Well the big news is that I finally found a fantastic house to live in London. It's central, it has a living room, it's close to work, close to the tube, lively neighborhood, new, and quiet. You'd be surprised at how hard all of that is to find (within your price range) in London.
I couldn't afford to get my own 1 bedroom flat with a living room so I got a 2 bedroom instead with the intention of renting the other room out. As of now, the entire house is well out of my budget, but split with another house mate it fits nicely in my budget. I thought I would have an easy time finding a house mate so I wasn't too concerned about it. The London market is quite dynamic with lots of movement all the time. However, when I started to advertise my room on the web, days went by... then weeks went by... I only had 1 real person come by to see the flat. I was getting really worried because I can't really carry this whole house by myself without major financial sacrifices. I started lowering my asking price, then again, then again... still no takers. Finally, I tried advertising the room on a different website. I got 2 messages within the first 24 hours on this new website. Within 3 days, I had rented the flat out. It was an expensive lesson that I learned.
My new house mate will move in soon. He's a very interesting guy. Julie and I chatted with him for well over an hour last night when he came to see the flat. He is a PhD computer science student from the Belgium who is just finishing up school. He has now been offered a job in London and is moving here. He has been working on a mobile phone application that helps map sound/noise. Basically, it uses your mobile phone's GPS & microphone to track how noisy various parts of the city/world are. This will ultimately give you a picture of where the quiet and noisy parts of town are. The data is overlayed on Google maps to give you a clear picture. He's a super ambitious guy and I hope a bit rubs off on me while he is here. He reminds me a lot of my brother Max.
My new place has a London Bikes stand within 50 meters walking distance. I'm hoping to get an annual pass and start biking to work most days. I can easily take the tube on very cold or rainy days, but I would like to bike whenever possible. There are several stands around my work that I can dock the bike at. I got a lot of value out of the Dublin bikes scheme and I'm hoping that trend can continue here in London.
Our new place also has a small terrace. I'm hoping to put a few plants out there and try my hand out at city gardening. I'll start with a few herbs and see how that goes... maybe end up with tomatoes and vegetables :)
Work is going well. We are looking to release an Android app in the future which should be cool. I am in the early phases of writing test automation for this new android app using Robotium. So far it was very tough to initially configure but then very easy to write test automation once configured. I still think I'm in a good spot for a future promotion and this android automation could be enough to put me over the top.
It took a long time, but I finally got a regular football (soccer) game going with my work colleagues. We had a hard time finding a pitch that was both close to work and available at a time just after work. The first game will be coming up this Wednesday and every Wednesday after that. I really enjoy playing football with work colleagues, I find it's the best bonding technique available. These other team building exercises that companies some times go on are really no match for weekly football in my opinion. Anyhow, I really need this football; I haven't been getting enough exercise. I really need another game per week to round out my schedule.
I was telling Julie tonight over dinner that it finally feels like the uphill battle (that was our move to the UK) is finally starting to taper off and level out. We're finally getting settled, comfortable, and back into a regular routine that is both healthy and fun. Looking back, the past 6 months were brutal... all the Visa applications, moving around, finding new work, learning a new job, figuring out the city, etc.... it all took it's toll on me... but now I feel like things are starting to fit together and move forward nicely at a pace that I am more comfortable with.
Love,
--Ben
