The benefits of visibility on campus

Hello everyone!

You probably thought this blog was retired right? Well much like what happened during the first year of my MBA, while I was going through the interview rounds for my full-time job, I didn’t want to blog since if I did write anything it probably would have been me being angry or frustrated that I wasn’t employed yet which isn’t useful to you guys in any way whatsoever. Now that I am set for employment, how I got my job is a good lesson on what TO do when you are looking for a job post-MBA.  So here is my story on how I got my job:

As I might have alluded to in previous posts, I was VERY committed to making sure I get a job post-MBA. This meant many, many emails and meetings with my career advisor to ensure I was presenting myself as strongly as possible to potential employers. I also went out of my way to do some pretty creative things with companies that recruited on campus (while I was on exchange in Madrid and while I was completing my last semester in Toronto) so that those companies remembered me as well as possible.  As a result of all of this, the Rotman Career Centre knew me very well and I was probably often top-of-mind to them- to the point that I am pretty sure they wanted me to get a job so that, if nothing else, I’d stop getting on top of them for help!

As a result of the above, one day I got an email from the director of the Career Centre telling me that the Admissions team was telling her in passing that it was interested in hiring an MBA grad to join their team and the Career Centre director, knowing my passion for the Rotman brand, my strong networking skills, etc, thought I might be interested. I was indeed interested, so she told me to apply, so I did. Note that this job was not listed on the Rotman job listings site (but it was listed on the “careers at the University of Toronto” website). However if it wasn’t for me being told about the job, I never would have even known it existed.

So I applied, did my interview preparation, did my interviews and got the job! So I will be the new Assistant Director of Admissions for the Full-Time Rotman MBA Program.

I know some MBA students might feel like:

-They know everything they need to know for their job search

-They want to go at their job search without Rotman’s help

But as my story proves, it pays (literally and figuratively) to ensure people know you on campus! So get out there, get involved, be friendly with people and good things will happen!!

Future Rotman students are in for some real awesomeness!!

One of the directors of the full-time MBA program, Kevin Frey, opened up time slots over the next few weeks to meet with us students to address any concerns we have about the program, hear from us how we can make the program even better, etc.

I really like Rotman and want it to maximize its awesomeness even when I am gone so I decided to attend one of Kevin’s sessions. SO fantastic!!  While I feel like I have gotten a lot out of Rotman, I am jealous of the class of 2014, 2015, 2016, etc. You guys are going to be SO set. Here are some cool things I learned:

--Recruitment--

The recruitment process will have changed COMPLETELY going forward. Rotman will be placing much more importance on employability upon graduation. This means in part, an emphasis on admitting candidates with sufficiently strong verbal and written communication skills and these skills will be explicitly evaluated in the application process. I am SO happy to hear this as this helps in so many ways:

-Group work becomes less stressful as ALL members of the team can pull their weight equally

-Class discussions become more enriching with more students able to clearly express their viewpoints

-The pool of viable candidates to employers becomes larger which increases the prestige of Rotman students on the whole

The interview process is also becoming much more rigorous. This means applicants can expect to be pushed a bit in their interviews. Also, each Rotman recruiter is assigned to and is responsible for specific applicants. So if, for example, X is interviewed by Y and upon admission, X turns out to be an all-star, Y will be recognized for their good job spotting an excellent candidate. Conversely, if X is a real dud, Y will be held directly accountable for admitting a dud. As a result, you can be sure awesomeness per capita at Rotman will increase.

Something that I didn’t realize until I spoke with Kevin was the importance of increasing the class size from about 280 (what it is now) to 400+. It turns out the big and most prestigious US schools have AT LEAST 400 students in the class (i.e. MIT). Many have about 1000 (i.e. Kellogg). Back when I first heard that the class size was increasing, I was worried about the talent pool diluting. But apparently MBA applicants don’t think that way. What tends to happen with a small class size is that they think “the class is so small I won’t apply because I won’t get in.” In reality, by admitting more students, you give more confidence to the all-star people of the world that if they apply they can actually get in and therefore more all-stars end up applying to (and getting in) the school. Increasing class size is also important from a recruitment standpoint which was the other big thing touched on by Kevin....

Insight into the fun world of product and service pricing

Hello friends!

So this semester I am taking my electives at Rotman, one of which being Pricing. I took this class because I figured if I am going to be a brand manager or work with brand managers, understanding how to price the brands which I am involved with is probably pretty important.

Also, from when I worked at Dell, when we made any new marketing initiative, the price of the products we were advertising was almost always the biggest issue.  Pricing was in fact such an important consideration that several members of the marketing team’s job was almost entirely pricing products! I had a basic understanding of what they did but now wanted to really get it, so I could be a more complete marketer upon finishing my MBA so here I was.

I know MBA school often gets knocked for making students study cases of really random industries unrelated to that which you will ultimately work in but the cases are actually pretty useful for practice, in this case, practice pricing products and services. Especially because there are so many ways to do it. 

It’s a lot of math to even figure out how much your products COST never mind what you will price them at! Things that one normally takes for granted, like the electricity in your building (overhead), is actually built into the costs of stuff you buy. This actually helps explain why Walmart can offer such low prices- they cut corners on almost EVERYTHING in their company (note that I said “almost”; they spend a lot on technology and such which helps give them their competitive advantage but I digress). So for example, by having offices that look like they belong in 1960 means their costs are lower and therefore can ultimately price lower.

This also explains in part why when I was working at Dell, we were always undercut by Acer. Acer had SUPER lean Canadian operations compared to Dell- like 5 people working in its Canadian marketing department while Dell Canada had like 25. So of course now, each Dell computer had to recover the costs of more salaries than Acer thus the price difference (all else being equal). This would be cost-based pricing and is I think, why my pricer colleagues were using most of the time.

Besides cost-based pricing there are some other pricing varieties as well. One thing that I thought was pretty cool was a study my prof (Dilip Soman) did on how different pricing plans influence product use. i.e. for a gym membership, to encourage usage, it is better to offer monthly pricing plans than annual ones. This is because when you pay each month, it is a reminder that you are still paying for the gym and therefore should probably use it. But if you pay annually, a month after paying your membership fee, life gets in the way of going to the gym and you forget about it. (I am probably the exception to this rule- annual or monthly membership…I am going to work out!) Consumer psychology with pricing! Fascinating.

Besides psychological or cost-based pricing like what I talked about above, another way is “value based” where you basically just pay for what you actually want (i.e. what you value). This is why cellphone plans exist, for example- by having different pricing options for different types of people, Rogers, for example, maximizes profit because they can meet the needs of every type of customer. People will be more likely to buy if they know they are paying only for stuff they actually want.

