Stephen and I celebrated our one month anniversary of being in London and our 9 month wedding anniversary by. . .unpacking!!! We finally got our shipment of household goods from the US, after a huge hassel and another large chunk of currency. This has perhaps been the single most insane experience of my life, but, hey, live and learn and know better for next time.
Amazingly enough everything seems to fit in our little bitty space. It's a bit squishy, but everything more or less has it's own spot. Over time we'll obtain more tupperwear type storage units to get everything accessable, but for now it's comfortably cluttered. =)
Sunday we went out and wondered the Piccadilly & Oxford Circus area of London. I'm endeavoring to find a pair of knee high brown leather boots that won't cost me a fortune, but shopping in London is really quite fun in and of itself as they have cutting edge fashions, some of which are scary, but quite a bit is really tasteful. I'm pleased to see that the tailored look is very much back "in". So good stuff there.
As most of your know, I received the best birthday present imaginable. . .a job!! It's a 3 month contract through a temp agency with a huge financial services firm. My job is a secretary to two different "teams" of analysts--making copies, scanning documents into the system, binding reports, making travel arrangements, filing, etc. My coworkers are pretty nice; my cube-mate speaks Russian! So there will be much Russian practice, though hopefully without too much cringing on her part (she's a native speaker).
I'm also starting to get a feel for the kind of work financial analysts do. . .and micro-economic analysis is not for me. Hey, at least now I know. If nothing else, temping is going to give me the opportunity to at least get a feel for a couple of different career options and maybe help figure out what in the world I want to be when I grow up. In fact, I'm really starting to learn that maybe I don't want to work for a big multinational, while the atmosphere at work isn't unpleasant, it's very impersonal on the whole. Lots of individual work and only superficial interaction with other human beings. Not liking that so much. I found an advert for an Assitant Program Manager with a nonprofit specializing in conflict resolution, so I'm going to work on the essay portion of it and turn that in at the end of the week. Another nice thing about temping--24 hour notice to leave the job.
So things have officially settled. We're living in London!!