Weekend in London

Went to London this past weekend to visit Alex. <3 He has been there for about 3 weeks working at the Churchill Fuller’s in Kensington while their manager is on holiday. Apparently it is one of the most photographed pubs in London because of the abundance of flowers that cover the outside of the pub, and when they are in bloom, it looks stunning. Even more amazing is inside the pub, it has a Thai Restaurant and that section is like a jungle with loads of plants and flowers. Alex was more worried about making sure all the plants were okay rather than the pub, lol.

Took the train on Saturday afternoon to Paddington, got to my hotel, then cruised down Portobello Road and checked out the market going on. Lots of stands and shops with things new and old. Found this one guy selling all sorts of spices and wanted to get something super spicy for Alex. I asked the guy, “ I need something that would kill a man,” and without even thinking twice he pulls out this little plastic bag and says “Then you want this.” It even says on the label: World’s Spiciest Powder. He said to be careful and use it in small doses, and I explained it was for my boyfriend who is always looking to make his food as hot as possible. The vendor said he has sold this stuff to other people exactly like that and they come back to him saying the stuff made them cry. Granted they probably used too much, so we’ll see how my little spice monster handles the heat. Muahahaha.

Later in the afternoon Alex got a break and we met up for drinks and dinner. It’s funny he happened to be working in this area because when I was in London in January with Kris and Will, we came to Notting Hill on a Sunday night in search of dinner but came too late and had a hard time finding anything open. So I recognized a few places as Alex and I walked around. Sunday I woke up super early, the guys staying across the hall from me were chatting up a storm at 6:30am! Got up, found a place to access Internet, then slowly made my way over to Camden Town to meet my friend Ana who lives in London.

Camden Town is another one of those places I missed out on when I was here in January, but Kris and Will had gone and said it was the highlight of the trip for them. As soon as I got there I could see why, it was like a massive Haight/Ashbury/Telegraph Avenue neighbourhood. Ana and I walked through so many stalls and shops, and everytime I thought it would end, we turned a corner and there was more! Eventually you saw the same stuff, but also new things. We did a little shopping, got Chinese from one of the food stands, and continued walking around. We were there for about 4 hours and probably didn’t even see everything, but we had our fill.

Met up with Alex in the evening and we were going to try and see what was around Paddington, but as we were on the tube, he got a call from the pub that a fuse had gone out, so we hopped off the train and raced back to the pub. Luckily the electrician who normally works for the pub was eating dinner there and sorted things out. Back out we went, had a few drinks at different pubs, got to see where Jaume and Ben used to work, then we had dinner and headed back to my hotel just in time to catch the last bit of Rome (this TV series that Alex is hooked on, and is rather good).

Monday morning I had a later start, checked out of the hotel (luckily they let me leave my bag there since I wasn’t leaving London for a while), and headed over to South Kensington to the Victoria & Albert Museum. Got there at about 10:30am and didn’t finish until 3pm. There was so much to see, and all very interesting stuff. Sculptures, figures, replicas of famous pieces of work, a fashion exhibition, Asian rooms, British History halls, etc. 80% of the pictures I took from the whole weekend were in this place. After I exhausted my eyes and mind with the museum, I went back to the hotel, grabbed my bag and walked to Churchill. Left my bag there then Alex and I headed out. We had a few hours before I had to catch my train, but we can’t really go far since he has to stay near the pub in case of an emergency, and there isn’t much to do in Notting Hill on a late Sunday afternoon. So we had a few drinks, and ended up at this place called the Hilltop (I think) and ran into one of his regulars and had a few drinks with him.

Now you would think that after having about 2 “bad” experiences with drinking Stella that I would have learned my lesson. But no. I had about 4-5 pints of it and that is usually the amount that screws me over, which it did again. :oP Not the best thing to be travelling home pissed but such is life. Luckily I made it home safe, and with a solemn vow to never drink Stella again. Evil stuff. Aside from the rocky ride home I had an awesome weekend. Got to check out more of London and see Alex. <3

Moving Out

June 21st is the first official day of summer. The weather in Bristol though does not reflect this time of the season. It has been cloudy and raining for the past few days and looks like it will continue doing so through the weekend. Wednesday night we had a proper thunderstorm that came through the area really quick and dumped a shyte load of rain. Lightning had even stuck the sign of this one shop in the city centre- scary.

