picture post

in order to make up for the last few hurried and pictureless posts - heres a bunch of photographic evidence of my life in london...

this is the street i "live" on....and by that i mean....the street a bunch of boys i know who have been kind enough to let me stay with them for over a week live on...

speaking of houses and boys....the morning after the infamous toga party...we all made breakfast together - that's isaac and his frying pan - neha was also visiting - ah canadian girls crashing in mile end ;)

mmm breakfast - i think isaac enjoyed his...matt looks slightly less joyful and slightly more contemplative

then isaac and neha and i visited bourough market and strolled along the river!
where we saw pirates!
that night matt and i went to see tropic of thunder (which was hilarious) and we passed by a go-kart track on our way home - go karts! in london! weird....

have i mentioned these boys are med students and spent the better part of half an hour one night "finding veins"....yeah...

i promise more cohesion to my blog soon....

a note from mile end

still can't shake this sickness!!!! ah!
the job is wearing me down - too much annoying shop job not enough eating of cheese to hold my interest!
facebook is hiring, maybe i can work for them! lol.
just moved a crapload of stuff from all nidhee's recently departed london friends into my own new flat....thanks to jill, ak, holly and nidhee for everything!
i even have my own keys
next step - new job and bike
for now i'm in mile end staying with a housefulloboys - thankfully one of them is off partying his behind off after running it off in the berlin marathon so i have his keys and room ALL to myself! whoo!....i might just steal his identity and stay!

positivitee

um i have a house

feeling better

new job is the next hurdle

things are looking up...

but complicated as usual

pics to follow once i have my laptop back (hopefully tomorrow...!)

insanity

still sick. maybe i have like bronchitis?? ah! i hope not :(

i dont even know what to write. there is too much. work work work and house viewings. had a day of fun on friday night/saturday - en mass we all went to a toga party on the bus wearing matching pink fur togas - no there are no photos so stop asking now, hilarious evening. then saturday went to borough market and then went to see a movie. it's been nice to have a "real life" here inbetween the surreal parts...i need a 9-5 job like a drowning man needs a life raft tho yo. 

also i hate my phone.

also i love new london friends who let you sleep at their place....

tomorrow devora comes to visit - its going to be fun but...i dont have any clean clothes and life is a whirlwind...there is too much to write :(

messed blog

sorry my blog is messed, i am attempting to fix it...although househunting, working, getting over a cold and socializing keep getting in the way.

went to see a play tonight. more on that later.

london is beautiful. now that my place here is unstable i really want to stay :(

Blogging, Bed & Brendan Canning

About to head off to bed but thought to write a bit about today and listen to some Brendan Canning before sleep and before work takes over my day tomorrow and the next day...

Quite a busy day...I woke up feeling a lot better than I did yesterday (yay) but still not 100% :(

No house viewings scheduled for today...so I did do some searching but it all seems so fruitless at this point...I don't know...

Sooooooo I thought I might as well have some fun on my day off since who knows when the next time I'll get to have that will be???

Anyway, some backstory...Nidhee is off in Spain and the hot water in her building has been turned off this week. Residents are being invited to shower over at the sister residence a few blocks away. As a completely illegally squatting non-resident, obviously this offer’s not extended to me.

However, Nids' friend AK, was moving out of his place this morning and had some plates and pots for me. So when I woke up I asked him if I could come over, get the stuff and while there, shower at his place. As I called him at 9, and he had to be out of his res by 10 I booked it on over to his residence, signed myself in as a guest and awkwardly showered in yet another residence stall without the luxury of a place to keep my stuff or the space to change in - yay bathroom stalls...wow I'm like more than just one, but in fact maybe several steps on my way to being or understanding homelessness....

So I figured to counterpoint this experience I would take myself out for a cushy breakfast at the British Museum Cafeteria - by no means really cushy as it is basically an expensive cafeteria but the British Museum name and the Great Hall location plus kind of fancy-ish, overpriced, good-but-not-that-good food satisfied this morning's criteria. here's a pic of the great hall.

