ally-cat

Nov 6-7

Writing on the bus ride home from Wales. This trip has **definitely** been a Chasing Liberty type adventure (minus the romance with the semi-good looking English guy and the crazy hippie sticker guy). We got up at 6:30 Saturday morning for the Wales trip. The trip is through BUNAC so we were all supposed to meet at the hostel (ISH) at 8am. When we arrived at the tube station, we discovered that they had closed down the central line! They were providing alternative bus service down to Bethnal Green, which normally only takes about 15 minutes on the tube, but by bus it was at least 30, so it was already 7:45 when we got off at Bethnal Green. On top of that, the trains were delayed and the next train wouldnt be there for another 15 minutes. So we left the station and wandered around Bethnal Green looking for a cab company. We found one, but got another crushing blow…no cabs available for another 30 minutes!

So we walked back to the station it would be 19 mins before the next train came and we had to be there to meet BUNAC in like 5 mins (even once we caught the train itd be a 30 min ride so we were essentially still an hour away). Kristie and I are about ready to cry. Kristie called Karen (the BUNAC lady) and told her we wouldnt be able to make the trip cause there was no way wed make it in time. We left the station and got on the bus to go back home. On the bus, Karen called us back and suggested that we take a train (like a real, above ground train) to Wales and meet them at the first stop of the trip — a castle in Chepstow. We’d never used the train system before (aside from the express that brought us from the airport to London). So we went to the station and bought a ticket to Chepstow (36 pounds, wouldve been 23 if we had had time to apply for a student card but the train came in 5 mins and the next one wouldnt be coming ofr an hour). The train didnt go straight to Chepstow cause its just a tiny little village, but Karen said take the train to Cardiff (capital of Wales – known as a great place for night life) and change to a local change there. The train was packed full of South Africans on their way to Cardiff for a rugby match (american football but without any padding and the aggression of an Iceland hockey team). The train was so full, we were all smushed in standing like on the tube. The trip to cardiff was 2 hours long but it wasnt too bad cause everyone was talking and joking.

when we got to cardiff, we asked the train staff where to go to catch a train to chepstow. to our dismay, the next train didnt arrive in cardiff until 1:05 and BUNAC was leaving chepstow at 1:15!! so yet again we would miss them. we were faced with a couple of choices: skip chepstow and figure out how to make it to their next stop (haye on wye), or go to chepstow and explore the castle on our own and try to find them at the hotel that night. kristie called karen and told her the sitch, and that we wouldnt be in chepstow until 1:45. luckily, karen said they were running late and they wree sposed to meet at the bus from the castle at 1:45 instead of 1:15. she said to head to chepstow and the bus would come pick us up from the station at 2.

Feeling a little bit better, we decided to walk around Cardiff for half an hour while waiting for the train to come. Without any agenda, we stepped out of the station onto the square. Overhead seagulls were cawing and brightly colored crowds milled about. Carts of rugby paraphernalia stood on the corners selling shirts, hats, etc to the rugby fans arriving for the game. Everyone in the square was dressed to display their team’s colors — bright red and green for Wales, green and yellow for South Africa. People wore face paint and jester hats, blowing plastic horns and shouting. The whole wharf was filled with energy. We swung right, following a sign directing us to McDonalds for lunch. Overhead, banners of Christmas lights were strung across the street — I bet it would look great lit up at night. We went to MickeyDs for a quick lunch and then headed back towards the train station (we certainly didnt want to miss another train!).

The train to chepstow was the short bus train — it only had two cars. This one wasnt crowded at all and we easily got seats. The 40 min ride from Cardiff to Chepstow was great. On both sides we passed rolling green hills sectioned by small shrubbery and dotted with tiny stone churches, centuries old. At 1:45 on the dot we arrived in Chepstow.

