The Weather

I know that I was thoroughly warned about English weather before I came here but I must take a moment to rant.

First off, the weather was freaking fantastic for my first month here. Had a few cold days but mostly was really nice fall weather, sun shining, birds singing (actually it was the strange people that live across the street singing outside at all hours of the morning), you get my drift. Then there were a few days of crappy raininess which was alright. I could handle that. Then it was back to great, sunny gorgeous fall weather. This is what lead me to think that everyone was just exaggerating. Silly people, I thought, English weather is lovely. Maybe they have more grey days than us, but it's wonderful. La di da.

Now?!! Now it's like I live in hell's urinal and all day long we get pissed on. Sometimes it's just a little bit of pee, more of a tinkle than a stream, but that tinkle flows consistently through out the entire day. Throw in the insane wind and suddenly it becomes a lovely light urine blizzard. Other times it's like a stream of drunken pee that just won't stop. And of course, the thing that makes hell even worse: the wind. I think I could handle it if it were just raining or drizzling BUT when you add the wind into the equation it's like someone pinching you and you think 'ouch, ah well, that's not too bad', and then they STAB YOU IN THE EYE.

I have reached the stage where I delay going outside in the morning for as long as possible (making myself late for work regularly) just so that there are at least 15-20 minutes everyday when my hair looks like it's supposed to because AS SOON as I open the door, PFFFTTT, it dies and looks like shit. I spend pretty much every day looking like something that could have been fabulous died a slow and frizzy death on my head. Why not just wear a hat, you ask? Or use an umbrella? Well, I do both. BOTH. But the wind makes my umbrella and my hat useless because it just blows all the rain at me so I end up damp no matter what, except for the very very top of my head. I may just stop doing my hair altogether. Or maybe I'll buy one of those little pocket straighteners and carry it around with me because I just can not handle this any longer.

Last Saturday I ventured out to get my nails done because I had no other time I could go. It had been windy in the morning and rainy, but it seemed to have calmed down so I took my chance and went to catch the bus to Kilburn. As I waited for the bus, the wind picked up again. Not fun. When I got off the bus it started to rain. As I sat getting my nails done, I washed people walking past struggling against the rain, fighting with their umbrellas when they went inside out, holding on to their children and babies lest they fly away. It was insanity. I lingered in the nail shop as long as possible without seeming strange and then prepared myself to head back out. As I waited for the bus, I am fairly certain I saw a small child blow by in the wind calling for its mother. I attempted to use my umbrella but the wind was so strong it broke. So I stood there getting drenched, hanging on to the bus pole for dear life and cursing this blasted urinal in which I live.

My current prayer is that this so called 'winter' in England does not last as long as winter in Canada. I would trade some beautiful snow for this piss anyday. But at least it's not too cold, so I guess there's a 'brightside' to this urinal. Maybe not so much a 'brightside' as a 'less suicide-inducing' side.

Please do not comment on this post about how lovely the weather is in Winnipeg. I know. My mom showed me on Skype, despite my protests. No snow, sun shining, grass still green, all that crap. Lucky bums. Enjoy it while you can because soon you will happily trade your icebox for my urinal.

I'm baaa-aack

Hello people! Sorry for my unplanned absence from the blog. No excuse really aside from the fact that I've been living the boring life for the past two weeks with nothing interesting to report and I've been ashamed. Here I am in London, one of the most exciting cities in the world and I'm being boring! It's so shameful. But I've decided it's time to fess up and just admit that my natural tendency is to be boring. Can't help it. I like to read and watch movies, eat and cook. Not the thrilling stuff of must-read blogs sadly. And when I'm working full time, I become a bit of recluse during the week. My weekends haven't been exciting either. The weather's been terrible so I haven't really done anything much. Work is fun and good. Very busy with Open Evenings and Parents Evenings and such so I've been working late most days. I work, I go home, I eat, I read and I go to sleep. Some days I go shopping after work. Shopping has maybe been the highlight of the past few weeks for me. And this week my goal is to find a nice new winter coat. I want something either black or purple with a high collar and a belt and pockets. Very exciting for me, but for you, not so much.