So the Internet at the pub is still not working. Tuesday I had to relocate my “office” to the Marriott Hotel. Paid 15 quid for 24hour WiFi access. Was pretty cool, hung out in the cocktail lounge and was basically the only person there all day. Around 4pm more people turned up. Wednesday I had my office at The Watershed, this café/cinema/digital media centre close to the Pub. They have free WiFi but I felt obligated to buy a few coffees throughout the day so I didn’t feel like a total mooch. The one downfall of the free public WiFi is that once more people got onto it the connection speed got slower and I couldn’t even get on to the VPN at all, and Skype calls were out of the question.

Started look for flats as well, found about 6 places online, sent them emails. Then when I got home Leonna had gone by an agency and got a listing of places in Bristol that we would be shown Thursday afternoon. Then a guy I had emailed called and we would see his flat Thursday evening. Ended up back at the Watershed Thursday for work, took an extended lunch break in the afternoon to go check out the flats Leonna arranged for us to see. That was fun, we had 4 places lined up, but at we were driving to the agency, we realized the first one was unfurnished and decided to skip anything unfurnished, so down to 3 places. The first one we go to looks really small and we realize it is a one bedroom! Not sure how the agents got that into the pile, so scratch that and down to 2. Plus the halls in the building smelled like a dentist office.

At the next one, as we are walking down the street, we approach this old church and I tell Leonna, “Wouldn’t it be cool if they took old churches and converted them into flats?” Well they did, this was the next property we were viewing! A bit strange at first but when we entered the place was really lovely. Huge rooms, one with high vaulted ceilings and windows (remember this is in a church), and each room had its own bathroom, the smaller room had the larger one. Then up a flight of stairs and to the right was the living room. Huge pane-glass windows, then up the stairs again to the 3rd floor which had the kitchen, which was kind of like on a balcony that when you looked over the side, you saw down to the living room.

We really liked the look of the place, and Leonna was practically ready to sign the contract there and then, but when we started asking about price, I felt my purse strings tighten. Rent was a bit more than I really wanted to pay and we owed the agency a fee. As we were leaving Leonna was like “Why aren’t we taking this place now?” and I pointed out my concerns about the high rent, not only for myself but for them as well, and then Nick brought up his concern about the area. This part of Bristol was very close to a bunch of brothel-type places and massage parlors. I had also noticed before when we got out of the car that the area didn’t look that great. He said he wouldn’t want us walking on Old Market late at night, which is the only road to get to the city centre and Sublime, which we would be going to late at night, be it them for work or me to go out or see Alex.

We would keep the place in mind but I was not about to sign a contract, especially since it was the first proper place we saw. That evening I went to see the other flat on Victoria Street. Nick and Leonna would follow as Nick had some food orders to take care of. When I got there and saw the place a few red flags popped up, dishwasher wasn’t working, the living room and small room (which would be mine) faced the street and it is a main road, so the noise level concerned me, then in the bathroom the tub needed a good scrub and possibly re-grouting, and in the larger room the windows faced down into the living room and couldn’t be opened, and the girl said it could get rather stuffy sometimes.

She left me to have a further look around on my own, and I was about to text Leonna and say forget it, but then she called and they were at the door. I told them I wasn’t too sure, but they had a look still. We all seemed to have the same hesitations and I actually thought we were going to scratch the place but after we left and got into the car and I told them how much the rent and bills were estimated to be, Nick said it was very cheap. So now we were reconsidering. We had a long chat in the car and when we got back to the pub and decided the few faults could be taken care of by the owner. So I called the guy, told him we were interested but had some questions, and the issues we had he was fine to take care of. He’d clean and re-grout the bathtub, and replace the dishwasher. So with that we told him we’d take it and he’ll be emailing me the contract soon for us to sign and post back to him. Move in date is July 7th- about 2 weeks away!!

