On London soil

It's been a long while since I last blogged, a really long time. So much has happened and there is so much to chat about. I couldn't possibly get around to it all. Well lets start by saying that I'm in London now, finally. It seemed like I was waiting to move here forever. I feel like I can finally start my life here in London. Things are going well. I love it here. I flew into Heathrow airport on September 11th. Funny, huh? I spent a week looking for a room for rent in a flat a week in Amsterdam at Robodock, a Art & Technology festival, and a week back in London at my new flat going to Study abroad orientation. This week is a bit of Freshers (New University student activities that involve meeting new people, getting to know the extra curricular activities that happen at London Met and of coarse drinking beer) which extends from last week. I had no idea what freshers was before I came here. Also I found out what fortnight means, a period of 2 weeks, basically. This week is the first week of classes. My first class is tomorrow. Goodness, there is a great deal to do. Lots of forms, getting lost at Uni (short for university, that’s what they call it here. Hm I'm not sure I have mentioned this before), and waiting in queues (British speak for lines). God, there is too much to talk about, really too much. I could type for hours.

I have gotten lost like I have never got lost before. Thank you for all those people who have stopped to help my while I was along my way. Mostly men who thought I was cute and Spanish I suppose. It's cool that I'm not considered white like I am in America. Okay one thing about the question that always comes up when I open my mouth. "Where are you from?" The accepted common response that anyone would recognize would be: 'I'm from America' ... which feels weird to say... America... I feel like breaking out into song

I like to be in America!
O.K. by me in America!
Ev'rything free in America
For a small fee in America!

you know the song from West Side Story, right? I can't help but sing it in my head every time this question comes up. It feels weird to hear and say it. I would say the I'm from the states but I get some confused looks sometimes. And at times I say U.S but that can get confused at times as well especially in a noisy pub. USA is too long and United States of American is too formal and longer still. Sometimes I break out with 'California' to be a little more specific because there are a good number of people that know about 'the states' certainly more than I know about their country. People are from all over the world here. That is what I love about this town. And my choice to live in Hackney which is one of the more ghetto or shall we say 'dodgy' parts of London is no mistake. Okay it goes without saying that it is much cheaper to live here than other parts of London and its all i could afford. Still it works out for me though because Hackney is very culturally diverse which makes it interesting and there are lots of cool shops with different, tasty & cheap foods and wares. What’s cooler still is that there are at least three organic shops on the main street near my flat (British speak for apartment). Lots of Yummy vegetarian food to choose from. I'm in heaven, I tell you. My flatmates (roommates) are super cool and they are born and bred Londoners, Chinese British that have spent their whole lives in Hackney.

Gosh, I really do have to go. I do have stuff to do. Really important bollocks (originally meaning testicles in British which has so many meanings I can't keep track of them all but for this sentence I'm intending it to mean 'nonsense') . More later. I really want to blog more often because there is just too much to write about. Everything is so new and I'm even a bigger retard than I usually am because I'm so clueless about everything British.

Catching Up

Since I last posted I went to go visit my study abroad advisor at SFSU to ask her about what documents I should include with my visa and if I can send everything in the mail instead of going to the British Consulate General, Los Angeles in person. She said all the documents I have are fine and that it's really not a big deal to send it in the mail even if I checked the box online that I would be doing it in person. Nice. So I sent the darn thing out. I couldn't find the 9 x 12 manila envelope I knew I had so I bought one of those cardboard mailers for photos at Albertsons. I included a $12 money order so the consulate can FedEx my passport with my visa stamp in it back to me. What a big relief. I tell you.

I'm looking into getting a temporary job for the brief remainder of my time in San Francisco. Options I'm considering: Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Starbucks, & temp. jobs listed on Craig’s List. No biters yet, just resumes and applications sent.

I've been keeping busy, somewhat.

