In terms of my work situation my current contract was coming to an end with Ciber and I had asked for an extension of 4 months or longer. What I found was that I'd start looking, researching jobs and emailing out resumes but find that Ciber wanted to extend me, so it was all pointless to a degree. However, the extensions would be of a few weeks and with the quiet Christmas period looming I wanted something to tide me over beyond that, hence the request for 4 months or more. Ciber were not able to extend me for that long which was a good thing because if they had, I would have taken the comfortable option and accepted despite my desire to move to London. So because they were not able to offer it, it forced me to make the move down South to see what would happen.
After overcoming my addiction to Kiefer Sutherland's season 2 of '24' on DVD (watching all 24 episodes over 3 days isn't exactly overcoming an addiction though) I booked a seat on a train heading to London. The train ticket was really cheap, £12 one way!! That is unbelieveably cheap for such a trip. I think it was because it was in the middle of the day on a Wednesday, and when I got on the train there were probably fewer than 10 people on the same carriage. The catch was that you had to be on the precise train that you booked and no other, which was fine by me. It was a comfortable and quick journey of 2.5 hours to London Euston. Much quicker than driving and less hassle.
I put my big suitcase into stored luggage at the station and went down to Waterloo to get the apartment keys from Denise because she was at work. When I got there I gave her a call but it went to voicemail so I assumed she was still in a meeting. I called a little while later and got a message that it was the wrong number! But it the same number stored in my mobile phone! It made me think how tenuous some of our modern connections are to some people. Or perhaps we've just become too reliant on mobile phone because if some of my friends turned off their mobiles I'd know no other way to get a hold of them! Sure I could email them but you don't know when they'll read it or reply to it. While I was philosophising I dialled Denise again and this time it went through. She came down and gave me the apartment keys and I headed to Chelsea.
I had suggested that she leave the keys with the neighbours but she said she hadn't seen the elderly neighbours for some weeks now and was afraid they had died! I've been in the apartment for 1 1/2 weeks now and only just saw them today! So they haven't died but are pretty quiet! I've spent my time so far looking for work and looking for an apartment. My criterion for an apartment is that I'd like to share with only one other person. Having too many people around makes it seem too communal unless they're all friends that you know. Failing that I was willing to share with a larger household if there was more than one bathroom. Because a lot of the houses were built centuries ago they only have one bathroom and I know that will be a real bottleneck to getting ready in the morning with a household of 5 people. There were a lot of rooms advertised where you were sharing with 4 or 5 other people and there was only 1 bathroom. Just can't do it. I'm not here camping, I need to get to work on time in the mornings. I was looking mainly at the sites loot.com and gumtree.com which have a lot of postings and I thought it was going to be pretty easy to find a place. After the first serious day contacting people I was feeling that it might be a bit harder. Either it was too small, too expensive, too far away, too many people, too weird sounding or too popular and had gone by the time I called up.
I was doing a lot of my searching through email and the phone and I only inspected two places. One was in Kilburn Park and was in a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom household with a Korean girl, Aussie girl and Welsh guy. The room was really neat and spacious and I was definitely interested. I was expecting to be interviewed by the whole household but instead it was just the Korean girl. She showed me the room and the rest of the house and backyard but didn't ask me any questions except how old I was. When I told her she replied that they were all around the same age. I got the gut feeling that maybe they had already found someone and were only going through the motions now. Or maybe it was the Korean way of doing things, I dunno. So I made a half-hearted spiel and volunteered information on what I did, why I was in London, etc. because she certainly wasn't asking the right questions. At the same time I was thinking I'm not going to try too hard because it might be a waste of time and effort.
The other place I looked at was a compact apartment sharing with one other guy in his early thirties. I got there pretty late past our appointed time because there were maintenance works on two Tube lines. I sms'ed him and he was OK with it. In the end this was the house that I was accepted at and I'll be moving in tomorrow. I would have prefered the other house because the room was bigger and the house felt more like a house but I just really wanted to get a place and stop looking. This guy travels away a lot on work apparently so I should have the place to myself quite often. I got tired of searching really quickly and it an experience being on the other side of the landlord/tenant transaction. Being the assessed instead of the assessor. Thank you Lord for teaching me humility ;)
My new postal address is: 117 Kings Court Hamlet Gardens LONDON W6 0RW UNITED KINGDOM
home) +44 2087 489 447 mobile) +44 77677 28901
On the job front I have got a job with PwC as a PeopleSoft CRM Business Analyst where I will learn quite a lot as well as build on what I know already. It's a 6 month contract and I will be starting on Monday. Thanks to those who've been praying about it. I hadn't been to an interview for a couple of years and really wouldn't have minded going to a practice one first (ie. a job you know you won't get or don't want just for the interview practice) but this was the real one first up. I was a bit nervous but must have done alright I guess since I got the job.
