5 Month Reflections

March 2nd marked my 5th month living in London. Wow..almost half a year. Ever since I came back from my trip to Chicago, I've had a renewed spirit for London. I look forward to planning my social activities and holidays here. Perhaps it wasn't that my spirit needed to be renewed however, I just wasn't quite sure how I felt about London.

The last month has been milestone month for me living here. I feel like I've hit my stride at work. I love my job. My responsibilities have expanded here. I have a great working relationship with my manager. He supports my career goals and really sees me as an asset to the company. I travel quite a bit. Every month for the next year, I will be in Paris for a monthly client meeting. When the weather is nicer and Sofia is free, I will make a few weekends of it. This Friday I am flying to Copenhagen for a meeting and then I am extending the trip into the weekend to do some exploring.

Personally, I continue to meet new people and explore different areas of London. For the last two weeks, I had been in the West End for a few nights out. Last weekend, I had two friends of a friend turn up and stay with me. I had never met them but they knew a friend of mine. They were grad students doing their MBA and needed a break after mid-terms. I was meeting up with my colleague and his friends for lunch so I brought them along. We had pizza in this really cool place not too far from me that I never knew existed because I had gotten in the habit of going straight to the tube for work - http://www.francomanca.co.uk/ Everyone got on very well. Later that evening, they also met up with me in Notting Hill for drinks which resulted in us making our way to the West End.

This weekend was pretty relaxed. On Friday, I met up with Jacqui and her mum, and sister-in-law for dinner at the Cattle Grill in Balham - http://www.cattlegridrestaurant.com/. I had a really tasty burger...not the salsbury steak texture they typically have here. Her mum invited me to Perth for Christmas and to Melbourne for New Years Eve.

On Saturday, I started training hardcore for the 10K Bupa run that I signed up for in Edinburgh, Scotland. From what people tell me, Edinburgh is very beautiful. It's about a 4 hour train ride. Most likely I will be going solo. I am looking forward it. This will be my redemption for my past experiences traveling alone. I also realized it had been awhile since I ran regularly so it's definitely a good training challenge.

On Sunday, I was in East London at the Spitalfields market with my friend Lucy. I love hanging out with Lucy. She encourages me to shop and we talk about the fashion in London. Spitalfields is a very funky, eclectic market. I love to people watch and see everyone's individual style who roam the market. Unfortunately, there was a power outage where the main stalls were at so we didn't do too much shopping. We did find a really good food hall and I had an arepa with chicken and cheese. Somewhat of a Mexican gordita. In the food hall, you could find everything from Ethiopian, Indian, Chinese, French, Italian, to Mexican food. Lucy and I had fun tasting the samples including the cheesecake.

After I left Lucy, I headed to an American Expat meet up group that was being organized in a pub in Hackney not too far from the market. I met Amber there. It was a really great time. We were kind of skeptical because Amber said they were not very organized in the past. There was about 10 -12 people and they were all very friendly. They were from all over the place - New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, New Jersey, and Milwaukee. We even had two Brits. One of them was a die hard Bears fan. He was sporting a Bears cap. I love him already. He said that there is a Facebook group for London Chicago Bears fans. I am all over that! I was great to hear their personal stories about how they came to England and their perceptions of this country. We definitely agreed it was hard to make British friends. (That's my new mission, befriend 3 British friends outside of work) The single girls talked about dating here which is very intriguing to get their perspective. By the end of the meeting, I had exchanged numbers with most of the people I met and I am looking forward to making plans with them when I get back from my trip.

So this is typically how my weeks have been in London. I try and make new experiences for myself and meet new people. I am keeping an open mind and taking every opportunity to venture out and create my own way here. It's been great!