A Londres

After a 5 1/2 hour journey over, Alice and I arrived in London yesterday afternoon with time to spare for a wee bookshop visit (where her sister works) and a swing by the Canada/New Zealand shop (hello Rashuns, L&P, Buzz Bars and Pixie Caramels, oh yeah) before her bus. After that, it was off to the flat of my long-suffering sister, just in time for lunchy munchies. Well, dinner, at any rate. Dinner was at a fancy and tasty restaurant, although our salads were filled with mushy bread...

Today was the big interview, and when I say big, I mean big. It lasted for about 6 hours, including a "make a giraffe with paper cups and newspapers" exercise - our one failed miserably, but everyone in the entire world surely knows by now that it's how you work as a team that matters, not the structural stability of your giraffe; a pesentation in French (I was actually one of the better ones, score!); a written French test (hmmm I think I did aiight); a problem-solving exercise (e.g. "a hire car has broken down, what do you do?"); and a task where you had to add up sums and convert them from euros to pounds etc. Lucky I "borrowed" a trusty calculator from work! I think that all went pretty okay... Then came the individual interview, which also seemed to go fine, although there wasn't much opportunities for me to really state a case for getting the job, it was all rapid-fire pointless "name a time when you've been pissed off with a colleague and what you did" type questions. I tried to play the "I already work in the tourism industry in France" card as much as possible, so let's hope it gets me somewhere. Will hear by the end of the month, so that's all good. I realised about 10 pm tonight that I had been wearing my top backwards all day... Honestly, this is not as stupid a mistake as it sounds, it's one of those tops where it's easily done... Jess didn't notice or anything. But still, d'oh!

Tonight Jess and I went out to dinner at the local gastropub, and may I say OH MY GOD, the swordfish I had was just the best ever. Mmmm tasty. And shout outs to my always generous sis, cheers!

I also picked up lots of English books and even some aimed at improving my French, so hopefully will be stocked up for the next coupla months at the chateau. Tomorrow the mission is to pick up all my fav English treats before the reverse journey back home, to my empty empty room without Alice. Yes, having my own room will be nice, but I'll miss her :(