I went with Zully last Friday to Trader Joes at Fisherman’s Warf. Zully and I went to a Job Fair the Wednesday before and found out that they had 4 positions opening really soon at that location. Boy was that I long bus ride. How long did that take, like an hour and a half. I don't think I want to commute all the way up there. Then we went to Whole Foods. Why the heck not since we are up north in the city. Turns out the best way to apply for Whole Foods is online. I wondering to myself if I can start working in S.F then transfer to the location in London. Can I do that? I dunno. After Whole Foods Zully and I went to Coit tower to enjoy the view and have a picnic with the food we got at Trader Joe's. My friend Nick from State picked up Zully and I up from Coit tower.
Here is a photo of a couple of riders from what I imagine would be another Critical Mass ride I saw while on Lombard street.

Nick took us to Palace of Fine Arts in the Presido for the International Poetry Festival. It was free so all the better!! I didn't think that I was going to but I really liked it. They had poets from all over the world reading a selection of their work in their native language with the English translation projected behind them. I'm really glad I went. Believe it or not that wasn't the end of my day. All three of us, Zully, Nick and I met up with some people I know from Couch Surfing for some drinks and dancing. The DJ was playing the usual Hip Hop that I'm not very fond of. I really wanted him to play "Groove's in the Heart" from DeeLite. I even requested it and he never played it. That seriously sucks. I can't believe I'm still sore about him not playing that song.

On Saturday I went to a soccer game with San Francisco’s own team California Victory at Kedzar stadium in Golden Gate Park. Let's just say there was no victory for Cali Victory and it was super cold. The fog rolled in crazy thick. The concessions ran out of coffee and hot cocoa. I paid $5 for a slice of cheese pizza there. Good times still. The SF European meet up is a fun group. Why is it that there were so many Germans that made it out that night? Should I learn German?

Sunday I went to Sterns Grove for a free concert. It was great. Its a good venue and who can beat it being free!! There was singer and group from Haiti and Belize. I love listening to world music especially outdoors.

Yesterday I went to the SF Zoo. I meet up with Woolee from Couchsurfing. I have a cute picture to show for it. It was crazy crowded. I think every summer camp group in the city was there. There were so many kids. Each group had there own t-shirt that all the kids were wearing. After that I went to Dutch Windmill in Golden Gate Park near Ocean Beach to visit my friend Mark. Sure enough he was there playing a bit of percussion with Don and Hot Tub who play jazz there weekly.

And today I paid my rent for the last time. I'm going to moving out come September. I can't believe its already August. Pretty soon I going to be in London. I found out about this festival called Robodock in Amsterdam, happening from Sept 19-22. Since I'm going to be in London at that time I decided to check if I can volunteer for the event. I filled out an application online and sent in a copy of my passport in the mail today. Robodock requested that volunteers send a copy of their ID for insurance purposes. It was fun to go to the post office and send out a envelope to Amsterdam, just 90 cents. I'm a little nervous about going to Amsterdam. I never been there and I don't speak the language there, but I'll figure something out, I guess.

Anyways that's it. Oh wait, no. Also I started to clear out my room. I cleaned up the usual mess I have and started to go through my stuff to see what I'm going to keep, pack up, and get rid of. My landlady told me she was going to start showing my room to prospective renters this month so I got to keep this tidy.

He's a Rookie give him some Milk and Cookies

Here is a pic of the statue of Gandhi where the ferry building is in downtown San Fran.
My roomy Zully is also looking dignified in the pic. I like it, although it came out a bit dark.

Gandhi looks like an Arhat giving the fear not mudra. An Arhat is to Buddha what the 12 disciples were to Jesus. A Mudra is a hand gesture given by a buddha, arhat, or bodisattva in paintings, sculptures or drawings. Each mudra represents a complex buddhist concept canonically illustrated in buddhist religious artifacts. Don't I sound smart? I took a Buddhist art history class last semester. It was one of my favorite classes! I wonder what religion Gandhi belong to? Was he Hindu?