After which I strolled through one of their main floor exhibits (this is the beauty of the free museum, you can go see an exhibit, wander through and then come back another day to see it again or some more, as often and as long as you want - cause it's free!) Anyway, here are some pics of the death and dying exhibit.

I especially like the dressed up skeleton witch things

But I also love the BC totem poles!

The main piece on display is cradle to grave...pretty cool...

After this I met up again with AK who pointed out this corner where the first gas station in london used to be - now across the street (to the left in the picture) they have these amazing parking spots - only for electric cars where you can park for up to 3 hours and charge your car while it's parked....it's the future people! Ironic tho huh - special electric car charging parking instead of a gas station...

AK really wanted to go check out this amazing exhibit at the welcome trust so off we went to see the...skeletons! ya! that's right! real live (well obviously not live) skeletons they found in london while digging things up in various areas for tube stuff and other stuff too i guess...anyway, the idea is that random areas in london used to be graveyards and burial grounds and stuff cause london is so old and everything and all these different people lived and died here and were buried and then had things built over top of them and then got accidentally dug up again sort of thing....and then they made it into an exhibit and i went to see them...it was creepsville yo - there were kid skeletons, skeletons from roman times 200-300 AD, there was even the youngest skeleton found in britain (a 22 week old feutus inside it's mother's skeleton...) - i couldn't take pics of the skeletons....here's a pic of the outside of the exhibit and this strange art piece stuck to the main hall ceiling that aly wanted to mimic and have me document.

After this we trekked back to aly's residence to pick up his stuff and my new stuff that he had been keeping in his friend's room all day and since he was meeting friends for dinner, about 8 of us hauled the stuff across russell square to john astor house and then went for icco pizza - pictures to follow of our motley crew - most of us only knew 1 or 2 people in the group but it turned out to be a really fun dinner - goes to show the power of icco pizza!

After pizza, holly and i decided we needed beers and ice cream, so we dragged aly to tesco where a new checkout lady offered us tesco shopper discount cards - obviously we were all excited by this prospect and readily agreed that we all needed one - this also merited a picture - but our checkout lady was camera shy so she ducked out of the picture (left) holly and AK (right) were totally into it tho.

Work tomorrow and Thursday (Nidhee gets back Thursday night and is out of here Saturday)....what will I do?

Today's post as opposed to post backlog

So...I think all this stress is having it's way with my immune system and I am either ill or well on my way, I'm hoping today was the worst of it...but we will see. They of course do not have the master of all anti-cold drugs (old fx) here - wtf? i know - then i figured i could just by ginseng - it's basically the same thing....but sweet sweet canadian cold fx would work better to set my mind at ease...

saw two very nice houses today...now i just have to cross my fingers one of them likes me enough to offer me a room...see i hate posting things like this on my blog cause then people all wanna follow up and ask "did you get either of those rooms" and then if i have to say no, i'll feel depressed and make the person who asked sorta sad that i dont have good news to share...see, this is the upshot of being vague and not disclosing information! instead i prefer to stick to the most frivolous topics of conversation possible.

inbetween these house viewings matt made jonny and i lunch. it was nice.

nidhee has gone to spain for a week. she's back on thursday night and moves out saturday. if i don't have a place by then, i am officially homeless.

i had a freak out at work the other day - they use these really inhumane glue traps for mice. (n.b. all food places have mice, it's not that this one is dirtier than any other) it made me really sad, compounded with their complete lack of environmentally friendly attitude :( i have to find a proper job soon.

sorry to be such a downer...i know (hope) things will start to look up soon...
here is a nice picture of the park where i spend my work breaks...at least that's something

Backlog Post

I am the most single person ever...check out my groceries the other night...the only thing missing is cat food and if i had a goddamn place to keep a cat besides my suitcase damn right i would have one and i would have been buying it food at tescos. (n.b. see that arm...yeah...that totally belongs to the tesco lady with the beard yo! Whoah! I know...obvs i couldn’t snap her whole picture – beard and all....but...for the record...that is her!)