Outside the train station at Chepstow was drastically different than that of Cardiff. We faced a small village as picturesque as the puzzles I had as a kid. We were the only ones left outside the station and the street was quiet. I felt like Anne Shirley waiting at the station when she arrived in Avonlea. While we waited for the bus, I took movies of the area and Kristie talking about our adventurous day. We were really nervous about getting on the bus cause we were sooo embarrassed about holding up the whole trip and having to be picked up special. We got on and found two seats together at the back of the bus in the second to last row — also a could spot for hiding. Karen had them give us a round of applause for finally making it, but other than that no one even mentioned it and we were on our way. Kristie started talking to the two girls behind us, Jacqueline and Charmagne.

It didnt take long to arrive at their second (And our first) stop, a ruined abbey. Nestled in a valley by a small village, the tremendous stone abbey rises out of the valley in front of the mountain on each side. The mountain behind it is thick with trees in their brilliant fall colors that peek through the roofless abbey with its glass-less windows. Looking over the abbey wall (we didnt go in it cause of time and an admission fee), you can see a small courtyard with small arched doorways and tiny staircases leading up into the upper floor of the abbey. You can easily imagine small, robed monks scurrying up the stairs or nuns strolling across the courtyard.

The second attraction of the town was an old church up on the mountain side. To get to it, you walk up a steep brick road covered in wet leaves The slip factor was high and it was a little scary when we went back down it cause I could totally see myself falling on my ass. The church was burned down in 1977 by a group of teenagers trying to practice Wiccan rituals of some sort inside the old church. Rumor is that they were burned alive inside the church and now it is haunted. Call me a loser all you want, but exploring the church was kinda like exploring ruined structures in horizons :P. There was a small room off to the right that I think may have had an underground burial crypt because the ground had caved in, and below ground was what had been a small room since the sides had stone walls, and in all the vampire books churches have stone crypts below them.

The next stop was a small village called Haye-on-Wye. The bus ride there was really great. The Welsh countryside is beautiful! The sun started setting, creating colorful blue streaks in the sky to mirror the greens, browns, yellows, and reds on the ground.

The village’s claim to fame is its narrow, winding streets of 39 book shops. Used and new, cheap or regular, it has practically everything. The book shops didnt interest me too much though because they were all typical books you could find at Barnes and Noble, so while browsing was kinda neat, a book from there held no novelty. There was a New Age shop selling jewelry made of all kinds of stones and a fudge shop that Kristie and I just couldnt pass up.

An hour later we were on the way to the hotel. The hotel was like a large manor house and pretty nice. The rooms in the brochure were really pretty, but we didnt get the fancy ones of course. We were in a wing that was like a hostel with dorm rooms. Our room was one long room of bunk beds and held 16 of us girls! We werent in it long enough for it to matter though. After dropping off our bags, we went downstairs to the pub for dinner. We were starving, but the pub staff wasnt equipped to handle 29 orders, so we had to wait an hour to get food. The food was surprisingly good for pub food. I had chicken shish kebab (tasted like tender teriyaki chicken) with Chinese style noodles. We sat with Jacqueline and Charmagne, along with Emily (different Emily than the one we usually hang out with) and Diane. We had met Emily on a couple of occasions but never really talked to her, and it was our first time meeting Diane. We ended up spending the whole rest of the trip with the two of them. After dinner we sat around the table and talked for hours. Then we decided to go check out the club that the hotel had outback that the locals from the other villages got bussed in on the weekends to go to. Kristie and I only stayed like 20 mins though because we were sooo exhausted!

The next morning we had breakfast of sunny-side up eggs, toast, and sausage — my lucky day! Then it was off to the stables for horse back riding.
We were split up into 3 groups of ten. I had kristie, Emily, and Diane in my group. They very briefly reviewd how to ride the horses and then we went in to get our horses. It took me forever to get up on the stupid thing. The horses were some kinda Welsh horses or something. They were kinda squat and had longish hair. Unlike most public horseback trail rides, we were riding English style instead of western (which makes sense I guess since we were in England (well sorta England) and not in texas).

