Saturday, 4 August 2007

Marketability

Marketability n. Pertaining to the skill with which a person can manouver through the crowds congregating around weekend street stalls.

So today we went to the Notting hill markets in the north west. Very cool, lots of overpriced "antiques" and other useless junk.

beautiful area though - we're going to have a wishfull look on the net tonight to see the house prices :-).

anyway, unintentionally on the way there, we came accross this quaint building:
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apon closer inspection, revealed this:
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Very cool. although I didn't feel like it was 1984 in this suburb. very open, very green, lots of trees and friendly unhurried people that stopped walking directly in your path and then start off again just as you start to walk arround them......

it was a lovely day really - very very hot in the sun, absolutely no cloud in the sky here's the main street:
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I have an anouncement: I have found the sole cafe in london that makes good coffee.
A Very trendy place called apostrophe, with funky seats, nicely designed space inside, bright and cheery at the front and intimate and dim towards the back of the store. Exactly the way a coffee shop should be. the coffee was near perfect. 9/10 really, the only reason I don't give it a 10 was because they served my Latte in a cappacino cup. The clincher that prooves that it's a good place is that it's right next door to a starbucks and yet still is mostly full. Not that it's all that hard to make better coffee than starbucks, but it just goes to show that local stores can still triumph over american mass produced coffee flavoured swill. Two Thumbs Up!
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I've also come to a couple of conclusions after a week of being here:
  1. Native English speakers are in a minority (americans don't count)
  2. people born in England don't work in shops.
Even at the markets today I was extremely hard pressed to hear a british accent. italian, eastern european, japanese even, but not one English. We're living with a polish couple and an indian lady in a house owned by a turkish guy. all resturants are owned by the italians or french and all waitresses are from the chech republic, sovakia or Belgium.

on another note, I went into Burger king today for brunch.... I wanted to order an aussie burger but realised that they didn't have one. :( closest thing was really an "Angus" which came out drowning in BBQ sauce and I literally had to go up to the counter and ask the check out lady where the bacon was.... the burgers may be better at Hungry Jacks, but they certainly aren't at burger king.

At the end of the day unfortunately I had to walk fast to get home in time to go to the toilet. guess it was God's way of beating it into me not to eat Burger king.

prior to that however, we once again hit Oxford street in search of a shirt for debbie, found one that she liked finally (after 2.5hrs of standing arround yesterday) yay!

oh - I forgot to mention. Yesterday we went and had lunch at canary warf. it's very very nice. I ordered a "pint of coke" which was really weird. Canary warf reminded us of brisbane, it's more open, the people seem freindlier there's water and parks and tall, new buildings. I wanted to go check it out because the jobs that I apply for are usually in the square mile of London city or in canary warf. I infinately prefer canary warf and even if it means I have to change trains and take 40 mins to get into work, it would be worth it for the sake of my mental health. the whole place is newer and cleaner nicer with a cool shopping mall and nice cafe's dotted all over the place.

here's where we had lunch (click)

No photos there unfortunately, I got sick of carrying arround a backpack all the time. nevermind, when I'm working there, earning 600 pounds a day, I'll take some photos and post them ;-)

Friday, 3 August 2007

Debbie has something to say!!!

Yes, it's what you've all been waiting for. I thought I would save this exciting moment for something really exciting........like...........I HAVE A JOB!!!

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So here is how the story goes.........I met with a wonderful company 1st Contact, which Andrew has adequately explained to you about (thanks Kath so much!). They set me up with a Recruitment Agency on Tuesday 31 July. They interviewed me and ran a few tests like Excel, Word, Power Point and my typing speed. All of which I was pretty pleased with the results. Then they would give me a call if they had anything.

So by Wednesday, 3 long whole days
(the inpatient perfectionist coming out now) of applying for jobs and recruitment agencies who just say "send us your CV and we will get back to you. There is no need to call us" Yeah right! I became a bit discouraged :( Being unemployed was becoming harder to cope with. Well after praying to God for help that night, I woke on Thursday with a brilliant idea.

I scanned my emails and saw that a recruitment agency asked when I arrive in London to give them a call to register with them. HALLELUJAH!!! So I gave them a call and met them in the afternoon. They tested me again on my skills - a spelling one this time and Stefan I got 27 out of 30! Amazing hey! Then we had a bit of a chat and they offered me a contract (2 weeks in one department and 3 months in another department leading to full time if I wish and am suitable) with a brother type recruitment agency of theirs. THANK YOU GOD. It's in Piccadilly and is 9am-6 pm Monday to Friday. It's paying 12 pound per hours which is in the higher end for my qualifications. I checked out their website and they seem to have a very fun/work hard and be rewarded work culture with Friday drinks and an overseas holiday each year for their staff :) Anyway I won't get too carried away....I haven't started yet.



So the London life is looking up. Catching public transport is so easy as they come every few minutes. Yesterday we waited 4 minuties....that's been the longest we have ever had to wait so far. The tube is really stuffy and yesterday we were stuffed in like sardines in a tin. Lucky I had a handsome fella beside me (Andrew of course) who I could lean on. Since arriving in London, things have changed between Andrew and I. Like he now wins at scissor paper rock. And he wants to go out and spend money and I want to save every penny (literally). I have been coming out with wierd sayings like "Andrew isn't it cool how the land floats on water" (during our plane flight) and last night at dinner eating lobster "this must be a crab claw, lobsters don't have claws, do they?" Oh dear......all this new information and job stress has cooked my brain. Oh well.

Anyway I think I will stop there. Thanks for reading. I will write some more...I promise...Enjoy some more photos :)

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Thursday, 2 August 2007

Mussels!!!

Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...
Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...
Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...
Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...
Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...Mussels...

I just ate a 1kg pot of Mussels!!!!

http://www.belgo-restaurants.com/

yes, a 1kg pot of mussels (including of course the shells, although I didn't eat them also).

oh, and by the way, debbie is about to post.....

drumroll................

Hyde park

So we thought we'd spend the day at beautiful hyde park!

It was lovely, very sunny, very green and grassy, lots of stupid englishmen joining the mad dogs in the midday sun trying to get burnt as quickly as possible.

unfortunately, although we took a camera, we neglected to put the battery back in it from charging it the previous night so no photos.

we got ripped off with by an icecream dude - 1.80 for an icecream cone and about a tablespoon of icecream..... We saw our first squirrel, and our second and our third. I don't think they'll ever not be cute!

We thought about doing the London eye, but thought that it could be our reward for getting a job. we also thought about going out to dinner, but as soon as we came home debbie fell asleep until about 6:30.

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but the sun stays up until about 9:30ish! so I walked to the shop in broad daylight at about 7:00pm last night to get stuff for a stirfry. I guess every silver lining has a cloud, so I don't care to think about what winter will be like.

Anyway, back to the job search