House hunting sucks – have i mentioned this? If I have to see another ex-council flat I WILL slit my wrists – at least then i wont have to find a place to live – then they just put you in the ground ya.

There is this funny phenomenon around 5pm when every pub you walk by is filled to the gills with people having drinks...but about 2 hours later they are empty...I never understood this UNTIL TODAY when i tried to take the tube between 5 and 6....it’s INSANE! No wonder people hide near their works drinking until the chaos dies down....it’s like 2 phases of going home-ness! Regardless tho the tube is madness between 5 and 6 – people all crammed together in the most ridiculous way possible – to the point that people are actually step up onto the tube but THEIR WHOLE BODY is like outside of the tube until the curved doors close around them like a cocoon!!! :O :O scarytimes is that one day....this might be me :O :O

This whole dealio of course makes the tube like superpacked...and the other day i noticed that...unlike the Toronto TTC, the tube tunnels through which the tube travels are just about tube sized...meaning...in the event of an emergency...you can’t like pry open the doors of your carriage and step out into the safe air of the tunnel...no no...you pry open your carriage doors here and all you will get is a blank wall of...wall....like a trapped rat...things like that can make a girl claustrophobic yo.

Hence my love of buses...it all began about a week ago when i met up with lexi and she showed me the beauty of the bus – 90p and you get to travel about in the open air and see where exactly you’re actually going...granted around rush hour the buses are...how do you say...super slow...BUT! othertimes they are superfun! So i have been bussing it home fairly often when i have time to sit and contemplate in lieu of tubing (cheaper and less claustrophobic) also the source of fun discoveries like the umbrella store on high holborne street

A Brief Soujourn

I will be MIA for a few days :( sorrys - such is life. be back as soon as I can. In the meantime check out:

Vicious Guns
CSS
Does it Offend You Yeah?
Brendan Canning
- they all play beautiful music

House Hunting teaches Clare more about London Transport

Firstly, the tube here is ridiculously amazing. The trains come about as frequently the queen drinks tea (i assume all the time?). I love it - as soon as you step onto the platform you wait max max max 5 minutes (often less). That's about the minimum in Toronto (and in Toronto, the train going in the other direction ALWAYS seems to come first :(

My fascination with the tube and their stations has been compounded by my house hunt where every house listing is categorized by tube station.....
You know you're Canadian when:
"Barking Station" makes you chuckle
"Tooting Beck Station" makes you giggle
and
"Cockfosters Station" makes you want to fall onto the grotty tube floor and roll around laughing
also
"Canada Water Station" makes you want to move there out of sheer nationalism or maybe just familiarity in general even though god knows what actually is there....

I'm that phase of house hunting where I'm sure I'll never find anywhere to live. Plus my knowledge of areas and neighbourhoods is nonexistent. I feel like there are a lot of places out there but 75% of them are like....in outlying areas. Another 10% are in sketchy areas and then that leaves about 15%, 50% of which i didn't think were in sketchy areas but are, so that leaves 7.5%, 90% of which are crappy. Whatever is left is where i'll end up living - cross your fingers for me.

Have I mentioned that blogging is a welcome distraction to actually finding jobs and houses...mmmm...yes....

Pictures for today are from last night's journey to Mile End where the girls made dinner for the boys in exchange for the lovely dinner that the boys made the girls last time....Hurrah for friends! Hurrah for nids' fantastic sushi and holly's decadent dessert! (did you like my incredibly British use of the word Hurrah...that's right...the transformation is beginning people!)

Canada has elections too...and some odds n ends

It's election time! No no not just in the US of A but in Canada too and...in just a month! Ah! So...off I trotted to Canada House (below - so cute!) in Trafalger Square to figure out how I can exercise my democratic right to vote for my country's leader - even while scarpering off to the Uk to flirt with the enemy - ok maybe not the enemy - but you get the picture. Anyway, Canada House is so nice! (I guess they're Canadian - haha) They even offer free internet and free printing in the lobby! My voting package should arrive soon - yays - I'm such a nerd.