I feel that since my life is quite boring, I shall start blogging more on the random things that I observe. Like the man on the tube the other day. He was black but his beard was orange. It looked like he may have dyed it but either way, there was just no reasonable explanation I could think of for his beard to be orange. I'm not going to lie, I did stare at him for a while before I realized I was staring and stopped. The tubes are full of strange and sometimes disturbing people. My coworker last week had a man in her tube pull down his pants and pleasure himself (wank off is the British term) on the full tube. He apparently finished, zipped up his pants and then got off the tube like a normal person when he was done. Yup, those are the pleasures of the tube. I have luckily not been scarred for life by witnessing something as horrifying as that but I did have a man stand in front of me, when I was sitting, and make pelvic thrusting movements. That was lovely. I was looking away actually and then noticed the rhythmic movement out of the corner of my eye and turned my head to confirm that yes, that was in fact what he was doing.

Aside from the joys of the tube, yesterday I got to experience another British or London tradition: the fancy dress party. Apparently fancy dress is what they refer to as dressing in costume. And apparently it's quite the normal thing to do. People either have fancy dress parties or they have a fancy dress night where everyone dresses up and then goes out. Fancy dress is generally themed. The fancy dress party I went to last night was Kung Fu themed and people went all out. I didn't know anyone so I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures but it was awesome. I didn't dress up because I only decided to go at the last minute but most people there were dressed up and most of the people dressed up had gone all out. Lots of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat characters. People do fancy dress for birthdays, bachelor or bachelorette parties or just randomly for fun. I remember this guy at one of the temp jobs I did telling us how him and his friends did a fancy dress as priests in Poland for a bachelor party and then went out to a club and the police got called in and they had to take of their crosses and collars because it was too offensive. So funny but also totally offensive. Next time I get invited to a fancy dress party or night, I'm dressing up...unless it's something offensive.

So that was last night and then today I spent all day cooking. I made sweet&sour meatballs with pasta. And cheese tortellini with chicken in a basil pesto cream sauce. I made baked chicken with tomatoes and onions in a rose sauce and I made beef fried rice. I also bought all the fixings to make nachos for dinner tonight but then I snacked so much on the other foods that I wasn't hungry in the end. I've been trying to do all my cooking on Sundays so that I have food for lunch during the week and sometimes food for supper too. My mistake the past two weeks was to make just one dish for the whole week cause by Wednesday I don't want it anymore and end up eating take away for the rest of the week and throwing out the food I'd made. So this week I made myself a bunch of options to keep things exciting all week long. And I tossed some of the beef fried rice into the freezer so that when I'm lazy and don't cook, I can just heat it up for dinner.

Settling in Nicely

This was a nice week. Been working my bootay off but I feel good. I'm really starting to feel like I'm settling in, you know? I get along well with my team at work, I think the boss likes me (not certain, but I don't think she hates me, so that's good, right?). The only downside is I am FREAKING TIRED. Seriously, I get home from work and just end up collapsing onto my bed for as long as it takes to work up the energy to get up and change into my pjs, then I rest til I can work up the energy to rustle up some food. On Tuesday when my aunt offered me dinner, I seriously almost cried with gratitude cause I was standing in front of the fridge wondering how I was going to find the energy to make something to eat. She made chicken and chips and it was delicious. I have yet to try fish and chips but everyone keeps telling me that I should. But the only time I tried it at home, it was disgusting, too greasy. But clearly this is where it originated so they'll do it properly here, but I'm kinda scared that when done properly it's still super greasy. I'll try it eventually I'm sure.

Yesterday was the graduation ceremony at the College. I remember thinking at my U of W grad how organized it was and how much work must go into that. I had no idea. This was just a grad of 130 students and it was a ton of work, and that's just at the actual event. The work leading up to it started before my time at the college, long before my time. It went really well tho. I was a bit horrified at how idiotic and rude some grown ass people can be. There were grads running in at 7:05 when the ceremony started at 6:45 and grads were asked to be there between 5:30 and 6!!! They were rude, they wouldn't follow instructions, they took their cameras up on stage with them. It was unbeliveable. And these were higher education students, meaning they are adults, grown ass adults who should know better. They even got up and went to the washroom during the ceremony! I'm not gonna lie; I yelled at a few people and had to give a few people my look of death to get them to stop talking or to stop speaking rudely to me. But anyways it was a success so that's nice. And we got to come in later to work today because we were there until 10 last night.

