A Flood, A Tube Strike, and a Skinny Half-Arsed English Country Singer

So this post is about a week late, but due to an unbearable amount of editing I did on this post, the publish date kept getting pushed back.

My view for the night!

Last week I got my first taste of London. Granted the entirety of my journey was from the Waterloo to North Greenwich tube stations where I went to the O2. Regardless, I had the absolute pleasure of watching my favorite musician perform in his home country! When I found out I was coming to the UK for a year, I immediately checked Frank Turner's website to see if he would be playing anytime soon close to where I was going to be. It just so happened, he was playing the biggest venue in all of London town a week and a half after I was set to arrive. So fast forward to the week of the show and my chances to actually attend are decreasing significantly...

The majority of England has been experiencing the worst rain it's ever seen during the Winter. That sounds like home and all the snow. Floods have been a major issue and have caused many serious delays in public transportation as well as having cut off many smaller villages. If you saw in my previous post the "lake" outside my window, that's just a glimpse at what the rest of the country is dealing with. So combating the floods was problem number 1 to getting to this gig.  Fortunately, we hadn't had a 'major' rain in a few days, so the water receded enough to make the train ride into London much easier.

Problem #2 was the biggest. Without going into great detail as to why, I'll just tell you that employees of the London Underground system were set to go on strike Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. It all boiled down to loss of jobs and they were in a position to hold the city hostage. They had been on strike the week before on the same days and it worked quite convincingly. With a second strike set for the week I needed to use the Tube to get to Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, it wasn't looking good. The strike was cancelled; more or less its just a truce right now, but it meant I could easily get from the office in Wokingham to the venue on the Greenwich Peninsula in London.

So in this trip, I got my first taste of train travel into London. I recommend taking a book or something to do, otherwise you will be bored out of your mind. I also got my first experience on the Tube, which is very packed and if you don't hurry, those doors will close on you!  But I finally made it; had to buy my ticket at the box office because its hard as hell to buy anything in the UK online using a US credit card!

The curtain drops!

The show was simply fantastic! The opening act, a man by the stage name of Beans on Toast was as funny and extraordinary as ever. Aaron and I saw him open for Frank in June and absolutely loved him. His no nonsense, I'm gonna sing about whatever the f*ck I want to approach to music is the most refreshing thing I've seen in a long time in the music industry. Also opening was the great Flogging Molly. Frank along with the Sleeping Souls opened for these guys in the states a few years ago so to see it come full circle was pretty amazing! But these guys I'm gonna have to catch again as the main act because they were great in a limited set.  Their live version of "If I Ever Leave This World" brought me to tears; and I'm not ashamed to admit that.  And after much anticipation, me and about 20,000 friends got to witness the greatest band in rock today pour their hearts and souls into every song they played that night! It's hard to put into words what Frank means to me and his fans, but in short, he's a rock star whose shunned the rock star attitude because at the end of the day, he's just one of us. The Sleeping Souls are some of the hardest working men in music. And what's truly amazing about them is after a nearly 2 hour set, they'll stick around after the show and meet with fans who've stayed. Aaron and I got the chance to meet them in Cincinnati and they're the nicest bunch of guys I've ever met. I had a 20 minute conversation with Matt Nassir, the keyboardist and my favorite member of the band. Sorry to Nigel, Tarrant, and Ben. This was the 4th time I've seen him and the band in concert; the first outside of the US and the first without Aaron. Which was definitely hard because Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls is our thing. Ask Aaron about how I turned down a work trip to Paris because we had tickets to see him in Cincinnati. That's how much his music means to the both of us. And to witness his show with 20,000 other fans instead of the few hundred we get in the states was truly amazing.  I posted a few pictures to show the crowd and the view I had from my seat.  Yes I had a seat and didn't join the standing crowd on the floor. But I did stand throughout the whole set! Which by the way, I'll never do again. Frank's shows are much better if you're dancing and jumping around and joining arm in arm with people you don't even know and singing your heart out to every song on the set list.

Half of the standing crowd! HALF!

The Flat

So not everyone who is reading is necessarily a Facebook friend. That's not a problem, but some of you may not have seen pictures of the flat yet. Plus, I can go into greater detail than just a few simple pictures can.

I absolutely love the flat. The agent helping find the location did a good job finding this one. It's slightly smaller than my apartment back home was; and probably almost twice the cost. But with that cost, it's mostly furnished, has 2 bathrooms, and is in a great location to Reading Town Centre. The grocery store is literally right next door. I've got about a .6 mile walk to the train station so it's a quick walk. And at most, I'm a mile from the shopping centres and pubs. So everything I could need is in walking distance.

I'm still trying to get everything into a place. It's a bit tough to pack up what I considered essential from my apartment to bring with me and then deciding where to put it. I've got a coworker moving in in a few days when he arrives, so I can't take over the entire space!

No we don't have a lake outside. That's actually a park, that holds a beer festival every May. With all the rain the UK has experienced this winter, flooding has been the norm. This "lake" has actually been moving pretty fast in terms of water speed, but recently, the water level has receded. I can actually see ground and a walkway!

Anyways, this was meant to be a quick update on the flat. I plan to get another post finished tonight about my first trip into London. Stay tuned everybody!

A Week in Review

I can't believe it's already been a week since I arrived in England.  At times, it feels like its flown by, but at others, I've felt every second of it. The first few days were rough. I was missing home, friends, but mostly my family.  I was questioning if I made the right choice in coming here or not.  Part of my 'depression' was the fact that my flat, which was supposed to be available to move in to on Monday was not ready. In short, the money had yet to clear the leasing agency's bank account and they wouldn't release the keys until this happened.  So I spent longer in hotels than I thought I would.  The hotels themselves weren't bad, but there wasn't much to do around them, so I was stuck with little to do, no one to interact with, and no idea when I could actually get into my place in Reading.

Wednesday morning came the news I'd been waiting for, the money cleared and I could pick up the keys to the flat! So I hightailed it out of work that night, called a taxi, and was off to Reading to start to get settled. Even though I didn't, and still don't, have much in the apartment, at least it's a place I can call my own.  At that lifted my spirits so much.  I'll be posting pictures within the next couple days on Facebook.  I still couldn't do much after work.  It was getting dark around 5 and not really knowing too much of the area, I didn't want to venture out too far at night.  But Saturday, I hit the town and explored all afternoon.  With no objective, other than watching the England/Scotland rugby match at 5, I set out to walk around town.  I don't know how far I actually walked, but I got a good lay of the land and quite a few ideas for when people visit.

Work hasn't really started for me yet. The kickoff for the project I've been assigned to is tomorrow, so I'll be traveling even closer to London to attend 2 days of meetings in preparation of my work. That doesn't mean I've been slacking off at work. I've had some UK specific training to do as well as trying to meet everyone in the office. My office mates are extremely nice and very helpful. They've definitely made me feel welcome and at home, even offering me rides if I ever need to go to Costco or IKEA to get anything.  I feel truly blessed in that regard.  

That's all I really have to report right now, but wanted to let everyone know I'm fine and adjusting well.

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