Alive and Kicking

Looks like I have already failed you all on my "I'll try to update my blog more often" promise. It's the same old excuses so I won't waste words on them. It's another beautiful weekend here, and apparently all over Europe. Spoke with my Grandma Luise this afternoon, she lives in Munich, Germany, and she fears that the nice weather now will mean lots of rain during the summer. Guess it is a bit early in the season for such summery weather, and the lack of rain will obviously have reprucutions, but we're all oblivious to those worries by the warm rays from the sun. We're being brain washed.

Last weekend I took a day trip town to the sea-side town of Torquay (say it like "tor-key"). Woke up early on Saturday, but still managed to find myself rushing to the train station, and as I was standing the the queue for the machine to print my pre-bought tickets, I looked at the time and it was 8:44am. My train leaves at 8:44am, and they always leave on time, unless delayed. So I got my ticket and went to see if there was another train I could catch that would take me to Exeter (switch trains there to the one to Torquay). As I looked around at the upcoming departing trains, and not finding what I wanted, I saw one going to Exeter, and realized as I read the screen that it was my 8:44 train, but it had been delayed. What luck!

Train ride took about 2 hours, enjoyed the scenery, listened to my ipod. When I arrived at Torquay the ocean was pretty much right across the street from the train station, and I was in heaven. Didn't realize I missed the ocean so much. I would have to compare Torquay to Pacifica. The weather though was much nicer, sunny and breezey. Walked around the town, found the city center and did a bit of shopping, then went to lie out on the beach and catch some of the sun. The only bummer about Torquay was that the beaches were not the white, soft sandy California kind. the sand was dark, compact and quite small. But I guess I can't expect it to be an exact likeness of California, otherwise Cali wouldn't be so unique and special.

That night I had a few drinks and didn't think I had that much but apparently I did because not only did I get sick, but had a hangover the next day. Alex did too, so we were quite the pair waking up at like noon, dragging ourselves to KFC for food, then went shopping because we were going to make the traditional English Sunday Roast for dinner, got back to his place and sat on the couch watching TV all afternoon. I finally got up and went home to take a shower, which made me feel loads better. Headed back to the Fish, started making the roast dinner which consisted of roast beef, mashed potatoes, veggies, and yorkshire pudding. Everything in the meal was great except for the roast. Probably wasn't the best quality of meat, and we vowed never again to buy it at the supermarket, unless they have an actual butcher in there.

Work has been really busy, got a few projects going on and the deadlines were all approaching at once. Got the big one taken care of, which was to make a demo movie, and the rest should be done soon. Next week will fly by though because I will be in Birmingham Tuesday- Thursday morning for an exhibition, then I am taking Friday off to extend the bank holiday weekend (we all get Monday off over here in the UK for May Day), and it's also Alex's Birthday so we might try and go somewhere.

This weekend has been pretty chill. Went running yesterday morning, then shopping in the afternoon. I feel like all my clothes are so dark and black, don't have much bright spring/summer stuff. So as i was shopping I kept telling myself "no black no black". Did pretty good I think, only bought 1 black cotton tank top and it's just because that is like a clothing staple everyone needs, and my other one is turning gray. On the way home picked up some brownie mix to bake, which turned out really nice, passing them around to everyone and putting smiles on faces. Last weekend I was inspired from an email I got my from mom to bake cookies when she said she was baking some. But they don't have the insta-cookie dough here so I had to do it from scratch! (I have never done this before- scary). They came out okay, not the best cookies I have ever tasted, but the guys at the fish seemed to like them well enough, especially Jaume.

Last night I brought him and his girlfriend Abi some of the brownies and we watched a super hoekey (they don't use the work hoekey over here, and when I said it they were like, "what?") movie- Puppetmaster II. It was more funny than scary. Today I have attempted being more productive, putting away laundry (need to do ironing later), went to the shop and bought hooks, hammer, screws, screw drivers so I could hang up my bags and photos. The room is really started to look like h ome now, espeically with all the pictures up. Got a cork board too so I can begin another collage of photos and crap that I collect.

