please excuse spelling and errors, no spell check and only this OLD keyboard used by millions at the intenet cafe (some letters stick... or don't work at all let alone that some keys are different here)
as the phats and willises will recall, during one of our bloomsburyesque, monday-evening-meeting-of-the-minds, felicia mused, "life is to short to eat bricks"
Life IS too short to eat bricks... this is why we have a new plan, a new plan and a new attitude:
the most important thing is not to get the right job nor the right apartment. We came here to enjoy this city as we have in the past and that is what we are going to do. as of a few days ago, we were not enjoying the experience! we were pinching pence (is that a proper british phrase?), eating only yogurt and being extremly upset. so we did the math
LONDON STATS:
--best job offer/prospect- 6£ hourly(this is the best we can do because they do not recognize our school, honors or resume references much at all. because they don't understand, they consider us coperable to thier "school leavers" or highshool grads.... we are freaking out because they don't know/recognize the honor societies and honors that we have worked so hard to get)
--Income tax- 22% of salary taken out of check each month
--Flat rent just outside central london (zone 3)- 200£ PER WEEK
--Transport costs into london from zone 3 - 40£ PER WEEK EACH
--Time to get into london from zone 3- 1 hour each morning
--stress level on scale from 1-10- 30
--Food (going often because there are only mini fridges in the flats and it is quite a treck to the market)- 20£ a day
--TV (our share of the 120£ a year TV liscense)
--Council tax- 20-50£ per month housing tax
--Heat(lucky you have gas!)- 5£ a day
--Mobile phone- at least 2£s a day - more since we have been calling everywhere trying to find a flat and job. it's also cheaper than getting a land phone...
--Land phone - 15pence a minute to anywhere in england, including your next door neighbor.
--Net access- 2£ a day at an internet cafe, much more if we want to get our own connection.
--fun- what fun??
--Being able to leave england (happy and having had a good time) before spending every last penny in savings -- priceless.
things had to change. So the new plan is to ditch the apartment and job hunt, live in our CUSHY apartment for a while and get a little "cultcha". we are gonna take our cash (but not all of our savings as we feared we would have to) enjoy life in london as tourists, we will travel and have fun. This way, when the money runs out (as it was bound to do) we will have spent it having a good time and rather than hopelessly hunting, having to return home pennyless. we can take our loads of airline miles and come back to all the other european destinations this spring or summer. Most importatly, we will return still loving this city rather than being rejected by it!
vvvvwwwaaallllaaa! (as a certain french prof. at scripps would say!)
So yesterday, feeling light hearted by our decision, we went to the Portabello market (a giant street market in notting hill). "stuff abounds" here! Silver, toys, books, clothes, food...(does anyone collect spoons?!). It is a great swap meet of new and old goods and goes on for blocks and blocks and blocks and blocks. E highly enjoyed the baked goods cart (although not the attitude of the lady working there) and F loved the 5£ hand bags came home with 2 new pairs of shoes (manda...we can match now :) i got a red pair that look similar to yours, i just couldn't resist)
In the evening we had the worst chinese food ever(never eat chinese in london... we have been to 3 places in our two trips here and none of them were eatable). THEN... the moment E has been waiting for: We went to the new Harry Potter movie! we were in the odeon (http://www.odeon.co.uk) which is a massive theater that you have to buy an actual seat for instead of just a general admission ticket. There has to be at least seating for 6000 people on two levels. we were way up in the back in crappy seats, but we could at least see everything! it was really good. better than the first movie, but still not as good as any of the books. the left a lot of stuff out and ran all of the exciting scenes together. don't go if you are aracnophobic, there are tons of spiders! we also had sweet popcorn (yummy) although we got nose bleeds get escorted to our seats by the usher (yes, at the movies they have ushers!). we decided not to wait in the 20 minute line to use the toilets as we could have gotten back to our flat and back in less time than that!
a few days ago, we went to the tate modern (http://www.tate.org.uk). e likes modern art, but doesn't understand it at all. we saw a lot of the same people we have seen at moca in LA, so it was fun. e found a new artist she likes, sarah lucas to add to her cindy sherman obsession)
we are going to have high tea next week at the brown's hotel (http://www.brownshotel.com). f is super excited just remembering the clotted cream from last time! think, super-high-fat-buttery whipped cream. and we think we will do a little shopping at harrods (http://www.harrods.com) and harvey nichols (http://www.harveynichols.com). we also hope to visit parliment, but they work about as rarely as our congress so who knows if that will actually happen!
let us know if you want anything from london (a mind the gap thong, perhaps?)
So...we hope everybody is having a great weekend, take care,
