I haven't posted in over three months, so I'm beginning to think that I'm just not into blogging anymore. That's not to say I'll never blog again, I just feel I don't have much to say at the moment, and I'd much rather just talk to people. The need for the blog in the first place was that we were living in an awkward time zone, and because of that talking to people on the phone proved both irritating and expensive.

If you miss my rants and raves or just want an update, pop me an email or get ahold of me on facebook, and I'd love to fill you in on the latest.

Ciao for now.

This is a panorama shot, four pictures stitched together in photoshop, of Devil's Dyke. I had posted it to my facebook account, but facebook downsized it. So I'm hoping that posting it here will offer a better viewing experience.

In order to see the high resolution view there are a couple things you can do. You can right-click and choose to save or download the picture, or you can hold ctrl (on the pc, or command on the mac) and click the picture, which will open it in a new tab (as long as you are using Firefox or IE or a similar browser that supports tabbed browsing).

It's been an interesting week. I have to go to my assessment day and final interview for Lloyds TSB on Wednesday, but to make a little extra cash in the meantime I did some temp work this week. Officially I was a 'post room operative', but it was basically eight straight hours of opening returned bank mail and sorting it into piles. Funnily enough, the post room was in charge of sorting the mail for Lloyds, which was pure coincidence.

Before working there I hadn't given much thought to identity theft or how it could really happen, other than people rooting through your rubbish. I got to see how mail rooms are a HUGE security hole and could provide identity thieves with many opportunities for raw material. I was opening thousands of letters a day and had access to names, dates, account numbers and other sensitive data. There was a camera up in the corner, but as far as I could tell that was the extent of the surveillance in the room. I also had access to pens and paper and could have written down any of the data I saw. Nobody checked my bags or pockets at the doors; in fact, the security was frighteningly lax. I was issued a security card to gain entrance into the building, but that was the extent of it. Just so we're clear: I didn't do anything I shouldn't have done, nor was I tempted. I was just shocked at how relaxed everyone was about such sensitive data in the hands of average joe workers.

The post room job was technically straight forward and should have been really boring, but it was really interesting and I actually learned some things. First, I'm not nearly as far in debt as I could be. Second, all those scary letters people get from the bank are computer generated and shouldn't be taken personally. Third, if you ever have accounts in arrears and they threaten to take legal action, they do! I opened so many letters that had to do with collections and courts and legal fees, etc; I was quite taken aback by how much court time must be taken up with collections alone.

FYI: don't EVER send cash in the mail. It can and does easily slip through the cracks and is totally untraceable. You've been warned. No, I didn't see any nefarious behaviour, but like I said before, the security was very lax and nobody was watching the cash handlers that I could see. And honestly, how dumb are you if you have to send cash to pay your bills? Who doesn't have a legitimate bank account these days?

We had a lovely day yesterday in the sunshine, which was a real treat after a week of perpetual gray, and took a bus out of the city to an area called Devil's Dyke. Basically it's a pub surrounded by farms and a sharp valley, with hiking trails and forests scattered about. We both had a lot of fun and got very sun burnt. I'm writing this from my laptop, so I won't be able to post any of the pictures. If you want to see them I'll be posting them on my facebook account in the next few days.

It turns out the sun was visiting just for the weekend, and it's back to the gloomy wetness that England is so famous for. We definitely didn't move here for the weather!

Wow, two posts in one week! Look out, I might make a habit of this blogging stuff!

I went back into the recruitment agency this afternoon for my telephone interview, and I can safely say I've never been so scared in my life. I was given a stack of information about Lloyds as well as a website before I had to call them (yes, I had to call them. Cheeky bastards). I was shaky and nervous and my hands were clammy, and my hands never get clammy. I got my own quiet little office to make the call, which was great, nobody could hear me practicing my name and the different intonation possibilities my prepared introduction. How embarassing, the call may or may not have been recorded for "training purposes" as well. As if the staff don't have a riotous laugh at staff parties playing back all the retarded phone calls they get in day.

Anyway, it went very well and I passed the phone interview. Yay! Now I've been shortlisted and have been invited to attend a further assessment/selection day. There, we'll get a tour of the offices, have a face to face interview, do some role playing (not that kind ;) and then even get to listen in on some calls. Excellent. I'm gonna totally kick ass at the role play part.

Alas, this assessment day isn't until Sep. 3, so I think I get another two weeks to sit and contemplate the world. The temp agency is going to see if there's any work I can do in the meantime to earn my keep. Actually, I have enough money at the moment to not really worry, but I'd like to be able to afford my lattes again.

*Sniff*

I miss coffee!

Look at all the lovely seagulls...

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Well, we've been in Brighton for nearly three weeks now, and so far, so good. I can't say it's perfect, England definitely has it's downsides, but for the most part, we're enjoying it here.

Probably the hardest part right now is that neither of us really have jobs yet. Rob has had some interest from one of the top salons, Rush; but he's still waiting for that crucial call back. If they do ask him back for the interview, he'll need to get a model and do some kick ass hair in front of the managers and owners. That would frighten me if I had to do it, so I'm glad it's him and not me!

