ATAAHUA ORA

Continuing our theme of not being stuck in London every weekend, on a spur of a moment we decided to go check out Manchester. Quick check of the train prices and the decision to hire a car was made, giving us a bit more flexibility and a bit more spare change in the pocket. That could be used for overnight accommodation, for example - which is what we did. Unfortunately, the hotel we picked was a bit too budget even for our liking, so we don’t recommend staying in Copperhead Hotel (and we were told that they’ll be opening the biggest nightclub in England underneath the hotel in April!). On the way we stopped in Kenilworth, where we walked around a castle, jousting, strolling and pretending to be knights and ladies. Lots of fun. After lunch the closer we were getting to Manchester, the greyer the clouds became until it was drizzling during our approach into the city. Which, apparently, is usual. Manchester was a city true to it’s industrial roots and definitely lived up to a reputation of a working town. Check out the pictures here and here.

Kontynuując nasze postanowienie niespędzania dwóch weekendów pod rząd w Londynie, zdecydowaliśmy się odwiedzić Manchester. Po szybkim sprawdzeniu cen biletów pociągowych zdecydowaliśmy się na wynajem samochodu, co pozwoliło nam odwiedzić po drodze zamek Kenilworth i jeszcze zostało nam pieniędzy na nocleg. Hotel niestety okazał się bardzo budżetowy, nawet jak na nasze gusta, więc nie polecamy nocowania w Copperhead Hotel (do tego zostaliśmy poinformowani, że od kwietnia pod hotelem rusza największy klub nocny w Anglii, więc kolejny powód, żeby znaleźć inne miejsce na złożenie utrudzonej głowy wędrowca). Im bliżej do Manchester, tym grubsze chmury, aż w końcu zaczęło kropić. Podobno to normalne, więc nie przejęliśmy się i poszliśmy zwiedzać miasto, w którym namacalne są korzenie industrialne, a reputacja pracującego miasta jest z pewnością odpowiednia. Zdjęcia tutaj i tutaj.

Manchester’s famous red brick / Słynna czerwona cegła Manchester

The long awaited photo report from our coach trip to the Three Valleys in French Alps has been posted! Check it out here. It turned out the bus was loaded onto a train, that then took us across and UNDER the English Channel. Yep, we travelled the Euro Tunnel. We survived the trip fine, managed to sleep through most of it but always waking up when the bus stopped for refuelling and people got off for a smoke. The first day on the slopes was slightly painful because of that but we still managed to get lots of boarding in on the first day. The second and third days were awesome and the on the trip back we slept like bricks (no doubt thanks to a full day of boarding done beforehand!). London welcomed us with the snow of the century and we just managed to miss the mayhem that was Monday, February 2nd 2009, when all of the buses and most of the metro were closed, forcing most of the people working in London to “work from home” that day. Building snowmen and having snow fights, as faithfully documented by London’s journalists.

W końcu wrzuciłam zdjęcia z urodzinowego wypadu na śnieg do Trzech Dolin w Alpach Francuskich. Album można znaleźć tutaj. Okazało się, że autobus został załadowany na pociąg, który przewiózł nas na drugą stronę Kanału Angielskiego POD wodą, Euro Tunelem. Drogę do Francji głównie przespaliśmy, budząc się jednak w czasie każdego postoju na stacji, gdy ludzie lawinowo wysiadali na papierosa. Z tego też pewnie powodu pierwszy dzień na stokach był dosyć bolesny, ale i tak zaliczony do udanych. Drugi i trzeci dzień były wspaniałe, pogoda dopisała i jeździliśmy do oporu. W drodze powrotnej spaliśmy jak kamienie (zapewne dzięki temu, że najpierw wymęczyliśmy się na śniegu) i przyjechaliśmy do Londynu witani wydarzeniem roku, czyli… śniegiem. Na szczęście udało się nam ominąć chaos 2 lutego, gdy autobusy i metro nie jeździły i większość ludzi “pracowała z domu” - budując bałwany i rzucając się śnieżkami, co zostało udokumentowane przez sumiennych londyńskich dziennikarzy.

