Hello Everyone!!
How are you all going? Actually I'm quite impressed, I don't jump in my inbox for a couple of days and suddenly every man and his dog (for the boys in Tassie you've got cows right?!) wants to send me an e-mail! Not that I am at all complaining, I love it, you're all so entertaining in vastly different ways!
And so life in London. Where to begin? Okay, well the events of last Thursday Morning sent a wave of panic through London, and all with good reason. With 52 people dead and hundreds others injured, plus all those who are still missing, its kind of understandable that everyone is on edge. Actually something really errie is going to Tube Stations and just walking along the street and seeing missing signs for those who have yet to be found. It kind of give me these horrible goosebumps. It's not all that nice. The Tube System itself is almost back to normal. Still have a heap of delays and some stations which aren't taking trains on some lines, but it's up and running again. The only noticable difference is that suddenly everyone gives everyone a second glance. You can see people eyeing you off, espeically if you have a bag. It's sort of sad to think that we feel we need to do that.
One staff member here still won't get on the Tube and we had one of the session participants have several panic attacks because she too didn't want to get the Tube. It's plastered everywhere here. Marie was at the Walk About the other night and there was a bag along one of the walls and they had the police come and everyone was evacuated. It's been happening at a lot of places. What makes it worse is that the people responsible are actually British and this has further lead to concerns that there are more people like them in Leeds. Since they were suicide bombers I guess it's almost like a cult thing, there'd be a lot of people with similar beliefs.
In general the whole thing kind of hit staff here at different times. I guess it all depends on when we gave it the time to actually sink in. And as for me, well, the main thing is that I'm still here kicking and rattling off millions of lines in every e-mail I send your way!! Nah, in all seriousness it hit me later that night when I was alone in my room, it was suddenly like terrorism was a very real thing, it wasn't on the other side of the world anymore, it wasn't in another country, it was right here and I was kinda close by!! About a mile away from one blast I believe...I don't quite know how far a mile is though...opps.
So addmittedly Friday I kinda hid in my room, did a bit of cleaning and didn't really go anywhere. Friday night I had an argument with myself and told myself to get my act together and make the most of my time off. It worked from what I can tell! I'm agreeing with myself and seem to be always smiling. And to use the words of Te'Andra Tuesday night, 'I was Pimping It'....yeah I imagine you've all just had the same raction I did. It's okay, I haven't found another way to get an income. I'll explain later.
Saturday saw me head out with the sole aim to buy a new pair of runners. And I was happy to do with the usual KMart or Big W kinda shoes.I didn't want to spend a mint on shoes, I'm not really in a position to be doing that! Following Janet's advice I went to a place called LilyWhites in Picadilly Circus. Yes I got the Tube and yes, I'll admit to holding my breath for most of the journey! So I go into Lily Whites and come out smiling. They had a sale, yay! And you know what? I actually now own a pair of brand shoes. I don't do brands (which for most of you is quite obvious) but I now own a pair of Sketchers. I am excited! I know I know, small things...but I got a great deal and they are sooo comfy and my feet are just loving them. The bonus was I converted to aussie dollars and went...yeah that's more than I'd usually spend, but then I realised the money in my wallet was my pay. It was NEVER aussie dollars, was never going to be aussie dollars thus it didn't need to be converted! No second thoughts just went 'yeah I'll have those!'. The store itself is quite amazing. Five floors of sporting goods. It really didn't look that big from the outside!!
From there I went to Covent Garden and stopped in at the Aussie shop, then did a stop for lunch. An hour later I had a nice full belly and was ready for a kip, but walked down to Embankment, got on the Tube (yeah again!!) and got off at Tottenham Court Road and proceeded to walk the ENTIRE length of Oxford Street, on both sides!! It took me like an hour and a half!! And most of the stuff in the windows I couldn't have as it was out of my price range!! But been there, and seen it. Went into HMV (big mistake) and like have another five floors of everything music related! Oh my gosh, and they were having a sale too!! Thankfully I didn't have my card on me!! So I only brought one thing, a Bon Jovi CD. Sounds good too. And so to compensate for the lack of spending and shopping in Oxford Street, I told myself I'd go to Camden. And I did and you know what? I didn't spend a cent!! But oh my gosh. Last time I went was a Monday, it's so quiet compared to Saturday!! I couldn't believe it. Plus I found my pair of Doc Martins with the Union Jack all over them!! Actually I found two types, so when I've saved enough as so not to leave myself short, I am down there and buying them!! Yeah!!
