New Year's Catch Up

Well, it's been over a month since my last post, but let's be honest, it's about par for the course for me. A lot has happened since my last ramble, so let's get right to it, shall we?

Christmas

I'm single, 28 and I don't drink, so what was I do to for Christmas in a foreign country? Whatever I want!

First of all, Here's a fun London fact: There is absolutely NO public transit on Christmas. Nothing. All transit workers get the day off. I expected limited transit, but given the scope of London, I was surprised to learn it shuts down. And then I was really impressed. Good for them! It was great.

The empty London streets on Christmas morning.

I spent the day with my "Kiwi" friend, who has also just moved here. Her flat is about a 45min walk from my place. It was so nice to walk down the empty streets.  I never could have imagined London so deserted. We spent the day talking, eating junk food and watching movies. We also went out for a Christmas Walk/Silly Photo Scavenger Hunt in Kensington Gardens!

This is my "photo with a statue". Hello, Peter Pan! 

I went home in the evening and Skype-called my family. I talked to my older sister and her two kids, who have been trained since birth to talk to faces on computer screens. They showed off their presents; my nephew received a "Loki" action figure and my niece received Disney princess dolls of "Belle" and "Rapunzel", all of which I heartily approved.  I then had some time to catch up with my sister's life. When I called my parents, where all of the "action" was happening, I found myself feeling quite a part of the proceedings, even though I was a face on an iPad screen. It was my little niece's second Christmas, but her first where she's been able to walk, so she was the designated present-giver. It was also her first experience with a Skype call. She couldn't quite figure out why I was on "the black shiny thing." At one point, the iPad was placed on the floor and I could see she was trying to examine it in some way, when suddenly everyone started laughing and they told me that she was trying to sit on it in an attempt to sit on my lap! Gah! That just pulls on the heartstrings, doesn't it? And there I experienced my first proper homesickness since moving to London.

All I needed to do was add a few BBC Christmas specials to my day and it was complete! I spent a lazy Boxing Day back at my friend's flat and waited for the arrival of my little sister to cure my Christmas home-sickness.

Sisters Re-United

Hailey arrived on Dec 27 and we just enjoyed London for a few days. She's visited before, so the touristy things were already taken care of. She was quite content to just walk around and enjoy the fact the I LIVE in London.

Ah, together again.
Hailey seemed to have forgotten how tall I am until this moment.
She was not impressed.

Hmm...Do you suppose we're related? 

We do love each other, really. 

Our pre-New Year highlight was going to see Shakespeare's "Coriolanus" which is now finishing up it's run at the Donmar Warehouse. It stars Tom Hiddleston (War Horse, The Avengers) and Mark Gatiss (Mycroft in and co-writer of BBC's Sherlock, as well as Doctor Who.)  I barely scraped tickets during the 20min sell out back in June. The show was amazing. The Donmar is a very small theatre, with only 250 seats, so even our "nosebleed" seats were great. The design was very minimalist and the use of the space just blew me away. The performances were amazing. There really is something special about a live performance. I've seen 4 of the cast members in films before this, but to see them in a live environment has such a different quality to it. The Kiwi and I are going to the live broadcast tomorrow night and I am really excited to watch it again and to finally be able to talk with her about it, as I've been holding back spoilers for a month now! ( To all of my non-London friends, the broadcast is available world wide, usually with an encore broadcast - check Cineplex listings!)

The stage for "Coriolanus" at the Donmar Warehouse.

Hailey and I decided to do the "fan-girl" thing and wait in the post-show autograph line and in that experience I confirmed three things.

1. Tom Hiddleston is an extremely kind and very patient man.
2. His fans are indeed crazy.
3. The crazy always ruin it for the normal.
(That's another post entirely. I'm not sure how I feel about meeting celebrities anymore. Meeting them, great. Their fans, not so much. And yes, I'm aware of the irony in that statement. Moving on.)

The ever patient and astounding Tom Hiddleston. 

We weren't able to meet him as he had to leave early to meet a friend, which he apologized profusely for, but we did get a few photos from the line. All in all, it was an amazing night. We saw a total of 6 plays (including the great "Les Miserables") during Hailey's visit and "Coriolanus" still holds the top spot for me.

The brilliant and witty Mark Gatiss

New Year 

New Year's Eve in London. You have to go the fireworks, don't you? That's what we thought. We went into the city quite early in the evening and had dinner in Piccadilly Circus. We found, quite by accident, Jamie Oliver's Pop Up Diner. It was reasonably priced, had a short wait and was, of course, very tasty! We walked from Piccadilly to Trafalgar Square, which was great fun since the roads were all blocked off to vehicles. Hailey could avoid the cobblestones and it brought out my 5-year old self to be walking down the middle of the road! It was beginning to get quite crowded as we went down Whitehall/Parliament St., and we soon learned that the bridges were about to be closed off. We then went down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace, as I'd been told the view was quite good from there, but on our way, we noticed St. James' Park was not very full yet so we wandered in to see what the view was like. It was great! We stood by the Horse's Guard Parade and could clearly see the top half of the London Eye. We had three hours to wait and spent it chatting with a lovely English couple who had lived in London for many years before they retired. They told us about their favourite spots in the city and gave us some tips for Paris too! (You can pre-buy tickets for the Eiffel Tower online. LIFESAVER.)

