Picture update

Hey everyone. Again, thanks for checking up on the blog. Hopefully we will have another one up soon with our 4th of July cruise on the Thames. Until then, check the end of each of our old blogs for a link to lots and lots of pictures. If you'd like to see ALL of our pictures, click here. Or just paste the available web addresses we've put in at the end of each of our older blogs.

Hopefully youve been reading the blogs and will be able to tell what some of them are. Weve been really busy lately planning to pack things up here in London and leave for our travels in Ireland, France??(not sure), Italy and Romania - But dont take my word for those, were still in the planning stages. Hopefully we will be out of here the 20th. Because of that, we just didnt have time to put captions on. Be sure to drop us a comment or an email, we love hearing from home.
-Joe

Weekend Escapades

So we’ve finally had a chance to be legitimate tourists. On Saturday we spent the entire day seeing sites, from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey. It was more of something that just had be done, and so we soldiered on through the midday sun and sweltering heat to stand and look and look at buildings. Woo hoo!

The sightseeing was interesting but mainly uneventful initially, we’ll throw in some pictures for you to gawk at. We amused ourselves by making fun of all the stupid “tourists”, namely the Asians with their sunvisors, incessant giggling, gawking, and pointing, and multiple video cameras. Silly tourists, we thought to ourselves, how pathetic and annoying to us “real” Londoners. After making fun of the tourists for a while, we continued on gawking, pointing, giggling, and taking pictures.

Later, we went and saw Buckingham Palace (got the see the guards with funny hats), and chilled out on the beautiful fountain in front of it while enjoying a beautiful day. Before we got moving to the next sites, we broke open a couple a couple of warm beers, one of which Joe accidentally knocked over and spilled on the statues, likely defacing a national treasure. We got a few strange looks as we laughed, but continued to finish our beers before leaving.

About halfway through our day, we noticed endless waves of people all headed in the same direction; like waves, only people. We decided to follow the crowd, and began to make our way towards the flamboyant music and crowds. We realized then that it was a parade, and began to push our way through the crowds, eager to relive our childhood memories of Band-Fest and the Mason City Parades. After battling through the sweaty throngs of people and finally breaking through, however, rather than being rewarded with 76 Trombones we found ourselves confronted with a huge float full of scantily clad gyrating men and what appeared to be a few Incredibly ugly women. It was then that we remembered the advertisements on the news recently; rather than finding upon a little slice of River City Iowa, we had stumbled upon EuroPride 2006, the biggest Gay Pride event in Europe. Needless to say, we were slightly disappointed. The parade, however, was huge and incredibly lively, and the streets were absolutely packed with all kinds of people singing and dancing. We stuck for a little bit to see the festivities, snapped a few pictures, and then continued on our sightseeing quest.

Blah blah blah, England lost, more on that later.

The next day we woke up early and Joe cooked an amazing breakfast of bacon egg and cheese grilled sandwiches, and we went to Camden, one of the biggest outdoor markets in the world. Some of the tube lines were closed, so we had to take a bus (which we’ve finally figured out, by the way). As we neared Camden Town, the bus had to stop and let us out because the streets and sidewalks were completely and totally covered with people. The crowds were just massive. Camden literally has thousands of stalls to browse, selling just about anything you can think of. It’s actually one of the biggest tourist attractions in London, and even after there for most of a day we couldn’t cover all of it. Camden was our favorite “sight” we’ve seen so far in London. It’s basically endless little outdoor stands and stalls, in five different major market groupings each specializing in a few things. It’s a lot a china town, except not Chinese. Things are slightly more expensive accordingly.

The fun part about Camden is trying to buy something: haggling. You ask how much an item is, the vendor tells you ten times more than it’s worth. Fun! Then you tell the scoff at the vendor, try and look cheap experienced, and tell him you’re only willing to spend ½ what it’s actually worth. After telling you there’s absolutely no way they can let it go for less than 10 times more than what its worth, and pretending to walk off for a while, they then come back at you in broken English telling you that for you, special price! Just don’t tell their boss, because their breaking rule in the book by offering it to you for 9 times more than it’s worth. The key is to simply stand silently and shake your head as the vendor continues to shout lower and lower prices at you. Finally, when you sense Hacim is getting tired, leave. He’ll offer you one more price in a hushed and slightly defeated voice. This is still 1.5 times more than it’s worth, but you know Hacim sleeps under the counter and has to eat tonight, so that’s good enough.

Later that day we had great Indian food, and hit up the donut man, who at this point in the day was offering 6 cakes (read: donuts) for a pound. We realized that this must be the reduced aisle of the already reduced to clear Camden. If the donut man lived closer to us, that would be all ate.

When we returned from Camden, we felt especially American and immediately set to work intervening for the “common good”. We began scavenging the backyard for furniture for our room and were rewarded with two dilapidated garden hose reels and a dirty flower pot. Tables! A garbage can! We also found a folding chair in the kitchen and decided it looked like ours. It is now serving simultaneously as both our lazy-boy recliner and our guest bed. We then cleaned and replaced the garbage can mechanism, as it was not working satisfactorily.

Blah blah blah, blah blah, blah. The end.

pictures to come, if we can get our program working

GOT IT

http://picasaweb.google.com/jonathan.s.sheller/WOOHOOE

SON of Massive 4 day catch up blog.

Okay, so this everyday blogging thing – not working out so well. It seems like every night we plan on blogging, but by the time we’ve finally carved out enough time to sit down and blog we only have 5 or 6 hours until the next “must-get-done” event. So where we left off – we were sitting in the park across from Shelley’s house relaxing for a few minutes before getting ready to get packed and go again. So now we will begin another marathon blog, and try to remember a little bit of how much has happened since then. Already it seems like the lives we were living just a few short days ago have been completely changed, and its hard to believe how far we’ve come in 72 hours. So here we go:

After finishing a few Fosters* and quickly completing our blog, we realized that we only had a few short hours until we were legitimately on our own. We headed back to Shelley’s and made short work of our packing. By short work we mean the rest of the night and into the early hours of the morning – it’s amazing how long it takes to do laundry, learn how to iron and iron all of your dress clothes (which will become wrinkled again immediately…), and then pack up everything you own into what you can carry on yourself in the morning. After figuring out how the laundry machines work, getting everything else done, finding a hostel and booking a room, we got some much needed sleep.

