Work has gone from a 1/10 to 15/10 on the busyness scale after a much longer holiday hiatus than I could have expected. The last few days have been trying and there’s currently no end in sight. I really can’t complain and since I did so much touristy stuff in Amsterdam, I’m not having much trouble getting back into the work mode I was in in Spain as it feels like I’ve been on holidays for a solid month! I’ve only had just enough small jobs to keep me going into the red, but barely. I’m grateful to be at a point in my freelancing career where I was able to weather a break like that easily and without too much stress.
At any rate, I’ve been putting together a care package for a friend and promised to get it off to her this week. So that left today or tomorrow and I was planning on tomorrow so I could get everything with a hard deadline off to the clients by tonight. But it was actually sunny today, so going down to the village made sense. I headed out around 1:30 and got the final items for my friend, then went to the post office where I was able to package it all up for her and send it out. It was a much more positive experience than the last time I tried to mail something from the UK.
Then, I had lunch and what I’d been craving all week, Marco’s pizza! I was going to get a pizza from Tesco as the ones I like (Dr. Oetker) were on offer for £1.50, regular £2.50, but I’d rather pay the extra £3.50 and get real pizza! You know what I mean. Pizza that looks like this:
This one wasn’t quite as good as the one I had the first time as the crust was cooked a bit too long, but I’m being fussy. I love the super garlicky oil the drizzled over top and that a thoughtful server brought me some tap water before I had a chance to ask him for it. What a treat lunch was!
I’m rather shocked by how far my money is going here. The exchange rate compared to last June is definitely helping (then, £50 got me about 92CAD and now it’s only about 82CAD!). I am nowhere near being able to have the standard of living I had in the Balkans or Mexico in terms of being able to eat out or for a beer whenever I want, but the UK is proving to be yet another country where my dollar goes further than it does in Canada. What a surprise.
Well, my sunny trip and lovely lunch certainly boosted my morale. Back to the grindstone I go!
We were in London over Christmas, and it was a surprise to us as well how inexpensive certain things were. Restaurants were expensive, but Prêt à Manger, most groceries, and the Borough Market were a revelation.
Restaurants are expensive out in the boonies, too, but not nearly as much as in Canada. My pizza today would have been at least $10 back home. Groceries are ridiculously cheap compared to Canada. With the current exchange rate, accommodation is way more affordable. And let’s not get into the price of a SIM card and data plan.
Not counting airfare, my four days in London cost me 700CAD or about £360. That same trip would cost me 600CAD today. So you really can’t discount the importance of the exchange rate in explaining why the UK feels rather affordable right now.