INTERNSHIP IN LONDON 1 - VASSIT
London is one of the best cities in the world. I'd been here 3 times before starting my internship in VassIT. There's a lot to do and so much to enjoy, experience and discover. If you are reading this to find out about the typical tourist places, just look for them on google. My writings on this blog are going to be about my daily life and how I am feeling here, not a tourist guide.
I studied DAM (Desenvolvemento de Aplicacións Multiplataforma), and I've got to know this company thanks to one of my teachers. She helped me to contact them and they accepted me immediatly. VassIT (that's the name of the company) has lot of experience with internship students. I wasn't the first student from IES San Clemente who came here (and I won't be the last one after you read all my experience jeje), so the confidence that they have in this academic institution played a big role.
But let's start from the beginning. My internship is an extracurricular one, so I came to London after finishing my studies and after doing the final three months internship that you need to get the title in a company of Santiago de Compostela. So my internship is from the 1st of July to the 30th of August. Some people may say that is not a good thing to lose all the Spanish summer (with all the parties, etc) but I think otherwise. In London, most of the year it's raining, just like in Santiago. But in the summer, you have a really nice weather. I've been here for 3 weeks now and it didn't rain yet. That's why I think it's better to do the internship in summer, because you can visit a lot of places that, if it's rainning, you wouldn't.
After being accepted in the company, I started to plan the journey. The plane to London is not expensive or difficult to find. I travelled from the airport of Santiago with Ryanair. The plane was really cheap. The total cost of the tickets was 150 euros, return ticket flight, with 30 kilograms of baggage with-it. The bad thing is that I arrived at Stansted airport, which is one hour and a half by bus from the centre of London. It costed me 13 pounds. Not much. I travelled in a good bus, really comfortable and big. And they left me in Victoria Coach Station, which is 3 minutes away from where I was going to stay.
The tutor at the company gave me a lot of information of places where I could stay. I decided to stay in a hostel called
Holland House, which is just five minutes walking from were the company has it's headquarters. In a room of 3 people. It's 130,5 euros a week if you are under 30. The price includes WI-FI, gym, study room, laundry room and they also give you breakfast and dinner during the week, and breakfast and lunch during weekend. The rooms are pretty good. The mattress is good (at least mine), and you have a closet and a shelving for yourself. The baths are ok. The showers could have been better. They clean everyday, even the rooms, so everything is pretty decent. You can make friends really easy here. You'll find people from all over the world, but mostly, they are Spanish. Almost half of the people here comes from Spain, so you won't have problems if your English is not good enough. You won't find anything cheaper than this in Victoria.
So basically I live near Victoria Station (which you can see in the photo).
It's a nice place to live, not very crowded (except for the station). Here you can find some modern buildings and others that are from the Victorian time. It's safe and you can walk around, even at night, without fear. There are some little parks too. It's 10 minutes walking from Buckingham Palace , 15 from the Big Ben and 15 from Hide Park. As you can see, it's really easy to go walking everywhere from here. It's almost the centre.
Ok then, See you in my next entry. Bye Londoner.
