Tour guide vs. Tourist: The ultimate face-off

“You’re too loud!” A man’s nylon-enshrouded arm waved for my attention, for everyone’s attention. He looked miserable.

He sat among rows of over-prepared tourists, all wearing shoes so sensible they had no place in London. Some were shod with hiking boots. Others with bulbous white trainers, the sort resembling miniature cruise liners on each foot, which is, I suspect, their natural environment. But we were on an open-top tour bus in the centre of London, not the Alps or a 14-day cruise to the Bahamas, though a few wore the T-shirts.

Somehow in a sea of immigration and unparalleled diversity, amid faces and accents of all hues and tones, these tourists still managed to concoct a look that said: We don’t belong here.

Looking back at the still-waving man, I paused, microphone in hand, to assess the situation. He locked bespectacled eyes with mine and crumpled his face like he had a migraine that was entirely my doing. This one’s a problem, I thought – my first delinquent passenger as a new London tour guide.

Perhaps I could have ignored him, had I tried harder. But when I continued to speak, he looked at me like my voice was a busted sewer pipe; like my tour was a test-run for a new method of psychological torture; or, like I was his estranged wife who’d just informed him I’d not only be taking the dog, but the house on the lake as well.

As a tour guide in London during high season, it helps to have a thick skin. Since I don’t have one, I cope in other ways. I see my job as a sit-com, and I’m the main character. The concept offers the false sense of security I need, that everything will work out by the end and I will glean some useful lesson from each episode no matter how cringe-worthy. Each antagonist is carefully chosen for comic value. In this episode, I’d apparently acquired a failing marriage.

Following their father’s lead, the children, swathed in beige safari gear, covered their ears with their hands. Their bony arms akimbo made for pointy elbows in the faces of nearby passengers. The boy moaned and rocked a little. If my voice inflicted as much pain on him as it seemed, I hope the poor child never gets a paper cut. He’d have to be euthanized.

“Maybe you could take it easy and stop talking for a while,” the condescending husband character suggested, gesturing at our suffering offspring, as though it was a perfectly reasonable thing to ask. “You’re talking a lot.”

But I’m a tour guide. Sixty-five passengers, including this man, paid me to talk for two hours straight, from Westminster Abbey to Tower Bridge, and now his issues wanted me to stop. “There’s a public bus that follows the same route and costs ten times less,” I thought, but didn’t say. “And isn’t the commentary the entire point of a sightseeing tour?” I didn’t say either.

Instead, I covered my microphone with my hand and managed a much more discreet, “I’m sorry sir, but these people are expecting me to tell them about London.” I gestured at the other passengers who were polite enough to busy themselves with a statue of a horse. Incensed, he stood, rolled his eyes and took a different seat. My seat. The one reserved for the tour guide.  He was now close enough to make me fear the episode might receive an R-rating, if not for intimate touching, then for the rage I might unleash if he continued to play his role so convincingly.

While leading a tour I usually stand, so I didn’t actually need my seat, but I did wonder why he wanted to be closer to the apparent source of his misery. The answer became immediately clear – now I could hear him, too.

In close proximity, he met my every historical fact with a cluck, every anecdote with a huff. The children writhed in pantomime pain just a few seats ahead. Exacting their powers of peripheral observation, they regularly checked for their father’s approval and got the exact opposite from me. Objectively, I must say the scene was impressive. The children’s belts were cinched so tightly and the chinstraps of their sun hats so taut, that their relative range of motion showed real dedication to the cause. If practice makes perfect, I see a future in Japanese bondage for these two.

Hyde Park, Queen Victoria, Marble Arch, I rambled on in the face of adversity. But my mutinous sit-com family was contending for a Golden Globe. My passengers, the live studio audience, were now fixated on this subplot rather than London. A few kindly shot me glances of solidarity. Everyone else shot me looks saying, “I’m so very glad I’m not you.” My studio husband just wanted me shot. I couldn’t wait to be rid of this man and his two snivelling protégés.

With no amicable end to the arrangement in sight, as the bus pulled over to collect more passengers, I had no choice but to start the proceedings. “This is your stop,” I said directly to the man, and I meant it more than I’d ever meant it before. In retaliation he unleashed an expression of unbridled disgust to match my squinty face of disapproval. Following a brief, but intense stare-off, the father finally resolved to add me to his list of failed relationships. He cast a look so final and so clear, I knew exactly what he was saying. “Fine,” said the look. “You can have the dog and the goddamned house. But I’m taking the kids.”

Directing audience attention away as he arranged his things and prepared to leave me – children, backpacks, snack packs, water bottles, camera, map and suntan lotion – I pointed out the Bob Forstner car showroom, because no one can resist a Lamborghini. It was the perfect location for a scene change.

When the bus pulled away from the stop, I looked down at the sidewalk and watched the disgruntled, neurotic triumvirate shrink into the distance, becoming nary more than a tiny beige smudge in a crowd of otherwise pleasant tourists. In this moment I realized I might never see the family again. And with that came relief.