My title has nothing to do with my post but I heard it on the #14 bus on my way home after tooling around the Embarcadero. There was this guy that came onto the bus who was chatting it up with the driver. You know when you first get on the bus at the front to pay for your fair. He was just chilling out on the steps. Your not suppose to do that!! But I guess it doesn't matter since he is a buddy of the driver. The dude was having a good old time laughing like there was something incredably funny he had to laugh loud enough for us to hear at the back of the bus. Zully, my roomy and I were on one of those doublly long buses so the guy you can imagine was extra loud if people on the back of this bus could hear him. Gosh, it took forever to get home. Zully and I were waiting forever for the bus to come and when we got to the Mission there were 2 big #14 buses that appeared in front of us. How does that happen? Its the same bus with the same route. I don't get it. I think the guy was shouting about Rookie this and rookie that because the bus driver in the bus ahead of us was apparently new to the job. Lo and behold when we stepped off the bus in good old Daly City there was a heavy blanket of fog to greet us. Welcome Home to Foggy daily city.

Tomorrow I plan on going to school to talk to my Study abroad advisor about what documents I need to have to include with my british visa application. If she can't help me I will email Ms. Lessware at London Met. I ask lots of questions, I wonder if these two incredibaly nice, patient ladies are annoyed with me yet. Since I 'm going to campus I might as well workout too. Why not. I'll be productive unlike most days. I hate not being in school. I feel lost when the semester is not in session. I'm really nervous about the experienceing the british university system first hand though. I dunno, can I hack it?

I'm going to suck it up and pay for a London A-Z street atlas, a new video ipod and digital recording attachement from Amazon. The street atlas is absoluetly essential. I'm going to start getting myself aquanted with the streets and neighborhoods of London. Also I need to start posting on the London group page on couchsurfing so I can get aquantied with CS Londoners that are soon to be my new friends and get some buring questions I have answered about life in the city. ansered. The reason I feel like I need a new ipod is because, well, I stepped on my old one, it no longer works. I had a nano before but I think getting a video ipod would be useful for the video podcasts I plan on making when I get to London. I'm taking a creative digital video class next semester and I would like to document my life there. I feel like i need a recorder to attach to my ipod so I can do some more interviewing, a had so much fun inerviewing people last semester with my final art project, and my recordings coming from my ipod will be Mac friendly which is always important.

Here is a photo of a HSBC bank on Irving in the Sunset in S.F. which is also in London. You can barely make out the Sutro Tower which is an unmistakable San Francisco landmark, right above the bank building in the background.

I think that I'm going to open an international student account there when I arrive in London.

Personal DNA report- generous artist

WARNING- each separate link will open a new browser page to some of the pages I was at TODAY!!

This is who I am...today....maybe tomorrow as well...

Generous Artist
I found out about this test when I was 1) on couchsurfing (because I'm a member) 2) on the Free Hug campaign-London meet page 3) checking out the free hug campaign website 4) and forum, 5) then found myself at Area Trace No Search's blog, which was linked to 6) Girl*Next*Door's blog This is where I found out about the test and also how I found out about British comedian, Lee Evans


He's cool. I don't think he is super duper funny however given my current interest in all things British I was trying to soak it all up. He does quite a bit of physical comedy and his material is pretty universal.

Yeah I do this a lot, hopping around one site to another and another and another with each and every link. I never know where each link is eventually going to lead me. It can be quite fun at times. It's not very random, though. I tried doing a small art project inspired by John Cage's chance operations but my navigation from links where not very random, still very subjectively driven. I think it would have worked better if I would have written a program that would randomly select and go to a link on any given page. Hmmm, interesting, but my programming skills are pretty poor. Which reminds me I need to write down my ideas for art projects to get a head start on the next school year. Oh yeah, and I also need to work on my as of yet non-existent website.

Furthur I march ahead

Two things:

#1:

Yesterday morning about 2am (which could be considering Sunday night instead of Monday morning, depending on how you look at it) I set my alarm so I could call back Sir Allan Hillson for Sir John Cass Residence Hall for student accommodation. How official does that sound? He gave me a call on Thursday morning around 7:30am my time last week, so I gave him a call back. After listening to the message he left me about 15 or so times to get the number I called on Friday 8:30am my time only to find out he was out of the office. The second try is a charm (well not really but who’s counting?) so I gave another ring yesterday early. Sure enough after talking to someone at the office who could barely hear me and cause me to spell out my first and surname at nearly the top of my voice (hopefully I didn't wake up my roommates), the phone was handed to Sir Allan Hillson. He was a bit concerned, which is the reason for him contacting my by phone rather that email?

