The Top Floor Flat

Whew! I just had my first full day in London and I think I actually managed to be productive!  Here’s the basic run down:

– Left Mimi’s flat at about 8:30am to navigate my way through the London underground to the BUNAC offices.  BUNAC is the company sponsoring my student visa and they have a mandatory orientation before I am allowed to use my work visa.  It was a great orientation that touched on a lot of details about taxes and banking, including giving me a temporary tax ID number (required to get a job, and you need a job to get one – good thing they gave me a temp number!) and a letter of reference to open a bank account.  I also learned about the programme, including their info regarding housing and jobs.  They have a job board with open positions and I took a brief look over but found that they were mostly pub, waitressing and secretarial/typist jobs (which is fine but I wanted to look around a bit more first).  Then I found a job as a P.A. for a PR firm and wrote down the number to call later.  I also got some advice on my CV (what they call a resume) and edited it to make it more cuturally appropriate.

– Grabbed lunch at a too-pricy-but-quiet Italian restaurant where I could sit down, decompress after the two hour orrientation, and made some phone calls to potential flats (no longer available, shoot) and to the PR firm.  They asked if I could come by and drop of my CV later that afternoon.

– Bought a cell phone!  I got a pay-as-you-go phone which will allow me to spend lots of money on local calls (but lots and lots less money than I would make my parents spend if I used my current phone).  For all calls in the UK (that’s Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England) there’s a flat rate for calls out and no fee for calls in.  Should you be in the UK and looking to call me, my number is +44 (0) 752 298 2530.  Apparently the zero is mandatory regardless of where you call from but we’ll get to that in a bit.

– Made my way over to the PR firm and loved it! It was such a cute little setup in a really posh suburb-ish area of the city.  They’re a lot bigger than I thought they were (the listing said small PR firm – I figured startup size) and it’s called Gabrielle Shaw Communications.  I had a somewhat impromptu interview with one of the employees and they said they’d follow up.  I really liked it but I’m trying not to get too excited about the position because, although I think I’m a good fit, I’ll have to wait and see if I get a call back.

– Realized I was only about 3 or so miles from Mimi’s flat so decided to walk back and ended up dropping of my CV at a really cute bookstore and at a Starbucks so at least I’ve got some other places that know I’m looking for work.  Made it back to the flat at about 6pm with killer blisters and a really strong desire to go shoe shopping for something that doesn’t hate my feet.

– Spent about an hour setting up appointments to view flats in the area and booked three nights at a cheap hotel/B&B-type place.  This means I officially have a place to stay until Friday.  There was a bit of a panic when I called to confirm my booking and the number wouldn’t go through and I worried I’d been scammed by the online booking site – until I realized that I wasn’t dialing the required zero before the number.  Oops!

Whew! Bit of a crazy day and the only physical things I have to show for it are a cell phone, a booking confirmation for a hotel and a growing hole in my wallet.  Tomorrow, I open my bank account, do some more job hunting and visit flats in the evening.  I’m going to try to do something touristy and post some pictures but I may have limited internet access for the next few days while in the hotel.  Hope all is well back in the States!