these things called boobs. So after three different stores we found some passable shirts at Debenhams. They are rather bulky in places but I didn’t have time to get a fitted shirt. I had been dreading the price tag on the shirt since the last time I picked up a men’s shirt was when Sarah and I dressed like Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson for Halloween two years ago and it was expensive. Much to my surprise, the shirt was actually the cheapest item!

                Friday was interview day and I wasn’t actually that nervous. I am quite confident in my interview skills and I have had a group interview before. Sarah returned the company’s phone call (they called while we were shopping Thursday) and ended up being placed in my group interview, which alleviated the pressure even further. We had to head all the way to Knightsbridge for the interview and, as we tend to do, arrived quite early. We wandered around Hyde Park for awhile before heading in to the interview.

                I would talk about the job but I had to sign a confidentiality agreement. Sorry. Suffice it to say that we both got through the first part of the interview and were invited to attend an all-day assessment – the final stage of the interview – Saturday. From 9:30am to 5:00pm. In Camden. And the trains weren’t running again this weekend. Sigh. So we woke up really early and took a bus, a tube and another bus to get there. Early again. We finished at 3:30pm which was earlier than anticipated and nice. What was even better was that we both got the job! Yay for no longer being unemployed! The best part of the job is that it’s flexible and you pick your hours, which means we can continue our job search and even get another job on the side. It’s actually kind of perfect for right now. And we can find a flat!

                When we got back to the flat we both got emails scheduling us for shifts for the week. I’m more nervous about the first shift, which Sarah is not working with me, than I was about the interview. It’s also intense – I work two shifts in two different parts of London Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I guess I’ll really be getting the hang of public transport. And Sarah will have to figure out how to find places on her on. We should really probably get phones…

You would think we would celebrate getting jobs but we were exhausted after three days of preparation and interviewing and whatnot so we just ordered some pizza and watched Gossip Girl and went to bed before midnight. Because we are the coolest.

Sunday we stayed in the flat enjoying our last day of doing nothing. Monday we technically weren’t working but it was still a very busy day. We had to go to Camden for 9:30am again to do a training course required for our job. It was supposed to go from 9:30am to 4:30pm but fortunately ended at 2:00pm and was ridiculously easy and boring. After the session Sarah and I, along with our friend Jeremy who also works with us, went to Camden Market to try and find the last remaining uniform items. We were semi-successful and ended up wandering the entire market trying to find things. I’ve heard about Camden Market and it lives up to its reputation. They have the coolest shops and stalls. If I had money I would buy so much stuff.

Sarah and I were booked to view a flat at 7:00pm and we finished our Camden wandering around 4:00pm. We decided to pop into a pub to wait and we chose The World’s End. I don’t know if I mentioned this from the day we went to the zoo but we died when we saw it. For those of you that don’t know, The World’s End is a movie about an alien invasion pub crawl. It’s British, obviously. So the first time we saw a pub actually called The World’s End we died of shock. So it made sense to pop in there and have a couple drinks while we waited.

We then hopped on a bus to West Kensington. It was a bittersweet flat viewing. We knew ahead of time that, realistically, we couldn’t afford it. We were hoping it wouldn’t be that nice or it would be too small and we could justify it. We were wrong. The flat was gorgeous and all the furniture, bedding, utensils, etc. was included. We wanted it so bad but at the end of the day, do we want to be able to eat out or go to clubs or go to movies? Because if we got this flat it wouldn’t be happening. So the search continues…

Tuesday was my first day at work. Like I said, I can’t talk about it because I signed a confidentiality agreement. But it was not as worrisome as I originally predicted. The guy they had me working with is kind of my favorite person ever and most of the people are really nice. By Wednesday I was put in a position to boss people around, which I liked. It’s pretty exciting but I hadn’t worked in two months and worked ten hours the first day so I was exhausted by the time I finished. I’m shocked I managed to get back to the flat.

Zooing it up a Notch

                Since we are still unemployed couch hobos we have to be productive, but we also have to get out of the flat once and awhile or else we will go crazy. What we tend to do is one day in and then one day out (for a few hours, at least). When we woke up today the sun was shining so we decided to visit the London Zoo (http://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo). It ended up being the perfect day for it. The sun was out but it wasn’t too hot and a Wednesday in April means it’s not overly crowded.

                The zoo is massive and located inside Regent’s Park. We had taken the tube to Camden Town and got to walk through the area on our way to the entrance. There is so much to see at the zoo and we easily wasted several hours. We began with the aquarium, which I don’t really like because I am scared of fish. Then we moved on to the reptiles, which are awesome. Snakes are cool. It’s also where they shot the snake scene from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone! After that we saw some gorillas, which apparently freak Sarah out because they too closely resemble humans. Then we backtracked and saw some giant (and I mean giant) tortoises and the coolest thing ever: komodo dragons. Then we stopped by their Outback exhibit, which has kangaroos and emus. There were two kangaroos that went inside and were sleeping. They were super cute and funny. One of them was sleeping like a drunk.