In the morning we awoke early and savored our last meal of toast and water, liked a condemned man’s last meal. We finished what packing was left, and decided against any last minute schemes to return to the Mile’s empty apartment after they had moved out. Finally, after procrastinating the dreadful departure, we shouldered the remaining meager possessions of our shattered lives, and accepted our fate. After saying goodbye to the Miles and thanking them for everything they had done for us, we marched onwards, giving Londoners a second dose of our relentless arrogance and again playing a twisted game of musical chairs on the tube in which most cases were won by our copious amounts of luggage. We were headed for Palmer’s Lodge, and after 3 tube-switches, many flights of stairs, and a shit-ton of walking, we arrived sweaty and disgusting to check in. Check-in, like everything so far, refused to go smoothly. Our reservations had been made extremely quickly and had been mixed up somehow. Luckily, the beautiful French receptionist took good care of us. We were on the third floor, where we traded security from burglary on the first floor for the risk of being incinerated by flash fire on the third. For those of you who didn’t click on the link in the last blog, Palmer’s lodge was originally the mansion of biscuit-maker extraordinaire Robert Palmer. It was later converted in the 40’s into a hospital for children with incurable diseases. Joe and I took great comfort knowing that we were sleeping in the same room where possibly hundreds of diseased children withered away to a slow and painful end. After lugging our luggage up a last few flights of stairs, we settled in and met our roommates. We were staying in a 12-person dorm-style room, but for now it was only us and 1 Aussie guy. So we could go on for a while about Palmer’s, but basically there were tons of great people there and it was a great choice. We met an Aussie guy, and a few Italians, etc and for a hostel the place was absolutely amazing. The free breakfast included our staple food – toast – but also included fresh fruit, drinks, croissants, and other goodies. We were eating like kings, and Joe’s terrible cough he’d picked up finally began to subside as we again became properly nourished. Presently, Joe still has the remnants of his bout with the fateful virus, but no longer expects to cough up blood. Unfortunately for others, we have infected everyone at every place we’ve stayed so far. Like the Europeans brought the Indians, we come bearing gifts of disease and misfortune.

The evolution of food sources:

We’ve previously went over in great detail how our food sources have been very narrowly focused on one thing or another at different times while here in London. As we left Shelley’s and ventured into the “real world”, our eyes became attuned to quickly identifying the highest caloric-value to price ratioed food. As time has gone on, our gaze has shifted from one food source to another, becoming ever more critical and uncompromisingly efficient.

After talking to the Aussie guy for a while, we discovered what would become our new primary source of food: two for one meal deals at pubs. We walked down from Palmer’s to the North Star, a pub that is evidently over 200 years old, and found more food than we could possibly eat for about 4.50 GBP per person. Most pubs in London have a meal-deal, especially during the day and early afternoon, which you can get a huge amount of food for a great value. We were exhilarated to eat real food, and promptly passed out back at Palmer’s due to pure bliss. We awoke hours later, however, unsatisfied. Although we had been full to the breaking point hours earlier, the lack of filling food throughout our day of travel etc etc had left us empty to the core, and the pub food was quickly absorbed. And although our stomachs had been temporarily satisfied, our pocketbooks still wept. Despite being one of the cheapest deals anywhere, pub food was still going to be much too expensive to enjoy on a regular basis. The mac and cheese that has journeyed halfway around the world – our travel companion if you will – has finally been subject to our survival needs. Today we ate our best friend.

The next day, as we were confidently strutting out American stuff down through the Swiss Cottage high street, Joe stopped suddenly. Something had caught his eye, and although he did not know what, he knew we had to go back. His man sense told him that.

As we retraced our steps, we realized we were headed towards our old American refuge: McDonald’s. McDonald’s although dirt cheap, had since been replaced on the dining menu in favor of the much more filling and equally cheap pub deals. Jon began to object to McDonald’s, but his rejections were soon silenced. At our feet lay a Royal declaration handed down from King Ronald himself that all Big Mac Meals and McChicken Meals would henceforth – limited time only – be sold for 1 pound, ninety-nine pence. Needless to say, our tunnel-visioned dining menu quickly shifted to McDonalds. After many a Big Mac Meal, however, our stomachs cried out for proper nourishment. Our wallets also cried out for an even better value. We were bewildered at these demands, but obediently resumed our search for the ultimate value.

As we were exploring the territory around Palmers on our third day, we began to venture past the McDonalds that had become our feeding grounds. There, less than 200 yards beyond the Golden Arches, the road opened to reveal the Mecca of value: Sainsbury’s. Immediately our American upbringing and instincts told us that this was it, what we had been searching for. Standing there, amidst the quaint local shops of Swiss Cottage and towering over the mom-and-pop stores it was in the process of crushing, Sainsbury’s stood like a beacon of Western Culture. Sainsbury’s neon signage glittered in our eyes, as we gazed upon the first real “superstore” we had seen while in Europe. Like Wal-Mart in America, Sainsbury’s was running everyone out of business, but also like Wal-Mart, Sainsbury’s offered ridiculous value. The ten pence we saved shopping there more than made up for the crushed dreams and torn families of the countless small local store-owners it was destroying. And hey, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with absorbing wannabees who can’t quite hack it. Ahhhh, capitalism…

As we walked through Sainsbury’s, we giggled with glee at every new aisle we passed: canned fruit, beans, pasta noodles, rice… the food that dreams are made of. Finally, we would be able to eat reasonably and within our budgets. The relief we felt, coupled with pure excitement, is next to impossible to truly explain to anyone who has eaten something other than Big Mac or bread in the past week, but you can imagine us giggling and laughing as we prowled the aisles for the most “valuable” food sources (read: dense). Little did we know as we prowled the treasure-trove aisles of Sainsbury’s, however, the great discoveries in store for us ahead.

