Probably time to write something about this. Overall pretty good. Although I am slowly seeing my new found worklife balances slipping away...
I seem to have some pretty great clients including MTV. MTV?! Coal plants and uranium to MTV? That is definitely an improvement. As you might think, the MTV office is pretty cool. It is in the punk/alternative/hippie part of London and there are music videos streaming on the wall of the lobby. I sat in a conference room with a giant picture of Jay-Z and the dress code in very casual. I was sitting there one morning and started hearing Ke$ha. Apparently music continuously streams through the speaker system (although softly). There is another conference room that has phrases written in the frosted glass. (There is some VIVA MTV thing with a slogan that starts with UP). Phrases included: "Up your Power-pointless presentations", "Up your bored-room meetings" and best of all "Up your doing it on the boardroom table". FOR REAL? Love it.
Then I'm going to be senioring a telecomm client and doing some work for advertising client in ITALY for two weeks! I can't believe. In two weeks I will be going to Padova, Italy (one hourish from Venice) for two weeks. It will be a solo mission and I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to be doing until I meet with the client tomorrow. This is the first work we are doing for them and it's all me which is a little intimidating but quite fantastic. I'm going to stay the weekend in between and Jim will fly in.
This fall is turning out to be quite busy. I'm not going to be able to use my free "settling in" days or my 2.5 vacation days before Sept. 30 and I can't take time off for Beth to visit over Thanksgiving. Hopefully nothing to insane though. I will keep you posted.
Work is strange because it is very similar but yet all the small things are different in terms in admin and the actual auditing. It's kind of like being new. It's interesting because I think I expected it to be exactly the same, or things I didn't realize could be different are and the US has more resources and is ahead in the technology we use.
Happy Tuesday :) Miss everybody!
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Labor Day the UK way
This past weekend was the UK summer bank holiday which is similar to Labor Day in signifying the end of summer and getting Monday off from work. In celebration we did the following:
Friday: Met up with some of Jim's fellow teachers at our local pub after work. It was great to finally meet some of them and the group had two teachers from Mexico, one Aussie, one from Ohio and none from Britain. So far this is how things have been going. We have met so many people from other countries but not many locals. This is a VERY international city and it amazes me that I have probably met more people from around the globe in the last few weeks than I have in my entire life.
We really like the English pubs (by definition open till 11pm. I don't like that part). They have so much atmosphere and you feel like you are in a living room, with coaches/love seats and chandeliers. We also found a bar (open later) that had a hip-hop dance party going on and that felt like home.
Saturday: Another attempt at getting the internet for our apartment. Unsuccessful. Grocery shopping at a "real" (but still small) store. Pretty successful. Although, there was no mac n' cheese in a box. This is going to be an issue. I'm thinking I might need to learn to make it from scratch with all my new found free time and my great new kitchen.
We went to the St. Pancras train station and asked what was the soonest/cheapest National Rail tickets we could get for the day. This was followed by "Well, where do you want to go?". We didn't care, but the ticket agent wasn't exactly prepared to play travel agent for us. We ended up going to Cambridge because this train station apparently only went north.
Cambridge... We all have heard of Cambridge as in the University but this town was really great and definitely exceeded my expectations. The amount of history, old beautiful churches, academic buildings and grass courtyards was amazing. There were universities dating back to the 1300s. Other highlights included the hours we spend in the pub until our 11pm train (only 1 hr 15 ride) and watching "Punting" down the river. This is similar to a Venice gondala but bigger. Picture a low, flat boat with a man standing on the back. We didn't participate due to the time of day and that the weather sucked. However, we did see a group of drunk guys attempting to row one of these things while drunk and one dressed up in a ridiculous outfit. We think maybe a 30th b-day party or bachelor party. Anyways we continued to watch as their boat took on water and eventually sank and the whole group went down in the river with empty beer bottles and all. This scene caused everyone in the town walking by the water to stop and watch, especially when the boat company people had to figure out how to get the sunk boat out to the river.
