Leaving on a jet plane

[East]

A Boeing 737-600, to be precise :p

Tomorrow at 7:50am GMT+1, I'm catching a plane to Manchester, UK, to join TT Fusion (part of TT Games) as a Junior Artist in my first industry gig. Up until today things have felt cool, and now the immensity of the situation is starting to become apparent.

I'm moving to a whole new fucking country, damnit!

I had my official last day at work today, said good bye to my co-workers of 7 years. They were sweet and had exchanged some Swedish currency into that funky British one, so now I have £51 in my possession. Which is strange since I just realised I don't even own a wallet. Worst part was saying goodbye to my patients whom I've grown very attached to during the years.

So tally-ho, and onwards towards a different life. A big thank you to Vidar Rapp who's been patient with me and my industry and UK-relocation questions. Also thank you to Fredrik Norberg, my co-worker-to-be, and last but not least, thank you, Polycount, for having inspired me to pursue my dreams!

(Also props to my recruiter Dylan over at Change (http://www.change-job.com), in case he browses these forums! :p)

[rooster]

give us a shout if you find yourself up north :)
congrats!

[Rick Stirling]

Great news Davis, I hope everything works out.

Is Roger Bacon at Travellers Tales?

[Joseph Silverman]

Congrats, good luck with the uk. :)

tt games, travelers tales? The developer who's making all of the awesome lego games?

[Lee3dee]

Congrats on the new job!

[TheWinterLord]

Congratz East! :P

[Jeff Parrott]

Sweet I dig the lego games. TT has definitely shaped up it seems in the past few years.

[East]

Thanks, guys :)

Is Roger Bacon at Travellers Tales?
I believe so, he was present during my phone interview. If he's a friend of yours, don't ask me to give him a wedgie from you as I don't think that would be a good career move :p
tt games, travelers tales? The developer who's making all of the awesome lego games?
That would be the one. TT Fusion is a daughter company of theirs (previously known as Embryonic Studios).

[Rick Stirling]

Roger Bacon is old school - him and Kevin Johnstone were early pioneers of all this.

[bearkub]

WHOA! Roger Bacon? There is a name from the past!

Congrast, East. Good luck and safe travels!

[vik]

Congrats bud.

[rooster]

rog 666 eh! crikey

[MartinH]

Grattis!

Yeah moving abroad is quite an adventure, you'll have a blast!

[pliang]

By Jet? You're spoiled...

[East]

Thanks \o.
By Jet? You're spoiled...
Yeah, I know, I was first planning on building a giant catapult to get me there, but I decided to splurge a bit and fly coach.

[soulstice]

That sounds awesome, congrats east. You must be excited. =)

[IronHawk]

Grats East and good luck. Those lego games are fun looks like a cool place to work.

[East]

So, I'm in Manchester. The hostel is "borrowing" wi-fi from a café below it which is quite speedy, so I get some speedy surfing here, being able to update my iPod with podcasts in the morning.

Unfortunately I missed the viewing of a couple of apartments on the same day I landed last Thursday, which sucked, but not too much of a surprise. First day in Manchester, having slept 2 hours the night before, just having landed and feeling totally lost and confused for a while. I normally don't like asking people for directions, but I think I must have asked about 40 people during the hour I was looking for the apartment building.

I'm a bit spoiled with street signs from back in Stockholm. In Manchester I sometimes manage to walk an entire street twice only to finally see the street sign on some strange place. Even more odd is I can ask 10 people on the street which street it is, even those quite snappy-looking red-dressed council employed guys, and no one ever knows..

I did see a really nice studio apartment very near the city centre. Somewhat over my price range, but I think I'm going to take it anyway, unless the application and clearance process takes too long. Hopefully I can leave my suitcase at work for safer storage, and either borrow a sofa over the weekend, and take a cheaper hostel room.

Oh. First day of work tomorrow. Almost forgot that's the whole reason I'm here, the way I've been running around like crazy. Taking the train there in the morning with my fellow Swede and co-worker Fredrik.

Exciting stuff. Just wish I could sleep better. Walls are paper thin at this hostel, and every time someone sneezes, I pretty much wake up.

