It's a few days shy of Christmas and in a few more than that the year of 2010 will pass the arbitrary delineation mark and become 2011. We're deep into the era which shall be remembered in the future as the turn of the century. It's an odd time and I hope a good one to be living in. When I look back, later in my life, I hope I'll remember still keenly the oddness and the alien aspect of the feelings and experiences I've felt since I've landed here. I'm sure I wont; we never do.

So now that I'm living here in London, actually living here (linger on that thought for a moment and measure it's full weight and meaning) it makes sense to not just record the schedule of my days, but rather the ephemera - thoughts, feelings and oddities.

I suppose giving a chronological list of my daily activities over the first few days in London gives me a series of touchstones or bookmarks in my mind that I can file sensations behind; for say, when I think of St. Paul's, I'll recall a sense of majesty and awe that I could never express in words. This is both a failing in the value of words and also in my ability to wield them effectively.

I came across this thought walking through central London today by myself; perhaps the first time that I have done so. I have the feeling still that I could get hopelessly lost in this city. I've never felt so swallowed up in a jungle of buildings before. It's a feeling that I could so easily get lost, but never a fear.

I got off at St Paul's station today. The footpaths are still icy in the centre of town, but most of the ice has been ground into salty mud, a brilliant kind of slippery mess that destroys shoes so effectively I'm sure it must be a ploy of the shoe companies. The day was chilly, but the pace I set soon had my forehead sweating under my warm, furry hat (8 quid at H&M - bargain!). I set a path and wandered with intrepid determination through unknown streets.

Call it a new passion - wandering around unknown streets in a new and, this is important, interesting town. There are so many wonderful surprises to find whether they are odd shops or odder architecture. But the real pay-off is the feeling of discovery; as though I am some explorer charting new territory. And that's when I miss everyone back home the most.

For, what is the point of discovery when there's no one to share it with? I'm so happy to have Kristen to bring my discoveries to, yet sometimes I find myself thinking, 'so and so would love this!' and I can't wait to tell them... Only they're on the other side of the world.

I think I've digressed enough, so here are some specific examples of the things that struck me as odd initially. I'll start with supermarkets, which have evolved into an entirely different creature in the isolated environment of Britain. I don't know how to follow that statement up. Perhaps an impression of my first experience of the M&S food hall, in which I wandered around like a stunned fish trying to take it all in. It's just different. German supermarkets are no problem, they're just like New Zealand ones. I find myself at a complete loss as to how to quantify the difference so I'll move on.

Another phenomenon, this one completely inexplicable and like some dark secret never mentioned beyond this country's borders lest it invalidate the legacy of the greats like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones and bring eternal shame: Pop music here is rank, rotten and fetid and walking around in the daylight like some kind of abomination. They say pop is dead, but really it's a zombie and it's here to eat the brains of the British public.

People here are obsessed with Cheryl Cole. I had no idea who she was until I spent a few days here, listening to all the awful music playing in the high street stores. The Wanted. Take That. JLS. They're not only around, but they're topping the charts. Luckily I still have the ability to access good music.

I also have to wonder why every bathroom here has a light switch on a string from the ceiling.

It must be blog update time, as I haven't written since we got back from Germany last week. That was Tuesday night and it's Sunday evening now. We've been staying in a bit for the last few days, getting over our colds and staying warm, as it has snowed some over the last two days. Yesterday morning the snow came down heavily and we made a snowman on the front lawn; that was before the flatmates went out on an off-license crawl dressed as Santa.

So, continuing on in Germany - The day after my last post, we got up super early to catch our train from Cologne to Aachen. The train left just after 7am, in the pitch dark and arrived after 8am in the pre-dawn light. We figured it was still too early to look around Aachen and we found the bus to Maastricht pretty much by accident, so we hopped on for another hour.