So as my friend Stephanie is fond of saying 'Jehovah-jireh'! ;o) (Meaning: Jehovah will see; i.e., will provide. Ref: Genesis 22:14). And indeed He has.
After a full-on week in Derby I gratefully headed back to Manchester. I was going to take my time and perhaps catch the train back on Saturday but Jodie and Clint, whom I had been staying with, were having a romantic dinner on Friday night so it would have been awkward for all involved if I was hanging around. It wasn't a bad thing as I was just delaying the inevitable by going on the Saturday instead of Friday and this way I'd have a full weekend back in Manchester anyway.
I was planning to catch the 17:37pm train to Sheffield and then to Manchester but when I got to Derby station there were these long lines and and I doubted whether I would make it. Should have bought the tickets in advance I tell myself. I love that feeling: watching people wait around while you breeze through because
a) You've used superior technology to save time b) You've had more forethought than others or c) You've got more privileges that others (Gee, I miss Qantas Club) But not this time. There were about 5 windows but the farthest right hand one had heaps of people while the farthest left one only had about 5 in line. So, I couldn't really see why this was the case so I went to the left window. As I got closer I saw these signs (wasn't wearing my contacts or glasses you see) that said "Queue at all windows. Ticket for today travel queue at right window". hhmmm...now what did this mean? Queue at all the windows but only queue at the right window? Isn't that contradictory? So if I want to travel today I have to be in the farthest right window? But doesn't it say I can, and should, queue at any window?
The answer to this riddle was that you could be in any line, but if you were buying tickets for travel in the future you had to be in one of the other left lines. This is because they tend to have discussions at length with the cashier and the farthest right window is an express line for tickets now if you will. Though it wasn't that express, I got to the window in my left line about as quick as those in that right line.
So I managed to get my ticket with about 4 mins to spare and went to the platform. The train arrived and it was so packed!! I thought, stuff it, I'm getting in so I made room for myself. There were people in every available space along the corridoor and exits. It was very squashed. It was like Melbourne peak hour evening but add some luggage into the mix as well. And you had these idiots who just had to go and get their snacks from the food carriage! People trying to pass through with hardly enough foot space and doing acrobatics to get past.
I got to Sheffield and was able to breathe normally again. Waited for the Manchester bound train and it was a little better but still full and so I had to stand the whole 2 hrs from Derby to Manchester! The trains were on time and I think they were blaming it on a computer error; issuing too many tickets for the one train or something.
Anyway, the good thing about coming back home on Friday and not Saturday was that Elly told me that they were going to go up to York on Saturday and I was welcome to come along if I wanted. Cool, wasn't planning on doing anything anyway. So we rocked up to the train station to catch the train to York, £17 for a return ticket. Bruce met us there so it was him, me, Elly and Gregg.
Bruce entertained us with his recent speed dating story and subsequent romance. He's one of the few people I hadn't met before but he was an Aussie from Brisbane so there were about 2 degrees of separation. I hadn't known him long but I could tell he was a pretty good bloke. When we got to York it was a rainy old day. Good for taking black and white photos I guess.
What did we do? We wandered around for a bit looking at the shops, streets and scenery and then decided it was about time for lunch. I quite liked York because they close the inner city streets to traffic during the weekend (or is that all the time?) and there are a lot of little passageways, tunnels and alcoves dating back from the past that make it really cool and handy to get away from the rain.
After lunch we went to the tourist office to get some plan into our day. We acquired a map and then went to see York Minster, the largest gothic cathedral in northern Europe. I was thinking that you'd really want to have the largest church in town or some claim because there are plenty of sensational churches and if you were the second biggest in the town you'd never get any money from tourists, no matter how impressive it was! The other guys paid money to go into the internal areas but I'd seen enough grand churches that are spiritually dead.
