Let's get it started

On Tuesday, Feb 27th I finally arrived in London. Fortunately I didnt't have to organize many things; just a place to live and a flight. I arrived in Stansted Airport and it took me almost 3 hours including the waiting time to get to my future home. But when I finally made it i must say I was glad to come into a nice house with nice roomies. I kind of gambled when I was looking for a room. When I first contacted the WKÖ (the place where I'll work) in December they sent me a list with some suggestions for rooms. But since they were all either in families or dorms (some of them religiously affiliated) they didn't quite meet my desires. That's why I decided to look for a room online and found one on gumtree.com.
Now I will live in a nice double room (I'd guess around 12 to 14 square metres, which is quite big for Londoner standards) and share a two-storeid house with 3 Kiwis (New Zealanders). The place is located in Ealing (The queen of suburbs), a pretty suburb in the west of London.

pic 1: my room (just one side, it's bigger)

pic 2: living room (the tv has sky ... so many good films every day!)

pic 3: our house, in the middle of the street :) - it has a little backyard, too bad it's too cold to sit outside


One of the first things I realized in London is that the distance differ from those in Vienna. The terms "close" and "far away" have a different dimension here. It takes me now around 30 min to get to work from home (which is ok, its 15 min on the tube and walking to and from the station).
I guess it will take some time until I get used to the fact that it takes from 30 min to one hour to get somewhere since I am used to short distances in Vienna, where I hardly ever travel longer than 30 min somewhere ... except to some friends' places who live far out - yes you know who you are :-)
And of course I miss my beloved bike :( I was thinking of looking out for a cheap bike in London, but once I got here I realized that this idea was pretty crappy because: it would take me too long to get somehere, it rains much too often (and although I don't mind the cold, I very much dislike biking in the rain) and it would take too long to get used to traffic in London, so it would be to dangerous ... I can already see myself driving on the right side of the street.

current music: Oasis - Whatever