As we walked through Sainsbury’s, our pricing definitions and “level of cheap” dropped yet another level, and we knew that never again would we be fully satisfied with a meal from even a pub, or McDonald’s, now that we knew about Sainsbury’s. No matter how good the food was, we would forever feel a small pang of guilt at spending “so much” on anything other than cheap groceries, as if we were being gluttons by even entertaining thoughts of going out to eat. However, as we rounded yet another corner in the labyrinth that is Sainsbury’s, our “level of cheapness” took yet another massive plunge as we found ourselves surrounded by perfectly good (albeit nearly expired) ridiculously cheap food. It was what is known in Sainsbury’s lingo as “the Reduced Aisle.” As we gazed upon the incredible prices and amazing deals, we were suddenly ashamed of the current contents of our cart. What we had thought were greats deals paled in comparison to the splendor of the reduced aisle. Unfortunately, because there is a limited amount of nearly-expired food, even the reduced aisle could only give so much. After stripping the reduced aisle of all its resources, we moved on.

As we were browsing the brands for the best non-reduced-aisle deals, we couldn’t help but notice that one brand consistently came out on top: Sainsbury’s “Basics” brand. This brand is like Hy-Vee brand food, but a step lower. There is actually a “Sainsbury’s” brand of food, and then there is a second Sainsbury’s brand created specifically to greatly undercut this “Hy-Vee” type Sainsbury’s brand food. Basically, this brand was created for us. The labels on Sainsbury’s Basics brand goods are white and void of any marketing to pass valuable marketing dollars on to cheap consumers like us, and many of the packages feature witty sayings about how ridiculously cheap they are. The Sainsbury’s brand of detergent, for example, declares proudly “cleans, no added promises”.

But in all honesty, the food is actually really good. It’s just as good as the name brand versions (at least that’s what we tell ourselves), and the price is right. We’ve been doing a lot of cooking and eating like bachelor kings since moving into our new flat,

which will talk about now.

So while Palmer’s lodge was lovely, we were tired of living out of a suitcase and needed a place to call our own. So the details are already a little bit blurry, but here we go. We began our housing search with the goal of finding housing over the weekend. This was not so much of a goal, as a necessity, “do or die” if you will. In the midst of searching for jobs, finding our way around London, all of the daily necessities of living in a city, and working, this weekend was our only real chance to consider housing. So we started out by calling a ton of people, scouring the internet, and asking around. The first three properties we found that were suitable we immediately made appointments to view, and went.

The first property:

Great place owned by a small Jewish family, towards the outskirts of London. We actually really liked this place, but just the fact that it was pretty far from central London made us want to keep looking. Blah blah blah, property number two:

After saying goodbye and deciding against property number one, it turned out to be quite a challenge to get to property number two, the reason for this being that our Oyster (transit) cards were only good for Zones 1 and 2. We were currently in Zone 3. This left us with two options: surrender two pounds for a single fare ticket… or walk. On the map, walking looked like a good idea. In practice, four miles in the summer heat can be quite a hike. As soon as we jumped the border into Zone 2, we were once again legal. A half hour of tube transit later, we arrived at property number two. Already, as we walked out of the tube station, we wondered if this was the right “fit” for us. We emerged into what appeared to be a factory district from a former Eastern Block communist country. We wondered if instead of crossing into east London, we had crossed into another country, as it looked like half of the middle east was living in this neighborhood. We started walking towards our destination, asking ourselves “would I feel safe walking home at night from the pubs?”. The answer to this question was a resounding no, but we silenced our womanly fears and convinced ourselves that this trip wasn’t about “comfort” and that “roughing it” in downtown Baghdad would simply add to the personal challenge and growth of this trip. We arrived at Sammy’s apartment slightly deterred but resolved to rough it and at least give it a strong look. Sammy, who we would later refer to as Sammy “the sleeze” greeted us and led us to what the internet told us was a “BRIGHT SUNNY ROOM FULLY EQUIPPED INCREDIBLE LOCATION” flat. Basically, we’re talking about government-subsidized housing, complete with rampant unemployed beer-swilling porch-bums and screaming foreign children. “the sleeze” assured us that the apartment was in a great neighborhood, that he had never felt in any way threatened, and that it was nearby the “highly reliable” circle line (which we have just recently found out is the most unreliable tube-line in London, consistently plagued by service delays, late arrivals, and often complete failures). We could go on for a little longer about “the sleeze”, but needless to say we didn’t take the property. Blah blah blah, property number three:

And now we step out on to the balcony to take a quick break from our blogging. Be right back.

