i'm finally here!
what a process it was to get over here. 4 months late, but here i am. i'll be here soaking up london and adap.tv uk for the next year before i return back to my lovely rent controlled apartment in SF that adam is willingly paying full rent for (you're the best, babe!).
i arrived in london last friday around noon and it felt strange. i already felt homesick and could've gotten on a flight immediately to return, but clearly that didn't happen. i had arranged for a car service to come take me and my three very heavy suitcases to the air bnb flat that i have been staying. i've been staying in south london in clapham. i would equate the area i'm in to noe valley. one day i walked down the main strip and there were 4 strollers in sight at all times. i'm by a large common so there are active people everywhere. for whatever reason, i had this impression that the brits didn't exercise as much but i was clearly very wrong.
i spent the rest of that day feeling like a zombie forcing myself to stay awake so that i'd beat jetlag. i finally gave up at 9:30pm and slept till 9am. success! on saturday i took the train & tube into central london to walk around. mostly i was trying to get my phone figured out, which ended up being a four day ordeal but i'm all sorted now. gotta start working on my lingo here. haven't used cheers at the end of an email yet, but i'm sure that'll come soon :)
i walked down regent street (tons of shopping), stumbled into chinatown (surprisingly clean, uncrowded and calm), and then walked through st. james park to buckingham palace. before leaving, i decided i would not be crazy and bring a bottle of sriracha because that is obsessive and why wouldn't an intl city like london have it? turns out i should've listened to my gut. i walked into a store in chinatown and there was no sign of that familiar green cap. what's making me even more nervous is that my coworkers said 'what??' when i asked them if they sell sriracha here. sigh. i even googled 'can you buy sriracha in london' to find that online i can buy a bottle for 4.50 GBP. you have got to be kidding me. there is no way in hell that the asian in me would let me pay $7 for that hot sauce! perhaps i can sweet talk one of my coworkers to bring me back a bottle back after he goes to nyc next week...
moving on...i'm not living anywhere permanently yet so i've been scoping out neighborhoods slowly to see where i want to live. apparently my coworkers live all around london so everyone is quite opinionated on where to live, but assure me i can't really go wrong. haha helpful, right? london is big with tons of boroughs and most people live outside of zone 1 (central london) because it's more affordable. public transit is so frequent here, it's really not a huge deal to live further out because you can get to the center of town in no time.
i started work finally on tuesday which was great! i was getting restless and lonely by myself and homesickness was really starting to set in since i didn't have a routine going on yet. i take the tube to work and if everything is going as expected, it takes 35 minutes which includes walking to the station, changing lines and walking to work. people told me that the northern line that i take gets very busy, but i didn't really anticipate what that would mean. i can handle crowds. the commuting gods must've taken it easy on me because as soon as i walked down the escalator on my first morning, the car was there, the doors were wide open and it wasn't crowded at all. i thought to myself, "i can do this...this isn't busy at all...i don't know what they're talking about!" i changed lines (also uncrowded) and got to work in no time. no sweat. then there was the next day.
yesterday i walked down the escalator again anticipating a similar experience and boy was i in for a treat! there were crowds of people everywhere and every train that came by was packed to the gills. i watched four trains come and go before i finally said 'fuck it' and forced my way onto a train which is literally smashing your body into the others and hoping that the doors don't close on you. it's ok...i watched enough people do it before i got the courage. this morning was much easier (only three went by and i jumped in when two other people forced their way on leaving a little room for moi) and luckily people don't really get upset because it's just how it is. everyone's just trying to get to work. luckily this should just be temporary until i move!
as for work--it's been great! i work in a lovely square right in the middle of everything and our office is on the top floor of a cute brick building. the team here is small, so it's quite a change from working at the hq in san mateo. everyone has been extremely welcoming and super helpful since i've been bombarding them with questions. the environment is pretty relaxed and no one takes themselves too seriously. i'm going to be working on biz dev for two large clients so that will keep me nice and busy. i already went and met some clients today, so they are wasting no time! i'm excited for the challenge because i didn't have the opportunity to work in this capacity back home.
