London Bridges Falling Down

So I'm nearing the end of my stay in London. I leave for Dublin tomorrow. Coming here again has been great, and has renewed my love affair with this city. I would love to live and work here, but am finding that it may not be meant to be. When I decided to do some job searching in Europe I knew my chances were less than great, less than a long shot really, but thought I would try anyway. Hours/days of email writing, networking, application writing, and office tours later and I find myself with zero leads to a real job. The only 'bites' I've had are potential job leads in Chicago, which don't get me wrong - I'm greatful for in this economy and I do in fact still love Chicago. So much so that I went to see the broadway musical Chicago whilst here in London (it was amazing!!) After I am done with my travels I will see if it is not too late to pursue my Chicago lead and pray I won't go too many more months without work, although a summer at the beach does sound pretty tempting if this falls through as well.

Well then, London. . .it's a postcard quality photo around every corner. Between the accents and the architecture and actually finding some tasty food, I'm in heaven. Speaking of food, check out the 'jacket potatoes' - not my most healthy choice, but then, when am I ever healthy? For those of you not familiar with the London lingo - Jacket potatoes are baked potatoes. Other language differences include chips vs. crisps, minding the gap, taking lifts and nobody can give me a clear definition of the word 'Cheeky' although I am familiar with the word - it's just not thrown about in the states the way people use it here.

I find myself being more proper despite my best efforts to maintain my American identity. Saying things like 'quite a lot' and 'a bit' more often with a slight british accent and then wondering what's happened to my voice. I'm one of those people who starts immitating accents when I'm talking to people with accents and am working to stop this. I can't help it. Maybe my subconscious just wants to fit in, but am probably making a fool of myself in the meantime. I should start saying things like 'dude' and 'which way to the McDonalds?' to remind myself of where I'm from.

I'm sad to be leaving London, but am ready to be around more people I know and love again. Another 2 weeks of travel here I come! Oh man, I'm exhausted already just thinking about the rest of my roaming about Europe. It's a tough life ;)

London Fairy Tale

So I'm finally here again! It already seems I've been in London a long time, but it has just been a few days - 5 to be exact. So far I have had a wonderful time and been doing mostly a lot of re-seeing things I saw 4 years ago when I was here for 3 months. It does surprise me how familiar many areas feel, like I was just there yesterday, but I do still feel like a tourist who is just getting to know the city.
So on my first day here, I went back to my old 'hood' where I stayed years ago at the ever luxurious Hyde Park Hostel (I am now getting the experience of staying in an actual London apartment thanks to my friend Gina's sister, Michaela who was very generous to share her studio apartment with me).
After walking by the old hostel, I decided to go back and walk through Hyde Park which is as beautiful as I remembered, but I had forgotten just how big it is. So anyway, I was walking along and this squirrel spots me from about 30 feet away. I look at it and it starts coming up to me until finally it's at my feet staring up at me. I guessed it wanted food and obviously must be used to people feeding it, but alas, I had no food. It put its paws up on my umbrella which I was carrying and finally gave up when it decided I had no food for him. I thought this was a funny little people friendly squirrel until about 5 minutes later I had a bird following me. This yellow little sparrow-looking bird flew to the fence I was walking along and startled me. I kept walking and every 3 or 4 steps I would take it would fly further along the fence to stay beside me. Honestly I was now starting to fear the animals would attack and looked around to see if someone else found this behavior strange. Luckily taking a few steps away from the fence seemed to discourage the bird from following me, but I feel that if I would have started singing a deer and a few bunnies may have come out to dance with me.
Other than this encounter with animals, London just looks like a fairy tale with its old buildings and quaint shops, etc. I have only found one prince charming so far, but it's still early on my trip. Kidding. I will try to blog more happily ever after as my travels continue.