Accidentally in Code

Tag: london

  • 5 Things I Hate About London

    5 Things I Hate About London

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    See part 1: 5 Things I Like About London.

    1. Quality of Life

    This is the main thing. The #1 worst thing by far about London. Quality of Life in London is really low. Housing is expensive. Commutes are long. As a relatively well-paid London resident I am lucky enough to have the choice of horrendous commute or hideously expensive apartment. I opted for the apartment. Most people suffer both the commute and the barely-affordable (or straight up unaffordable) rent.

    This style of living has created some new words and phrases. For my apartment, my friend coined the phrase “povel” (posh hovel). For me, this is a one bedroom basement apartment, dark all year round, and also slightly damp in winter. But in Kensington and Chelsea. There’s a private garden, but no dishwasher.

    The other phrase another friend and I use is “zone 1 poverty”. This is living in zone 1 (central London, although huge – I will get to that later) but that is the full extent of any extravagance.

    2. Filth

    London is disgustingly dirty, especially the tube which I sometimes describe as a “filthy rat hole”. In other news, I saw an actual rat yesterday.

    I’ve come to think that a regular dip in mild bleach (easily located at your nearest swimming pool) is probably necessary for feeling actually clean.

    3. Distance

    It takes the best part of an hour to cross zone 1. Obviously leaving zone 1 takes even longer, although I confess this is something I aim to do as seldom as possible. When visiting my family, the journey time is roughly 45 minutes to the train station, 50 minutes on the high speed train to Rugby.

    4. A Series of Small Towns

    I love walking across cities, I think a great city has an arc, where downtown is the crescendo. London has no arc, that I have found at least. It feels like a series of small towns, connected by the aforementioned filthy rat hole. In some ways this is kind of cute, you find little high streets and residential squares. However there’s nowhere I have found where you can have everything you want, close by.

    5. Londoners and Tourists

    There are two kinds of people in London. Londoners, who are desperately avoiding eye contact and will never speak to you. I sympathise, I as have become this – every time I take the tube I also start to hate humanity. If they are driving a black cab, they may try to run you over. This baffles me, as surely the pedestrian is the natural passenger of the taxi. And, tourists. Tourists are typically lost, lugging large suitcases, and in the way due to the suitcases, walking slowly, or because they blocking the pavement in order to take a picture of their friends with some landmark.

    Londoners hate each other, because there are too many people everywhere, and tourists, because they are in the way. I expect tourists also hate Londoners because they are horribly rude, and keep walking through their carefully staged photos.

  • 5 Things I Like About London

    5 Things I Like About London

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    I mostly hate living in London, and plan to follow this with a post with the 5 things I hate most about it. But let’s start with the positives.

    1. Culture

    There is so much art, much of it free, and great theatre (often with cheap tickets available on weeknights) that my goal to do something cultural every week is easily achieved with a plethora of options.

    2. People Visit

    I find that people I know come through London regularly, which is great. It seems like roughly every month someone I know is passing through, and it’s great to get dinner or brunch and catch up.

    3. Flights to Europe

    Yes, one of my favourite things here is the ability to leave. Popping over to the continent for the weekend is cheap and easy, with a choice of international airports (after living in Ottawa and KW, I vowed never to live in a city without an international airport ever again – I know YOW is international, but it is accessed by a one-lane-in-each-direction road, which is ridiculous).

    4. Economically Vibrant

    In the tech industry at least, there appears to be a lot going on – startups, events, and I get pinged more often than before by recruiters, some of the jobs are actually appealing (as opposed to the “come take a significant paycut to work for this unknown company”, although those do still happen).

    5. Architecture

    I like looking at the buildings in London, and wondering around and seeing how the style changes. I really like the mix of old and new.

  • This Week

    This Week

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    Life

    I caught up with a friend who I haven’t seen in forever, which was awesome, went to see Anchorman 2 with another, and met up with someone new – which was nice. My friend Dave took me to see American Psycho, the Musical. I also had a long hangout catching up with a friend from O-town, which was lovely.

    By the end of the week, I was completely social-ed out and retreated to the gym for some quality Cate-time. It was nice to make time for that, though, long gym sessions have been rare with the amount of flitting about I’ve been doing. I got in a bunch of cardio, went swimming 3 times, and did an anti-gravity yoga class (yay for hanging upside down) and also a regular yoga class, which sucked because the instructor was awful (1. warn people before adjusting them, 2, don’t be so forceful they fall over). But I really think however much I hate the yoga class itself, I’ll be better off if I can develop a 1-2x a week habit. So I’ll keep working on it.

