End of a journey~

The end has passed and I am back in Holland now. The last few weeks of my stay in England were hectic since I had to work hard, prepare my trip and I also had to finalize the preparations for my report.

Since those were my last weeks in England, I have decided to go to places I wanted to visit. I went to Greenwich, Central London (Monument etc) Chelsea and some other places I went to at the very beginning of my adventure.

The places I visited were surely worth my time. I do regret it that I did not visit those places much earlier during my trip. I really liked Greenwich and wish I had look there before I went to North London which I disliked very much, but in the end that doesn't really matter anymore.

I was also busy with the preparations for my report. I had to organise everything I want to put in my report and I managed to do that. All I need to do now is to write everything down and combine all the pieces together.

I also said goodbye to the friends I have made in England and packed my luggage with much difficulty... I took too much of my stuff with me when I went to England and that seems to have been a stupid decision. I had overweight and the garments I took with me were barely used during my stay. I managed to fly by wearing 10 layers of T-shirts and also by carrying some pullovers/sweatshirts on my arm (plus some other stuff in a plastic bag). I almost forgot my jacket in the airplane! (Well, I actually did forget it and it was brought back to me by the personnel at the airport. :P)

It was a hectic day but in the end I managed to arrive safely in Eindhoven. I do not mind to return back to the UK, but a condition is that I must have proper accomodation. That probably says that I have enjoyed my there, apart from the trouble I had with my housing, but that is stating the obvious.

As of right now, I have no idea when I should head back to school. I would like to receive some information about this if possible.

Cu soon!

Christmas and beyond!

Stress stress stress! Deadlines had to be met, people had to work very hard and last minute orders were processed at the very end of the last weekend before Christmas, just to make the customers happy.

The last few weeks have been very busy for us. We had to work harder and harder in order to meet our target before Christmas. English people do shop very much and also at the very last minute, but that is probably because of the sale period that Harrods started just a week before Christmas. People go really crazy and buy so many things.

Harrods' boxing day is usually a day after the "original" boxing day. It is apparantely and supposed to be the sale of all sales in the United Kingdom. People from all over the world flooded the store and started to purchase whatever they could afford, and find. We had and still have to process so many orders.

Boxing day is basically the real Christmas gift day. It is a day that makes their excuse of buying late Christmas gifts valid. People buy so many things since everything is so cheap (especially perfume) that I think it is justified to be late. And people do shop as if they haven't done any shopping throughout the entire year. ^^ What I also find funny is the appeareance of the Dutch. I haven't seen a single Dutch person throughout the four months I am here, but when the sale started, they all invaded Harrods. :p I guess that might say something about the Dutch, haha.

The sale is running till the end of January and thus making us very busy. I had a good bargain and bought a blazer for just 30 quid instead of 410 ^^ So yeah... Do you fancy anything from Harrods? ;D

I still have two weeks to go in London, and I do have to say that my stay was quite short. I wish to stay longer/or to do it all over again, with good accommodation. I do have to confess that because of that problem, I could not enjoy my stay and do everything I planned, but at the same time it was quite the experience and somehow in the end it was fun. I hope to visit London some other time.

Like I said, I did not really do everything I have planned for my stay, which is disappointing. I still have to prepare the presentation for the first year students and will try to complete it either today or tomorrow. I will try to complete it today or tomorrow, because I will barely have any time and access to my computer during the next two weeks.

Kind regards,

Mohammed

`The experiences with the English people and my encounters

As mentioned before, English people are friendly and helpful, but at the same time they can be very corrupt in order to survive in this country with, to what I find, difficult living conditions.

Life in London is not very easy since it is very expensive. People on benefits have a better life than the people that are doing normal labour. What many people told me is that they cannot afford their own place to have a family. The reason for that is because they will not receive any benefits from the government when they have a job. The biggest concern is the housing benefit. The government in the UK pays the rent for people who are on this benefit. If you have a job, you will simply lose this benefit. To rent a house that is big enough for a small family, you will need to pay at least 1000 pounds to get it. And since many people only earn Like 1100 pounds a month, this is very unreasonable for them. Thus they decide to stay at home and not to work or either do illegal acts by renting the place to people without letting the government know.

