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Published: January 5th 2007
Week 1 - 27th
Really tired on Monday morning I’ll have to figure out a way of making this job a bit more interesting!! Might have to start studying online lol
I went to a movie with Michelle on Tuesday night which was nice we had a drink in covert garden listening to a street performer singing classic old songs under the huge Christmas tree they had in the square, it was really nice made London feel a bit more friendly😊 after that we watched A Scanner Darkly whish was interesting to say the least still haven’t decided it I liked it or not!
This weekend I’m heading to Whitestable to pick up a bike rack so we can have a bit more room in the van on the Ireland Christmas trip, and also just to get out of London and have a relaxing trip to the seaside;-p I also found out that Mirabai(friend form the states) is going to be visiting me next week!
Whitestable - I headed off at around 730 said good by to Conor who was heading to a mates place to get “well sloshed”, I made it in good time and without the shocking struggle
Whitestable
me and the canon;-pthrough central London, after driving thru the twits roads and odd one ways I finally found the address I was looking for pickup up the bike rack and went for a walk around the town, I encountered a few rowdy teens braving the cold and no too many other people, so I jumped back in the car and parked in a seasonal caravan park which was equally quite and proceeded to make a nice dinner and watch a few episodes of scrubs on my laptop all together a nice relaxing night😊 I woke up nice and early had a nice breakfast of eggs and Facon(fake bacon;-) and set up the bike rack and did some work on my bike then took a nice bike ride all around the town passed the local fish market and docks even saw the local swimming pool, and finally ended my afternoon with fish and chips in the beach, ye I know I’m a vegetarian but my lovely parents have said I have to eat fish for my health so I decided what better than traditional greasy fish and chips lol, it wasn’t’ too bad and after I drowned the fish in tomato and sweet
Whitestable
modern art, pool centre chili sauce that was so bad either;-p after which I took a leisurely drive home, only a little worried about he bike rack up it worked great! Arriving back at around 6, I unpacked the van then Conor and I headed over to the girls place for drinks, which lasted till 3ish in the morning and included all sorts of interesting drinking games. Waking up at a decent 11 o’clock, I headed into town and met up with Michelle(Ausie girl) and we braved the Harrods Christmas crowd, and had a relaxing yet oh so cold lunch in oxford park, we were lucky enough to get a nice sheltered bench behind a boat shed with some decent winter sun😉
After a warming coffee next to the lake I headed off to Leytonstone and meet up with Conor and our old flat mates for a roast dinner at the local pub, all in all a great weekend with a good mix of partying and relaxing!
Week 2 - 4th
Extremely late for work as the trains were having huge issues! Biking the 15miles is looking better and better, I should stop being lazy and do it! Went shopping tngt (Monday) with
Whitestable
bad self pic on the beach after my fish lunch the bikes and 2 hiking backpacks was quite a sight especially when we walked out of there with two huge backpacks full of food. Wednesday I went for my NI interview(tax) again,
Mirabai’s visit - after work on Friday I jumped in the train and headed of towards the airport, after 4 changes and £15 worth of train tickets I finally arrive(dam public transport). After waiting in the wrong area for 2ish hours for her flight to come in I finally realized about 1min before she was due that I was in the wrong side of the airport! So laughing at myself I headed in the right direction. Coming out the departure gate I knew who she was straight away, seems like even a decade between friends doesn’t impede on your ability to recognize them in a crowd(it helps that she’s a red head... Sorry strawberry blonde;-) We had a good catch-up on the 2 trains and a bus back home, included in the trip was a burrito salsa and cheese meal, I’d bought along the way, quite a sight I’m sure but tasty and fun none the less. Over the next couple days I worked and Mirabai explored
drinks with the girls
drinking games and poker...;-p London. On Friday night we headed out dancing, tango which I have never tried in my whole life, but it was good fun=) I was a bit slow to start out with but she was a good teacher and very patient, amazingly enough I only stepped on her toes a few times. We saw the most amazing demonstration of tango, Mirabai had danced with the lead dancer before in Argentina! After the tango closed at 3ish we tried to head home, the tubes were closed so we spent a good hour searching our the right bus, ended up catching 2 bus’s and arriving home around 5. waking up at an early 10.30 so we could see the changing of the guard we had a quick breakfast and headed off. We made it just in time to jump in the crowd and check out the show, after which we made out way through one of the many park, got some lunch with we enjoyed in front of the national Gallery, we managed to have a look at a few of the rooms before the boredom moved us along to oxford streets and the Christmas shopping crowd, I have never seen so
lunch in the park
the sheltered spot many people! The side walks were packed the roads were also full of people so we did a bit of exploring then headed into a side alley and found a nice little café with we enjoyed a hot chocolate. After that we headed to Soho to meet some friends of Mirabai’s for dinner, after that we went to see STOMP! It was great well worth seeing those guys did the most amazing things with the most random objects haha. Mirabai has to catch a plan out at 5am the next morning so we headed home picked up the van and drove out to Stansted airport, where I found another hand place and parked up to spend the night. At around 3 in the morning we got the cops knocking on the window…. Turns out the only reason they stopped to check it out because I had reported my number plates were stolen, so that was quite cool they didn’t even bat an eyelid that I was parked up sleeping there! Anyway dropped Mirabai off and 6.30 and headed home for a couple hours of sleep.