    Turns out, 3 months of hotel dwelling and constantly moving and I’m hitting my limit, it has been starting to get to me! And I hate this time of year. I think some of my friends also find it hard, and I hate it when I feel like everyone I know is unhappy. I don’t think this is actually the case, but I definitely need to start drawing lines about how much of other people’s emotions I’m going to take on.

    Continuing my quest to try and learn to like London by taking pictures and appreciating things.

    Work

    I did an amazing training course with some other women from work, and also met even more female engineers on an outing, which was great. There are a lot of dudes around, and I miss the other female engineers in Sydney, so it’s helpful to work on a network here. I have to follow up in the New Year and have lunch with them.

    Finally, I started on my new team! Exciting, as I made my first server side Java change. I’m taking a bit of a departure in terms of technologies, but I think this is a good thing. I’m scared, but looking forward to broadening my horizons there.

    Places

    Spent more time in London this week – Sunday to Sunday, so more time to explore. I stayed at the Millennium & Copthorne hotel at Chelsea football club – weird location in the football grounds, terrible toiletries (no conditioner!), but otherwise comfortable. I also spent a night the Thistle Marble Arch, which was a bit shabby with too many screaming children in the lobby areas, but great location, comfortable bed and excellent wifi. They were also really nice when I showed up early to check-in, with a choice of an upgrade (but to a twin room) or to a room without a bath (turned out to be an accessible room).

    Great luck with restaurants this week, with work events I went to The Old Explorer (pub food, fine), and BB Bakery (afternoon tea! Lovely cupcakes). I went to Wahaca, different and less busy branch than Covent Garden (always tasty), checked out Jamie Oliver’s Popup diner (reasonably priced, bit heavy for my taste but good, love the dinosaur-centric decor), Cocochan (amazing, best Asian food I’ve eaten in London yet, bit pricey but I got a great 30% off Foursquare deal). For weekend brunch, I went to Bill’s as I was feeling homesick for Sydney, which was fine but the scrambled eggs are nowhere near as good as in Sydney, so that didn’t really help! And unexpectedly had an amazing breakfast at Sofra – after not finding the restaurant I was actually looking for – they bring out toast with honey and clotted cream – amazing.

    Media

    American Psycho, the Musical which was bizarre, and dark, but quite wonderful (The Doctor, Matt Smith, was quite off-key at times, but very, very sexy).

    Anchorman 2 was ridiculous, unrealistic, and horrifyingly offensive. The cinema was full of people laughing their heads off. Yes, I’m back in the UK. I enjoyed the escapism.

    Nearly at the end of Brothers and Sisters season 2, Still loving it, still great motivation for getting to the gym.

    Read Take a Look At Me Now by Miranda Dickinson, which was… infuriating. I started off finding it funny that it was set in San Francisco, where no-one has an apartment that big (ha! A single person with a spare room!), and people are not that friendly, in 8 weeks our protagonist never met an obnoxious tech worker. As if! But as the story unwound I just found the obstacles and rationalisations contrived and unconvincing. Maybe I’m just too darkly cynical for trashy novels at the moment, or anything with a happy ending.

    I finished The Power of Habit. Really good, I’ll write it up soon, and started on The Male Factor which so far seems set to be a confronting, angering, but ultimately helpful look at the game that is on.

    Links Amazon.

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  • This Week

    This Week

     

    Life

    I hung out with some new people this week, but also with my high school friend (introducing her to Dim Sum). We were by the Nelson Mandela memorial by Waterloo, which was so lovely, I took pictures of all the quotes the rotated on the projector. Simple but touching, Mandela was a wise man.

    Managed to get around to joining the gym, went for the Virgin Active Classic in Mayfair as they have the best rates of the classic clubs (which are the ones with anti-gravity yoga), although I was working out at the Kensington club, which is this little oasis of clean and calm, with an abundance of towels, which I love.

    Again, more quality time with my family, no more progress clearing out some of the junk, unfortunately! We booked tickets for Chicago the week after next, which should be fun.

    Still post-moving stuff to sort out, but my apartment is all sorted! So I’ll be moving to South Kensington at the start of January. Also started the process of switching my UK bank account to one that shouldn’t be such a nightmare.

    I miss my friends in Sydney, and the sunshine. I actually love the temperature it’s been in the London this week (about 10 degrees), but the grey is getting to me. Some days it feels like I never saw daylight. I’ve been trying to get myself excited about living in London by taking pictures.

    Work

    I think I’ve figured out what I’m going to work on in London! Meanwhile I had more meetings, caught up with a couple of Sydney interns, and also with one of my mentors – which was great, she gives great advice. This time it was to take my time deciding, and to think about what I want to do, whether I want an eng role that requires being a bit more strategic, which I think I do. Although my probable new manager did freak me out a little by saying I could be a good PM on that team! I told him I wasn’t taking a less technical role until I was 30, so we couldn’t talk about that until May 2015.