Sunday/Monday: Besides walking for hours and pub excursions we went to the Notting Hill Caribbean Carnival. This was absolutely ridiculous. Massive amounts of crazy people, dressed crazy, drunk and blowing whistles and horns like they do at soccer games. Picture purple fake eyelashes, lots of stomaches showing and Jamaican flags wrapped around peoples' shoulders. Monday was much better because we saw the parade which included round after round of a large trunk blasting heavy bass Caribbean dance music followed by a large group of people from a particular caribbean London organization dancing behind it in crazy costumes. The best way to describe is with pictures. Check my Facebook once my Mum mails me the camera computer cord we forgot at home....We also met up with a girl I work with and some other people she had met from Boston and New York through friends of friends which was a lot of fun, too. I definitely want to check out the Covent Garden area more.
Friday: Met up with some of Jim's fellow teachers at our local pub after work. It was great to finally meet some of them and the group had two teachers from Mexico, one Aussie, one from Ohio and none from Britain. So far this is how things have been going. We have met so many people from other countries but not many locals. This is a VERY international city and it amazes me that I have probably met more people from around the globe in the last few weeks than I have in my entire life.
We really like the English pubs (by definition open till 11pm. I don't like that part). They have so much atmosphere and you feel like you are in a living room, with coaches/love seats and chandeliers. We also found a bar (open later) that had a hip-hop dance party going on and that felt like home.
Saturday: Another attempt at getting the internet for our apartment. Unsuccessful. Grocery shopping at a "real" (but still small) store. Pretty successful. Although, there was no mac n' cheese in a box. This is going to be an issue. I'm thinking I might need to learn to make it from scratch with all my new found free time and my great new kitchen.
We went to the St. Pancras train station and asked what was the soonest/cheapest National Rail tickets we could get for the day. This was followed by "Well, where do you want to go?". We didn't care, but the ticket agent wasn't exactly prepared to play travel agent for us. We ended up going to Cambridge because this train station apparently only went north.
Cambridge... We all have heard of Cambridge as in the University but this town was really great and definitely exceeded my expectations. The amount of history, old beautiful churches, academic buildings and grass courtyards was amazing. There were universities dating back to the 1300s. Other highlights included the hours we spend in the pub until our 11pm train (only 1 hr 15 ride) and watching "Punting" down the river. This is similar to a Venice gondala but bigger. Picture a low, flat boat with a man standing on the back. We didn't participate due to the time of day and that the weather sucked. However, we did see a group of drunk guys attempting to row one of these things while drunk and one dressed up in a ridiculous outfit. We think maybe a 30th b-day party or bachelor party. Anyways we continued to watch as their boat took on water and eventually sank and the whole group went down in the river with empty beer bottles and all. This scene caused everyone in the town walking by the water to stop and watch, especially when the boat company people had to figure out how to get the sunk boat out to the river.
Sunday/Monday: Besides walking for hours and pub excursions we went to the Notting Hill Caribbean Carnival. This was absolutely ridiculous. Massive amounts of crazy people, dressed crazy, drunk and blowing whistles and horns like they do at soccer games. Picture purple fake eyelashes, lots of stomaches showing and Jamaican flags wrapped around peoples' shoulders. Monday was much better because we saw the parade which included round after round of a large trunk blasting heavy bass Caribbean dance music followed by a large group of people from a particular caribbean London organization dancing behind it in crazy costumes. The best way to describe is with pictures. Check my Facebook once my Mum mails me the camera computer cord we forgot at home....We also met up with a girl I work with and some other people she had met from Boston and New York through friends of friends which was a lot of fun, too. I definitely want to check out the Covent Garden area more.
Monday, 23 August 2010
Eating is Cheating
This is some of the advice I got this past week that explains the after work drinking culture of the London business community.