This took us over the border into the Netherlands and across the country towards the border with Belgium. I want to make the point here that when I got off the plane into Germany, the passport control looked at my NZ passport, smiled, stamped it and wished me a happy holiday. When I crossed the border into the Netherlands, there was no border control. When I came back through Gatwick airport after the trip was over, I had to fill in an arrival card, hand it over to a surly man who questioned me on my stay and took a thumb and finger print. I honestly can't say I understand the reason for the difference in border control procedures.

Anyway, I was talking about arriving in Maastricht, at the central station of an unexpected country at around 9am on a Saturday morning. Town was strangely deserted at this time of day and apart from a few market stall owners setting up, we were almost the only people out. Unable to understand any of the signs (changing gears from German to Dutch is hard) we headed towards the centre of town where the map showed several pretty buildings might be. We also looked for some breakfast.

We crossed over the river which I can't remember the name of and into the centre of town, which is a warren of cobbled streets. I've been making a very good effort at getting lost on this trip so far, but have so far managed to always find myself in the end. Maastricht is a very beautiful city to get lost in and every turn seems to lead to a new sight. It seems European towns are getting into the spirit of Christmas by setting up markets in all the public squares and Maastricht is no different.

We've been going into all sorts of churches and cathedrals over here; they're everywhere dotted around cities and they all have something different to see on the inside. One in particular in Maastricht with a magnificent painted ceiling turned out to house a busy bookshop.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the Netherlands and can't wait to go back at another time. Anyway, after Maastricht, we caught the bus back to Aachen and wandered through the city for a bit. The Aachener Dom is an absolutely stunning cathedral both inside and out. Also, we accidentally wandered down the wrong street and through the red light district, which consisted of a long row of windows with women in their underwear.

I'm sure my trips onto the continent are not over yet, but I'm waiting until I get the job situation sorted out before I think too much about that.

Right now I'm in Germany, in our hostel. It's our second day here in Köln (Cologne) and it's still pretty surreal. Everywhere we go, all the signs are in German and people start talking to me in German and I don't understand a word of it. It's a bit scary until I realised that everyone pretty much knows English, so I just stare blankly at people who talk to me in German and they seem to get the message.

So, things have been very confusing for our first couple of days here. Confusing but fun. When we first arrived at the airport, we didn't know how to get into town due to a lack of pre-planning. As a result we jumped on the first bus we saw and ended up going nowhere. Luckily we managed to decipher a transport map and got onto a light rail train that took us into town, where we were able to find an underground to the hostel.

The place is very nice. I mean that - it's really comfortable and the owner is nice. He's on the couch over there playing Xbox or something with a fag in his mouth. When we arrived he sat down with us and showed us on a map all the good places to go and recommended Aachen to us for a day trip. We're going there tomorrow, which was absolutely unplanned. Also, we'll see if we can go to the Netherlands and Belgium if we have time.

Even though we were very tired we managed to go to the Dom (a huge, old cathedral in the middle of town) and climb to the top. There is also a Christmas market at the base where we sampled hot glühwein (mulled wine), currywurst (curried sausages) and reibekuchen (potato cakes). We continued on to another market which had a gnomes theme going on which was in the Aldstadt (old town).

We ended up getting dinner at some restaurant called Haxanhaus, which served up an unsurmountable amount of food. There was sauerkraut, some kind of sausage, a slice of a ham steak and the biggest pork knuckle in the world. I did quite well considering I was tired and had a cold coming on.

Today my cold has me in full grasp and is shaking the life out of me. Despite this we have struggled on and booked tickets for our trip tomorrow and walked around the shopping area for a bit. We also found the chocolate museum and the medieval market next door. I drank a bit much of the glühwein and mead and got a bit drunk, which didn't react too well with the cold.

Now we're going to rest up in preparation for our big trip tomorrow.

Another few days on and a new week has begun. Already this week I have been to one job interview and have another one to get to tomorrow, though it's all the way out in Maidenhead so that's going to be difficult. Job hunting is stressful business. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this - and I've only just started.