Quite sometime later I wandered back into Pax Lodge just in time for dinner. I was rather tired and quite sunburnt! But I'm browner so I'm doing good :-) I actually can't remember what I did on Saturday night...oh yes I do, I went for a big walk in the Heath (it's okay, it wasn't too dark, I'm not that stoooopid). And pretty much went to bed after that. Yeah I know, real exciting.
Sunday marked my 21st birthday. Firstly, thank you for the cards that were sent, slowly slowly they're arriving in the mail box and now each day I have a different person come and tell me I have mail. Maria (PR) tells me I'm the popular one. I told her it's only because it was my birthday, otherwise most contact from 'home' would be via e-mail! Anyhows, it was a quiet day in most regards. Started work at 7am (oh so happy birthday to me...) and finished around 11:30am. During the clean up after breakfast, Jung Hwa told me to come outside and out the front of Pax lodge they have a floral banner which hangs there everyday. Anyhows, Sunday it was replaced by a birthday banner which was kinda nice. At lunch I got a cake (which Breanne made) and a present, despite me being so darn difficult during the week when they were asking what I wanted. Turns out I scored a neat few things, including some stuff from the Body Shop in my fav fragrance!! How much of a good pick was that?!! After lunch I went with Breanne and Sally to Camden (yes again!!) and I love Sunday's even more than Saturdays! Only the punks were kind of getting a bit violent. See I've been told that when it comes to the rather 'characteristic' people of Camden, when people take photos of them they ask for a pound. Anyway, we were walking across the bridge over the Canal and some people in front of us were taking photos (no money was exchanged) and next thing we know there is abuse and bottles being thrown over the road at the people in front of us!!
Wandered around there for a while and found a brilliant 99p shop where everything is 99p or less! So as you can imagine, it was kind of like Llandudno, Wales all over again!! Were gone for about two hours at which point I had to head back to start the second part of my shift at4:30pm and work till 9pm. At dinner, some of the guests must have asked whose birthday it was because they've gotten up to do the grace and Te'Andra was like 'oh and we're gonna sing happy birthday to Rachael' and so I've then got 50 odd Girl Scouts plus the staff of Pax Lodge Singing Happy Birthday to me in the dining room which was kinda nice. Worked till 9pm and then Allison, Keren, Monique and I went down the road to the Garden Gate and had a drink. Yep, just the one. Dodgy place really, if you don't like beer (which I don't really) then you pretty much have to have soft drink. So Allison shouted me a pint and we sat there talking until they closed at 11pm (it's going to take a while to get used to that!!). And that pretty much was my birthday in a nutshell. Simple, but nice.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were all working days and we've been working flat out because these session participants -everything that could go wrong did! My gosh! I mean it wasn't serious stuff, but from what I'm hearing they've been the most difficult group yet. But it was good because usually when we've all knocked off we go for a drink or crepes or ice cream...anyhows, they all left today, well we still have one troop here leaving in the next hour or so, but its change over day so all the rooms and beds have to be cleaned because we've got a full house again by tomorrow morning!! A full change over. Somehow I managed to get today and tomorrow off, yay!! I mean it's only four days of work, but it often feels like four weeks. And yet in some twisted kind of way it's really enjoyable. Some of the guests really are quite nice and a lot of the adults of this session would stick around after dinner (a huge task!!) and help clean up the dining room which was fantiastic.