The horses were lemming horses (meaning all they do is follow the horse in front of them, regardless of what you tell it to do). We rode up through Breckon Beacon park, a famous national park in Wales. Once again, the landscape was gorgeous. It was a trail ride up a mountain through a forest. Fall is definitely a great time of year for a forest trail ride since everything was so colorful. Parts were a little scary cause it was rocky and the horses would lose their footing, but most the walking was fun. The not so fun part was the trotting and esp the cantering. Whos bright idea was it to take a bunch of kids that have never ridden before and take them galloping through a forest??? We had slight instruction on how to trot, and no instruction on how to canter (a canter is kinda a loping run but not a full out gallop). I used to love cantering when I was a kis, but this was simply terrifying. The horses being lemming horses do not react to a single command you give them no matter how hard you pull on the reins (and vice versa they dont speed up no matter how hard you kick them). They simply do not change pace until the instructor does. I thought it was so scary racing through the slippery leaves with zero control over my horse. I finally just dropped the reins and clung to the saddle. I was also mostly worried cause my right foot had come out of the stirrup and I couldnt slow my horse down to fix it. I think if I hadnt ridden *real* horses before in my like and knew how much fun it could be when youre on a stallion and not a donkey, this experience would make me never get on a horse again.

Funny thing is, Kristie didnt mind the cantering much at all, although I know Emily seemed pretty scared, too. So we spent 2 hours of riding, then we all went to a nearby pub for lunch. Then it was back to the stable for 45 more mins of riding. After that, we piled on the bus to go home!
Three of the BUNACers lived in Oxford so we stopped in Oxford for 45 mins to drop them off and get dinner. Naturally, K and I hit up McDonalds :). We pretty much just walked down the main street and back, but it seems like a pretty neat place.
Weary, muddy, and reeking of horses, we made our way home and *collapsed.

Everyone asked me if I had fun in Wales. I dont know how to answer other than it was a true adventure. Parts were great, parts were upsetting, and a few parts were even a little scary, but I think the whole experience overall was a good and exciting and interesting event.

Sunday morning kristie and i decided to go to Camden Market on the recommendation of Yvey (“E-V”, a girl i work with). we’re pretty sure that its the plave that amanda bynes went in What a Girl Wants. its kinda like Portebello Road. there are regular stores along Camden High Street that were similar to downtown Athens, and then there was one part that was indoors but kinda like an exhibit at the Civic Ceneter where you have all different merchants at stands. then there’s Camden Market thats like a flea market of outdoor stands. all the merchandise at these places are the type of stuff youd see see at Hot Topic, Gadzooks, etc (punk rock, goth/skater stuff) plus a lot of hippie stuff, Indian stuff, some designer stuff, etc. they sold jewelry, clothes, t-shirts, scarves, etc. the whole place was soooo much fun!! i bought a bunch of london touristy souvineers, some blue stud earrings (kristie and i are thinking about getting our ears pierced) and a blue scarf with designs in silver thread. no idea what im going to do with the scarf, but its pretty. kristie bought a Beckham football jersey to wear at games and a Gucci watch.

When we got home, Martin came and picked us up and we went to this pub/restaurant/inn type place for a “Carvery”. There were 12 of us there: myself, kristie, emily, martin, mayoor, darren, shane, ben (this was the first night we met ben), nigel, and 3 guys wed never met. the tables held 8 and 4 so nigel and the other 3 guys were at a different table we never really even spoke to them. so a carvery is a big sunday dinner where they havea whole turkey, ham, and roast beef and they carve off large slices of the meat, accompanied by balls of stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, carrots, roast potatoes, cranberries, gravy, and yorkshire pudding (which isnt pudding at all, but acutally a light-weight bread). Sound familiar? Swap the yorkshire pudding for rolls and you have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. it was a great meal and great company.

