Gotta Flat

Found a place to rent in Bethnal Green, 85 pound a week. It's pretty simple, basically a room, bed bathroom and kitchen. There's 2 other guys living there too and it's in one of the housing estates. The place is pretty safe though, it has a security gate and it's on the second floor, just gotta watch out for the drug dealers and gangsters that are in the 'hood, but that's like everywhere in London. After visiting some real dodgy places, this looks like the best, plus it's only a half hour walk into the city.

2nd Impressions

Well it's been over a week now and im beginning to tick a few of the boxes towards getting some work and a place to sleep. The most success has been found on the job front with just a few hassles left to overcome (police check from OZ). I've scored a bank account with HSBC over here so i can get paid and the Anzuk Teaching guys should have me in work Monday week. The biggest hassle has been finding a room, today I went to check out a place but the guy ended up coming 2 hours late. The house im pretty sure was a dealers house and had steel plate windows with holes drilled in it to allow the light in plus i later found out that the guy wasn't renting the house, he was squatting in it....kinda makes sense though considering how much of a dump it was. He also wanted me to pay him 85 pound/w in rent if i moved in, no thanks. So the house hunting continues, can't wait to find a niceish <100 pound/w place.

There has been some positives to come from the hunt, i've been able to vist the mosques and islamic centres in whitechapel, play spot the English person in Stepney Green and work out where i don't want to live, anyway the seach continues.....

London

The first impressions....

Arriving in at the airport was a great relief, the trip over gave me a chance to get rid of the worst leg cramps ever, my calf still hurts! The snow storm in London had cleared by the time I landed but there was still a lot of snow around the place. The next challenge after landing at Heathrow was to clear customs..... should i declare the 100kg of drugs in my pack or not? In the end I didn't need to worry, no x-raying of bags and no checking of bags, how convenient! That challenge overcome, the next was to catch the tube to the hostel to dump my pack, the tube is fully sick, no problems there, it's just bloody expensive as I'm starting to find out.

The hostel I'm staying at is OK, it's cheap and clean and gives you breakfast in the mornings. You just gotta watch out for the naked dude walking around the dorms, he's been freaking out some of the girls but I think he left this morning. The sleeping patterns are only just starting to return to normalcy but it's hard to get used to the fact that it's dark at 5pm after coming over from daylight savings.

London's main sights have been seen, but I'm looking forward to getting a better understanding of the city and how to get around by taking short cuts, a bike will definently be the best way around town than the tube plus it doesn't cost anything. This is a stance that I've taken after catching up with Delia, he reckons a bike is the only way to travel... as long as you have a big mother of a lock and chain to stop it getting nicked.

Gotta go coz i gotta sort out work stuff and setup a bank account.