London: When The Exchange Rate Bites You in the Butt

 So I looked at my bank account today and nearly died of a heart attack. A few days ago, I only withdrew £200, how in the world could that equal $324.60! London is the most expensive city in the world, and with the dollar-pound sterling ratio being so terrible lately, you end up spending almost twice as much and the value of the dollar gets you half as far.  With my savings rapidly depleting, I decided I needed ways to spend less in London ASAP. Here are quick spending tips to get you the most bang for your buck (or pound) in London.

 1. Travel Oyster Cards: One trip on the underground is £4. That is equivalent of almost $8. But, if you go to the counter in any underground station and put a £3 deposit on a little plastic card called an Oyster card, you can save over 50% on all of your travel. Essentially you top up the card by putting money on in a pre-pay fashion, and each time you swipe into the Tube or swipe onto a bus, the value on the card is decreased. Even if you don’t travel that much, it’s definitely worth it to pick up an Oyster. I applied for a student Oyster card which saves you 30% on all of your big travel passes (monthly, weekly, tri-monthly) so I ended up paying £69 for a monthly pass that was originally £100+. Translation into dollars: I saved about 55 dollars.

 2. Whip Out the Cook Book: As cool as it is to eat out, grocery shopping and cooking for yourself is one of the biggest money savers. A bag of pasta and a can of sauce can last you two meals. Cereal, cheese, bread, milk, and meat products are always cheaper at the bigger grocery stores. If you go to a Tesco or Sainsbury’s you can get their generic version of each product as well to save big bucks. Although, don’t hesitate to treat yourself out to a dinner or lunch once in a while– after all part of experiencing London is tasting the great ethnic foods! Head to the East End markets on the weekend to enjoy cheap, authentic food from all areas of the world: Morocco, Spain, Mexico, China, Japan, you name it.

3. Primark: On Oxford Street by the Marble Arch Tube stop, there is a store called Primark. Primark is a chain all over Britain but its flagship store is conveniently located in the heart of the shopping district. Here you can find very cheap alternatives to Britain’s expensive boutiques. I found myself running out of bobby pins and hair ties so I went in here just to look, and found a huge pack for £1. (At Boots, the official drug store of England, expect to pay a few pounds for bobby pins.)

4. East End Markets: In this area of London, right off the Liverpool Tube stop, you can find several vendors selling everything from dresses, vintage apparel, bags, hair pieces, CD’s, handmade jewelry etc. Some vendors will let you bargain here so it doesn’t hurt to ask if you can get an item for £5 less than the asking price.

5. Phones: Avoid pay-as-you-go phone plans if you think you’ll be using it a lot. I spent about £20 pounds topping up my first phone in the first week I had it. That is about $35 dollars, and at home I pay about $48 dollars per month for my Verizon plan. If you text and call on a pay-as-you-go plan it’s expensive and your credit goes a lot faster than you think. Instead, explore options from Vodaphone or O2 that let you pay one flat rate per month and you get unlimited texts and several hundred minutes. I signed up for a Vodaphone plan where for £20 pounds a month I get unlimited texts and 600 minutes. I’m saving more with them in the long run, than if I had kept my first pay-as- you-go plan. And the best part is that my Vodaphone plan is still considered ‘pay as you go monthly’ so all I need to do is go to the store once a month and put  down 20. When I want to stop using it, I’m not tied into a contract.

6. Internet: If you don’t have internet in your flat, sometimes getting unlimited excess (depending on where you’re located) can be very expensive. Instead, Google other free options. We have a cafe around the corner from our house called J D Wetherspoon that has free wi-fi. So for the price of a cup of coffee, we can sit and use unlimited internet. Granted there is something irreplaceable about being able to use your computer in the comfort of your own home, but if it’s costing you £50 pounds a month, there has to be a less expensive way of doing it.

