written friday -
So we arrived in London last Saturday. We have filled our time mostly by
looking for jobs and housing and ducking into internet cafes when the rain is
bad.
We stayed in a nice but very noisy hotel for the first 3 nights and re-
aquainted ourselves with british life. This inculded 4 channels of nothing on tv
(all their channels are like late night PBS... cheese making until 2, anyone?),
a shower that takes forever to warm up and has little water pressure, and an
interesting situation with the lights where you have to be in the room (wiht
your room key in the wall) to make any electricity flow (California should try
this:)). We had to help a woman in a wheel chair to reach hers... hummm for a
contry with healthcare for all, they don't think much about the disabled.
We then moved into a WONDERFUL studio flat that has SKY tv so we could watch
election returns from the US (it has 500 channels and all the reruns of
american television you could want).It has no microwave but it has an oven and
a little sink. It is all IKEA! It also has a combination washer and dryer which
is very interesting and uses only heat (not air) to dry. The only bummer was
having to bring 8 months worth of luggage up 6 flights of stairs... a elevator
(or lift for you brits) is a luxury. we would love to stay in it forever but
sady it would be approx $5000 (american) a month and i don't think we can swing
that.
So every day we call apartments that are taken or visit ones that are crappy
and/or 1 hour out of the city (transport costs to london are 60£ a week for
these areas... woah!). These cost about £200 a week (this is $350 american) and
they are certainly not top of the line. Most people suggest that we move into a
shared house (of which there are many) with 9 other students or low wage
earners. These seem sketchy, though, because we would have to share a room with
minimum 2 other people and wonder if our belongings will be safe. We also found
out about lots of "hidden costs" like a TV license which is £120 a year for the
4 BBC channels (since the BBC is gov. run with no commercials, the people pay
for it) and council tax which varies from £50- 100 per month.
We interview with many agencys (this is the way you get work here unless you
know someone wiht a job) that tell us to look online for jobs because getting a
£6 an hour job would be lucky right now (this is $6 american after you take out
22% taxes). This would not really cover our expenses (food, transport, phone
costs the same for local calls as for long dist., etc) and would certainly make
us dig into savings for any travel later on. I guess we won't be having any fun
unless we get some type of fantastic luck.
We still love the atmosphere here but living it is more difficult than we
thought. Also, some people are not overwhelmingly pro american right now. This,
in addition to the fact that we can only be here for temp. work (most are temp
to perm.) may hinder our search as well. It is not like we can even fib and say
we would stay because they look at our visa to see if we can legally work at
all.
So on day 3 after a sad few days of searching for work, we decided to go to
Leicester Square to the ODEON a large movie theatre (2 levels and over 2000
seats). We came off the tube (transportation) and saw a million people standing
around and yelling. We had stumbled upon the Harry Potter opening! all the
stars were there and we figured it out when we saw that blond woman reporter on
a big screen (anyone who watched the last one on TV will know who we're talking
about). So that was HIGHLY exciting and we have lots of photos to share. E
stole 2 posters that were up but we are not sure how we are going to be able to
get them back so it was more for the thrill i think :).
Ah well, it will work out. we will keep you informed. just to tell all of you
skeptics, we have had a mix of rain and sun about 60-40. YeS, we have seen blue
sky and have a photo to prove it!
cheers
