I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since I arrived
in London; what an adventure it's been already! There have been a lot of ups and downs, often both in the same
day. In my last post I said that I
wanted to have the following done before the end of that week:
- Attend the BritBound welcome meeting;
- Get a phone (I already received my O2 SIM card (and my
Oyster card) from BritBound);
- Apply for jobs;
- Find a flat;
- Meet up with some contacts that were recommended to me;
- Do something fun like visiting a London attraction and try
not to forget why I chose to come to London in the first place; and finally,
- Skype with my mom and prove that I'm safe and eating all
my meals - wouldn't want her to worry!
Here's what I actually got done and some updates and/or
advice for other future Swappers/BritBounders:
I did this on the first Friday I was here - it was a great
information session with lots of useful tips and tricks that you wouldn't know
otherwise. We even had beer and snacks
to cap off the night and most of the group went out afterwards (this being the
perk of Friday welcome meetings vs. Wednesday welcome meetings). As a funny side note, the group of
BritBounders was pretty evenly split between Canadians and Aussies/Kiwis; the
funny part being that Canadians were all wearing spring jackets and commenting
about how warm it was while the folks from down under couldn't believe how
"cold" it was (it was somewhere between 5 and 10 degrees celsius -
definitely not your average Canadian January).
It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.
Get a phone;
I originally used the pay as you go chip provided by
BritBound but I decided that, with the amount of data that I was consuming
using maps alone on my phone (I got lost a LOT going for flat viewings), it
would be best to go with an actual plan.
The great thing about UK providers (I went with O2), is that they never
lock you into a plan, you can opt out at any time without any cancellation fees
and you just have to pay what's left of your actual phone (if you didn't pay it
all upfront) which is amazing - are you listening Rogers/Bell?
Apply for jobs;
I applied for dozens of jobs - anything I'm qualified for
basically, and got an interview through one of the BritBound-posted jobs almost
right away. I'm happy to say I got the
job and I start on Tuesday - this is a huge relief; while there are a lot of
jobs in London, they do go fast and there is a lot of competition. It's good to know I won't have to live on
the streets!
Find a flat;
This has been the cause of a lot of grief for me over the
past week and a half. The main issue being that the service
offered through BritBound for fund transfers (from a Canadian bank account to a
UK one) did not work for me. Important
note: if you are Canadian, you will not be able to transfer your money using
Tranzfers if you are a Scotiabank customer.
Your best bet would be to open a Bank of Montreal account (Tranzfers
deals exclusively with BMO) and transfer all your funds there before you leave
Canada; an alternative option (although less safe but that I still wish I had
done), would be to take your money with you in cash and deposit it into your UK
bank account immediately. The reason
this caused so many problems for me is that I needed to provide a deposit to
secure a flat (these deposits can be quite large if you are unemployed, which
most Swappers/BritBounders are when they first arrive and are looking for a
flat) and I wasn't able to provide this deposit given that I couldn't get the
contents of my Canadian bank account here in time. Second important lesson in flat hunting: flats go fast, faster
than you would think. Often, by the
time I replied to an ad (maybe an hour after it was posted), it would be gone
already. This just reinforces my point
about having access to your funds ASAP since you can't fully commit to a flat
without paying the deposit. I lost out
on a few really great flats because of this; however, all's well that ends
well, I found a good flat that is affordable (by London standards), central and
that I share with two very nice flatmates.
On my first day here one of them offered me tea and biscuits, which I
thought was very sweet and British, it was a great welcome. My last tip when it comes to flats is that
they usually come furnished but you need to get your own linens - Primark has become my new best friend.
They are conveniently located on Oxford Street (several locations) and
sell all the essentials (e.g., pillows, sheets, blankets, coat hangers) for
very cheap, in a variety of cute styles and colours; think of it as a kind of
Target equivalent but with much cuter, affordable stuff.
Meet up with some contacts that were recommended to me;
I got in touch with my contacts when I got here and got
some good leads on some job opportunities - it's always good to try to make
connections, even if it's just to reassure you that you're doing things
right. The poor person I was put in
touch with had to explain to me how to make calls in the UK because I found
their 700 digit (slight exaggeration) phone numbers very confusing at
first. There are some things like
crossing the street and making a phone call that I just wasn't used to and that
were challenging when I first got here (even though I had been to London
several times before). I guess the key
is to not be afraid to ask questions even if they feel like stupid questions at
the time; there is an African proverb that I think applies here: "the one
who asks questions, doesn't lose this way"; most people here in London are
easily approachable and willing to help, all we have to do is ask.
Do something fun like visiting a London attraction and try
not to forget why I chose to come to London in the first place;
Sadly, this is the only thing on the list that I haven't
done yet. It's been a busy week and
also a very emotionally exhausting one.
All my free time was spent either visiting flats (my favourite story is
that I visited a terrible flat in Notting Hill right above a fish monger - it
smelled HORRIBLE and they had pot pourri on the steps all the way up to the
fourth floor. Somehow, the four rooms
that were available in this building all got rented by the next day...this is a
true testament to the demand for London flats). Now that I have a place to live and a job, I commit to spending
some time enjoying London sights and attractions. More to come on this in my next blog post.
Skype with my mom and prove that I'm safe and eating all
my meals - wouldn't want her to worry!
Oh, Skype we did.
I subjected my poor mom (and my dad) to tons of Skype conversations (or
"freak outs" rather) where I was panicking and not knowing what to
do. What should have been an internal
monologue became very vocal and prolonged.
Everything worked out though and I'm pretty sure they're as relieved as
I am that I found a place to live and a job.
Another thing that may seem insignificant to most but that
I am very proud of is that I took a London city bus to get around. While the tube is amazing, it gets
expensive. The busses are more
confusing but more affordable. After a
lot of research and asking for a lot of advice, I took some busses to get
around instead of the tube and I feel really proud of myself. Now, I'm less scared of the bus and will try
to take it more often - a nice thing about taking the bus is that (obviously)
you are above ground and you get to see things on the route that you may not
have known were there before. Also, if
you sit in the front seats on the upper floor of the bus, you feel like you're driving
the bus...people actually rush up the stairs to get those seats.
All in all, this has been a crazy week and a half. As prepared as I thought I was, I did have
moments where I wondered why I decided to do this in the first place and where
I was tempted to give up and go home.
Now that things have settled down a bit and that the sense of urgency is
gone, I'm happy I'm here and I feel like I'm already a stronger person for
having made it this far. I feel a lot
more confident and I'm ready to tackle what comes next. As usual, I will end this blog post with one
of my favourite quotes that reflects how I feel at the end of this week:
It is good
to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the
end.
-Ursula K. Le Guin