I never wanted those kids anyway.

Babes in Publand

Although the novelty of working at a traditional English boozer hadn’t yet worn off, it was still nice to spruce things up a little for the holiday season.

Nothing about the pub but the staff had changed according to one octogenarian, for at least the forty years since he’d last stopped in for a cheeky pint, and I’m sure that’s true. The woodwork is dark and sturdy, the floor is staggeringly uneven, and the regulars are as eternally linked to the premises as its ghosts.

The bi-worldly clientele is dictated by virtue of location – on top of a ‘plague pit’, built on bubonic bones, and in the heart of London’s financial district, built a little less literally on capitalism’s collateral damage.

Perhaps it’s knowledge of this that prevents English locals from signing on as staff, leaving it to be manned by the more adventurous, albeit itinerant members of the Commonwealth – South Africans, Australians and Canadians – but more likely it’s the pay. Even in my three-month career in bar-wenching, I’ve seen a lot of turnover, and I suspect even a ghost or two.

The allure of minimum wage in a city where tipping is considered an American folly – and getting to and from work with a coffee’ll set you back a third of a Monday’s earnings – rapidly wears thinner than the charm of a stock broker on coke. If not for the rare, but much appreciated exceptions to this rule – and lunch on the house – it’d have been a Dickensian Christmas indeed.

Thankfully, if any stereotype about Australians is true – because I’ve been divulged a key secret of the inner circle, that much of the blonde is bottled – it’s their ability to make fun happen in even the most hostile of environments, and so my co-wenches broke out the Christmas decorations. It’s in this sort of resilience and resourcefulness that, as a rural Canadian, I feel a kinship with Australians; though if anything’s to set us apart, it’s the details of our experiences.

Amid strings of lights, shiny balls and stockings tagged with names matching those surreptitiously scribbled by staff on the walls behind the bar alongside dates of service, were clumps of green fir boughs. I imagined the boughs atop the old wooden mantle over the defunct fireplace, like my mother’s always done on the mantles at our old seaside home in Nova Scotia.

Wanting to pitch in, and give my biceps a break from pumping flat pints of tea-coloured ale, I began untangling boughs from the clumps I’d found them in, but found it a nearly impossible task – they all seemed to be fused together, each clump slightly bigger than the last.

“Ugh!” I complained to my Australian friend on staff, grabbing another stubborn tangle of boughs for emphasis, “Why are there three big clumps of these things?”

She stared me down, long enough to establish that I was completely serious, and then said in a tone suggesting both pity and mockery, something that made me realize just how far from home we both were in that old English pub.

“You don’t have artificial trees in Canada, do you?”

The English Pub, originally uploaded by Dougerino.

Before I got lucky in London

It was a short, regrettable fling – one of the last, and it may have otherwise been among the most forgettable, had my suitor not resorted to theft to gain my attention, if not my affection.

Lasting only a few days of vegan lunches, soy lattes and his nervous mannerisms, even in its genesis, I knew the deal could never quite be sealed with more than a hops-sloppy kiss. It wasn’t in the stars. So when having the young Scottish import in my personal space became unbearably unpalatable, I delivered the terminal blow by phone and naively expected never to hear from him again. Instead, as it does, dinged pride guided its punch-drunk governor to commit criminal acts of idiocy.

Of the little he knew about me, other than my being the ex-girlfriend of one of his own friends – though the quality of their relationship continues to be debatable – was my love of cruising Montreal’s broad, tree-lined streets on my beloved beater bike, a ’67 Schwinn with just enough of its original paint to suggest it was once a decidedly Californian shade of blue. The bike had been a gift from the ex-boyfriend – a gift he particularly enjoyed reclaiming when it came time to exchange any love he had for me for seething, pathological hatred. Ours was the standard break-up to follow any 7-year union – savage, vengeful and sufficiently bitter to put any Canadian winter to shame. After all I’d invested, anything less and I’d have been offended.

The young Scot seemed an anxious contender for the post, but upon experiencing even a lesser rejection first-hand and over the phone, he both blamed my ex-boyfriend for having rendered me incapable of loving someone new, and set out to win over what he believed to be even the most damaged bits of my icy little heart. But, had he asked me, I’d have said it was less an issue with my heart, and more an issue of instinct. Something, I felt, just wasn’t right.

Within a few days, the misguided young Scot made up his mind and did what he thought best, and resolved to steal my bike back. I know how he arrived at this decision, because the entire decision-making process was recorded in a series of four voicemail messages, from conception to completion. The wayward gesture was highly successful, but only in proving me right about him being so wrong.