Thanks to our delightful pricing class, once I get back to work in a few months, I will be ready to make some awesome prices for whatever I am marketing to help my team make some big $$! 

Back to the Toronto Routine!

I am living in Toronto again after 8 months away and it was a pretty weird feeling at first. After living exceedingly well abroad it was definitely a bit of an adjustment coming back. Although Rotman being Rotman, I got right back into the thick of things! Between:

-Class

-My involvement in the Rotman Marketing Association and Rotman Entertainment and Media Association

-Helping 1^st years with job applications/interview prep

-Keeping up with networking for my own job search

My life has been pretty busy.

While I was gone, I was pretty removed from everything my friends were doing on this side of the atlantic. But coming back, everyone has been awesome getting me right back into the fold, like I never left. I am lucky to have awesome friends and classmates! If I could have taken my classmates with me during my time in Madrid, life would have been ever better over there!

For those looking to go on exchange, some important things to consider:

-Before you pick which semester you want to go abroad, consider when recruitment is for the jobs you are interested in. For example, if consulting is your thing, recruitment happens almost entirely in the fall. So you’d want to be at Rotman for that. So obviously then go on exchange in the winter.

-Everyone that goes on exchange gets a scholarship that essentially covers the cost of your flight. So no worries on that front!

-If you plan to get involved on the exec of a club, I strongly recommend you DO NOT go on exchange AT ALL. More on that below.

It is really challenging coordinating things across time zones and because the Rotman administrators (and any execs in the business community you hope to work with to visit Rotman or whatever) get so much email daily, dealing with them is faster and easier face-to-face/by phone.

That’s not to say it is impossible to manage club stuff abroad (I managed club stuff abroad after all) but you have to be committed- which might be a challenge for some people when you are living it up on exchange in another part of the world. :-)

Reflections on Spain

Well here I am, back in Canada after my semester abroad in Spain. So I thought I’d use this blog entry to write about some interesting things I noticed during my time over there:

I lived in the neighbourhood called Salamanca. This is the richest neighbourhood within the city (before you jump to conclusions about me, I lived there because my school was there, not because I am a spoiled fancy boy or anything!). As a result, I’d become accustomed to being surrounded by people dressed impeccably well. All the time. I remember one day I needed to go to the grocery store quickly to pick up some milk. It was a 5 minute trip and for such a trip in the past (in Canada), that meant a hoodie and flip flops. But now, I thought “wait a minute…I’m going to look like a bum compared to everyone else. I can’t have that! Better put on something nice.” My oh my had I become “pija”! (spanish for “posh”) I NEVER thought that would happen to me but there it was…

Cheeses and meats are MUCH cheaper in Europe than in North America. For example, a mozzarella ball in Spain: 55 cents. Here, $8.  Very unfortunate state of affairs here. I ate very, very well in Spain. 

Breakfast cereals in Spain are a bit different too. Here and in Spain, the “healthy” cereals are basically the same- Corn Flakes, Special K (although the Special K in Spain is SO much better than ours!! I love it so much I brought some home with me haha), etc. Our sweet cereals in North America have a pretty big range- honey, chocolate, cinnamon, frosted, fruit flavours (i.e. fruit loops), other (such as French toast crunch). However in Spain for some reason, sweet cereals are: honey, chocolate or frosted flakes. That is all. I can’t believe things like Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Sugar Crisp wouldn't sell in Spain. I wonder what the business reason is behind such a lack of variety?

One of the big reasons why I love Spain is how chilled out people are. For example, if I tell you I will do something, you can trust that it WILL get done, without a need to create a formal agreement stipulating every minute term or condition, etc. I noticed this on day one dealing with my landlord and found myself becoming this way as well by the time I left Spain. I really like the idea of being able to actually trust people’s word and not worrying that you are going to get screwed somehow.

Madrid has one of the best Metros in the world (in fact, that statement is part of their slogan).However until I lived here I never realized how crazy interchange stations were (that is, at a station, you switch from one line to another). The lines at every station are SO FAR apart!! It’s nuts. If you need to change lines, that instantly adds 5-7 minutes to your journey in walking from one train all the way to another. Also, most metros in the world have timers at each station telling you when the next train is due in the station. In Toronto, if it says “3 minutes” it always feels closer to 1. In Madrid, “3 minutes” really is 3 minutes. So prepare to wait!  That being said, Madrid’s metro is still pretty freaking awesome. I enjoyed riding it (and have the metro chime as my ring tone now!).

Pretty much everyone that knows me knows my time in Spain was probably the happiest 4 months of my entire life. I absolutely loved it there and sincerely hope I have a chance to return one day. But first, I have an MBA to finish in Toronto!!

Reflecting on my time at IE

This week is sadly my last week at Instituto de Empresa. L With that, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on my experience here. Hope you enjoy!

--Things that were awesome—

-Living in Madrid- IE is awesome if for no other reason than the fact that it is in Madrid. My favourite city in the world. As I alluded to in previous blog posts, the weather, food, culture, etc are all so phenomenal that having Madrid as a backdrop to your MBA studies automatically makes your MBA experience pretty great.

-The Profs- Among the profs I had anyways, almost all of them teach and work in the field in which they teach (rather than just doing research). I loved this. It made the profs seem very up-to-date on best practices so learning how to use those best practices in developing business strategies I feel has really helped prepare me for success in my post-MBA career.

-REAL diversity- Every MBA school seems to talk about how much it values diversity but for most, it is just talk, with the student body being dominated by 2-3 countries or regions of the globe. At IE, diversity actually exists. My classes included south americans, north americans, Europeans, Africans, Asians and Australians with no one region dominating over the others. This was a great way to open myself up to tons of different perspectives on life and business.

-The Campus- IE has several buildings spread out across a few blocks in the neighbourhood of Madrid called Salamanca. The buildings are NICE. I mean, really, really nice. It was pretty cool studying in such cool spaces!

-Support for your own entrepreneurial venture-IE has A TON of support for people looking to start their own companies- networking with venture capitalists, support on how to build your business, etc. If you want to use your MBA to start a company, IE is probably where you should study. Given I want to be a marketing director (which is akin to managing a business), it was really helpful for me to be a part of this environment, to be better equipped for becoming a marketing director one day!

--Things that were not so awesome—

-Student life- I could go on for a LONG time about the issues this school has with promoting and facilitating a cohesive student body,  creating a more enjoyable student experience, etc but will just leave it at this. Rotman is MILES ahead of IE in this respect.