As you've noticed, work has overtaken my life. But I still have weekends! I'm going out tomorrow night, should be fun. All my shopping in the past few weeks has left me with an abnormal problem: I have too many outfits to choose from. It's a problem I rarely have. I'm gonna see how I feel tomorrow night, see what my friend from work is wearing and see where we're going and then decide which outfit to where. They are both fabulous outfits, but in different ways :)

Winter is settling in here and it's cold and rainy. Not too cold, I just wear a fall jacket. But thank goodness my back is to the window cause it's not a fun sight to look out at all day long. But the fall colours are lovely with all the red, orange and yellow leaves everywhere. Yesterday was the offical start of winter--bonfire night/fireworks night. It's this strange British celebration that stems decades or centuries maybe to when this man tried to blow up parliament so that he could take over and enforce strict Catholic laws on the people. The man failed in his attempt and got caught. His punishment was to be hung, drawn and quartered. So first he was hung till he was close to dead. Then they stretched him ('drawn' apart by horses I assume) til he was closer to dead. Then they cut him open and pulled out his internal organs, while he was still alive. All this to send a message to the people that attempting to blow up parliament will be severely punished. So after that Brits celebrated the failure of this man's attempt at taking over Britain and enforcing strict Catholic rules by burning a bonfire of leaves on bonfire night and setting off fireworks. It's also the official start of winter cause they rake their yards and burn up all the fallen leaves. Apparently in the old days they also used to make scarecrow-like things and then the little kids would prop them up on the side of the street and when adults would walk by they would say 'penny for the fellah', or very similar to that, and they would collect all the change they got and use it to buy fireworks for the evening. I have no idea how fireworks or scarecrows fit into celebrating the 'burning of the catholic' but apparently they do.

It's funny cause my aunt was shocked at how horrified I was by this traditional celebration. She tried to say that thanksgiving is just as horrific if you go back far enough. I pointed out that no, that's not true, it's a celebration of the Indians and the pilgrims sitting down with one another and sharing and giving thanks together. But she pointed out that the pilgrims killed off most of the Indians, which is true. BUT that's not the part of our history that Thanksgiving celebrates. Their little bonfire night celebrates brutal public torture and punishment. Anyhoo, I was working so I missed out on the festivities and what I'm sure would have been a lively discussion as to which cultural celebration is more horrific.

An afternoon in Windsor

I went to Windsor on Saturday with one of my mom's cousin and his Italian lodger. It was nice cause the Queen has a castle there. It's insanely huge. Eton and Windsor are two small little towns that are right next to each other and connected by a little footbridge so we parked in Eton and then walked over into Windsor. Super pretty. We wandered around Windsor and then ate at a pub, which was interesting. I'm still not too excited about British food, to my cousin's disappointment but I did opt for a traditional English dessert: sticky toffee pudding. It was AMAZING. AMAZING. I can not stress this enough. Anyone who comes to visit must try it. AMAZING!!!

Sunday I went to this Thai place with a couple of friends. It's in Soho and called Ubasa or Abasa or something like that. It was fantastic. Red curry is one of the best things ever on Earth. Period. And I tried a lamb red curry which was even more spectacular.

Aside from eating, I've been working my butt off. So far this week I've worked 9hrs each day and I have at least one more 9hr day left. It's a lot of fun tho and I'm starting to really get into the swing of things, which is nice. And it's busy all day long which is also nice because the days just fly by.

Back to food for a minute: I made roasted veggies for the first time yesterday. I cut up zucchini, red onions, mushrooms, orange peppers, whole cloves of garlic in the skin, green onions and baby corn and put them in a casserole dish. Then I mixed olive oil with a ton of garlic, mixed herbs, a little brown sugar, a splash of seasoned rice vinegar and some sea salt and then poured the mixture over the veggies, covered it all with foil and put it in the oven. The result: DELICIOUS.

Anyhoo, below are the pics from Windsor...

Do you see how the castle extends out into the distance, nearly beyond the horizon!!!


That's me!



That's me again!

Trying to capture how gigantic the castle is up close. This is actually just one small tower.


This is the back of the castle...or actually maybe it's the side...



Look how high and far it goes!



The little bridge between Eton and Windsor




The main road in Eton..so quaint and sweet.