While I appreciated his sympathy and creativity, the plan was not very well thought out. My ex-boyfriend, and the bicycle, lived in Mile End, the same close-knit Montreal neighbourhood as me. Surely I’d be seen pedalling guiltily along and be accused of thieving it myself. Nevertheless, in the first message, he said he’d spotted the bike and thought I deserved to have it. The second message reiterated. The third announced he’d developed a plan to steal it. The fifth, told me it had been relocated to the entrance of my apartment building, with a key to its new lock hidden under the seat, awaiting me.

At the time, my ex-boyfriend’s wrath was a fitfully sleeping dragon, and avoiding inducing further nightmares was topped in my priorities only by basic survival. Already subject to random phone calls designed to intimidate and punish me for leaving, any new fodder would surely fan the hellfire. So, after running down three flights of stairs and out the front doors to the bicycle rack, you can imagine my relief to see that despite the young Scot’s strange trail of messages, the bicycle wasn’t there.

What was there, was someone else’s bike – a similar bike, but red, and not the right brand or make or year or, really, anything the same at all. Still, I checked underneath its seat, and there as promised, was a key. I was now in possession of a stolen bike.

After calling friends to rant about my new role as harbourer of stolen goods, I began posting flyers around the neighbourhood, asking for anyone with a bicycle stolen from the area that week to please contact me with a description, so I could return it to its rightful rider. But none of the many hopeful enquiries described the bike I’d been fostering. A week later, it occurred to me to lock the bike up in the same location from where I suspected it had been stolen. To it, I attached my email address, figuring the delighted owner would contact me for the key. Another week came and went, and still no word. When I checked on the bike, I saw that the paper with my email address had been torn away, but a second U-lock was attached and a note snaked through its grimy spokes. It read:

“Dear Bike Angel, I don’t know how you found it, but please call me.”

And he left his number. Bike Angel. I liked it.

Doing the right thing is good, but having it work out is great. The owner of the bicycle was a well-known local character and talented Montreal artist. His prints had been hanging in my home, years before his stolen bicycle made it there to join them. And, because it’s Montreal, and the English-speaking community so small, he was also an acquaintance of my ex, who, as it turns out, still has the blue Schwinn.

A small, awkward friendship budded in the fiasco, with the red bike’s rightful owner, and every time I saw him riding it through the same streets I loved, I felt a little spark of victory. And just once, we also shared a hops-soggy kiss, so every time we stumbled into each other’s paths afterward, my cheeks took the colour of the bike that started it all.

But all of that and all those people have become little more than anecdote. I’ve since fallen in love with someone else, someone without need to impress me, someone completely unrelated this story, someone English who’s never even been to Montreal, and to my own surprise, someone who doesn’t even own a bike. Still, my instincts say he’s also someone for whom it’s worth crossing an ocean.

My ex-boyfriend with the blue bike seems to be letting sleeping dragons lie.

The young Scot must surely have been deported by now.

The artist’s red bike has since been stolen – for good.

And even though it’s raining tonight in London, I’m warm inside with a man who’s doing well at proving I was right about him, and so I think, I may have been stolen for good, too.

This is me with my boyfriend, tolerating London, for some effing good reason.

London and/or bust

I'm living in a privileged state of poverty. Somehow despite chronic joblessness – since my ill-fated stint as a D-list TV show host / life coach's assistant (read: fall girl) – I'm still living in one of the nicest neighbourhoods in London, in a house with a sunny garden, thanks to a sweet couple I met one year ago today.

While I'm choosing rice over roasts and eggs over chicken, and avoiding leaving the house – because even that costs money in London – my new friends have chosen me over privacy.

And it is here that I should note, they've recently gotten engaged to be married. I like to think of myself now as their trial child, as I'm currently occupying their yet-to-be-firstborn's bedroom. To make it more authentic, I've asked them to please adopt me, but they played the British bureaucracy card, claiming that laws restrict people from adopting adults older than themselves. Despite their loving nature and kindness toward me, it's become apparent I've got no chance of being the favourite.

Not long after I made my request, they proposed another living situation for me. One that'll keep me in the neighbourhood, but out of their house. I'm seeing it today, and if all goes well, I'll have a space of my own – shared with two others, that is. Meaning I might finally unpack my suitcase, hang the art I carried from Canada 6 months ago, and solidify friendships over for dinner and wine at mine.

Sure I'll have to work my ass off, working back-to-back shifts at the first jobs that come my way, be they street canvassing, conducting telephone surveys or collecting glasses at a pub for the privilege, but nothing has ever seemed more worth it.

It's about time I start thanking all my new friends for letting me in on London's best-kept secret: It's not all smog and rain.

This, I've since been informed, is the requisite photo newcomers take of London's residential streets and power lines. I may not be original, but at least I'm starting to blend in.

Chipstick it

As a Canadian living in England, it's confusing enough for me to have to call fries chips, and chips crisps, but to make chips that look like fries, or rather crisps that look like chips, or chip-crisps and call them chipsticks?

England, you mess with my head.

If you are what you eat, I'm an identity crisis.

Greasy breakfast = Modern romance

"It's brilliant," my boyfriend said with the kind of enthusiasm he usually reserves for sweets. "We really, really have to get some."