7. Airline Flights: If you’re booking a mini-break weekend somewhere, don’t wait for prices to go down. After talking to Customer Reps from a few European Airlines, they said they make their money by charging lower prices when there are more seats available. Then, as soon as the plane starts booking up, there is an inverse ratio by which prices increase as number of seats decrease. My roommates and I are in the process of booking a trip to Prague, and after monitoring tickets over the past week, I saw prices go up literally in front of my eyes. Book early if you know your dates.

8. Cover Charges: Most clubs don’t charge cover for girls before a certain time (typically 11:30pm). If you show up before this time, you can save yourself £10-20, which equals $17-27.  Also, grocery stores don’t sell alcohol after 11pm so if you want to pre-game before the bars to save money on drinks, buy your alcohol beforehand. Otherwise, expect to pay £10 for a cocktail in a club.

London isn’t cheap, and the exchange rate really bites. There are definitely ways to save money, but either way, I have to steel myself each time I log into my bank account and take a look. So long to all my hard earned money waitressing– since I chose to spend time abroad in the most expensive city in the world, it looks like I’ll have to bite the bullet and dish out.

London How-To: Find the Right Flat

  London is the most expensive city in the world and finding cheap livable accommodations is a daunting task. When we landed from Ireland, we were swamped with the logistics of getting settled. Most of us had been living out of a suitcase and we were all ready to unpack, take a hot shower and not have to think about getting on another bus or plane for a good while. We camped out at the Royal National Hotel right on Russell Square in central London while we apartment hunted. Syracuse University has a list of several reputable landlords so we made the calls, toured places, navigated the city to find apartments, and figure out rent cost, amenities, internet, commute time etc. There are so many things to think about so here’s a little quick tip list to make apartment hunting in London easier once you have a starting list of landlords.

 1. Neighborhood: London has many ethnic areas where different groups tend to live. Grab a map and quarter up the city based on what multicultural areas you want to explore. We chose to look at the middle eastern neighborhood (for the amazing food and location– it’s only four tube stops from the heart of London–or a 35 minute walk). If you are completely new to London this is a good starting point to get an idea of the feel of each neighborhood and what areas might suit you.

 2. Grocery Store: Make sure the apartment you settle for has a good grocery store nearby.  It is a total pain to get through the tube turnstiles with a zillion gallons of milk and loaves of bread on your back. Stores to look out for are Sainsbury’s, Tesco or Waitrose (all of which do a store-version of basically every non-produce product and can save you lots of £££).

 3. Internet: Our apartment didn’t have internet so our landlord agreed to get it for us and charge us at a monthly rate. The downside to that is that most British companies charge an expensive installation fee and it take 8-10 business days to get. London has various hotspots all over the city so if you are lucky to land an apartment in one of them you can buy a user name and password and logon wirelessly. The other option is to be charged by megabyte but I’d only recommend this if you just check email and use internet sparingly.

 4. Parks: Joining a gym in London is expensive (sometimes 50-100£ a month) so see if you can find a flat near any of the cities parks. We live a block from Hyde Park which is the biggest park in central London. It is well lit, always busy and great for running, walking, biking and staying in shape.

 5. Pubs: Ask the landlord if there is a good pub nearby or if the neighborhood has a good nightlife. If he says yes then the neighborhood most likely won’t be as quiet during the night. But the upside is the constant busyness means it’s probably safer. The London police chief came to do a safety seminar and said in most cases busy is better.

 6. Commute: Can you walk places? Do you have to take the tube? If you do have to take the tube can you get a direct line to central London or do you have to change? I timed the walk from our apartment to Faraday House (Syracuse U) and it took 35-40 minutes on a straight shot up Oxford Street (the main, high end shopping street in London). On the tube from my door to the school door it can take anywhere from 11 minutes to 25 minutes depending on trains and rush hour.

 7. Bank: Is there somewhere safe to make cash withdrawals near your place? Double check that so you don’t have to walk around with large sums of cash on you. Also, if you can physically walk into a bank and use the ATM inside it is much safer than standing outside. Right now there is a new ATM crime going on in Britain: you’re standing at an ATM, someone comes up to you, taps you on the shoulder, says you dropped a ten pound note, you look down, they hit cancel and grab your card and run away. Underneath the key pad on the ATM they put a cell phone on top of a wooden block that records PINs all day on the little camera so they now have your card, PIN and access to the $$ in your account, according to the chief of police.