Speaking of being productive, I should sign off and get on with the ironing, uggg...I hate ironing, but need to do it, especially for the "nice" clothes I'll need at the exhibitions. Hope you enjoyed the update, and as always, I will try to do it more often. :o)

Direction to London

For those of you planning to visit me:

1. Go to www.google.com
2. click on "maps"
3. click on "get directions"
4. type "New York" in the first box (the "from" box)
5. type "London" in the second box (the "to" box)
6. click on "get directions"

7. scroll down to step #23

Everywhere I go, I bring the California weather with me

Saturday evening, sitting on a brown leather couch in Sublime, with Smacky on my lap (that is my laptop by the way, put your dirty thoughts in the garbage), sipping on water (it is incredibly hot over here), wearing shorts, tank top and flip flops (Mom- and you thought I would have no need for "California clothes"). On the TV is Manchester United vs Watford football, ManU kicked ass. Sublime is pretty empty, usually is at this hour. It's one of those bars that is really only very busy Friday and Saturday night (like after 11pm). Tonight Midnight Sasusage is playing as usual. Will probably listen to a bit before heading over to the Fish.

Last night it was really quiet around Bristol. Usually Friday nights the city is bustling, especially Sublime- but not last night. Most people figure it's becuase it's the "weekend after Easter" and people are broke from partying then. Chatted with Gags and Josey, then Nick let them have a 20 minute drink break so us girls went over to this place called MuMu's down the road. They had really terrible wine, I had Hypnotic & Sprite. Yum. When we got back to Sublime, it was still dead and Nick had the girls go pass out fliers for the DJ he had there that night. I went along, but wasn't really motivated to be shoving fliers in people's faces. We went over to the Centre and then down by the waterfront and it's funny how the type of people changed to these sleazy, scum bags. While Josey was trying to explain to this group of older men where the heck Sublime even was, I was standing waiting, and this guy grabs my arm and said "Give us your papers (the flier)". I did, and he said "So what do I get for showing up- sex?" I laughed and said "No" then walked away.

Once back at Sublime I grabbed my bag and headed off to the Fish. Had a pint there, chatted with their security/bouncer guy until closing. Then they started cleaning the lines. Line cleaning happens about once a week at most pubs around here, and it's when they drain all the remaining beer from the taps, which means free pints of beer. This isn't something that is open to the general public, it happens after closing so you have to know the people at the pub well enough to be allowed to stick around for this. We usually can get about 3-4 pints each, though for me and Dutchy maybe only 2 since we are both Grolsch fans we have to split how ever many pints are poured. I tried Guinness, yick. Carling isn't that great either. Kronenburg is pretty good, and Fosters too.

Post-Easter

Easter Sunday was another sleep in day (yay), and it was also another gorgeous day outside. Got ready, ate lunch, started a load of white laundry- side note- so I had done a white wash before and everything came out looking a bit gray and dirty looking. Strange, and I was looking in several shops for bleach but it doesn't seem to exist in this country. I asked Alex and he said just find the detergent that says it is for whites. So I go back to the store and find something with "whites" in the name, so I figure that is my best bet. Re-wash my whites and they came out nice and pretty this time.

Back to Sunday, did some washing, then took my book and iPod over to Queen's Square and laid in the sun. When it started to get chilly I headed over to a mini market to buy some chocolate Easter eggs for me and Alex. Got 3 different ones (was one of those buy 3 for 2 deals), went over to the Fish and found Alex and Jaume upstairs just chillen and surprised them with the chocolate Easter eggs. Both were very happy. We each took one and scarffed them down (btw- apparently they say "scoffed" instead of "scarffed" over here, I got an earful for that one).

