This, my first update, is rolling out a bit later than I had anticipated, so my sincere apologies for the delay, particularly to those who have spoken to my mother and learned that this blog exists but had no idea where to find it and were left wondering, “Am I out of the loop?” Well, no, this is honestly my first update beyond the Skype conversations I’ve had with my family. (Skype with me! My user name is “chriswheeler.” Include the . at the end of the username, without it you’ll be talking to another Chris Wheeler, though certainly not as dashing.) If you’re here now its because you’re family, you generously provided me with your email address on Facebook (which I will be deleting shortly), I had your email address already and decided (for you) that you’d appreciate being updated about my travels, Megh has already linked you here, or you wandered in off the street.
In any case, welcome to the loop!
If you’re just joining us, Meghan, my partner of nearly four and a half years, and I have recently relocated from St. Marys and Ottawa, ON respectively, to London, England. Meghan will be pursuing a Masters in Publishing at University College London (UCL), one of the top five schools in the world. I will be working, probably first at something menial, but hopefully eventually with an international charity/NGO or in media (radio, television, print, etc.). I will be sharing this space with Meghan to post thoughts and updates about our travels. If you have a wordpress account, you can easily keep track of the blog by following. If you don’t, you could bookmark https://bagsofmilk.wordpress.com/ or write it down somewhere. I will also be sending out emails letting people know when there is something new to read and include a link, so please don’t worry that you’ll be missing something if those first two options aren’t suitable.
If you’re wondering why “Bags of Milk” as the title of a blog about living, going to school, and working in London, then you should know, if you don’t already, that Canada is one of the few countries in the world that sells milk in bags. Yes, that’s right, milk in a bag is just one of Canada’s many peculiarities. Bet you didn’t know that, eh? There are other countries that serve milk in bags, but popularity is declining. Interestingly enough bagged milk may be making a comeback in the UK due to concern that not enough people are recycling their plastic cartons. Which is odd, because there is almost no infrastructure for recycling here in London. Anyways, the title serves as a reminder of home and it makes us laugh because, lets be honest, it’s a little bit absurd. (EDIT: Apparently bags of milk aren’t a thing in B.C.? Anyone know about any of the other provinces?)
As you can see, Meghan has already been much more diligent than I have in updating our little corner of the Internet. So maybe take a moment to go and read her recap of what we’ve been up to so far in terms of touristy things as I won’t be covering much of that today. Certainly, the touristy places we’ve been so far will be revisited, as they were seen in a state of extreme preoccupation which involved a lot of this: “Must find a flat… find a flat… please oh please let us find a flat… MUST FIND A FLAT.”
With that monumental task out of the way, flat filled with all of the things we need, bank accounts set up, local phone numbers acquired, our money safely nestled across the pond with us, school starting for Megh on Monday, half of tuition paid for, and the job search well under way, I thought I would post some thoughts that have been knocking about.
Our flat, which we share with six other people, was not an easy get. It did take us less than a week, for which I am thankful, but we found it at the end of a long, discouraging, and exhausting week of searching. We had seen a number of holes and even some nice boxes (think double bed, kitchenette, and washroom all contained in a room the size of a university dorm room) and were generally discouraged. Almost by accident, we arrived at a viewing for a flat share about 25 minutes early. One of the tenants kindly opened the door for us before the landlord and 15 other prospective tenants came for the viewing. By the time the rest walked through the door with the landlord, Meghan and I had already seen the common areas: big kitchen, small living room area with a TV and couch, and the two shared washrooms. The only thing we hadn’t seen was the room itself, though we knew from experience exactly what it would look like.
When everyone filed in to the room off the kitchen after the landlord had unlocked it, he went upstairs to make sure the bathrooms were presentable. While the 15 others and Meghan poked the walls and opened the cupboards, I sprang up the stairs after him, having already shared glances with Megh, and, in a brief moment of privacy before the rest of the group traipsed up the stairs, told him that in no uncertain terms, “We’ll take it!”
He assured me we’d have it, finished the viewing as if it was up for grabs (instead of kicking everyone out) and that was that, though not really. The next day we were contacted to sign the documents that needed signing and pay the deposit and first month’s rent, but without really knowing whether the first person to get their money in would get the flat. Other people at the showing had been noticeably and vocally interested in the flat and had the same contact information we did. Until we walked in the door of the flat three days later, and despite the assurances we’d received at the viewing, we were never sure that it would work out or if we needed to keep looking, which we desperately did not want to do.
The area we live in is nice enough. The flat is shared with a lot of people but they all seem wonderful. The best things about it are the big kitchen, the distance to several different tube stations on several different lines (this makes it easier to get to many different parts of the city without too many transfers), and the fact the 8 of us just agreed to pay a cleaning lady once a week to manage the common areas of the flat. The downside is that we’re not as close to UCL as we had hoped and that there is not enough space for people to come and stay with us in our flat, though this would have been nearly impossible without a significantly larger budget.
The whole process is extremely competitive. Flats go the day they’re been posted. There is a good chance that if you don’t get lucky (like I believe we did by getting there early), you’re going to end up compromising and living in a hole or a very small box. And honestly, there were several self contained small boxes we were ready to compromise on, but it would have meant spending very little time there, eating out way more than we can afford, and probably going a little crazy in such a small shared space. Letting flats, is also huge business. You can’t walk 200 meters without seeing a small office with postings in the window, and five or six people bustling about, meeting people, or on the phones trying to fill vacancies. Turnover is constant. In our flat with 6 rooms, the person who has been there the longest has only been here for four months. The other couple in our flat share have just given their month notice and will move out on the 15th of October. How long we stay where we are is still up for debate, but right now we are happy to be settled.