…

Annnd last night we tried to catch up with the blog. Unfortunately our brilliant idea of chilling and drinking on the balcony while blogging and then falling asleep fully caught up and current didn’t quite work out, and we ended up getting slightly drunk and deep into human nature and the meaning of life, etc etc you know how we work: “alright quick break… annnnd we’re drunk - let’s talk life”. SO today is yet another valiant attempt at catching up on this intimidating and massive blog. Anyways, today we’ll try, with renewed effort and zero alcoholic influence, to complete this massively un-caught-up blog. The quality has undoubtedly suffered as we have surely missed countless meaningful details and tidbits about what life is actually like, but hopefully we will finally get to the point where we can blog without blogging being a “job” persay, and include something actually meaningful and real about what our life is like and what the daily grind entails. This blog started out as something to record the daily oddities and little meaningful observations and events that make life what it is, and make this trip and living in another country and culture what it is. Unfortunately with everything that we’ve had to accomplish in the last week, our faithful readers, we’ve sucked horribly at this task and most of what we’ve blogged about has become vague recaps of what we’ve perceived to be the major events of our stay. Every day that we’ve let the blog go, though, we’ve lost a lot about how we’ve felt, what the day has been like, who we’ve met, what London is really like personally, and tons of other details and things in favor of a little humor and a general recap of the incredible amount of events that have happened in such a short time. We’ve lived in our new apartment for less than a week, and its already hard to truly recall what happened last week with any real detail. It’s depressing to think about how many times throughout every single day we’ve said to each other “that’s one for the blog baby”, or “ they’ll love this”, compared to how many of those once-only events that we actually remember or recall in detail to blog later about. So from here on, after we get caught up, we once again hope that we’ll be able to blog somewhat regularly and capture a few more of those events (empty promises?). Because while the trip is more or less one endless comedy, we have so much to explain about what it is really like and what life has been like for us and how much has happened and how it has affected us and how much we’ve grown. Without getting too deep, hopefully we’ll be able to incorporate some of those things into our blogs, which are also intended to serve as a sort of journal for ourselves on this trip. Because while the major events are certainly important, I guess we feel that it’s the minute details, the feelings of truly being a Londoner and blending in on the subway on your way to work in the morning or friendly banter with Joe’s co-workers at a pub after work, that the trip is really about. Hopefully, without becoming too terribly obnoxious, lengthy and boring we will be able to finally include a few personal anecdotes from our trip and experiences. Aside from all this, life is good and we are loving every single second of it. We passed up a trip to Ireland this weekend to catch up on our blogs, life, and the people we care about, so hopefully we will be able to fit at least a few of those things in in the midst of seeing London for all it’s worth and taking in as much fresh air, culture, sights and sounds as possible in two days.

…

Blah blah blah, its morning now, back to the blog. Property numero tres:

Property number three we called about and were surprised to be offered to visit it immediately (at night), which worked out great because after our encounter with “the sleeze” we wanted to visit out properties at night – or at least gauge the mug-likelihood so that we could factor this into our weekly budget – before moving in anywhere. We were greeted by a girl from Spain, and guided quickly through the house and to our room to have a look around. The landlord wasn’t around, so we decided to inquire about her character, and were bluntly told in broken English that “betty uhhh… is worst landlord ever”. However, in stark contrast to the property and neighborhood of “the sleeze”, this property looked like a palace. We then spoke with another flat-mate who energetically confirmed that Betty was a horrible landlord. We took it.

The next morning we met with Betty at a small Spanish restaurant and signed the papers, pouring over them for what seemed like forever and making amendments to ensure that every possible avenue of dishonesty was thwarted. With Joe requiring initialing in every amendment, and both of us refusing to sign until a number of additions had been made, we burned every possible bridge of dishonesty. Within 24 hours of our housing search, we had a place to live: housing, check.

This of course required another pack-mule type journey through the bowels of London to get our belongings to the flat. By the time we got here, we were completely exhausted, but our American spirit took over and we immediately went to work. Within hours we had completely cleaned our incredibly dirty room, cleaned the drawers, overhauled the small balcony, replaced our lock, and fixed the broken freezer that had condensed to a solid block of ice. We worked tirelessly, fueled by the background lyrics and voice of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA!.

Before we go any further we should talk a little bit about our house. Our house is in Fulham, which is a really nice area of London. Our room has a small balcony overlooking a huge and beautiful park across the street, filled always with people playing Frisbee and football (read: soccer) and laying out. Our room isn’t huge but it’s plenty of room for us two, and now that we’ve got it cleaned up its actually a really nice room. Right now, we’re actually sitting on our balcony enjoying some sun and fresh air before we head out on the town for the day. So our flat is on the third floor of a four-story house, which includes a large kitchen with everything you would need, laundry machines, a living room, and two bathrooms etc etc. We share all of this with 15 fellow housemates from several different countries.

Quick rundown:

4 Aussies –

1 British guy –

2 Africans – Armani and…?

1 Person from Nigeria which moved to London – Toppe

2 Spaniards – Peppa and her boyfriend

1 Swede - Lenka, and Brit – which live above us and are pole-dancers by trade

Everyone in the house is young, but we are the youngest. So far everyone is really fun and easygoing, although we’re still not sure that we’ve met everyone in the house yet. For the most part, everyone has such different hours that the most people you see in the house at once is around 4 or 5 in the kitchen. This is great because although there are 15 people living here, it feels like only 6 or 7. The bathrooms, kitchen, dryer etc are never crowded, and the only time you see everyone at one time is for an intense football (soccer) game down in the living room. Ummm lets move on?

We quickly found out, however, that betty is truly the worst landlord ever. The first day that we were here, the gas went out. When we returned from Sainsbury’s with a huge load of food excited to finally have a place to cook and store food, we couldn’t. Betty had neglected to pay the gas bill. The next morning we were harshly awakened to our first days on the job with bitterly cold showers, and later that day the kitchen sink plugged and the fridge stopped working resulting in a wave of food-poisoning throughout the household as people ate things that haven’t been kept fresh. Near bedtime, the light in our room went out.

None of this has deterred us however. Chris the Aussie fixed the sink, Armani topped up the gas, and Chris’s visiting friend from Chicago (who happened to be a refrigerator technician) fixed the fridge. We took care of the freezer, diligently chipping away for hours at what had become a solid block of ice to clear it out

and then tinkering with the seals to prevent it from freezing over again. We took care our light, and found two other lights from the 70’s in a storage closet that we now use in our room. They are awesome. Currently, everything is up and running fine, and there’s no place we’d rather be. This place is really a perfect fit for us in every way, but most importantly because of the people. So lets get on to how we pay the bills.

The Jobsearch:

Incredibly long story(s) shorts, after a ton of time and effort we joined several recruitment agencies whose job is to get you temporary work in London. After over-marketing our skills and passing ourselves off as experienced Administrative Assistants, Joe was quickly offered a job.

