London - Hanging at Shepherd's Bush

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We had a bit of a sleep in following our trip Paris, then finished off the last of our film and dropped the film in to be processed (gee, haven’t needed to do that in ages!). While we were out we had lunch at a little café near the local Green and strolled down to the mall to get some hygiene basics, such as toothbrushes and toothpaste, as our good ones were still in our luggage at Heathrow, and we were not allowed to bring liquids, such as toothpaste, back on the plane with us.

I spent the rest of the afternoon checking e-mails and doing some well overdue flat hunting. I went back up the road to pick up our photos while Brendan started dinner for the flat as a bit of a thank you to Helen and Beth for letting us stay here. Unfortunately only about half of the photos came out, but I guess you can’t expect too much from a disposable camera.
Beth’s friend Matt arrived, who is going to be staying at the flat for the next week or so as well as Helen’s brother Grant who came over for dinner and a few drinks. We played a few games and got to bed at some stage…

The next day I woke up at 8.30am to Brendan’s alarm, not impressed. He had to get up and pack for his next job up north on a research boat for some University and left around 10am to catch his plane from Gatwick to Inverness. I still couldn’t face the thought of getting out of bed and went back to sleep after a quick goodbye.

I checked my e-mails, and found a nice long one from Leah! I keep swapping between replying and sleeping. I also got a few others saying “guess your having such a good time in Paris, your can’t even reply to my text” and “I left you a voice mail - did you get it?”...oops, but not much I can do until I get my phone back from BA!

I managed to finally get out of bed at about 3pm and spent the afternoon on my laptop looking for flats, doing some washing etc. I couldn’t leave the house because I had no house keys to unlock the front gate!

The next few days were mainly spent flat hunting and hanging out with Matt, the new dosser. On Monday, I got to meet the other mystery flat mate, Brad, who the rest of the flat had not seen for about a week, as he works nights.
I tried to call Clay for his birthday on the cellphone that Helen had lent me until I get mine back, but for some reason it said that I was not allowed to call that number!? Go figure - so HAPPY BIRTHDAY anyway!
That night Matt and I cooked dinner for the flat and Beth’s friends, Nick and Jacqui. I also managed to score some DVDs off Nick onto my laptop, which proved to be great flat entertainment over the following few weeks.

Tuesday was much of the same, but as Matt had keys to get out of the house we decided to go down to the local park, “Warmholt Park” and kick a ball around. Matt was ‘trying’ to teach me how to do some soccer tricks, but before we got much further, someone’s Pitt Bull came along and grabbed our ball and ran off with it!
It took awhile for the owner to get the ball from the dog, but Matt finally got handed back his soccer ball: saliva, teeth marks and all!
Its surprising what big holes a puppy Pitt Bull can make! We gave up and went back to the flat for lunch.

On Wednesday I gave up searching the British Airways website for new information on where our bags were, and decided to trundle off down to the payphone and give them a call.
After waiting and waiting on hold with “your call is important to us” etc etc, I finally got a message saying, "I’m sorry all our operators are busy at the moment, please try again later". I called customer services and I finally got through to someone human, and then they redirected me to the same place I was before! After using up all my money I gave up and went for a walk to the mall.

Matt left today to go to Portugal on Thursday, while I was off to check out the first of the flats that I had looked at online. This one was located in the Docklands area, on the other side of London. I caught the DLR out there (Docklands Light Rail - which have no driver!!!?!). Ben later told me they are computerised.
I followed the directions to the flat, which was a rather scary experience. The flat was part of an old council building, in what looks to be not that nice of an area, but tired to keep an open mind. The girl seemed very friendly, but I didn’t take too kindly to her pet rats that she lets run around the house.
The room that I wanted to look at was already taken, but she had a larger room for ₤600 per month, which was a bit out side my price range(1) but made it easier to say 'no thanks!'.
Then headed down to Clapham to catch up with Suz and Matt. I told them all about mine & Brendan’s trip to Paris and our baggage issues.

I managed to sleep into 12.40pm on Friday. The local ‘free’ wireless was not working, so I went down to the internet café and did more flat hunting. Helen came running in the door after work, chucked a few things in her bag and ran back out the door to catch a trip to the Lake District for the weekend.
Beth came home shortly later, and we went to her friend’s house in Seven Sisters for a BBQ dinner, picking up Ren and Gemma on the tubes on the way. Before we knew it, it was 12.30am and the last tube had gone, so we had to catch the bus home. About two three bus rides, and two hours later we made it home at 2.15am.

I found on the BA website that to claim for compensation you have to send them a letter in writing within 7 days, which would have been yesterday. So I spend most of the afternoon writing letters, one from me and one from Brendan, and sent them off to British Airways in the hope that we can claim for some of our expenses from Paris.

Saturday night, Beth and I went to a birthday party of a lady she used to work with, Lorraine. We went to a place called Crazy Larry’s in Fulham, and danced the night away, managing to get to bed at about 4am following another long bus ride home.

Sunday was a slight more exciting day; I got a call from a girl about a flat near Hyde Park that I had been looking at, and after telling her a bit about myself, she invited me to come and have a look at the place next week.
Beth and I went down to Hammersmith to get our long awaited hair cuts and spent rest of afternoon sorting out and uploading a whole bundle of photos to my new Bebo website, I even managed to upload some video’s! Check it out: http://HanzUK.bebo.com.

That night we went to her friends, Paul 1 and Paul 2’s place in Acton for a few drinks and laughs. Paul 1 even showcased his favourite purchase from America, an official Hooters outfit, classy.

I woke up to a call from Brendan on Monday morning. He had pestered in the captain of this ship in to let him use his cellphone so he me know when I should expect him to turn up on my door step this week.
It was ‘bank holiday’ today, so Beth and I decided to check out the Notting Hill Carnival, which is apparently the biggest carnival in Europe!?!
There were soo many people, and music everywhere! Each little side street and at least two mini stages set up with their own DJ and enough speakers to rock Auckland Domain.
We meet Gemma at her flat which is right above the parade route, and got a great bird’s eye view from her balcony. All the performers had amazing costumes! Check out website and photo gallery: http://www.nottinghillcarnival.org.uk/

I had to leave early to see a flat in Archway. After a bit of a mission, almost getting cut in half by the tube doors and a bus later, I managed to get to there. The flat was pretty good, but seemed to have a bit of interest. But I think they were put off by the fact that I don’t have a job at the moment.
But we’ll see, hopefully I’ll have something sorted in the next week or two…

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Photos

Hannah & Beth
Hanging out at Crazy Larry's

Lorraine & Friends
Happy Birthday Lorraine!

Paul 1 and Paul 2
Managed to sit still long enough for this photo.. just

Hanz & Beth
check out those new hair cuts!

Paul 1 - Clowning Around
Its a real Hooters outfit don't ya know..

Notting Hill Carnival
There were people EVERYWHERE!