 8. Roommates: It’s easier to find housing for more people and for even numbers. 6 and 7 people apartments are everywhere. 4-person apartments are tougher to find and typically more expensive. Avoid Craigslist for roommates and instead hit up ULU (London’s big university) for people who might be looking for roommates.

9. Rent/Money: In London, most landlords charge rent per week so expect to pay anywhere from 100-300 per week (unless you are very rich). It’s okay to bargain down–our landlord wanted 150££ per week from each of us but we asked 135££ and he was ok with that. By saving ourselves 15 pounds a week that’s nearly 30 dollars per week so almost 120 per month. Also be willing to put down a deposit on a place you really like because even though you say you are interested, the person who puts money down first will get it. Words aren’t good enough here so if you are racing to get a place ahead of someone else, get the cash. Most landlords ask a deposit equal to one month’s rent as well as one month advance rent so we ended up paying upwards of £1200 (over 2,000 dollars) up front. London is SO expensive!

 My Experience:

 I would definitely recommend living in an ethnically diverse neighborhood. I live in the Middle Eastern quarter and it’s the first time I’ve really been a minority since I lived in Italy. The food is fantastic and it’s quite a different experience then, say, living in British suburbia. Plus it’s still technically considered central London so I’m 20 minutes from any pub, restaurant or club.  I live with four other girls and we have a large living room, three bedrooms, two full baths and 1/2 bath, a reasonable kitchen and a washer.

Happy Flat Hunting!

Love London: Best Eats, Shows and Parties

Kicking off a life in London isn’t easy. But it helps when one of your best friends did it just six months before you board your plane. The Syracuse University study abroad program sends students every semester to London and one of my friends happened to go fall 2009. Here are some of the London-bests from an American student perspective if you hit the city for a limited time. Most of the areas Peter talks about are in the Bloomsbury neighborhood and greater central London. If you buy a zone 1 and zone 2 travel card or if you snag a street map, you can enjoy some of the best London eats, parties and shows. 

Peter: OK FOOD, you know how much I love that so that’s where I will start.

 Bloomsbury Area:

 Near campus there is a place called Hummus Bros…SO GOOD, reasonably priced, great for lunch. I always got the vegetable salad with feta so good! They also have decent guac. 

 Another place near school is this vegetarian/vegan café. I went to all the time the food is AMAZING and really cheap and they give you good portions. Its called Mary Ward Center, if you walk out of Faraday house and turn left and walk down Old Gouchester St. it will be on your right on the corner in like less then 100 yards. It’s a white building. It doesn’t look like a cafe but it is! Trust me its worth it ! SO GOOD! They have different stuff every day.

 There is a little pub near school also called The Swan, they have good fish and chips and the rest of the food is pretty good.

 I’m sure they will tell you about this, but there is a pub called Shakespeare’s Head, right down the street from school and the Royal National where you will be staying for the first week. It is a pretty relaxed pub, drinks are cheap!!! that’s a major plus. A cocktail pitcher is like 7 pounds! Cheapest I’ve seen in London. It is right near the Holburn tube stop.

 Restaurants:

 Thai Square : DELICIOUS Thai food. They have locations all over London. I went to the one in Covent Garden. It is a pretty nice restaurant, not bad prices, considering it’s a nice restaurant in London. I think it was like 12 pounds for a noodle dish with chicken. 166-170 Shaftsbury Ave.

 Masala Zone: Great Indian food. I’ve never had it before I came to London and this was a good place to experience it. It was delicious. If you go pre-theater time (this applies to pretty much every restaurant in the west end) you can get GREAT DEALS!!! I think it was 11 pounds and we got a starter and entree! It is located in Covent Garden, if you walk in front of the Royal Opera House and you look straight at it from across the street, it is the little street to the right. It’s called Floral Street.