Then I went home and did a little more laundry, made dinner and then got ready to meet Nick and Patty at Mbargo's. Got there at about 9:30ish and poor Nick was falling asleep at the table. I think his choie of beverages that night turned into a sleeping potion for him. It wasn't our usual group at Mbargo's because the girls were all out of town for the holiday weekend, and no one from the Fish felt like coming out. Hung out with the guys, danced a bit, and by midnight we decided to head home. Nick wasn't going to last much longer. It was a bit of a struggle to get him in the taxi and home to Sublime but we managed.

Monday, my 4th day off. By now I totally forget what work even is. I feel like I have been on the longest vacation. Which is a good thing right? I decided to head into the City Centre and check out the shops. The current fashion trend over here is totally 80's. Leggings, geometric tops, bright colors, crazy hair,...yeah not my style. The other day I saw a woman wearing a fricken tape measurer as a belt! Wish I had had my camera for that one. Came out with two zippy jackets (love those, can never have enough), and a pair of jeans. I was gutted when I noticed my favie pair of Gap jeans had a hole on the inner thigh. This new pair is a good replacement though.

Went over to the Fish and chillen with Alex for the rest of the afternoon watching TV. It's cool on days like these when he is basially on call all day, only needing to go downstairs if it is busy or to cover breaks. And since it's a holiday, the Fish was dead, so we were able to hang out for hours and not be bothered. Had mashed potatoes and a beef pie thing for dinner and wathced Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Then Alex had to go downstairs and close up, and I was getting ready to go to bed since I had work the next morning. But then Jaume and his girlfriend Abi came upstairs. They had been on the piss all day and were trying to get Alex and I to go out for a drink with them. Neither of us wanted to, but at the last minute Jaume got Alex to say yes, so I put my shoes back on and we went looking for a place that was even open to have a drink.

Found ourselves at this sports bar, which was actually going to close soon, but they let us in so long as we had jus one drink. Had our drink, then Alex and I went home to Sublime and let the drunken lovers wander their way back to the Fish. I am so happy this is a short week, I can feel my motivation to work slipping. :oP

Pre-Easter week

I cannot believe it is already April! And Easter no less. Got an email from Chris saying that in the UK we get Friday AND Monday off over the holiday weekend. Sweet. 4 days off, I felt compelled to go somewhere. First thought of going to mainland Europe, but wasn't really feeling prepared, and decided to stay local and explore more of England. Thought of going north inititally, but was told that it would be quite a few hours of driving and with the holiday weekend, it could take twice as long to get around. Bunch of people suggested places in Southern England to check out, so that became my new plan. However, I was so busy with work and other stuff that I was slacking off in actually planning this trip. Next thing I know it is Wednesday and I am like, crap- I need to get myself together if I want to go anywhere.

I looked online at cars to rent, and found this one place close by, but in order to rent an automatic, they want 48 hours notice. So if i wanted to take the car Saturday, I had to reserve it today (Wednesday). But the Internet was being all weird and the reservation forms were not cooperating with me. Then when they finally did, it wouldn't accept my credit card info. Ahhh! By this time it was 7pm, too late to call the place, so my weekend road trip was now a whisper in the wind. I was really bummed out. Alex said he would take me on a road trip though, so that made me feel a bit better.

So for my long 4-day weekend I am resolved to chill, continue cleaning and organizing around the flat (mainly cleaning the kitchen upstairs so I can actually use it, and organize my room- clothes are overflowing, need more hangers, and I could really use a night stand or something, right now I am using all the cardboard boxes I have acquired as night stands). Here is what I have accomplished so far:

Friday - slept in (finally), showered, walked over to Brandon Hill (park) with my laptop, sat on the grass in the sun (with sunscreen) and worked on updating my blog posts. Went home, talked with mom and Karina for about an hour, wrote cards to people, ate dinner (made my infamous pasta with ketchup because I ran out of tomatoe sauce and when Patty see's my creation he is totally disgusted, as most people are), took a nap, then headed over to The Fish.