In my first week I went out for drinks for two work functions and another night with a couple of girls. The pubs (a lot) around the office buildings are packed after work and have great happy hour specials. Tuesday was with the group Unite, ie everyone from abroad in the London office. During the Friday work function I was talking to my assigned "buddy" (from New York about three years ago) about how these events happen all the time and how you go straight from work to multiple drinks without getting dinner until much later. She said once she was out and mentioned to the Londoners that she wanted to get something to munch on after about four drinks. She was told "Eating is cheating" :)
In my first week I went out for drinks for two work functions and another night with a couple of girls. The pubs (a lot) around the office buildings are packed after work and have great happy hour specials. Tuesday was with the group Unite, ie everyone from abroad in the London office. During the Friday work function I was talking to my assigned "buddy" (from New York about three years ago) about how these events happen all the time and how you go straight from work to multiple drinks without getting dinner until much later. She said once she was out and mentioned to the Londoners that she wanted to get something to munch on after about four drinks. She was told "Eating is cheating" :)
Address Part 2
Forgot to mention that this is in Central London (Marlyebone neighborhood) which is higher-end with lots of great restaurants and pubs. The best part is that Jim can walk to work in about 10 minutes and I can get to the Tube in about 5. We are near the edge of Regent's park which I really like. There is a like stream/river running through and the Queen's gardens. Yesterday we walked through and there was JAZZ IN THE PARK. No way! We couldn't believe it, just like MKE, but it was Sunday afternoon. I should have packed my plastic wine glasses and wine bag from the US.
Address
There is our new address:
Flat 1, 80 Gloucester Place
London, UK
W1U 6HL
We moved in this weekend and moving is fantastic when you have a taxi and no furniture. It feels great being able to unpack all of my clothes. We really love our place, it feels big but is only 400 sq ft! We've lived in apartments 2.5x that size, haha. It has a great updated kitchen that is fully stocked and a dishwasher. One thing I didn't know was that not all apartments have full fridges and ours doesn't even have a freezer. Jim thinks this is good because we will be healthier. I said we could just go buy a frozen pizza and other dinners as long as you eat it that night :). The bedroom is a good size and bigger than our room with no walking space in Chicago. The living room/kitchen are the same room. The coach is really a very comfortable day bed, which is PERFECT for our future visitors. That is a hint.
The apartment is on the lower ground floor (basement). But the front of the building is back from the sidewalk and there is a staircase that goes down from the sidewalk to the level of our apartment in front, meaning we still have windows and good sunlight. You walk into the front hallway of this building and it looks like you are walking into a big old fancy house and there are a few apartments on the main floor and then a staircase going up about 4 floors. We explored this to the top and found a ladder and a latch that goes to the roof! Not sure if we were trespassing or not, because we felt maybe we were in the person who lives on the top floor's area so we were super quiet and sneaky.
Our street is pretty with buildings that are all connected. If you were walking down our street you would have to look at the little plaques (or flags) by each front door to see what the building is; residences, our residence, Hotel London, Lithuanian Embassy, Hotel, Polish Embassy, street corner. Random!
When you get to the lower level of our building there is a door. The door opens to a hallway and three doors; one being ours. The other two are owned by the same old lady (Trina or Pina, who is the landlord or property manager, about to find this all out tonight). She seems pretty friendly but leaves the doors of her two places open when she is home; meaning you kind of feel like you are in her home and have to cut through it. Only real issue is that she must have been smoking down there for the past 50 years and it smells!! I plugged my nose. I think it is in the carpet and walls. Luckily, our apartment is hardwood. We can contain the smell to our little entry way, but will need to work on some more air freshener or candles or something. Keeping all the rest of our doors closed saves the rest of the apartment. We will figure it out.
Flat 1, 80 Gloucester Place
London, UK
W1U 6HL
We moved in this weekend and moving is fantastic when you have a taxi and no furniture. It feels great being able to unpack all of my clothes. We really love our place, it feels big but is only 400 sq ft! We've lived in apartments 2.5x that size, haha. It has a great updated kitchen that is fully stocked and a dishwasher. One thing I didn't know was that not all apartments have full fridges and ours doesn't even have a freezer. Jim thinks this is good because we will be healthier. I said we could just go buy a frozen pizza and other dinners as long as you eat it that night :). The bedroom is a good size and bigger than our room with no walking space in Chicago. The living room/kitchen are the same room. The coach is really a very comfortable day bed, which is PERFECT for our future visitors. That is a hint.