Our view. There was a mini light show during the 3 hour wait.
The pods of the Eye would light up with a rainbow of colours to mark each hour. 

The fireworks were amazing. Us two small town girls were quite impressed! After the fireworks, roads were clearly marked leading to the nearest Underground stations to get everyone home. The tube is free to everyone on NYE and runs well into the morning hours. (I think this is a strong argument for the transit workers to get all of Christmas off!) Getting home didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would and it was actually quite pleasant, given the crowds. London knows how to do crowd control.

The Grand Finale. 

Ah... All up to date. Nearly. For now. I'll write up another post about the rest of Hailey's visit. We went on a mad adventure, 4 countries in 10 days!

Happy New Year, indeed. I think it's going to be a good one.

In other news, I have a job! A temp job, but a job! More on that later. (By the time I get to writing that post, the job might be over.....)

Stay Tuned. 

Slow Progress & Tender Mercies

Since my last post, I've had a couple of days where the reality of being in a huge city, with no job, has felt really heavy. It's hard to know where to begin and I felt as though I'd used up all of my motivation energy in just getting here. To my own credit, there has not been a day where I've not accomplished at least one task that contributes, at least a little, to moving forward. Somedays, it has just been to find a stationary store in which to buy push pins and a calendar to plan with. (I love having a calendar on my phone, but sometimes you just need to write things out.) Other days, it has been more pro-active, such as going to a recruitment agency, like a grown up. Weird.

High and lows are to be expected, I know. The last couple of days have felt low. I've tried to focus on the fact that I've accomplished part of my goal, just by getting here, and now I live in an amazing city. I went for a walk in Kensington Gardens on Monday, thinking that I would enjoy the peaceful scenery and contemplate life. Well, my local train station had no power and I spent most of my walking time on the streets, so by the time I got to the gardens it was getting dark, I was cranky at public transit and it wasn't nearly as enjoyable as I'd hoped.

A peaceful bench in Kensington Gardens. I should have just sat there for a while.... 

Today, I made the decision to be positive and pro-active. I planned to go to the LDS Employment Centre, which opens at 12pm.  I completed the online registration forms in the morning and then I decided to check on the open houses for the two drama schools that I'm looking at. First, I checked on RADA and had a little moment of despair. In the two weeks since I've been here, the Open House has been announced and completely filled. There will be more in the new year, but it put me into a little bit of a tail spin. Attending these open houses has been the driving factor in coming here when I did. I've been checking for confirmed dates almost religiously over the last 2 months, and in the last two weeks, I missed it. I took a deep breath and checked on LAMDA. There is an open house this weekend, so I crossed my fingers and sent out an e-mail of inquiry. In a moment of defiance to "the world", I then registered for online applications to LAMDA and saved the RADA application form to my travelling USB stick to have printed later in the day. Take that, world. 

Determined not to let myself stay cranky, I stuck to my plan. I found a copy shop close to the South Kensington station, printed the application forms and then went over to the employment centre. Luckily, it is in the same building as the church, so I at least knew how to find it! The church building is quite multi-purpose, actually. The main floor foyer serves as a small Visitor's Centre, with the gym and the chapel on the same level. There are a couple of floors for classrooms, offices and the employment centre.

I trudged my way up the stairs to the 3^rd floor and soon remembered that the Brits don't count floors in the same way as Canadians. Call me a traditionalist, but the first floor is the one on the bottom. Here, it is: Basement, Ground, 1^st , 2^nd, 3^rd etc. So the 3^rd floor is actually the 4^th floor to my brain. I digress... A Senior missionary couple greeted me enthusiastically as I entered the empty room. Their shift was ending, so after a brief chat, they passed me along to the incoming volunteer, a Caribbean woman, who was very fun to talk to. We went over my CV and discussed my situation. I talked about theatre and my struggles with knowing how to approach it. She was very encouraging and suggested I send an e-mail to a few of the “umbrella” companies that own the theatres, asking how I could apply or when to expect C.V.s to be accepted. (I've been stumped by many theatre groups posting that they usually take resumes of interest, but aren't anymore, but will be soon. How does one respect that, but still show interest?)