Soaking up the Art Culture

Went to the Tate Modern yesterday to view the new Pop Life: Art in a Material World exhibit. I was so excited! My aunt has a membership so I didn't have to pay to get into the exhibit. Most exhibits at the Tate are free but their feature exhibits cost money. It was honestly pretty crazy. I'm not sure I knew what I was getting into with Pop Art cause I didn't really know what Pop Art meant. I now know it refers to Popular or commercial art, similar to the way Pop Music refers to Popular or commercial music. So basically, the Pop Art movement is very modern, beginning with Mr. Andy Warhol in the late 50s and carrying on to now. There were four rooms devoted to Mr. Warhol, his stuff is insane. I really like it. I think my favourite was the Four Multicoloured Marilyns he did in the 60s. And I did not know he was shot by some woman, crazy! The other rooms were dedicated to a variety of pop artists and Pop Art in general. One room was devoted to Keith Haring, he is amazing. His art is everywhere and I had no idea it was all by one artist. I thought it was just an art style. Below is a pic of one of him and some of his pieces, he's even wearing one of his tshirts.

I must mention that a lot of Pop Art is what I, as an uncultured non-art-lover would refer to as 'porn'. That's because, to me, large close up shots of penetration and ejaculation and cunnilingus and masturbation is 'porn'. And when these images are featured in magazines, as many of them were in the exhibit, that definitely qualifies as 'porn' in my books. As do images of one woman and several men engaged in various acts. The rooms containing these pieces all had warnings as you enter saying that there was sexual content and that you needed to be 18+ to enter and they had staff at the entrance to watch out. One guy asked me if I was over 18 and then looked skeptical when I said yes (This was probably due to my gasp of horror/shock when I saw the first massive image in that particular room was an extreme close up of something that does not need to be viewed extremely close up, much less blown up and hung on a wall), he only relaxed when I offered to show him ID. That was the room for an artist with the last name Koon, just a heads up for any of you who might one day go see an exhibit featuring his work, 'Graphic' does not even begin to describe his images. One of these magical rooms in the exhibit was devoted to an artist (Andrea something) who's piece was a video of her (the artist) having sex with a collector. Apparently she contacted a bunch of galleries and asked them to get a list of collectors who would pay an undisclosed amount to have the privilege of getting a video of her having sex with them to add to their collection.....yep, that's porn to me. So the room just had the explanation of the piece and then the video shot from one mounted camera using existing lighting. There were tons of people standing around watching but I read the description and thought that maybe I misunderstood, watched the video for about 10 seconds and realized I understood perfectly and then left the room. The room right after the one with the video was one that had only one 'piece': a life-sized fake (God, I hope it was fake and not stuffed) dead horse sprawled on the ground with a wooden post stabbed in its flank that had a sign stuck to it that read 'Iniri' or 'Ingiri', something like that. It was by far the most disturbing thing I have seen in a long time. I wanted to vomit. But I guess that's what some art does to you. What boggles my mind is that there were some people standing around observing it. I just got the hell out of that room before my stomach could reject my lunch.

So I've noted my favourite piece, my least favourite piece, but the craziest piece was in a room dedicated to the young British artists who brought Pop Art to Britain, having been influenced by the Americans. I forget the name of the piece but on the wall, there were two identical squares made up of multicoloured polka dots. Beneath each of these squares was an identical chair and on the chair were two identical twin red-headed girls wearing identical outfits, right down to the shoes and bags and reading the same book. Did I mention these were ACTUAL PEOPLE. That's right, these two, live girls, were part of the exhibit, just sitting there reading and answering the occasional question. It was nuts!!! I wanted to ask if they moved around with the exhibit and if they went to school or how they knew the artist but I was kind of creeped out by the whole thing. And you're not allowed to take photographs so I'm not sure you're supposed to talk to the pieces either. Some people asked questions but I couldn't tell if they were actually answering the questions, I didn't want to get too close. So weird.

Pics below of Keith Haring and his work and also some pics I took outside the Tate Modern. Absolutely breathtaking view.

The view from the boardwalk thing outside the Tate Modern .



Close up.


The path leading to the Tate from the little boardwalk area.





This is a foot bridge that my uncle suggested I take to go to St. Paul's Cathedral after the Tate. I then had to explain my bridge phobia to him. When I actually saw the bridge I laughed out loud. There is no way in hell I would walk across that thing. Even if this side of the river was on fire, I would just jump in the water and try to swim as opposed to walking over that death-trap.


D-e-a-t-h-t-r-a-p



Keith Haring and some of his work, also wearing some of his work.


One of my favourite Keith Haring pieces.

Interview, successful!

