Explore. Dream. Discover.: Fast Family

I somehow convinced my best friend from home, Mezz, to jump ship from her normal teaching job in Vegas and join me on my jot around the world. Through her research she decided that it was in our best interest to find additional North American transplants to take on for our new roommates.

Tree and Belinda are Canadians who didn't know eachother. Besides Facebook interactions, we had no real idea of who the others were, but all jumped in on a commitment to become roommates once all landed in the UK. The landing became our first problem.

We agreed to all board at a hostil in eastern London for our first few days... this was to be our meet up point At 6'11'' , Tree wasn't difficult to locate amongst all of the strangers. Belinda, on the other hand, became impossible.... for her airline went bankrupt while she was on the tarmac and she was suddenly stranded in Toronto. Two days later she had finally booked a flight and met us at breakfast one morning.

We spent the next three days wanderig the towns we hoped to find housing in... After many frustrating days to no avail, we finally faced the fact that we were homeless and starting work the next day. This forced us to gather all of our things from the hostil and move to a hotel closer to our schools, located in Chafford Hundred.

To save money we shared one room with two twin beds. Mezz and I jammed on to one twin bed, which was smaller than the average. I couldn't sleep the first night, half hanging off the bed, and worrying about my first real professional work day.. I remember laying there thinking to myself, "What have I done? I am on the other side of the world and homeless". I took a taxi to and from school every day, costing 20 pounds, or about $40 daily.

In the morning while waiting for the cab, the people who ran the breakfast bar in the hotel began giving us muffins and oranges. The typical guest would have to pay for these each day, but they understood our unfortunate situation and started giving the food over to us. We had room service and ate at the hotel pub and the local pub, which had fortune tellers once a week. At night we watched "Two and a Half Men" and "Sex and the City" reruns, the only American TV we got in.

Every morning we would pack up our stuff and take it down to the front desk for them to hold it. Tree was substitute teaching, and therefore, had the first few days off of work. While we were teaching, he would go to house showings, hoping to find our place. Most days we would rush in to the hotel to find that he had had no luck. We would recollect our bags and head back up to our room, which they quit cleaning and remaking beds for us after awhile.

The day we came back to find that Tree had finally found a two bedroom apartment in our desired location, we all packed into a cab and raced to the bank to take out and exchange all of the money we needed for the down payment. By now we had made friends with a cab driver named Fahim, who became our personal driver for the remainder of our year there.

Mezz and I lived with Tree and Belinda for the next month or so on their couches before we were able to find a place across the street for ourselves. Where their place came furnished, Mezz and I had absolutely nothing. This would eventually turn into kitchenware from the One Pound Store and foam furniture that I ordered from a catalog... I paid 100 pounds for a crappy bed with the springs that came through the mattress, and Mezz slept on one part of the foam couch, never actually purchasing a bed herself. We eventually ended up with a shopping cart in the living room that Mezz found in the middle of the road. This became our clothes dryer amongst many other random uses. Our apartment was sparce, but it became a normal way of living, and home eventually.

I will never forget the lessons that that short time taught me. The four of us became family for life, and I realized how unimportant it was for me to live with a lot. I know that if I am determined to accomplish something and wait it out, that it will eventually work out for me. These experiences have shaped me into a forever strong person.