                After that we went to the tiger area but there was only one sleeping tiger in the whole exhibit. That is because the female tiger just had cubs this week, so obviously they aren’t going to be on display yet. We stopped and grabbed an early lunch because if we waited until actual lunchtime we’d have to fight with the school groups and children. From lunch we went to the penguins, who are major famewhores. They want your attention so badly. After that we checked out some bugs (yes, there is an exhibit on bugs) and a butterfly tent. We got to walk around an open enclosure with some monkeys. We saw some lions. Then we saw the llamas. One of the llamas had babies on April 16^th and the babies were out. They were adorable and so cute! It’s probably the only time I will ever see a baby llama.

                Having conquered the main part of the zoo we went through the tunnel to the last few exhibits. Up first was Africa. We saw pygmy hippos which are actually kind of cute because they are little. I couldn’t help but laugh thinking of the lurking hippos during the Calgary flood. The giraffes and zebras and okapi (?) were all outside because the day was nice. From there we went to the rainforest exhibit. Supposedly there are sloths in there but I didn’t see any, which was disappointing. The chinchillas were adorable, though.

                The last exhibit of the day contained the cutest otters in the world, fruit bats, reindeer and meercats. Fortunately, the meercats were not having a bloodbath like the last time I was at the zoo. Having finished for the day we decided to walk through Regent’s Park and grab the tube from Baker Street rather than Camden Town. It would have been a more enjoyable walk had I not walked my feet off at the zoo. I don’t think proper footwear exists for me.

How It Began...

 Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

                Well after lots and lots (and I mean lots) of planning, it’s about time to start the biggest journey of my life: moving to London. I first decided I wanted to move there after my first visit, back in summer 2007. I was sixteen at the time, so that wasn’t going to happen immediately. I returned the following summer, where I heard from two Canadians staying with my aunt about a special visa for Canadian youths. This peaked my interest – and my idea’s feasibility – because until then I thought the only way I’d be allowed to live in England was through company sponsorship. The Tier 5 Youth Mobility Visa solved that problem for me. And so I started planning. About two years after that, a friend of mine told me about SWAP. It’s a Canadian program that facilitates the visa application process, specifically, the Tier 5 Youth Mobility one. It’s more expensive than just getting the Visa on your own, but they check all your documents and offer a lot of things that you wouldn’t get by doing it on your own. Eventually my friend Sarah decided she was as crazy as me and decided to join in on the adventure. It’s awesome because now all the stress and confusion I have to go through before and after the visa application process, I can share with else. We leave for England April 1^st. And here is how we got here (in case you ever think you may want to do something similar):

Step 1

                After much examination of the SWAP website (www.swap.ca), we bothered to see if there was any actual offices for us to visit. Lo and behold, there was a Travel Cuts (who is partnered with SWAP) at our university. So, more than a year before we would actually apply), we went and talked to them. Our travel agent for the entire process was Danielle Bruce and she is a goddess. Not only has she done lots of travelling, she’s been in the industry for over a decade and really knows her stuff. She gets excited with you and gets almost as frustrated as you are when things aren’t going right. If you are planning a trip and live in Calgary, go see her at the university, or give her a call at 1-403-282-7687, or email her at dbruce@travelcuts.com .

                At our first meeting with her, since it was so far in advance, we basically wanted to just get a sense of what the process was like and what to expect. You can apply with SWAP either on their website or through an affiliated agency like Travel Cuts. After this meeting, we knew we wanted to deal with Danielle. There’s something reassuring about being able to communicate with an actual person, rather than the internet. Sure, we had to put pants on and drive and pay for parking but it’s worth it when you think of something in the middle of talking about something else and there’s a person – not a computer – right in front of you with the answer. Like I said, we weren’t flying for another year, so we had what we needed and waited to go back closer to our departure date.

Step 2

                The SWAP website says you need to give yourself about eight weeks to go through the process. Originally, Sarah and I planned on going in January, immediately after graduating university. When we returned to Danielle, we learned that was not going to happen. I was going to New York at the end of October, while both Sarah and I were headed to Mexico for New Year’s. We were told that if everything went right we would maybe have our passports back before Mexico. But that was a pretty big gamble so we decided to hold off until we got back.

                If you’re wondering why we didn’t just put our applications in earlier, it’s because you can’t leave the country after you submit your initial application to SWAP. We could pay the fee but that was about it, otherwise I would have broken the protocol, even though you don’t surrender your passport until much later.