So I have talked about all the negative things about this place- allow me to share the good things. In short (haha, like anything I write is short): kitchen and dining area are separate from the living room, living room has high vault ceilings making it a very open space, rooms are upstairs, and the whole place is fully furnished- every pot, pan, teaspoon, table, TV, linens are all there for us to use, which means we don’t have to budget for all that stuff. It also has a storage area that all the tenants share, and there are only 5 flats, so it isn’t a huge building. From what the girl described most of the tenants seem like nice, orderly types, only once in a blue moon have they noticed people being noisier than preferred. The other great thing was the guy didn’t ask for any references or credit checks- sweet. Not that any of us aren’t able of paying rent, but I have very little credit over here still, possibly the same for Leonna and Nick’s is tied to the pub, which sometimes shows up poorly.

All in all we are very happy with the choice. It is super close to Sublime and everywhere else we all go. The area is safe, none of us would be concerned about walking home late at night, and I think once the place is cleared of all the stuff in it and we make it our own it will be very nice. Housewarming party!!!

Reseller Meeting in Vienna

Went on a business/leisure trip to Vienna for 4 days. Left on Wednesday and spent most of the day flying if you can believe that. Chris had the same flight as me so we were travel buddies. Man is he a terrible traveler. Doesn’t want to wait for anything, hates sitting around the airport, whine whine whine. The man needs to chill out. It was cool though, we had some small travel issues along the way, which he blamed me for all of them.

Once in Vienna and at the hotel we met up with Mr. Campbell and walked to an Italian restaurant called Maria Rosa and had a late dinner. Good food, ended up eating there a few times during the trip. The business part of the trip was us hosting an EMEA Reseller meeting from Thursday- Friday. That part of the trip went well. Everyone I met was very nice. Went out for dinner Thursday night with everyone, which was cool, got to hang out in a more relaxed environment and get to know everyone. Granted, not like this was a very formal meeting to begin with, but still. Made me less nervous when it was my turn to present in front of everyone.

The weather was muggy and humid. Luckily the conference room was cool in the morning but around noon it too became warm. The food was also good, nothing too strange. Had some Wienerschnitzle, and other dishes consisting of meat and either rice or potatoes. Gelato was all over the place and very delicious! The best kind of ice cream I have only found in Europe. First was Lagnesse ice cream in Germany, very creamy and smooth, then Magnum ice cream in England (I am sure it exists in other countries too), and the Gelato in Vienna was awesome.

On Friday afternoon my Grandma Luise took the train from Salzburg over to Vienna to spend the weekend with me. After finishing with the meetings and a bit of work, met her upstairs and then we joined the boys (Chris, Dave, and David) for dinner. We all had a really fun time. Omi was chattering away with everyone, talking golf, politics, religion, travel, etc. with everyone. Saturday morning Omi and I went on a bus tour of Vienna, which included a tour of the Schonbrunn Palace. It was very impressive, the wooden floor patterns beautiful, rooms extravagantly decorated. Some woman got all pissy because I took a picture of one of the wooden floor patterns with my camera and you aren’t supposed to take pictures inside. Okay I have respect for history and keeping it preserved and all that, and usually the reason they don’t want you taking pictures is because the flash can ruin things. I had the flash off and it was a wooden floor. Whatever, even Omi thought she was being silly.

The gardens at Schonbrunn had to be the most amazing part of this place. It spanned across a huge area 10x the area of the palace itself, and had numerous fountains, a labyrinth, zoo, greenhouse- would take a whole day to probably explore it in its entirety. On the tour we did not have time to explore the gardens, so Omi and I made a note to return on Sunday. After the bus tour, we wandered around the city centre to do a little shopping, since we found out all shops would be closed on Sunday (darn Europeans…). Didn’t get much, pretty much felt that I could get everything I saw back in Bristol.
We did hit up this open-air market, which had lots of yummie smelling food. As we walked past all the food stands I was looking for some exotic, spicy peppers or chilies to get for Alex since he loves spicy stuff. But everything I saw was stuff I could get back in Bristol, again. When we got back to the hotel we started writing our post cards and then I crashed for about 2 hours. Woke up about 8pm-ish and headed out for dinner. I attempted to guide us towards the river where I had seen lots of nice looking cafes and restaurants when Chris and I were coming in to town via the taxi earlier in the week, but my navigation skills were poor that night, and I couldn’t figure out where it was, then on turning around and going back to the area of our hotel, we didn’t take a turn and ended up even further away from our hotel and more downtown. It was nearly 10pm at this point, and most places were closed.