Another thing I wanted to note about London is the...how do you say...ridiculous amounts of PDAs you witness out and about everywhere on the streets! Londoners are all over the PDA and...well...each other...what happened to good ol' British restraint? I mean did joining the EU and allowing all these continental Europeans in cause some kinda paradigm shift in the PDA department or something? Maybe Londoners have just been watching too much American TV... (of course, no picture accompanies this particular part of my post....I draw the line at snapping shots of self-ensconsed couples...what kind of creepy freak do you take me for???)

I think all in all...my proudest accomplishment in my week here so far is....umm....ya....not getting run over. The streets here are nutty...but I think that's a pretty well known fact about London right? I mean they even have to print on the street itself which way you should look before crossing the street! (see proof - Exhibit A - below)....or maybe that's only for loser-ass tourists cause too many of them were getting run over? I wonder....Regardless I do my best to pretend like I don't need to look down...but then I inevitably end up looking one way, then thinking "no, you're looking the wrong way!" swivelling my head at breakneck speed in the other direction only to realize I had indeed been looking the right way in the first place...*sigh* Hopefully I'll have it down soon.

I saw this and had to take a picture...isn't it weird. That is all.

New fun music:

The vicious guns

dead waiter
the ting tings
does it offend you, yeah?

A London Monday

Today I went to work.
After work this is what I saw....wow...I thought to myself...English people really love their tea...they're steeping everywhere and anywhere. In Starbucks, at home, even on the street it seems!

So on my way to the library I thought I might take a picture of the building so you could see where it is that I illegally use student computers to post silly blog entries and send L'il Green Patch plants on Facebook. Oh yeah, I also hunt for jobs and houses here...

As you can see the weather is pretty grey :( It makes rocking my shades pretty difficult.

That is about all for today...

things i have bought in london

aside from my tesco adventure...
there have been other incidents of exchange of money for goods of note this past week. here are two.

1) Primark...i think i mentioned this earlier. It was a religious experience. I am not kidding around here. This place is overwhelming to the max. It is like 9 H and Ms combined into one giant megastore of cheap cheap awesome clothes. Every section (T shirts, pants, sweaters, dresses, coats, skirts, underwear, socks, shoes, bags, accessories, kids, guys, home) is the size of a small north american store and the selection within each section is ridiculous - there is so much to choose from and everything to choose from is awesome. And everything is cheap...have I mentioned this? Of course this makes it like a total zoo. At any given time there are about a bagillion people in the store and the lineups for the changerooms go for miles. There are at least 7 cashier banks each of 10 cashiers each. People get fed up and jostle each other for mirrors on the floor to try on coats and tops over what they're wearing. I told Nidhee that this might indeed be a defining moment in my life - life before Primark and then life after Primark.

Here is a picture of our Primark shopping bags....

Have I mentioned that I believe consumerism is evil?....I am a bad bad person....

2) Here's a little thing i picked up on Tottenham Court Road...

I know it may look like an innocuous cell phone or "mobile" as they're called over here but...this is no ordinary phone! Oh, no. Look closer and you will see the pure seething evil that is this telecommunication device. I hate it and it hates me. We do not get along. It makes annoying sounds at the most inappropriate times, is too small one way and too fat the other way, is completely unmanageable and difficult to navigate with silly cartoon icons and inexplicable alerts...I could go on...anyway...hopefully our days together are coming to a close...as soon as I am a tried and true resident I will be signing up to a snazzy contract with a schnitzy plan and slammin' phone!!!
(of course this was by no means helped by my very recent realization that when I had sent everyone I know in Toronto my phone number...it was wrong...so...some incidents of phone confusion may be put down to that mix-up...but by no means all of them!!!)

see clare socialize...

see clare make friends.
nice friends.let's go to a pah-tee!
see holly and nidhee on the tube to the pah-tee!
hear holly and nidhee say..."can i have yo' numbah"

see clare and holly and nidhee attend a pah-teey

come to the pah-tee!

see all the fun we had at the pah-tee!

everyone is dressed in black and white!