The opportunist in me agreed wholeheartedly. If he was that excited about buying a Lush massage bar, I'd be a fool to dissuade him. But then he went on.

"This massage oil really is just so nice," he said, sniffing each tester in the shop's display. "Mmmm." And he paused thoughtfully before adding, "Really, really nice."

It was that last "really nice" that busted open the Pandora's box of things to strategically ignore for the benefit of any modern romance, and the ghost of one of his ex-lovers popped out to tell me just how nice she thought the massage oil was too.

"How exactly did you find out you like this stuff so much?" my inner-masochist prodded, and in the same breath I asked him not to answer that. He knew what I was thinking though, and just as much as my face didn't conceal jealous discomfort, his didn't conceal annoyance.

"How exactly did you find out you like sex so much?" he countered.

That shut me up.

With a little breath, I locked Pandora's box again and reminded myself that having a boyfriend who likes to give massages is far better than one who doesn't – no matter how he developed a taste for it, or the skills. You can read further into that if you want.

So we went back to the task at hand, and agreed on our favourite scented oil, which was easy, because we both liked the same one.

But the universe couldn't just leave it at that.

The next day an old fling found me on Facebook and sent the message that he'd been "thinking fondly of old times". While that fling was brief and lacked long-term significance, I realised I hadn't walked away empty-handed. In fact, he'd taught me something I've gone on to share with most of my friends – something just as, if not more intimate than massage oil ... breakfast.

Delicious, delicious breakfast – and I make a mighty fluffy scrambled eggs with cream cheese.

This is what dating looks like in England.

Privacy piracy: In a home near you

"What I want to see is pure, unadulterated blogging – a total exposé."

It's a gutsy thing to say considering I've just moved in with him. But he meant it, and I knew it, because he's the sort of man who likes to get down to the gritty uncomfortable truth of ... everything.

My other new flatmate, his long-term partner and also my friend (the one who brought me along as her fashion assistant for a day) immediately clocked the risks, "No, no, no, no, no!"

The rest of their dialogue was lost on me, with both arguments presented simultaneously, enthusiastically, and with English accents, so I only caught her "last word", which went something like this:

"...because I don't want the world to read about my shit taste in films and your insane rants!"

With that, she won.

I assured them I'd never expose their private life on my blog – despite that I find them both to be fascinating individuals and exponentially so as a couple. Besides, they've been loving enough to offer me their spare room in a beautiful area of London, helping make it a little less expensive for a bit and a lot more likely I'll be able to stay. That, and it was only my first night here.

Then, illustrating her point, we settled in with a glass of Merlot to watch the last half of Bridges of Madison County – still on pause since I arrived with my bags an hour earlier – and then he led a short analytical discussion about family values and gender inequalities.

While I made a quiet little wish about how I hope these two stay together forever, I also decided to make an exception to my promise, and write about them ... just this once.

This is to illustrate how I'm not actually invading my sweet friends' and benefactors' privacy – except maybe just a little.

Londammit: A pawn shop outing

I didn't think I'd be visiting a pawn shop within my first year of settling in London. Not because I wasn't aware of its ranking among the most expensive cities in the world, but rather because I'd taken preemptive action and sold all my belongings before moving here.

But today I did.

Inside everything was encased in bullet-proof glass, including the booth at the very back containing the service staff. To get there, I reluctantly walked the blinding gauntlet of disappointments, broken promises, and general golden woe – a long row of hawked engagement and wedding rings, anniversary gifts and heirlooms.

Visiting a pawn shop's not the most uplifting of things to do in London to be sure, yet judging by this one's extensive stock, it seems to be a popular one. But like I said, I've nothing left to sell, so I approached the woman with my passport, a working visa and an uncashed cheque – from my 5-week stint of being underpaid and overworked – that no British bank will accept. Not until I have a UK account, which they're more than happy to give me, just as soon as I've lived here for at least one year.

It's not that I don't want to stay in one of the world's most expensive cities that long, but if I'm going to, someone's going to have to give me money in the interim. So far that someone is the friendly neighbourhood pawn broker – my only ally. And all for as little as 5 per cent of my earnings, because they're cool like that.

And by cool, I mean they don't just know how to give it, but they can take it, too.

British banking bureacracy, you can kiss my boyfriend's tighty whities, and you can do it in front of Butt Textiles 2001.

YouTube envy on the Northern Line

I live with two of the most creative people in London. Or rather, two of the most creative people in London are letting me loiter in their home, pending a more permanent living arrangement and employment, in exchange for not being a pain in the ass, restocking the toilet roll, and sleeping with one of them.

It's OK, he's my boyfriend.

Among the many perks of living here, including regular sex, is a sunny back garden. Oh, and bearing witness to the creative processes of a talented resident musician, through the bits of genius that seep out from under the door of his studio.