-Networking clubs- I was a member of several clubs (marketing club, north American club, etc)  and in one semester, there was ONE event (a speaker event) across all of the clubs I am a member of. Why do these clubs even exist then?

Living in Madrid was a dream come true for me. I know I will miss it here and hope I can move back one day. However, I really miss my classmates at Rotman…I am excited to see them again soon!

Mike gets the Andalucian Experience in Granada and Malaga

I had another long weekend here in Madrid so I wanted to use it as another tourism opportunity. Flying somewhere was out of the question and I had yet to see the Alhambra (in Granada) and my cousin had told me very good things about Granada as a city so I figured that would be a good option, especially because a bus there was only $50 return. Even better was the fact that an hour from Granada is Malaga where several of my friends live from when I went on exchange in Amsterdam as an undergrad. So we could have a mini reunion there! So off to the south of Spain I went.

Granada is famous for the Alhambra but there are some pretty cool other other things there as well:

--Student town--

Granada’s medical and dental schools are apparently very prestigious and big meaning Granada is a student town. Meaning cheap food! Fun parties! Huray!

--Los Reyes Catolicos--

The king and queen of Spain from the late 1400’s to early 1500’s, Fernando and Isabella, (known as “los reyes catolicos” or “the catholic king and queen”) are buried here. Why is this noteworthy? Well they united the various regions of spain under a common flag, began the spanish inquisition and sponsored columbus’ voyage to the new world. Pretty influential monarchs! In the church they are buried, you can see their actual tombs!! It was pretty cool to see these actual monarchs who were so influential in world history. 

--Tapas- -

When I read in my Lonely Planet guide that Granada was notable for its sizable tapas, I knew I had to see this for myself. And boy was Lonely Planet right! In very commercial establishments in Spain and elsewhere, you have to buy tapas separately and they are small plates of things like olives or tortilla española or whatever. In traditional Spanish restaurants the tapas come free with your drink, mimicking the traditional manner of serving them (which you can learn more about here) 

For some reason in Granada tapas are almost like small meals and the more beer/wine you order, the bigger the tapas.

Example 1:  I bought a small glass of beer for 2EUR and got a ham sandwich and fries for free!

Example 2: I was with a group of 5 people and we each got a beer for 1.80EUR. With it we got a PLATTER of burritos!! WHAT!!??? Awesome!! (and they weren't gross burritos either!)

As an MBA student I was curious to know how this could possibly be a sustainable business practice. My friend Jose from Malaga (who is a recent MBA grad) informed me it is funded through people buying lots and lots of alcohol at a time at the bars. Oh Spain…how I love it. Haha

--Moorish-themed stuff—

Because Granada was such an important part of Moorish Spain, there are muslim-themed things everywhere. The Albayzin (old Moorish quarter) feels like you are in Aladdin  or that part of Raiders of the Lost Ark when Marion is hiding in a basket while Indy is getting chased by bad guys.  It is very crowded and everyone is trying to sell you tacky carpets, Moorish tiles, hookah pipes, etc.

The Moorish influence combined with Granada being a student town means there are maybe more shawarma places per capita than in Ottawa (my hometown). So much shawarma! And so cheap and delicious!! I loved it.

--The Alhambra--

This was a fortress that began in the 900’s by the Moorish rulers of Al-Andalus (the Moorish name of Andalucia) and grew over time to become the giant fortress it ended up as. The architecture, design, etc. is awesome and is a MUST see if you visit Spain but rather than talk about stuff you can see for yourself in person or Wikipedia, I wanted to touch on a few different things I found notable:

-For a few hundred years, the Alhambra was a dump, used as barracks, a place for bums to hang out, etc. It may sound hard to believe but what helped me envision what this place looked like in the past was Assassin’s Creed II (the videogame). This may sound silly but that game takes place in early renaissance Italy where you get to see, for example, the Roman Forum being used for the same dumphole purposes. People just didn’t really care about managing and preserving classical architecture at very points in history. I guess they had bigger problems on their hands...The Alhambra was "rediscovered" in the late 1800's by American writer Washington Irving. He stayed in the Alhambra for some time and was inspired to write about it (The Tales of the Alhambra). This led to renewed interest in the fortress and it becoming the tourist destination it is today. 

-The only thing I never liked about Lonely Planet guides was that there are few pictures for each tourist attraction. So it was sometimes tricky to follow what Lonely Planet was describing because you had to rely on the book’s description and assume you were indeed looking at the correct thing the book was describing. To tour the Alhambra, you have to follow a fixed pathway through the various parts of the fortress. Lonely Planet’s descriptions of the Alhambra follow this route EXACTLY!! I was very pleasantly surprised about this and it made it a lot easier to understand what I was looking at when, in each part of the Alhambra.

-Entering the Alhambra is a big chore. You MUST buy a ticket in advance online and your ticket is only valid for a set period of time of the day. And because the Alhambra is on the top of a hill, you need to walk for a while or take a bus up there. Worth it, but different from what I am used to where you can just go and walk into whatever tourist destination you want, whenever.

So that’s the gist of Granada. Now for Malaga.

I should note a few things first: I had been to Malaga before as a tourist so didn’t need to do much touristy stuff this time and I went to Malaga this time around to visit friends, not do touristy stuff. That being said, there are some worthwhile things to note about my visit:

-If you really want to go to Malaga as a tourist and have never been, I strongly recommend going in the summer. Outside of the summer, the city is chilly and/or rainy and all of the tourist stuff there is pretty similar to Granada but better in Granada (i.e. muslim architecture, churches, etc). In the summer in Malaga you can go to the city’s beach (called Malagueta) and eat/drink on outside terraces all day and night which is super fun and fantastic and worth it, time permitting. (which you cannot do in landlocked Granada)

-Malaga has completely redone its waterfront. The redo was completed like a few months ago according to my friends. Now on the port is a long promenade of nice restaurants and stores.

-You might have read in your tourism book about “teterias” which are basically restaurants that specialize in serving tea. Because I am not really a tea guy, I never would have gone to one on my own initiative. But because I was with my Malageño amigos (that is, friends from Malaga) I followed their afternoon routine. So after a big lunch at one of the most famous restaurants in the city, “El Pimpi,” they took me to El Haren, one of the most noteable Teterias in Malaga for some post-lunch chill time. It was SO cool!! The place is a converted very, very old house. Inside it felt very bohemian. Cool scene to chill out on a rainy Sunday afternoon. The place had tons of varieties of tea, none of which taste like the “typical” stuff we are used to in North America. My friend recommended “la jamiacana” (the Jamaican) which tasted sort of like tea mixed with a warm pina colada. The perfect way to organize my stomach after our giant Spanish lunch.