We just turned around and went back to the hotel and decided to check on the Italian place near the hotel and luckily they are open until midnight serving food- yay. Had another pizza from them, yummie and then we headed back to the hotel and went to bed. Sunday we had an early start because I wanted to explore more of the Schonbrunn gardens, then check out the Belvedere Palace and Exhibition, tour St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and grab lunch, then Omi would have to leave to catch her train at quarter to three. The gardens at Schonbrunn were amazing, way too big for us to explore in only 2 hours. We first went and found the labyrinth and went through that which was fun.

After exploring a little more of the gardens we went to the Belvedere palace and walked through the art galleries. Normally I am not big on art galleries, don’t know why but they usually bore me. So I was quite happy to find that these art works interested me and I got to see Omi’s favorite artist, Klimt, and he had some really nice pieces, then I discovered a new favorite of mine, Wolkmuller (I think). He had some great pieces. From the Belvedere went back towards the Opera at the city centre, and decided to eat lunch, then headed to St. Stephen’s. Was surprised that I could take pictures inside, most churches usually say no.

Then we headed back to the hotel, Omi packed up the last of her stuff and after saying goodbye, tried to sort out the rest of my afternoon. I discovered there was a Lichtenstein Museum and my friend Dan had asked me to try and find Switzerland and Lichtenstein badge/patches for him. But by the time I got there it was already closed. I walked most of the way back towards the city centre, passing by a bunch of museums, parliament, Hofburg Palace and took pictures of those places. Back at the city centre I headed towards this park where there supposedly was this “Summer in the City’ where they had food stands and drinks, outdoor activities, music, etc. Was counting on that place to be my source of dinner, and was really bummed to arrive at the park and it didn’t have any traces of the “Summer in the City” thing.

It was getting late at this point and being a Sunday I knew I had to find a place to eat dinner soon, otherwise I would end up eating at the Italian place again. Ended up back around St. Stephen’s and ate dinner at this strange place where the food was served cafeteria style. After this I went back to the hotel, started packing, got myself an ice cream (hehe), then went to bed. Was up at 5am-ish, showered, finished packing and was downstairs by 6:30am, had breakfast and then caught a cab at 7am, arrived at the airport. Check-in was really quick, and the nifty thing about Vienna airport is they don’t have a big security check area, they have mini-security stations at each gate. So as I am waiting in the airport, I pull out the laptop figuring I can do some work offline, but then my wireless picks up on a signal from the airport- sweet! So I am checking emails, getting stuff done, then it’s time to board the plane. We get a slightly late start, which worries me because my connecting flight in Amsterdam leaves less than an hour after the supposed landing time of this flight. Once we land in Amsterdam, I make a dash out to towards my gate and luckily make it to the gate with a bit of time to spare, they were also running late.

Flight home was easy, in Bristol caught the AirLink bus back home. Was nice to be home, and I was happy I took the day off so I didn’t have to worry about getting online or anything. Unpacked, did laundry, grocery shopping, went to the gym for a bit, then tried to upload pictures from the trip only to find that the Internet was down. We tried to fix it numerous times but to no avail. Stayed up as late as I could (because I have realized I only need 5 hours of sleep to function) then headed off to bed.

Party Animal

Saturday night JD was having his official going away party. Jaume and Abi met me at Sublime, then we headed over to Pitcher & Piano where JD and his friends were outside having drinks. Decided it was a vodka night and started on vodka cranberry. We had a few drinks there, stood outside chatting, these guys were giving poor Abi a hard time about being "abnormally short". Kind of funny, was all in good fun. Then we made our way back to Sublime. We thought we'd only have a few drinks there and then move on, but JD was quite happy to stay there, so that is where we remained for the rest of the night. Continued with the vodka cranberry. Midnight Sausage was getting ready to rock the house, I love them.