We saw some of the old fashioned shops and markets later and went to the Jorvik Viking Centre. York has a strong Viking history and there are a lot of excavations that have uncovered many artefacts in and around York from the time of the Vikings. It started off with this simulation of being in a time machine with some very lame rumbling of seats and actors on the screen. Pleeease! I paid good money for this! The next part was a ride through model reconstructions of ancient Viking village life complete with movement, smells (putrid ones) and sounds. We were in a capsule that moved around and gave different angles on the reconstructions so that it was actually quite good and I was thinking it wasn't so lame after all. All of this was underground and at the end there was an exhibit of actual foundations of a house from that time. When that finished there was more of a museum with artefacts and exhibits and also actors dressed up in Viking clothes that you could talk to, which I did but can't remember what we talked about - intelligent things I'm sure ;). I think they were members of the local archaeological group because they knew their stuff. There were also some hands-on things to do for the kids. Overall I'd put it on a recommended list as it was innovative and I actually learnt a few things!
Next was a walk to a tower (it's in the photos) which Gregg and I couldn't be bothered pay £3 to go inside of. Then we went for a walk around the city wall, well, what's left of it which is quite a bit. A lot of people will compare York to Chester as both have significant walls from Roman times. I thought the wall at York was better because it was more solid, stately and just really had not deteriorated very much at all in 2,000 years.
We needed a rest about now and the local York Brewery seemed the most convenient place. We almost missed it it was that small. It's the first brewery to be started in York for 40 years. For £5 we got a half-pint of Yorkshire Terrier, a brewery tour and a half-pint of Stonewall at the end of the tour. The tour was quite informative and because it was so small you could visualize the progression and understand all the steps undertaken to make beer. Now I know why the lagers have bubbles but the darker ales do not, all to do with the yeast and whether they're at the top or bottom of the mix during fermentation.
It was getting dark by now so we went to find a restaurant to eat in. Eventually found one but it was unbelieveable how many had stopped serving food and this was only about 6pm! We then caught a rowdy train back to Manchester because it was full of people who'd been at the races but at least we had seats both ways.
So ends another sightseeing day in the UK. I've definitely seen more outside of London than I thought I would, and all the better for it.
Ahh...Just been spending a lazy day reading other people's blogs... They're either very bored or very industrious but it was a good way to get an idea of how they're going and reminiscing about life back in Melb, Aust and the fun times we had. I do miss when I used to be the centre of everybody's world...well, at least it felt like that when I used to chair meetings...ahhh, the power! The attention! The cleaning up when everybody's left!
In a way, whilst it is exciting here, I miss those guys and family, but trying not to dwell on it too much as I'm still sticking to the plan of being in the UK for a year.
Back in Manchester it turned out to be a busy week socially. I was finishing off the last week of my Amsterdam contract working from home and this time I was appreciating that arrangement more than I did in the past while in Stoke-on-trent! So work wasn't stressful at all and the thing that occupied my time were social engagements.
On the Monday Yashin and Shenaz were coming over to Gregg and Elly's for dinner. I knew Yashin from Queensland and we lived in the same house for a bit back in Melbourne. Shenaz was his wife and they were soon to leave the UK and return to Brisbane. It was a good night catching up with what everyone had been doing, their travel plans and stories, and future direction.
On the Tuesday we went to a Manchester United match against Benfica in the Champions League. We had good seats and we were able to see all of the 3 goals that were scored (Manchester United 2-1 Benfica). Rooney wasn't playing that night having been suspended; apparently he's the Michael Jordan of soccer. There was a lot of chanting and the Benfica supporters were separated from the Man Utd supporters by a row of security guards all around. There were only about a fifth of them to Man Utd supporters but they were impressively vocal. They even lit a flare when their team scored a goal. No soccer violence though...shame really, would have been nice to have the complete English soccer experience hehe ;) It was a wet old night but not a bad game to watch. They were missing a big screen in the stadium though which meant that if you didn't see the goal then bad luck...or watch it later at home on TV.
The trams get really packed on the line back into the city so we decided to walk back in.