While I didn’t do any “typical” touristy stuff, catching up with my friends I hadn´t seen in 6 years and spending an day like a typical Malageño was a pretty fun experience.

Good times in Andalucia!! I am pretty sad I have to go back to Canada in a month and a bit; I could really have spent more time in the south for sure. Such a cool place.

Dear prospective employer, here is a great example of “managing ambiguity” and “overcoming challenges”

As some of you many know, 2 of my biggest passions in life are consumer electronics and athletics. So companies in those 2 spheres are at the top of my list for places I’d like to work once I finish my MBA. That is also a big reason why I chose to go on exchange in the fall rather than the spring: most of those companies do not recruit in the fall so I wouldn’t miss out on them by not being at Rotman in the fall.

However late last month I was surprised to learn that Nike- one of my target companies- was coming to Rotman in October and I wasn’t there! This is the story of my experience managing this job application process from afar. It’s a long but good story so get ready to read!!

My first challenge was twofold:

A. How do I get top of mind at Nike without physically being present?

B. How do I create a good application for the marketing job Nike was hiring for?

--Managing Part A--

One of the members of the Rotman class of 2012 interned at Nike in the summer of 2011. Given I was always interested in learning more about what it’s like to work at Nike (with the idea to maybe work there), I had spoken with her a year ago about my interest in the company. She began working full-time there after graduation and was luckily part of the recruiting process for Nike’s on-campus visit this time around. I tried connecting with her on the side, to get some additional info about the role which I might have missed in the Rotman on-campus visit. And having met her previously, gone to the same Rotman events with her, etc, it wasn’t like I was some random stranger out of the blue either. So this helped me get as top-of-mind with Nike as I could given I was in Madrid and Nike was visiting Rotman in Toronto.  

Nike also has a very specific and unique culture that involves wearing “Nike-appropriate” clothing. After discussing how to be top-of-mind with my career adviser   I decided I send over a picture of me in such clothing so that they have an idea if I look the part sufficiently for Nike- especially important given I couldn’t be gauged in-person at the recruitment event in Toronto. I don’t know if the email with a photo of me was ever seen but I was happy I sent it so that the Rotman Alum who works at Nike if necessary, could pass who “Mike Moses” physically is on to the Nike HR team even though I wasn’t physically at the Nike recruitment event at Rotman.

--Managing Part B--

I was also lucky because one of my friends interned at Nike this summer and is living in Europe this fall as well. Same time zone made things MUCH easier. So in talking to her I got a sense of what sorts of things Nike values, how to communicate to them, etc.

Of course, after writing my cover letter, I sent it over to my career centre adviser for feedback and input to ensure it all looked good.

So with that, I sent over my application. I never like to “count my chickens before they’ve hatched” though, so I decided to move on with my life once my submission was in. This meant among other things, that since we had a week off school in mid-october, I decided I’d use that time to visit Portugal for the first time.

Little did I know that TWO DAYS before I was to leave, I found out I got shortlisted for Nike!! They wanted to interview me! Except they wanted to interview me in literally the middle of my Portugal trip!! AHHHHH

Recruiting season at Instituto de Empresa

As I may have mentioned in previous blog posts, job recruiting as facilitated by Rotman basically involves companies visiting campus whenever and then you applying for jobs as they are posted on the Rotman careers website.

Here at IE it is interesting to note that the website IE uses for you to search and apply for jobs is the EXACT same one that Rotman uses. I guess good MBA schools share similar tastes in job tools.

Everything else though is a bit different. IE has 1 specific week where ALL companies that recruit at IE come to campus. Rather than each company having info sessions whenever, IE has a career fair: each company that recruits at IE has a booth on campus during 1 or several of the days of the week and you come to the booth and talk to the companies.

What I like about this approach:

-You don’t need to sit through tons and tons of info sessions where every company says “we’re the best ever! You can grow your career here like nowhere else! Everyone likes working here!” So you have more time to allocate to other things in your day :-)

-Although if you do like info sessions, some companies that recruit at IE do do them as well.

-The chances of you getting to talk to an employer one-on-one are much higher given you don’t have 100 people who just sat through an info session trying to speak to the same 3 people at the exact same time with this being the only time you will get a chance to speak to the recruiters (given they have a booth at the fair as well).

-Companies can weed out people with poor communication skills right away.

-You know you will have been exposed to all of the companies coming on campus by the end of career week so can plan accordingly (i.e. if a company you want to meet isn’t on the career fair guest list, you can plan appropriately to meet them separately).

What I don’t like about this approach:

-Talking to a recruiter in one company while the recruiters from every other company can see you is kind of awkward. Like say you weren’t as articulate or polished as you would have liked with company A. Company B’s recruiters can see this in plain sight. So when you go visit company B’s recruiters they may already be biased against you.

-The recruiters are at the career fair all day. If you meet the recruiters at the end of the day they might be totally wiped and uninterested in talking to people anymore, thus reducing your chances to connect well with them.

-If you can’t be at IE that week for whatever reason, you’re screwed (unless you take the initiative to find a way to meet the companies you are interested in a different way).

Anyways, after getting exposed to the corporate world from the North American point of view at Rotman, it was also pretty cool seeing things from the European side here at IE. It is interesting to note that apparently MBAs are in relatively high demand in Spain despite the employment crisis. Like, my IE classmates have been telling me they have had no problems getting interviews/job offers thus far. Interesting…Another reason why an MBA is valuable ;-)

Random Observations About Things in Madrid

Now that I have been here for just over a month, I’ve gotten a pretty good sense of the city, the country, etc. So I thought I’d share some interesting things that I’ve learned:

·         Despite the economic crisis, apparently MBAs are very much still in demand from employers. My classmates looking to work in spain or the EU generally, have had no issues getting job interviews or employment offers.

·         Given what I am used to in Canada (and from my summer in London, UK), coming to Madrid, everything seemed incredibly cheap by my standards. So I thought working here would be pretty awesome, thinking the cost of living would be lower. However, I learned that most conglomerates don’t pay very well. So madrileños purchasing power parity (yeah that’s right, I just said “purchasing power parity.” This IS an MBA blog after all!) ends up being about the same as residents of Toronto.

·         Because of the above, most middle-class madrileños live in the suburbs. I learned though that in spanish, the word “suburbio” (the literal translation) has a negative connotation. Think the suburban immigrant slums outside of Paris. To talk about a “normal” suburb, it’s just your “barrio,” meaning neighbourhood.

