Hokay. So. Here is the earth. Round. It’s a pretty sweet earth.
So, I started work at Sports Café this weekend, and I’m completely exhausted but it was actually pretty fun. My legs might actually fall off sometime today, but I guess that’s ok. After working office job on Friday I met sillyhead boy for a bit before he had to work, then I had Sue over for pizza, and she showed me her pictures of Greece and we hung out and caught up.
Slept in Saturday, and it was glorious. Then I played chef and made tortilla (Spanish omelet), and it was actually pretty good! Clinton said it was good, and he ate almost all of it (by the time I finished cooking it I wasn’t so hungry… the fucker was the size of a frying pan and about and inch thick, so if he ate all of that he must have thought it was ok). Lounged around all day then I started work at 9. The first hour I did promo with the other girls, we wandered around town “passing out flyers,” i.e. standing on the corner down the street from sports café talking. Then they sent 4 of the guys out to flyer as well, so it was really stupid to have 8 staff out flyering when no one reads the flyers and they don’t create any business, just litter. Anyway, Lucy and I went back at 10 and she worked the door and I worked the cloakroom. Which was pretty boring, since it’s summer, but it’s still cold enough here so that I did about 30 jackets all night. I had my book so I read a good bit and I also amused myself by people watching. The clientele of this place is ridiculous, and I saw some great outfits. I also saw Tina Turner and J Lo. And there was one girl that was basically just wearing a white denim bikini, when you really get down to it. I wish I could DV-R my eyes so you could see these people, it’s incredible.
Across from the cloakroom there’s a stand where a photographer girl and a computer guy sit and they take pictures and you can get them put on 2 key rings that say sports café for £3. After about five minutes the guy (Phil) was waving at me and came over and was chatting about how he grew up in the states and his parents live in Aiken, S.C. (weird). He was asking about me and this and that and then wandered back, and then 5 seconds later the girl runs up (Orla) and introduced herself and was really excited that I’m American because she lived in NJ for a year and turns out her mom’s Irish and from Dublin so we had a good chat. Then later Phil came back and asked how I got the job so I told him about Clinton, and he said they’d do our picture key ring for free, and I said oh ok (not like I’d like to be caught dead in a picture in my work clothes, I just wear black pants but the sports café t shirt (black) is a large, so I swim in it - though I figured out how to tie it up and make it look almost kind of cute yesterday). But then later when Clinton came by to say hi and check on me, they grabbed us both and yanked me out of the cloakroom and took our picture and made our little key rings. The picture is really horrendous, but I’ll keep it because it’s kind of funny. Anyway, this really funny little guy from Malawi named Presley gave me a few quick breaks to go to the bathroom and get something to drink, otherwise I just sat in the cloakroom all night. I got a £1 tip but I forgot about it and left it in my till, so that went to the caf.
Clinton was closing so he had to stay til half 5, and I was supposed to finish at 3 but Matt and James, the two “too cool for school” bartenders were leaving at 2:30 and Clinton got them to escort me to the bus so I wouldn’t have to go alone, which is good, because there were all kinds of creepies out there. A word about Matt and James, everyone calls them the twins except one’s Irish and one’s English. They are both shaggy haired, pretty boy blonde guys. Matt’s about my height and stockier and James is just a bit taller and thinner. They both walk with sort of that John Travolta “Saturday Night Live” swagger and the managers always send them out to do promo because the girls will flock in after them. They’re really nice and pretty funny, too, so I felt pretty cool having them escort me to my bus, ha. Matt’s having a party Sunday but I can’t go because I have to get my bus to the airport to go to Sweden at Ridiculous O’Clock. Which really sucks. But it shall be worth it, I’m excited about visiting. In the summer time, no less.
What else sucks is that we have tickets to the Brian Jonestown Massacre concert on Friday night, I’ve really been looking forward to it and it’s why I pushed back the dates to go to Sweden next week, but now I have to work, and since they’re helping me out and giving me hours (not to mention illegally), I don’t want to say, no I can’t work then, can you redo the roster just for me? And then Saturday Clinton actually has a day shift but then I’m working the night. So that all really blows, we thought Adrian would have the sense to roster us for the same time, but he didn’t. But Clinton said he’d come collect me from work Friday and Saturday nights so I don’t have to go by myself.