    I tweaked my prototypes (iOS and Android) a bit, worked on the design doc some more, and did a bunch of research that resulted in an extremely large and color-coded spreadsheet. It always worries me when my job involves spreadsheeting! But it was interesting.

    My patent got published! Exciting! Actually weeks ago, but I only just noticed.

    Also a bit more information on an upcoming personal project, which I’m excited about.

    Places

    I stayed at the Hilton London Olympia, which is nice – bedroom and bathroom felt spacious, although the location was a bit further out that I’d have liked. About a 15 minute walk from Earl’s Court tube station, and less than 20 minute walk to the gym which was nice. I walked into the office one day, which took a long time, and might have been a mistake as I was wearing heels (gorgeous boots I bought in Barcelona).

    Foodwise, I went to Ping Pong (tasty and not too expensive), Leong’s Legend Continues (nice dumplings but I had an allergic reaction to something), and Roka (Japanese, delicious but very expensive). Also visited a Yumchaa tearoom, which was lovely – nice ambiance, and delicious tea.

    Media

    I’m now up to Brothers and Sisters season 2, and it’s still great. I’m totally hooked! Which is surprising considering I’m rewatching it. But it is helpful motivation for getting to the gym – wanting to see exactly what happens next.

    I read Cecilia Ahern’s book How To Fall In Love. Usually I love her novels, and their charming fairy-tale quality, but this time it was the ultimate damaging fairy tale – that you can change someone. It bothered me.

    Non-fiction, I’m (still) reading The Power of Habit. So far, fascinating.

    I’ve been watching some Katy Perry videos on YouTube – I love her new single Roar, and the video for Part of Me is… very unlike the poppy upbeat tune! My friend Linda also got me into Pentatonix when I was in KW.

    Links Amazon.

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  • This Week

    This Week

    Life

    I caught up with an friend from high school, which was awesome! And a woman who I met at GHC ages ago – got to hear about her project Stemettes, which is amazing. Also went out with someone new, which was fun – we took a walk around Westminster at night, which is very pretty. Mostly I focused on finding somewhere to live, which is hopefully sorted – gorgeous lower ground apartment in South Kensington – I paid the deposit and I’ll be moving in at the start of January. Spent more quality time with my family, and working on clearing out some of the junk that has accumulated here in between me flitting about! My Tinke (Amazon) arrived! Annoyingly it has the old i-connector, so I need to buy a converter and meanwhile have to use it with my iPad and not my iPhone, but it’s really interesting. Measures heart-rate, blood oxygen levels, and “zen”.

    Work

    Work was crazy, beginning on my first day at breakfast when I started a small fire in the toaster! Of course I had a lot of email to catch up on after my break. However in between meetings and figuring out what I’m going to do next I was working on some prototyping (iOS and Android) and a design doc, which was fun. I got to catch up with my group from the leadership course I took in October, too, which was awesome. So far, the London office is great! The food is dangerously good, the people are lovely, and there are some great opportunities.

    Places

    I stayed at the Grange Rochester Hotel, which I hated. I had a tiny single, so dark and old fashioned, and they leave a nasty note on the bed every day about not smoking. I haven’t smoked anything in years, maybe ever, so that seemed unnecessarily pre-emptive. The receptionist on check-in I found quite rude as well, and they charge for internet, which is so last decade. It was supposed to be 4*, but felt distinctly… not 4*. Hopefully the hotel for next week will be nicer! Although this experience did motivate me in my apartment hunting, so that is good. Checked out a couple of restaurants, but wouldn’t go back to any of them – Noura (meh), Banana Tree (meh), Tozi (nice but quite expensive). And bars – CASK (impressive selection of beer, totally wasted on me – I was drinking pineapple juice), and Skyloft (I think the draw is the view? I forgot to look out the window).

    Media

    I’m watching Brothers and Sisters season 1 right now – at the gym, as I didn’t take any planes this week. I watched it before, I think as it came out. Anyway, it’s great, I’m really enjoying it even though I know how things pan out. It’s smart, with strong female characters. I read the new Bridget Jones – Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding. It is sad because you follow up on the Happily Ever After, and the Unhappy Ending, but also pretty hilarious. I think if you loved the first Bridget Jones books, it’s worth reading – although not that close together, then it would be even more upsetting. Also read the new Trisha Ashley, Wish Upon a Star. It’s charming, and I’ve read a number of her books now. Like all of them though it’s a bit lacking in substance, and slightly fairy tale like – in the little village of Sticklepond, everything always works out. Was not a bad way to de-stress after a hectic week though! I spent most of Saturday curled up on the sofa reading it, and felt much better for it. Non-fiction, I’m reading The Power of Habit. So far, fascinating. All links Amazon.

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