Last weekend I worked 8 hours over the course of Saturday and Sunday. So much for looking forward to "UK hours". And the best part is that everyone I tell this to seems to look horrified that I worked over the weekend. It's like everyone here works a lot, but they just don't talk about it or admit it. Maybe it's the 'English reserve'? Who knows. I think the reason was that I was working on a US client, and the client seemed to be expecting me to work US hours. Anyway, it is done (kind of).
I've been meaning to tell all of my accounting friends some of the funny/weird/interesting differences between the UK and US accounting world (non accountants may now zone out - I promise you can come back in a paragraph or two, it'll get more interesting). Anyway, some terms that are different: Debtors = accounts receivable, creditors = accounts payable, stock = inventory (you can imagine how confused I was the first time that I looked at a balance sheet and saw stock up in assets), they have completely different terms for anything in equity. Of course dates are different - days come before months, so December 31 is 31/12. I keep saying, "twelve thirty-one" and people look at me like, "silly American". Oh, I also keep saying dollars too instead of sterling or pounds. It was actually nice to work on a US client last week so I could write dates the way that I'm used to and put Zs (that's pronounced "zed" here, ??) in my 'recognize' and 'realize' with abandon. I lapped it up.
And I'm still having an immense amount of trouble saying "trousers" instead of pants (pants mean underwear here, remember?). I took some "pants" into the tailor the other day and told the tailor that I need my pants taken in at the waist a little bit. He seriously could hardly hold it in. Fortunately I live in an area with a lot of Americans so he's used to it.
I found out that here, when it's your birthday, guess who gets to bring treats? You do! What is that?? You have to bring treats for the entire department! I'm debating whether or not to ignore my birthday so that no one knows or whether to make my American chocolate chip cookies. Decisions, decisions. Also Dasha told me that you're supposed to bring treats in after you go on holiday somewhere, like even if you just go for a weekend. Definitely going to exercise my ignorant American card on that one. I sound kind of cynical, don't I?
I started going to yoga last week on Monday, and I could barely get out of bed on Tuesday. Or Wednesday. I went to an Ashtanga class that was so packed we couldn't spread our arms wide, and it felt a little like boot camp. There was no music, the lights were full on, and the teacher just kept calling out poses like they were commands. But Thursday I went to a different class with a different teacher and it was much, much better. I went to an Anusara class and it was so fun - we did partner poses and handstands and a nice long savasana at the end. Ahhh...
On Saturday Dasha let me tag along with her to a house party, and then we all went to a club in Putney that was so fun, and the best part - loads of cute boys! Dasha and I walked in, took one look at the dance floor, looked at each other and just smiled! Of course I didn't really act on it, I mean I was having such a good time dancing to euro-trash music, how could I pay attention to the boys? It was really fun though (they also play loads of American-trash music too), and a very late night, although somehow I've been able to keep up without noticing the early morning hours.
Must sleep now, I've been finding it hard to get enough...
Love to all,
Heather
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
One month down!
I absolutely cannot believe that it has been a month since I've moved to London, at times it feels like I only arrived yesterday.
This week at work was rather boring, I keep waiting for the trips to fabulous places. Of course, a trip to a fabulous place to work is a bit disappointing, b/c you're stuck working all day. I do actually like working in the FRAG group though, b/c it's different from regular audit in that the work we do is consulting, so clients actually want us to be there and want our opinion. It's a welcome change from knowing that the clients consider you a necessary evil and count the days until you're done. I also like that the projects are always different too. I am ready to get out of the office though, I'm getting a bit stir crazy sitting at my desk day after day. Last Monday we went to the office at Finsbury Square, the largest GT office in London, and had an all day technical accounting update training. Riveting. But really, it was good for me b/c they focused on IFRS and I need to start thinking that instead of US GAAP. I did have a rather stellar moment though, the training leader asked a two part question, to which I answered both parts incorrectly, and the leader just kind of blinked at me after telling me why both of my answers were incorrect. Awesome way to make a first impression on the majority of my new partners. I will say though, it was in the morning and I hadn't had coffee yet. And I also thought that maybe they would just think that I was a silly American who was talking US GAAP. Although, my answer was probably wrong under US GAAP too, I really have no idea.
On Monday I had my first experience at a real, full-size grocery store (the one in my neighborhood that I had talked about before is very mini, almost like a glorified c-store), and it was amazing. Seriously, I felt better after that shopping trip than I have since I've been here. It may sound weird, but some of you know how much I love grocery shopping, it's therapeutic to me. Anyway, they had everything I wanted and a big selection to choose from. I was in heaven. Then I had to walk home in my suit and heels with heavy grocery bags and I was not so much in heaven.