Anyway, we had to start again at 3 on Sunday, for the England game. For the first hour I did promo and walked around getting obnoxious fans to fill out score prediction cards (they can win a free pitcher of beer if they guess the score, no, you can not win a date with me). That was actually pretty fun but once the match started no one wanted to be bothered, so I gave the rest of my cards to the other promo girls (who are funny but they are lazy as hell) and basically just barbacked until I finished at 10. The venue holds a ridiculous amount of people (I’d say it’s about twice the size of Spice Street) and so there were always glasses to collect. At halftime when people got up and were moving around and you could actually get to the tables, it was crazy. All the bar backs and some of the bartenders were glass collecting. I’d get about 5 pitchers with 4 or 5 glasses stacked in each, or just ridiculously massive stacks of glasses. There was no room on the bars for all the dirty glasses, we had to pile them way down to where the customers actually order until the rest of the bar backs could get them all washed. Anyway, stupid England won (dammit), and after the game most people left but people were still playing around jumping around in puddles of beer, dancing and being obnoxious. They set up a goal and had a contest to see if anyone could get a goal past “Matt the Cat” (he looked thrilled, but quite cute all suited up in his England football kit). Anyway we spent the rest of the time trying to clear tables and sweep up and get the place back into some sort of order before the Portugal v. Holland match.
I got a lot of weird comments and everyone wanted to ask about my accent. I had one guy so insistent on getting my phone number that he started helping me collect glasses and pitchers. A girl stopped me and said her friend wanted to show me something, and when I turned around he was unbuttoning his jeans, so I walked off. A 55 year old man grabbed me and told me to “get on the dance floor, I betchya look real good on it.” Another guy had a toy sausage named Frank with an England shirt on, and he asked me if I liked it, and I said, uh sure, and he said in his really creepy drunk old Manc voice, “All the ladies like my sausage.” [Insert creepy maniacal laugh]. I kept getting complimented on my nice jugs when I was collecting pitchers. Man, English people are so clever and classy.
All the bar backs and most of the bar tenders were pretty amazed, Janga the Mongolian bartender kept telling everyone, “She a hard worker, she work real hard!!!” I guess because none of the other girls pull their weight. But I’d rather have something to do than just stand around trying to look busy. They are helping me out by letting me work (for shit hours and shit wages, but it’s work nonetheless), so I don’t want them to see me lounging and think I’m unnecessary. Anyway, everybody was really nice and it seems like it will be a really fun group of people to work with. There are 10 bouncers and they are really scary and mean looking, but really they’re just teddy bears. Until the shit goes down, and then they turn into killing machines. I was ready to hide in the cloakroom if England lost, but they didn’t, and there were no kickoffs. The bouncers are all really massive men and they wear all black and I think it’s the black leather gloves that makes them so scary looking. Because you see them without the gloves and they aren’t so frightening. I think the gloves make them look like maybe there’s nothing that they might not do.
Later Tony, the assistant manager, asked me to walk down to the shop to get some milk because they were out, and I was thinking about asking one of the bouncers to escort me (this is a bad part of town, walking to work yesterday Clinton and I passed a huge bloodstain that was all over a pole and dripped down all over the sidewalk… I have to say this is the first place I’ve ever lived where I regularly walk past bloodstains on the street). There were a bunch of degenerates on the steps about half way to the shop, and I was nervous about walking past them until I saw that the female body builder who had been hanging out all day in sports café was with them, and I figured she’d recognize me and protect me if shit went down.
At some point I had a sip of Clinton’s water when I was taking a little rest by the front bar (there are 5 bars), and later walked off and thought I was just really missing my chapstick (I left it at home, yikes), but it turns out somebody put Tabasco sauce on the rim of his glass. Later he asked me if my lips were burning and I said yeah they are all weird and tingly. Yep, it was Tabasco. We think it was one of the crazy South African bartenders (Theodore).
