Two Weeks with Big Ben, and the Hunt for a Job!

As long as that weekend in Liverpool felt, it was an indescribable feeling knowing that we still had two long weeks left in the UK.  And it was the time to do what we had made this entire trip for - to get a job. We each had plenty of meetings scheduled.  Some together and some apart.  I won't go too far into these because some of them were very redundant. 

 My first meeting was with  a tech PR company down in Southwest London.  It was actually on the Monday we were getting back from interview, and I cut it verrrrry close with trains and transportation.  It was a good first meeting, but it didn't give me the assistance or advice that I really needed.  When I finished that meeting, it was about evening, so Heather and I walked around to the places we knew best:

Piccadilly!
1385298_10201768983205185_1069366044_n 
Trafalgar Square!
1375909_10201768983765199_740646169_n
Our best friend, Big Ben 
1378182_10201768978645071_946947540_n
Never actually took a picture of our Tube Station, Westminster - so it may look grey, but this place feels like home.
996951_2397134646507_306911603_n
5839_10201768981685147_716820350_n

The rest of the meetings and interviews went really well.  I got to take a trip up to Oxford, for a great interview, meet with a recruiter who I had been in talks with over the last month, and Heather and I got to meet with a few people together. Thursday we had the day off from meetings and things, so we decided to walk around, and see a show!  

We decided to try for the Book of Mormon lottery, but with about 30 other people trying as well, our chances were very low.  When we lost that, we went for the typical us, and saw Let It Be, the West End Beatles tribute show.  It was all great fun, but I was not very impressed - I would have spent a night down in the Cavern with the Mersey Beatles over seeing that show any day.  Still, it was a great night out, and I'll always take Beatles music over something else!

Losing the lottery. Fun.
1382260_10201769002845676_1630542911_n
1385615_10201769003565694_1485826259_n 1374955_10201769004885727_914902952_n

That was a good amount of the first week for us.  We were able to walk around a little, but a majority of our time was spent connecting with people and brainstorming different things we could do in the time that we were there.

When the weekend came, we got to relax for a little bit.  We went out Friday night for Ciaran's birthday, and to celebrate his and Nicole's engagement, which actually happened the weekend we were in Liverpool!  We went to this great restaurant/club in Covent Garden called Circus - they had shows where people would get on the tables and dance and do cool things like fire breathing! It was a great night out with everyone! The rest of the weekend, Heather and I walked around London, tried to visit some areas we hadn't been before, and also went back to the places we couldn't get enough of:

Circus!
994024_10201769006085757_2050334915_n
Neal's Yard
1377959_2397176607556_567918036_n
1382126_10201769020966129_1269463133_n
1376584_10201769018166059_76793720_n
Trafalgar Square
1380276_10201768987805300_1226052127_n
One of my favorite views in London
1069194_10201768988405315_723660905_n
1377609_10201769001005630_1746806455_n
1385568_10201768998005555_1198079377_n
1383791_10201769001885652_250408836_n
1391438_10201768996725523_1217177440_n

The next week we had one very uneventful meeting with an American guy, who basically told us he hated London and that we should move to Chicago.  Thanks .. but no thanks. The rest of this week, we dove into Marriott International, to see who we could connect with in that company.  We met with the HR Director at the Global Headquarters, and two other HR Managers at hotels in the city.  Everyone in this company was so incredibly friendly and helpful - definitely a type of company that I would love to be involved with. We also gave ourselves more time to spend around London.  We went around Covent Garden, Waterloo, Oxford Circus, everywhere we could.

  1385288_2397286570305_1821646842_n
St. Paul's
1394042_10201769053886952_1240171738_n
1391671_2397334571505_150655430_n 1376612_2397348251847_825813612_n 1378115_10201769059447091_490753424_n
The Globe
1005659_10201769058967079_671489896_n
Music on 'the beach' 
1378537_2397392532954_654526918_n
US in the UK! I like your style.
1376314_10201769031446391_2122373841_n

This takes us up to Wednesday - which was when we were supposed to fly home.  Heather and I had been talking about this for the past few days, and how we felt that we needed a few more days here and that it wasn't the smartest idea to book a flight home in the middle of the week.  We looked into flight changes, and money, and it looked like something we could do if we really wanted to.  I

'll add a side note that Paul McCartney's new album, New, came out on Wednesday, and we knew some type of press event would possibly be held in London.  We finally got word that Paul would be signing the album on that Friday, and that was it. We were staying. 

 I'll have to post a new blog about this 30 hour adventure of meeting Paul.  It was one of the greatest moments of my life, so you know I'm going to get detailed on this...

Instagram

Where The Heart Is - An American in the UK. Theme by STS.