Hosteling in the week it took us to find a flat felt all at once the same and different from when I was traveling by myself before. The people are just as obnoxious, sociable, and, for the most part, nice as I remember. The worst part about hosteling is still the bathrooms and trying to sleep and stay well rested with people coming and going at all hours. But when your primary objective is to find a flat and not be a tourist or get outrageously drunk every night, the convenience and affordability hostels provide doesn’t feel worth it.
Being a tourist doesn’t quite feel the same either. For one, there is always the fact that we’ll be living here for a long period of time. I tend to think in terms of locals, people like myself and Megh who are living and working here but come from elsewhere (our flat is full of them: of the eight people living here, only one is British), and tourists. The only thing we have in common with the locals is our mutual disdain for the tourists. Of course that isn’t even remotely true, but it does feel true. We don’t belong and won’t be staying – and maybe that feeling will change over time – but we don’t feel like tourists either, and the tourists that are here feel like they’re in our way. I’ve also been here before, so there is a familiarity with landmarks and the city in general that I didn’t have the first time around. This also served me well in the first week traveling around with Megh and Colin, who have never been here before.
Perhaps the biggest reason being a tourist doesn’t feel the same is not one I anticipated; having a smartphone is a game changer. It used to be that the first thing I did when I got to a new city was get a map, and consult my tourist book. Now you all you need to do is walk in to mobile phone shop, shell out $20, and you’re good to go with a phone number and all the data you could ever need. At first this doesn’t seem that different, you’ve just swapped a paper map and tour book for Google. Instead of walking around and consulting your map or book every 500 steps, you’re just consulting your phone.
But your phone is also a camera (and it’s better than the camera you toured around with seven years ago), it connects you by text, email, or social media to everyone back home in seconds (which used to require logging on to a computer and paying for time back at the hostel at the end of every day), you never need to ask anyone for any help (even though they speak English and it’s easy), you can make local calls when you do have specific questions to ask, and you’ve gone from carrying a backpack with all your books, maps, papers, and camera to sliding your phone in your pocket. Suddenly, you’re more mobile, you have more information at your fingertips, and life on the road seems easier than it’s ever been before.
I’m not saying smartphones make being a tourist better, only different. There is a tendency to look at your phone too much because of how easy it is and I think you miss out on some of the social interaction that can make traveling fun or stressful and the learning that comes from that. Also, paper maps and books don’t run out of batteries.
People are not exaggerating when they talk about the rain in London. It has rained almost every day since we got here except the very first one. If it’s not actually raining, it’s grey, overcast, and threatening to rain. The locals seem to deal with this in two very distinct ways. They’re either always prepared with a nice rain jacket or umbrella or they gave up ages ago and chose not to care. This second group simply trudge on and get wet; it’s going to rain, so there is no use in fighting it. There is a third group of people, those who step under an awning or into a shop to wait out the worst of it, but they are in the minority.
I still haven’t quite worked out which side of the stairs, sidewalk, or escalator I’m supposed to be on. Obviously, they drive on the left side of the road here, but it is far less obvious whether this translates to traveling on foot. As best I can tell, the left side is where you should be walking. The tube stairs and escalators are set up this way most of the time, though not always. Some times the exceptions to the rule make sense based on the immediate geography of the where people are trying to go, but other times it casts the whole system in to doubt. Colin and I studied this for an entire week, made notes, and consulted with one another and still came up shy of a definitive answer. Walking on the street seems to be a bit more chaotic, though walking on the left seems to be your best bet. Though every so often you get a dirty look from someone who is obviously a local, and you’re back to uncertainty and guess work.
It is still weird to Meghan and I that there exists a huge time difference between us and the people back home. That most of you are reading this ~5 hours ago is hard to wrap our heads around. Of course we know how far everyone is from us, but the time aspect of it remains confusing. Leaf games start at midnight. At 2 pm, many of you are still asleep. Nothing interesting happens on social media before 4 pm, most of the interesting things people post gets posted while we are asleep. And we aren’t the only ones who can’t wrap our heads around this. I’ve received a number of texts, tweets, or emails at 2 or 3 am, asking “what are you doing right now?”
Currency conversions remain a difficult task. It doesn’t matter how many times you do the math, food here is more expensive. It’s also a constant headache having to ask what the cost in Canadian dollars would be. I’m sure with time, we’ll start to have a better sense of it and hopefully budget ourselves in pounds instead of Canadian and then converting it. Right now it’s a pain.
I’ve spent a lot of time talking about things that are different in London but there are just as many things that feel exactly the same as in Canada. That many of our institutions, cultural norms, ideas, symbols, and histories come from England, and specifically London means that a lot of what we see, hear, and experience on a daily basis is familiar. Boots, the main pharmacy chain here in England, looks, feels, and even smells exactly like Shoppers Drug Mart. Many of the department stores and main retailers are the same even in name. Grocery stores are smaller but similar. Architecture is obviously very different but also wonderful and better.
Just some housekeeping notes before I sign off. If you’d like our address, email address, or my phone number, but didn’t get it in the email I’ve just sent out linking you here, please let me know in the comments and I’ll make sure you get it. iPhone users: we can iMessage/FaceTime for free if you have it enabled. Other smartphone users: if you have the app WhatsApp, we can can also message for free. Otherwise, Skype (again, “chriswheeler.” with the . included at the end), Facebook (for now), and email are the best ways to keep in touch.
Thanks for all the love and support, I’ll be back here soon with more updates.
Chris
Bags of Milk 