A few weeks in

As per request of some friends I met in Vancouver, I will now write my stories in English . I’ve been in England for a few weeks now. Not many exciting stories yet as it’s just flying back & forth, go to the hotel, office, back to hotel, office, etc. A quick update for the English speaking here: I’m now in Crawley, Sussex. Right next to London Gatwick airport basically, just half hour outside of London.

It looks like it will take some time before I’ll have an apartment, so for now I’m staying in a hotel every week (already getting tired of the same menu.. ). It’s just a 10 minute walk to the office in the morning, that’s quite nice.
I’m slowly getting used that people are driving & walking on the ‘wrong’ side here ;-) Especially crossing the street I really have to focus! The funny thing is, you’d think people would walk on the left side on the street, right? But no, they usually walk on the right side… not very consistent! ;-)
Last week was my first time in a car where I was sitting on the left seat but not driving! Haha. So weird. It was fun though as we were heading out to a restaurant to meet up with a few colleagues that I know from Canada! That was fun  Unfortunately they’re at a different building, in a different town even, and they’re at a different hotel as well. So it’s not as easy to meet up. Not like in Vancouver where everyone was within walking distance from each other in downtown Vancouver! Oh well..

Main things that I noticed here the first few days, besides the driving on the other side, is the office: one big floor with just desks next to each other. Rows & rows of desks, not even cubicles. Makes it very loud at the office. And it seems like the people are more formal/stiff than I’m used to. But that might just be because it’s the first few weeks. Also formally dressed. People just sit at their desks, they don’t talk to each other and that’s it. As you all know me, I’m more the type that walks around and chats with everyone, getting to know each other and work together. Rather than emailing or calling I’d just go to the person and talk. It will be interesting to see how it works out here.
We should be moving to a different office soon, just don’t know when yet. We will be moving to the center of Crawley, not as pretty an office, but close to the shopping mall and more things to do. It will give us a lot more choice in food as well ;-) I miss that from Vancouver! The tons of restaurants to choose from. But it’s nice here and I like the fact that it’s just a 45 minute flight home and just 1 hour time difference.
I’ll have my first ‘mini-vacation’ in London at Easter! I’ll be staying here over the weekend and Good Friday is a holiday here as well. Meaning 4 days time to go explore! Yay! I met someone at the office already that wants to play my tour guide, that should be fun . I’ll keep you posted of course.
Some more fun stuff is that Maria is coming over for 1 night! Woot woot. On her way back from Ireland to Vancouver she passes by. And early April another friend from Vancouver is travelling to Holland. It will be fun to meet some people back in Holland and play the tour guide for a change .

Back to work now ;-) I’ll check in soon!

Cheers ;-)
Bianca