The rest of the week was just catching up with different people. There was a work drinks thing on Friday night which I hadn't been to for a while. It was a good opportunity to get to know some of the Manchester people a bit better. They're a good friendly bunch. I had met them before but only in passing and it's always different in a social setting. Went home at a reasonable hour though.
On the Saturday it was Jake's birthday so we went down to Manchester's 'Curry Mile'. Literally something like Lygon St but full of Indian and Pakistani restaurants with bold flashing neon lights. I thought we were going to have dinner but it turned out the place was just a bar and it was just drinking again. I couldn't be bothered so I pulled the pin early at 10pm and so did Bruce and Elly and we went back home.
On Sunday it was the NRL Grand Final and it was showing live so Gregg and Elly had put on brunch and invited anyone who was interested to come down. It was all Australians and whilst I'm not an NRL fan it was a good match to watch.
After that I pretty much packed for the week down in Derby. Bought a new mid-sized luggage bag so I wouldn't have to take everything with me! Went and caught the train Sunday afternoon and made it down to Derby. The great thing about the trains in the UK is that there is always more than one way to get there so you can change your plans on the fly if a train is delayed or cancelled. Much more flexible than the one train to Ballarat infrastructure we've got back home.
Well this blog is getting way behind date... So enough of this procrastination of sorts and onto the events! :)
My last weekend in Amsterdam was quite a good one because I had finished up work in Amsterdam and was doing the last week of it (that being the contract) back in Manchester so I really didn't have to think about work for the next week. Not that I do normally, I'm usually quite good at switching off after work's done. It's only rarely that I think about work problems and how to solve them when I'm at home. On the Friday after work Victor and I caught the train back to Centraal Station where he was going to catch the train to Schipol Airport but had a bit of time to spare before that. So went by the tourist offices to see what activities we could book for. Even though Victor was going back to London this weekend he was going to try and do some touristy things the next week so he was interested to see what was on. The tourist office (known as the VVV in Holland) in front of Centraal Station was quite busy and so I thought we'd go to the other one inside the train station which seemed less well known. That was also busy but had fewer people in the line so we decided to stick around. The line moved very slowly though as each person in front discussed their options in depth. Peculiarly enough I wasn't my usual impatient self and bore the wait with Stoic resolve ;)
From my time in line waiting I had decided that I would take a tour out to Zaanse Schans for a half day and also buy the evening ticket to Anne Frank Huis in advance. There was a full day tour but that seemed a bit too much to take up over the weekend.
The bus for the tour left either at 8:45am from the VVV or at 9:30pm from the tour office. I looked it up on the map and found that the tour office was probably closer and easier to get to than the VVV. The uncertainty was that I had never been to the tour office before and could get lost and miss the bus entirely, thereby saying goodbye to 35 good Euros. Decided to take the risk and got up early enough so that even if I caught the wrong tram I'd have time to walk back to where I wanted to be! Anyway, to cut a long story short got there with plenty of time to spare.
There were about six different buses there each going off on a different trip. I found the one that said 'Edam and the Windmills' and after handing over my receipt got on the bus. It was quite a nice bus and the guide was quite talented speaking fluent Italian, Dutch and English - then again, they all do over there! I'm sure he could speak more languages but that was the crowd on the bus that day.
The first stop was Edam which is not where Dutch Edam cheese comes from despite initial impressions. Truly a remarkably pretty little town. It's not too far out of Amsterdam (approx 30 mins) so I think it's a popular trip for tourist to go to. You could also catch the normal public transport buses there if you knew what you were doing. The Dutch countryside is consistently green and the guide explained that they get the same amount of rain each month of the year. No wonder they're the world's third largest agricultural exporter! Their main problem is enough sunlight during the day over winter.
We wandered around Edam for a little while with the guide pointing out interesting little things, like the dates that the houses were built, what certain symbols outside houses meant, that sort of thing.