Joe works as an administrative assistant to the General Medical Council. Basically, the GMC is an organization all doctors in the UK join to make sure that medical treatment in the UK is practiced properly. When a doctor is suspected of malpractice or being unethical, they are called before a tribunal at the GMC and the tribunal decides whether to sanction them, which can include revoking their license. Although it’s not an official court, the GMC has the legal power and authority to punish doctors or clear them of any wrongdoing. Joe’s job is to swear in witnesses, pass out documents, call witnesses and panel members on the teleconferencing system, and monitor the progress of the court proceedings/case while updating the office via email. The office is in downtown London, all glass and post-modern interior, swipe-card access-protected rooms and doorways, etc etc - you get the picture. He loves his co-workers, and we’ve gone out to the Grafton Arms pub with them on a couple occasions after work. Joe’s co-workers are pretty young – around 25, and one girl is 21. The assignment was originally for one week, but its been extended for another with the very real possibility of carrying through the month of July, which is about when we would be ready to leave. Joe is pretty psyched about his job because its right in line with his law ambitions, and his boss at GMC said he would write him a recommendation for law school, and because it’s great law and international experience.

Check out the GMC: http://www.gmc-uk.org/

Jon was not so lucky in finding a job through the Covent Garden recruitment agency right away, and so spent the first day that Joe was working frantically going to other agencies and applying for jobs on the internet, making calls, etc. Because neither of us have any real secretarial experience, Jon basically had to up-play all of his skills and what little experience he did have to even be considered by some of the higher-end recruitment agencies, which normally only deal with very qualified applicants. After finally convincing one agency to let him register with them and testing on computer and typing packages and skills, however, the agency found out that he was “advanced” in all databasing and office applications with a typing speed of 85+ wpm. Afterwards, Jon went back to all the agencies that had brutally rejected him and convinced them to register him as well, and the job offers started rolling in. By Tuesday he was working at the Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners, in the British Medical Society building in central London. Ummm, beautiful office,

(view from my office window of the building's courtyard)

in the very heart of corporate London and across the street from two central parks, with beautiful architecture and a really nice office. Jon basically did general admin stuff in a Junior Administrator position for the CRFP, but got a lot of really good office experience and a chance to become comfortable in the corporate environment. Umm very very very long-stories short, other offers started coming in and he chose a better job, starting Friday, at a company called NetJets. NetJets is a lot like the GMC – post-modern and in corporate London, with a very posh office of glass and black leather, proximity-card access, etc. NetJets is a company that operates private jets for individuals, providing luxury flight services to anywhere in the world at a minutes notice for those who can fork over 400,000 pounds for 25 hours of flying time per year. Jon is a Contracts Administrator there, acting as a replacement for one of three Contracts Administrators who direct an office of about 50 senior sales-people which are grouped into teams that deal with business in specific regions of the world. As you walk down the hall in NetJets from office to office, you’ll hear a gradual shift between about 10 different “language regions” within the office itself. Basically, Jon will be authorizing sales, dealing with the contracting and payments for services, and making sure that all the ridiculously rich princes and barons that are able to be NetJets customers are quite happy. The three contracts administrators assign and keep track of what work is being done on what accounts by what teams in the office. Blah blah blah, he loves his job and is hoping that they will love him too so that he can get an extension on the week-long contract he signed on for. If not, the experience of working at the CRFP and NetJets will definitely allow him to land a few enticing job/internship offers. Some of the perks of working at NetJets? Super interesting and motivated people from all over the world, loads of candy, cookies, and special coffee. He’s still working on the complimentary employee flight package – maybe we’ll be flying home in style on a Gulf Stream? Otherwise, Air India it is.

Check out NetJets: http://www.netjets.com/default.asp

CRFP: http://www.crfp.org.uk/

or T.N.S. – Jon’s top job offer starting next next Monday, should NetJets not be able to keep him on - http://www.tns-global.com/corporate/Rooms/DisplayPages/LayoutInitial?Container=com.webridge.entity.Entity[OID[FCAC1D931F80F3459B1034CD2304EC38]]

No pictures yet, but he’ll take a few on Monday.

So there’s a general idea of what our jobs look like, and what we have been doing. At this point, we are proud to say that we are completely self-sufficient, living on less that we are making. It’s weird to think that if we wanted to, we could stay here for however long we want. It’s incredible to think that at this point, we have created an independent and self-sufficient life for ourselves that could continue indefinitely. This could be life…

So lets get back to where we left off, I think it must have been Monday or so, right before our first day of work while living at 23 Musgrave Crescent. We awoke early, like zombies from our continuous lack of sleep, were jolted awake by the sting of a cold shower, and made our separate ways to the tube station. Upon entering the tube station,

(extremely Uncrowded station, at night)

we gazed in horror at the wall of humanity that is Rush Hour in London. The sea of people in suits and ties stretched on endlessly. Trying to find a place in the throngs of people was overwhelming to say the least. When the train came equally packed (already) with people, those same business-men and women were transformed into animals desperately and shamelessly shoving their way onto the train and straining just long enough for the doors to close dangerously close to their designer-pants butts. It was like Japan, where there are people with white gloves whose only job is to shove as many people onto the transit as possible before the doors closed. Like cattle, the crowd surged forward against each arriving train. Needless to say, we both missed the first couple trains. Only after missing a few trains and desperately needing to get to work were we able to similarly abandon all shame and join in the shoving match, rewarded with a place on one of the incredibly packed and sweaty trains on our way to work. We would later find out that this was because the circle line (“very reliable”, according to Sammy “the sleeze”) had completely broken down and nearly everyone was being forced onto the district line. Nowdays, tube-transit isn’t nearly as packed, but it still takes about 45-55 minutes to get to/from work, depending on where you work.

Well, that concludes another marathon blog. Hopefully, they will be shorter and more frequent in the future. Today, we’ve already wasted the morning finishing this thing and we figure this weekend is our chance to be tourists. Weve been here two weeks and have yet to see Big Ben or any of the attractions. Thanks for checking in and keep reading.