Loads of people turned up that night. Ridgey, Johno, Rob, Emma, was a good crowd. We were all having a great night drinking and me, Abi and Caroline had a blast shaking our booties. The night just seemed to fly by, and before I knew it, it was closing time for the bar. Several of us stuck around and continued celebrating on a mellower tone. Swtiched over to Coronas at that point (my poor debit card was hurting from all the double vodka drinks), and just chilled. People slowly started leaving, and I was getting tired as well. Couldn't believe it was 5am! I jetted off to bed, looked out the window and saw it was getting light out. Haven't had such a late night like this since the ghost thing at the Fish.

Amazingly I woke up at noon feeling okay. No headache, or stomach ache. I was just really really really tired. Took me a while to get myself out of bed, showered, and then dragged myself downtown to go shopping for clothes for my business trip to Vienna at the end of the week. I was like a zombie walking around. And of course I managed to find and buy clothes that aren't the most professional looking. Oh well. Took it easy the rest of the day and had a quiet, early night. Though tell me why when I get 6-7 hours of sleep I wake up really tired and am practically falling asleep at my laptop whilst working? Yet on 4-5 hours of sleep I seem to do okay? Maybe I'll test myself tonight by staying up and seeing how well I fare tomorrow.

Pub Golf & Lady Boys Weekend

This past weekend it seemed like everyone was celebrating their birthday. On Saturday Jaume’s girlfriend Abi was celebrating her 21st, and Gag’s who works at Sublime, was also celebrating her 21st. Abi invited me a while ago to do Pub Gold with her so I did that, and told Gags I would stop by her party at Sublime later. For those that don’t know, Pub Golf is a very elaborate drinking game. If you play it properly, you can get pissed really quick. You normally play 18 holes (pubs) and at each one you drink a different drink. Some holes have pars, and whatever that number is, be it 2 or 5, that is how many sips you have to drink your drink in (this is where it gets tricky). Luckily we played a mellower version of the game, only planned on doing 9 holes (pubs), and didn’t have pars.

We started at this Hanah’s flat, she used to work at the Fish Market, met all the other girlies there. We were all so cute in our golf outfits and plastic golf clubs. First hole was Wine at Hanah’s, then we were off to The Old Duke for a cider (yick), then to The Old Fish Market for a beer. Jaume and Alex had just finished work and came with us to the next hole, Vodka Revolution, but this was a quick stop since it was a shot we all did, then the guys were going to head off to Lloyds while we continued on with the Pub Golf. Eventually we were meant to end the night at Lloyds, so we figured we would run into them over there later. Next was the Commercial Rooms for 2 drinks, Gin and Whiskey. You are allowed to use mixers, so we all did Gin and Tonic and Whiskey and Lemonaid, which was surprisingly good (normally I hate whiskey). Then we went to Edwards, I think, for Rum. I cheated slightly and got a Malibu and Coke, hey- it’s a rum-based liquor. Then we went to Lloyds, where we had doubles to count for the 8th and 9th holes. I can’t remember what we were meant to drink here.

Found Alex and Jaume, had our drinks with them, then they wanted to head off and go to the casinos. Us girlies tried to figure out our next move, and it seemed most of the girls wanted to go up to Whiteladies and continue drinking up that way. I wasn’t very keen on going all the way up there, because that meant taking a taxi home and I didn’t want to take on by myself. Luckily Hanah and her flatmate were going, and they live back in the city centre like me, so we agreed to leave together whenever that would be. Didn’t actually take too long sadly. When we got up to Whiteladies Road, we were trying top find this bar that two of Abi’s friends were in to get them to come out with us. We found them at this Tequila House. It was a strange place and I was not feeling it, so didn’t want to drink there. Neither did Hanah and her roomie. Abi could sense the party mood was going flat and was getting a little upset. I was starving and went a few doors down to Subway for a sandwich. Came back and ate it outside where Hanah and her roomie were sitting. Abi was there too, but not looking cheerful. The 3 of us agreed we wanted to head back to the city centre. Hanah invited Abi to come along, saying she could stay at her’s, but Abi said she just wanted to go home.

