2010 is coming to an end...

I would like to begin this post by saying thank you to all nine of my followers....taking time out of your day to share with me in this journey has meant so much to me. Just think... when my blog hits 1 million followers, you will be able to say "I was there when it all began". Kudos. 

It has been three weeks since my last update.

Week 1: moved to Leeds... the cultural, financial and commercial heart of West Yorkshire, England (or so claims wikipedia). Also home to my Grandad, Aunt Carol, and 50 cousins whom I have yet to meet. Although it is nice to have the family and support here it hasn't really made me miss my family back home any less :( Luckily I have not had the time to be homesick, because within the first week I had landed myself a J-O-B. oh yes, it was finally time to start rebuilding my fortune after that little "misunderstanding" in London. Where could this new job be you might be asking?! None other than The Lazy Lounge in Leeds city centre. I know it sounds a little like a dimly lit dive bar filled with overweight people sitting in front of slot machines drinking cheep beer... but it is actually a rather nice upscale wine bar.

Week two: This week is not much different from week one, accept for the fact that I have become completely immersed in work. Partly because I need the money, and partly because I have a little crush on my boss :) It's really not my fault, he likes to parade around at work in really tight tops that show off his muscles and is a complete flirt. No, but honestly my bar is just an all around awesome place to be, I literally work ten hour days, and then I get off and just hang out at work. Now I know what you're thinking.."um, don't you feel a little like a pathetic loser with no life?" Well, the answer is no, no I do not because everyone else that I work with is just as pathetic as me and they do the exact same thing. The first night I got hired my new coworkers took me to the German Market (a magical place filled with giant beers, giant sausages, and giant men dancing about in lederhosen) We drank, we laughed and we sang the night away. I knew right away these were good people.

Week three:  This past week started out with a BANG when my good friend Anna Meldau came all the way from San Diego to see me!! Ok not really, I was actually just a little pit stop on her trip to London, but it was amazing to see her nonetheless! What better to do on her first night in town than to get completely schmammered, and schmammered we did get via a little jem I found during week two called the Neon Cactus Tequila bar (again, not as seedy as it sounds). Since we decided to go all out, the next two days were spent catching up. It was so great seeing a familiar face. This morning Anna left on a train back to London and I am diving back into work. 

Leeds has been an unexpected stop in my travels, but I am really enjoying my time here and trying to make the most of it. I will try and update you again before the holidays, but just in case.... MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 

xoxo 

Danielle

Farewell for now...

This past week brought a welcome break from all the chaos in the form of my dear friend Josh Bubeck...and with him came a private driver, shopping at Harrods, afternoon tea at Claridges, dinner at Theo Randalls and a private box at the Ascot horse races. But as amazing as it was stepping into a world filled with luxury, elegance, and pretentious assholes as far as the eye could see... I had the most fun at the Winter Wonderland festival in Hyde Park (Just imagine the Del Mar fair during Christmas on steroids) with Josh, his mom and sister. They made me feel like I was part of their family, which was exactly what I needed right now :) Sunday morning, Josh left for Amsterdam and I was back to reality. As I said goodbye to the driver and stepped onto the tube, I thought about a group of twenty - somethings sitting next to us at Claridges bantering about god knows what and looking ever so pleased with themselves. It's funny because at the time I envied them and how fabulous their lives must me. But then I realized... that's not me. I would never give up the excitement of running through the tube stations, eating a $2 kebab for dinner or dancing the night away at some hole in the wall club in Camden. Although I must admit I will miss the driver waiting outside of the hole in the wall club at 4 in the morning. Oh well, I really don't mind the 24 hour buses... sitting there by yourself and reflecting on the day. Just you, the driver, and the creepy guy sitting in the back glaring at you from underneath his over sized hoodie with an unsettling smirk on his face.

On Monday, having still not found a suitable flat in London and my job at Michael Kors not starting until February, I decided a change in scenery was in my best interest. So I headed north to Leeds, a vibrant city in Northern England filled with culture, exciting nightlife, endless shops and most importantly... free rent!! Being up here has also given me the chance to reconnect with my family, which couldn't have come at a better time with the holidays right around the corner.  Now all I need to decide is where I want to go for my birthday... Paris or Amsterdam. Any suggestions?


xoxo

Danielle

Im Alive!!

I never thought I’d be the type of person to be sucked into a scam. True, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve always considered myself to have good intuition, especially under these circumstances. However I have proven myself to be the young naïve girl from California who has found herself in an absolute mess. Where to begin….

It all started two weeks ago, after feeling discouraged when my flat hunt was starting to seem like a “what dump am I looking at next” hunt. But then I came across an ad on Gumtree (craigslist of the UK) for a girl looking for flatmates to join the search with her. Now at this point I had come across a few hoaxes, and I believed I had become quite good at spotting them. There were all the telltale signs... my favorite was the classic, “wire you money to this account and the place is yours!” I’d laugh to myself when I received those replies thinking, what idiot would be so stupid as to fall for that?!