Sir Hillson: "It says here on your application your ** years old" (sorry I'm not going to disclose my age, as of yet)

Me: "yes"

Sir Hillson: "Well I just wanted to contact you to let you know what you are getting yourself into"

Me: "you mean living with a bunch of teenagers. I'm well aware"

Sir Hillson: (small chuckle) "Well yes it can get quite noisy at times. The students living here range from 18-22. I just want you to go into this with your eyes wide open"

I kid you not; he said, "eyes wide open" like 3 times. I assured him that although I never lived in the dorms, or residence halls as they call it there I knew the age range of the students that live at halls and what they act like. I think I can deal, although I'm still not sure whether I'm going to decide to live there after all. It might be a nusence finding private accommodation but it might be better for me and not because I won't be living with 18 to 22 years olds. Hell I act and look like an 18 to 22 year old anyways. Meeting me in person you would be shocked to find out my true chronological age. I swear the older I get the more immature I get. It's quite sad.

#2:

A Milestone:

I told my landlord, whom I saw for the first time in at least a couple of weeks, I was moving out come September. This was after we had a short, uneventful conversation about fog. It was really, I mean really foggy yesterday. He said okay and seemed really sad. I don't think it was about my news. Perhaps it was about his wife, Sophia, my landlady, who recently was diagnosed with cancer. I hope she is doing okay, considering her ill health. It was easier than I thought it would be; it just slipped out. I'm a bit sad to be leaving the household. I'll have to say goodbye to roommates Zully, who has been my closest friend while here in San Francisco (Ahem, ur, Daly City, actually), and young Bonnie, who I was barely getting to know and liked. I have another roommate besides those two but I never talk to her so my feelings are rather neutral for her, naturally.


etc...

Which brings me to my former roommate, Delphine, who is back in her homeland of France. Delphine lived in the room next to mine for 4 months for our first semester at SFSU. She later moved to the city with her then boyfriend, now husband, the following semester closer to school. Before I tell get to the point of this story, let me tell you a fond memory I have of Delphine. Zully, Delphine, and I got into a conversation about ass kissing. Zully seems to think I'm a kiss ass because I get chummy with my professors. Delphine, instead of using the phrase “ass kisser” said "ass licker", which is a direct translation of the French equivalent. As far as I know I think she still says "ass licker" I like the phrase “ass licker”. It's quite graphic and unsettling but I like the French phrase better. Delphine is quite the character and a woman who knows how gets her way, so delightfully devious. I finally emailed her recently and she emailed me back!! Zully and I wanted to go out with her and Matthew for a last big hurrah before Delphine heads off to West Virginia (where her husband is from) and I set off to London. We missed each other, regrettably. She has been in Paris since mid June and is planning on going to West Virginia in September. Maybe she will still be in Paris by the time I arrive in London. That would be fab, to go to Paris, straight away. It's just so close, a 3-hour train ride away!!

and the Order of the Phoenix

Lets start off with what I saw in the theatre yesterday!! I suppose I am a Harry Potter fan, seeing all the movies (all 5 of them), despite not having read any of the books. For shame. I think I'll have to remedy that in order to be a proper fan. I'm going to buy the 1st hefty volume on Half.com, possibly. I went to Century, which is a 10-minute walk from my house for the bargain price of $7.50, for movies starting before 6pm on weekdays. Funny that still seems expensive. I don't have much to say about the movie except for...I liked it. What's not to like about wizards/witches, Hogwarts, and a world hidden away from muggles? I suppose I'm easy to please. I was considering going to Metreon, downtown where they are showing the newest installation of Harry Potter on IMAX, gotta love that, but don't love the price ($15). Do I talk about money too much? It's become a big concern of mine since the knowledge the dollar to the pound, you know. My money will only go half as far there. Scary.