We each got into our respective cabs, and back at the city center we went back to Lloyds but I was feeling quite tired and decided to just go home. Back at Sublime, Gag’s “studio 54” themed party was still going, but had definitely died down. Saw Danny and some of her other roommates that I know dancing and found out that Gags had already gone home because she was totally pissed. Bummer. I decided to stick around downstairs and have a few drinks with them, and Dutch and Graeme were there as well. But I felt totally underdressed in my pub gold outfit next to the glamed-up studio 54 girls. Thank got for living upstairs, I excused myself, dashed up to my room and threw on my sparkly aqua dress from my 23rd birthday and silver heels. Went back downstairs and felt so much better. Everyone loved my dress and thought it was so cool of me to go change for the party. We danced around, drank and had a good time. Then Ben showed up and he and I sat outside having a drink when Alex and Jaume turn up.

Alex had a really good night at the casino apparently, so they were in good spirits. We all hung out at Sublime for the rest of the night, then once the party and people died off Alex and I went back to his for the night. Sunday we woke up around 11-ish and poor Alex had a hangover. I was feeling quite good luckily, so I went and got him some apple juice and asprin. We chilled upstairs watching TV for a while, then I went home to shower and then came back to “kidnap” Alex since he had the day off and I wanted to do something other than sit on our bums and watch TV.

We were quite hungry and went to this place on the waterfront called The Spy Glass. We sat outside and shared a steak and king prawn kebab and shark steak. The shark steak was really good, tastes like chicken. After that we walked down to the city centre to see what was playing at the theater. The two movies we might have seen, Spiderman 3 and Pirates 3, weren’t going to start for another 3 hours or so. We walked on, Alex went into Burtons and got himself some socks and pants, then on our way our we passed by the tents where the Lady Boys of Bangkok were performing. These are transsexuals doing a Las Vegas-Cabaret style show. We looked at the program and saw that the next show was about to start, and decided to give it a go.

When we bought the tickets the lady asked if we wanted to sit up front, and we both said yes, thinking we wanted to be as close to the action as possible. Ha, think we got more than we bargained for. Alex got pulled onto the stage in the second act. I was dying of laughter. They had him put on this wig and tu-tu and sort of dance around a bit. The cool thing was there was a guy in front of the stage who took a Polaroid of Alex up there and gave it to me. Thought he would charge for it, but he didn’t. Sweet. The show went on and soon Alex was back in stage doing a Titanic scene with one of the girls. He was a good sport about it, and you have to be, otherwise you look like a wanker.

The performances were quite good, some better than others. What was really amazing was how good some of these guys looked as girls. You really wouldn’t be able to tell on most that they were transsexuals. After the show we headed back to the Fish Market. We knew that the guys from Sublime wanted to go out and possibly do Pub Golf for Dan’s Birthday, but neither of us wanted to do that, just have a drink or two. We hung out downstairs and waited for Ben to come down then we would all head over to Sublime together to see what the plan was.

When we got to Sublime there was still a group of people there, and Nick was just waiting for them to finish up so he could close. It didn’t look like Pub Golf was going to happen, so we got ourselves some Coronas and chilled outside. Then Dan came down and we had a drink with him. Once Nick was able to close the pub, we decided to go to the casino so the guys could gamble. I don’t mind playing Craps, but they don’t have that here so I planned on just being a spectator. At the casino I watched Alex play Roulette for a bit, he explained what was going on and I decided to bust out a 20 and have some fun. Did pretty well, was up by 20 quid soon and did my safe playing and pocketed 20 quid worth of chips, so that I would at least leave the place even. I left the table with 30 pounds and cashed that in.

Sat at a table with Dan, Ben, and Leonna, waiting for Alex and Nick to finish playing, then we headed out for Mbargos. I haven’t been there on a Sunday night in ages, so was kinda happy to go, though I definitely wanted a mellow-non-drunk night. When we got there Dutchy was having a drink, and Alex and I hung out with him near the dance floor. We didn’t stay for long, as Alex and I were both quite tired. We took a cab home, and when we got to the Fish I realized I had given my house key to Leonna. I texted her to leave the side door unlocked for me, hopefully she gets it, otherwise I am screwed for working tomorrow morning. Other than anticipating a crazy Monday it was a really good weekend.