At around 10 Michelle came round and we headed out to South-end-on-the-sea, was a nice
drive out to the east coast of the UK, when we arrived we checked out the longest pier the world? Apparently lol which was cool, we bought a tram ride out walk back ticket. The ride in was rather scary;-p rickety tram was squeaking and shaking all the way down the 2ish mile(I think) pier. At the end there was a coast guard type place and that used to be a museum but it seems to have disappeared or burnt down, but there were some great views of the whole coast and out to the ocean with all the big ships heading into the Thames to drop off cargo. After a long rather cold walk back along the pier, which reminded me a lot of cape town only colder we stopped off at the local fish and chip shop and shared portion of fish and chips was great to watch all the local come in and have a chat to the owner then head off again.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing in the van listening to music.
Week 3 - 11th
Friday night I was sort of ditched by the girls so I decided to
had out to Camden town and check it out, armed with rum and coke in my bag and a small “mixer” bottle;-p I headed into Camden, after exploring the normal grunge pups and clubs I headed up to the most amazing market’s! Great food, drink and every variety of trinkets clothing and accessories you could think of, after a couple hours looking around and sampling the local clubs I headed into Piccadilly to have a look at what they had to offer. I ended up in the bottom dance floor of a club near Leicester square, with great little side cubbies with tables in them to hang out with people and a big dance floor in the middle, defiantly worth heading back there at some point. A bit later on I got a txt form Conor to meet him a couple tube stops down the road, so grabbing my bag and the rum and coke I headed out. After a few is adventures trying to find a charger for my phone which died at the most inopportune time. I met up with Conor and his aussie mate, we polished off the rest of the rum and headed on the town,
Mirabai's Visit
trying to get a glimpse of the changing of the guards a couple hours and pubs later we were heading to the next bar play fighting along the way and I managed to help Conors mate hurt his ankle! Dam, so after dropping him off back at the hostel we decided to make out mostly intoxicated way home and annoy our ex-flat mates to come out. After they sensibly ignored us we decided to head home, about 100m away from out house just before our dodgy ally a couple black guys came over and started talking to us. Stupidly we stopped and they started trying to cause a fight with us, not really sure what happened next but next thing I know there are 4 more guys behind us and they started attacking us! Not 30 seconds later they had all disappeared an I was bleeding form a cut on my face and they had stolen Conors laptop, Ipod, Sunnies and my jacket, wallet, watch and I thought at the time my camera as well. 3 girls had shown up to convince us not to turn in a few of the guys as they had just come out of jail!!! I told them they had to get Conors laptop back and
we didn’t do anything, at that point I stated calling the cops but they arrived just as I got through. From that point we went for a ride with the cops trying to find the group of guys, after no success they dropped us off at a waiting ambulance. Where amazingly enough the girls had got the laptop back!! So after that little piece of good news the ambulance took us to the local hospital! Conor ended up getting a few x-rays and scans and I got the cut on my eye super-glued closed, haha so much for stitches. We spent the how of Saturday recovering barely getting out of bed.
Sunday I decided to work on the van and set it up a bit for the Ireland trip. I started setting up a bit more of a sound system I ran the wires for the amp and the audio jack pickups, set up the wall power plugs so that we have constant wall power wherever we are😊 then disaster struck! I needed to test the cable and when I hooked the amp up it started smoking!! I’d hooked it up backwards and sort of destroyed it=( after that I
decided to take it easy for the rest of the evening and watched a DVD lol.
Week 4 - 18th
Michelle visited me on Monday night to see how I was after the fight and to wish me a good trip, it was nice to see her, but we kind of kissed, I was trying to be friends with her as we wouldn’t really work in a relationship for many reasons, and she bought me a scarf for xmas!! It was so cute but now I feel a bit bad as I haven’t done any presents for anyone=( I’m just a bit to broke. Found another amp on ebay for 15pounds, which Conor and I picked up in Essex and ended up getting 2 for 10pounds lol so I spend Tuesday and wed night installing the amp and a few more speakers(borrowed off the DVD surround system). I also caught up with Ariane who I hadn’t seen for ages in Camden and had a nice cheap diner at on of the amazing stalls in the area, and did a bit of haggling with the locals vendors and scored myself a nice belt and Ari got a pair of long
Mirabai's vist
christmas lights gloves. I’m not sure what it is about me but it seams every other guy on the corner was trying to sell me skunk or other assorted drugs lol. Other than work I arranged another credit card to replace the stolen one which arrived just before we left which was great! Thursday night we spend packing a huge amount of food and stuff into the van in a mostly neat and orderly fashion. I received both my credit card and my NI number which is great now as I won’t have to rely on Conor for money on the trip and now I won’ be getting taxed as much!! yay
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