Week 3, The River and Work

Hello again to all of our faithful followers! I hope you aren't getting sick of my boring ramblings. We've had another week of doing some more of the same. :) 

We are still very much enjoying our time in London, and are so pleased that we took this leap. It has been a learning process figuring out how things work around here. The trick is to set up a bank account, to do that you need proof of residence. Not just one, but two. Getting a proof of residence is harder than you'd think... A letter from the Government Jobcenter with one's National Insurance number is one way, but all other options don't apply to us yet. (One way, we we're told by the sincere bank assistance, is to use a bank statement from another UK bank account...Clearly that isn't going to work for us.) 

Last week we went into central London and as we were walking around, we came across The Monument. It is a tall strucutre built between 1671 and 1677 to commemorate the Great Fire of London (which occurred in 1666). We had some time so we paid for our tickets and started the climb. There are 311 steps in a tight spiral up the inside of the column of the structure. It was exhausting going up but the views were really beautiful once we got to the top. The walk down was tricky and we held on tight to the rail so as not to tumble forwards down the tight stairway! Below is a picture of The Monument (disclaimer: I didn't take this photo as the camera on my phone is average to crap. This is just the first image you get when you search for The Monument on Google and happens to be a lovely picture) From the top you can see quite far, the second picture is a view down the Thames and Tower Bridge. 

After that we wandered over London Bridge, which is the first bridge in London and also was the only bridge across the Thames until 1729. Seeing that London has been the site of human settlement for about 2000 years, it is quite amazing that for 1700 years there was only one way across the river. There are now at least 33 bridges crossing the Thames. The river is really huge, and despite its thick, muddy colour, really majestic. I have loved the chance to walk along beside it or even just cross the river in the train. This was our second chance to wander along the banks of the river this week. We spotted the HMS Belfast docked in the river and went to have a peek. We decided we not to go on board as we weren't willing to pay for another admission ticket! But the sun had come out and the views with tower bridge in the background were quite beautiful. Frans even managed to coax a pretty picture out of his phone.

Earlier in the week we took a trip to Canary Wharf to the east of London. This is the area where the original docklands were and historically an area of poverty. Now it is home to the headquarters of many big banks and is a booming business industry. The buildings here are mostly modern and made of glass. This is contrasted to the old town of central London City where the buildings are much older, made of stone or brick and have elaborate detail carved into the walls and pillars. In Canary Wharf, there are building sites everywhere and the development in the area is charging ahead. We wandered along the river for a bit, but eventually we got too cold and had to go home!

Below is a picture from Canary Wharf of three of the iconic tall buildings in The London skyline. They are known as The Walkie Talkie, the Cheese Grater and The Gherkin. We are pretty sure those aren't their real names, but they're pretty descriptive, hey? 

I start work on tomorrow (Monday) and am really looking forward to it. I have been on holiday for quite a while and I'm excited to get started with something again (I'm sure I will be regretting those words next week when I am super tired and not coping with the work load!) As I've said, I'll be dealing with a long commute of 1 hour and 40 minutes or so... I'm still coming to terms with that! 

Same, same but different

Its been two weeks since we got here to London. And everything is the same as South Africa but DIFFERENT. Here's a list of all the things that are Same Same but Different:

1. Same: shopping in supermarkets. Different: getting a handle on the currency. We're getting pretty good at multiplying everything by 23 or so to figure out if something is expensive. But then you realise that with an exchange rate like that, EVERYTHING  is expensive. But we're slowly working out how much stuff costs and what we can afford. It has taken a few slow trips around the shop figuring things out. Finding stuff on the shelves is also tough, all the brands are different, and things aren't displayed in the same way. 

2. Same: Having to commute to work. Different: the commute itself is VASTLY different. I walk to the station, catch a train, change to an underground train, change to another underground train, change again and then walk 10 minutes to work. My drive in South Africa was 15 minutes long. FIFTEEN MINUTES. Frans says its payback because its not normal to have a 15 minute commute when you live in Joburg. 

3. Same: watching TV. Different: all the channels, all the free channels, all the channels on the internet. 

4. Same: running Parkrun. Different: it's freezing cold and very muddy! The first time we ran Parkrun, we misjudged the bus times and arrived an hour early! It was freezing and we weren't properly dressed for the cold. Eventually we had to start running in circles just to keep warm! 

Things that are not different to how they were in South Africa: sleeping in a bed, washing my face... um... Yep, that's all.

Winter Holiday in Sutton

It's been almost a week since we arrived in the UK and it's kind of felt as if we are on holiday. Although Frans is trawling through job sites and phoning recruiters a lot of the time, we have been able to do a fair amount of relaxing and local sightseeing. Sutton (where we're staying with our friends Kyle and Kelly) is a sweet suburban town south of London and really has everything you need; large supermarkets, banks, train station and a high street with phone shops, pharmacies and clothing shops.
We've been trying to take a different route each day when we go for our run so that we can see more of the area. Most of the houses are really pretty with a little front garden. On Tuesday, we ran to Carshalton which is a tiny village a few Ks away. There is a beautiful park there and some ponds or small lakes. On Thursday we walked to Cheam for a pub lunch and a visit to a Tudor period wattle-and-daub building called Whitehall.
Wednesday was a trip into central London for meetings with recruiters for Frans. It was very exciting to be in London and we really felt like this was why we had come. The buildings are so grand and detailed, all the pavements are so wide and filled with people bustling everywhere. The smell of coffee as you pass a cafe on almost every corner offsets the miserable weather; grey with a bit of rain now and then.
So part of our plan is to hit the ground running, and join a Parkrun on our first Saturday here. Kelly took us to a beautiful park called Nonsuch in Cheam, the neighbouring town. It was very chilly this morning and we were caught out by the bus journey; we calculated that we needed to leave the house at 7.45 to catch the correct bus to Cheam. But once we arrived in Cheam, we realised that the journey was only 10 minutes and we had almost an hour to kill before the race started at 9am! We didn't have a car to sit in, or warm clothes as we were going to be running. So we shivered our way through 45 minutes and then joined the "warm up" gang running in circles before the race started.
Tomorrow we're going to Brixton (another suburb of London, a little more central than where we are now) to go to a Mexican Carnival. We are meeting Paddy and Kerry there which we are really looking forward to!

We have arrived in London

We're here and we made it to London! We're staying in a little town called Sutton in Surrey, south of London with our lovely friends Kyle and Kelly. Our flights went really smoothly and we got to catch up on a lot of movies we've been wanting to see. :)

Today, our first day here, we've been setting our selves up with phone sim cards, bank accounts and national insurance numbers. The weather at the moment is very mild for mid-winter. Its chilly, sure, but not nearly as cold as we were expecting. Its overcast and grey, but not raining at the moment.

A lot of people have been asking us what our reasons are for moving to London and what we plan to do here. I know a few of you already know our plans, if you do, this is one of those times that you're not obliged to read further.

Both Frans and I have been wanting to do quite a bit of travelling, and have felt like it would be interesting to live in another country for a while. After discussing the options and discovering that we qualified for an Ancestry visa to the UK, we thought that living for a few years in London sounded like a good idea. I've explained in a previous post why Frans is suited to working in London. And with me being a teacher, I can pretty much work any where.

I have secured a job for a few months at a Catholic school in West London. I'll be covering a maternity leave and so its a fixed term contract. Frans has been in touch with recruiters and hopes to secure a contracting position doing pretty much what he was doing in SA.

We're so excited to be here and looking forward to the new adventures and learning curves.