Yesterday was a great day. I woke up around 7am, took a shower, got dressed, ate toast with butter and strawberry jam, and headed for the train station. On the way there I stopped to get Leanne and I 10GBP tickets to the London Eye for next Wednesday. I then saw a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk next to Waitrose. He was the first homeless man I have seen in Kensington and it brought back all of the negative feelings I had towards the Royal family yesterday. I then took the train to work, which seemed to go amazingly quickly. I did sudoku on the train and was there about 7 minutes early.

I got an office introduction to the 7 or so other people who were in the office today and then I learned how to answer the phone properly, signed paperwork, etc for the start of my employment. I then learned how to access accounts on the software we use at work called “Curtains”. I spent the next 2 hours or so looking for discrepancies between the print outs of what transactions should have gone through, and what transactions had gone through. I did this with my new colleague Ky who is a volunteer who lives in Croydon. This was an interesting time as he has a very thick accent. It was interesting work. Then at one point the MP for our area came in to the office and started chatting with us about stuff he need to get done so he could open his accounts. I was introduced as the intern from the States and he said that he had an American intern who went to Tufts University working in his office this summer at Parliament (hmm hmm Josh, what are you doing next year?). I then asked him if he was an MP why he hasn’t been sacked yet, to which he laughed and said because I’m one of the honest ones and he shook my hand. It was an interesting exchange.

Then, I had my one-hour lunch break where I bought a sandwich and wandered around the town of Croydon. I found a local outdoor market, with food stands, fresh produce, and other stalls with many things for sale. All of this was about 2 blocks from my office. I then continued walking from there and stumbled upon the most amazing thing- the largest shopping area I may have ever laid eyes on, only 4 or 5 blocks from my office. The only store I made it into was Mark and Spencer’s where I managed not to buy anything, but it would take me days to get through the whole mall, or maybe just 15 1-hour lunch breaks.

After this excursion, I went back to work refreshed and finished looking over accounts. Then, around 20 minutes later I learned how to open new accounts and I spent the remainder of my day until around 2:45 opening new accounts. I got off work because it turned out that Martin, my boss and the guy who runs the Croydon Savers Credit Union as well as one in Islington did not plan on coming in to the office today and was paranoid about the tube strike that is apparently going to happen tomorrow night. This 48-hour tube strike should prove to make my travels to the England v. Andorra World Cup interesting.

I then came home and took Leanne out to dinner at Gloucester Arms to celebrate our new jobs. After that we came home to digest our food before going on a run. We both almost threw up because we ate too much. We then came home where I wrote my blog post for Sunday, but my internet ended up crashing and I lost about 2 hours of work. Cameron and I then stayed up way later than we planned talking about politics.

Then this morning I woke up late, bought a croissant and a sandwich for breakfast and lunch from this store at the end of the road before heading off to work. I then started my day looking for discrepancies in accounts. Martin called around 11 and gave me a new task though. My new project is to design a marketing plan for getting parents to save for their kids. This is a good thing to do because people who learn how to save as kids usually are better with managing their finances/debt later in life. Thus, I spent the rest of the day crunching numbers and trying to figure out from what angle to approach this. I will have to present my idea for the plan to the board of directors next Tuesday afternoon as well. Tomorrow I will be going to a meeting with the local housing authority with Martin and that should be interesting too. On the train ride home I did more sudoku and then I wandered the streets on the other side of Kensington for a while before finding my way back to the apartment.

There are no plans for the rest of my day as I am quite tired, but I am sure you will hear about them tomorrow. I will only have a half day of work tomorrow, so I may write before the soccer game, but who knows.

Days 9 & 10- The Neighbor's Have Way Better Cars Here

So, yesterday I woke up and Leanne had wanted to go to a palace since it was supposed to rain, but I decided we should go to the Portobello Market instead. Leanne gave in, but it was amazing. Cameron came too for part of the time, before heading off to a friend's house in Surrey. There were a ton of antique dealers, leather dealers, used clothing vendors, fresh food merchants, etc. It was the epitome of an outdoor market. It took us a few hours to walk through and I ended up finding a replacement watch for my Ben Sherman that broke earlier this semester. It was really cheap, and this one is waterproof, so the band won't rot this time! We spent most of the time parousing the market looking for a bag for Leanne to take to work, some sort of England apparel for the soccer game on Wednesday.

We never did find a bag for Leanne, but we did find scarves. We bought them too because they were cheap. As well, there was an amazing, old (like 1970's) Aston Martin there. So I took a picture. Apparently you can rent it for a day though, which I think is pretty sweet.

We then stopped and got hot chocolate on the way to the train because someone forgot her jacket at the flat, and we ended up taking the wrong train home, going the wrong way at the split on the district line. We then came home and relaxed and made burgers for dinner. They were yummy! Then, we went to the pub in the mews across the street called "Queen's Arm". It sucked. It was too expensive and didn't have any televisions to watch cricket on. This is important since Twenty20 is going on this week!!! Anyway, we then went to the Gloucester Arm, which is now by far my favorite pub in London. We watched Australia lose to the West Indies in cricket, and Leanne and I shared a bottle of wine. It was a great evening. Also, apparently classes at the Imperial College of London don't get out until 11:30 on Friday nights, because right about that time about 30+ students came rushing into the pub with their school bags still on and all. It was quite an interesting sight.

Then, today, well... I will edit this tomorrow and finish it before strarting tomorrow's post. I have to wake up for work in 6 hours. Good night!