·         As you may know, contemporary Spaniards are a very secular and liberal bunch. Across Catholic and Jewish (not sure about muslim) people- especially those my age or younger- it is catholic or Jewish in family background only. “Madrid culture” supersedes religion by a landslide. So for example, a Jewish Madrileño and Christian madrileño are probably more similar to each other than a Christian Madrileño and a Christian Canadian.

·         In Madrid, when it rains, it pours, literally. It was sunny with more or less clear skies every single day since I arrived (so about 35 days in a row). Yesterday we got our 1^st rain. 24 hours non-stop POURING. Today it is cloudy and all next week, back to sun. What a city…

This coming week is “career week” for the IE student community. I am excited to see what IE has in store for us! I’ll tell you guys about in in my next post!

Jewish New Year in a 600-year old synagogue

Toledo (the original one; not the one in Ohio) is about 40 mins from Madrid. It was also jewish new year and given Toledo’s jewish history, I figured it was an appropriate day to go visit with a free afternoon I had.

Prior to the Spanish inquisition, jews, muslims and Christians all lived here peacefully which was a pretty big deal in the 1300’s. As a result, the architecture in the city is a mix reflecting each culture’s styles. While the Islamic legacy lives on in the form of architectural style, everything else muslim has been wiped out from the city more or less, except for a few of the mosques which have been preserved and are now museums. However, the jewish quarter has remained intact which was of particular interest for me given I am jewish. Toledo really likes showing off its jewish heritage…The jewish quarter is plastered everywhere with stuff showcasing jewish culture, explaining the history of the jews there, etc. The main synagogue of the city (sinagoga del transito) is now a museum that does a very, very in-depth treatment on the history of the jews not just in Toledo but in Spain in general. If you like reading a lot in museum exhibits, this will be just the thing for you! Also, according to Lonely Planet it cost 2.50EUR to get into the museum. But with my IE student card I got in for free! SCORE!

The cathedral of Toledo is also pretty awesome. Mind you, I’ve seen a lot of churches with pretty fantastic architecture so this one wasn’t any more amazing than those of Italy or whatever, but still cool to see nonetheless.

Something else Toledo is famous for is its marzipan (or “mazapan” in spanish) so I obviously had to try some. SOOOOOOO good!! Super delicious dessert!! I was a fan.

The city walls of Toledo have been kept intact from the old days although the city has obviously expanded outside of the walls. Nonetheless, I can understand why Toledo is considered a UNESCO Heritage site. Inside the city walls it felt like I was in the 1600s. Everything there is so old (and well-preserved), from the tiny, winding streets to the architecture that remains intact. However, to take me out of the sense that I was in the 1600s were the throngs and throngs of tourists. Honestly it felt like no one lived in Toledo; that the town was only “populated” by tourists passing through. But whatever; for a short and cheap bus trip out of Madrid, this was definitely a worthwhile visit!!

Life on exchange at IE Business School

Me in Spain isn’t all just fun times; I AM here for school after all! I am studying at Instituto de Empresa (loosely translated as “Business Institute”). According to the rankings in Financial Times, Business Week, etc. it is one of the best MBA schools in the world so I was pretty excited for the opportunity to be in it.

The student body here is similar to that of our exchange group in that it is a very, very diverse group of people. Like with the exchange group, no one region of the world dominates the student population. In fact, even though this is a school in Madrid, maybe only like 10% of the class is actually spanish!

Something else I found pretty interesting was the IE curriculum. It is almost the exact same as ours at Rotman! In 1^st year they learned basically the same stuff we did, were subjected to the same ridiculous quantity of work, etc. I guess that is a testament to both IE and Rotman’s calibre of MBA schools (although why Rotman is ranked so differently than IE in global MBA rankings is beyond me…).

Also, IE’s careers/networking portal is the exact same tool that we use in Rotman. Good MBA schools clearly think alike…

At Rotman our class schedule ran like clockwork in that the class schedule was the same every week for the length of the quarter (as you may remember from my earlier posts, the Rotman first year was split into quarters, not semesters). At IE, the class schedule is super random. I might have a specific class 3 days in a row and then not again for like a week. Or one day I might have a class for 3 hours and then the next day, only for 1.5. It was a bit weird but once I got my schedule on my iphone, I could follow what was going to be happening when so I am pretty fine with it now. (especially because it also results in me having long weekends several times a month!).

Finally, it’s pretty cool to be learning from the profs I have. The profs at IE are obviously experts in their fields as would be expected in any solid MBA program but my profs this term teach but also work in the fields they teach. In fact, my Emerging Media class is taught by a guy who manages and marketing agency and created one of the most successful iphone apps ever (here: http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2010/07/02/ikea-takes-its-product-catalog-mobile-with-augmented-reality-app).

So that life here at IE!  

A trip through Basque Country

I had been dying to go to Basque Country for years for a few reasons:

·         The beach in San Sebastian is apparently the best in Spain and the best city beach in Europe

·         Basque food is among the best in the world

·         Basque people are some of the nicest, fun people I have ever met

So when I had a long weekend this past weekend, I decided to capitalize. Me and some of my exchange classmates took a drive up north!

The first thing you notice upon arrival is that Basque country looks quite different from most of the rest of Spain. Most of the Iberian peninsula is dry and pretty flat. Basque Country is quite mountainous and green. Also, every sign is in Basque, not Spanish. The Basque language has no linguistic relatives anywhere in Europe so the words are pretty different. If you are in Spain and see a word with “x”-es or “k”-es in it, it is probably Basque.

First stop for me was Bilbao, the capital of Basque Country on Friday night/Saturday morning,. The city is however, pretty tame, harkening back to its roots as an industrial city. Pretty chilled out crowd. Nothing wrong with that but a far cry from Madrid, for example. What was pretty cool though was visiting the Guggenheim museum. As you may know, it was designed by Frank Ghery- a Canadian!- so I felt like it was my patriotic duty to pay a visit. The architecture of that building is amazing. It is also located right on the Bilbao River. The Guggenheim was part of a city revitalization project and all along the river you can really see that at work. The view is awesome with lots of cool architecture and landscapes and there are some amazing running paths along the river. If I lived in Bilbao I’d definitely be going for runs there constantly!

Something else interesting to note is that Bilbao has a smaller population than Ottawa and is more compact of a city. However Bilbao has: a metro line, tram lines and buses. Ottawa has only buses. Ottawa really needs to get its act together! It's transit system is so behind in the times! Goodness…But anyways, I wanted to maximize my time in San Sebastian so my time in Bilbao was quite short. On to the main event!

