Is This Summer?

We have been enjoying summer-like weather for a week now.  It's rare to have a solid week of lovely weather and all of Britain is making the most of this phenomenon.

Yesterday Mike & I walked along the Tay for 5 miles, to the beach in Broughty Ferry.  We haven't returned since our first visit, back in August 2010, mostly because there hasn't been a nice enough day to entice us.  Luckily, we've now had the good fortune to see the Dundonians at play and it made for some interesting people watching.

We spent hours watching the Dundonians on the beach and, before yesterday, I'd never seen anyone walking on a beach whilst wearing socks. Shoes and socks, sure.  Just shoes, okay.  But, socks no shoes?  Like sleeveless t-shirts tucked into denim short shorts, that's apparently the style in these parts.  Similarly, I'd never seen a stroller on the beach before yesterday.  I'm not sure what others do with their kids; I've never really paid any attention before.  All I know is that seeing a whole lot of strollers being pushed on the sand appeared bizarre to me.

After enjoying the people watching at the beach we headed back home where we realised we had actually become sunburned.  Are we in Mallorca?

Today, although burned and tired from our 10-mile walk yesterday, we still wanted to enjoy the lovely day so we headed back down to the Tay where we saw sunbathing sea lions (or seals, I don't know the difference).  We sat on the river wall for a bit, enjoying their company, before heading back home.

Knowing this fine weather won't last, we're trying to make the most of it and appreciate it while it's here.  At the same time, we wouldn't mind living where this kind of weather is known as summer rather than a phenomenon.

London or Bust

This week has been an exciting one for our little family in regards to our upcoming relocation. Not only did we finalise our accommodations but Mike also received news that he has a job waiting for him upon our arrival.

Our flat is in Bethnal Green in east London. Although neither of us have seen it yet, besides a few pictures, based on comparative rent and location we’re confident our new flat will be an improvement upon last year’s arrangements. Though this flat will be our smallest (13 sm) at least we’ll have a bathroom (seriously, we had been considering an option without one).

Mike in front of his gallery last summer

Mike’s job is the same one he had last summer, working at a gallery in Mayfair specialising in the Vienna Secessionists (douchey artistic term provided by Mike) such as Klimt and Schiele. His first two months will be part-time, allowing him the freedom to market his own art and, hopefully, get something exhibited, but then in mid-September he begins a full-time schedule preparing for an October exhibition which will take him through mid-December. The whole arrangement is a dream and, especially coming less than a month after his graduation, better than we could’ve hoped.

Mike Has A Website

Mike has a website.  That's pretty cool, right?  I think so.

Plan B

Mike spoke with his adviser this past week and she basically reaffirmed what we had learnt on our own:

1. The Post Study Work Visa has been eliminated and no existing students are being grandfathered into the programme, and
2. If we want to stay in the UK, our only option is the Employer Sponsored Work Visa (aka indentured servitude).

Happily, she did have one piece of good news for us: the UK gives us 6 months after Mike's graduation to get our shit together.  We had thought we'd only have until October, so this is actually quite helpful.

We're moving to London on 2 July.  Our plan is to duplicate last summer's success and, if we're lucky, find an employer willing to sponsor one of us.  However, unsure of the difficulty involved, we're not expecting to stay in London past December.  Come January 2013, we'll be calling New York City home.

We had hoped to live in London for at least two years, travelling Europe whilst earning British pounds to help replenish our completely exhausted savings.  Now, we'll have six months in London before moving to one of our favourite cities in the world.  Definitely not on the same level as Plan A but not a terrible alternative either.

We're disappointed about not getting to see as much of Europe as we had hoped but we're oddly excited about returning to the States.  Even with every decision we've made since 2008 having been in support of our plan to live abroad for the foreseeable future, we've been able to formulate our Plan B rather quickly and without too much anger or sadness.  Of course we'll still try to wring every last bit of adventure from our remaining months in the UK but we're also looking forward to living a more permanent existence back in the States, without fear of deportation or visa revocation.  Surprisingly, we're really looking forward to coming home.