Lazy Day (5.28.07)

Did not have any real plans today so no reason to wake up early. What eventually did wake me up was our bedroom door opening and seeing these two guys walk in. I thought they just had the wrong room and would realize this seeing a girl sleeping in one of the beds, and then go away. But no, they walked right in and went over to where these two girls had been sleeping (they left earlier this morning) and started taking the pillowcases and bed sheets off. I asked them if they were supposed to be doing that and they explained that it was after checkout and they needed to collect the sheets. Ah...so you guys work here. Seriously this place needs to invest in nametags or shirts for their staff to wear.

After they left I got up, showered and when I started getting dressed I realized I had no more clean shirts! So I put on jeans and my black zippy jacket and got tokens to do laundry. Not my ideal way of spending time, but it gave me a chance to update the old journal and eat lunch in the common room. During the dry cycle I went out in search of a Scotish zippy jacket. No luck, either expensive or the cheap ones were ugly. Went back to the hostel, collected my laundry, and when I got upstairs Shannon was in her bunk. She was going to rest after her night with Hue. I decided to go to the National Scotish Museum, but sadly only stayed for about an hour. I was just so tired and hungry, and the exhibits were not very interesting.

On the way home I debated whether or not a nap would be a good idea, since I had to be up fairly early to leave the hostel and catch my flight home. Decided not to, so again was back in the common room writing in my journal. Shannon came down and read her book and updated her journal. Once I was done, I went onto the Internet, checked my bank account- looked good, then Yahoo! Mail, and even checked my work email, but luckily there were no major emails. After that I went out to check out a few shops I heard of, particularly for Celtic Jewelry. The one place I was really interested in ended up being really expensive, and everything else was already closed. As I headed back found another scarf shop and stocked up on more of the “trendy” UK scarfs.

Went into a Christmas Store, and felt like a time machine moving forward to December. Ornaments all over, Christmas music and the best part- that Christmas scent. Mmmm. The lady was kicking everyone else out and had locked the door before I realized it was closing time, but she didn’t mind me browsing around. We chatted a little about what it is like working there, wondered if she ever went crazy. Went back to the hostel, met Shannon then she and I headed out to have our one “sit-down” meal of the trip, instead of take-aways or eating at the hostel. During my walk I passed this pub/restaurant called the World’s End and thought it looked good, so we went there but there were loads of people inside waiting and we stood around for a bit hoping it wouldn’t be a long wait, but we soon realized this place was not very organized. Apparently there was no one to write your name down and delegate who got sat next, so we went across the street instead and ate at this bar called Tass. It was so nice to sit down and have a real meal, I gobbled mine down.

After I wanted to find some dessert, like ice cream or cake, so we went along Princes street looking for a place there. I knew finding a dessert place would be difficult, 1) They don’t seem to have many “dessert-only” shops, and 2) it was getting late AND was a bank holiday. Right as we were about to head back we came across a fricken TGI Friday’s, can you believe that? I know they have dessert so we went in there. I ordered the Chocolate Indulgence (layered chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream). Yum! Satisfied we headed back for the hostel. It was getting to be about 9:00pm and the sun was setting (oh yeah, over here daylight savings time is wicked- doesn’t get really dark until about 10pm or later) so we walked through the park between Princes street and our hotel enjoying the beautiful orange light that was being cast on all the buildings.

Back at the hostel I took a shower, one less this to do in the morning, and packed up my stuff. When I went to bed I had a little trouble falling asleep, my mind was racing with what I had to do for work, personal things, but eventually sleep found me. Didn’t get the best sleep though, kept waking up. At 4:45AM I got up, dressed, slabbed on some make-up, packed the rest of my stuff and headed out. Caught the Airlink bus and arrived at the airport just as my flight’s check-in was starting, so I was the 4th person in line. Security went fairly quick, and on the other side I got a mocha, and filled out my postcards. I was bummed I couldn’t send them earlier, but I had forgotten my address book. When I finished with that I went over to my gate, sat there until we started boarding. Flight was rather painless, did a bit of sleeping. At Bristol I caught the Airlink bus home, got in at about 10am-ish, dropped my bag, grabbed my laptop and started working. Would have been nice to be able to unwind, and unpack instead of work, but that is my own fault for flying home in the morning and not Sunday night. Notes of future reference.