She also gave me list of job finding websites and suggested a few that would be best to begin with. I asked about electronic retail stores and photo labs that would be easier for me work in without much training. I still feel the weight of finding work, but it feels better having a few places to start from. I don't like the idea of “pounding the pavement”, but it has to be done. Starting is the hardest part. I do need a wardrobe update though. (See? I'm making delays... I'll go out when I have the right clothes....) There is a store here called “Primark” that everyone says is really cheap but doesn't look it. I said to her that I need to go to Primark to get some good walking/dress shoes and dress pants. She laughed that I already knew what Primark was! So, that is tomorrow's plan. I hate shopping and I hate job hunting and now I have to do both. Maybe shopping in London will be more enjoyable than in Canada. Here's hoping.

Hyde Park LDS Chapel on Exhibition Road, South Kensington

Now to the real point of blogging today. (Still with me?) Two sister missionaries were sitting by the desk on my way out and started talking to me. I said that I'm new to the city and the ward etc. They're both nearing the end of their mission, so I warned them that going home from a mission feels really weird! I joked about being old, having been home for 5 years now (wow), and then we laughed about the age change bringing out so many missionaries who look 12. They then offered to give me a little tour of the church and tell me more of the history of the area. I agreed. The church was built in 1960, but has only been a Visitor's Centre for 2 years. In fact, when they both got their mission calls, it wasn't made entirely clear that they would be VC sisters because all of the final details were still being worked out!

They showed me a little video on a fancy touch screen TV (aren't we tech-savvy Mormons?) It was about the history of the church building itself. The building is on the same street as the Science Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum, just down from the Royal Alberta Hall.  I have been wondering how the church managed to get such prime real estate! The spot where the church is now located used to be a high end residential row and, at one point, was owned by a wealthy doctor, his Russian wife, 2 children and 6 servants! Unfortunately, the building was destroyed during the bombings of World War II and was never rebuilt. When Pres. David O McKay made the assignment to find property for a chapel, there was not a member of the church living within 7 miles of the spot that was proposed, but the decision was made to buy this little historic area of land. There are now 3 wards that meet in the building, as well as fulfilling the other uses that I've mentioned earlier.

World War II bomb damage on the wall of the Victoria & Albert Museum. 

When the video finished, one sister asked what I liked about it. Almost without thinking, I answered that it shows that good things can come out of such horrible destruction. She agreed and then said that she can relate that to her life; we can feel like we are in the middle of a bombing in our life and then we later realize that God was always aware of us and that He always has a plan. It was exactly what I needed to hear and I'm sure I looked at her in shock for a moment. I could easily be cynical about her comments and think that she probably says that after each of the hundreds of times she's shown that video to someone, but it really touched me. I was suddenly so emotional. I tried to contain it as we talked more about life's surprises and blessings, as well as the joys of being a missionary. I thanked them for showing me that clip and said that I really needed it today. They gave the ever so humble missionary answer, deferring credit away from themselves.

As I exited the church and started walking towards the train station, I had to hold back tears, just as I'm doing right now as I write this. There was no lightning bolt sending down a little charred piece of paper with a list of instructions, and I still feel very unsure of pretty much everything, but I do know that I'm not forgotten. 

I haven't put as much spiritual thought into this big move as I probably should have. The scriptures teach to “study it out in your mind” and then ask if it's right. Well, I did a lot of studying... and then I just did it. I basically looked at the sky and thought "If it's wrong, you'd better stop me." He didn't, so here I am. The thing is, I did the same thing when I moved to Vancouver. When I did stop to pray about it, all I could feel was love, that if this is what I wanted to do, then He was OK with it.

I think a lot of religious people, Mormons included, can get really caught up in the idea of “THE PLAN.” They fear making the “wrong” decision will affect eternal salvation. OK, some decisions, yes, but not all. I like to think of life as a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. There are many paths, more than one of which can be right. God gave us each a brain; I think he expects us to use it.

The problem is, I may have been using my brain a little too much, over-thinking, as I tend to do, and it's making me a little crazy.  I've been so worried about having all of the answers and making a plan and finding a job “right now”, that I've just been giving myself unnecessary stress. Today was a reminder that I don't need to have all of the answers. All I need to know right now is that I haven't made a stupid decision in coming here, that it isn't a complete waste of time and money, and I will, someday, achieve all that I want to, if I'm willing to work for it.

Exhibition Road: The Science Museum on the left, Victoria & Albert Museum on the right.
LDS church visible with golden spire on the right. 

As I walked down Exhibition Road and looked at the amazing buildings, noticing for the first time the damage from WWII, I just thought about how lucky I am. I thought about my first week here, sitting in church and finally asking “Well, I'm here. Am I supposed to be here?” and feeling an overwhelming “Yes.” I don't know why the answer is yes, but for now, that will do. I know there are more ups and downs to come, but in this huge, amazing city, where I don't know anyone, I am not forgotten and I am not alone.

Epilogue: I got an e-mail from LAMDA on the train home; there is a spot available for me to attend the open house. Not forgotten :-)