[thomasp]

if you're already ready to exceed your budget for a flat then i hope you know about having to pay council tax in addition to the monthly water, gas, power, insurance, tv, internet, phone, whatever-bills? not sure if you are familiar with the concept, i myself wasn't when i arrived in england. this is something that could be 50 - 150 pounds on top of your rent, depending on how the property is rated.

and don't just move into one of these recently repurposed mills or whatever. they tend to build paper-thin walls into those new appartement blocks. i dodged that bullet but a colleague occupied the flat that originally was my favourite. spacious but quite pricey - and you might wake up when someone sneezes three stories below...

[MoP]

Heh yeah, I tend to prefer older buildings for that same reason... all the "modern" things feel really cheaply built, and then you've got houses which are 100+ years old and are still completely solid if they've been looked after well. Those are the best.

[thomasp]

mop - not sure about the 100 year old houses either, personally i prefer to be the only tenant in the flat, not share it with 20 rats and have the plumber in every week . ;)

anyway east - have a blast! moving to a new country is an interesting experience for sure. as soon as you have settled in, you'll start to miss the feeling of everything new, even if you had to sleep on an inflatable matress for the first months and eat on the floor. i know i do.

[East]

Hey, guys. Will be quick as I have a train to be caught.

Turned out getting that flat was a bit more difficult than I thought. The agent told me honestly that he didn't think the application would go through, since I have just moved here. I don't even have my contract signed yet, since I don't have an address, a bank account, and a national insurance number.

It's not too bleak, though. The people here at TT Fusion are a great bunch, and I started for "real" yesterday on doing an assett. Exciting, and a bit scary since I've never really done one of these before, but it's going along well. Finished it this evening and will start the texturing process tomorrow.

I won't be homeless, though, since I will be signing the contract on a flatshare on monday, and move in then. Really nice 3 bedroom share, with what seems like very nice co-tenants. Spacious double bedroom for me. I spent about an hour there, checking things out, talking to the other co-tenants, asking some quirky questions to know I wasn't getting scammed somehow.

Unfortunately, this means I won't get on the payroll until sometime next month, since I need to have a bank account within 5 days from now, and it won't just happen. I'm considering just applying right now and use the address, even though I don't have the lease/contract signed yet. Don't know if that will work, shall ask people tomorrow.

It's been a bit up and down so far. Now it's a lot better, but since I've been running high on adrenaline for the past week or so, my immune system is a bit low now when my body is slowing down a bit -- which means naturally that I can feel a bad cold coming on.. Of course, since we have a company party with free food and free drinks on Friday.

Oh well. It will sort itself out, I'm sure.

Take care all \o.

P.S. I have a few PM's in my inbox, and it's not that I'm ignoring you, I just don't have time to reply just yet. (To Vik, if you're reading this: Of course you can post it, no problems. Will reply properly later.)

[vik]

Cheers bud, you rock! And take care -> loads of C-vits /at least til` Friday lol /

[RogB]

Welcome, David!



Is Roger Bacon at Travellers Tales?

maybe :)

[Sa74n]

i hope you considered this http://www.jacatu.de/wbb2/t7850-swedish-versus-british-nightclubs.html

good luck in britain :)

[Tully]

East: If you have trouble getting a bank account because you're new to the country, HSBC has their passport account (http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/personal/current-accounts/passport) option for just such people. It's what I did when I first moved to the UK. It's more restricted than their other accounts, but it'll get you set up quickly with a debit card and a place to keep your hard earned monies!

Congrats on the new job :)

[hawken]

Good luck with it all, I'm sure you'll be up and running in no time. The Bank / Flat thing is always a nightmare for the first few months, it's same with moving anywhere new.

[edwardE]

Congrats, bro; glad to hear things are working out. (:

[Flynny]

Congrats East, hope things are going ace for ya mate. TT seem such an awesome company, think your pretty lucky ;D I'l be abusing their email soon enough with my own application ;p

[East]

Ahh, plenty of posts I had missed :) Thanks guys! Things are running smoother now, with bank account sorted and a place to live (although no Internet access yet). The job is great with plenty to do.

Oh, and Flynn, if you happen to come by the offices by chance or other reasons, make sure to say hello ;)

[Flynny]

You bet your gold I will ;D who do I have the pleasure of thanking for passing my desperate bid on? ;)