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! 

Greetings from London!

Hello guys!

I am now 1 week into my stay here in London and am settled in quite well.  Some random thoughts thus far

-My flight-

The flight here wasn’t the greatest. The plane was basically full, there were no tv screens on each seat and no chargers for electronic devices on each seat. And the movie everyone had to watch was Hugo which I already saw. So I was going to be very bored for 7 hours. Not a great start! Also, the seat spacing was very tiny. I passed out almost immediately upon takeoff but when I woke up about 1.5 hrs later, I got really, really claustrophobic. I needed some space IMMEDIATELY! Luckily, a few rows behind me was the emergency exit row where:

-There is a lot of space to accommodate the emergency exits

-The people sleeping in their seats in that row were not stretched out at all

As such, I made the floor there my temporary home. Having some room to stretch my legs and have a good lie-down helped a ton!

Also, the food was terrible on the flight. I miss KLM…

-Where I am staying-

 I got very, very lucky. Through the facebook group for Canadians in London, I got connected with someone. And not just anyone! So far, things have been awesome:

-My roommate is super chilled out like me

-She has a business background like me

-The flat is in central London

-The flat is super nice

 However because this is London (in a nice flat in central London no less), it is pretty pricey but 100% worth it in my opinion,

-Food-

As you guys know, I am a foodie. So of course, I had to check out the food scene here….SO AMAZING!!! I’ll write more about food in London on my food blog (bsgk.blogspot.com). One thing I am especially happy about is most of the food I eat in Canada is available here at reasonable (by London standards) prices. So I don’t need to sacrifice much. This was not the case when I lived in Amsterdam, where a lot of North American grocery food didn’t seem to make it there. 

-Work-

I am only a few days into my job but it is pretty cool. I will basically be doing marketing and strategy for my employer (rainmaker-gbd.com). I am also helping organize and run the Canada Day celebration here in London (http://www.canadadaylondon.com/). Given the insane demands put on us from Sep-Apr, I am pretty comfortable with the pretty demanding schedule I am sure to have this summer. Bring it on!

-The Tube-

My old boss spent many years living here so I used to tell him how I wish the Toronto subway was like London’s to which he remarked “No, the tube sucks.” I can see why he complained- every day random parts of the tube system are broken or shut down for maintenance. As such, planning alternate routes to work is super important. I am lucky that to get from my flat to work, there are several routes I can take on the tube so if one line is messed up, getting on another isn’t a bit deal.

Finally, some of my Rotman friends are here for the summer too. I already got to see one of my Rotman friends the other day which was pretty awesome. I am so excited to hang out more with them here on the other side of the atlantic! It should be a fun (but very busy) summer!