Settling into British Life

It's been quite a busy few weeks here. After extreme hassle, hours on the phone and lots of nerves on end and frustration, I FINALLY got BT to hook up my broadband. It's wonderful to connect to the internet again, check my email, look up train times and just browse around and send email. It's amazing how much I took that for granted and being internetless for two weeks was very painful. I'm an addict, I'll admit but it doesn't take away from the annoyance that I had to go through to set this up in a new flat, nonetheless. They didn't have to even come out and hook anything up, all they needed to do was flip a switch on their end or whatever they do.

Right, enough ranting on BT (useless buggers) and on to other things! I made an IKEA trip the other weekend and stocked up on things for my flat. I've just about finished assembling them all, just a bookcase to go and I'll be set. I'm still waiting on changing out the small, dinky, and uncomfortable bed I have in my flat for a bigger one, just a few things to follow up with that. I'm all sorted with paying bills (hooray?), there's lots to pay! council tax, electricity, gas, water, bt phone, bt internet, O2 mobile and that's after a painful 40% tax and extra 9% for National Insurance taxes. I'm not looking forward to seeing how much my net salary will be, yikes...

Things at work have been good, very busy, but good. I'm still adapting to my new role, spending every other week on production support and full on with design of the new system. There's TONS to do and learn and I have a full plate and it's not getting smaller any time soon, only bigger and bigger and I learn more and more. I've been trying out the local cuisine during lunch and found a few good places. Here's my write up:
*Gourmet Burger Kitchen (went here for dinner) - massive burgers, very nice but a little pricey. they have milkshakes that are very nice but a bit too milky and not shakey enough
*Ensalada - cajun chicken wrap is really good and it's £3.40 which is just about the best one can do around there for a decent lunch
*Cafe Veloce - very tasty pre-made sandwiches on ciabatta bread. They toast them as well. This is my favourite place so far!
*Japanese Canteen - a bit more expensive but a nice meal is the chicken katsu curry. mmmm, very tasty!
*Fresh Italy - pasta in a cup. I didn't like this all that much but i'll give it another try some time as it's cheap and close.
*Carluccio's - you can get take-away but it's nice to sit down. very yummy bread tin with different sorts of bread and their pasta is quite tasty. I definitely like this place a lot!

Those are the one's I've tried so far, I'm trying a sausage and mash place tomorrow near spitalfields and hitting up Montezuma's afterwards. mmmmmmmm, dark choco mango. yum yum!

I've collected quite a list of Britishisms over the past few weeks and will have to write up an entry just about the ones I've heard. There are a lot of subtle differences that I've noticed which just really intrigues me and makes me chuckle.

Well enough typing for tonight, time to relax.