On Saturday night, Kristie, Emily, Darren, and I went to the ice skating rink in leyton. kristie and i both **love** skating but hadnt been in several years. emily and darren had both only been once before a long time ago so they didnt really know how to do it. emily picked it up pretty quickly and could even almost keep pace with kristie and me, but darren couldnt get the hang of it. he kept trying to pick up his feet and walk instead of glide. they had the lights off with just some colored and side lighting and had hip-hop music playing — it was a lot like Sparkles roller rink when we were kids. there were these guys there that were dancing to the music on skates! it was really neat to watch cause they were really into it and were jumpin’ around and everything on skates.

ok ive been naughty. i havent touched the site all week. this week was my first week of work. i really like my job. i take customer orders on the phone and mail. i respond to customer letters (requests and complaints and stuff), and i help fulfill the orders and send them to the customers. the company itself sells a lot of products, but theres only like 4 we ship and deal with in house. the biggest seller seems to be the great train ride serious which is complete crap. its a video of a train ride. why on earth would you pay L20 for that?? everyone i work with is really nice. im in the room where the catalog developers are. theres david (about 22), craig (about 20), linden (about 35), and ravi (about 35). theres a girl yvey i havent met yet cause she was sick the whole week. then theres some others in the other rooms, but most of them are older cept james. hes my age, from calif, and also here on bunac.

on tuesday night after work kristie and i went and hung out with james and his friend anthony thats visiting him from calif. we went to a bar and just sat out on the patio and hung out. it was really fun. too bad anthony is only here for another week, but im sure well at least hang out with james some more.

today i went to lunch with dave, lindon, and craig. we went to a pub across the street from work. it was funny cause they went to get a beer. i had a coke and lindon asked me didnt i want anything stronger and i said no cause then id be buzzed when i got back to work and he laughed and said theyd done it before. i cant believe they go to a pub and get beer in the middle of a work day.

craig lives out near me a few stops down so he showed me a faster way to get to and from work. now it only takes me like 45 mins to get there which is good cause then i can sleep until 8 😛

hey everybody! ive had several complaints that there was a lack of diary entries all week. well seeing as how i was in bed sick last sat – weds and barely left my bedroom, there really wasnt much to tell. so heres the updates since then.
last thursday i had a job interview. its an hour away in west london for a small company that does catalog sales. ya know like those TV ads for Best of the 60s CD compilations and stuff? they send out catalogs with stuff like that. id be taking customer orders over the phone and then entering them into the computer. it starts this monday and its 9-6 (hour lunch break) mon-fri. plus it pays L7.50/hour ($15/hour).

friday i just chilled at the house all day and played horizons. kristie went out to a pub with that girl laura for a few hours. i think they just hung out there. not much to report for friday 😛

saturday during the day we lay around the house with chris and mayoor and darren most the day just chatting and whatnot. then saturday night kristie, darren, and i went to this bar at Piccadilly Circus (neat area) called Tiger Tiger. I put up a few pix of us from when we went. The bar had neat decore – walls and ceiling are sorta cavernous but painted dark blue – it was too dark to get any pix of the actual bar. It was a ton of fun cept this one point when these two guys, one Greek and one French, came up to talk to kristie and me. they were gross and we couldnt make them go away so kristie had this guy standing next to us pretend to be her boyfriend to get rid of them. we were annoyed at the time but now its kinda funny. then when we got home we wanted to run in and be loud and wake up the guys like theyve done to us the past two weekends, but i start banging on mayoors door when kristie realizes theyre not even home! hehehe. they spoiled our plot. 😛

so then today, sunday, kristie and i went with mayoor down to the pub to watch a football match (soccer). afterwards, kristie, mayoor, darren, emily, and i went to this indian restaurant for dinner. ive never had indian food before. apparently curry is a HUGE thing in england. i had something called chicken kurma which wasnt spicy at all, it was chicken with some kinda sauce that had cream and a very slight coconut flavoring. it was sweet and way yum. there was also this fried onion patty thingy that was sorta like potato latkas but it was pretty spicy. there was also nan bread that was like a soft pita bread. the whole meal was super yummy and super cheap (about L4).

im sick so im going to keep this one short – dont feel much like typing. we didnt do anything over the weekend so nothing to report there.

