Everyone has their own thing that helps them establish a sense of permanence. Something you do when you know you're going to be in a place for awhile. It could be joining a book club in your area, a class of some sort, or simply getting a loyalty card at your local coffee shop. For me, it was a gym membership. After the craziness of moving to a new flat (again) and travelling (again), I felt I could finally fall into a routine in my new life. (Furthermore, I should mention I was so out of shape it was embarrassing.) Having that routine of waking up in the mornings and going to the gym before work was, and continues to be important to me, because it finally gives me a sense of normalcy after the craziness of the last three months. Having said that, I'm going to be travelling again in a couple weeks so the craziness will start up again. (At the beginning of October I went to Germany for Oktoberfest and in November I'll be headed to Ireland.. it never stops!)

       I've been working a lot over the last couple of months trying to partially make up for the mass amount of money I spent whilst unemployed in London. The job is nothing glamorous, but its full of creatives and like minded people around my age so the social atmosphere is good. It also has it's own in house talent agency which I obviously signed with. I haven't been auditioning because my headshots were not up to UK standard, so I had to get new ones. (That's a topic for another post, however.) Lately I've been feeling very creatively driven so I've been getting back into writing. Inspiration recently hit me for a new screenplay which I've been tampering a lot with in my head. Writing really helps me when I get into dry spells with my acting. Heck, I was in a dry spell when I wrote Sugar and look how far that's come. 

All in all, I think I've become as settled as you can get in a new country. My new flat is great, mostly for location. Its in zone 2, closer to work, and I have a tesco metro (supermarket), my gym, and GP (doctor) all across the street. It can't get any better than that! 


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I've been in London for just over two months now, and ever since I started walking on British soil I've been mentally collecting a list of everything different from Toronto. Some of these things are noticeable within the first couple of hours and any tourist would see them too, and some of them you wouldn't know until actually living here . This list is constantly growing, so I figured I'd break it down into segments. Furthermore, there's so much I could write about the differences of being an actor in London vs. Toronto, but that's for a whole other list. 

Without further ado:

1. Driving on the other side of the road. (I still catch myself looking left instead of right when crossing the road. You don't realize how engrained such a simple act is until you're expected to flip it around indefinitely.)
2. Service Charge. Most restaurants have a service charge for staying in to eat (but tipping isn't expected). 
3. Council Tax, which is basically a tax for living in a certain area. The amount varies depending where you live. I still don't get it. I mean, London isn't expensive enough, right?
4. Lack of mailbox- or rather, the mailbox is the front hallway because there's a slot on the front door which the mailman slips the mail through. This means when you come home from work you're likely going to have to avoid stepping on a bunch of envelopes. 
5. TRANSIT. Its so much more efficient, however its also much more expensive. London is divided into zones 1 thru 6. Zone 1 is the centre, where most of the touristy stuff is. Zone 6 is the outskirts of London (like Etobicoke in Toronto) and is where Heathrow Airport is. Your tube journey is priced depending on what zone you are travelling to. For example, the cheapest journey would be travelling within your zone, and the most expensive journey would be travelling from zone 6-1. Considering most Londoners work in the centre and live in the further zones, you can imagine how expensive it is just to commute. 
6. Washing machine in the Kitchen. Yes. The Brits wash their clothes in the kitchen. 
7. Supermarket Hierarchy. This isn't so different than Toronto, because anyone knows Nofrills is at the bottom of the barrel, where Longos and Metro are at the top. It's the same in London, however I'd argue the differences between the nicer supermarkets and the cheaper ones are a lot more noticeable. Iceland is the cheapest most basic Supermarket there is. I went in there once and they didn't have broccoli, so I'm never going in there again. Waitrose, however, is the nicest, biggest, luxurious, and most expensive Supermarket. I went in there once and I swear I heard angels sing. I tend to stick to mid range, basic Tesco. Tesco is nowhere near comparable to Waitrose, however its infinitely better than Iceland. There's also so many more of them for some reason, so its a lot more likely you'll be living close to a Tesco than any other supermarket. 
8. Drip coffee isn't a thing. If you're coming to London for the first time, don't expect to order drip coffee at any coffee shop. I hope you enjoy Americanos, because that's as close as you're going to get to your cuppa. (I do recall this being a Europe wide thing, and not just in the UK, however.)
9. Everyone is going on Holiday. I should clarify, Holiday= Vacation. Maybe its because its so cheap and easy to travel anywhere from the UK, maybe because Londoners get 28 days of paid Holiday for a 5 day work week (Ontarians get 2-3 weeks), but I swear everywhere I go someone is going on Holiday, or has just gotten back from Holiday. In Canada if we are going on vacation, we need to plan and save up for months in advance because flights are stupidly expensive. In London, its so easy to go anywhere. 
10. Pub Culture. This is perhaps my favourite because I absolutely love London's relationship with alcohol. Firstly, lets clarify that Pubs and Bars are very different. You go to a pub after work with coworkers and drink a pint. Pubs close early, typically around 10, or 11. You can bring kids into pubs. You can drink outside a pub with your mates. If you're walking the streets of London during happy hour you will see on every corner a crowded pub with people drinking on the sidewalk outside. Bars, on the other hand, are typically what we're used to in Toronto. They're usually open later and are generally for 18+. I find the UK much more open about alcohol than Canada. We keep it under lock and key and are so strict about public drinking (or lack thereof.) The UK isn't. It still has regulations, of course, but they're much more open about it, and I think it's a much smarter approach.