-Jon and Joe

NEW PICTURES:::

http://picasaweb.google.com/jonathan.s.sheller/MovingInEtc

Good food takes time

Hey everyone. Joe here. Hey thanks for checking the blog. And your reward? Thats right. Nothing. Yeah, were really sorry about the lack of activity on this thing, but things have just been rediculously busy here with our new place, jobs, etc etc etc. Weve got our next blog about half done, and I promise youll like it. Thats a Joe Burke promise, worth its weight in gold*. Anyway, being the quality-concious bloggers that we are, we refuse to settle for a thrown-together bore-fest. Rest assured that weve made all kinds of empty proclaimations about the importance of keeping up on this blog, and plan to not follow through accordingly. Seriously though, we hope to get things posted a little sooner, so, bear with us and hopefully the next one will be up soon, chock-full of fun pictures and a balloon for the kids.
-Joe

*Not an actual promise.

Massive 4-day catch-up blog

Ok, so the last four days have been extremely hectic, so this next blog might be just a little bit weak. So we left off last time before our BUNAC orientation. Orientation was pretty boring but we were happy to learn that when british people make fun of you or “take a piss out of you” as our guide put it, they are really just trying to show affection. We, along with the rest of the BUNAC participants were really glad to hear this reassurance. In fact, he said that if they weren’t taking a piss out of you, they probably didn’t like you. This is great news for us, because for a second, we thought that the british didn’t like us but in fact, they must like us quite a bit.

Later that day, we walked down Auborne street trying to activate our cell phones. We strolled into a local Carphone Warehouse (big cell chain) excited to soon own our very own cell phones, with which we could pretend to be able to afford to call people from. Our hearts sank however, after seeing that the store was staffed entirely of South Africans. In addition to the complex concoction of British and African accents, our South African friends simply laughed at us as we struggled to comprehend the British telecom system, and them. Our particular service representative was also incredibly vague, leading Jon to cancel his order and wait to have things explained to him more fully at another Carphone Warehouse. Blah blah blah, we went clubbing later.

We went clubbing with Shelley and, as it turns out, her friend the richest girl in London. First, we tried to get into an exclusive club called Umbaba and thought that with Shriste we would have no problem (besides trying desperately to hide Jon’s nike tenishoes from the bouncers). After getting rejected and shamefully stepping over the velvet rope into the cold streets of upscale London, we made out way through the throngs of thousand dollar handbags and clothing to another nightclub, one which Shriste probably owns. We were assured that there would be repercussions to our dismissal from Umbaba – the last time Shriste was turned away from a nightclub it was promptly bought and demolished by her father, or so we’re told. Inside Atica – we had a great time dancing and staring longingly at the 20 pounds (40 dollar) drinks*. We were worried that we would not be that great of European dancers, seeing that we are just sort of mediocre in the states. We soon found out, however, that we would probably have been better to never have danced in our lives. The small amount of American dance experience we did have proved to be more of a handicap than a benefit. Luckily, the Europeans thought it was “cute”.

Rather than catch a black cab home afterwards, we hailed a “rickshaw”, which consists of one sleezy Italian driver and a bike connected to a beach-towel covered canopy. As the driver intimidated oncoming traffic with his bicycle horn, we obnoxiously screamed at him to go faster, making “mushing” actions with our arms as if holding bullwhips.

Then the hunger set in. After waiting patiently in our room for the rest of the Miles family to fall asleep, we emerged under the cover of darkness to pillage their food stores. Our Midwest manners wouldn’t allow us to help ourselves to their food in their presence, but after a few days the ravenous hunger and survival mechanisms set in. In the UK, however, refrigerators and pantries are several times smaller and less-well stocked than their American counterparts. Additionally, the Miles were preparing to move, and their cupboards were almost completely bare, forcing us to accept anything and everything that we could find. Up until this point we had survived solely on a pan of lasagna that they had offered us to “help ourselves to”. It had immediately become a staple of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, indeed it had become breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We had been eating nothing but toast, and that lasagna, for three days now, and both were quickly running out. To conserve our valuable food, we “splurged” once and got two sandwiches off of the “pound-saver menu” at our American safe-house McDonalds, but even that was “way out of our budget”. We were up against the ropes. After 4 days of eating 1 or 2 meals a day consisting almost entirely of toast, water, and occasionally lasagna, we finally cracked. We made short work of the pepperoni pizza we found cowering in the back of an empty freezer, and for now the demons in our bellies were satisfied. For the first time on our trip, we went to bed not hungry. We disposed of all evidence, ashamed of ourselves for our animal-like behavior. In the next nights, however, our pillaging would only intensify as lasagna reserves ran low and our last loaf of bread quickly
dwindled.

The next day we returned to BUNAC to look for jobs, blah blah blah. Some fun things happened, but we can’t remember them. That afternoon we went to a massive Foo-Fighters concert in Hyde Park. We have no pictures because of the incredible “copyright/camera police” force. It was an outdoor concert, with thousands of people standing around or sitting on picnic blankets drinking and enjoying the cool summer night, and was one of our first real tastes of the UK student scene. We walked around and enjoyed it, and it was lovely. Other stuff happened, blah blah blah.

Sunday we worked on CV’s (Curriculum Vitae = British Resumé) and Cover Letters, then decided to take a “short break” and go see the Imperial War Museum. Little did we know this short break would take us most of the day, because of the UK Bus System. After researching the buses diligently before we left, we thought we had this shit down. After pacing between two bus stops for about an hour, we weren’t nearly as confident. Finally, a little old lady, noticing our bewilderment, informed us that many of the bus lines were not running today because there were demonstrations in Leicester Square. We promptly abandoned our tip to the museum and made a beeline for Leicester Square, wherever that was, hoping to take place in some student protests or rioting or whatever. Upon arrival we found that it was some cultural fair, and immediately left - enroute to our original destination – a monument to war. The war museum was awesome, with incredible displays and showings of most of the major wars.

