My first week in London

I'm already thinking about New Years resolutions, and two of them are:
- putting more effort into this blog
- try to keep a diary of my life in London
So this a first attempt to kill those two birds in one stone.

I already tried keeping a diary in Oxford, but I failed and only wrote some stuff on several days (never posted any of it), so hopefully I'll have more success this time.


So... I already finished my first week in London, damn, how time is passing quick.
When I came here last saturday I didn't really know what to feel, about my situation, my hostfamily, my 'new' life, so the only thing felt was 'lost' and a bit confused. Now I feel much more at home.
My hostfamily, house and especially my room are quite nice. I found it hard to 'judge' the family, as I realized I was so used to my comfortable situation in Oxford and the family there - i could basically do whatever i wanted and had a sortoff friendship relationship with the mother -, that I couldn't put things in perspective anymore. I found it really hard not to compare them to my hostfamily in Oxford, and they would in no way measure up to them. Nonetheless, they are nice people and I could've ended up at worse places.

My house is in a nice street in Kenton/Kingsbury about an hour from the centre, in zone 4, past Wembley stadium. It's quite far from the centre,which is a bit dissapointing, but hopefully I can adapt to that... (and if I don't I'll have to move) The nearest tube station (Kingsbury) is a 15 minute walk and there are 2 other tube stations in the area. Unfortunately Kingsbury station is closed on the weekend, due to improvement work (2012 Olympics, etc), so if I want to go out on the weekend I have to take the bus to Kenton station. The tubes also stop going between 12 and 1, so if I go out or to gigs or something, I should really keep that in mind... no all night parties, I'm afraid.
My room is quite big and I finally have a desk (and an uncomfy chair though), which is nice. Here's some pictures [as you can see I alreay managed to make quite a mess]:



I live with 5 people in the house now, the hostparents, hostbrother and sister (16 and 22-year olds) and another student, a Swiss girl called Lucie. She goes to the same school, has been here 2 months and is leaving in April. I haven't seen the hostsister and the other student much though, as I've been out most of the week.

I've spend most of the week exploring London, collecting luggage, buying concert tickets, going to some instores and taking care of some bureaucratic (school) stuff.

On monday I visited the school, it took me hours to find it, as it was not actually in Covent Garden (where I made the terrible mistake of taking the stairs at the station - about 200 steps - and nearly had a heart attack when I reached the top), but across the street from the Holborn station. Note to self: never rely on your intuition only, always take a map as back up. The school seemed quite nice. I've been trying to apply for a student oyster card, which took some effort (i've been sent back and forth to tube stations, post offices etc), but at the end of the week I managed to get the answer: 'you'll receive your student oyster card in 2 or 3 weeks'.
I also sorted out something with the director of studies about what i'll be doing in London. I'll start in higher advanced/profiency class at the Covent Garden school and take IELTS-elective classes. When there's space in the IELTS class at Leicester Square, I'll transfer to that school. And for the time left, I'll just have to wait and see what the options are going to be. Was a bit dissapointed though, when I didn't hear back from my tutor in Oxford, as he promised.

I've been to a friends house in London to pick up some luggage and later back to Oxford to pick up more luggage there and say goodbye to the hostfamily. When I came back from Oxford in the evening, it had started snowing and I had to pull my suitcase through 8 centimetres of snow, which was not very fun.
It has been very cold since I arrived in London, well it is winter after all, and it has also been snowing a bit. Not much snow in the centre though, probably good as else it might cause problems with the tube.



I've also been exploring Camden, East London and Brick Lane, the spots where all the 'London hipsters' hang out. Found some really cool stores and markets and had some nice conversations, one with an old stinking guy in a vintage camera store, about analogue photography and also one in an Episode store in Camden, where I found out - after noticing a picture of the Dutch crownprince behind the counter - Episode is actually a Dutch company. Strolling around in London makes me feel really good, I feel very much at home in the city itself, too bad I don't live closer to the centre. I also love tubing already: I mean what is more enjoyable than watching a 4 year old girl doing a pole dance act? Or watching a man next to you play tetris on his mobile phone? Also managed to trick a group of Brabanders (dutch people from the south of the country) into a state of confusion, by saying they were going the wrong way/were on the wrong tube line. It was funny. Evil, but funny.

Buying concert tickets turned out to be a real pain in the arse, atleast without a credit card. I can't buy tickets online, so have to go by all the box offices, and some gigs don't do box office sales, which is fuckin great -.- It gets even worse when newbies fuck up your ticket/don't provide you enought information and you have to go back all the way to sort it out. This week I spent almost 200 pounds on concert tickets for the next year, so I should really stop for now...

I saw Slow Club at Pure Groove Records on the 15th (PGR are having some sort of christmas festival instores) and 3 days later I saw Bombay Bicycle Club (acoustic). BBC was quite short, since they were afraid to miss their gig at Koko, but it was OK. Slow Club was awesome and Charles from the band came up with a funny quote: 'Yesterday I had a ginger ale and it was called 'ginger tosser'... It had a picture of Mick Hucknall on it...'.

So, what's next, with the first week London gone? Well, tonight I'm meeting up with my parents & brother at a hotel in Victoria. They're going to be here for a 4-day holiday, which should be quite nice :) The 24th we're flying back to the Netherlands for Christmas. I'm looking forward to meeting my friends again. And I get a chance to dump all my bought stuff and sleep in my own bed for a few nights...
The 30th I'm flying back to London, so I can spend New Years in London. Before my school starts I also want to do some photography in London, I'll have a few days for that I think, since my school starts the 4th.

I'll be back on my blog, in the Netherlands in a couple of days. (i'll do another disposable camera post today. should also really catch up on my digital photography work from oxford, still have to work on pictures from november 0.0)