Saturday - more sleeping in, had to dash home to take a shower and then head right back to the Fish because a group of us were going to meet there to watch Chelsea v Tottenham at 12:45pm and then go play football. I showed up at about 1:30pm. Tottenham lost (bummer), then we headed over to Queen's Square and tossed around a frisbee for a while, then along came the guy with the football, so that got tossed int othe mix, and then out came a rugby ball. All three going on at once, quite funny. Played a funky game of football- one goal and one goalie, two teams of 4. Then headed home, went grocery shopping, organized my food on the shelves and in the fridge, then went upstairs to re-dye my hair. Came back down, had dinner, pasta with real pasta sauce this time (Patty was pleased), Midnight Sausage was about to go on, brought Smacky downstairs so I could enjoy the music and catch up on emails, update the blog, etc.

Okay, the blog is officially updated, down to the minute. I will try to do a better job of updating it more frequently.

Happy Easter!

S'mores (3.30)

A while ago I was talking with Kaz, this girl I met via The Fish, and somehow the topic of smores came about. No one over here knows what they are, expect for one or two people who have been to the States. My boss Chris was going to San Francisco for a business trip and I asked him to bring back Graham Crackers and Hershey's Chocolate, 2 of 3 key ingredients to making smores. Friday night was declared smore night. We all met here at Sublime and I set out skewers, marshmellows, the graham crackers and Hershey's, and used a large candle on a plate as our camp fire. I gave everyone a lesson on how to make smores, and then let them all have a go at it. Everyone really enjoyed them, and I made ones for all the staff at Sublime. It was like a smore factory.

As the evening progressed and more people were coming by they saw what we were doing and joined in on the smore goodness. What's really funny is that even a week later I have people coming up to me asking about the smores because someone had told them about it. So now I'll have to organize another smore evening, just need to import more Graham Crackers and Hershey's.

The rest of my weekend was spent cleaning and organizing my room. Bought kitchen stuff so I could actually cook real meals. Sunday was a beautiful day and I decided to get outside and wander around Bristol a bit more and take more pictures of the city. Came home, took a nap, then ate dinner and got ready to go over the The Fish for the quiz, and then was going to meet up with the Sublime crew at this club called Mbargo's. But then downstairs was Nick, Lionna, and Patty and they started having drinks, so I joined in. One led to another and I decided to just hang with them and go straight to Mbargo's. We were having a fun time just chillen and drinking in Sublime (Sublime closes early on Sunday's so it was just us). Even had an ice cube fight at one point.

Then we made our way out the the city centre to catch a cab to Mbargo's. Got there, continued drinking and did some dancing. The acoustic guys Midnight Sausage are the regular Sunday night entertainment (they play at Sublime on Saturday nights) and they are really good. They do covers of popular, classic songs that make you want to dance. We were there until probably 2am I think, then I walked a very drunken Alex and Jaume home to The Fish. It was really surprising that I wasn;t drunk myself because I had been drinking since about 7:30pm and had had quite a few cocktails, shots and beers, but I was totally fine. Almost sober. Hey, better than being pissed right? :)

Poker, Zoo & Football (3.27- 3.30)

Tuesday night is poker night at Sublime, and I was playing. It's only been my 3rd time but I had a killer start. First hand, I had like a 9 and Queen of clubs and placed my bet, then these two other guys bet. The flop came out and I can’t remember if 3 more clubs came out right away or if the third one came on the river, but basically I had a flush. Me and these two guys kept raising each other until all three of us were all in. This is quite unusual for the first hand. Everyone from the other two tables had now gathered around ours to see what would happen. We showed our cards and I knew a Flush was good, but the other guys each had an Ace and I can’t remember what other cards were on the table but I wasn’t sure if I had one. But Alex grabed my shoulders and was like “you won you won!”15,000 in chips! Man if only it was real money. Everyone was impressed, even I was. I ended up placing 9th, which is pretty good. If I had lasted a little longer I would have made it to the final table. That is my goal for next week’s game.

