A New Direction

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

I have a sweet pickup line

The weeks are starting to fly by, hard to think that today is the last day of February. This means that time will start going even fast as it starts to warm up around southern England and I can start travelling farther away and for longer periods of time. Or it'll just rain and I'll wander about soaked.

Wednesday night tall Adam came over to see my flat, meet my mates and have dinner. After delicious tuna steak, pasta, vegies, grapes, flapjacks and a bottle of wine we busted out the map of Europe and looked around at where we could meet up. Adam's visa is up in a couple weeks so he is planning out his trip around Europe. We figure we will meet up in either Barcelona or Geneva at the beginning of April. We are both leaning toward Geneva, because from there we can go sky diving over the alps! So I have that in my sights for the near future.

Thursday I went down to Central London for a night of pub quizing and drinking. This was quite fun. Everyone from Travel 2 formed a team and we were quite dominant through out most of the game. At one point we were in second place. One of my favourite categories was "Metro Stations." So we got a clue and had to name of the station to which is was reffering. IE "Up the wrong tree" would be barking. Yes, there is a tube station called Barking. We initially got two free drink vouchers: weak. However, since Christian who recruited all of us to Travel 2 was our good friend and moderator of the pub quiz, he kept the drinks comin', at least to us. Then he just plain bought for all of us. Well, we make him enough money at least. So once we had a few too many we dropped off and finished in second place. Not bad for the 15 or so teams competing!

Friday after graciously avoiding a hangover from the night before I made my way to work. Of the 7 of us that went down, I was the only one who made it on time. The rest were either terribly late or just didn't show up. Saffas' can't handle their alcohol, I guess. Friday's always seem to take forever to pass at work... I drank whatever was left of my beer out on the fridge, err balcony. One thing that will take some time getting used to is not drinking in public. In some parts of town people look at you because you don't have a Tenants Super in your hand when wandering about. There are laws against it, but it is mostly tolerated and not enforced. Just don't be completely pissed and public and infront of a bobby. And don't flout (is this aword?) or flaunt it about. But there aren't the same social associations of drinking in public as the US. I went to Charing Cross to figure out when to catch a train to Canterbury the next day, and to make sure it went all the way there. I was in luck, and Adam was coming with me as well!

We took the 9am out there and by 1030 were wandering about Canterbury. It was quite nice outside-sunny and blue, but windy and cold. We had some food, wandered about the highstreet, walls and gates. We went to a few museums and galleries and they made us really appreciate the world, no, universal class museums we have in London. At least the price was negligible and we got student's rates all over the place. We stopped at a cool little bookstore, cause that is what Canterbury is known for right? The first book written in English yeah? A stop at the cathedral (whoa, a catholic church in England!) took up most of the rest of our time there. It is quite impressive because the church was first started there in th 5th or 6th century, though it has been razed and rebuilt numerous times. The highpoint of the trip came when Adam and I were arguing about where we were on the Cathedral layout map. We were pointing all over the place, completely ignoring the LARGE RED ARROW with the words YOU ARE HERE pointing at our present location. Hey, did you know we both went to St Thomas? A quick late afternoon meal of fish and chips killed the rest of our time before we snoozed on the way home to London.

I had planned on just staying in that night after a late friday and early morning. I ended up going to our local with Rhitik and Mario. He is Rhitik's girlfriends brother who just moved here for Uni from Mexico. And Rhitik's girlfriend did a student exchange program in Pine City, MN. Small world eh? Rachel had told me there is never a bad night at the Crown. I like drinking with Rhitik because he never lets me buy! I only got one round out of ??? I thought we were getting single bacardi and cokes, but after the 5th or 6th drink he said, no they were doubles. Hey! Anyways, when I had the chance to get drinks I went up to the bar and caught the glance of this girl I was standing next to. I said "Hello" and we hit things off from there. This is probably the first number I've ever got in my life. Her name is Michelle, she's a Kiwi. Around 2 or close, whatever it is now, we walked across the street to our designated Kebab shop. Kebabs in MN. It'll happen!

I somehow avoided another hangover Sunday morning and after 4 night of drinking decided to skip out on Ultimate. Did some errands and chores and went down to Hyde park for the chance of shooting some ultimate, if not playing. Brilliantly enough I forgot to load my camera with film so ended up toting everything down for nothing. Not to be at a loss I got Adam to come over and we threw disc for a while, making fools of ourselves because it was bloody windy and we couldn't get off a pass if our life depended on it. OK, so my throwing was a little better. I have thrown in the last 9 months.

