Living in London vs. visiting London

Well, I’m finally here! It’s a bit bizarre to have actually moved to London – my mind refuses to wrap itself around the idea, instead choosing to believe that I’m still visiting and, thus, free to just have fun and spend money. I’ll really have to get over that soon!!!

The week in between arriving back in Toronto from Vancouver and leaving Toronto for London was absolutely insane. I have no idea where the time went. Did manage to spend some time with friends (though, unfortunately, wasn’t able to see others) and also to spend time with my parents and sister. I wish I had had more time to say goodbye – this entire summer has been a bit of a blur, ever since I left my job at the library back in June. Since then, things have just been speeding by.

Leaving my parents at the airport was painful. I always miss my family when I leave for any amount of time, and the experience was made exponentially painful this time by the fact that I have no idea when I’ll see my parents or sister again. It could well be a year before I’m back in Toronto, and my parents don’t have any plans to visit me until next summer :(. I must confess that I cried when my parents walked me to the security gate – no matter how hard I tried to keep the tears back, they just spilled over. Then my mum started crying, which made me feel even worse. My last glimpse of my parents was of them waving madly at me as I turned to look at them one last time before I stepped through the metal detector and out of sight.

I miss my family :(.

Anyway, this whole experience is proving to be more painful than I’d expected. I’m the type of person who likes to be sure of things before I go through with them. Moving to London without a job or place to live, therefore, is HIGHLY uncharacteristic, to say the least. When I made the decision initially, I was in a strange frame of mind – I was so fed up with my job and my life that I decided to embrace the idea of “Carpe Diem”, do what I wanted and screw the consequences. Now that a level of sanity has returned, I’m starting to wonder what the hell I was thinking! My life right now is unbelievably unstable, and it’s scaring the hell out of me. Hopefully, once I’m able to stabilize at least one aspect of my life (like a place to live!), I’ll start to calm down. For now, I’m a bit of a wreck, mentally.

None of this is to say that I actually regret moving to London. The more I’m here, the more I realize how much I truly love this city. There’s always something to do here and there’s always something interesting going on that will provide a memorable experience. For a person like me (the type that loves theatre, music, dance, history, and museums), London is the most vibrant place in the world :).

So, here’s what I’ve been up to since I got here…

Saturday – arrived at the flat around 1pm after a fairly uneventful journey and, after a bit of a rest and chance to freshen up, went out for a very early dinner with Justin. We aimed to go to Pizza Express (I think we both had it in mind to have another one of their yummy Chocolate Glory desserts) but found to our amazement and amusement that the Pizza Express we had set out for was closed…permanently. Being famished and unwilling to go any further to find food, we ducked into a nearby Strada instead. At the end of the meal, as we were paying our bill, our waiter suddenly asked, with a grin, if we’d each like a Limoncello (Italian liquor) on the house. Justin and I exchanged very confused glances, then thanked him and declined politely. The waiter looked very taken aback – I don’t think many people turn down free liquor! Lol.

