D-law and packing up my room
Day 177, April 4, 2009
One of the reasons that posting is taking me so much longer of a time is that it’s starting to stack up on me. I’m sorta dreading the fact that I have so much to write about, all very cool stuff and the fact that my production on letting people know about my trip and what I’m doing on a daily basis has a real curve from the start of the trip to the end, a downward curve. Oh well, I guess that’s the way it is. I’m sure when I go back to Colorado and am just sorta working, hopefully, and hanging at home that posts are going to be few and far between but that’s alright, kinda what I was expecting but still this is a good medium that I’ll try to update as much as I can. Before I get going on explaining what I’ve been doing the last 2 weeks, I just have to say how happy am I to have worked here in the winter rather than the summer. It was a totally nice day out today but my room is already really hot. I have my window open and everything and yet it’s still too hot for me, there’s no air con or anything like that to save me, I know I’m such a whiner, but I am just glad the weather was at least what I liked while I was over here, colder, damp, and brisk.
Alright, where to start? I guess the first thing to talk about is my last few days of work. They were very uneventful for me, just sorta wound down the time like any normal shift, not too busy but not too slow. Really it was just right. I guess the main difference was that my truly last day I was training the new girl and my replacement, Klara, in the bar. I think she’ll do just fine and I hope that she learned a thing or two from my fast talking accent. By the end of the night though, I couldn’t be bothered with really showing her all the stuff I proly should have been, I was done. Like I said last time, I’m going to miss this job in a lot of ways. Every time I think about it I really did get perfectly lucky in finding this job, it was EVERTHING I was hoping for when I was still in the planning stages. Two square meals a day, a live in with no pay, good people, good pay, in the country but closish to London, pretty much everything just lined up for me. Hopefully I’ll take that luck with me back to the states. Anyway, that was my last couple days of work, sorta saying good bye to the people I worked with and thanking them for all the stuff they taught me, especially Alex and Vendy.
The next I met up with my old high school buddy in London. We had planned on this for a while and everything really worked out perfectly. D-law graduated last spring when I did but has been hanging around Eugene Oregon sorta waiting for his girlfriend to graduate and also just making some money before joining the Navy, which he is now for sure going to do. He’s a really great guy and is yet another one of my high school friends who I am totally jealous of for all the good stuff he seems to have going for him, but in a good way, I guess I’m more happy for him. It was his girlfriends spring break so the two of them decided to do a little traveling in Italy and London. He knew I was over here and so we got to talking and sorted out a meeting time before he left. I met up with them in Paddington and pretty much just went all over London looking at some of the top sights and trying not to spend too much money. We went to St. Paul’s Cathedral just to look on the outside, Big Ben and Parliament, Harrods, and the British Museum. So it was sort of a quick viewing of some of the bigger stuff in the city but it was still really fun. Maybe coolest for me was getting to see someone from home after so long. I hadn’t seen David for a long time, like a year and a half or something, but it was the same old kid, same sense of humor, just D-law, so that was really great. I really liked his girlfriend Julie as well, just a really nice girl and very pretty too, again high school friends with hot girlfriends. First it was Dobber, then Mike, and now D-law…when is it my turn! Haha. We ended up going right through my old stomping grounds when I was here for the first week, setting up everything and living in that shitty hostel. We walked right by that hostel and everything, it was weird to be back where the whole trip started only 6 months later, it was sort of a trip, but I’m glad I went back, I really wanted to before I left and now I have, so that’s good. It just amazes me how far I’ve come in 6 months as a person, I really feel like I’ve grown, I’m not sure anyone else will be able to tell but I feel more confident as a whole and just more comfortable in my own skin I guess. Not that I wasn’t before but remembering back on when I got here and now, I just feel like I’ve grown up a bit, which is good. Anyway, too many tangents, we had dinner and a few pints. It was pretty hilarious after 1 and half pints Julie was pretty tipsy, she’s Asian and small so I don’t blame her, but it was still a bit of a laugh. Went back to Paddington and said our goodbyes and that was that. It was for sure a good time though and I’m really happy that D-law was able to make it out and we were able to meet up so easily. Thanks D-law!
The next day was sorta my off day before the Matt’s got to Nettlebed to meet up with me. I was going to use this day to pack and do anything last minute I needed to do, like send my quilt back home by package among other things. I ended up seeing a movie in Henley, Gran Torino. Wow, such a good movie. That moves to my top 5 spots for the movies I’ve seen over here, which is a lot and really says a lot cause there’s some really good flicks in that top 5. The rest of the day was spent packing, or at least trying to pack up the rest of my room cause I wanted it all nicely packed incase Caroline needed the room for anything. She said that she proly wouldn’t but I wanted to make sure that it would be ready for some random new hire to move in to if need be. Plus I feel like if I packed then I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. I cleaned my room up, hoovered, dusted, and all that stuff. I got my bags packed almost totally; I even used my vacuum bag again, which does save some space. The one thing I did find out about NWA is that on international flights they let me have 2 bags for free, so I think I’m going to check in my adidas bag as my second bag, this way they won’t be overweight and I won’t have to totally stuff in a bunch of my things that I would have if I was going to only take one bag. I think it’s better this way. So I got all that done in anticipation for the Matts arrival which would be the next morning, something I had been looking forward to for literally more than 6 months. It was a great feeling to finally be at that point. Until next time.