I’m hoping to work more as a bar back or maybe even tend bar in the next few weeks. There’s only 2 girl bartenders because it’s kind of a rough bar (well, it’s quieter now because they’ve banned half their clientele), but I think I could make okay tips. Saturday night I felt kind of like a charity case working there, but I think yesterday I worked hard enough so that everyone realises that I’m serious and will pull my weight. And a lot of the staff came up to introduce themselves, instead of waiting for me to do it or Clinton to introduce us, which I thought was cool. I guess it’s because most of them aren’t English.
So anyway, we had a quick pint after work then went home. At home I played dress up in Clinton’s clothes, he has this really comfy pair of billabong shorts and a zip up hoodie that I love, so I wore those around and acted like a boy for the evening. It was fun. Guys get to wear really comfortable clothes, I’m pretty jealous. Though he’s skinnier than me (well, he has no hips so he’s really narrow) so the shorts were a bit tight at the waist, which is a little depressing. I don’t really like to be the bigger one in the relationship, but he’s really tall so I guess that makes up for it.
Australia plays today at 3, I wish I could catch the game. But it’s doubtful that they’ll win, so I guess that’s ok. Clinton and Mark and Matt are watching it at the caf so I’ll go meet them after work.
By the way, on the bus over to sports café on Friday I had to ride the bus with John, the creepy Irish guy with the incontinence issues. We successfully ignored each other the entire way, despite the fact that he was sitting directly behind me and then moved to the back of the bus to talk really loudly on his cell phone. What a tosser.
My head hurts, and I really want to get back into bed. I guess I’ll eat a kit kat (I stopped at the newsagent next to the office this morning, the old Indian men that work there are in love with me and are always like, “ooooooh how ahhh you today dahhling”) and play online instead. I should do my CV today, but I think I’ll wait til tomorrow when I can actually think. So ridiculously sleepy.
Oh yeah, for any of you that I might not get to see in august, hopefully I’ll be home for Christmas and can see you then. Once we get to Sweden, we’re going to start a savings account (kind of creepy starting a joint bank account) so we can put money in it every week to save for going to NC and Mexico over Christmas / New Years.
Slept in Saturday, and it was glorious. Then I played chef and made tortilla (Spanish omelet), and it was actually pretty good! Clinton said it was good, and he ate almost all of it (by the time I finished cooking it I wasn’t so hungry… the fucker was the size of a frying pan and about and inch thick, so if he ate all of that he must have thought it was ok). Lounged around all day then I started work at 9. The first hour I did promo with the other girls, we wandered around town “passing out flyers,” i.e. standing on the corner down the street from sports café talking. Then they sent 4 of the guys out to flyer as well, so it was really stupid to have 8 staff out flyering when no one reads the flyers and they don’t create any business, just litter. Anyway, Lucy and I went back at 10 and she worked the door and I worked the cloakroom. Which was pretty boring, since it’s summer, but it’s still cold enough here so that I did about 30 jackets all night. I had my book so I read a good bit and I also amused myself by people watching. The clientele of this place is ridiculous, and I saw some great outfits. I also saw Tina Turner and J Lo. And there was one girl that was basically just wearing a white denim bikini, when you really get down to it. I wish I could DV-R my eyes so you could see these people, it’s incredible.
Across from the cloakroom there’s a stand where a photographer girl and a computer guy sit and they take pictures and you can get them put on 2 key rings that say sports café for £3. After about five minutes the guy (Phil) was waving at me and came over and was chatting about how he grew up in the states and his parents live in Aiken, S.C. (weird). He was asking about me and this and that and then wandered back, and then 5 seconds later the girl runs up (Orla) and introduced herself and was really excited that I’m American because she lived in NJ for a year and turns out her mom’s Irish and from Dublin so we had a good chat. Then later Phil came back and asked how I got the job so I told him about Clinton, and he said they’d do our picture key ring for free, and I said oh ok (not like I’d like to be caught dead in a picture in my work clothes, I just wear black pants but the sports café t shirt (black) is a large, so I swim in it - though I figured out how to tie it up and make it look almost kind of cute yesterday). But then later when Clinton came by to say hi and check on me, they grabbed us both and yanked me out of the cloakroom and took our picture and made our little key rings. The picture is really horrendous, but I’ll keep it because it’s kind of funny. Anyway, this really funny little guy from Malawi named Presley gave me a few quick breaks to go to the bathroom and get something to drink, otherwise I just sat in the cloakroom all night. I got a £1 tip but I forgot about it and left it in my till, so that went to the caf.
