Election '10 and looking for Accomodation

Week 2 has passed by and it's been full of two things: looking for long-term accommodation and the Australian Federal Election. Not exactly the two items I was really banking on spending much of my time on when I initially signed up for a stint in the UK. I’ll be able to get onto the travel, culture, and all that jazz as soon as i’ve planted myself somewhere... having said that, the Notting Hill Carnival is in London over the weekend, so I won't have to go far!

Tip #2: When searching for accomodation start early.

My first tip for those who are planning on moving on over to work is to start early, and keep at it. Finding a place isn’t the easiest, and there can be quite a lot of competition in the London letting market. One frustrating thing to note is that some of the aggregators can be incorrect (in the sense that properties that have already been rented out or are under offer still show up as ‘hits’).

Given that I didn’t start early enough, nor hard enough – I’ve had to extend my stay at London House for another couple of days. I didn’t quite post up any pictures of London House (it's lovely), so feast your eyes on the pictures below. I'm not sure if I mentioned this last time… I did get a free upgrade from a one-bedder to a two-bedder due to the fact that all the one-bedders were fully booked!





Having said all of this I have actually found longer-term accomodation, it's an expensive shoebox in Bloomsbury. Thankfully it is a hop skip and a jump away from Kings Cross St.Pancras and Russel Square tube stations, so it's a expensive shoebox that happens to be convenient! Just for reference, I was initially looking in and around Angel (Islington), but I was quickly running out of town. Even though the inside is a shoebox, the front of the building looks half-decent! More on the shoebox later, once I move in.



For the second part of today’s blog: the Australian Federal Election. Well, well, well. Very interesting to see a hung parliament! At least I can tell myself that spending the first couple of weeks in London getting involved in campaign work (admittedly only a few days worth) wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Working the booth at Australia House (also known as Gringotts Bank in the Harry Potter movies) was reasonably entertaining this year. Had a great conversation with an Angolan security guard about growing up in Africa and how he wanted to go to Australia when he was younger, discussed the differences in political systems with a lovely Conservative lass from Oxfordshire who had an Aussie friend that’s hardcore Labor, and tried to convince Greens volunteers to consider a 1 Green 2 Libs UK Only “preference deal” (they weren’t biting). Haha! Hillarious.

It’ll prove interesting to see what the result will be! I knew I was onto a good thing when the Libs were out at $4 at the start of the election campaign! Risk-return wise, great odds… so I thought anyway.