Sunday – went to lunch with a few friends in Chinatown (dim sum! Yum!). It was funny because one of those friends, Mark, had never had dim sum before and was therefore eating everything on faith that we wouldn't order something disgusting. lol. He requested that we just let him know if he was about to eat an eyeball...which, of course, resulted in us telling him that EVERYTHING was an eyeball! As a final joke, the final dish of the meal was a dessert-type thing that really did resemble an eyeball (although it clearly wasn't). Don't think Mark was too amused :). After lunch, we took the bus over to Royal Albert Hall to pick up tickets for that night’s Proms concert. For those who don’t know, the BBC Proms is a classical music festival that takes place yearly in London. It runs all summer, and there’s at least one concert each day at Royal Albert Hall. Sunday’s concert featured the City of London Sinfonia and the BBC Singers, and included pieces by Mozart, Vaughan Williams, someone named Nigel Osborne, and a Mass by Beethoven. Surprisingly, my favourite part of the concert wasn’t the Mozart piece or Beethoven Mass. I found the Mozart a bit repetitive and the Mass, though beautiful at times, was just a bit sterile for me - I much prefer London's church choirs to the BBC Singers. Instead, it was the Vaughan Williams that caught my attention :). Very haunting. As for the other piece by Nigel Osborne? Well, let’s just say that I could have lived without it! I’ve never been a fan of modern music, despite various attempts by people to help me develop an appreciation for it. I’m afraid this piece, therefore, was just noise to me. I spent most of the piece counting empty seats and then gazing around the Hall...and, believe me, I wasn't the only one! Was also amused by the presence of a fountain in the Arena of the Hall. The Arena is comprised of standing room places for people who queue from the morning for 5 pound tickets (they're called Prommers) - think of the area for Groundlings at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Anyway, it seemed sort of silly to have a gurgling fountain right in the middle of the Arena, especially since it had to be turned off during the actual concert! Not to mention that the fountain had chairs placed in a ring around it...which meant that those seated on the side furthest from the stage were actually facing backwards! :) Was also amused by the people in the Arena who clearly defined "standing room" differently than the normal person - there were couples lying down together all over the place. In any case, a really fun experience!

Monday – spent most of the day on the internet flat-hunting, which wasn’t much fun. Bookmarked a whole bunch of flats though, which will have to be run by my future flatmates when we meet up on Sunday to get some things sorted. Then, when Justin got home from work around 5:30pm, we decided we’d go have dinner and then go to the cinema. Since neither of us had seen “The Dark Knight” yet, we decided to see that. Was a bit disappointed that we weren’t assigned seats (for some odd reason, I find the idea of being assigned a seat in the cinema charming, as well as the idea of there being a balcony in a cinema. Guess I’ll have to go to an older cinema to experience those things!), but got over it :). Did manage to find an open Pizza Express this time, then went into the movie. I enjoyed it, though it was disturbing at times and impossible to watch at other times. Justin and I ended up discussing it all the way home, somehow ending up discussing the idea of the “greater good”, the merits of vigilante justice, and debating the existence of pure beauty, truth, and goodness in the world. Don’t ask me how we ended up discussing these things! lol.

Tuesday – went to meet a couple of friends for lunch at a little Vietnamese restaurant in Soho before going to see “Jersey Boys”, which I absolutely love. After the show, had tea and cakes in Amato and then walked up to Trafalgar Square to sit on the steps and watch the Olympics being shown on a huge screen in the square. That was quite an experience – sitting with people of all different nationalities cheering on their respective countries. Unfortunately, Canada didn't do very well in any of the kayaking/canoeing races that we watched, but it certainly wasn't from lack of vocal support on my end! I'm sure I was quite embarrassing to be with. lol. Definitely one of those memorable London experiences I mentioned before :). After watching for awhile, we headed over to see “Zorro” (the musical), which was a lot of fun. I wasn't expecting much from this show and ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. Sure, it was slightly cheesy at times and a little overexaggerated at others but, hey, this IS Zorro! Came out of the show feeling quite cheery but very hungry, so went for a quick post-theatre dinner at the Spaghetti House and basically closed the place down :).

Tomorrow I’ve got to get up super early to queue for tickets to “Hairspray”. Planning on coming home afterwards to have a nap before meeting friends for dinner and then going to the actual show. Thursday, I’m meeting a friend during her lunch break. Friday, I’m possibly meeting another friend for dinner. Saturday, I’ll probably see another show, and Sunday, I’m meeting my future flatmates at a café to sort out details, etc. Am flat-hunting all of next week and, at some point, I also want to sign up with another couple of teaching agencies so I have more of a pool of supply teaching jobs when school starts. Am also still hoping for interviews in the near future! Fingers crossed.

Busy O_O. I only hope that I’ll be busy on my birthday too, and that I don't end up all alone feeling sorry for myself (I know, I know Anne, I brought this on myself...). lol.

Will blog again soon! And will start taking pictures so that this blog is accompanied by visuals :).