We got our heat fixed, after figuring out that we were in fact not idiots who couldn't work a thermostat but that it was indeed broken. The heat felt amazing! But of course two days after we got it fixed it got warm again and we haven't even had it on for the last two days. Oh well. At least we know that it will work when we need it again.
I still have not been successful in getting through the firewall on my computer so that Skype and another program that will allow me to watch live football will work. I'm really so pissed at this point and I won't be shy about expressing my contempt for the GT IT dept. for blocking Skype. I mean really, what harm is it going to do to let me talk to my family and see their faces while we talk? One word: Lame.
You know what I've really been missing lately? Chipotle. Mmmm... Also Target, although not so much Target but just the convenience of a store in which you can get everything that you need. I know that I'll find places where I can find everything that I need, but right now I would love to go to Target. Maybe I can get the ingredients for a Chipotle and make it myself.
On Friday I went out for my first big night on the town and it was so fun! Dasha, Andrea, Dan, and two of Dasha's friends came out. We started at the flat and played drinking games, a little juvenile but so much fun! We played kings and I tried to introduce P&A, but it wasn't received so well. Then we went out to a club called Studio Valbonne off of Regent Street that was stupidly expensive to get into and outrageously pretentious, but ended up being so fun b/c we were having fun together. The dancing was great, granted I stood out for most of the euro-trash techno songs, but there was enough good music that I ended the night sweaty and tired and my hair had lost all of the curl that I had spent so much time putting in at the beginning of the night. We didn't make it home until 3:30 am, and I immediately passed out. Fortunately I stuck to beer the whole night so I woke up with a minimal hangover and cleaned up the mess of our flat before the other roomies woke up. Needless to say we were all fairly worthless yesterday. But I did make more chocolate chip cookies - they're a hit!
Today I went on a run for the first time since being in London. I went in Regent's Park, where the outer circle is 5k. Didn't exactly run the whole 5k, but it was a good effort for my first run in two months. Then I went to Hampstead and met up with Janet McMullen's friend who used to live in London and is in town for about a week. We had Sunday Roast at a pub called Hollybush, it was so delicious. Sunday Roast is exactly what it sounds like - some kind of roast meat (I had chicken), then potaotes, veggies, etc (think hearty 'American' food - same theme). Mine was made up of the chicken, roasted potatoes, carrots, red cabbage, and stuffing. After washing it all down with a pint of lager I was set for the day! Then he showed me around the town of Hampstead and the Heath (a huge 900 acre park). It was so beautiful - I definitely have a place to take all of my visitors! There is a hill in the Heath called Parliament Hill where you can see out over the whole city of London. We happened to go right at sundown, so the view was spectacular.
Ok, I need to go to bed, it's almost 1 am and I'm sleepy...
xoxo,
Heather
This week at work was rather boring, I keep waiting for the trips to fabulous places. Of course, a trip to a fabulous place to work is a bit disappointing, b/c you're stuck working all day. I do actually like working in the FRAG group though, b/c it's different from regular audit in that the work we do is consulting, so clients actually want us to be there and want our opinion. It's a welcome change from knowing that the clients consider you a necessary evil and count the days until you're done. I also like that the projects are always different too. I am ready to get out of the office though, I'm getting a bit stir crazy sitting at my desk day after day. Last Monday we went to the office at Finsbury Square, the largest GT office in London, and had an all day technical accounting update training. Riveting. But really, it was good for me b/c they focused on IFRS and I need to start thinking that instead of US GAAP. I did have a rather stellar moment though, the training leader asked a two part question, to which I answered both parts incorrectly, and the leader just kind of blinked at me after telling me why both of my answers were incorrect. Awesome way to make a first impression on the majority of my new partners. I will say though, it was in the morning and I hadn't had coffee yet. And I also thought that maybe they would just think that I was a silly American who was talking US GAAP. Although, my answer was probably wrong under US GAAP too, I really have no idea.
On Monday I had my first experience at a real, full-size grocery store (the one in my neighborhood that I had talked about before is very mini, almost like a glorified c-store), and it was amazing. Seriously, I felt better after that shopping trip than I have since I've been here. It may sound weird, but some of you know how much I love grocery shopping, it's therapeutic to me. Anyway, they had everything I wanted and a big selection to choose from. I was in heaven. Then I had to walk home in my suit and heels with heavy grocery bags and I was not so much in heaven.
