It was raining the whole night, and half of the day! Finally!

Apart from this, not many good news. One real estate agent promised me viewing of property to rent at 10.30 - 'I  will confirm this, first thing tomorrow morning' - of course he never called back. I considered calling him and making him a bit uneasy, but then gave up - I had to go for my NIN interview, and I did not want to miss that.

Apart from this one viewing which actually did not happen, I had no further success. I wrote many emails, I tried to find many things and schedule some viewings etc., but no success at all. Funny how many real estate people took my phone no. and promised me to call back once something suitable appears... well, guess what. Suitable places do appear on the internet, and I receive zero phone calls.

Well, whatever. My NIN interview was a more funny experience. When I called for the NIN application on Monday, the guy on the other end of the line told me, 'you have to go to this-and-this jobcentre, it's close to where you stay now!' Well, close, I don't know, 30 min by bus is close? But maybe the guy was from London, where people generally think that whatever is less than 1 hr by metro is close...?

Anyway. I did some googling and finally found the bus numbers, and the right platform (it seems to me that there are maybe 100 platforms on Piccadilly Gardens, but in reality, it's probably less). I was unable to find the price in advance though - I guess it has something to do with the bus operator anarchy here, it seems that every bus (or almost) is operated by someone else, with different prices, different buses and different everything.

When I arrived to the right station (identification of which was not easy at all, you'd need an x-ray eyes of Superman to see the name plates of the station properly), I had no idea where to go. I knew the street and the house no. but this was not sufficient at all - have I mentioned that the houses in this city tend to have no numbers written on them? Well, an ordinary street has a number visible on maybe every 10th house, and this was not an ordinary street. Meaning that the house numbers were just not there.

Well, after some asking, some searching, and some quite quick walking (I was not exactly late, but I was not too early...), I finally found the jobcentre and was sent to the 2nd floor. (And that reminded me of home! For those of you who has ever seen the ÚP Praha 5 office, this looked somehow similar.)

Everyone is obliged to report at reception desk upon arrival. Well, reception desk is a desk which differs in no way from the other desks in the room, but there's a sellotaped printed paper (A4) identifying the desk as reception desk... Well, ok.

I was told to sit and wait for someone to call my name. I have a very bad experience with this, my funny surname causes trouble wherever I go, and if someone tries to pronounce it, I misunderstand 90% of time. (And then I look like, who, me? Imagine the surprised face, and me pointing to myself.) However, I was lucky this time, I understood!

The person with whom I had the interview was very nice to me. In terms of how a person is treated by authorities, I see a huge difference between the Czech Republic and the UK. The guy was smiling all the time, explaining everything to me, trying to make himself understood, asking his questions in a very polite way, not hurrying, not pressing, not trying to get rid of me asap. Very nice experience, and there was even a funny moment when he asked me when exactly have I arrived to the UK, and I answered that on Monday, and he was like, and you are here for your NIN application already, wow! So I described my Monday to-do list on which NIN application was second item (right after getting a UK phone no.), and he was laughing very much.

If I am lucky, my NIN will arrive to my office address in few weeks. Yay, mission almost accomplished.

After completing the NIN application, signing all the papers and getting back my passport, I went to my temporary home. I've decided to walk back, just to have some 'sport' today. In this way, I had a chance to have a look around the jobcentre: it is a very Middle-East-looking place, with shisha smell everywhere, kebab shops, clothes shops selling these shiny glittering garments, and with a shop selling 'islamic books, islamic food, islamic gifts, islamic clothes'. (How do special islamic gifts look like? Maybe I should've had a look!)

Finally, there was such a traffic jam in the city centre that I probably came earlier to Piccadilly Gardens than the bus I did not take. Well, one small victory today.