Step 3

                Back from Mexico, Sarah and I once again returned to Danielle. The first thing you hand over is a short form to register with SWAP. It’s pretty basic questions like your name, address, citizenship, etc. You also pay your fee. At the time we registered it was $630. Ours was cheaper because we did not need accommodation. Even if you get the package with accommodation, however, they only give you a couple days in a hostel. Not worth it, in my opinion. The cost went up a few weeks after Sarah and I paid, because the Canadian dollar is the devil and agencies are having to increase the cost of just about everything to make up for how low it is.

Step 4

                We were told it would take roughly 2-3 days for SWAP to email us all the forms we needed to fill out. Surprisingly, we got them the next morning. The email has four attachments.

1. A welcome letter from SWAP that also has a step-by-step guide for filling out the application. It is very, very specific. Sarah and I both went back to it several times to check some information, almost always finding the answers.
2. A note about travel insurance. With SWAP you absolutely have to have travel insurance in very specific amounts. They seem daunting (it’s something like $5 million in medical) but I guess it’s pretty standard amounts. SWAP recommends a form of insurance with Travel Cuts, but you can use your own. You just have to fill out a form and send it to them.
3. A short part of your visa application. In order to quality you obtain points. You need fifty. They are given in three sections: Citizenship, Age and Money. You have to be a citizen of a handful of countries, between 18 and 30, and have the equivalent of £1800 in your bank account. You also have to specify the documents you will be providing the British government to prove this. For Sarah and myself, we used our passports as proof of citizenship and age, and obtained letters from our bank, RBC, to prove our funds. This form does not get submitted to SWAP. You bring it to your VAC appointment later.
4. The main application form. It is very long and very comprehensive. It asks about everything from your basic information to incredibly specific travel history. For me, travel history was the most difficult. There’s two parts to it. In the first, you list your last five visits to the United Kingdom. You must provide dates and everywhere you visited (so try and remember your little day trips). The second, most evil, part of the travel history was a list of everywhere you’ve gone outside of Canada in the last decade. I travel a lot. I filled two pages. You must specify exact dates, as well as where you were and why you were there. And I’m pretty sure with a travel history as extensive as mine, ‘holiday’ just won’t cut it. So if I went for a concert, I listed concert. If I had any family living where I went and happened to see them, I listed visiting family. It was exhausting.
   Tip: If you have a lot of dates, like me, go through your Facebook timeline. I found every date I left and returned all the way back to 2007 because I always post a status about leaving and about returning. For pre-Facebook I had to start improvising. We went through home videos and photographs. At one point I asked my aunt to check a date on a postcard. My dad even went through his golf score cards to figure out when we were in Florida!

Step 5

                After finishing all the forms we took them back to Danielle to courier to SWAP in Toronto. Technically, we could have submitted them a day after we got them. We ended up waiting several weeks. As I’ve mentioned before, the Canadian dollar is terrible. The year before, £1800 was about $2800-2900 Canadian. By the time we were filling out our forms it was switching between $3200-3400, depending on the day. It was a nightmare. It’s a lot of money for two recent university graduates. We were finding ourselves constantly counting our money down to the last cent and it was getting stressful. Ultimately we decided to wait for one more paycheck, even though it meant we would be in Calgary longer.

                Once your forms are sent to SWAP they fill out the online application and lodge it with the British government. At that point they know you exist. You must have £1800 in either a checking or savings account on this day and you can no longer leave the country.

Step 6

                After the application was lodged Sarah and I received emails from the government, giving us our next steps. First, we needed to get our bank letter. With SWAP, they want to check your letter to make sure it’s correct prior to your VAC appointment. There’s a lot of very specific things. When I went into my branch I had printed off both the checklist and sample letter provided by SWAP. They were very helpful, even if they weren’t too sure what I was asking for. Some of it is very straight-forward (your name and address, for example) but it gets tricky when you must specify the date. My application was lodged on February 10^th but I didn’t go to the bank until the 12^th. My letter had to say the money was in my account on the 10^th. I explained it very clearly it needed to have that date – not the day I closed my tax-free savings, not the day I came in – and they did as I asked. I emailed my letter to SWAP and they gave it the OK.

                It was at this step that we were very grateful for choosing SWAP. Sarah got her letter done at another bank and when she emailed the letter to SWAP, they told her it was incorrect. So she had to go back. No big deal, except if we didn’t have SWAP checking it for us, that would have been the letter submitted to the government – and then lead to the rejection of her visa application. More money, more waiting, and a situation I don’t think anyone wants to deal with.

Step 7

                About a week after our application was lodged, Sarah and I had to pay a visit to the VAC (Visa Application Center). There’s only a few in Canada, so we had to drive up to Edmonton. We almost died because Alberta has messed up weather. Somehow, against all odds, we made it to our appointments on time. It is here that you surrender your passport, any old passports (or a letter explaining why you don’t have them), the visa application SWAP lodged, the bank letter and photocopies of everything (just in case). You also have to get a photo taken (something to do with facial recognition) and fingerprints.  Basically, biometric testing. It is at this point that you put everything in an envelope and mail it to New York. And wait.