My interview yesterday went on for 2 hours and I got a very good feeling about it. I have to tell myself that it was actually "mission successful" as I was able to win over the recruiters enough that I'm sure they recommended me to the client and I may get a second interview. But that involves waiting for a call. That's all I seem to be doing at the moment; waiting for a call. And waiting.

See, I've put my CV out to so many places, my phone goes off at the oddest times and recruiters I don't remember apply to start talking about roles they have. Then maybe I don't hear from them again. Maybe I'm just still waiting. I can't walk away from my phone for two seconds. Or go on the Underground as phones don't work there.

I feel confident that I can actually ace an interview, but I just need to get the interview in the first place. The market is so competitive right now I wonder now how many interviews I will have to go to before I finally get a job. So, I'm a bit stressed at the moment.

Adding to that stress a little is the fact that we're going to Germany in a couple of days and there is a lot to organise. For example, getting to Gatwick airport before 6am. That involves getting a train at 4am, which involves somehow getting to the train station before then. Once we actually get to Cologne, it'll finally be time for me to relax for a few days.

Last weekend was pretty crazy, I have to admit. The whole flat got dressed up as Where's Wally and left first thing in the morning to go and drink at the most seedy scum hole of a flat I've seen. The whole place was made worse by the rancid stink of the butcher underneath and the cockroaches skittering over the floor. This was all in preparation for going to The Church, which is the absolutely inappropriate name given to an old theatre in Clapham where kiwis and aussies congregate with locals to get pissed.

As the pictures I posted up on facebook earlier will no doubt testify, it was a wicked den of debauch and disgusting behaviour; but wild fun all the same. There were several drinking games taking place up on stage as well as a stripper - all of this happening from 11am on a Sunday.

It was all over as the skies were darkening at 3pm and when we got back home it was scarcely 7pm and everyone was passing out drunk. Considering how drunk I was, there was no hangover, owing completely to the fact that it was all over so quickly and I managed to get a fairly decent night's sleep.

So here's hoping this weekend in Germany gives me more interesting experiences to write about.

So I've been in the UK for a month now, which now I think about it, is actually the longest continuous period I've been outside of New Zealand. That means England is the place I have spend the second most amount of time in. Now it is also the only other place that I have rented a house in, as we've both moved into a flat with 3 Aussie/Kiwi sisters et al.

Over the last week it has snowed several times, leaving the ground blanketed by a few centimetres of snow. It is also very cold (-3 or -4°C) so the snow isn't melting, just slowly compacting into a very slippery ice. It's highly likely that we'll be having a white Christmas this year.

I'm still looking for work, which is beginning to be a bit of a drag, especially with the lack of response I've had this week. This all changed at the last minute today as I've just confirmed two job interviews for next week. The first on comes on Monday and is for a job in central London that I'm actually quite excited about even though I don't know all the details yet. The other one is a place out in Maidenhead for a gambling company, which if I have to be completely honest is not getting me very excited at all.

This all hopefully works into my plans to go to Germany next week. I really haven't let myself get excited for the trip as I've been so concerned with job hunting, but if nothing turns up it'll at least be good to have a holiday from job hunting.

We had a day of exploring the neighbourhood yesterday and have made a few nice surprise discoveries. The first is that there is a Hell Pizza just 2 minutes down the road from us and it looks just like one from back home. So if I ever get homesick for pizza, I know where to go. Also, just down the road from that about 10 minutes walk is the largest shopping mall in London. Here's a picture of some of it:

The place is massive and constructed with luxury shopping in mind. There are your usual high street shops like H&M and Top Shop but go down one end to "The Village" and it's all luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co to name a couple. There is no 'food court' either, more a collection of islands which host a posh array of delights from Spanish tapas to a sushi train to Vietnamese pho.

The place is perfect to visit when it's so freezing cold outside, but a bit less fun when you don't have any money to spend. Here's hoping I get a job soon.