i'm moving out this sunday from my airbnb to an empty room that just opened up in my coworker's flat (see! getting better). i'll be there for 2 months and then will figure out something permanent. i'm still living out of the suitcases so it will be nice to finally unpack. i've already written a novel so until next time! xoxo
big ben & westminster
what a process it was to get over here. 4 months late, but here i am. i'll be here soaking up london and adap.tv uk for the next year before i return back to my lovely rent controlled apartment in SF that adam is willingly paying full rent for (you're the best, babe!).
i arrived in london last friday around noon and it felt strange. i already felt homesick and could've gotten on a flight immediately to return, but clearly that didn't happen. i had arranged for a car service to come take me and my three very heavy suitcases to the air bnb flat that i have been staying. i've been staying in south london in clapham. i would equate the area i'm in to noe valley. one day i walked down the main strip and there were 4 strollers in sight at all times. i'm by a large common so there are active people everywhere. for whatever reason, i had this impression that the brits didn't exercise as much but i was clearly very wrong.
not too bad, right?
i walked down regent street (tons of shopping), stumbled into chinatown (surprisingly clean, uncrowded and calm), and then walked through st. james park to buckingham palace. before leaving, i decided i would not be crazy and bring a bottle of sriracha because that is obsessive and why wouldn't an intl city like london have it? turns out i should've listened to my gut. i walked into a store in chinatown and there was no sign of that familiar green cap. what's making me even more nervous is that my coworkers said 'what??' when i asked them if they sell sriracha here. sigh. i even googled 'can you buy sriracha in london' to find that online i can buy a bottle for 4.50 GBP. you have got to be kidding me. there is no way in hell that the asian in me would let me pay $7 for that hot sauce! perhaps i can sweet talk one of my coworkers to bring me back a bottle back after he goes to nyc next week...
the tower bridge
moving on...i'm not living anywhere permanently yet so i've been scoping out neighborhoods slowly to see where i want to live. apparently my coworkers live all around london so everyone is quite opinionated on where to live, but assure me i can't really go wrong. haha helpful, right? london is big with tons of boroughs and most people live outside of zone 1 (central london) because it's more affordable. public transit is so frequent here, it's really not a huge deal to live further out because you can get to the center of town in no time.
i started work finally on tuesday which was great! i was getting restless and lonely by myself and homesickness was really starting to set in since i didn't have a routine going on yet. i take the tube to work and if everything is going as expected, it takes 35 minutes which includes walking to the station, changing lines and walking to work. people told me that the northern line that i take gets very busy, but i didn't really anticipate what that would mean. i can handle crowds. the commuting gods must've taken it easy on me because as soon as i walked down the escalator on my first morning, the car was there, the doors were wide open and it wasn't crowded at all. i thought to myself, "i can do this...this isn't busy at all...i don't know what they're talking about!" i changed lines (also uncrowded) and got to work in no time. no sweat. then there was the next day.
yesterday i walked down the escalator again anticipating a similar experience and boy was i in for a treat! there were crowds of people everywhere and every train that came by was packed to the gills. i watched four trains come and go before i finally said 'fuck it' and forced my way onto a train which is literally smashing your body into the others and hoping that the doors don't close on you. it's ok...i watched enough people do it before i got the courage. this morning was much easier (only three went by and i jumped in when two other people forced their way on leaving a little room for moi) and luckily people don't really get upset because it's just how it is. everyone's just trying to get to work. luckily this should just be temporary until i move!
as for work--it's been great! i work in a lovely square right in the middle of everything and our office is on the top floor of a cute brick building. the team here is small, so it's quite a change from working at the hq in san mateo. everyone has been extremely welcoming and super helpful since i've been bombarding them with questions. the environment is pretty relaxed and no one takes themselves too seriously. i'm going to be working on biz dev for two large clients so that will keep me nice and busy. i already went and met some clients today, so they are wasting no time! i'm excited for the challenge because i didn't have the opportunity to work in this capacity back home.
adap.tv uk!
i'm moving out this sunday from my airbnb to an empty room that just opened up in my coworker's flat (see! getting better). i'll be there for 2 months and then will figure out something permanent. i'm still living out of the suitcases so it will be nice to finally unpack. i've already written a novel so until next time! xoxo
haha i love your comment "there is no way in hell that the asian in me would let me pay $7 for that hot sauce!" b/c it's so true! xoxo!
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