 Texas Embassy: Get off the tube at Piccadilly Circus. I’m not sure of the streets but I am pretty sure they have a website. It is amazing Mexican food, they give you free chips and salsa (anything in London that is free you take) and THE BEST margaritas!!! So good if you go for happy hour they are like 3 pounds 50 (that’s really cheap for London). GREAT PLACE we didn’t find it till the end but I went 3 times in the last month. Reasonable food prices also!

 The Orangery: this is at Kensington Palace; it is a great place to experience high tea with out hurting your wallet. It’s reasonably priced. For 13 pounds you get cucumber sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam and a piece of orange cake and your own pot of tea. Lot’s of fun, I recommend it!

 Tea at the Ritz: OH MY GOD is all I can say one of my favorite things we did in London!! Such an amazing experience, we were the only ones in the program to do it and it was the best time. It is a little pricey but if you can put aside 37 pounds you won’t regret it! Even if you have to put like 5 pounds aside for a week to save it up DO IT! You have to make reservations a while in advance. I think we booked towards the end of Sept. for the beginning of November. So plan accordingly if you choose to do it! I know you would love it. We got all dressed up, the place was so elegant. There was a pianist playing and we ate off of fancy china and drank out of a silver tea pot. We felt pretty special. You get tons of finger sandwiches, AMAZING scones and all this delicious pastries and cakes, plus endless tea! It is worth it! Definitely consider it.  

 A Night Out:

 O’Neils : Get off the Piccadilly tube stop and walk towards China Town. We went every Thursday and so did most of the program. It was TONS of fun! We always said O’Neil’s never failed to disappoint. Its three stories, the first two floors are bar/pub like but the third floor the usually have a live band till like 1ish then they have a DJ till they close at 3am. There is a bar on every floor and its tons of fun. Cocktails are expensive stick to beer here! I went with my good friend Guinness but you NEED to try a snake bite. %The girls got them all the time: it is beer, cider and raspberry liquor. Thursday night it is free to get in. I think they charge Friday and Saturday.

 The Walkabout : The one we used to go to closed but there is one in Temple. It is an Australian bar, casual, a good place to go if you don’t know what to do. They usually play good music also.

 The Church: YOU NEED TO DO THIS. NEED. Period. We waited till our last weekend and wish we had done it more. It is a club on Sunday. It opens at 12 and stays open till 4 in the afternoon. It’s cheap, I think 7 pounds and you get a bag with 3 beers in it. They play great music and everyone dresses up in costumes. It was one of our most fun going out in London experiences.

Sports Cafe: I HATE THIS PLACE, but most people love it so I figured I would mention it. It’s in Piccadilly Circus. I only went once but pretty much half the program went on Tuesday nights. Most people loved it so try it out.

 Theater:

You can NOT go to London with out going to the west end. Thats like going to NYC and not going to see a Broadway show. See at least 5 shows while you’re there. Take advantage of student concessions, most theaters offer them. You go to the theater like 2 -1.5 hours before curtain (shows start at 7:30 in London FYI) and go to the ticket office and ask if they have student concessions for today’s performance. If so you will show them your student id, and you get great seats for 25 pounds. I had 6th row to Wicked and sat in the Royal Box at Oliver. So you get the best seats they have available. London is known for its theater so GO! I saw 31 shows.

 Top Seven Shows:

Oliver - SO GOOD! All I can say just go see it !! This is a requirement. If you see one show see this.

Warhorse- If you can tickets you MUST go see this. It was one of the best things I have ever seen, such moving story. Even the Queen went to see it.

Les Miserable- Try Saturday matinee, this one they don’t always offer student concessions but it is the worlds longest musical, it is amazing.

Legally Blonde- I thought I was going to hate it but I actually loved it…such a fun high energy show.

Sister Act- If you liked the movie then see this, it’s funny and the woman who plays Whoopie is phenomenal. I don’t think they have student concessions but you can get 25 pound seats in the balcony. Great music, sets, costumes.

Wicked- I don’t know if you ever saw Wicked in the states but you should go see it in London. Especially if you have never seen it… it’s impossible to get tickets in NYC to see it so try to see it here. You can get student concessions here also! I think it was equal to New York and even better in some aspects.