People here have a hard life when it comes to that. But they enjoy life as well. They do this by drinking, drinking and drinking. What I noticed here is that they get drunk very early and not only in the weekends, but also during normal working days. I do find it funny sometimes but also disturbing since it can become very dangerous. English people are also very open and are easy to approach. They will have a nice chat with you and will talk about anything. Men are also very involved into football. And since London has many football clubs, talk about football is very common amongst the fans. You hear them talk about it on the streets and on work.

People here also read very mucj. I have seen more people read in public transport than in the Netherlands. Literature is used very much here, but I think that is also because the people have to travel much and they read to kill some time (I might be wrong though).

What I also noticed is that they spend more time on Christmas than the people in Holland. The streets are more fabulously decorated and there are many charities on the streets etc. Even though I am not involved into Christmas, I will try to get to know more about this.

Ugh, 1.5 month left.

15 January, the date of my arrival in the Netherlands. Things haven't improved since my last update and it is not getting any better. I cannot wait to get back home, where it is clean and tidy and warm. ;D

The accommodation problem seems like it is never going to end during my stay here in London. I have once again moved places. I am sharing the house now with Italian people. The new place is not particulary clean. I do have some pictures, but I am not able to upload them at the moment. I will upload them once I am connected to a much more stable connection.

Like I said before, I haven't done that much. I moved places and had to go to work at the same time. That is my excuse for not doing that much during the last two weeks. I want to start with the assignments that I have to make this week. I want to start as soon as possible in order to finalize my final portfolio. I do not know what will happen in the upcoming few weeks that are left of my adventure.

I have a plan that I want to realise. The plan is to explore the City of London. It is an actual town within London itself. If I am correct, that place was the original London. I will explore the famous places (Which are yet to be discovered by me). My plan is to dedicate a part of my report to the City of London.

I know this is a short update, but there is not so much to write about at the moment. I hope my next update will contain more good news and information about my stay. If there are questions or any other remarks, please let me know.

Mo.

The neverending cycle of problems

It has been a busy week since I last updated my blog, many things have happened.

Once the system was up and running again at Harrods, we had to work much harder in order to catch up with the days we have missed. We processed thousands of deliveries and managed to get back on track again.

After a few days, we got many new colleagues and they had to be trained. I had the opportunity to "train" them. It was very basic and I had to teach them how things work and what needs to be done at certain processes. I could relate this to my "study" as a teacher and found it pleasantly to do so.

I will still maintain this role, along with a few others, to train the new persons and prepare them to work on their own. I find this perfect for me, since this will allow me to use my English language skills to a further extend. I will use the language even more and will also get trained on how to explain things to other people.

So far, so good at work. I also had to complete my paperwork at Harrods, so I went to the interview I had with at the jobcentre. I was interviewed because I wanted to apply for a national insurance number. The application was successful and I got a temporary national insurance number. I should receive the defenitive one after two more weeks. Once I get my defenitive national insurance number, I will be able to complete my paperwork at Harrods.

As I solve these problems, I encounter other problems. I have to find new accommodation again. Problems have occured with the landlord, which forces me to get out. (I am not in trouble with the landlord or something like that. He is the one that got trouble) I have to find a place within a week or two to move to. Hopefully I will manage to do so. If I don't manage to find a place on my own, I can always go to my friend's place.

Hopefully will this problem be solved as soon as possible. I cannot really say that I enjoy my stay here in London since I am here.

Culture, Nature and Science

I had a few days off last week, which allowed me to explore London a bit by bit. I used these days to visit several musea. I went to the British Museum, Science Museum, Tate Museum and the Nature Museum. All were quite interesting and will be visited by me again in the near future.

The first museum I went to was the Tate Museum. It contains a very big gallery with paintings of many several artists over the last few centuries. I don't remember which
artists it were, but I can say that some paintings were very beautiful and some will not receive any appreciation from me. The paintings I like are the ones with much
detail. I cannot really tell much about it, but what I can say is that there were many arts students who were copying the paintings in their drawingbooks.