I got a job! Well, I got a contract position, initially for three months but very likely to be extended. I am now the Communications Assistant at Ealing and West London College!! It's more of a Marketing assistant role because it's in the Marketing department. I am sooo excited!!! The job sounds fantastic and the team seems really creative and forward thinking so I am pumped!!! And the campus is huge. I've always thought it would be super fun to do marketing for a college or university so yay! I'll be doing everything from copywriting to press releases to updating the website to helping with the refresh of the college magazine to helping plan campaigns and stunts around campus geared at both the internal and external markets. YAY! Again: YAY! It's a new role so they're starting it off as a temporary contract for three months and then they will review in a month or two to see if it should be extended or maybe become permanent. I'm just happy to have some financial security for the next three months and have a job that actually excites me. Yay!

On a less happy note, today someone's leg somehow got underneath one of the trains at Oxford Circus and they shut the station down. There was no service on the Central Line for the majority of the afternoon. Apparently they had to saw the person's leg off to get them out from under the train. I don't really know what happened but I cannot imagine. I do not know if they were trying to kill themself or if they tripped and fell or got shoved. I shudder to think of what it would be like to get stuck under one of the massive tubes.

On the brighter side, I am getting to know my Greek roommate and he's really nice. He's a film maker, just finished school this spring and already won an award at the New York Film Festival! It's so strange listening to him and my aunt and uncle talk. I think it's so amazing that they actually work in this industry!!! Craziness.

Anyhoo, looking forward to starting work next Wednesday. Planning to make the most of my last few days without work and go see the new Pop Art exhibit at the Tate Modern. I will take pics if I'm allowed and post them up as soon as I can!

Fun British Facts

I've learned more about the Brits over the past few weeks, thought I'd share:

-There is no Thanksgiving in Britain. Makes sense I guess but it got me thinking: why is there Thanksgiving in Canada? Is it also to pay tribute to all that the Europeans stole from the natives? I can't remember. I was asked a lot and I gave very vague, wobbly answers but really I have no clue. Anyone?

-Women are expected to wear suits to interviews. Isn't that odd?? I met with a recruitment agent last week that asked if I owned a suit. I admitted no, cause I'm not a 45 year old business executive. But apparently, in Britain, every professional female should own a suit and is expected to wear it to interviews. Who knew?! I've worn fabulous dresses to the two interviews I've been to here so far and it seemed fine. I bought a suit last week anyways. From H&M. It was the least fun shopping trip I'd had in a while.

-There don't appear to be any Avenues in London. Only Streets and Roads and Lanes. I noticed this a while back. I think there might be a couple Broadways and there are tons of Squares, but no Avenues.

-'Slag' is a British term used to refer to what Canadians call 'sluts'. The worst of the 'slags' are referred to as 'slaggy slags'. Isn't that such a gross word?! I hated it on sound, it immediately filled me with distaste. It will not become a part of my vocabulary. **

-Brits really do all cigarettes 'fags'. I knew this already, as I'm sure you did too, but it's still quite jarring to hear that word used in everyday speech. Especially because 'fag' is not a word in my vocabulary. Last night my aunt was talking and was like 'I was having a fag in the garden' and thought 'what the?!' but then remembered.

-The little West Indian shop down the road from me is owned by an African. I thought this was hilarious. Good for him! It's a good shop too, they even sell roti shells.

-Brits automatically put milk in their tea. Even in restaurants, they just put milk in your tea automatically without asking. This has resulted in me having to send tea back several times and in dozens of cups of tea having to be poured out and remade. It's not just that I don't like milk, it just doesn't agree with me so if I'm going to have some, it'll be in cheese or ice cream, something worth it.

-I've found that Brits have weird pronunciation. Not just cause of their accents, but they do not say things how they're spelled. I think it's quite ironic since they're supposed to 'speak the most proper English' and supposedly we in North America have butchered the language, but at least we pronounce all syllables. Here, Leicester is pronounced 'Lester', Chiswick is pronounced 'Chisik', everything ending in 'shire' like 'Oxfordshire, Derbyshire, Notthinghamshire, Gloucestershire' atually ends in 'sure' so it's pronounced 'Oxfordsure, Derbysure, Nottinghamsure, Gloucestersure'.

-They have La Senza here. I actually thought that was really strange but apparently it's all over Europe.

-You can buy 2 bottles of Smirnoff vodka for £5.50...I didn't, but I'm just saying it's possible. If you're an alcoholic then London is the place for you!

-'Long' is used by Brits to refer to what we call 'tight' girls at home. You know what I mean. I don't really get why they call it being 'long' here. A opposed to 'short'??? At least when we say 'tight' at home, it makes sense as opposed to 'loose'. **

** I would like to take a moment to note that neither of these terms were used in reference to me...