While the production of this – the most mainstream of his side projects – was initially top-secret, I was able to memorise a good block of the lyrics before the trio went public with the Google Maps-inspired song and video. And it went very public. The whole thing's gone viral since. It's been blogged about by The Guardian, covered by BBC TV, and it made the front page of The Metro, a free London daily with a readership of over 1 million.

What really speaks for the mini-project's success is not its tally of more than 10,000 views on YouTube, or the fact that it's approved for sale on Amazon and iTunes, but rather the ever-expanding following of people dedicating time and effort to slagging it off, and complete strangers coming to its defence.

Who's full of what?

"London's changed so much," lamented the roast beef-hued elderly Englishman beside the pool. His kindly, obese wife reclined next to him, bobbing her head in agreement. She was one of the few women at the resort to conceal her mountainous breasts from the sun. For the purpose of conversation, I was grateful. It's not that I'm offended by the human form, but heaps of oiled, cascading flesh is nothing short of completely distracting for my relatively conservative Canadian sensibilities.

"I hate to say it," he continued, "but it's full of immigrants now". It was the second time he'd said it. I wondered which time he hated saying it more.

I thought about how any friendly banter I've had in London has been with the immigrant population and how in contrast, the English had for the most part successfully avoided me. Then I thought about the Canadian jokes I've endured, all involving some mispronunciation of 'about' and using 'eh' as a suffix for everything, and finally, pretending to mistake me for an American and expecting me to be offended. Usually in that order.

"I'm an immigrant," I said. Sure my great-grandparents emigrated to the United States, then to Canada and then I emigrated back to England, but that just makes me an immigrant to the power of three.

The rest of my family was from Poland – a group particularly disliked in England – but I like to wait until someone says something disparaging specifically about the Polish before mentioning that portion of my DNA. It's a weak sucker punch, but a jab all the same.

The Englishman stuttered and rubbed his hands together before clarifying, "Well, we don't mean people like you."

People like me. Outspoken, agnostic, half-Polish liberal humanist environmentalists from a nation built on immigration, and one of the world's most successfully integrated multicultural cities, Montreal? Or white, English-speakers from the Commonwealth?

Three months since my emigration to London, I'd finally settled in enough to want to get the hell out. So, my boyfriend and I decided to celebrate the occasion with a super cheap 4-hour flight to Cyprus – a hot, dry island flooded with English ex-pats. Seven days on the coast in Paphos and save for the service staff, there were no obvious signs of Greek Cypriot life anywhere – just traditional English breakfast, pendulous English breasts keeping time with the sun on the beach, and daily papers flown in from London. I learned more about Pete and Katie Price than the local culture.

"Cyprus has changed so much," I imagine an elderly local lamenting simultaneously. "I hate to say it, but it's full of the English now."

This is me on Coral Beach in Paphos, Cyprus, feigning surprise after a Cypriot piña colada. That's my shark-master partner in crime in the reflection of my sunglasses. He's the reason I'm in this part of the world at all.

Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Morrissey

"If Morrissey doesn't throw a tantrum at least once tonight," I said again on the way to the Royal Albert Hall in London, "I'll be disappointed."

I meant it, too. He's notoriously temperamental and shit-fits are at least half his allure. A Morrissey gig without incident is like Mexico without machismo; like the Sixties without psilocybin; like Disney without dead mothers. And I wanted the full post-Smiths experience. If all went well, he'd be insulting me along with his thousands of adoring, pissed off fans. It was going to be sweet, and I was going to write home about it.

But I said it one too many times, and if manifest destiny played any part, I'm entirely to blame for what happened.

Always one to disappoint, Morrissey indeed threw his shit-fit, but long before we got there. He cancelled due to a "mysterious illness".

Mysterious = mental.

That's me outside the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington, London, just moments after realising I got what I'd wished for.

Five hours in the Underground

Don’t ask George for directions. Or, if you do, at least buy one of his papers – they’re only 50 pence.

George, more cockney than elderly, has been vending papers at the London Bridge Underground station for 50 years. And for just as long, he’s begrudgingly given directions to strangers who’d rather ask him than read the station map. Paper-selling is the only job he’s ever had. I know, because I spent a few hours with him, promoting The Evening Standard on one of his many days. Paid £13 per hour to harass unwitting commuters during the rush, it was my first job in London. I’m not looking to make a career of it.

I’d signed up as an on-call promotions person with The Network. All I had to do, according to the Gumtree ad, was speak English and have good hygiene. Sweet. Most other jobs require a three-month unpaid internship and degree qualifications that don’t translate into Canadian. Hygiene I’ve got covered. Still, I wondered what I might be getting into. The Network. To me, it rang of The Matrix. Or, something more Orwellian. The Network. As it turned out, David Lynch should buy shares.

When The Network called, I’d been in London for a month already, and I was desperate for human interaction. The city’s too large and disjointed, and its population too rushed to allow much in the way of casual encounters. All fun is pre-scheduled, plotted on Google Maps and timed with the Transport for London journey planner. Everything between my house and my destination is white noise – queues, buses, underground trains, and swarms of bone, blood and flesh churning to Point B.