Smoke Free England

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, so cool, yes, yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh yes. This is perfect. I might really grow to love this place. Starting July 1st (it has already started) nearly all pubic places indoors will be smoke free according to law. This is sweet. Obviously I'm not a smoker. This is just as cool as when California became smoke free just before I turned 21.

Smokers in England, worry not, in California they have found ways to side step the law, such as outdoor "garden" areas that are attached to bars/clubs, designated smoking shops/cafes/hookah lounges, and there is always smoking outside.

It seems like there is going to be pretty stiff penalties for breaking the law
Here are the specs:

Non-compliance will be a criminal offence

Smoking in smoke free premises or work vehicles: a fixed penalty notice of £50 (reduced to £30 if paid in 15 days) imposed on the person smoking. Or a maximum fine of £200 if prosecuted and convicted by a court.

Failure to display no-smoking signs: a fixed penalty notice of £200 (reduced to £150 if paid in 15 days) imposed on whoever manages or occupies the smokefree premises or vehicle. Or a maximum fine of £1000 if prosecuted and convicted by a court.

Failing to prevent smoking in a smokefree place: a maximum fine of £2500 imposed on whoever manages or controls the smokefree premises or vehicle if prosecuted and convicted by a court. There is no fixed penalty notice for this offence.


Yikes. I don't think its that bad in California. It doesn’t seem like there is any enforcement actually, but it works, people comply. Apparently New York and Dublin are smoke free as well. Is that really true?

http://www.smokefreeengland.co.uk/

What with NHS, legal gay marriage, all sorts of cutting edge art, and now this I may never want to leave!

In my dreams...and then I woke up

My first dream in London!! I was wondering when it would happen, then sure enough. It was glorious. Mind you I have never been to London ever in my life. I've seen pictures as everyone has, I suppose.

It was a short dream between 7:30am-9:30am. My damn alarm woke me up from it. Don't you hate it when you have your alarm from the day before and you forget to turn it off or change it and you end up waking up before you really need to? I love sleep. I love dreams.

The people in my dream had a British accent, fun. Wait, now I feel like I had a continued dream. You know the kind where you wake up from the dream then go back to sleep to find yourself back in the same dream where you left off. Ever had one of those? I love those, when they are not nightmares.

I got woken up by a phone call on my cel. I didn't recognize the number so I didn't pick it up. I was curious who called so I waited for a message. That was around 7:30am. And guess who it was: some bloke calling from Sir John Cass Hall, the residence hall (dorm) I applied to in Hackney. He wanted to talk to me about what I'm getting myself into by living in the hall. I'm not used to hearing British accents so it was a treat to hear. He was trying to leave a number for me to call but kept on messing it up. I was thinking about calling right back but instead I went back to sleep. I'll call early tomorrow morning if I can decipher the number he left me. I might have to go to the website to get the number.

Okay so back to my lovely dream. I remember driving in one of those small European cars with either 3 dudes or one female and 2 dudes not sure. Things get fuzzy the longer I'm awake. But the steering wheel was not on the right side and we were driving on the right side of the road so I got quite a bit wrong in my dream. Sue me; I haven't been there yet so I don't really know what it's like. Well my dream places aren't even close to the real places no matter how well I know a place. I think I just got picked up from the airport and we were on a mission as I often am in my dreams. There was one guy who was hanging out the window most of the time who I think I was flirting with. We drove past this checkpoint where I had to show my passport and the agent ended up getting in the car and showing us his gun, you know just for fun. We ended up picking up this little girl who just lost her family and Dakota Fanning (how she looked like when she did 'Taken', the TV series in 2002) we went the beach or some pool, I dunno. Did we go to the Thames? I'm not sure, again its all getting fuzzy.

What does it all mean? I have no idea. I'm no good at interpreting my dreams. I'm just stoked that I visited my own personal, weird, convoluted London in my sleep.