One of the reasons that posting is taking me so much longer of a time is that it’s starting to stack up on me. I’m sorta dreading the fact that I have so much to write about, all very cool stuff and the fact that my production on letting people know about my trip and what I’m doing on a daily basis has a real curve from the start of the trip to the end, a downward curve. Oh well, I guess that’s the way it is. I’m sure when I go back to Colorado and am just sorta working, hopefully, and hanging at home that posts are going to be few and far between but that’s alright, kinda what I was expecting but still this is a good medium that I’ll try to update as much as I can. Before I get going on explaining what I’ve been doing the last 2 weeks, I just have to say how happy am I to have worked here in the winter rather than the summer. It was a totally nice day out today but my room is already really hot. I have my window open and everything and yet it’s still too hot for me, there’s no air con or anything like that to save me, I know I’m such a whiner, but I am just glad the weather was at least what I liked while I was over here, colder, damp, and brisk.
Alright, where to start? I guess the first thing to talk about is my last few days of work. They were very uneventful for me, just sorta wound down the time like any normal shift, not too busy but not too slow. Really it was just right. I guess the main difference was that my truly last day I was training the new girl and my replacement, Klara, in the bar. I think she’ll do just fine and I hope that she learned a thing or two from my fast talking accent. By the end of the night though, I couldn’t be bothered with really showing her all the stuff I proly should have been, I was done. Like I said last time, I’m going to miss this job in a lot of ways. Every time I think about it I really did get perfectly lucky in finding this job, it was EVERTHING I was hoping for when I was still in the planning stages. Two square meals a day, a live in with no pay, good people, good pay, in the country but closish to London, pretty much everything just lined up for me. Hopefully I’ll take that luck with me back to the states. Anyway, that was my last couple days of work, sorta saying good bye to the people I worked with and thanking them for all the stuff they taught me, especially Alex and Vendy.
The next I met up with my old high school buddy in London. We had planned on this for a while and everything really worked out perfectly. D-law graduated last spring when I did but has been hanging around Eugene Oregon sorta waiting for his girlfriend to graduate and also just making some money before joining the Navy, which he is now for sure going to do. He’s a really great guy and is yet another one of my high school friends who I am totally jealous of for all the good stuff he seems to have going for him, but in a good way, I guess I’m more happy for him. It was his girlfriends spring break so the two of them decided to do a little traveling in Italy and London. He knew I was over here and so we got to talking and sorted out a meeting time before he left. I met up with them in Paddington and pretty much just went all over London looking at some of the top sights and trying not to spend too much money. We went to St. Paul’s Cathedral just to look on the outside, Big Ben and Parliament, Harrods, and the British Museum. So it was sort of a quick viewing of some of the bigger stuff in the city but it was still really fun. Maybe coolest for me was getting to see someone from home after so long. I hadn’t seen David for a long time, like a year and a half or something, but it was the same old kid, same sense of humor, just D-law, so that was really great. I really liked his girlfriend Julie as well, just a really nice girl and very pretty too, again high school friends with hot girlfriends. First it was Dobber, then Mike, and now D-law…when is it my turn! Haha. We ended up going right through my old stomping grounds when I was here for the first week, setting up everything and living in that shitty hostel. We walked right by that hostel and everything, it was weird to be back where the whole trip started only 6 months later, it was sort of a trip, but I’m glad I went back, I really wanted to before I left and now I have, so that’s good. It just amazes me how far I’ve come in 6 months as a person, I really feel like I’ve grown, I’m not sure anyone else will be able to tell but I feel more confident as a whole and just more comfortable in my own skin I guess. Not that I wasn’t before but remembering back on when I got here and now, I just feel like I’ve grown up a bit, which is good. Anyway, too many tangents, we had dinner and a few pints. It was pretty hilarious after 1 and half pints Julie was pretty tipsy, she’s Asian and small so I don’t blame her, but it was still a bit of a laugh. Went back to Paddington and said our goodbyes and that was that. It was for sure a good time though and I’m really happy that D-law was able to make it out and we were able to meet up so easily. Thanks D-law!
The next day was sorta my off day before the Matt’s got to Nettlebed to meet up with me. I was going to use this day to pack and do anything last minute I needed to do, like send my quilt back home by package among other things. I ended up seeing a movie in Henley, Gran Torino. Wow, such a good movie. That moves to my top 5 spots for the movies I’ve seen over here, which is a lot and really says a lot cause there’s some really good flicks in that top 5. The rest of the day was spent packing, or at least trying to pack up the rest of my room cause I wanted it all nicely packed incase Caroline needed the room for anything. She said that she proly wouldn’t but I wanted to make sure that it would be ready for some random new hire to move in to if need be. Plus I feel like if I packed then I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. I cleaned my room up, hoovered, dusted, and all that stuff. I got my bags packed almost totally; I even used my vacuum bag again, which does save some space. The one thing I did find out about NWA is that on international flights they let me have 2 bags for free, so I think I’m going to check in my adidas bag as my second bag, this way they won’t be overweight and I won’t have to totally stuff in a bunch of my things that I would have if I was going to only take one bag. I think it’s better this way. So I got all that done in anticipation for the Matts arrival which would be the next morning, something I had been looking forward to for literally more than 6 months. It was a great feeling to finally be at that point. Until next time.