We got our heat fixed, after figuring out that we were in fact not idiots who couldn't work a thermostat but that it was indeed broken. The heat felt amazing! But of course two days after we got it fixed it got warm again and we haven't even had it on for the last two days. Oh well. At least we know that it will work when we need it again.
I still have not been successful in getting through the firewall on my computer so that Skype and another program that will allow me to watch live football will work. I'm really so pissed at this point and I won't be shy about expressing my contempt for the GT IT dept. for blocking Skype. I mean really, what harm is it going to do to let me talk to my family and see their faces while we talk? One word: Lame.
You know what I've really been missing lately? Chipotle. Mmmm... Also Target, although not so much Target but just the convenience of a store in which you can get everything that you need. I know that I'll find places where I can find everything that I need, but right now I would love to go to Target. Maybe I can get the ingredients for a Chipotle and make it myself.
On Friday I went out for my first big night on the town and it was so fun! Dasha, Andrea, Dan, and two of Dasha's friends came out. We started at the flat and played drinking games, a little juvenile but so much fun! We played kings and I tried to introduce P&A, but it wasn't received so well. Then we went out to a club called Studio Valbonne off of Regent Street that was stupidly expensive to get into and outrageously pretentious, but ended up being so fun b/c we were having fun together. The dancing was great, granted I stood out for most of the euro-trash techno songs, but there was enough good music that I ended the night sweaty and tired and my hair had lost all of the curl that I had spent so much time putting in at the beginning of the night. We didn't make it home until 3:30 am, and I immediately passed out. Fortunately I stuck to beer the whole night so I woke up with a minimal hangover and cleaned up the mess of our flat before the other roomies woke up. Needless to say we were all fairly worthless yesterday. But I did make more chocolate chip cookies - they're a hit!
Today I went on a run for the first time since being in London. I went in Regent's Park, where the outer circle is 5k. Didn't exactly run the whole 5k, but it was a good effort for my first run in two months. Then I went to Hampstead and met up with Janet McMullen's friend who used to live in London and is in town for about a week. We had Sunday Roast at a pub called Hollybush, it was so delicious. Sunday Roast is exactly what it sounds like - some kind of roast meat (I had chicken), then potaotes, veggies, etc (think hearty 'American' food - same theme). Mine was made up of the chicken, roasted potatoes, carrots, red cabbage, and stuffing. After washing it all down with a pint of lager I was set for the day! Then he showed me around the town of Hampstead and the Heath (a huge 900 acre park). It was so beautiful - I definitely have a place to take all of my visitors! There is a hill in the Heath called Parliament Hill where you can see out over the whole city of London. We happened to go right at sundown, so the view was spectacular.
Ok, I need to go to bed, it's almost 1 am and I'm sleepy...
xoxo,
Heather
Friday, October 3, 2008
Settling In
I can't believe it's been over a week since my last post, the days are going by so quickly! Last weekend was great - Friday I went to the cinema with Dasha and Andrea to see Righteous Kill (I know it came out ages ago in the States, don't remind me. I hate that I have to wait forever to see the shows and movies that you guys already have), and then on Saturday I went to a place near Piccadilly Circus that I heard played college football games to watch the Ohio State game. I was reminded of how I should avoid that area, particularly at night. There are so many tourists there it's annoying. And of course they weren't even playing the OSU game, they were playing Michigan State and Indiana. But it was good to watch American football anyway. Tomorrow I'm just going to stream the game online since it's at 1am for me anyway.
I've been getting more and more comfortable with my surroundings every day, I think I've mostly lost that scared-child/deer-in-headlights look for the most part. The main reason is b/c I'm much better at deciphering the English accent and I can tell what the hell people are saying to me. The next trick is learning all of the different words and slang that they use here, and getting in the habit of using it so I don't get the deer-in-headlights look from them. The worst is when I say pants instead of trousers. Pants means underwear here, and for some reason it's just really hard for me to catch myself on that one. Embarrassing.
I love St. John's Wood so far. It's like a little village in the middle of the big city, with everything that I need in a five block radius, and it's much less busy than other parts of the city. And being two blocks away from Regent's Park isn't bad either. Not that I've taken advantage of that or anything - I haven't been on a run yet since I've moved. I have started to look for a yoga studio though and I think I've found one that's pretty close to me. It's outrageously expensive, but I've become accustomed to "London prices", I mean at least I don't dry heave every time I look at a price tag anymore. It helps to not convert it to dollars.
My flatmates are really amazing as well - Dasha and I have very similar interests so we've been doing a lot together and have spent the last few days emailing back and forth all day. There is a show called Peep Show here that is hysterical - I saw a few episodes on the plane on the way over and was laughing out loud, people were staring at me. Anyway, I asked Dasha about it and turns out she loves it too! The new season is starting soon so I've been trying to catch up on the previous seasons, we've been watching an episode or two every night. It makes me cry from laughing so hard sometimes. You guys should check it out - go to alluc.net and search for Peep Show.