Clinton was closing so he had to stay til half 5, and I was supposed to finish at 3 but Matt and James, the two “too cool for school” bartenders were leaving at 2:30 and Clinton got them to escort me to the bus so I wouldn’t have to go alone, which is good, because there were all kinds of creepies out there. A word about Matt and James, everyone calls them the twins except one’s Irish and one’s English. They are both shaggy haired, pretty boy blonde guys. Matt’s about my height and stockier and James is just a bit taller and thinner. They both walk with sort of that John Travolta “Saturday Night Live” swagger and the managers always send them out to do promo because the girls will flock in after them. They’re really nice and pretty funny, too, so I felt pretty cool having them escort me to my bus, ha. Matt’s having a party Sunday but I can’t go because I have to get my bus to the airport to go to Sweden at Ridiculous O’Clock. Which really sucks. But it shall be worth it, I’m excited about visiting. In the summer time, no less.
What else sucks is that we have tickets to the Brian Jonestown Massacre concert on Friday night, I’ve really been looking forward to it and it’s why I pushed back the dates to go to Sweden next week, but now I have to work, and since they’re helping me out and giving me hours (not to mention illegally), I don’t want to say, no I can’t work then, can you redo the roster just for me? And then Saturday Clinton actually has a day shift but then I’m working the night. So that all really blows, we thought Adrian would have the sense to roster us for the same time, but he didn’t. But Clinton said he’d come collect me from work Friday and Saturday nights so I don’t have to go by myself.
Anyway, we had to start again at 3 on Sunday, for the England game. For the first hour I did promo and walked around getting obnoxious fans to fill out score prediction cards (they can win a free pitcher of beer if they guess the score, no, you can not win a date with me). That was actually pretty fun but once the match started no one wanted to be bothered, so I gave the rest of my cards to the other promo girls (who are funny but they are lazy as hell) and basically just barbacked until I finished at 10. The venue holds a ridiculous amount of people (I’d say it’s about twice the size of Spice Street) and so there were always glasses to collect. At halftime when people got up and were moving around and you could actually get to the tables, it was crazy. All the bar backs and some of the bartenders were glass collecting. I’d get about 5 pitchers with 4 or 5 glasses stacked in each, or just ridiculously massive stacks of glasses. There was no room on the bars for all the dirty glasses, we had to pile them way down to where the customers actually order until the rest of the bar backs could get them all washed. Anyway, stupid England won (dammit), and after the game most people left but people were still playing around jumping around in puddles of beer, dancing and being obnoxious. They set up a goal and had a contest to see if anyone could get a goal past “Matt the Cat” (he looked thrilled, but quite cute all suited up in his England football kit). Anyway we spent the rest of the time trying to clear tables and sweep up and get the place back into some sort of order before the Portugal v. Holland match.
I got a lot of weird comments and everyone wanted to ask about my accent. I had one guy so insistent on getting my phone number that he started helping me collect glasses and pitchers. A girl stopped me and said her friend wanted to show me something, and when I turned around he was unbuttoning his jeans, so I walked off. A 55 year old man grabbed me and told me to “get on the dance floor, I betchya look real good on it.” Another guy had a toy sausage named Frank with an England shirt on, and he asked me if I liked it, and I said, uh sure, and he said in his really creepy drunk old Manc voice, “All the ladies like my sausage.” [Insert creepy maniacal laugh]. I kept getting complimented on my nice jugs when I was collecting pitchers. Man, English people are so clever and classy.