I thought I had a job lined up, but again, I'm waiting for the call back. I got an interview with a recruitment agency called Office Angels yesterday. I did an hour of paperwork the night before to streamline my registration process, then the actual interview was nearly two and a half hours long! I had to go through an initial interview, a skills assessment, several personality tests, a few questionnaires, and then a final exit interview. That was just to get in with the agency. Then I had to do some more tests for the interview process in order to apply for a job at a bank called Lloyds. The position is for Telephone Banking Advisor, which quite excites me as it has nothing whatsoever to do with children. I passed part one of the four step interview on the computer; now I'm waiting for Office Angels to let me know if I passed step two. If so, I get a telephone interview with Lloyds, and if I am successful with that, I get a face to face interview.

We're on our way now to have coffee with a woman we met in Smithers at a rave nearly ten years ago. Bizarre.

Below is a picture of a Brighton Pier. It's actually six pictures stitched together, so you'll have to click on the picture to see a higher resolution, up-close view.

Today marks the end of our first week in England. I would say I have mixed feelings about being here, but in all honesty, I don't. I love it. I love that I am becoming human again; my sense of humor is returning, my sense of appreciation for things, my gratitude. My four years in Taiwan have quickly faded to the back of my memory and now seem like a distant, bad dream that I'm slowly waking from.

I've posted some pics on my facebook account of our stay so far. If you're reading this but not yet a member of facebook and want to see the pictures, you should go to facebook.com, sign up and then add me as a friend. Sorry, but I just can't be bothered to add the nearly 100 pictures to this blog, as I can only add five at a time and the process would literally take hours to do.

It's been off and on weather wise. Today it's sunny and brilliant, but the weather is coastal and temperate and moves rather more quickly than I'm used to. Last night we experienced a downpour of tropical proportions, and it was bloody brilliant to have cold rain as opposed to the hot rain I'm used to.

We're on our way now to browse some of the funky shops in the North Laines to replace some of the clothing we left behind at the Taiwan airport. I haven't yet given a full account of what went down on our trip over here, but I will soon. We've just been too busy relaxing and washing off the Taiwan for me to bother with doing things on the computer.

Brighton. Home.

It's day two for us in Brighton, and boy, are things different! Of course, they would be, wouldn't they? I've always been frustrated by people who state the obvious, so I try to not do it so much myself. For me, Brighton is very much an alien world. It's at once familiar and strange; I'm surrounded by people who are speaking my language, mostly, but I don't understand a lot of it. Some of the stores are the same, many are different. The places you'd expect to buy some items aren't in the same stores as in Canada. And of course, the money takes a bit of getting used to.

The first thing we ate here was fish and chips. Not knowing quite what to expect, we ordered one each. That was our first mistake. After quite a long wait we got our dinner and the piece of fish was bigger than my forearm! I was alarmed at the prospect of having to finish the entire fish in one go, but I sunk my teeth in and eventually did it! Had to leave some chips behind, though.

So far, I like it here. It's very typically a seaside city; the salty sea air is cool and refreshing, but hell on the architecture. There are way too many seagulls, I can already tell they are going to annoy me. Rob hated the city on first sight, found it too dirty and way too many rundown buildings and scary/weird people. However, I think it was just jet lag talking, because he's coming around now. It helps that we've got our phones and internet set up now and can communicate with the world. We're having issues getting a bank account, but it will all work out sooner than later, our flatmate Paul assures us.

One thing I already love is that we are very close to all amenities. On foot. We've been into town and back twice already today. We've had breakfast and lunch, gone to the bank to inquire about accounts, had our phones unlocked, gone to another mobile place and bought sim cards, browsed four or five houseware stores and bought various stuff for the house... I'm sure I haven't told everything. The point is: to have accomplished the same thing in Taipei would have taken at least a day or two, and we did it in a morning. Walking. Brilliant.

Actually, I'm still quite tired from the trip and adjusting, so my sentences aren't coming together as well as I'd like. We're going to head into town now, do a little shopping before the shops all close for the night, then head out to find a pint of cider at the pub.

Tomorrow is one of the biggest gay pride festivals in Europe, so I want to make sure we're rested and ready for that.

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Hey, look! We're at the Hong Kong airport eating Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Coming over was a bitch, but I'll explain later, as I have exactly 12 seconds before Rob rips the computer out of my hands. Gotta run to catch my plane to London town!

almost on our way

I'm trying to take my mind off of things by blogging a bit. I'm waiting for Rob to finish getting ready, we're heading out the door soon to go down to the police department. Rob and I both have to pay our overstay fines and avoid getting put in jail. Just kidding; many people overstay their visas and out of everyone I know that has done it, only one of them has gone to jail. But he was a special case and overstayed by six years. Dumb ass.

Then we get to exchange our Taiwan dollars into British pounds, have lunch, then hop in a cab for the airport and we're off!

Cathay Pacific went and changed their baggage handling policies last minute, so it looks like we might end up paying a tremendous amount of money for the privilege of bringing an extra bag each. I'm crossing my fingers it's not too much. The hard part is they don't disclose on their website how much they'll charge. If I knew it was just a flat fee I would stuff the bags almost to capacity and just pay it. If they're going to weigh it and charge per kilo, then I can start chucking the bottom of the list items, the least important ones. Worst case scenario: they have a zero tolerance policy for overweight and make us repack the bags and send the excess on as freight.

Oh, stomach, stop somersaulting!