So I've been keeping myself thoroughly busy. How have you been, dear Reader? Things that I am contemplating at the moment include going to India for a few weeks in July, the skydiving thing, and living in Australia for a few months over next MN winter and returning in 2007. For now though, I am thinking more about what I should do this weekend!

I am also on page 930 of 1065 in Atlas Shurgged. And I still haven't started stirfrying =(

Friday, February 24, 2006

Important Cultural and Worldly Knowledge

It has come to my attention that in certain parts of New Zealand, the Easter Holiday is celebrated in a rather different manner than in the U.S. Whereas kids in the U.S. go hunting for Easter eggs left by the bunny, there are parts of NZ where people go out on Easter Sunday and shoot as many Easter bunnies and rabbits (what is the difference anyways?) as possible, ala snake beating day in the Simpsons. So now you can go tell all of the little American children that the evil Kiwis want to kill the Easter bunny. Screw deer hunting! Im goin' to NZ for Easter!

They do this because rabbits are considered a pest. I'm sure most of you have seen LOTR. My coworker is from the area where most of the movie was shot. She told me that the reason it looks so dry and desolate in a lot of places (after the mines of Moria and in Rohan) is because the rabbits eat all the vegetation.

Thought you should all be aware of this. I thought it was funny and/or cool.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Typos

Apologies in advance and also for the past for my terrible typing ability. For example, below - "say" should be "day." Andre is brewing up a swear storm in Afrikaans so I gotta get outta here. Shites about to hit the fan tomorrow I think.

I love starting and ending my day with tea. English breakfast and green. I also hope I don't get bridflu. That wouldn't be too good. On the other hand, if I get it, the US might not let me back in, so I would either be kicked out of England with no place to go, or be forced to remain in England. Not sure whether that is good or bad. Probably bad because I would have birdflu. I heard a new word today. Minger. No idea what it means. I'll find out! Cheers

Monday, February 20, 2006

Buggered plans turn into OK day.

Another long one!

Hi all. 'Nother week, 'nother post. Since I had finally caught up on sleep and R&R from my travels to Amsterdam, I decided to make a say trip out to Canterbury last weekend. Right now I am pretty much stuck in England because of my invalid passport. Getting hard to cross borders with a passport that is destroyed =( Besides, I don't want to do any major travelling until it is warmer, and hopefully a bit sunnier. So for now I am limiting my self to day trips close to London. This weekend I intended to see the small town of Canterbury, home to what I hear are good museums, old abbeys and churches, and winding "Olde English" streets.

Friday night I went out with a friend from the States in Camden. After 20 minutes and a bit of confusion we finally met up and downed some pints at a few different pubs. Turns out we had both planned on going to Canterbury the next morning, but by different means. We decided to make it an early night and split around midnight. The next morning I woke up at 7am (I was actually serious about going!). Ate a quick breakfast and packed all my day tripping stuff. I got down to Charing Cross station and bought my ticket right at 9 o'clock. As I was looking at the schedule to see where my train was, I saw the display for my train flip over as the train pulled out of the platform. Bloody Hell! I knew that trains ran only once an hour, so I sat down and started reading a book. The next time Canterbury came up, it was for a 9:53 service where I had to switch at a station and take a special limited service coach transfer from there. I didn't really want to do that and thought there was another train going direct to Canterbury shortly afterwards. There wasn't. Turns out that there was engineering work taking place on the rails that went there. I blame myself and Southeast rail equally for sitting in a train station reading a book for an hour and a half. So after having missed two trains, I knew I wouldn't reach Canterbury til at least noon if I were lucky. That left me about 5 hours for sights and a lunch, and a walk around the city in the dark. I decided that it wasn't worth going out there for so short a day and went on my way home in disappointment.

I was sitting on the train when I heard the call for Central line transfers, which made me think of the Notting Hill Gate station, which made me think of Portabello Road market. I dashed off the train with a new, spontaneous set of plans. I walked from NHG station to Latimer Road station via Portabello Road. I actually had something in mind to buy for a change: a few candles for my room (it came with candle mounts on the wall). I didn't find any candles, not there at least. Instead I bought nutella crêpes, tupperware for leftovers, Yam Chaa green tea, and once I saw the organic patiserrie, I went nuts. A fresh loaf of Ciabatta, muffins and apple tarts are now stuffed into my food shelf.

After unloading my purchases at home, I set off for IKEA. I had never been before, and had a sort of dual purpose in mind for my visit. First, I still needed some candles, and a tea infuser for my new green tea. Second, I had in mind it would be like a museum trip, but on a sociological level: I wanted to see what IKEA had, and also wanted to see what it was like shopping at such a massive store. There are about 4 IKEAS serving 20 million people. It is statistically impossible to NOT be a zoo at this place.

