Blue is the colour, football is the game...

We went to the Chelsea vs Bordeaux Champions League game last night, which was really cool. Chelsea ended up winning 4-0, so there was plenty of action to be seen. I picked up a match scarf and programme as a nice sort of memorabilia.












Soccer/Football games are a lot different to watch than AFL games. The umpires seem to get abused a lot less, likewise the players. A lot of the sledging is just directed at the opposition fans. The major difference is the inclusion of songs/chants that add another level of amusement to the game.

During the day, yesterday, we went to the Imperial War Museum, which was an interesting and informative experience. There was so, so much, to see, and we must have spent a good four or so hours there. They had a Holocaust Exhibition which was pretty depressing. There was a room that contained heaps of belongings to people that had been killed at Auschwitz. Shoes, combs, cups, toothbrushes, even a doll. As you leave the museum it really puts life into perspective, and how good we have it.

Oh, another thing about Europe. When they have restorations underway at museums/buildings, they will often put a canvas over the front, to make the building look as it normally would, as you can see in one of the pictures below.








We've put our room up on offer, and within an hour of doing so, we've got two interested parties that are coming to check it out tomorrow. So, if all goes well, we will be out of the flat on the 28th. We're not 100% sure on what we're doing after that, because we don't want to book anything before we're sure someone will move into the room. Flights to Barcelona were something like £50 with Ryanair, so we'll probably go with that.

Bye for now,

Mark.

London, still...

So, the lack of blog updates is essentially a result of a lack of interesting anecdotes to put in said updates. For the last week and a half or so, my life has consisted of work, hanging out at home, repeat - pretty much resigning myself to a boring life, conserving money and so on, but things are starting to change on that front.

Karl decided he wasn't enjoying London, so after a week and a half of living in our new flat, he went to stay with his family in Italy, and is set to go back to Australia in a couple of weeks, leaving just Sarah and myself at our Fulham residence.

Sarah decided she didn't like her job, and the ridiculously low wages she was getting (equated to about $11 AUD an hour!), so threw in the towel with that one, leaving myself as the only person who looked like staying here for any period of time.

Work is... average, very average. It's basically like a slave-labor factory farm of call centres. All the supervisors remind me of Nurse Ratched, albeit 20 years younger. The atmosphere at the place is horrible. I'm not sure if it's the case, but a lot of the supervisors are immigrants from Eastern European countries, so it makes me wonder if such an employer/employee relationship is just what they're used to.

The basic premise of the job, is that one must call up a list of numbers provided to them by a company - and then call up said customers, and ask them to participate in a short survey. As you can imagine, this is not an easy task, and you can end up calling up to 20 people before you get one person who is willing to dedicate 10 minutes of their time to answering boring, repetitive, 'on a scale from one to ten...' questions. I don't blame them.

Anyway, they have quotas for how many people you have to call, and even if you clearly exceed this quota, which is not an easy feat mind you, there is no encouragement or congratulations in any way shape or form, just supervisors walking around the room, advising everyone that they need to 'get another 3 surveys or your next shift will be cancelled'. I was once told off for going to the toilet mid-shift, and sternly advised.,

"Don't think you can go to the toilet, you're getting paid until 9 o'clock."

Regardless, I can't turn down the money at the moment, so I'm continuing to work there, for now.

A combination of all of the above points has made us feel that the idea of saving money over here, before travelling is not the best course of action, so we're going to leave the house at the end of the month, before travelling a bit throughout October through Spain, and hopefully Portugal and Morocco as well.

But onto more exciting news - with knowledge of our month and a bit left in Europe, we've started to get into gear in terms of seeing the sites, which we put off for a while because we knew we would be here for a while.

Yesterday, we went to Abbey Road which, once we got there, was only about 5 minutes walk from Lords CC, where we had been a couple of months earlier. After the obligatory crossing the road photo, and look at the studio nearby, we headed to Regents Park, and had a nice stroll around.