Have moved to another website for photos because I found Shutterfly was cropping the edges of my photos and not representing them the way that I had taken them :)
After Edam we got on the bus and headed to Zaanse Schans where there were functioning windmills and a clog (wooden shoe) factory. Windmills are not used in Amsterdam anymore as it's all electrical now but there are quite a few operating windmills at Zaanse Schans. The still use the windmills for commercial purposes to make money but the government also subsidizes the operators so that tourists can still go and see them. Zaanse Schans is Asian tourist capital!! Oh, I guess that would include me :) Heaps of Japanese people though. The clog factory was quite an eye opener. They have different clogs for all sorts of different occasions. For example you have ornate wedding clogs, summer clogs, winter clogs, ice-skating clogs, house clogs, outdoor clogs, wet weather clogs, etc. In the old days the clog maker would make about 5 pairs of clogs a day but now they have machines that make a single clog in about 5 minutes! it works on a similar machine to what is used to make a copy of a key. You have your original model on one side and a block of wood on the other side and before your very eyes the block of wood is transformed into a shoe! And to carve out the inside for the feet it's a different machine but essentially the same concept with a model on one side and the new clog in the other. We were treated to a demonstration of this and then let loose on the tourist merchandise and actual clogs to wear (the trick is to wear very thick socks). People still wear the clogs today as they are cheaper than leather, warmer in winter, cooler in summer and protect the foot better from being stepped on by horses and cows.
However, I didn't see any clog wearers in Amsterdam itself... They don't need to I guess as Dutch people are very tall. Just generally very tall on average, made me wonder why they aren't better at basketball. After a few days I formulated that part of the reason might be because they all smoke! Seriously everybody does it, it's like the national past time! And they have the most lax laws on smoking in civilised Europe! Even restaurants and hotels have these little signs on tables about living together in harmony while respecting each others differences and rights (in relation to smoking). Yeah, thank you for allowing me to respect your difference and giving me lung cancer! I'm much more enlightened now! ;)
We then went by to the windmills and went inside, around and up the windmill. This one was used to crush out vegetable oil which is then sold to boutique food stores. Very other-worldly and good material for photographs. We had a bit of spare time to explore the area and also a cheese shop/factory nearby but I didn't stay in there long. Didn't get to see that other iconic symbol of Holland, the tulip. It's a bit past the season for it - would have liked to though. I didn't buy anything though as I knew I was full up in luggage, I was 3kg over going to Amsterdam and the check-in girl for Jet2.com made me pay for it coming back! I couldn't believe it! 3kg! The tour guide did say that Dutch people are known to be tight-fisted and gave us examples like 'going Dutch', 'Dutch auction' and about 10 other phrases to prove his point. The tour guide was Dutch so I guess he's allowed to say that :) Anyway, now before you think I'm a bad packer, the reason is because I didn't have a house in the UK at the time so there was nowhere really for me to leave stuff I didn't need. I had to take across everything that I had brought across from Australia (except for a little box I left at Elly's place).
Well I had lunch while in Zaanse Schans and we all got dropped off back in Amsterdam at Dam Square. Wandered aound the city looking at the Royal Palace, the National Monument, Nieuwe Kerk (New church), Oude Kerk (surprise, Old Church), China Town and yes the Red Light District. I didn't seek it out honestly! One moment it was Oude Kerk and the next Red Light District! Quite an interesting place indeed.
It was now about time for me to make my way to Anne Frank's house so I caught the tram down towards that direction. This was the actual house that the Franks hid in during WW II with the actual secret passage behind the bookshelf and all! Very exciting stuff, brings back childhood memories of secret passages and adventures though, of course, the events surrounding the lives of the Franks is a very sobering story. Still it was like going back in history to the actual place where historic and significant events took place. The Anne Frank Huis is a very well designed attraction and the house next to it has been purchased and incorporated into the overall...exhibit?..'experience' is probably the better word. Dutch houses as some would know (especially if you've read past blog postings) are very narrow but the way that they've designed the flow of people traffic was very clever as it was all in one direction and you never bumped into people coming out of a room while you were going in. Consider also that the house is three storeys tall! This is where the purchase of the adjacent house has helped I suspect. The rooms also had modern video recordings from the people who helped hide the Franks, actual documents cards of the Franks from the concentration camps and quotes from Anne's diary on the wall. A very solemn experience and really touches you emotionally. It would have been great if we had been able to visit a place like this while doing Elie Wiesel's Night during year 11. It is also astounding the amount of documentary evidence they were able to find and recover from that time.