Wednesday I took off to hang with Alex since he had the day off. We decided to go to the zoo, which is up near the Clifton Bridge. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, Nick and Lionna had gone a few days ago and said it was fun but not the best zoo in the world. It is definitely smaller than most others. Didn’t have tigers, zebra’s or giraffes. They did have lions, loads of monkeys, reptiles, penguins, seals, insects, and birds. Alex loved the monkeys and kept saying he wanted one. You know those wooden boards with animals painted on them and holes for you to stick your head through…well Alex went nuts and had me take his picture at every one we saw. His best was the lion. There were also signs all over the zoo saying “Adopt an animal.” Alex and I were taking the piss and saying, oh let’s adopt an alligator, it will fit in the tub.

When we were walking through the monkey area Alex stopped and pointed saying “Oh my God that is the ugliest monkey I have ever seen!” I look and he is pointing at this zoo worker standing on the other side of this enclosure. I tell Alex to shut up, and apologize to the guy, but he didn’t seem to mind, think he may have even laughed. Then we noticed what he was standing in was a monkey cage that people can actually enter and walk through. We did and it was so cool. You could practically touch the monkeys they were so close. Then we went over to watch the seals get fed. There was this adorable little baby seal and he was making quite a racket. After we saw all that we could at the zoo we headed back towards our pubs. Along the way Alex took me to this restaurant that has a huge patio looking out on Clifton bridge and the gorge. It was really nice, would have been even better if it was sunny, but I still enjoyed it. We chilled, drank a pint, then continued walking down the hill. We stopped at this other restaurant near Sublime and had another pint. Went to Tesco’s to pick up dinner mixings but in the middle of shopping we got lazy and decided to just bake a pizza in the oven and have salad.

On Thursday evening I planned to go train with this ladies football team over in Keynsham. I had been looking for a team to join, found them online and emailed inquiring about them. The coach wrote back saying it was too late in the season to join now, but that I was welcome to train with them on Tuesday and Thursday from 7-9pm and if I wanted to join could do so when the next season starts in August. I gathered up my football gear and headed to the City Centre to catch the bus. I was a little annoyed because I could not find the stop for the bus he told me to catch. When I finally found it and the bus came around, I told the driver I was going to Keynsham (your bus fare is based on where you get off at, so you have to tell them where you are going and if you want a single or return), but the guy said he didn’t to go Keynsham. So I am totally confused but can’t really argue with the driver so I get off and try to figure it out. I realize that I probably should have said the name of the stop and not the town so when the next bus came by, I asked the lady if she went to my stop and she said yes, so I hopped on and made it to the training field just on time. Met the coaches and was told to train with the reserves and third team. It was so nice to have a real football training with an actual coach. Playing in SF with the recreational league was fun, but seeing as how I never had proper training before this was really great. Now I can learn to play properly. I thought I did rather well. I was a bit nervous because I don’t have any formal training I thought I would stick out like a sore thumb. But I did rather well. Was totally knackered at the end of it, and when I went to catch the bus home I realized that my bus didn’t run that late, and the bus I needed to take happened to have just gone by and another one wouldn’t be around for another hour. It was freezing cold, I was sweaty and didn’t want to risk getting sicker so I called Alex to see if Jaume would be able to pick me up. He did, bless him. Times like these I really really miss my car.

