Photos: Portobello Road + Apartment

Photos of the apartment are below -- it's already expertly cluttered.



































Portobello Road is known for it colorful row-houses and weekend markets. The following photos show the colorful homes. We found a cool life-size Scottish fellow at the entrance to a restaurant we visited. The church, out of order, is St. Paul's Cathedral in London, near where we ate our burgers for dinner on Saturday.

What Is My Job?

Most liquids are sold in Europe in a wax-covered paper carton, similar to what Tropicana juice comes in in the US. It's called a tetrapack. The man who invented it, Hans Rausing, is a billionaire and he is the patriarch of the family for whom I work. He's in his 70s now, and his eldest daughter, Lisbeth, runs the show. She has a home south of London, a home in London, a home in Sweeden, and an estate in the Scottish Highlands. All of Hans's kids are billionaires. Lisbet has an office that manages her personal affairs (schedules doctor's appointments, books lunch dates, rearranges furniture to make the estate comfortable prior to her arrival), and her personal finances. She also has a private investment team to make sure her money grows. She also has a foundation and charitable trust to do all her philanthropy work. So, I work in the office that manages her personal affairs. Basically, the property in Scotland is really expensive to run and maintain (1Million USD/year). My job is to develop a marketing plan to advertise the estate in the proper ways so that they can rent it out a few times a year to raise a bit of money to off-set the costs of maintaining the Corrour Estate. It's not supposed to make money for the family, per se, just to help stem the exorbitant costs associated with owning and running the property.

I get to go to Corrour -- latitude of central Alaska -- in July and check out the 20,000 acre estate and the castle/mansion that is the central hub of the estate. Very excited about that.

Right now, my job is primarily research based, to see what other Scottish estates do and how they market themselves. I'm also creating a promotional brochure to explain the estate, the emphasis on sustainability and eco-friendliness, and show glamorous photos of the castle and surrounding landscape, which is breathtaking. I love it! The staff in the office is all women, and we have great discussions over lunch. They are all very sweet.

Week 2 starts tomorrow.

Recounting adventures from my first week

So, I'm safely settled in London. Arrived last Friday and here is a quick review of the craziness.

1 - arrived on Friday with no trouble and met Sarah at Heathrow; we arrived at the same time. Traveled to our temporary home, which was a single room in a home owned by a single mother. Dodgey area, neurotic landlady.

2- spent the weekend traveling all over the city looking for apartments because Nina the Landlady was crazy; insulting, unwelcoming, inconsiderate, and generally unhelpful.

3 - Started work on Monday, more on that later.

4 - Apartment hunting after work for a few days, found a place on Wednesday.

5 - Dinner out with Judy and David and Kelly; walked around London and got pizza and hung out for a while, returned to room at Nina's really late and was semi-scared for my safety.


6 - Moved out of Nina's on Thursday morning, and she insulted me some more; said her 5 year old was smarter than me, that I was irresponsible, too young to be away from home, and very noisy. Good riddance, and "get out in 10 minutes" she said, when I informed her I wanted to leave.

7 - Thursday morning, I lugged my hastily-packed bags to work and had to open the office myself, because most of the staff was out on a retreat day. Set off the security alarm. Could not disarm. Boss sent me the code from his Blackberry, but still couldn't turn it off. Metropolitan Police showed up, I couldn't do anything. Still buzzing. Police left. In-house security came to check, couldn't do anything. One of the women told me, seeing me visibly flustered, that my bad day could be do to someone sending the evil eye my way. To protect against the evil eye, she said, to eat no meat or dairy all day to cleanse my body, then pour salt in my hands and wave my hands around my body three times, then wash the salt away down the sink, with my eyes closed. She was not joking. Day improved from then on.

8 - Judy, David, Kelly, Guillian, and I met up on Friday, after a visit to Tate Modern museum of art. We went Judy and David's place and cooked pad thai from scratch along with a chocolate cake. Cooking adventures... lots of fun.

9 - Saturday, I missed the Queen's festivities (her official birthday), but we met up to go to Notting Hill, to explore the cafe's and markets along Portbello Road. Met some locals, enjoyed cafes of all types, and browsed farmers' produce, purses, pocket watches, jewelry... you name it and there was a booth selling it. Went to Barbican for dinner at a gourmet burger place that put Bartley's to shame then went to a French film called Priceless. Had a fun day, all in all.

10 - Sunday, settling in more at the apartment, grocery shopping and exploring the neighborhood, did laundry and set up this blog.