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!
Trafalgar Square!
Our best friend, Big Ben
Never actually took a picture of our Tube Station, Westminster - so it may look grey, but this place feels like home.
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.
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!
Neal's Yard
Trafalgar Square
One of my favorite views in London
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.
St. Paul's
The Globe
Music on 'the beach'
US in the UK! I like your style.
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...