I've got the bus system to and from work down now, so well in fact that I can even talk on my cell (er, mobile) phone while riding instead of staring out the window trying to tell one building from the next and wondering if I'm near home. Makes me feel much more cosmopolitan that I can just hop on the bus and zone out.
It's so cold here already - no idea what the temperature is b/c I can't convert to Celsius so I've just stopped bothering to look - but I wore my winter coat to work for the first time today. I've been told that this is unusually cold for this time of year, but I'm skeptical. It's comforting to know that it doesn't ever get really cold here, like Kansas City cold. The worst part is that we can't figure out how to turn on the heat in our flat - I'm sitting here right now in two layers of blankets with the computer on my lap for warmth and a cup of tea next to me to warm my hands (and my nose) every once in a while. Being from the desert, I'm not one for cold anyway and my roommates don't seem to think it's quite as bad, but it's cold!
My week at work wasn't so bad as last week, I certainly didn't stay as late in the evenings. This FRAG group seems like it's going to be interesting, it's a lot of consulting work regarding different IFRS issues.
On Wednesday I went to dinner with a bunch of people from work and their wives/husbands/etc. for the going away party of the guy that I'm replacing (he's going back to the US). We definitely made a night of it, we went to a pub, then dinner, then another pub. It was so much fun but we stayed out too late. It helps that we don't have to go in until 9 here, but I didn't even make it in by then.
Miss you all loads!
Heather
I've been getting more and more comfortable with my surroundings every day, I think I've mostly lost that scared-child/deer-in-headlights look for the most part. The main reason is b/c I'm much better at deciphering the English accent and I can tell what the hell people are saying to me. The next trick is learning all of the different words and slang that they use here, and getting in the habit of using it so I don't get the deer-in-headlights look from them. The worst is when I say pants instead of trousers. Pants means underwear here, and for some reason it's just really hard for me to catch myself on that one. Embarrassing.
I love St. John's Wood so far. It's like a little village in the middle of the big city, with everything that I need in a five block radius, and it's much less busy than other parts of the city. And being two blocks away from Regent's Park isn't bad either. Not that I've taken advantage of that or anything - I haven't been on a run yet since I've moved. I have started to look for a yoga studio though and I think I've found one that's pretty close to me. It's outrageously expensive, but I've become accustomed to "London prices", I mean at least I don't dry heave every time I look at a price tag anymore. It helps to not convert it to dollars.
My flatmates are really amazing as well - Dasha and I have very similar interests so we've been doing a lot together and have spent the last few days emailing back and forth all day. There is a show called Peep Show here that is hysterical - I saw a few episodes on the plane on the way over and was laughing out loud, people were staring at me. Anyway, I asked Dasha about it and turns out she loves it too! The new season is starting soon so I've been trying to catch up on the previous seasons, we've been watching an episode or two every night. It makes me cry from laughing so hard sometimes. You guys should check it out - go to alluc.net and search for Peep Show.
I've got the bus system to and from work down now, so well in fact that I can even talk on my cell (er, mobile) phone while riding instead of staring out the window trying to tell one building from the next and wondering if I'm near home. Makes me feel much more cosmopolitan that I can just hop on the bus and zone out.
It's so cold here already - no idea what the temperature is b/c I can't convert to Celsius so I've just stopped bothering to look - but I wore my winter coat to work for the first time today. I've been told that this is unusually cold for this time of year, but I'm skeptical. It's comforting to know that it doesn't ever get really cold here, like Kansas City cold. The worst part is that we can't figure out how to turn on the heat in our flat - I'm sitting here right now in two layers of blankets with the computer on my lap for warmth and a cup of tea next to me to warm my hands (and my nose) every once in a while. Being from the desert, I'm not one for cold anyway and my roommates don't seem to think it's quite as bad, but it's cold!
My week at work wasn't so bad as last week, I certainly didn't stay as late in the evenings. This FRAG group seems like it's going to be interesting, it's a lot of consulting work regarding different IFRS issues.
On Wednesday I went to dinner with a bunch of people from work and their wives/husbands/etc. for the going away party of the guy that I'm replacing (he's going back to the US). We definitely made a night of it, we went to a pub, then dinner, then another pub. It was so much fun but we stayed out too late. It helps that we don't have to go in until 9 here, but I didn't even make it in by then.
Miss you all loads!
Heather
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