In Basque Country their version of tapas are called “pintxos” and are considered the best in the country. So I of course ate a ton of them and they didn’t disappoint. Every meal I ate was basically perfect. What restaurants here typically do is lay out a bunch of different pintxos across the bar. You then pick the ones you want and just eat them (or the chef prepares them for you if they are out of a particular pintxo at the bar at the moment). The bill eventually comes later. Menus do exist from which you can order stuff but I don’t think that’s the “normal” way to eat in these parts. Even if you hate seafood (like I do), the food is so fresh and well-made that it doesn’t matter. I even liked the seafood that I tried here. It was great.

The main beach in San Sebastian, playa de la concha, is pretty awesome. Because San Sebastian isn’t a very big city, it is really easy to get to it from almost anywhere in town. The beach itself is what you’d expect in a solid Mediterranean beach. Although because San Sebastian is in the north, the water was pretty cold. Not a problem when it is 35 degrees and sunny outside but I prefer warm sea water to cold, personally. I’m not really sure why Playa de la Concha is so highly considered- I liked the beach in Valencia just as much, but whatever…

The weekend I arrived also happened to be the weekend of a uniquely basque event, the trainera, which is basically a rowing race. The main trainera of the year happened to be this past weekend in the ocean by playa de la concha. So there were people EVERYWHERE watching the boat racers, people decked out in their favourite rowers’ team colours, etc. It was pretty cool to experience that first-hand!

And after stuffing my face and getting tanned, it was time to get back to reality. Off to Madrid for more studies!

Mike’s Euro Adventure Part II: Madrid

Hello Guys!

After a short visit back to Canada, I am back in Europe, this time, Madrid for a semester on exchange at the Instituto de Empresa (http://www.ie.edu/business-school/degrees/international-mba). Everything so far has been totally amazing. Some observations since I arrived:

·         IE and my flat are located in the wealthiest part of Madrid. It is the Madrid equivalent of 5^th Avenue in NYC or Yorkville in Toronto. The neighbourhood looks pretty much the same as Yorkville except in Spanish instead of english.

·         When I arrived, I needed to buy various things for my flat and school supplies, etc. Spain has a store called El Corte Ingles which is the exact same as the Bay in Canada so you can get pretty much whatever you need. But for cheap stuff, I was curious to know if something like our Dollar Stores exist here. Instead of dollar stores, Madrileños call them Chinese Stores because it is always chinese people that run them. I thought that was hilarious.

·         After getting killed on cost of living challenges in London, it is so refreshing to be in Madrid where:

o   I am on the Euro, not the Pound and therefore have a much better exchange rate

o   Things are priced pretty much the exact same as what they would be in Canada, or cost even less. Huray!

·         The weather is unbelievable. Hot and sunny every single day! I am totally loving it.

·         Because I learned spanish from those who speak castellano (that is spain spanish-speakers), I can actually understand the spanish people are talking here, which is pretty great.

·         The food here is also fantastic.

The last 2 days we had our exchange student orientation, so I got to meet my exchange peers. Because we are all focusing in different specializations, it is unlikely many of us will be in the same classes but it was cool to meet everyone. What was especially nice was to see ACTUAL diversity in the exchange student class. Like, no one country or region dominates the exchange student body.

That's about it for now, I think. More to come! 

Reflections on my UK adventure

Hey Guys!

So I am back in Canada now, internship all done. So it is time to reflect on the highlights and lowlights of my stay in London.

Lowlights

·         THE WEATHER.

o   As you may know, it was the coldest, rainiest, cloudiest summer in London in 250 years. I didn’t expect this at all which meant I packed incredibly inappropriately for the weather. It felt like it was November every day which made me depressed and uncomfortable almost constantly. And, because I was on an intern’s salary, it wasn’t like I could just get up and go to a warmer place on the weekend either. I was stuck, forced to suck it up for 3 months. Pretty annoying!

·         The cost of living for the most part.

o   Food at the grocery store is really cheap and museums are free. Everything else is crazy expensive by North America and mainland EU standards. A general rule is as follows: Take the price in dollars, change the dollar sign to a £ sign and that is the price of that product in London. That means everything in London is 1.56x the price in Canada (at today’s exchange rate). And again, on an intern’s salary, this minimizes the amount of fun you can have when you are always worried about expenses!!  

Depressing stuff, right? But never fear, I do have some good things to say too!

The Highlights

·         The food. I can’t say enough good things about the food in London.

o   In North America we are used to chain quick service restaurants (i.e. Tim Horton’s or Dunkin Donuts) having average food at best. In London, those sorts of places serve fresh food that is delicious and cheap. This was pretty great stuff!

o   The markets- Borough, Camden, Portobello, etc have such a range of such fresh and delicious food from peruvian to indian. So buying from these markets really helped make every meal perfect and delicious! 

o   Because there is such a huge immigrant population in the city and because of the UK colonial history, there is a TON of culinary variety in the city and you can get some pretty amazing meals for reasonable prices.

o   The meat and cheeses you buy at the grocery store are ½ the price they would be in Canada if not even cheaper. And it is all incredibly fresh and delicious stuff. So if you like to cook like I do, this was a huge plus and cost-saver!

·         Visiting Newcastle

o   I’d never in my life ever experienced a city like that (and I’ve been to some pretty crazy places). Based on the conversations I had with the people I met there, it seems like North Americans are unaware of Newcastle or what goes there (maybe because what goes on in Newcastle, stays in Newcastle…haha). But seriously, if you like to go out for a night on the town and have some fun, Newcastle, it’s people (“Geordies”) and its culture must be witnessed first-hand.  

·         My internship

o   You can read my linkedin profile to see the real business-y stuff I did but basically, having the opportunity to take a real leadership role in a business and see that business be hugely successful was incredibly rewarding and awesome!!  Knowing I could be a team leader and see success has me excited for when I get into the real world again post-MBA. 

·         The Olympics

o   Being in the city where the entire planet is focused was an absolutely incredible experience. It was so fun meeting people every day from all over the world, experiencing other cultures at each country’s “country houses” (that is, basically large banquet halls that each country uses to celebrate its own athletes at the Olympics, promote its culture and such) and seeing history get made right in front of my eyes. So cool!!

Anyways, now I am back home in Ottawa detoxing from my England adventure for a few days. Then back to Toronto for some meetings and to see my friends and then…MADRID!!!! 