To get to IKEA, I went two stops from my tube station, and walked for about 30 minutes through a rather derelict area of scrap metal recyclers, industrial plants and what had to be low income/council housing. Welcome to Neasden. The north circular road (think I-494/694) serves as an artificial barrier from this derliction and the new super shopping centres. I am not sure how it works in the states, or other IKEAs, but as you go in, you are supposed to take a big yellow shopping sack that seems closer to a fancy garbage bag. I didn't take one - I didn't need that many candles. I rebbernecked my way around the store for about a half hour and finally came across the kitchen and living sections. I found my infuser and a large pack of candles, contemplated buying a rug and some glasses (I guess this is why you are supposed to take a sack) and stood out of the way and watched people consume. It's quite rediculous if you just look at it as an outsider or observer. People buy and buy and accumulate their wares until they are satisfied or have no money. And because everything is produced in the People's Republic of China, you get a lot of "satisfaction" for your quid. I spent less than £5, but could have spent 10 times that. I understand now how this IKEA shopping can be quite addicting, but I don't quite understand how they manage to do it, or why it is psychologically. Bloody markerters! I timed my walk to the checkouts. For 13 minutes I followed a long stream of people through what had to be everyother dept in the store. I stood in queue for another 10, purchased my goods and emerged into a cafeteria where cheap hotdogs and teas and coffees were being sold. At this point I had had enough and frantically looked for an exit. It was quite dark and looked as though a storm was coming, so I decided to walk to the new Wembley Park.

Wembley is being reconstructed for the 2012 Olympics I think, and is sort of like the Metrodome of London, but a lot bigger and has a bit of goofy architecture to it and no canvassed roof. I can see the stadium from the hill in the park I live next to and it doesn't seem too far away. It also appeared close when I saw it from IKEA so I thought it wouldn't take long at all. After finally finding the proper road on which to get there, I had a direct view of it for the rest of my walk. I realised it was one of those buildings that never gets any closer no matter how far you go. 40 minutes later and having seen absolutely NO ONE (where in a city of 8 million can you walk for 40 minutes in one direction and not see anyone?!), walking through more derelict areas, I finally made it to the construction site boundaries. It looks most impressive and by my rough estimate put it at twice the size of the metrodome. But that could be because of the giant metal arch thingy that makes it look so huge. Anyways, I snapped a few pictures and went to find a bus that might put me relatively close to home.

What a day! I passed out on the couch once I got home. Most everyone wsa still out of town so I made a nice big dinner for myself, watched football and rugby and took it easy the rest of the night. Out too late and up to early for Friday-Saturday.

Sunday I made an early afternoon trip to the supermarket and got ready for Ultimate in Hyde Park. When I left my house the weather was fine. When I came out from underground at Knightsbridge it was pouring. Perfect for layouts =)

Sunday, muddy Sunday. (OK, that is probably inappropriate. Think N. Ireland conflict). A slew of people turned up for this week's pickup match. It was cold, blustery, rainy and windy. One of those days where points can last 20 minutes. It had been a few weeks since I last played so I had loads of fun! I came home completely drenched and muddy, had what was certainly the best shower I've had since being here and ate my leftovers. All my flatmates and Patrick were back by now and we watched a movie called "The Long Way Round." I highly recommend it! It is a documentary, but broken up into episodes, probably meant for a TV mini-series. Ewan McGregor of StarWars fame and his friend Charlie take two BMW GS1150 adventures and ride 20K miles in 115 days from London to New York via Eastern Europe, Mongolia, Siberia, Canada and the US. A third person, Claudio, rode along, though I hardly think you can call what he did riding. It was closer to falling, wrecking and delaying the trip, more than anything else. He was the camera man. If I ever have the financial/logistical resources to do something like this, I would do it in a hearbeat. This lead into discussions of possible future plans with Patrick to hire a couple of motorbikes and ride through Wales for a long weekend. Expensive, but potentially well worth it.

Well, not a bad turnout to my weekend. Back at work today and have plans made for midweek. More running and training before I probably end up getting pissed at the pub quiz night on Thursday.

Stay tuned!

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

The group of people I work with

It has been quite a dynamic group over the last 3 weeks. We have had 8 people leave, and 7 people hired, some are on leave and 70% are contract/temp. That leaves about 3 of 10 or 11 people who have been here for one year or more.

