A Little Update

Hi guys! So this week I went to a photography class that I had found and it was very interesting. I just got a new camera which is a D3300 before I left Canada and am super excited to learn more about it. I have also signed up for a course on cupcakes which I am excited for because I am such a foodie. I also talked to a barn about volunteering so things are moving and coming into place now. This week I haven’t done a whole ton but I saw on Facebook that apparetly a woman gave birth in a tube station, not sure if that is true or not. It’s been super rainy here all week after like a month of nice sunny weather. Also the weather app lies to you; it may say its 8 degrees but I went outside and could see my breath and thought I should have worn a hat and mitts. I also found out apparently horse chestnuts keep away spiders but I was too late to find them. I am terrified of spiders. I bought rubber gloves and tons of paper towel to learn how to kill bugs. I told my cousin if I saw a huge spider in my flat I was going to call him and he would have to train for an hour to come and kill it for me. He told me if I call him for that he’s going to pretend he has bad reception and hang up on me. I feel the love.  I am also scared of birds which isn’t really helpful in a city full of birds. I have gotten slightly better at walking past pigeons but they still terrify me and they fly way to close to me. I thought I would also let you in on some of the things nobody tells you about when you move to the UK. First it is super hard to get a bank account over here but since I went through BritBound it was much easier to get one. Next is you need a TV license if you have a TV but you also need one if you don’t have a TV. If you watch anything live on your phone or laptop you need a license or they can fine you. You also need to pay council tax, which is like property tax, for 10 months out of 12 but you are basically still paying for 12 months worth. My cousin in Canada told me about the story bucket because apparently I tell story bucket stories. Basically the way the story bucket works is when you tell a crap story somebody will open their arms like a bucket and then close the bucket. This means that the story has gone in the bucket and is never supposed to come back out again. Most of my stories go there… My family friend told me I should  write a journal about my adventures and if it was good then maybe one day maybe it would be published. My cousin then told me I should write a journal of my stories and I told him oh my family friend just said that too and maybe one day it will be published. Well he then told me “No. I meant if you write a journal you will get your stories out that way and then I won’t have to hear them.” Ya once again feeling the love haha. Well that I will admit that was a story bucket story in itself, but those are they kind of stories you guys will hear lots of. I will apologize in advance for that. Once again in other news I am going to Scotland for a weekend this month. Yes this is how my brain works I flip subjects very quickly. For instance now I am once again thinking about how I would love pasta for dinner. I had also thought of making a YouTube channel but I am not sure what I would want to do with it yet, so if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. I will hopefully be posting more pictures of my journey as well, as I start getting better at using my camera. If you have any suggestions on what I should be seeing in London or Europe in general let me know because I am always looking for something new to do. On another subject though if you haven’t noticed I don’t take myself that seriously and neither does most of my family so most of my stories if not taken the right way may sound like we are just being mean to each other but it’s all out of love just trying to have a laugh. It took me a while to figure out how to watch Canadian Netflix here but now I have and I swear I’ve watched everything there is to watch already. I feel like I try not to post super long blog posts but it never works out. I’ve titled this a little update but by no means is this little or that much of an update… Close enough haha I tried

Life so Far

Hello,

I am a Canadian who has recently moved to London and am going to tell my story about this up coming year as it comes. So to tell you a little more about myself I am 18,  just graduated high school in June, love telling stories, and am on a GAP year in London before going back to school next year. I am known for my stories some people love them others mock them. My cousin tells me they aren’t stories they are just sentences of facts that have happened to you. I have now been in London for just over a month and I have some family friends here and one cousin for now. I am not 100% sure why I chose to come to London or what my whole plan is while I am here so I’m kind of just taking things as they come. I have always had a fascination with London and I’m not sure if it is because I truly love the city or if its just because the one cousin I’ve looked up to lives here. When I came here I joined a group called BritBound and met some other Canadians as well as Aussies and Kiwis.

My life for the past month has kind of just been a world wind. My mom came with me to get me set up and stayed with me for just under a month and recently went back home about a week and a half ago. When she was here I had my sister visit us from Edinburgh for a week, she is on an exchange there until Christmas. We went to Cambridge as well as Windsor which were both beautiful. I also got a flat and moved in while both of them were still here which was an experience on its own. There was so much to learn about moving to England, nobody tells you that you need a tv license when you live here or you need to pay council tax even if you are renting. Since my mom has left, yes I’ve had a little cry about it, I’ve been trying to find different things to do. I have been to the Chelsea Football Club and had a tour, I saw Alan Carr: Chatty Man filmed live, I went to the British Museum, I saw the poppies with my cousin at London Tower, we also walked across London Bridge, along the Thames, and went to Borough market. With my family friends I have been to see the outskirts of London and many parks and another market.  I learned about 15 minutes after my mom left how much I miss having a car and how heavy 3 bags of flour can be even if its only a 15 minute walk home. The one thing I miss a lot is my dog, Madeline, and my horse, Justin. The first thing I did when I got here was put pictures of them on my bedroom wall.

I don’t want to make this too long but I hope to post at least once a week and we’ll see where this takes us. Thanks for taking time to read this and come on my journey with me. Hopefully you found it somewhat interesting and I promise after this one things will be more interesting and fun.

Ashley