monday we went to the Electric cinema on Portebello Road to see Wimbledon. its a one room movie theatre thats all fancy inside. you sit in leather recliners with foot stools and can buy wine and food at the bar. it was soo much fun and only cost L7.50 ($14). ill post a pic up of it later on.

id like to clarify something thats been confusing everyone. the shower in the living room is not our only shower. theres one upstairs in the bathroom just like a normal bathroom. thats the one we actually use, so no we do not stand naked in the living room 😛

last night was mayoors birthday, so kristie and i went out with him and a bunch of other people. kristie met this girl emily when she went on the job interview, emily and her friend laura came out with us, too. theyre both here from canada. emily actually lives about a 5 min walk from us. we met up with some of mayoor’s friends: paddy, fran, and nigel. we started out at a pub which is like baileys, but theres no music. then we went across the street to a bar, then later on we went to a club. we all had sooooo much fun! it was K and I’s first night going out in london (weve been avoiding it cause we didnt wanna spend the money) but it was actually pretty cheap.

today kristie made french toast for us and mayoor. he put ketchup and mayo on the toast!! not together, like one slice had ketchup and one slice has mayo. bloody disgusting! he tried our way of putting syrup on it and he liked it 😀

KRISTIE GOT THE JOB!!

well we moved in yesterday. The cab came and picked us up from the hostel at ten. They even text msged me on my cell to let me know when they had arrived. It only cost us L15 (which is like $30) to take both of us across town. I wish someone had told us how cheap it was before we went and lugged those suitcases all the way from the airport! We got here and met the land lady who gave us our keys (the front door key is normal but the bedroom key is like a castle key…it looks like it should open the door to the Secret Garden or something). Then she left and we started unpacking. We needed some stuff for the room so we went to the store near us. Its like a large grocery store with a mini walmart tacked on (small selection of clothes and electronics and such). We each got a jersey cotton (super soft) bedset and a few groceries. We still have a lot of groceries we need, but we hafta carry the bags all the way home which gets really heavy so we are only getting a little at a time.

so we go to check out and the lady is ringing all my stuff up first and then I go to pay with my credit card. My credit card was new and I hadn’t signed it yet (well usually I put SEE ID on all my cards…) so she handed it back to me to sign. I signed the card and the receipt. Then she took my card back and actually compared the signature on the card to the signature on the receipt. I had just signed both items right in front of her – of course theyre going to be the same! But shes all studying it like the way you would to make sure its really that person that signed it! Then the Stupid Checkout Lady is just sitting there staring at us and we realize we are sposed to bag our own groceries! I hadn’t been paying any attention to the bagging thing cause I was messing with the credit card thing and I thought she was waiting on one of the bag boys to come up and do it, but no in England you do it all yourself. So then she freakin sat there while K and I bagged all my groceries. We couldn’t figure out why she didn’t just go ahead and start ringing up kristies stuff while we bagged mine. But instead she just sat there until every single last item was bagged. I also don’t get why she didn’t TELL me I had to bag my own groceries that whole time I had been just standing there while she rang me up. So then she does Kristies groceries and its time for K to pay. K was also paying with a credit card and hers says SEE ID on the back. So the Stupid Checkout Lady looks at where kristie signed her name on the receipt then looks at the words see id and looks at the receipt and then she goes “these signatures don’t match.” Of course they don’t match, “see id” is not her name. so kristie goes “would you like to see my id? And hands her the drivers license. Then Stupid Checkout Lady looks at the sig on the license, then the credit card, then the receipt, and she goes “well this signature matches the one on here (points to the license) but not on here (points to the credit card). And kristie tried explaining to her “yeah it doesn’t match the credit card cause the card says to see my ID, not my name. Stupid Checkout Lady still didn’t get it even after kristie explained it twice. So kristie took back her card, signed her name on the back of the card next to where it said “see id” and handed it back to her. Stupid Checkout Lady looks at the receipt, compares it to the credit card, and now they match so she accepts it.