Wanda (I have decided not to use her real name as we are in the middle of legal proceeding, so I have given her a name that I don’t really care for) was different. Her ad wasn’t trying to sell me on anything, just another twenty something girl looking for a reasonably priced place to live in London. Well I could relate to that! I sent her a reply immediately saying that I would be delighted to join her search. Well the next day she emailed me saying that her and a couple other girls had found a place and they would love me to come by and take a look. Seeing as I was in the middle of nowhere with no transportation made this task somewhat difficult so I asked her to send me details and pictures and If I liked what I saw she could count me in and I would arrange to come by the next weekend to meet her as well as look at the flat.

The moment I turned the corner to walk down the street I felt like I was in a movie. The streets were lined with classic Victorian houses, the autumn leaves falling from the trees. It was a quiet street, but just around the corner were endless bars, shops and anything else I might need to keep me entertained. The flat was even better; it was enormous compared to the shoeboxes I had looked at before. Wanda was there waiting to give me a tour, after she showed me the flat we sat and chatted about our jobs, families, hopes and dreams. My other flatmate who she scammed as well took her to see Mark Ronson the first night she moved in (I just love how everytime we tell someone our story she says “I even took that bitch to see Mark Ronson!!) haha. Apparently Wanda promised the room to three different people without the landlords consent.. I moved in the next week and Wanda was gone to LA, with my money… and my pride.

Fast forward two weeks and I am officially homeless… sleeping on the cold harsh streets of London and giving hand jobs for sandwiches. Haha JUST KIDDING. However the last two weeks have been the most stressful of my life. Being in a huge city alone not knowing if I am ever going to see my money again and not wanting to tell anyone because I felt like such a fool. Let’s just say I am extremely sleep deprived and a little on edge. Long story short, after pressing charges, little Wanda realized it was a good possibility she would end up in jail and decided to pay up.

I think the only thing that has made the last few weeks bearable have been the new friends I have made. They have reminded me why I came to London, this city is like nothing I have ever experienced and I have no intention in throwing in the towel over some “little misunderstanding”, or at least that’s what Wanda calls it. I do hope that my next update is a little more upbeat and contains loads of funny anecdotes about my adventures in London. Until then….



Xoxo



Danielle

 

The best news ever!

After a week of relentless searching for flats that are completely out of my price range, and the ones that are in it are completely out of the city, I can’t help but feel discouraged. My plan was to move to the city for at least a month and just live in the moment, hopefully find some under the table job at a trendy city bar in Camden or Soho and make enough money not only to pay rent, but to cover my frequent trips to all the hot restaurants and night clubs as well as my fabulous new winter wardrobe from Harrods. Unfortunately my optimism quickly turned into realism as job offer after job offer was reneged after determining that my employment would be “too risky”, and every flat I had looked at had been a complete shithole.  I just kept telling myself that I WILL find a way to make it in the city, even if it means answering one of the ads for “Free room for a female offering companionship to a lonely white male” … haha  just kidding :)

Today, after sending out what seemed like my bazillionth resume for a job that I knew wouldn’t want to hire me, I decided to give a call to the British Embassy to see what my options for a work visa were. I knew that it was pretty much impossible to obtain one without a sponsor, but it couldn’t hurt right?? Well after waiting on hold for over an hour, and being transferred to five different branches, it turns out that I AM A BRITISH CITIZEN!!!  This whole time, this WHOLE time, all I had to do was apply for a passport. No applications for visas, no sponsors, no waiting 3-6 months.  So I know you are probably wondering what this means, well… it means that the moment that I get my passport, I can work wherever I want, live wherever I want for as long as I want, no questions asked!!!  The optimist is back….

Xoxo

Danielle

Moving to London!

I've decided that if I'm going to be over here, I can't just sit back and wait for things to happen. I have to make them happen...so I am moving to LONDON!! I want to be in the center of it all, I want to walk out my front door and breath in the excitement of the city...not a giant fly from the local sheep field! Flat hunting begins....NOW!!!

Driving on the left side of the road is easy...

Stepping out of my cottage like house onto the cobblestone streets filled with quaint little coffee shops and people reading the morning paper, I take in a deep breath of the crisp September air and double wrap my scarf around my neck. It was going to be a good day. Running to the end of the street to catch the red double decker bus in my knee high Michael Kors boots, coffee in hand, I turn the corner and BAM! I look down to see that my coffee has spilt all over my brand new Burberry double breasted suede trench coat. No..no.. NOOOO!!! Just as I am about to cry, I look up at the stranger who has caused this disaster, and my anger melts away. “No, it can’t be”, I think to myself. But it is, it’s JUDE LAW!!!!

And… then I wake up. HA! Truthfully the past week has been somewhat uneventful. I don’t want to say that I expected my life to be a fabulous vacation once I got here, but i won’t lie and say that I didn’t have expectations of what England would be like. I blame the fact that I have seen The Holiday and Notting Hill one too many times (that doesn’t really happen by the way). I did have an Englishman profess his undying love to me last Friday night at a bar in downtown London, but he was really drunk…and smelly... and completely unattractive. Oh yah.. and he was engaged. “Welcome to the UK love!” was his reply when I asked him what the hell he was doing out picking up on girls when he had a fiancé at home. Gross.