Occasionally a high heel gets stuck in an escalator and a woman topples backwards, or a fight breaks out, police dogs sniff for drugs, and drunks sing football anthems. When I began to cherish these interruptions, I knew I was really, really bored.

Then I discovered The Network. Fully ready to take London’s eye contact-avoiding culture head on, the prospect of having legal permission to harass thousands of Londoners at one of the city’s busiest stations sounded positively dreamy. So I agreed. From 3:30 to 8:30 PM the next day, London Bridge would be mine. And George the paper seller would be kind enough to share it.

Determined to suck the marrow from the experience, I began drilling George about his half-century of selling papers as soon as I arrived. I had time to kill anyway, while I waited for further instructions.

“Who’d you kill to get this primo spot, George?” And with this, my first question, George became an instant, unwavering ally. He didn't deny killing off the competition, so that was the last time I brought it up.

My team leader, Jessa, greeted me by the pitch – that’s promo lingo for newsstand – and introduced me to my fellow promo-girl, which is apparently what I’d become. Jessa’s skin was orange, her nails acrylic and hair platinum – a poofy synthetic coating over a solid Pinochet centre. When it came time to decide who was to work at which pitch – the one inside where it was warm, or the one outside in the rain – George insisted on keeping me. Bless him.

After introducing me to the team supervisors – a pale, balding thirty-something and a heavy-set bearded lady – who’d oversee my performance, Jessa handed me my sash and steamrolled off to be orange somewhere else. I was now an Evening Standard princess, as the sash implied, and I was about to promote the paper with all the sardonic pomp of a working migrant.

“Go on,” said the bearded lady, gesturing toward the turnstiles where thousands of people would emerge from the Northern line beneath the station. “Tell them the Standard is half price today.”

My amusement gave way a little, to make room for humiliation. A mob of tailored suits began closing in on me and I knew, to get through the next five hours, I’d have to seriously self-entertain. So, I made fun of myself, and it went over big.

“The paper’s half-price today,” I’d call out, then pause before finishing with, “and I came all the way from Montreal, Canada to tell you that.”

Most people laughed, but some just looked sad for me. I told them they were allowed. Then I moved on to soliciting candies and drinks, because I’d been yelling in an Underground station for hours.

“My mouth is really dry,” I’d yell in my new-found promo voice. “For a donation of candies or drinks, I’ll let you have the paper for half price today.” They liked that one, but no one offered me anything. No one but George who, with the profits from three papers sold, bought me a bottle of water and gave me a ink-smudged thumbs up.

So, I started making eyes at people, going saccharine, “You know, the paper’s half price today.” Some were suckered in. A few stopped to chat, which was for the most part regrettable. One even asked for my number, but he’d never have aced my hygiene requirements. Most smiled despite themselves, and a few just looked terrified. Those ones I prodded with, “But I’ll give it to ya cheap,” thrusting my hips a little – just enough to not get fired. Anyway, I was talking about the Evening Standard.

When people started asking me for directions, I knew I’d been there too long.

“If I knew how to get around in London, I wouldn’t be promoting The Evening Standard,” I'd answered. They gave me a look that said, fair enough, and queued up to ask George instead. He didn't mind so much though, because that night, his sales were up.


London Bridge Tube Station, originally uploaded by Fundo de Garrafa.

Surviving London

You may be wondering, considering my last few posts, whether it was my neighbourhood, a double-decker bus, bubonic smog, Margaret Thatcher or my extremely intense new job that killed me – because clearly that's the only way I'd ever take so long to update.

But you should know me better. It was the partying.

Look! There I am in my backyard with great intentions to write. It's not my fault the lawn was so irresistibly horizontal after a night out with some quality, new friends in London. That's not really juice, by the way. It's the hair of an extremely vicious orange dog.

Ice cream is for everyone

While I applaud Carlo for bucking multiple conventions with his pink ice cream truck in North London, I do wonder whether – considering his target market – he's chosen the right catch phrase.

If Carlo is truly Venetian, and English is indeed his second language, I worry he's not aware of the other, more sordid pun in:

Often licked ~ Never beaten.

What's more, I worry that he is.

The devil made me do it

I was number 666.

During a single afternoon, 665 job-seekers managed to find the ad before me. The counter on the online posting told me so, and awakened the little devil on my shoulder.

As a new Canadian immigrant in London, vying against thousands of other PR consultants amid Credit Crunch hysteria, growing nationalism and massive job cuts, I've begun to wonder if I might need to sell my soul for employment. It's less messy than selling a kidney for rent. But I've already tried going corporate – trading my soul for a security card and cubicle – only to find myself, 4 months later, backpacking through Central America in search of it again.