Belleville Valley / Dolina Belleville

Or maybe all my hair will fall out (or be pulled out in desperation). All of you in NZ stop complaining about the red tape and listen to this.
*RANT WARNING*

It all started with us landing in London, armed with previous experience of moving countries to Canada. First things first - let’s get a bank account. Went to a couple of different banks - no home address = no bank account. Unless you want to lock yourself into 12 months of incredibly expensive account that apart from taking your money does nothing for you (HSBC), a completely useless account with a debit card,a very small limit and no possibility to use it on the Internet (Barclays). But hold on, we have friends here, we could use their address, right? Wrong! No tenancy agreements or letters from landlords are acceptable. It has to be a utility bill or a council tax estimate IN YOUR NAME - anything less official will not do. Then we heard that NatWest is offering accounts for Polish immigrants - and all you need is a passport! So I applied. Waited for two weeks, nothing. Called them - “Sorry, we haven’t received your application. Go to a branch and get them to send it”. That’s what I did before! And it still got lost. Anyway, went to a different branch, filled out the 10,000 pages again, sent it away. Called after a week to check that they got it this time. “Yes, but there is a small problem. Your passport is missing an identification number. We can’t open an account without it”. Awesome. By this time I was already working and we managed to find a flat with a very understanding landlady, who took our cash for the first month and agreed to wait for the deposit until we sort out our banking problems. In the end a utility bill finally arrived, I got my work to write me a letter confirmation that I am employed and money will be going into the account (another piece of paper that opens up a lot of doors) and managed to open a joint account at Lloyds TSB.

Next was the job - there are so many recruitment agencies in London that the same job can be advertised by 10 different people, cutting the number of apparently available positions down by quite a big chunk. Plus they’re all useless, most of them will waste your time on the phone just fishing for information and building up their network of contacts, leaving you with “I will send you the job description via email” and you never hear from them again.

Finding a flat was also a lot of fun. All the letting agencies required 6 weeks bond and one month in advance. As soon as we told them we only just arrived in the country and are still looking for jobs the bond evolved into a guarantor - a UK resident, who can guarantee our solvency for 12 months!!! Luckily we managed to find a private let, made a good impression on the landlady and convinced her to rent her flat to us. Somehow we also managed to convince her to furnish it, complete from bed, sofa and table, through kitchen cutlery, plates, pots & pans to bed linen, newly bought especially for us!

With starting the jobs we had to apply for National Insurance numbers (like IRD in NZ). The only appointment I could secure was a month away from the time when I called. And on the day I had to take half a day off to go to the closest office, which was an hour’s bus drive away from our flat and another hour away from my work. After the interview (which was nothing more than me presenting my passport and the girl filling out a form in my name) I was sent home to wait for my number, which should arrive after around 8 weeks. By post.

By now we started to settle into our flat, and the first thing we needed was Internet of course, since Lukas was still looking for a job and needed something to fill his days sitting at home. Option one was to go with British Telecom but after being quoted £120 for installation of a telephone line we looked elsewhere and picked Virgin Media after being promised £10 installation, phone line & broadband Internet for £8 a month for the first 6 months and free Virgin Digital TV. The fastest installation date was two weeks from the date we called. Then the guy installed Internet and forgot about the phone line. Then the second guy came after another two weeks and poked another hole in our wall to stick another cable out. Then the bill arrived. We’re still sorting the bill out today.

With all this excitement you would think I didn’t need any more distractions. But something was gnawing at the back of my mind. Like there was something else I was supposed to do and forgot. Finally it dawned on me - Polish immigrants working in the UK must register with UK Border Agency within one month of starting a job! This was now middle of December, we were getting ready to go skiing in Italy and then to Poland for Christmas and the registration process required us to send our passports away with the prospect of MAYBE getting them back in two weeks. Of course, we couldn’t do that and since we were already late with the registration anyway, what’s one more month? In the end we sent the applications at the beginning of January and got the passports back VIA MAIL just in time for our trip to France. Lucky!

One last thing remains, which I attempted to yesterday and this is what sparked this rant. I wanted to make an appointment with a doctor to get some prescriptions. Normally, I call the nearest doctors’ clinic to my work, make an appointment, go get a prescription during lunchtime and forget about the whole deal. But not in the UK. I called the clinic closest to my work, which is less than 5 minutes walk from my office. Sorry, I have to register first and I can only register at a clinic that serves the area where I live. Because if I need a home visit they will be the closest to me. Like I’ve ever needed a home visit. Anyway, Google to the rescue, found a very useful-looking NHS site that allowed me to enter a post code and presented me with a list of clinics in my area. Presumably, they all serve my address since I just entered my post code, right? Wrong. The first clinic on the list, which also is the closest to my home does not serve patients from my street. Their area ends one street over. So now I have to call all the clinics from the list, find out which one will let me register, walk over there to pick up a registration form, walk there again to drop off the registration form, only then can I make an appointment and get my prescription. This better be free! And the best part? If we move houses and end up in another clinic’s catchment area the whole process will start again…