Start with the South Africans:
Heiney
Mandy
Elmer
Barrend
Amanda
Andre
Rhianna (last day today)

There are a lot of south africans here! And they all speak Afrikaans to each other so sometimes, or most of the time, I have no idea what anyone is saying! But they are all very nice people and severely contradict the impression of the first South African I had met.

Americans
Valerie
Me

Canadians
Audrey

Kiwis
Sarah - she loves to take the piss out of people and it is quite funny to watch, and also fun to be on the receiving end. also very clever.

Rwandans
Denise - she speaks french so we have a conversation or two in french sometimes. Also good to counteract the prevalence of Afrikaans.

Also, Zuzana from the Czeck Republic had her last day Friday.

So, there are no Brits, but that is just my dept. I do get to interact with a few of them outside my zone of awareness.

Notes

The Gorrilaz are brilliant. So is At The Gates.
Coldplay is over rated.
Sometimes I hate the Thameslink.
Sometimes I love the Thameslink.
Having the flat to yourself for three days is wicked.
Today is Valentines day. Happy Valentines day.
I am cooking for one tonight.
Awww = (
I wish I were in the Canary Islands or Prague.
My next food adventure is Stir Fry. I expect that by the time I come back to the US I'll be well good at cooking it.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Furado em Países Baixos

Geplakt in die Nederland. Or: Stuck in the Netherlands. My weekend pretty much started last Thursday after work. All of the Poolia Parker Bridge temps from Travel 2 met up together at a pub up the street from our office with our recruiter, Christian for a "drink or two." I went in with the idea we would have a couple pints on the house and then end up paying the rest ourselves. Well, 7 pints a couple packets of crisps and £0.00 later, I was quite pissed dicussing the rediculousness of Cricket with some South Africans and my British recruiter. It was one of those drunken pub conversations that really only happen in England. At this point I realised how little I know about global issues, from history to sport. I made my way home around 1130 as I wanted to not have to take 3 hours worth of nightbusses through London to get home wicked late on a work night.

I ate what was the worst kebab I've ever had in my life after I got off at my tube stop. Avoid Willesden Best Grill. Friday morning I woke up with a pretty wicked hangover and felt like crap til about noon. Friday workday passed quickly enough and I was able to go home and relax a bit and get some light dinner. I was planning on taking a nap til 3am but instead my friend Azeta txt'd me wanting me to meet up with her at Club Rumba down at Picadilly circus. I got ready and went down there, arriving around 22h00 to a waiting line 50 yards long. I stood across the street staring at the line with disgust when I received another txt from Azeta. I went over to the zoobar in leicester sq. (5 minutes walk) and stood in a much shorter line. Since leaving club Rumba i had been frantically txting and calling Azeta try to get a hold of her so that she could come outside and get me into the club. I don't know how it works in the States so much, but if you aren't in line with a girl, you stand almost no chance getting into the club. There was a group of 4 guys infront of me who were kicked out of the line (nevermind getting kicked out of the club) for not being on the guestlist. I thought I was next. Nope! Azeta came from inside and got me in. I met her two friend and we had a few drinks and finally left just after 1am. I came to the conclusion that if I am to dance, even with hot girls, I need at least 5 drinks to not feel like an idiot.

I somehow made it home in about 45 minutes on the nightbus, which has to be a world record. I even had to take two buses! So I watched some rugby for about an hour then gathered up my stuff and walked over to Cricklewood trainstation to wait for my 330am to Luton Airport. After check-in I watched people down pints like it was still 10 o'clock from the night before until I caught my 610am flight to Amsterdam. I was the first one on the plane so I got first dibs on seats! I sat in the emergency exit row so I had about 6 feet of leg room. All I remember from that point on is talking to the stewardess about how I had to be competent enough to operate the emergency door (and at this point I clearly wasn't, but said yes). The next thing I knew I was being woken up because the plane had landed in Amsterdam. Smoothest take off and landing of my life - mostly because I have no recollection of them.