Step 8

                They tell you it takes 15 business days for the passport and visa to come back to you, which is three weeks. Because you’re with SWAP, it goes to their offices in Toronto first before getting couriered to your travel agent. This feels like the longest 15 days in the world. After 10 business days Sarah and I received emails saying our visas were approved. I emailed Danielle to see what the next step was. She emailed SWAP.

                Now, between the time Sarah and I mailed out our passports and when we got approved, the VACs all got bought out by another company. We thought we were lucky, like when the SWAP rates changed weeks after we registered. Now you have to pay $115ish at the VACs, where before it was free. When SWAP got back to Danielle, they told her that because of this transition, our passports would be shipped directly to us. So we waited. And waited. And waited. A week went by and we were getting worried. I emailed Danielle again, who told me that if we didn’t have them back by Friday (10 business days from our first email) SWAP would look into it. We didn’t have them back by Friday but it appeared SWAP had taken the initiative and looked into it for us before then. Just as I was logging in to my email to inform Danielle of this, she emailed me to say that SWAP found our passports. The British government had held onto the passports during the transition. By Tuesday, our passports had already been to Toronto and were now back in Calgary.

Step 9

                Wednesday we made our last trip to see Danielle. We got our passports, with the visas glued inside. All that was left was to get plane tickets and travel insurance. We both chose to go with the Bon Voyage travel insurance offered by Travel Cuts. A one year Plan B (all the required insurance but without baggage or passport insurance), good anywhere but the United States, cost us $432. If we had taken Plan A it would have been over $700. Either option with the inclusion of the United States would have been over $800.

                As for flights, we ended up not using Danielle. We wanted to, but the flight we found that we liked was online-only, which meant she couldn’t get it for us. We had initially been hoping to use www.canadianaffair.ca but they only fly on Saturdays and it wasn’t a significant enough price difference for us to change our minds. Our flight was $662 and direct. What is even better is that it leaves at 10:00pm, and we will be tired. It gets to London at 1:55pm. What does that mean? We don’t have to stay up as long and might have been able to sleep a bit on the plane! Instead of trying to keep yourself the entire day to fight off jetlag, we can get through customs, to where we’re staying and it will be around 4:00pm. Grab an early supper, put on a movie and 9:00pm will come soon enough. (I find that if you stay up until 9 or 10 you will pretty much beat jet lag.)

Honorary Step

                Have a goodbye party! Our mutual friend organized a goodbye party for Sarah and myself. It happened several weeks before we left. It seems early but in the last few weeks you’ll find yourself so busy you will be glad you did it. Ours was perfect. We started out having dinner at a restaurant called The Keg, which is the place Sarah and I always go out to eat together. There were about twenty people at dinner. We had a good time talking and eating and drinking. It’s basically a fancier way to pregame. We have many friends who don’t like nightclubs, so it was also a good plan for people who had plans later or just didn’t feel like going out.

                After the restaurant we went to Roadhouse, which is the club in Calgary Sarah and I go to the most. We had the VIP room which meant there was a separate place for us to keep our stuff, complete with places to sit. You have to go downstairs if you want drinks or to dance, but I love the VIP room. We also had a party package which gave us $25 drink certificates and two bottles of champagne. There was about 30 people at the club (some people only came to that part which made up for the people who left after dinner).

So What Now?

                Once our passports got back to SWAP in Toronto we were registered for BritBound. It’s basically another version of SWAP, except located in the UK and not exclusively for Canadians. You don’t have to be with SWAP to use BritBound – they offer several packages for people new to the United Kingdom for different prices. We received the Hit the Ground Running package as part of our arrangement with SWAP. We haven’t exactly used them yet but it looks like they are a good bargain. Again, it’s important we have actual live people to deal with and, with an office in Shoreditch, BritBound will do that. They also have an orientation meeting that I’m really looking forward to and – what I didn’t know – a traditional pub lunch, which I think is a pretty cool idea.

                So we’re on to the last few steps (and days) before England – so what do we have to do now? FILL OUT MORE FORMS OF COURSE! BritBound has a massive form you need to fill out. It is really confusing at first. It took me a few visits to their website to get it all done. Some of it is easy, like saying when you’re flying. Some of it is daunting, like the employment section. And some of it doesn’t make any sense, at least at first, like setting up your Bank Account and Money Transfer, and a SIM card for your phone. As it turns out, you don’t need to have everything done right up until confirmation of your bank appointment for your BritBound forms to be considered finished. Which was nice, once we realized it. I’m still absolutely happy we used SWAP/BritBound but there definitely needs to be more clarity on the forms.

                Oh well, it’s an adventure?