so back at home we go to our rooms to set them up. We rearranged all the furniture in the room, hung up our clothes on the new hangers (yes, mine are color coded by clothing style), put on the bedding, etc. it looks like our own room now and we LOVE it. The batteries for my camera need to charge for 14 hours so ill have pix up of the room and house in a couple of days.

weve met 3 of our 4 roomies (Darren didn’t get in till late so we haven’t met him yet really). There’s Mayoor from Wales, that’s currently getting some kinda IT certification. Hes 29 and lives in the other downstairs room off of the kitchen. We see him most cause hes around during the day, too. Then Chris is 23 and he works for some kinda property management company. His friend Adam is also 23. Hes in something called asset management which has to do with equity investments and such. he told me it was investment schemes, but apparently in britain the word “schemes” doesnt mean theyre ripping off little old ladies – it just means plans. Then Darren we know is 25 and from Australia but we haven’t met him yet. They all are soo nice and cool and whatnot so I think were really going to like it here.

today kristie is going on a job interview yay!! Its for the catering company she saw an ad for back before we left and she was really interested in it. It was kinda weird tho cause when they called they told her she was coming for an interview and training session, so were not sure if its just an informal interview and unless they completely hate you, you already have the job or what. Ill have more on that later after she gets home from it tonight. Im not having the luck she is. Im looking for secretarial type work and there weren’t a ton of ads at BUNAC that would work for me (problems were mostly stuff like the position was sposed to last longer than I would be in England or similar issues). And a lot of the ones I called weren’t hiring anymore. I emailed a couple of places this morning, but one of them I know doesn’t start till oct 18th…that’s a whole month away and I don’t know if I can wait that long w/o a job or money. Esp since im just about completely broke so that place isn’t really an option. All I can say is UGH.

sooo much to say I don’t even know where to begin!
yesterday (Monday) we went to go look at apts. People in London don’t really live in apartments like the ones in America. It seems mostly here you rent a room in a house type situation. There are singles (bedroom with one bed) or doubles (bedroom with two beds). You rent just that room as yours and then the whole house (other renters in other bedrooms) all share a kitchen living room etc. Pretty much we live in a townhouse with several other people.

the first place we went to look at was in central London so it wasn’t too far away. This one was only 42.50/week (per person). So it was **incredibly** cheap as far as rent goes (most places are like 85-110/week). A little old English lady owns it and she took us up two flights of narrow stairs to a small attic room. The room was charming with two little beds, a tiny couch, and a small kitchenette. Noticing a small theme? Plus all the appliances, stove, etc, were all at least 30 years old. It was small and old, but this is London and I figured everything is going to be small and old. We weren’t thrilled but we figured we could make it do for 6 months cause it was so cheap. That’s when we found out theres no private phone line or internet access. Just a pay phone down in the living room. Wed end up spending so much money at the internet café it wouldn’t be worth the cheap rent, and honestly I don’t think I could be happy for 6 months completely cut off from everybody like that by not having phone/internet.

so we went to this little bfast café (where we had some very interesting food but there I go again about the English food) to discuss it. We had an apt to see another place at 3pm so we figured wed go ahead and look at that one although that one didn’t seem as promising since it was a lot further away and little bit more expensive (although still very cheap cause its only 60 pounds/person/week so that’s only like 15 more than the first place. The owner of the place came and picked us up from the tube station in his Mercedes and drive us to the house even tho its only like a block from the tube station. He took us to the room (on the first floor right by the door). It was so great. It was large, with new looking carpet and furniture. The house is a lot more modern looking (more like the 90s stead of the 70s). the kitchen is kinda small but still new and its not like K or I cook anyhow. Then there was a living room with tv and stuff that looked out on the backyard garden. And the best part of it all, we can probably get our own phone line and internet!! We were soooooo excited about it! The house is in a nice residential area, but only right down the street from a walmart, burger king, KFC, and TJMaxx( called TK Maxx here).

more later, i didnt have time to finish it all