Billy Elliot- The boy that plays Billy is UNREAL. I have never seen anything like it in my life. What he can do for his age is mind blowing. My jaw was dropped the entire show. Great music (by Elton John) and a great story. Definitely a tear jerker.  

Take advantage while your there because like a said London’s theater is rival to Broadway as the best theater in the world. Also if you have the change See something at the Royal Opera House. I saw Sleeping Beauty the ballet and the Nutcracker. It’s another great experience. They have a thing you sign up for and if they have seats available students can get them for 10 pounds. I saw sleeping beauty for 10 pounds… so it is hard to pass up. Look on there website and try to find how you sign up for the emails… if your interested.

 Planning Trips Outside of London:

There is this great company called Sandemans New Europe - Google it for their website. They have free walking tours in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Prague, Madrid and Paris!! FOR FREE they are 3 hours and are amazing. They show you every single site and tell you the history. It’s great to do on your first day because then you get a good understanding of the city. Check what they offer for each city though. They have pub crawls in most cities also which are always fun. We did both the walking tour and pub crawl in Paris and Prague. I highly recommend them.

“The Troubles”: Blood and Politics in the Belfast Divide

Catholics vs. Protestants. But not over the issue of religion. In Belfast and Northern Ireland, Catholics and Protestants have been in conflict for decades (and in the leading nationalist party Sinn Fein’s opinion for centuries). During our trip to Ireland we visted part head quarters on both sides of the conflict but since I took good notes on the nationalist side I wanted to post quick about how the conflict started.

The main players: Unionists (people who want to stay united with Great Britain) and Nationalists (people who want Northern Ireland reunited with Southern Ireland).

The Bloodshed: It started years ago and since the peace agreement in the early 90’s there has been slight hasseling and the occasional bomb or police officer targeted, but overall the bloodshed by the main political parties has diminished greatly. Now the violent extremists terrorize, on both sides.

Understanding the Conflict–Back to the Beginning:

According to Sinn Fein, the largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland, they consider themselves, and are proud to be “Irish Republicans”. “We believe in a human’s natural right for self determination and self government. Most countries have that right or can exercise that right but Ireland is not given the opportunity to be a sovereign state,” says Tom Holland, a leader in the Sinn Fein party. The island of Ireland is partitioned into north and south sectors, a political barrier that has become a social, religious, economical and governmental barrier as well over the years.

Sinn Fein believes the conflict began back in 1169 c.e. during the first colonial invasion by the English. In the 16^th and 17^th centuries there was a massive movement of the plantation. The English wanted to ensure that land conquered in Ireland remained in British hands so the monarchy handed out land to British aristocrats and military leaders. Oliver Cromwell went to Ireland to enforce English land ownership and during his conquest he and his men slaughtered thousands of Irish people. In 1798 a rebellion led by the “United Irish Men” gave birth to the idea of a republic against British rule and Sinn Fein traces the forefathers of the republic back to this rebellion.

In 1801 an active union was forged between England and Ireland because the British were aware that they were close to losing Ireland. However in 1845-49 when the famine struck, an estimated 1.5 million Irish people died of starvation even though there was food just across the Irish sea in England. This caused tension between the two nations that continued to build despite the “union” and in the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin where several republican military leaders commandeered the General Post Office, greater opinion turned to support the republic. British officers captured and executed the Irish Republican leaders which caused the public to sympathize with nationalist desires. In 1918 an election throughout Ireland showed Sinn Fein’s views to be 46% of the vote and the majority of people clearly wanted the end of British rule. After this, the War of Independence began between the IRA and the British Security Services and it resulted in the division of Ireland’s 32 counties—26 remained in the south and 6 became the north. “For catholic, republican nationalists this equaled disaster. It led to a sectarian, unjust, illegal rule in which many Catholics were discriminated against in the north,” says Holland. “We were treated like second class citizens.”