One thing I hope North America never imports from England

A few weeks ago I had a chance to go to the Wireless Music Festival here in London. If you know me, you know I love electronic dance music so with Calvin Harris, Kaskade and others spinning all on 1 day, this was definitely the festival for me. And I figured it would be cool to experience a music festival in Hyde Park, one of London’s most famous parks.

A big reason why I love electronic dance music parties besides for the music itself is the atmosphere. From what I had seen so far in north America and the mainland EU, everyone that goes to these parties are super chilled out, happy, energetic  and just looking to enjoy some sweet music with people just like them. Great times all-around. I expected the same here in London but I was wrong.

The scene was mostly what I expected but it seems as though douchebags have infiltrated the electronic music scene which makes me sad. At the show, some idiot thought it would be really fun to get on top of his buddy and from there, jump on top of the crowd, including me. It hurt like hell! Not cool.

Then there was a big group of- to use the Jersey Shore term- guido guerilla juiceheads just standing around in the middle of the dance floor just taking up space, not dancing, with their shirts off and covered in mud, making it hard for us actual fans to enjoy ourselves. Wonderful…

I’ve been to many electronic dance music shows and this was the 1^st time I saw either of these things happen.

Last night there was a similar festival happening outside of London that my flatmate attended. She arrived 1 hour into the festival and already, several people were being carried out on stretchers on account of various acts of violence.

So if there is one thing I sincerely hope North America does not ever import from England it’s douchebags infiltrating the electronic dance music scene and ruining it for the rest of us. You are not invited so please do not come.

Thank you! :-)

Food adventures

As you guys may know, I am a "foodie". Here in London, there is so much diversity of food and so much quality that I have been eating exceedingly well here. Not in the sense of eating a lot, but in the sense of eating quality again and again. Part of that is due to the markets here in London. I'm not sure why this is but London has a ton of huge open-air markets all over the city. Many sell fresh, authentic food from all over the world and random arts and craftsy sort of stuff. The food part is what interests me which is what this blog post is about.

I'll take you through my experience at 2 of the best-known ones in the city plus some other food stuff:

Camden Market
This is like Queen Street in Toronto on crack. The main Camden Street has tons of crazy stores that sell all sorts of things from weird t-shirts to hookah pipes. Off the actual street is the market. Here are a bunch of stalls selling food from every possible country you could think of- turkish, peruvian, italian, chinese, israeli, etc. Almost every stall gives out free samples so you can get tons of free (and delicious) food which is awesome. Also awesome is that the food you actually can buy is pretty cheap (you can get a fresh pizza for about $5.50!) and also delicious.

At this market is also this shop called "chin chin labs" where they make icecream using liquid nitrogen! The place has a giant liquid nitrogen tank and vats of the liquid component of icecream. What they do is put the liquid icecream component into an icecream mixer followed by some liquid nitrogen pumped out of the liquid nitrogen tank. The ice cream mixer then mixes the 2 together. Because the liquid nitrogen is almost like a gas though, the resulting icecream doesn't have the same texture of normal icecream. It is much smoother, pure and tasty.

Borough Market
My favourite of the 2 markets. Like Camden, there are stalls selling food from everywhere you could imagine. However the stalls look a lot less commercial (and less tacky). They are more open-aired too so you can see more of the authentic food being prepared. For example, at one of the cheese stands, I saw a woman preparing fresh mozzarella balls, right there on the spot! Camden's food stalls sell more meal-type food. Like, you can buy a pad thai dish, a serving of paella, etc. Borough has more of the typical stuff you'd expect in a market. That is, you can buy veggies, olive oils, breads, etc to bring home and use in preparing your own dishes.

That's not to say though, that Borough doesn't have food you can eat on the spot. It is mostly things involving bread and some sort of meat, i.e. a chorizo sandwich, frankfurters, etc. (or you could always buy a block of cheese and eat it on the spot too...) The prices for such stuff run around $6 which is kind of a bummer but whatever, this is not the main purpose of this market anyways!

Top 100 Dishes
Time Out London recently issued its top 100 dishes in the city. (you can find the list here) Some of these dishes are quite expensive. So I am planning to try as many as I can of those that are $6 or less. The list has been an amazing guide. So far my eating experiences have been fantastic. In fact, the chorizo sandwich I at in Borough Market is on the list and did not disappoint (even if it wasn't very filling).

Delicious times in London!

Important Life Lessons About Having London as a Base for Travel

This past weekend we had a 4-day weekend and the weather here has generally sucked. Which meant I was off to Spain. Previously I lived in Amsterdam and getting to the airport from anywhere in the city was the easiest thing in the world. For like 5 EUR, hop on the NS train (the national rail service) and you get dropped off right to the check in counters at Schipol (the Amsterdam airport). Schipol is extremely well designed and efficient as well. And the fact that it is a major hub (along with Heathrow and Frankfurt, I believe for the EU) makes it an amazing base from which to travel. Great for the time and budget-conscious.

Flying from London is for those who care for neither time nor budget.

Timing

Every single airport except for the new London City Airport is extremely, extremely far from the city. Regardless if you take a bus, taxi or train, the trip from the city to airport is an hour or more.

Additionally, every single airport is packed. Always. Allocate enough time for navigating for huge lineups at check-in counters, customs, etc.

The best way to cut into the amount of time you spend getting to the airport is to research which airport you are closest to and fly strictly from there. For example, I live near Regent’s Park and flew from Stantead. Big mistake! My cousin told me that for central-situated people like me, I should be focusing on Heathrow as an airport “base.” East-enders (i.e. where the Olympics will be) should be the ones flying out of Stantead.

If you have plenty of time to kill, none of this is of much concern to you but when your time is limited like mine is- I can only afford being off on weekends (so Friday night to Sunday night)- this makes things pretty tricky!!

Cost

To help welcome you to the expensive world that is London, you start getting ripped off right when you land in the city. That is, in any other city (maybe in the entire world) the express shuttle bus/train one-way might be somewhere between $5 to $20 tops. In London, the cheapest, slowest transit just to get to the airport is about $20. Faster transit costs about $30 and reduces the speed of your journey by maybe 15 mins tops.

To minimize cost it is extremely, extremely important that you bring no checked bags. Every low-cost carrier charges fees for bags but usually it is not that big of a deal- maybe a few extra $$s. However know that Ryan Air MURDERS you for bringing even one checked bag. So ensure you review the TOTAL cost for a flight (after taxes, bags checked, etc) before booking as an alternative carrier will probably be cheaper once all costs are factored in (and less annoying- Ryan Air has a lot of weird quirks that no other airline has).

The other cost-minimizer is to fly (arrive and depart) on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday. Any other day and prices are crazy high.