Weekend in London (3.24 - 3.25)

Before I get to the story of my weekend, let me give you a quick mobile update. So I have been waiting and waiting for my bank statement to arrive in the post so I can get a mobile. When I arrived home Wednesday Nick gave me my mail and there it was. So my first order of business on Thursday was to get the phone. They put in all my info, but it still had to do a credit check, and I was declined. Most likely because I don’t have any credit here. The guy said I would need to bring someone else who had credit to sort of be a co-signer for me. I went home and asked Nick if he would do it. He said sure, so Friday we go back to the store. They put in his information and HE is declined as well! What we realize is that it’s our address that is messing things up. The people who lived at the pub before apparently had a lot of debt and the computers see this when it looks up our address. Pretty lame. So the guy said to bring in someone else with a different address. You have no idea how annoyed I was at this point. The only other person I could think to ask was Alex. He said he’d do it, but we would have to wait until his next day off, which would be Monday, since he works during the day and on the weekend. Skipping ahead to Monday, we go to the store, and my understanding from my last visit was that we could use Nick’s account info to pay for the phone and plan, and that we just needed someone else’s name for the address check. Well that wasn’t the case. The phone has to be under one name, and Alex would have put it under his name, but he just found out the people renting his house are leaving at the end of the month, so he didn’t think it was a good idea in case he runs into money issues. Understandable, so now I need to find someone else to get this phone for me. I talked to my lovely boss Chris and asked if he’d do it and he said yes, and in fact he wants me to look into what deals they have for business accounts because his phone contract is about to run out and he’s thinking of switching to this company since it has such a good international call deal. However he is on Holiday for the next two weeks so I’ll have to wait. In the meantime I have a temporary mobile, thanks to Alex. He told me he had an old phone and I could just buy a new SIM card for it so that I at least have something. Bless him. So now I have a mobile, yay.

Okay, on to the story of my weekend. Took a train on Saturday afternoon to Reading where my friend Liz and her husband Paul were going to pick me up. I had met Liz back in San Francisco when we both worked at Nimblefish. She and her husband Paul had moved to SF and lived there for about 5 years but just moved back to England in July 2006 because they wanted to buy a house and start a family and just couldn’t afford to do it in the Bay Area. Works for me, now I know more people in England. They picked me up from the station then we went to their friend Andy’s house. We were all going out to London that night for their friend’s going away party (he’s moving to Australia). It was me, Liz, Paul, Andy and Rachel. The place we were going to was called Zebrano’s off of Oxford and Regent Street in the heart of London. You know how people say driving in London is a total nightmare- well I didn’t realize how terrible it was until this night. We drove to the bar and it was so bad. We sat and sat in traffic forever, moving less than a full car length at a time. I would take driving through downtown San Francisco any day over London. Never again.

Zebrano’s was a cool place, very schwanky. Mixed cocktails were 7 pounds! Corona’s were only 3 so after having 1 cocktail I stuck with Corona the rest of the night. Met more of Liz’s friends but ended up chatting with Andy mostly and hanging with him and Paul near the bar. It was a fun night. On the way home we were all feeling a bit peckish and tried to find food. We saw a McDonalds and pulled over to go in. Me, Paul and Andy walked over only to find that it was closed. As we walked back toward the car, the boys had to go pee and decided to do it in this doorway. I kept on walking to the car, and when the boys came back, we could see that the front of their trousers above their knees were all wet. We thought they pissed themselves but what happened was when they stood in the doorway, water started spraying at them from the doorway! How funny. The door took a piss on them before they could piss on the door. Hahaha…good times. We stopped at a petrol station and got food there. Dropped Andy and Rachel off then continued on to Liz and Paul’s house. We were all so tired, we went straight away to bed.

Woke up Sunday morning, had some coffee and toast, took showers and tried to figure out where to have lunch. We went to this cute country sort of restaurant and met their friends Paul and Linda, who just had a baby boy. I had a beer and ale pie, which was really yummie. Paul and Linda were lovely people. When we started looking at our watches we realized we wouldn’t make it to the train station in time to catch the 3:45pm train so I’d have to take the next one which left an hour later. Thank God my ticket was an open one, meaning I can catch any train at any time. Caught the train but it was so crowded that I didn’t have a seat and ended up standing more of the way home, as did many others. Played the quiz at the pub (we did such a crap job this time) and then chilled with Alex for the night. I am still feeling under the weather at this point so plan to stay at home next weekend and take a break from traveling.