Abbey Road






Regent's Park


We then headed into Soho and Chinatown, before walking around Leicester Square. Whilst walking through the area, we were given a flyer for a standup comedy show and, seeing as it was only £5, and we wanted to see one before we left London, went. It was at this small, small underground club, with probably no more than 50 people, but it was good.



Chinatown




The comedy club





We had intended to go and see Chelsea vs Aston Villa on October 4, but that sold out before it even got to General Sale, so it seems the Chelsea vs Bordeaux Champions League game tomorrow.

Hope everyone is Perth is good, see you in about a month.

Stuff

Training for my new job at the call centre is on Monday. Not sure if I'll be working at the pub... I thought I might have got work there, but I haven't heard back from them yet.

The weather here sucks.

The plan at the moment is to work like a dog for a couple of months, and then head off for a few weeks to Spain, Portugal and Morocco before heading home in late Nov/Early December.

Hopefully going to see Chelsea play Aston Villa in October... I just need to work out how to get tickets.

Here are a few photos, including some from Tamworth a couple of weeks ago.




The street.




The flat



View from our roof... Stamford Bridge (Chelsea FC) is the building right in the middle at the top




Tamworth Castle

I have sore feet.

Just got back from an interview. I've scored a job doing market research for a company in North Acton (West London). It's casual, but I've been told that you can do full-time hours & more if you want to. While the job seems to be okay, it makes me realise how good Westnet were to work for, as this new place is just a stricter, less attractive call centre with little to no perks ... but it will do, for now.

I bought new shoes for the interview. Cheap ones. Bad idea. My heels are completely ruined, and I think I'll be wearing three pairs of socks next time I wear them. It was a nice feeling however, to be suited up once more, catching the tube through London amongst all the business men and women, and it reminded me of working in the city back in Perth, minus the good weather and cheaper train fares.

There's a possibility of a bar job as well, which might tend to be a better job in the long run, mainly because it's considerably closer and something I'm more familiar with. And it will probably be more fun. Sarah actually applied for it, but after speaking to the guy, he's asked for me to go down as well.. so we'll see how that goes.

Now that we're settled, I've started getting into the London way of things a bit more... including going into Camden on Saturday night to have a few drinks and a look around there. There's so many pubs there, it's impossible to not find something that suits your taste, and we've been luckily enough to find one that encompasses all of the music the three of us are into.

Also managed to watch the Chelsea v Spurs game at a pub no more than 500 metres from Stamford Bridge itself, which was a pretty good experience, and something I'm sure I'll do many more times, especially considering ticket prices are a bit expensive.

Will post some photos up sometime soon, including some of the flat, our street, Stamford Bridge etc etc..

Mark

Living in London

So we moved into the flat a couple of days ago. The room was pretty messy, so me and Sarah had to spend a fair while cleaning everything up. Ended up buying a heap of bedding stuff as well, which was a bit of a dent in the wallet, albeit an expected one.

The room is now looking pretty good, and feels homely enough for now, and we've got to know a few people we're living with... so everything on that front is going okay.

Jobs-wise, I have a couple of interviews lined up... one in a bar, and one in a call centre... I'm not sure which I'd rather prefer, but with finances the way they are at the moment, I'll probably just take the first one that's offered to me.

Not much else to say really, we don't have internet access in our flat, but it's apparently being set up in the very near future, but I'm not holding my breath.

Okay, I have nothing else to say...

Cya.

The Australian Base Jumper death in Swiss Alps...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24237046-2,00.html

...was in Lauterbrunnen, the same place we were staying a few weeks ago. Here's a photo of the cliffs I took when we were there. It gives you a bit of an idea of what he was up against... he had no chance, poor guy.




All good here in England... will update you all soon.

Exploring a bit of England...

The last week has been pretty quiet, although we have explored a bit of the area surrounding Cropredy. Staying here has been really nice, and we have well and truly been spoilt.