i am a jetson

do you remember when the self check out at the library blew your mind?
WELL...in londonium...they have this for GROCERIES....canadians....i have seen the future - i feel like a jetson or something all of a sudden....not to mention living out my childhood dream of being a grocery clerk - i always loved shopping and bar codes and food and money and bagging things and the scanner followed by the price popping up on the screen!! also i found yalumba viogner! yay! yum! however since my credit card doesn't have a secretspecialmagical chip the computer voice told me to seek assistance and all of a sudden a lady swooped in to check my signature...which if you have seen my signature you will know that she had to ask for ID cause my signature is crazy and never the same twice....i know i know...that's sort of the point of a signature...i digress...my point was that i was intrigued and baffled in a most delighted way until the lady swooped in cause she had a beard which then made me sad. all in all a bittersweet experience in the tesco this evening.

something to get us going...

so...illegally sitting in the senate house library of university...something of...london or something...i don't even really know where i am...sorry - plugged into the new broken social scene (you can take the girl outta canada but you can't take the canada out of the girl...eh?) - i am updating all y'all my lovlies on my recent escapades of the first week. i have been job and house hunting like mad - although i regretted to be..umm..what's that word...realistic - yeah! realistic when it comes to finding a REAL job. some cheese shop wants to hire me and that's a start at least but dudes i need a REAL job now that i'm twentyfuckingfour and approaching adulthood at a rapid breakneck pace (i by no means whatsoever believe i have reached it yet tho - don't worry). anywayz - some highlights of the week so far consist of the following:
a) a UC reunion of sorts - living with nids, next door to holly, a short journey to isaac, down the tube from lexi - is awesome.
b) ducking the front hall porter has been hilarious and suspenseful but....would i have life any other way?
c) nidhee has been a godsent angel of mercy when it comes to everything...she deserves some serious medal of honour for being the best person alive
d) wanders thru the natural history museum, hyde park, kensington gardens, british library, spitalfields market, brick lane, shoreditch vintage shops have made me feel like i have at least seen some sights so far
e) absolute vintage...a near religious experience - primark...a few steps even closer to my god

other than that...people here do indeed dress pretty well as i have heard told - they also really like their high heels which freaks the f*** outta me...flats for life.
also...there is a poseur-esqueness about the local, seasonal, fresh, awareness of producer scene here...a lot of places seem to pay a lot of lip and sign service to this but i'm getting the feeling that they're not so much with the follow through...hmm...

londonium 1

i love the word londonium - it sounds so old and amazing - way cooler than the already pretty awesome - london. anyway - the reason for the fascination with the capital of good ol' angleterre is that well that's where i'm hoping to call home for the next little while....but then you probably already knew that...i think.
soooo a little updateamijiggy...i left the land of the true north strong and free sunday night - as scheduled on the 6:30 flight - props to AC for letting/getting me on that flight and not making me sit around the airport lounge forever and half wracked with suspense. also a bazimillion thanks to ains and david for driving me to the airport (and to david's parents for lending him the car) i missed business class and their lovely pods by one lone dude but i got a front row seat with lotsa leg room so that was a boon...and i should be grateful what with the leg room, the seat and the price but...sleeping sitting up in a chair still sucks however you wanna look at it...
6AM london time i touched down. dragged myself into the city via the underground which is always a hilarious experience (i've done it a few times) cause it's always rush hour and i always have some annoyingly (to myself and everyone else on the crowded tube) huge suitcase...anyways - i made it to goodge station after a transfer at leicester square that involved some tricky stair climbing (good karma to the guys who helped me with my luggage). i hadn't heard from nids although i had texted her - she had been texting me but i didnt get her messages till circa the next day - so i alighted at a diner and inhaled some eggs and crossed my fingers that i would hear from her soon when all of a sudden she came bounding in the front door of the very establishment that i was in! she figured i had to be in the general vicinity and magically she had indeed found me. we ducked the front hall porter that is out to get nids for anything and everything (the evil shammi!) and collapsed in her rez room.....that's right - clare and nids - the basement babes are back in rez together again - but in london!