If you go to Anne Frank Huis, and I would highly recommend it - probably the place to see in Amsterdam, it is better to buy an evening ticket before-hand. The line to buy tickets into the house is quite long. The evening ticket lets you go in anytime after 4:30pm and there is a separate door for you to by-pass the long line of people!
On the Sunday I went to the Van Gogh museum, which is also another popular attraction judging by the lines. I can't really claim to be into art or know much about the different styles, schools and painters but I didn't mind Van Gogh's paintings. The audio tour which is a headphone commentary also helps you to appreciate the history behind a lot of the paintings. Definitely worth the €4 if you're not a Van Gogh buff. His father was actually a preacher so there are a lot of religious themes in his paintings. Stayed there for about 2 hrs and definitely enjoyed the experience.
Caught the tram back home to have some lunch and then start packing for the flight back to Manchester. Got the phone number of a taxi driver outside the Van Gogh museum and told him I would call him later to go to Centraal Station which I did. Though I gave him the wrong address but he figured out where I was because it was the same road, it was just that in one direction it was called one thing and another in the other direction.
The flight was delayed so wasn't happy about that (especially after being charged excess luggage!) and got to Manchester about 11pm. I had arranged to stay with Gregg and Elly and luckily that was OK as with such short notice from work it was going to be nigh imposssible to get anywhere else (except an expensive hotel)!
PS. I Amsterdam is the city's marketing slogan. There are some humourous variations such as I Amsterdamned, I Amsterdamaged or I Amsturdam in reference to the amount of dog doo around the city.
Well it has been quite hectic lately with work and moving around from place to place. In the last three weeks I have been in three different cities; Amsterdam, Manchester and Derby. It has been a new experience living with people I have not lived with before and taking me out of my comfort zone. With the guys in Manchester they are friends from way back but I'd never stayed with them before and sharing close surrounds with different people with different standards of running their household always has a period of adjustment. And this week in Derby I am staying with a couple that I would only count as acquaintances and who probably live in their house differently from other people. However, its a good way to make acquaintances into friends and extends the conversational and people skills that I have! I will probably bump into these same people on trips that are being planned now so it's probably good that I'm getting to know them better now.
What the house in Derby has which I realised I have not seen for a while is a nice backyard! Not a big one but a nice size with well kept grass and BBQ area and chairs. Who would've thought I'd appreciate a backyard? I have breakfast standing in the kitchen just looking out into the backyard!
Work-wise it has been challenging as well as the project in Amsterdam had unrealistic deadline expectations and they had wanted to extend me for another week however I was glad that Ciber were going move me on and have me work at the University of Derby. However, when I got to Derby on the Monday there were a host of issues that were to prevent them going live at the end of the week so I was again thrust into a high pressure situation! I was thinking I gotta stop going into projects where it's in a bad state of affairs!
Today has been much better though and hopefully we'll reach our goal of a go-live on Friday.
In terms of fun it has been very good. I went back to London on that weekend (seems a while back now). The security at Amsterdam Schipol airport is amazing (ie. annoying). They check you for security after check-in with the sensitivity set to high so that you have to take off everything metallic and then they do it again at the gate as you're boarding the plane! I can see why they do it as you can pick up something from the shops or where-ever between the first security check and the boarding gate but its such a hassle!! I think Bangkok had it right as they only checked you once at the boarding gate. That way there is no bottleneck at the start and they make sure that you don't take on anything dangerous onto the plane.
There were the inevitable flight delays which I have come to regard as normal as no flight has ever been on time but landing in Heathrow they're an hour behind so that bought me a bit of time. This weekend I was going to be staying in Chelsea 5 minutes from the soccer ground. Fortunately there was no game there that weekend. Apparently it gets loud and raucous into the night after a game. So I made my way to Fulham Broadway, the closest tube station to my friend's house where my friend met me.
The next morning we went shopping for a bit at the street markets down the road. Nothing special but a pleasant thing to do on a sunny, if not warm, Saturday. There was quite a line outside one butcher's shop which was the one we were wanting to buy stuff from. Seriously, some of the lines for the shops and vegetable stalls made me remark to Denise that it looks like an Eastern Europe bread line! haha
There was no real plan for the Saturday except seeing The Producers so I was trying to sort out meeting some other friends around that mattinee performance. Managed to sort out that I would meet some friends for dinner at 'the best Malaysian place' they had found and I would meet a friend of a friend on Sunday sometime. She'd left Australia and spent some time in the States on holidays before landing in London on the Friday to start her working holiday.
