Old London Town

And here I am! Two and a half days later I think I might just be getting over the jet lag. Possibly. I'm not really sure, I'll let you all know when I wake up, lol. In all seriousness, it wasn't so bad. My flight from Chicago got into Heathrow 45 minutes early. The flight itself was good, three seats to myself and it was only 7 hours long! That's a push over! The hilarious part occurred when I left the airport, lugging about 120 pounds (approx 60 kg) of luggage between a suitcase, a backpacking backpack, a normal backpack, a laptop case, handbag and a pillow, plus two jackets. Needless to say I was very tired by the time I reached Pax Lodge. Exhausted even. Someone on the Tube made a crack about me having enough stuff to move house. He didn't have a thing to say when I told him that was pretty much what I had done!

For those of you who have been to Belsize Park Tube station, the stairs to get up to the lift area have never seemed so daunting. Seriously. I have about a billion people go past me (okay that's an over exaggeration) but no one helped. Not even the silly people who walked up the stairs behind me, they just huffed and puffed because I was slowing them down. Whatever!

In saying that, its rather odd to be back. Hampstead still looks, sounds and smells like it did. That's a rather strange thing to say, I know, but all I can tell you is that it simply does. I was recognised by the woman at the Crepe stand, she even remembered what I ordered all the time. I didn't realise I was such a memorable person.

The past two full days has pretty much seen me trying to settle in, doing food shopping, feeding myself, unpacking and making house in my room. In addition to that, it's been some pretty hard core job hunting. And thus far it seems to have paid off. I have my first interview next Wednesday which is rather exciting, and I was also contacted by a woman from a recruiting company who specialise in Government jobs. All works for me pretty much, I'll take anything thrown my way!

And Pax. What can I say? In a lot of ways, things have changed. But in others its still very much the same. An amusing moment occurred when I closed the door to get into the shower. While the inside of the building has been painted and things have been moved around and what not, despite all the changes, I can close the door of the shower area and find Caro's German lessons still on the back of the door. Its almost comforting in a weird kind of way. I'm also enjoying simply watching. I was asked by one of the RVs if I wanted to go up the Crepe stand with them (and I said yes of course!!) and found myself looking at them as an outsider, watching and wondering if that was how we looked a few years back. It too was kind of comforting.

Last night I went and had dinner with Sally, Andrew and a few of the St. Johns people. For the most part I spent most of the time catching up with Sally. Despite the jet lag, I actually enjoyed it and was glad I went. I considered not, but did. Only issue was I went to the wrong Pizza Express, oops!

I'm still to finish up writing about my last few days in the United States, I am sure I shall get around to it one day, like putting up photos. Its very jarring to suddenly be in another country again. I'm starting to understand why people look at me like a mad woman when I explain the saga of being an Australian who was in the US on her way to moving to the UK.

However, I have no regrets and am still optimistic about getting a job. Perhaps I should revisit that thought in about a week or two!