The apartment is on the lower ground floor (basement). But the front of the building is back from the sidewalk and there is a staircase that goes down from the sidewalk to the level of our apartment in front, meaning we still have windows and good sunlight. You walk into the front hallway of this building and it looks like you are walking into a big old fancy house and there are a few apartments on the main floor and then a staircase going up about 4 floors. We explored this to the top and found a ladder and a latch that goes to the roof! Not sure if we were trespassing or not, because we felt maybe we were in the person who lives on the top floor's area so we were super quiet and sneaky.
Our street is pretty with buildings that are all connected. If you were walking down our street you would have to look at the little plaques (or flags) by each front door to see what the building is; residences, our residence, Hotel London, Lithuanian Embassy, Hotel, Polish Embassy, street corner. Random!
When you get to the lower level of our building there is a door. The door opens to a hallway and three doors; one being ours. The other two are owned by the same old lady (Trina or Pina, who is the landlord or property manager, about to find this all out tonight). She seems pretty friendly but leaves the doors of her two places open when she is home; meaning you kind of feel like you are in her home and have to cut through it. Only real issue is that she must have been smoking down there for the past 50 years and it smells!! I plugged my nose. I think it is in the carpet and walls. Luckily, our apartment is hardwood. We can contain the smell to our little entry way, but will need to work on some more air freshener or candles or something. Keeping all the rest of our doors closed saves the rest of the apartment. We will figure it out.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Soccer and English pubs
English pubs are fantastic and, yes, I will continue to call it soccer. We've watched three games in pubs in just our first week. The pubs have old and unique settings; lots of character. The bartenders have let us sample different English taps and you could just stay there for hours. This Sunday we wanted to watch the Arsenal v. Liverpool game but the popular pubs were jam packed. We found another little pub down the street in the less populated area. It turned out that most of the 10 people in the pub were related/dated/owed/worked at the pub. We stayed on our own for a bit until this awesome older man originally from Liverpool (sounds Irish to the untrained ear) started chatting with us. He was so funny and thought it was great that we moved to London. After we talked with him for a while he asked us how we felt about Obama and Bush. Haha, I was wondering when that would get brought up here! We ended up staying all afternoon, became friends with everyone, played pool with everyone and got invited to next Sunday's pot roast at the pub. Definitely one of my favorite days so far. The nicest people in the world and a true English experience. I finally got a Sunday Funday. :)
Jim and Michelle go clubbing 'til 5am
Kind of. One of the top clubs in London is supposed to be the Ministry of Sound. It is open until 6am and has a £16 cover charge or £6 after 3am. Well, we didn't want to spend £16 just to check something out so we decided to go at 3am and stayed out till 5am! The back story is that we went to bed early and set alarms for 2:30am to get up and go. Are we old or what? Then there was the whole debate on what do you wear to a Euro club anyways? Now I was expecting a Chicago downtown club but this was totally different. Nothing fancy at all, no dress code, black walls and grungy feeling; when did I get so pretenious?! After I got over that, it was pretty cool with trance and techno music (all instrumental) and a bunch of different rooms with different DJs and one room with a big "warning:excessive noise levels" sign. Girls, I think The Mission in Elgin was louder! The lights were amazing and everyone was dancing. Picture my kind of dancing though; barely bopping back and forth and not hip hop grinding. It was also amazing how many people were having a great time and not drinking...maybe because it was 4am. Really fun night!!! :)
Monday, 16 August 2010
Day 1 - 6 of over 700
If you had a list of the people least likely to blog I'd probably be on it, but this is going to be fun!