Inspirational Art (5.27.07)

Had the alarm set for 8am-ish. Was planning to go see the Pixar exhibition at 10am so I would be back in time to check out the Royal Botanical Gardens with Shannon around noon, then we were going on our last tour later in the afternoon. Initially I woke up thinking I'd rather sleep in and that I could go see the Pixar exhibit on Monday. I lay there for a bit thinking about it, then realized I HAD to go to the exhibit today if I wanted to get in for free using my pass because today was my last day to use for places. Jumped out of bed, took a quick shower, and made it to the museum just a little after 10am. I was so excited to see this exhibit, funny that bakc home Pixar is headquartered just across the Bay, and I remember when this exhibition started, think it was going from LA, to New York and then maybe London...and I thought- damn they better bring it back to SF! But instead I moved across the pond and amazingly the exhibit is here.

As I walked through the exhibit, looking at all the drawings, storyboards, etc. a huge swell of inspiration came over me. It made me want to start drawing again and to maybe take some classes just to keep up with it. Made me think how much I wanted to work for them and that maybe I should try to get into the industry over here (did you know outside of Cali that Bristol has the largest animation studios? Wallace and Gromit were created here). Took about 2 hours to see everything in the exhibit, and trust me I saw EVERY picture, statue, etc., then I headed back to the hostel where I had a sandwich, met Shannon, then we headed out for the Botanical Gardens. We chose to walk as it was only about a mile away and it was a nice day. Got a little lost, we passed the garden completely because it was hiding behind houses, though on the map it looks like it was right there on the street. turned around, and eventually found the entrance.

The Garden itself was quite large but I found it to be a little dull. Didn't get that "wow" factor from it. Was just like walking around a normal park, didn't have a lot of exotic or special themed areas. At least the weather was nice, the sunshine made it pleasant. We caught the bus back home so we would catch the Vault tour on time. The Vaults are 120 rooms varying in size located under the South Bridge, but the thing about the South Bridge is that it is no longer a bridge, it's a normal street. Quick synopsis- It was a bridge but in order to support it about 19 arches were build under it. but then they wanted the bridge to be more like a major shopping strip and build up on either side of the bridge buildings with shops. thus, the arches were now enclosed and became known as the Vaults where at one time merchants stored goods and laborers worked, then became a red-light district, brewery,....quite an amazing history.

After that tour Shannon went to St. Giles Cathedral to hear a choir sing, and I was so knackered that I went back to the hostel to take a nap. Woke up around 8pm, went downstairs, made dinner and was eating in the common room when Shannon came back. We decided to go out for one beer at a pub a few doors down from the hostel called The Scotsman Lounge. OMG this place was jam packed! The appeal was they had live music and these guys were playing more "traditional" Scotish songs. Finally made it to the bar, ordered Carling and sort of found a space to stand. It was hard to just chill because everyone was moving around, or at least trying to, so getting bumped into was frequent and I really didn't feel like having my pint go down the front of my shirt, so I was almost paying more attention to the people around me, making sure I didn't get knocked over by surprise.

There was a group of young Irish lads nearby having a grand old time. A bit roudy, bouncing around and singing, one of them started talking to Shannon and soon enough she and I were mingling with his friends. They were nice, but like I said, very roudy and silly. At about midnight when the place was closing down we walked over to this pub called Dropkick Murphy's and hung out there for the rest of the night. I was actually feeling quite sober, so was just chillen, talking to people and dancing around when I could. Shannon left with her guy, and when Dropkick Murphy's started closing around 1am I headed back to the hostel. Luckily it was really close to the hostel, so I wasnt worried about walking home alone, and I kind of made sure to walk close to other groups of people, just in case.