This time, I decided to take a different kind of risk. This time, I'd run with the devil in my cover letter:

Although I was the 666th person to view your ad, I'll not be deterred. Not odds nor omen are any real match for the right candidate.

After attaching my CV, I hit SEND and laughed to myself. I knew I wouldn't get the job, but having written no fewer than 50 cover letters in recent weeks, it was fun to change things up a little. Besides, I wouldn't want to work for anyone who doesn't think I'm at least a little bit hilarious.

Two days later, I received an email. Of more than 300 applicants, I'd been selected as one of 10 to grill for ideas. I whipped up (read: sweat out) a proposal. I knew I wouldn't get the job, but having been out of work for a month already, it was nice to write something other than applications.

The next day, my potential employer asked me to come in for an interview. A motivational speaker first, he's now an extremely high-energy and successful all-rounder, writing books, making a documentary, and aiming really, really high.

He asked questions like, "What are three things you'll do that will frustrate me?" And, "What would you rather be doing with your life?"

And said things like, "Are you always like this?"
And, "I'd rather be a travel writer."

We joked a bit, fought to be heard, talked over each other, and then it was time for me to go. I had no idea how it had gone, but when I passed by the next candidate in the hallway, impeccably dressed, in a power suit with her hair pulled back tight, I knew he was about to make her head explode.

On Saturday, even with more candidates to interview, he declared me a finalist – one of three. Right now, I'm supposed to be reviewing a brief to discuss with him tomorrow.

I know I won't get the job, but ... but I just might.

If I don't, I'm going to ask Satan to hook me up with a couple of plane tickets to Thailand. He prefers hot places and, honestly, so do I.

That's me really happy on a beach nearer to the equator than I am now.

It's sunny in London, that I know

London has a certain je ne sais quoi that Montreal doesn't have. An edge that's perhaps more accurately described as a certain je ne veux pas savoir quoi. Which means, there's a lot going on here I've yet to figure out, and just as much I don't want to know.

Like, what's actually going on in the smoky back room of Billa's Food and Wine store and why he's so jittery. And, how Mr. Brain's frozen Pork Faggots are made; who dropped the prison visitation form outside my door; why the Christian youth centre on my block was taped off as a crime scene; and, how many cigarettes I'd have to smoke with my nose to build up as much bubonic black goo as London leaves in my nostrils each day.

When I decided to move here, I had no illusions. I just had no idea what I was getting myself into. Not really. As anyone who's never been to London (and many who have), will tell you, the city's expensive and it rains a lot. But after living here for a few weeks, I'm amazed that's all they'll warn you about.

My induction began my first weekend here, when I met an old friend for dinner. She's been teaching in London for a few years, and it's on her I rely to have my back when ... well, all the time, actually.

"Sorry I was so distracted on the phone last night," she apologized as soon as we settled in at a pub. "But I'd just found out about this." She pulled a tabloid clipping from her purse and navigated it around pints of cider and Guinness to my side of the table. A marijuana grow-op had been discovered in an elementary school. She paused while I scanned the article before delivering the punch line, "I work there."

The power company had tipped off the school's administration that a surprising amount of electricity was consumed by operations in its basement, to which only the groundskeeper had access. Fortunately, this wasn't the first time grow-ops were found in London's elementary schools, and so the story failed to capture broad media attention.

I wouldn't have noticed anyway. We only have four TV channels where I'm living, and I don't bother turning them on. The real entertainment is outside.

Friends back at home ask me things like, "Do you still see double-decker buses in England?" It's a question fuelled by the same cross-Atlantic understanding that makes people in London express concern that bears and seals are going extinct in Canada.

Not only do I see double-decker buses, I see them chased down and cut-off by police cars, surrounded by stick-wielding officers, and their passengers subdued and arrested – often. I don't even stop to watch it happen anymore. Re-runs get boring.

Thankfully, Brixton Prison is a bus stop on my route, so when it comes to keeping me entertained, my neighbours are fairly innovative. At the tube station just last week, they gave me the Quantum Leap experience, which was awesome, because I love that show.

The scene went like this: suddenly and without warning, I found myself to be the only thing standing between an angry mob of pasty middle-aged footballers and a wall of irate Jamaican locals. They charged and just like the show's star, Sam, I leaped clear just in time. And then I drank some cider.

Of course the UK's not all fish and chips, bangers and mash, and mushy peas. Even with a month's practice, crossing the street remains a perilous pursuit, and I'm not sure I'll ever be really good at it. But just when I start feeling like a simpleton, incapable of learning basic skills, I hear a statistic like this: Every 18 minutes, a child is killed or injured while crossing the street in the UK. Or, like yesterday, I witness something reassuring, like the aftermath of a man who'd been hit by a bus. Watching the paramedics cut off his clothes in the middle of the street and shove a tube down his throat, I felt a little less alone.

Now I have a better understanding of why adventurous Britons in Bolivia love to travel El Camino de la Muerte – the World's Most Dangerous Road. Having survived to adulthood, it's the only real way for them to up the ante.