It's been about a month and a half since I've arrived in the UK. There have been some absolute highs, most of which were spent in that first three weeks during my program. It seems moving to a new country is never all highs, however. 

After coming back from Wales I ran into a serious depression. I hardly knew anyone, I had no job, acquiring a bank account did not prove as easy as I thought it was going to be, and I was also trying not to spend money. Furthermore, I was informed that the landlord of the flat I had just moved into had decided to sell the place so I was forced into another flat hunt much sooner than I deemed appropriate. 

I threw myself into the necessities of being a UK resident. I applied for a NIN (National Insurance Number), I tried (and failed) many times to get a bank account, I applied for jobs,  and I watched a lot of netflix. There's something about not needing to be anywhere or do anything that makes a person very lazy. I had zero ambition. Which is saying something because everyone who knows me knows that ambition is in my blood. I breath it. But not then. Then I was waisting away in netflix marathon after netflix marathon. 

There was also the necessities of being a UK based actor. I applied for Spotlight, which is the UK's leading casting website that every professional actor needs. The Canadian equivalent would be Casting Workbook, except the difference is for Spotlight you can't just sign up and pay the fee. You need at least 2 years of professional acting training or 4 professional credits, which only include feature films and television. Not to mention applying for an agent without a Spotlight would be hopeless, as mostly all require one while submitting. I had the two years of acting training, so I assumed I'd be able to acquire one easily. Nope. I was rejected. I emailed them explaining there's no reason I should have been rejected as I did have a diploma from a professional acting school. They finally gave me an account and I've been applying for agents ever since. 

I also signed up for the Actor's Centre which is a membership that allows actors infinite opportunities for classes and workshops. I took a workshop last week which I found very fulfilling. 

Finally, I was successful in my attempts at getting a bank account, and I found a flat that I move into mid September. I also got a job, which I don't start till next week. 

Last week I was sick of laying on my arse doing nothing and I wanted one last adventure before starting my job, so I spontaneously went to Scotland to take in the Edinburgh Fringe as well as explore my Scottish ancestry. It reminded me how close I am to everything in Europe and the rest of the UK, and to really take advantage of it. Despite all the struggles and lows, I'm still really glad I'm here. The fact that I can book a trip to Scotland the day before at such a low price is still amazing to me. I don't think that will ever change.

Looking out the view from Castle Campbell in Dollar, Scotland