All the bar backs and most of the bar tenders were pretty amazed, Janga the Mongolian bartender kept telling everyone, “She a hard worker, she work real hard!!!” I guess because none of the other girls pull their weight. But I’d rather have something to do than just stand around trying to look busy. They are helping me out by letting me work (for shit hours and shit wages, but it’s work nonetheless), so I don’t want them to see me lounging and think I’m unnecessary. Anyway, everybody was really nice and it seems like it will be a really fun group of people to work with. There are 10 bouncers and they are really scary and mean looking, but really they’re just teddy bears. Until the shit goes down, and then they turn into killing machines. I was ready to hide in the cloakroom if England lost, but they didn’t, and there were no kickoffs. The bouncers are all really massive men and they wear all black and I think it’s the black leather gloves that makes them so scary looking. Because you see them without the gloves and they aren’t so frightening. I think the gloves make them look like maybe there’s nothing that they might not do.
Later Tony, the assistant manager, asked me to walk down to the shop to get some milk because they were out, and I was thinking about asking one of the bouncers to escort me (this is a bad part of town, walking to work yesterday Clinton and I passed a huge bloodstain that was all over a pole and dripped down all over the sidewalk… I have to say this is the first place I’ve ever lived where I regularly walk past bloodstains on the street). There were a bunch of degenerates on the steps about half way to the shop, and I was nervous about walking past them until I saw that the female body builder who had been hanging out all day in sports café was with them, and I figured she’d recognize me and protect me if shit went down.
At some point I had a sip of Clinton’s water when I was taking a little rest by the front bar (there are 5 bars), and later walked off and thought I was just really missing my chapstick (I left it at home, yikes), but it turns out somebody put Tabasco sauce on the rim of his glass. Later he asked me if my lips were burning and I said yeah they are all weird and tingly. Yep, it was Tabasco. We think it was one of the crazy South African bartenders (Theodore).
I’m hoping to work more as a bar back or maybe even tend bar in the next few weeks. There’s only 2 girl bartenders because it’s kind of a rough bar (well, it’s quieter now because they’ve banned half their clientele), but I think I could make okay tips. Saturday night I felt kind of like a charity case working there, but I think yesterday I worked hard enough so that everyone realises that I’m serious and will pull my weight. And a lot of the staff came up to introduce themselves, instead of waiting for me to do it or Clinton to introduce us, which I thought was cool. I guess it’s because most of them aren’t English.
So anyway, we had a quick pint after work then went home. At home I played dress up in Clinton’s clothes, he has this really comfy pair of billabong shorts and a zip up hoodie that I love, so I wore those around and acted like a boy for the evening. It was fun. Guys get to wear really comfortable clothes, I’m pretty jealous. Though he’s skinnier than me (well, he has no hips so he’s really narrow) so the shorts were a bit tight at the waist, which is a little depressing. I don’t really like to be the bigger one in the relationship, but he’s really tall so I guess that makes up for it.
Australia plays today at 3, I wish I could catch the game. But it’s doubtful that they’ll win, so I guess that’s ok. Clinton and Mark and Matt are watching it at the caf so I’ll go meet them after work.
By the way, on the bus over to sports café on Friday I had to ride the bus with John, the creepy Irish guy with the incontinence issues. We successfully ignored each other the entire way, despite the fact that he was sitting directly behind me and then moved to the back of the bus to talk really loudly on his cell phone. What a tosser.
My head hurts, and I really want to get back into bed. I guess I’ll eat a kit kat (I stopped at the newsagent next to the office this morning, the old Indian men that work there are in love with me and are always like, “ooooooh how ahhh you today dahhling”) and play online instead. I should do my CV today, but I think I’ll wait til tomorrow when I can actually think. So ridiculously sleepy.
Oh yeah, for any of you that I might not get to see in august, hopefully I’ll be home for Christmas and can see you then. Once we get to Sweden, we’re going to start a savings account (kind of creepy starting a joint bank account) so we can put money in it every week to save for going to NC and Mexico over Christmas / New Years.