Still, if you ask me how I find London, I won't have time to tell you any of that. Life is far too fast-paced here. Instead, I'll just try to sell you my kidney and then brag that it's been sunny and 16 C all week.

A danger to myself and others

At least once every day, something happens that makes me feel like an idiot, like a poem written by monkeys; a crab in a lobster trap; cents in a pocket of pence; a Canadian in England.

I'm usually at fault, so I haven't seen any need to tell you about these incidents. But they're now undeniably, invariably part of my day, so I might as well come clean about my experience with the Immigrant Learning Curve Ball.

First, you must know this: English is widely spoken in England.

On that singular fact, I mistakenly reasoned that adjusting to the local culture would be easier than in other places I've travelled, like say, remote villages in the Philippines or tiny Mayan settlements in the Guatemalan highlands.

I'd failed to consider the advantages of travelling in places where I look very different. There, people expect me to be clueless – a veritable danger to myself – and coddle me appropriately.

In London, I arrived with pasty skin and a big, pointy nose, so the only obvious differences between me and many of the locals are:

• I am a sidewalk speedbump
• I don't wear all black, beige and grey
• I frequently make eye contact with strangers
  

At first glance, most people likely think I am one of them, albeit a slower, more colourful version with a staring problem. But then, I veer for the UP escalator, wanting to go DOWN, because it's on the right. Or, I step off the curb into oncoming traffic because I look the wrong way before crossing the street. I pay for everything with paper money, because counting pence takes too long and I find the huffing queue behind me intimidating. Sometimes, I forget anyone understands me. Actually, I'm getting kind of used to feeling like an idiot.

Still, I'd rather reserve that feeling for my casual weekend life, and not have it leak into the desperate, terrified and anxiety-ridden job-hunting sphere where my brain and blood pressure spend most of their time.

But on Friday, I got an email response from a prospective employer reading:

Sorry, that position has already been filled. Thank you for your interest.

Sincerely,
Amy Whoever.

By then, I was really tired of wasting time researching companies and producing well-informed cover letters and tailored CVs, only to receive messages that the position was already filled and 'someone' had simply forgotten to remove the ad posting. So, I forwarded the email to a friend I knew could commiserate, adding the unfortunate message:

Then remove the effing ad, AMY!

About 30 minutes passed before I checked for a response from my friend, and that's when I noticed that instead of clicking FORWARD, I'd...

Oh, shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

My father's voice boomed across the Atlantic Ocean and into my ear, "Never write down what you wouldn't want the whole world to read!" it said.

"Even in the age of DELETE," I amended for future reference.

Amy never wrote me back, but she did take down the ad.

Purple rain, purple rain

This is what rent and a security deposit looks like in London. It looks like my tears.

Public parts

When my boyfriend said he had a surprise for our date last weekend, I didn't expect to find myself looking between the thick, creamy thighs of a complete stranger, and into the fuzz of her nether regions.

I wouldn't say I 'met' her exactly, in the Women's toilet at the Nöel Coward Theatre – where he took me to see the hilarious Avenue Q – but rather I marched forth as an unwitting martyr.

As the first in line, I was destined to expose the robust thirty-something to tens of women during intermission. She'd forgotten to lock the stall door – the one in plain view of the queue – before inexplicably assuming an advanced yoga pose, balanced over the bowl with her pants around her knees, and her hands involved in some sort of terrifying and aggressive undertaking. She didn't look up.

"OK!" I yelled, and let the door fall shut. Its resident contortionist turned the lock.

A series of barely audible peeps escaped the women behind me and in unison they averted their eyes to the floor, the ceiling, their feet. They had the luxury of pretending it didn't happen, or that maybe they'd just arrived and hadn't witnessed this woman poking around her now-public parts. I didn't, because I was still next in line waiting for the toilet. That, and my cheeks were red.

I looked down at my shoes and prayed someone in another stall would emerge before She-Who-Failed-to-Lock-the-Door did.

Apparently, there is a god.

Foe thah rek-ard, I'm faking it

Screaming my order over the bar last night for the fourth time, I came to a realisation. The fifth time, I made a decision: I'm going to be nicer to Madonna from now on.

She had no choice but to fake an accent and join the ranks of Dick van Dyke when she moved to the United Kingdom. I'm going to be easier on myself about it, too, because the English resolve even managed to break Madonna, and she eats puppies for tea.

It's not that I'm trying to fit in (I am), or that I'm tired of being teased (maybe a little), but sometimes it's just nice to be understood. Sure, I know what you're thinking. You think I'm already making excuses for myself. And you would be correct.

Anyway, last night when the bartender delivered me a glass of white wine, and not a bottle with three glasses as I'd requested, I knew what I had to do. Leaning over the bar, I went Madonna on his British sensibilities, "A baw-ehl of whyte whyne with tha-ray glas-siz, plays."

I'd rather get what I want than not.