London!

Travelling to a new city is always stimulating and exciting. But, I didn't know that the city of London would totally blow my mind!! This city is so off the wall awesome!!!!

Where do I begin to describe this modernly ancient city? How do you describe the experience of walking down the century old cobble stone streets of Covent Garden market. Or standing at the bottom of Big Ben and listening to the 150 year old bell ring out over the city. Or seeing the artefacts in the British Museum and realizing that our current understanding of the roots of human civilisation is all based on what I see here. Or walking through West End and not being able to remember the number of theatres that I have walked past. How about walking past the church where Samuel Johnson worked on the first popular English Dictionary and seeing the shrapnel damage in the building's side from the Second World War. Any one of these experiences alone would be mind blowing, but put them all together and mix in things like Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, West End Theatre and National Portrait Gallery to name a few of the sights that I've only glanced at, and you have an idea of just how mind-blowingly-insane and jaw-droppingly-incredible this city is!!!!!

Suffice to say that my first couple of days in London have been spent walking the streets to get a handle on the geography and figure out where everything is. This has also involved a lot of getting lost, making wrong turns and retracing my steps. It is rather easy to get lost in this dense city with an unending labyrinth of narrow streets, small lanes and tight places. And with the buildings forming a wall either side at least five levels high, it is easy to lose your sense of direction.

I've found Pineapple Studios and I did a class there the other day with a Roland Price. It was a good class with a VERY interesting group of dancers. Everyone from seasoned professionals and dedicated older folk to aspiring younger folk were there. On Saturday, I did a class at Danceworks with Paul Lewis. His class was more challenging than Roland's and seemed to have a larger group of professional classical dancers. At this stage I think that I will try to split my classes between the two.

Another of my accomplishments this week has been to get a book listing all the dance agents in London. It took me half a day of asking in book stores, but I finally got it and I'll be putting it to good use tomorrow.

On the job front, I have an interview with a company called NL Recruitment tomorrow. I called up about a job for an outward bound call centre that works for the larger charities. What makes this job attractive is the fact that the hours are evenings and weekends, which would leave my daytime open for doing classes.

I could write for hours but I'm sure that you're sick of reading now and I have to do some more job hunting. So I'll just rap up by saying that the hostel is great and the weather has been good.

I've also placed a heap of photos online at Picasa Web Albums since I seem to be having a bit of a technical problem with putting them in the blog. Check it out to see my first impressions of London.

If you have any questions or want send me a message feel free to leave me a comment or send me an email.

This is DreamChaser signing out.

Rodney Cuthbertson