The demands of the civil rights campaign that followed over the next several decades were modest: one man, one vote. Marches of people were banned, people were not allowed to gather in groups of three or more, they were arrested and battered off the streets in their own country by foreigners, in their view. In 1994 the IRA called a ceasefire and all parties began to agree that no one was a clear winner but that the bloodshed on both sides had to stop and the talking must start. Since then there has been significantly more peace between the two states and the people within Ireland, but for the north in particular peace is not 100% the case. For example, occasionally a radical movement will target catholic police officers, for example. Overall according to Holland, Sinn Fein thinks there is political naivety on the orange side of the union state and the party’s view for a peaceful future includes a united Ireland without British rule.

Photo: me signing the peace wall in Belfast. 40 foot walls separate protestant and catholic areas. Schools are separate and workforce discrimination is illegal but it’s a mixture of civil rights, political, social, economical and religious injustice on both sides that has this country torn apart. The issue is not as simple as I make it appear here either. We also had walking tours of the neighborhoods from war prisoners on both sides. I highly recommend a visit to Belfast and taking a closer look at the conflict to get a full perspective.

Bomb Scare in Minneapolis

This morning I was enjoying a cup of coffee in my Duluth kitchen when my mom came in and mentioned casually that I should “watch out” since I happen to be flying out of MSP airport Friday morning for Ireland. She told me that yesterday there was a bomb threat in the Lindberg terminal (where I depart from) on baggage carousel 12 on a flight inward-bound from it’s original destination, Ireland (where I am flying to). Ironic.

I nearly choked on my coffee. Normally I’m up to date with current events but this break I’ve let everything digital go in hopes of restructuring my onscreen-usage habits and I had no idea about the MSP incident. Perhaps it was just jumpy officials who are ready to call a code red at the first hint of terrorism because the unexpected and undetected Detroit Christmas incident left us shaken up. But, perhaps not.

Apparently what happened was a drug and bomb sniffing canine reacted to something (they won’t tell us what since those chemicals are classified information) on “the last bag”– pink bag that airport luggage officials use to signify that all of the checked baggage has been passed through security and the luggage line for that flight is complete.

The last time I was in a seriously threatening situation with bombs was July 5, 2007 in London, England. Just 48 hours before the London bombings a girlfriend and I were tromping around the city, riding the London Eye Ferris wheel, eating good food, wearing those dorky British flag top hats and sipping our hot chocolates from Starbucks–two carefree 15-year-olds.

Then less than two days later we were at a bowling alley with more friends around and the TV’s flashed to BBC news shooting video and pictures of billowing smoke coming from a crater of what once was a tube stop. BBC filmed the spiny wreckage of the number 30 bus that was blown to fragments. We were all stunned sick and no one could bowl anymore.

My mom never watches TV in the morning, but when she woke up at 7am back in America that day, an instinct told her to get up and turn it on.  It was 2 or 3 in the afternoon my time before I got through to her to tell her I was fine. The US government sent a warning to all of us Americans in England at the time issuing new heightened security with the option to contact the embassy and opt out.

Last week at a family Christmas gathering my law enforcement uncles warned me not to fly to Amsterdam saying that an undetonated bomb had just been found on a plane heading toward Holland. Flying is statistically safer than driving a car, and even though I fly all the time, part of me is at an unrest over these bomb “scares”. Whether they are real or not, terrorism is alive and well undoubtedly, and if something were to happen, there is little opportunity for my control over the situation. I’m still going to Ireland and I genuinely don’t think this particular MSP scare is anything to worry about. I’m not nervous to get on the plane, and I mostly approach travel from an optimistic point of view hopeful that nothing will happen. But generally speaking, I suppose the tiny nagging piece of me that is a realist wonders: what if…?

With more bomb threats and the speedy rate at which technology to make these bombs and to detect these bombs is developing, that realist part of me is growing ever larger. I suppose travel is only glamorous in retrospect and concerns like these are just things we learn to live with. In boarding a plane, just like every time you get behind the wheel or step out your door, you take risks. But then again, where’s the adventure in life without a little risk…