Maiden Journey

First post, first post, first post! I wanted to do this for a little while, since I've been reading An American in London for maybe a couple of weeks. It's a blog, here at Blogger written by an American PhD student at Kings College who talks about her experience about being, well, an American expat living in London, fancy that. She has been there for 3 years and blogging strong. I don't know if I'll be as prolific as her or sound half way intelligent, but hey, not like anybody is going to read this anyways, right?

There are numerous options for blog hosting and I couldn't decide where I wanted to post. I've blogged before, not with any consistency on a few other sites, live journal and My Space to name a couple. Well, since I already had an account here because of school, well, here I am.

I'm still here, in the States as I call it, but not for long. I'm off to the UK, specifically London September 10th. I'll arrive there the 11th. Hmmm, I'll be arriving on foreign soil on the 6th anniversary of 9-11. That is going to be interesting. Wonder if I'll be considered a terrorist. I dunno, just a thought. The time is creeping up on me. All I can think about is the move. It's all I can talk about as well. I must be really boring people with London this and UK that. Lets hope this is a good outlet for me to blah, blah, blah-dee-blah about everything British that I'm obsessing over.

What am I obsessing over at the moment? I've been spending a lot of money lately. First was my round-trip plane ticket for $684, which was a big milestone for me, signifying that I'm actually going, things are serious now, say goodbye to California and Mexican food serious.

Then there was the faxing of the registration form for the classes I'm going to take in the fall, or as they call it autumn. Oh yeah, currently I'm an undergrad student at San Francisco State spending my senior year abroad at London Metropolitan Uni. It took me a full day to navigate London Mets website to come up with my schedule, a nightmarish day, where at the end I didn't care what classes I was taking as long as I had classes. I had to get a signature on my form from my academic advisor who I think wasn't actually in town. I emailed a PDF of the filled out form to him, he printed it out, signed it, scanned it and emailed it back to me, where I printed it out and faxed it to London, twice. Yeah, the first time I faxed it, I sent it to the wrong office. Ordeal! That didn't cost me much; set me back 5 bucks, but another big fat nail in the coffin. I mention coffin and allude to death because death as prescribed by tarot card readings means significant chance. As a human, a creature of comfort I dread change, no matter how positive it may be.

Next on spending agenda, registration fees for London Met, £390 (~$780). This is on top of my tuition fees. Most recent hefty fee (it just never ends), the visa application fee costing me only $208. I paid online yesterday, all furrowed brow and bated breath, when I finished my application. Thank you C. for letting me use your address on the form. You are my only friend in London, UK, or Europe for that matter. I made the mistake of choosing to submit the application along with all of the related documents in person. What was I thinking? This is what I'm obsessing about at this particular moment. I don't think I can even go back on that decision.

I needed to make an appointment at the consular office in L.A. I don't even have a car. I made an appointment in two weeks but I cancelled it. I'm still waiting for my unconditional acceptance letter from London Met. I need this for my visa. It would be too much of a pain to take bus or plane there because I still have to find a way to get to the British Consular by car (I wouldn't even think of public transportation, probably would take me 2-3 hours to get to my destination). I could rent a car but I don't have a credit card (I cut up my cards a year ago). I don't think I could use my debit card. I'm looking at spending $150 for the rental and gas, at least. Why? I don't want to go in person. I would have an appointment in the morning and would have to wait till 2 or 5 till I could get my visa and could leave. I want to send my stuff in the mail.

I had a cheap attack when I made my decision to file in person. I was thinking, oh I don't want to spend another $12 to send it by mail, I'll do it in person, there’s a British Consular office in San Francisco, right? Well, yes there is one but they don't deal in visas. Your regional consular is in L.A, a 6-hour drive or an 8-11 hour bus ride away. Remember you don't have a car anymore; you sold it before you moved up to the bay area. They have a visa help/question line, good place to call, right? I could ask them if there is any penalty for me sending it in the mail when I stated I was going to go in person. Oh yeah, it cost $2.49 per minute to call this phone number. Bloody hell!! I'm afraid to send it in the mail with a $12 check. They might turn down my application because I didn't go according to policy or something. I could be freaking out over nothing, maybe. Why does it seem that a big move always ends up costing more money than you plan on spending because you don't know better.