Earlier in the week we went into Oxford via the train, and had a look around there. Like many parts of England, the place was full of old buildings and good shopping. I managed to pick up a skinny tie and sweet cardigan, so I felt pretty accomplished. We settled into a nice pub for a meal and a pint, before heading back to Cropredy.



Oxford


Myself and Sarah also caught the train to a place called Stratford, just north of here which, in addition to the really old buildings, contains the birth place of Shakespeare. I also had an awesome pasty here.... which seem to be everywhere – it's like the primary English takeaway food... as they don't have meat pies anywhere, not that I've really felt like one anyway.



Shakespeare's birth place, Stratford




Stratford


The rest of the week we've basically been relaxing at home in Cropredy, watching the Olympics and movies. There isn't a lot in the village, but we did have a look at the local pub The Red Lion, and I've had a bit of a walk around the place. It's really small, and cool in a quiet, quaint kind of way. There's a canal running through the back part of town full of house boats people live in, which is kind of cool, and not something I really expected for rural England.







Cropredy




So good

Karl has gone back to London for a concert, so it's just me and Sarah at the moment. We're heading to her grandmothers on Sunday to stay there for few days before heading back to London, via Cropredy again, at the end of next week. We move into the house on Saturday, which is pretty exciting.

Until next time.....

Mark

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Getting settled in London

So things are considerably better than last time, as we now have a flat to move into. Fingers crossed, if nothing goes wrong in the next couple of weeks, we should move in on the 28th of August. It's a 3 storey share house in with another six or so Australians/Kiwi's, so it should be good fun - albeit a bit full on, but I guess I didn't come here to live in 3 by 2's with balconies, so it's all part of the experience... and it's still going to be better than hostels anyway.

The flat is in an area called Fulham, which is in the south western parts of London, and from what we have been told - is quite a nice area, with a lot of Australians. On first impressions, we all like the area... it has a lot of pubs nearby which will be good for work, as well as nearby shops, transport etc etc. Another positive aspect is that it's only 10 minutes walk to Stamford Bridge (home of Chelsea FC), so I'm hoping to catch a few games.

Applied for a fair few jobs online... but it was difficult to know which to apply for without having a fixed address. Have since explored the area surrounding where we'll be living, and handed a few resume's in around the place. I got a response from an Australian pub nearby, so I might give that a shot when I get back to London.

... which leads me onto another thing.

We're luckily enough to be currently staying with Sarah's Aunty and Uncle for a few days, so we can explore this area of the UK in the couple of weeks before we can move into our new house. It's really nice to have a home cooked meal, nice beds, and all the nice things you don't get at a hostel. It's in a nice little village of 600 or so people called Cropredy, near Banbury... probably about an hour and a half north of London - so it will be an awesome little getaway for all of us before getting back into the 'grind' of work and so on.

Took Karl on a 'night tour' of London the other day which was cool, as we hadn't looked at many of the sights at night before. Besides that, we've just been incredibly, incredibly boring and looking for jobs/houses all day which kinda sucks for Karl... but things will be much more fun once we get settled.

Not much else to say... so here are some pics from last week or so.







The Netherlands






Back in London....

Back in London and the real world...

So yeah, we're back in London now. Went to Amsterdam after Switzerland... it was okay, pretty seedy place. My sunglasses are also in the bottom of a canal....

Currently looking for a place to stay... and a job... which is kind of an annoying process as you can't find a place to live without having a job... and finding a job without a place to live is not much better.

Ben and Claire have since left 'us', and Karl has arrived, so it's now just the three of us, and we are slowly coming to the realisation that we might not be able to all work/live together.

All is good though, the whole desires vs capabilities thing is coming to the fore, I guess I'm not really too phased, having been a poor uni student living out of home for a while.

I'll post up some pictures from Amsterdam sometime soon.

Hopefully next blog update I'll have a house & job!

Mark