The big picture is that everything is going really well and I only anticipate them to get better as things calm down and we are less stressed with all the hassles of moving to a different country. The trip itself was easy! Visitors don't worry about it. 7 hours air time for a direct flight with movies, TV and two meals? I was so entertained. I was too excited to sleep so once we arrived in London I couldn't keep my eyes open to look at it...opps. And pretty sure we got a shout out from the pilot before landing "Michelle and Jim have a great trip to Europe"....we know people :)
PwC rocks in helping us move abroad. Our temporary place is "big", remodeled, with dishwasher, washer/dryer and a balcony viewing the London Eye (ferris wheel), top of House of Parliament and City of London buildings. NO compliants (well our shower was definitely not built for showering, they need Kohler here), but the towel warmer in the bathroom almost makes up for it.
Observations:
1) Elevators = lifts, restrooms = toilets and the toilet handles are push buttons on the walls
2) You can order mozzerella sticks at McDonalds.
3) We read in a London magazine that London is loud, rude and awful at rush hour. Not true. People are so helpful and the Tube is not packed wall to wall L style and everyone is QUIET on the streets. No Midwesterners here.
4) Pimms = some alcohol that's pretty tasty and when you order Pimm's it automatically comes mixed with lemonade.
5) London might be the answer to me finally learning my rights and lefts. It is written on the street at every cross walk: "Look Right".
6) Jim & Michelle method to looking at a crosswalk: Look in a complete circle and run!
7) I would NEVER attempt to drive here: no grid.
8) The largest Apple store in the world is in London.
9) Street signs are on buildings.
10) The famous London Eye lights up blue at night.
11) The Tube is pretty fantastic.
12) The apartment rental girl said one thing she's noticed about American's is they are shocked by how much smaller London flats are. We said, "oh not a worry for us, we lived in a shoebox in Chicago". "How big?" she asks. "About 600 sq ft.". Well... in London small equals around 300 and bigger equals around 500....
13) You can get a half liter of German beer at 5.3% for £2.55!! If you disregard the conversion factor and rent, cost of living is not bad in my book.
14) Exit signs are green.
Much more to come... :)
The big picture is that everything is going really well and I only anticipate them to get better as things calm down and we are less stressed with all the hassles of moving to a different country. The trip itself was easy! Visitors don't worry about it. 7 hours air time for a direct flight with movies, TV and two meals? I was so entertained. I was too excited to sleep so once we arrived in London I couldn't keep my eyes open to look at it...opps. And pretty sure we got a shout out from the pilot before landing "Michelle and Jim have a great trip to Europe"....we know people :)
PwC rocks in helping us move abroad. Our temporary place is "big", remodeled, with dishwasher, washer/dryer and a balcony viewing the London Eye (ferris wheel), top of House of Parliament and City of London buildings. NO compliants (well our shower was definitely not built for showering, they need Kohler here), but the towel warmer in the bathroom almost makes up for it.
Observations:
1) Elevators = lifts, restrooms = toilets and the toilet handles are push buttons on the walls
2) You can order mozzerella sticks at McDonalds.
3) We read in a London magazine that London is loud, rude and awful at rush hour. Not true. People are so helpful and the Tube is not packed wall to wall L style and everyone is QUIET on the streets. No Midwesterners here.
4) Pimms = some alcohol that's pretty tasty and when you order Pimm's it automatically comes mixed with lemonade.
5) London might be the answer to me finally learning my rights and lefts. It is written on the street at every cross walk: "Look Right".
6) Jim & Michelle method to looking at a crosswalk: Look in a complete circle and run!
7) I would NEVER attempt to drive here: no grid.
8) The largest Apple store in the world is in London.
9) Street signs are on buildings.
10) The famous London Eye lights up blue at night.
11) The Tube is pretty fantastic.
12) The apartment rental girl said one thing she's noticed about American's is they are shocked by how much smaller London flats are. We said, "oh not a worry for us, we lived in a shoebox in Chicago". "How big?" she asks. "About 600 sq ft.". Well... in London small equals around 300 and bigger equals around 500....
13) You can get a half liter of German beer at 5.3% for £2.55!! If you disregard the conversion factor and rent, cost of living is not bad in my book.
14) Exit signs are green.
Much more to come... :)
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