After admiring the incredible killing machines, we were thoroughly satisfied and started to head home, again hoping to decipher the British busing system. After waiting at a bus stop, and even asking another person what bus they were waiting for, we boarded confidently bus 159. After riding it for about twenty minutes, we started to notice that it was slowly emptying and people had stopped boarding. After waiting for a stop for about ten minutes and happily moving to the front of the upper deck (now that noone else was there!) hoping for a great view of the city, we began to wonder out loud why we were the only ones left on the bus. As if reading our minds, the bus driver bluntly informed us over the intercom that that the bus had reached the end of the line, and asked us why we were still on her bus. She laughed at us as we told her where we thought we were, and we left. We began to explore our new surroundings - Camden Town – blah blah blah. Recognizing that we had not eaten since morning, and that we were in a less-prestigious neighborhood, we seized the opportunity to buy cheap liquor* and hot-dogs, a feast fit for kings. Jon searched desperately for a Hawkeye-equivalent vodka, and was pleasantly rewarded with imported Soviet Vodka (and you thought the Soviet Union collapsed). Blah blah blah, we found our way home. Blah blah blah, we slept. Blah blah blah, now on to the main event.

The Day that Fun Died:

The next day we woke up early, showered, and were quietly eating our toast breakfast, when Joe ventured into the kitchen to get some water (poor man’s milk) and encountered Dede (Shelly’s mom). As Jon was sitting in the other room listening to music, he vaguely heard Joe talking to Dede about something. Only at the words “out” and “Wednesday” did Jon become suddenly attuned to the conversation. He had no idea what was going on, but knew it wasn’t good. His man sense told him that. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw the pained look on Joe’s face in the doorway minutes later. “Wednesday. Out.”

This was Monday, we had no job or housing, and we had been planning on at least another week. Evidently the movers were coming early. We quickly came to the realization that things were going to get much harder. We began to see simple things like the Mile’s lasagna and bread as luxuries that would soon slip away, and steeled ourselves for the days of hunger ahead. Immediately, we began discussing how we could further reduce eating costs, and concurred upon a brilliant plan. We would begin combining lunch and dinner into “lunner” to save money, maybe replace bread with flour, and increase pillaging activity to increase fat stores before we leave.

Despite the unreality of the situation, it was as if we had won the bad-luck lottery, with a prize of no food, no house, and no job. We couldn’t help but find ourselves laughing hysterically at our terrible misfortune, finding anything and everything in the next two hours completely hilarious. This is what we like to call “hysteria”. Eventually, the reality set in and we set to work. The sinking feeling in our guts propelled us, and we moved fast, like cheetah, and booked a week’s stay at an incredible (- e + ly cheap) hostel. Actually, however, it is an incredibly nice hostel which we got last-minute rates to. Located in Swiss Cottage area, it is a converted Victorian mansion with the highest reviews on hostelworld and other sites. Check it out www.palmerslodge.co.uk.

Although we joke about the turn of events, however, we were actually excited about the challenge to truly fend for ourselves. We got a bank appointment later that day to set up our banking before leaving the Miles. Unfortunately, Jon had forgotten to get his letter of reference from his bank before leaving the States. After running from tube to tube to get to National Westminster (our bank) in time for our appointment, with Jon frantically making trans-Atlantic calls on his cell phone to unhelpful bankers in various American branches of his bank, we finally arrived. Jon was finally able to track down the manager of a helpful bank in Mason City who would allow him to bend a few rules, literally seconds before being called for our appointment to set up our accounts, in typical Jon fashion. Everything went smoothly, and only as we were leaving did we find out that the reference letter which we had been told was so crucial, was actually “not that important”.

We now had to deposit our traveler’s cheques into our new account, and because of killer exchange rates at the bank, we were told to simply exchange them at an AMEX agency. The only problem was, by the time we returned, the bank would be closed. There was also no AMEX nearby where we are staying. Being the lazy and efficiency-driven Americans that we are, we decided to seize the opportunity and exchange our theft-insured traveler’s cheques for completely vulnerable cash (quid), and carry it home on completely vulnerable us. Upon presentation of our traveler’s cheques, the cashier started to act uneasy when noticing that Jon had not signed his traveler’s cheques upon purchase as he was supposed to. He promptly made several calls, while maintaining possession of all of our cheques and passports, while glancing occasionally back at us while we fidgeted nervously. He then performed everything from light-checks to scanning our passports, to satisfy himself of the fact that we were not the master counterfeiters he had thought. Finally, the cheques began to be reluctantly cashed. Our cashier merrily and loudly counted back the four thousand dollar’s worth of British Bank Notes to us as we mentally screamed at him to be silent. Our senses were heightened as we became acutely aware of every person in the AMEX station, perceiving them as direct threats and likely members of a pickpocket gang. Eventually, we made our way home through the transit system, expecting an ambush around every corner.

When we returned to Shelley’s we reveled in our temporary fortune, taking many pictures. We like to call this next little bit the Money Montage:

Blah blah blah, skip a day.

After a very busy day today and depositing our treasure into the coffers of NatWest, we are now relaxing in a park, blogging and unwinding with an eight pack of Fosters* (dirt cheap on sale). Here, beer is incredibly strong and everything is a tall-boy*. It is heaven. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep our blogs more current and lively, the past few days have just been hectic beyond belief. We’ve left a lot out, but tried to hit the interesting parts and those that we could remember. Already it seems like this trip is becoming a blur. Keep checking the blog, and feel free to leave comment. They make us happy.

Send food,

Jon/Joe

*Parental Disclaimer: Any accounts involving the consumption of alcohol in this blog may be grossly exaggerated or fabricated entirely and in no way should be interpreted as an actual representation of real-life events. These accounts have been provided solely for the enjoyment of our readers and for informational purposes only.

MORE PICTURES

http://picasaweb.google.com/jonathan.s.sheller/LondonTimeTheFirstDays

England time

Captains log, stardate
3129874.887775554389.98664 b

The rest of the flight was lovely, with several enjoyable films direct from India that appeared to be shot on a sony handicam. Maybe on the return flight home after a few scotch whiskeys, we will find the films as entertaining as our fellow turbaned travelers. customs and immigration uneventful, despite being pleasantly pleased to be treated to an express lane past all other nationalities (Americuh).

