the adventures of pinkaholic girl

Waiting on a doorstep

My arrival in London had a ring of finality to it. I'm not ready to settle here - I have a trip to France planned in a couple of weeks, meaning there's no point househunting or jobhunting (much) yet - but it was an almost ominous feeling. As I flew in, I watched those tiny terraced fields of country london grow larger and larger, and I felt tired and exhausted and not quite ready for the holiday to end.

Maybe it was dragging 35 kilograms of luggage through the london transport system that did it.

Maybe it was the two hours of sleep and bad airline food.

Maybe it was the waiting in Cafe Nero (Nerd) for Alison and Aruna to arrive with a key and realising they let people SMOKE indoors here.

Maybe it's the sitting and waiting on Rox and Dan's doorstep with a laptop battery rapidly hurtling towards empty and wanting nothing more than a wholesome glass of water and a warm bed. (Or maybe some unsecured wireless in the neighbourhood to help pass the time until the key arrives - I'm typing this in Notepad until I get some intermanet). The thought of doing something else today is not appealing in the least, but it's Aruna's birthday so I think cocktails are on the agenda.

At least it's not raining.

Clapham Junction is busier than I remembered, and less shiny, though still quaint. I do like the villagey feel here with the row of shops and cobble-esque walkways. I think my feelings of "underwhelmed" are the result of travel fatigue. It would probably be wise not to dwell on it until I'm more rested.

I've been spending a lot of time on my resume. It should be a fairly easy task to do, but I'm both a procastinator and a perfectionist, so I'm not ready to give it out to anyone until I'm satisfied that I look like a star. It's just going to take me a little longer to get it to that stage (with the procastination and all). I've even been foregoing email, blog and photo uploading duties to work on this thing, but it's so HARD! You're only supposed to have a two page resume in the UK, which is impossible. And I think i'm getting stupider. My brain doesn't find synonyms as easy to come by as it used to, so I mull over finding words similar to 'excellent' or 'responsible for' without making it seem like I'm trying THAT hard. (this is, of course, between shopping bouts in New York/Boston/Montreal).

Passing through Immigration is a lot easier when you have a UK visa. She just looked at it, went "ok", no pesky questions like "what do you do for a living? how are you funding your travels? are you here on paid leave? what's the name of your cat from 1984? how come you didn't bring me some pie?" etc. Maybe I just looked scarier from lack of sleep so she didn't want to earn the wrath.

Here's an interesting factoid - UK immigrations officers dress in mufti EVERY DAY. How crazy is that? Welcome to the UK, no uniformed officers here, we're really very friendly as long as you have money and you're leaving in 90 days.

Now, while we're randomly filling in time, here's a slightly disturbing comment I overheard in Montreal - it was a shopkeeper talking on the phone.

Me: (walks into store and browses t-shirts)
Shopkeeper: (on the phone) "Yeah, there's one girl... maybe 18 or 19?"
Me: (thinks... que? he tells people who's in the store?)
Shopkeeper: "yeah, she's really awesome."
Me: (realises he is unlikely to be talking about people in the store, even if I am awesome, because not everyone recognises my talent immediately)
Shopkeeper: "...she's totally hot. Hey, do you know if that's illegal?"
Me: (EW!!!! WHAT?!?!?!)
Shopkeeper: "(pause). Yeah, I thought so, but I didn't really care ..."
Me: (makes rapid exit)

I just got an SMS from Alison saying that all trains are delayed or cancelled. London, if you really want to do me some favours, start the trains running again. I got two hours' sleep! And I have 35 kilos of luggage! Now I'm sitting around on a doorstep! Three hours waiting in smoky cafes or perched on one's luggage outside a doorstep is not how I intended to be welcomed. I'm going to watch Grey's anatomy until my battery runs out. Goodnight.

posted by d @ 6:15 am