After arriving in Schiphol, I got tickets to and from Central Amsterdam, headed in to the city and walked to the hostel to meet Isabela, Debora and Alexandre (DDD). Maria also came up from Spain to meet us. These are my friends from Brasil who I met over Christmas. There was a group of 8 and they scattered over Europe to study ant various clinics and hospitals for January. Isabela and Debora were in Ultrecht til the end of Jan. and are now travelling around central Europe to mid Feb. so I met them in Amsterdam for the weekend. They had all been drinking the night before and Isabela was quite sick; we all thought it was from alcohol but after we took her to the hospital it turns out she has a bad virus. While she was at the hospital Maria, DDD and I moved everything from the hostel to a new hotel. We had time to kill before we could go into our room so the three of us walked around. I took pictures and got lunch while they went to the Anne Frank house. While I was waiting for them to come out of the museum, I ran into Raphael -another Brasilian who was waiting to go into the museum. He had come up from Italy ( I think?) to also travel around with the rest of the group. Maria, DDD and I went back to the hotel to move in. Isabela was back from the hospital. She pretty much slept all day and the rest of us had a short nap that somehow felt like a good night's sleep. Off we went to go to the Has and Marijuana museum. This is by far the lamest thing I've ever done in Europe. Waste of time and money. I thought I might at least learn something interesting, but no, it is more of a front for the legalisation of marijuana. Pretty much the only evidence they provide is how great hemp was 300 years ago. I couldn't stand the stuff before that, and now I dislike it even more. On our way back we watched some street performs in Leidseplein. They were breakdancing, they were pretty good/talented, but no one like breakdancing so no one cared. We pulled the typical cheap tourist move and walked over just after they finished but before they asked for money. After dinner we called it a night and went to bed around midnight. Sunday we woke up and tried to figure out what we wanted to do. We chose sleep. Everyone slept for another 4 hours while I watched snooker, alpine ski jumping and cross country Eurosportchampionships. Some more wandering through Amsterdam and a stir fry dinner brought me to the time I had to leave to catch my flight back to Luton.

After my goodbyes to Isabela and the rest I made my way to Schipol. I went to the departure window and saw my flight had been cancelled. Bugger. I txt'd Rachel (flatmate) to let her know I wouldn't be around for a while, rebooked for the next morning into gatwick and figured out what to do. Turns out that a jet overshot the runway at Luton and crashed, thus reulting in the closure of the airport. I was quite glad I rebooked to an airport other than Luton because it was still closed in the morning and flights were continuing to be cancelled. I thought about sleeping in the airport that night; it was 7 euro for another return ticket to and from Schiphol and I didn't know if I could make it to the hotel reception before close. I took my chances with going back to Amsterdam (I would get to see Isabela =) again) and got to central station at 920 and ran to the hotel. I made it with ten minutes to spare! Everyone except Debora had gone out; she woke up quite startled when I walked in. I talked to her for a while, tried to call DDD's mobile but it rang on the chair in the corner and went to bed a while later. Soon after everyone walked back in and they were also quite surprised to see me. I explained about the airplane crash, I think they were all glad to see me. Or at least Isabela had been telling me I was their "favourite American" and that they liked me. We woke at 530 Monday and all walked to central station. I saw them onto their train to Berlin and then went to Schiphol. The timing was perfect, so it seems like that was the first thing that went right all weekend. I read my copy of EasyJet magazine backwards on the flight home, got lost in Gatwick airport and finally found my train up to central london at 11. I didn't get into work til 13h15. On the ride to C. London, I sat with a smile, listening to music letting the events of the weekend catch up to me. I went to Amsterdam with only one or two things in mind, did them and came home. The whole process was just a bit chaotic. I am looking forward to going to Brasil (I made it a New Years resolution) and now have 3 or 4 places to stay in Sao Paulo.

Monday night I finally got a good night's rest. After work on Tuesday I met up with Dan and Adam at Paddington station. Dan's work visa has finished and he had gone to Croatia for a week before going back to the U.S. Had a nice dinner, and went to a pub. Later Ben and Natasha joined up with us as they were also in London for the night before going back to the U.S. the next day. No rest for the weary.

The next month will probably be pretty quiet. I should be able to save some money, and wait for it to get nice. I don't really want to start travelling til mid march.

Kudos to Ben and Tash for doing Western Europe for 30 days on 2 grand. Most impressive. Well, that is that. Laundry and possibly Greenwich are on the agenda for this weekend. Oh and an Ultimate tournament as well! I hope. I should figure that out now. Cheers!


Monday, February 06, 2006

Greetings from Schiphol

Bloody Hell. What a weekend. It started thursday and never ended. It is early Monday morning as I type this from the Amsterdam airport and this wild ride is still going. I am going to be certain of nothing until I step foot inside 660 Cedar Rd. Expect update in the next few days.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Food

The other day I probably had the worst fruit salad of my life. I think that is the difference between supermarkets like Tesco, where I got the food and say... Marks and Spencer, where I can't afford the food (and I make decent money). On the one hand this is evidence that there is a direct correlation between cost and taste. On the other, why are places like PoundSaver, PoundStretcher and other bargain, about-to-expire supermarkets so delicious?