The UK National Rail Service is also extremely expensive without adequate planning. Prices increase exponentially the closer you get to the date of travel. And unlike with air travel, this price growth over time is basically a rule. So as long as you book several weeks in advance, you can rest easy knowing you got the best possible deal. 

So this leads me to some recommendations to people living in London hoping to travel:

·         If you want to go somewhere that is outside of the british isles:

o   Book extremely far in advance- at least 1 month prior to travel, probably more

o   Get out of the country for at least 5 days (or more if you can ;-) since you will lose at 1/2-1 whole day in transit 

o   Ensure your boss is cool with you taking off on weird days of the week (i.e. Tuesday)

·         If you want to go somewhere in the british isles

o   Book extremely far in advance

o   Take the train (or a bus)

o   Go whenever you want…prices don’t vary as much by day as they do with the airlines.

The cheap and not so cheap in London

As you guys may know, London is a VERY expensive city to live in. And given I am on an intern’s salary, I find myself pretty much constantly evaluating the prices of things here vs. what they would be in Canada to ensure I am not overspending. Here are some observations:

Grocery stores

·         Buying non-junk food (i.e. tomato sauce, pasta, veggies, etc) costs about the same as it does in Canada after factoring in the exchange rate. i.e. 10GBP worth of groceries at a grocery store here works out to be about the same $16.40 worth of groceries at Loblaws

·         Produce (chicken, beef, eggs) is oddly way cheaper here. i.e. 500g of chicken costs like $10 in Canada and would be like $7.50 here.

·         Given the demographics here, obviously there is A TON more Indian food than Chinese, or tex-mex. But it’s cool; I’ve had the opportunity to make some awesome (and fast) dishes I never would have been able to make in Canada!

·         There are so many candy bars here that don’t exist in North America and look sooooooooo gooooooood and cost about the same as in Canada. I wish I could eat them all.

·         Given the size of the UK’s population, there are several main grocery store chains. But I live closest to 2 of them- Tesco and Sainsbury. The prices at both seem to be about the same. (although apparently Tesco is supposed to be cheaper)

Eating out

·         I checked out the Lonely Planet’s guide for food and what restaurants they recommended at the lowest price range possible. One of such restaurants was this Mexican place called Taqueria.  The dish I ordered (which was average priced on the menu) was 6.50GBP or about $10.50!! I don’t know about you guys but to me, a cheap meal is <=$5, not <=$10! These London pricing standards…

·         So restaurants are by definition then, really expensive. Having explored lots of London (the reasonably safe areas of London, anyways!) it seems the best option for really cheap eating out is random hole-in-the-wall restaurants serving Lebanese, thai, etc. You can get a good amount of food for about 3.50-4GBP (which is about $5.50 tops). That is about as cheap as it is going to get for eating out.

Beer

·         Prices for beer in the grocery store are what you’d expect by deregulated liquor standards. You can get 4 bottles of anything for like $5 tops.

·         In pubs, I’ve found beer actually is not that cheap. A pint in an average pub for an average beer comes to about $5.50 which is maybe only $0.50 cheaper than what it would be in Canada. The cost savings come into play in the fact that you don’t need to tip. So when you pay $5.50, it actually is $5.50 and not $6.50 after tipping ;-)

·         In night clubs, the price of alcohol is the exact same as what it is in Canada. You are getting ripped off per bottle to the max and end up paying about $7-8 per bottle. But again, no tips here, so that helps soften the blow, at least a little.

So yeah, when you are living in London, when someone says something is “cheap” be aware that the standard for cheapness is much different here than in North America or even mainland Europe!  

Cool things in London as of late

Last weekend I got a chance to do some more exploring. The sun finally decided to come out so I checked out some of the parks in town. I visited Regents Park and Hyde Park. I’d say Regents Park reminds me of Retiro in Madrid and Hyde, of Central Park in NYC.

I say this because in Regent’s Park, it really feels like an escape into a chilled out park with cool gardens, fountains, etc. to relax and get away. Whenever it gets warmer here (the thermometer has yet to rise above 17 degrees) I will definitely be reading and taking naps under the sun there!

Hyde Park is a ginormous park with ponds, soccer fields, gardens, etc however despite being in a park, I was very much aware I was still in the middle of the city. Not a bad place but different- and not as close to my flat- so I’ll be sticking to Regent’s Park most likely.

One of my friends is staying in this neighbourhood called Shoreditch. It used to be housing projects but it has gentrified and now it’s basically where the creative community is. As such, the neighbourhood is really funky and relaxed. My kind of scene!

In an effort to minimize expenditures, I’ve been eating at home as much as possible. However, I have found some pretty cheap and good eats around. One thing that really surprised me is English chain cafes, i.e. this chain called “Pret a Manger”. They have ready-made sandwiches and wraps that you can buy (much like what you see at convenience stores and such in North America) for about $5 CAD (cheap by London standards). Given the sandwiches were ready-made I was reluctant to buy one, thinking they had been on the shelf for 8 years or whatever, prior to me purchasing. Turns out, the sandwiches and wraps that are ready-made, were only made a few minutes prior…and are very good!! So don’t let the disgustingness of such sandwiches in North America skew your judgement. The stuff here is great.

I was also introduced to this bagel place called “Beigel Bake” in shoreditch (not sure why they spell “bagel” differently on this side of the Atlantic). There is a pretty big Jewish community here in London and a family opened up this bagel store using the same recipe for bagels you’d see in Montreal or NYC!! The bagels are AMAZING!! And CHEAP!! 50 cents CAD for a bagel…YES! And there is a person carving smoked meat in a window next to the front door of the place. So awesome. I will definitely be going there often.

Finally, after about 12am, the tube stops and is replaced by a night bus network, similar to what exists in Toronto or Vancouver. I always hated night buses in Toronto because they rarely show up and stop every 4 seconds. A trip involving 1 night bus was bad. But if you were so far away from where you needed to go that you needed to take 2 night buses, forget it. You’ll be in transit forever. So I was at first a bit reluctant to use the night bus system here the few times I have been out past 12am. However with taxis being so expensive, I figured “whatever, I’ll give night buses a shot.” There are a ton of night bus routes though and they are all numbered very confusingly. My roommate who has lived in London for 7 years, gave me this recommendation “Instead of trying to figure out the number system, just look for a bus going somewhere that sounds familiar and go there”. Surprisingly that is a VERY good system! Night buses in London come extremely frequently and only stop where the tube-equivalent stations are (instead of at every 2^nd intersection like what the TTC does). So you can actually get home pretty fast as long as you know approximately how to get home. Sweet!