The next visit was to the British Museum. There is no admission, so I didn't really spend that much money that day. I got a map and read about the exhibitions that
are open to the public. I started to roam through the first floor, then the second and at last the third floor. Every floor contains the history of many different
cultures of the past. The first floor contains items of the Aztec civilization, the medival Islamic civilization and the Chinese civilizations.

The second floor was also interesting. It contains mummies from Ancient Egypt, Roman sculptures, Greek items and some stuff from other cultures as well.
Most things that are shown in the Egyptian exhibition are accesiores and mummies of a few millenia ago. It was very interesting to see new mummies again. I have seen
the ones in Egypt many times before and these were very different. The Italian and Greek exhibitions were also interesting to see. It contained statues of famous Roman
rulers and Ancient Greek Gods such as Zeus, Aphrodites and many others.

The Chinese exhibition was also very interesting since it contained many items that expressed their arts and culture. It contained many stones, weapons and statues
of many different kinds.

The only bad thing that happened that day is that I did not bring my camera along. That is why I will visit this museum again in order to take some pictures of the most
impressing items of the past.

The Nature and Science museum were also very fun to visit. They show many different kinds of stuff that shaped our current world.
The Nature museum shows us how our planet was formed and what was here thousands of years ago. The Science museum showed the same,
but instead of God's contribution to Earth, it showed us mankind's contribution to Earth. Machineries of many different era are to
be found in the museum.

I will visit these places again to take more pictures of things I haven't photographed yet. I will do this in the upcoming few weeks.
I cannot upload the pictures though.. The reason for this is my weak and unstable internet connection. The reason why I wasn't in touch
with you is because of the lack of internet.

Work in Progress.

The process of finding a job was not easy. I have applied at many websites and got no response back. I went to several places and couldn't find many suitable jobs.
I have looked around in many places and at many different stores. I have looked from launderies to hotels and from hotels to restaurants. Many required experienced people and also have a long waiting time to be accepted to the job. (Criminal record check etc) There are also thousands of advertises on the internet, but it is very odd if the employer response back to the applications I have sent.

The internet is a useful place to look for a job, but it is not useful to get a job. Many employers don't send back replies. This is frustrating and wastes much time.
I have applied to many available callcentre positions and also to many other different jobs. None replied back to me, thus making me jobless for a long period of time. When I found out that replying to "We-seek-employees" advertises is useless, I started to go to the websites of famous stores such as HMV, Blockbusters, Harrods and supermarket websites. I sent my CV and if required my application letters to these websites.

While waiting for any responses, I did not waste my time. I went outside and looked up vacancies at many differenet stores in many different places. I found a few vacancies in bars and restaurants, but these places required experienced people, which I am not part of. I also looked up some reception work, (thinking about communication) and have applied at some hotels and a sport centre. The only place that was interested in my skills and services was the sport centre, its name is "Queen Mother Sports Centre" in Victoria, London. They had an interview with me
and it lasted for about 10 minutes. They asked me about what I will do in certain situations and what my experiences are. They also asked for my references and if I would mind if they performed a CBR-check on me. This was all okay by me, but the only problem was the fact that I did not have any time to wait for the results of these checks since I had to start within a week or less. I told them that I would do my best and that they will hear soon from me with the complete details of myself.

Luckily enough, when I got home, I found out that I received an email from Harrods containing the invitation for me to have an interview with them. The date was set two days after my interview with the sport centre. I waited for that day and haven't done anything else to find myself another potential job. I went to the interview on a Wednesday it lasted for a few minutes. Afterwards, I entered the store for the first time in my life (I find it actually funny that I first had an interview to work in a famous place and that I went to the location for the first time afterwards.) and found it pretty amazing. Some salesmen tried to sell me some expensive stuff, but unfortunately they didn't manage to. I went back home and they
called me once I arrived at home. They told me that I could start next monday and that I should be there at 9 AM. I considered myself to be very lucky and as of right now I am still employed at Harrods.

My role at Harrods is to prepare the ordered items for the customers. I have to organize, pick up and pack the items to make it ready for delivery. The department I work for is the Harrods home shopping department, also called Harrods Direct. It is a fulltime job in Knightsbridge, London.