The Producers was entertaining and funny. We got balcony tickets for £20 which also included restaurant lunch before-hand so not a bad deal. We got the very first row and had to lean forward to actually see all the stage, otherwise we'd only be able to see the top two third of the stage where people are not. Anyway, leaning forward wasn't too bad as we had the ledge to rest on in front of us. During intermission we heard people behind us complaining that they had to lean forward as well but unfortunately for them there was no ledge so they would have been quite stiff!! I found it hard to believe that the whole balcony was badly designed so that people had to lean forward but I think that might have been the case!
The show itself was funny with particular highlights and good choreography, props, costume and dancing. There were some parts that were predictable as well. I found it difficult to keep my eyes open at one point. Not sure why because it wasn't boring. Maybe it was just the dark lights.
The other noteworthy thing is that we saw a celebrity in London. I'm not really into that but some people reading this might be interested. It was Sienna Miller. I could tell someone was around because there was a bunch of photographers on the other side of the road across from a store. I didn't know who it was at the time as she was still in the shop. A couple of minutes later she came out and the photographers started snapping away. She didn't look that special (Denise described it as 'dishevelled') and she was shorter than what I thought she would be. Apparently Sienna was in a show in London so it wasn't a surprise that we saw her.
After the show we wandered around Covent Gardens and then caught the bus to meet our friends for dinner. Well, my friends. I had to convince Denise to go out and meet new people. We had a good dinner and the food I'd rate highly; definitely go there again. It was a bit better than a Footscray place in that the food was good (like in Footscray) but the decor was also of some quality and not pretentious upmarket yuppy restaurant quality (Footscray places usually have poor furnishings).
We caught the bus back home which is a new area of learning as I had previously always taken the Tube. They are much quicker and more frequent but I realised that with trains you miss out on seeing the sights and happenings in the street. Buses are slow and in terms of efficiency I'll always take the train but I appreciate what you can miss out on seeing travelling above ground, especially at night in the city. Plus buses are cheaper. I'll never understand why people pay £10 for a sightseeing bus when you can pay £1.20 and get the same thing on a double-decker transport bus. Sure there's no commentary but just do a bit of reading yourself beforehand ;)
On Sunday I went to All Souls, a church in London that had been recommended to me by a friend. It was fantastic, easily the best church I've found so far. It's also the church that John Stott used to preach in. If I was in London I'd definitely make that my home church. It's in an impressive stone building and probably had upwards of 500 people (1 of 3 services for the Sunday). They had ushers outside as well to take latecomers to spare seats. I was late because I got off at Picadilly Circus instead of Oxford Circus so had to walk for a bit and ask directions to get to the church. When I found it I realised that we'd passed it many times before as it is quite a prominent building. The guest preacher that day was Dewi Hughes, theological adviser to Tearfund preaching on Amos. I can't remember the question that was put to him but when he replied that he was an evangelical Christian and the Bible was his sole authority on life and tongue-in-cheek asked if All Souls was a evangelical church, I knew that I was in the right place! It was great to see a vibrant crowd across all age groups and nationalities and hearing the Bible preached! They only sang hymns as well, even new ones that had only been made up recently! They have a good setup and range of ministries, such as a newcomers group where you can put your name down and on a given night go along and meet other new people to the church.
Later that day I met up with Audrey and caught up on what she had been up to and was planning to do. I also passed on some of the thoughts and advice I had on establishing myself in the UK though she was pretty clued up on most things. I sorta had to rush off because my flight was later that night and I still had to go back to Chelsea where Denise had already cooked dinner!
So all of a sudden the weekend had come to an end really quickly (doesn't it always?). In some ways I was glad to be getting back to Amsterdam where I had all my pre-puchased tickets and know how to get from the airport to home quickly without queueing. I felt I was proficient in that city. Amsterdam sussed, Manchester conquered, London to go! :)
Actually I don't know if I'll get there, have to wait and see how the job situation goes. I got a call about a CRM job back in London but the rates are lower than what I'm getting here. Might be worth sacrificing that to move into the Business Analyst roles and being in London but it depends on what other offers are put forward.