After being herded like cattle through a series of tunnels, and a trip on the express train to central London, we walked around Paddington station like bewildered tourists, finally relinquishing a punch on the man-card to ask for directions to marble arch station. We slowly made our way to the subway station, taking up multiple spaces on the escalators and struggling to fit through the turnstiles. Like fatigued American pack mules, we ‘stayed the course’, forcing our way through the lines and inconveniencing foreigners, beligerantly taking up multiple spaces. Our plan is to infuriate the commuters of every country we visit. NYC, check. London, check.

Finally, we emerged sweaty and disgusting from the depths of London underground into the glaring sunlight, blinding to Joe’s already weakened eye, and began to make our way towards the American embassy (right next to Shelley’s house (the girl we’re staying with for a week (a friend from Dartmouth))). After cursing London for having no street signs whatsoever, and spending time at every corner searching for them, we took yet another punch to the man-card and began asking directions. We would later relinquish more valuable punches to said man card at the realization that street signs are CLEARLY marked on the sides of buildings at every “zebra crossing”. Eventually, we found our way to the U.S. embassy (Fort Americuh) which was surrounded by several fortifications of steel and concrete barriers, as if hunkered down for a long fight in this lonely foreign land. It looked lonely, like a sad child huddled in the corner with no friends.

Blah blah blah, we found Shelley’s place- a ridiculously nice place, in the heart of London, across the street from a beautiful park, just blocks from Harrods and some of the finest shopping the world has to offer. Luckily, in a few weeks, we’ll be moving out into an absolute shithole, probably eating mac n’ cheese. The transition will probably be a lot like when someone flushes the toilet when you’re in a nice warm shower.

But in all honesty, the Mile’s letting us stay with them is going to be a godsend. Despite being busy with a graduation, as well as showing their apartment, they have found time to be incredibly thoughtful and nice to us as well as giving us an entire room. Having a place to stay and a familiar face to show us around and help us get on our feet is going to be one of the most fortunate things that has happened to us.

Later that night, after collapsing temporarily from the cries of our jet-lagged bodies, we soldiered on (Americuh) to consume a couple bottles of wine with Shelley and her already intoxicated sister Casey at a pub that served some incredible Thai food, returning in the wee hours of the morning.

Currently, we are sitting in a quiet English park waiting for our BUNAC orientation to begin, laughing hysterically while we write this blog and further infuriating the populace of London with our incessant hyena-like laughter. We’re here early because the increased voltage of the UK power system magically supercharged our alarm clock, waking us up at 5am rather than 7:30, only realizing this after frantically showering and getting ready in fears of missing our appointment this morning. Orientation is about to begin, so wish us luck in the job search and keep checking the blog.

-hugs and kisses, Jon/Joe

NEW PICTURES!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/jonathan.s.sheller/NYC

Hey everyone, its Joe. Were getting ready to catch our flight to London at 8, so Jon is busy getting all of his passport, visas etc together right now, last minute, in typical Jon fashion- thats ok tho. We decided to splurge the 50 bucks for a taxi to the airport instead of carrying four pieces of luggage through the subway during rush hour but I think the driver might have to strap some shit to his roof.

Well, yesterday was a whirlwind. We covered just about every tourist attraction in Manhattan on subway and foot and I don’t think Ive ever walked more in my life. Im not kidding when I say we probably walked at least 20 miles yesterday.

We started out from Jon’s friends apartment in Jersey city and walked over to Battery Park to take the ferry to Ellis Island. I really wanted to go because I know great grandma came over through there. The line was long as hell so we decided to settle for a picture. On the way out of the subway from Jersey City, we got some really good looks at ground zero. You know it’s kind of a sacred place because literally every square inch of NYC is developed except for this gaping footprint in the financial district.

We made our way uptown to Chinatown, Little Italy and Soho. Chinatown was really funny because you could buy all kinds of worthless shit on the street. You could buy like 10 pounds of Ginsing or there would be the bootlegger Chinese kids running up and down the street yelling DVD! DVD! DVD! DVD! I also went to Little Italy and we had lunch at a little café, but I still prefer my grandpas cooking.

I guess I wont bore you with all the other details. We went to Times Square and about every other tourist-y thing you can do in New York. In my last blog I was saying now intimidating NYC was but I guess I was wrong. We stayed in Manhattan and didn’t get into any sketchy areas like the Bronx or anything, but everyone here was really friendly and useful. I struck up conversations with strangers here more than in Iowa.

It kind of sucks, because just as I was getting to know my way around the subway system and having New York grow on me, its time to leave and head for London. I think Im going to like London even more though because its not as “raw” as New York.

Oh, one more story before I sign off. That thing I got in my eye on the train actually scratched my eye. I decided I wanted to make sure whatever was in there was out and not going to cause me any problems in London. We decided there was probably some student clinic would treat me for free. Im pretty sure no such thing exists because me Lauren and Jon searched for it for about 4 hours and 5 miles in lower Manhattan. We finally decided to give in and go to the hospital, but because we were dumbasses, it was too late and the clinics were closed. So I mosey into St. Vincents Emergency room triage.

When I got in there, I knew I was already screwed. There was some old lady with diabetes, several guys coming in on stretchers and a couple of Mexicans bleeding like all hell out of their arms. I thought, shit, my pinkeye doesn’t stand a chance against the Mexican bleeders, so on the card I had to fill out I upgraded my problem from pinkeye to “foreign object in eye.” Long story short, after about 4 hours, I was treated and told I scratched my eye. Filling a prescription in NY was a feat in itself. But its feeling 10 times better with the eyedrops they gave me.

Well, Id better get going. Its time to get everything together and get a cab. Hopefully our next blog will come at you from London. Until then…

-Joe