London baby !

I’m tiiiiiiiired… But so happy :-)
This Sunday I went to London! I took a train then the Underground (=the metro of London, also called the Tube) and met up with J, a friend from Québec that I had met in Australia.
We grabbed a sandwich at a chain called “Prêt à Manger” (so delicious) and went to sit on the big green lawns of Green Park. We got tanned a bit, then G, an English friend of mine I hadn’t seen in about a year a half came to join us. We had a walk in the park, went to see the Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye (huge big wheel on the Thames), South Bank, and then went to the Institute of Contemporary Arts to have a look at the free exhibition. I got a postcard for free at the bookshop which says: “Things are getting worse. Please send chocolate”

After that we decided to take the underground again to go to Camden. When we arrived I was amazed at how busy the area was! It was a Sunday so there was the Camden market, with lots of clothes shops, decorations, food stalls, strangely dressed people, bars, live music… Very bohemian and arty, loooooved it. G had to leave, but before she showed us a great pub called the Lock Tavern where we sat down to rest our feet and quench our thirst. E (my future housemate and colleague who comes from Italy) came a bit later with an Italian friend of hers and we all had drinks while listening to a DJ mixing electro and rock, and then watching a guy playing the guitar and singing à la Elliott Smith. I found out that a girl sitting next to me was from Belgium and had just come back from 5 years in Australia^^
On our way back to the underground station we decided to stop in a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner. We ate yummy food and improvised language lessons on food :-D Pretty cool night.

On Monday I and my 3 future housemates—including M, the Spanish assistant that we finally met that day; he’s very nice—went to the estate agent at 9am for the details about the contract (furniture, possibility to rent the fifth room, an 8-month lease…) and they said they would contact the landlord and get back to us. In the meantime we decided to visit a few other houses in case we could find something better/cheaper. So we knocked on several agencies’ doors, visited 3 or 4 houses but none of them was as good as the first one. Except one which was huge and fully furnished, but the owners were only leaving mid-November… to go live in Melbourne, Australia! Hehe

We also went to the school to get some official letters proving we were working as teaching assistants so as to open a bank account and register at the medical centre. We walked so much that at one point we decided we would reward ourselves with a break at the local KRISPY KREME doughnut shop. These doughnuts are EVIL. So good.
This was an exhausting day, but very interesting and I got to know my future housemates better!

Today was pretty much the same, except that the weather changed. Exit the sun and the blue sky, it was cold and rainy all day. Very British! I met up with my future housemates again and did all the administrative things like opening a bank account, going to the medical centre to register and do a check-up, and most of all, negotiating with the estate agent about the house. In the end, we signed the “Confirmation of terms and conditions” and paid the agency fees, but said we would not move in before seeing the house again with the furniture in it. We also had a look at the two commercial centers which are really big, us girls were so happy (especially when we went to Primark, kind of a British H&M but even cheaper!) while M, the Spanish assistant was looking at us laughing and saying oh my God I’m going to live with those 3 girls. :-D

E taught us an Italian expression at lunch to say that you are always hungry and that you can eat pretty much all the time: you’re a “pozzo senza fondo”, literally “a well without a bottom”. I told her we had the expression in French (“un puits sans fond”) but that it applied to people who were big spenders.

Anyway it was all exciting but so tiring! I keep on getting up at 8am and going to bed after midnight, and it’s going to be even worse tomorrow which will be my first day at school! I have to be there at 8.30am :-O I’m finally going to meet the staff and the students! Hope it will go well…