All joking aside my night in London was AMAZING!! The moment I stepped out of the tube station onto the busy streets of the city, I felt at home. Everything was so beautiful... and clean!!! There was no liter on the streets, which I found quite shocking for being such a large city, and there are no trashcans anywhere!! I think I walked for 3 whole blocks with my empty coffee cup before I found one. We stayed in an amazing hotel overlooking the Westminster abbey. It’s funny; the people I’ve talked to around here don’t understand our fascination with all the historic buildings. I explain to them that we don’t have that kind of history in southern California, it would be like them seeing the sunny beaches lined with palm trees for the first time, or Lindsey Lohan doing blow at the table next to you in a club in LA. You read about it magazines or books, but you don’t get the full effect until you see it in person.

After an amazing night in London, we head to Stonehenge. I had been reading about it in my travel books, and was quite excited. You can imagine my disappointment when after 2 ½ hours of driving, we pull up to some rocks in the middle of a field. Now I know what you’re thinking... “Duh Danielle, Stonehenge IS just rocks”. I know that, I just expected them to have some sort of little themed touristy area around it to keep us entertained. Nope. Just rocks. Rocks and a path around the rocks. You walk the path around the rocks while listening to a 20 minute tape about the different kinds of rocks. Nothing I couldn’t have gotten off the sign at the entrance for FREE!! Oh well, it was an experience.

I also learned how to drive this week. I thought the hardest part would be driving on the left side of the road, but it's not too bad once you get the hang of it! The one thing is people never stop here, you “give way” to other cars, but you never stop. If you do you get honked at, which I did, a lot. I could tell my cousin was nervous, knowing my driving record, but I think I proved him wrong. He gave me C- for my first attempt, which according to my Uncle is “great because that’s what I would get back in the states!” Lol. Tomorrow I am off to London on my own; hopefully get a little more sightseeing done. I will take some pictures I promise!!

Xoxo

Danielle

And so it begins....

Well, I made it here, barely. I arrived at LAX 3 hours early, completely unnecessary in my mind but I decided to listen to my mother, the world traveler, who said I would be sorry if I didn’t. I am sooo glad I listened to her because it took me TEN WHOLE MINUTES to get through check in and security. Walking through the terminal, realizing I had 2 hours and 50 minutes until my flight left, I decided I would kill some time by calling my mom and telling her that I was right and she was wrong. Feeling very pleased with myself I pulled out my phone, which was jammed at the bottom of my bag. Next thing I know my phone is slipping from my fingers and flying across the hard floor of LAX, not good. After 30 minutes of trying to revive it, I realized there was no hope, it was done for. It wasn’t the end of the world, I had another phone that I had bought for England, and of course I couldn’t use it because I don’t have service yet. Thank GOD for the internet, I would just email my mom. Sitting at the bar with a bloody Mary, ready to get my buzz on, I pull out my laptop. Of course I had forgotten to charge it the night before and it’s dead. GREAT.

After what seemed like forever, I was boarding my plane to Europe. Longest ten hours of my life. To my left two girls, ages two and three, who didn’t speak English, decided they wanted to be best friends with me right away and used physical force to get my attention. I think my left arm and leg have bruises from their incessant hitting and kicking. To my right, a couple who decided to spend the entire trip talking about how fabulous their lives were. I think they enjoyed the sound of their own voices so much, that if they were to stop talking for even a moment, they would become one of us commoners. The best part was when they, not so discretely, tried to join the mile high club after only 20 minutes of being in the air. At least wait until people start to go to sleep!! Gross. Luckily I had my itouch with me so I could drown out all the noise with a movie. I decided Taken, a fun-filled movie about two girls on a trip to Paris, would be perfect.

After a quick stop over in Germany, I finally arrive in London!!! I have to take a tube from the terminal to the baggage claim (super exciting!!) As I am standing there holding on to the side rail, I can’t help but overhearing the man next to me talking on his phone. I could tell he was Russian by his accent, and he says “I can’t talk out loud right now I am on a tube, I have the merchandise and it will be distributed, I will call you by Friday to discuss the details.” I reacted as any sensible person would have, I memorized as many physical details about the man as I could in 2.5 seconds and I got the hell out of there before I was shoved into a cab, addicted to heroin and sold into the sex trafficking industry.

My cousin’s friends are there to pick me up and take me home. Home is an adorable little house in the small town of Bury St. Edmunds, right outside of Cambridge. I spent the first few hours exploring the local mall; there was not one shop that I recognized. I was starting to feel homesick, when I looked up and saw it… an H&M!!!!! I knew that I would make it here. Next my aunt and I decide to hit up the local pub, we get wasted and my Aunt gets in to a debate with a local on who’s country is better, quite entertaining. My first night in England ends with my cousin and I playing a drinking game to Shutter Island (we took a drink every time Leo had a brooding look on his face). Needless to say I was passed out half way through the movie. Today will be spent on homework… but tomorrow we are off to Stonehenge and Bath… update you soon!!

Xoxo


Danielle