Monday night I was hoping to get to the London Eye as the troop from Minesota offered to get tickets for the HAs for their night journey. Of course me being on K2 shift didn't finish till 9pm and they had a9:30pm trip. I wasn't going to make it which was a shame, but by the end of the night I was wiped anyway. Allison went and she said it was amazing. The sky was brilliant and it was right on dusk. I told Monique and Breanne we'd go and do our own trip!! Speaking of trips, Monique and I are going to try get our days off in September rosterted together because we were talking to a lady from the World Bureau next door and she has a holiday house on the Isle of White and she's offered it to us if we want to go down there for our two days off! Free Accomodation!! Score!! It can't be till September, but we don't care!! So I guess in that sense, that's my first trip out of London kinda, sorta planned! I mean I'll leave London before then, but it's a start! And she was telling us some of the things down there to see, so I'm looking forward to that.
Last night was the closing ceremony of the session. So I made it through my first full session and I think being there for the duration makes the world of difference. To see the girls at the start of the week (okay it was a bad start) literally stick to their own troops, but to see them last night all mixed, it was amazing. We really didn't think they'd gel like they did. Yours truly was given the task for doing the closing thought. I had a maximum of five minutes if I wanted to use it. I took two and a half minutes and decided rather than use a reading from their folder, I was going to write one myself. Haven't done that in a very, very long time. Two and a half minutes later with an instrumental piece from Moby playing softly in the background, I had people in tears!!! It was so nice!! They were like it was beautiful and how amazing it was and how talented I am (yeah the head was kinda getting mighty big!) but in all honesty, just seeing I'd moved them was enough without the thanks and praise. As odd as it sounds, it was nice to be able to write again. So now that's my job for each closing, or so I am told...
The highlight of the week by far this week will most definately have been Tuesday night, I went to the Theatre again, this time seeing 'We Will Rock You' which was fantastically bloody brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh it was so incredible and coming home I was so full of energy and I found it so hard to get to sleep!! And even better was that some of the girls, all around 15, were HUGE Queen fan's and it was just soooo odd!! I mean people look at me when I say I'm a Queen fan and I'm 21 (I can now say that!) but these guys are even younger than me! Regardless, I was sitting with them and we were singing our lungs out and in the finale everyone was up and dancing and singing and it was just so amazing! Arghhh it's probably a good thing I left my card at Pax Lodge, otherwise I would have brought everything in the shop!! He he he. And so back to the pimping story...apparently Te'Andra had said that Sally and I were pimping it. Thus we went and asked two of the adults just what exactly was meant by that term, understandably we were a little concerned. But it's all harmless, apparently pimping when used in that context can descibe having a good time, letting your hair down, in our case singing our lungs out and dancing around. So there you have it, I went to the Theatre where I was pimping it big time!! I sware I doubt I'll ever get the American Slang that goes around this place with these session people!
Today being my first of two days off has been rather restful. I am in a heatwave here, I had hoped I'd put the humidity behind me when I left Singapore -no way!! It is soooo hot here! So I spent the morning just cleaning and tidying and pretty much relaxing. Hung around to take part in the two minutes of silence at noon -yes it's been a week since the terrorist attack. It was so odd, because it was a National tribute sort of thing and usually there are sirens and traffic and all sorts but it was almost like London really went silent. Even all the buses stopped for two minutes. We did the silence, then Heather read the World Song, which when read has an entirely different meaning then when it's sang, I guess that's because you listen more to the words...I don't know. From there I stopped at Angel Tube, caught a bus to the Bank of England, walked past Liverpool station to Bishopsgate (just because I could) got on a number 8 bus (just because I could) which saw me go as far as Bethnal Green where I got off and got the bus back the way I came, I think seeing the Police cars with Riot cages on them was enough to unease me!!! From there I got off at Totten Court Road, got the equivalent of a cheeseburger (minus the cheese) from Maccers, then jumped on the Tube to come back and here I am. Very tired admittedly. And I'm yet to clear the black stuff out of my nose...not that you needed to know that!!
As the days go by I'm getting to know all of the staff here at Pax Lodge a little better and we have many, many different characters here. And it's quite amusing, because every meal time when we sit down together and eat, somehow we end up on the topics of accents and different words used in different countries. And we're all pretty open about having difficulties about understanding some of the people here. But it's not nasty and we all have a really good laugh about it! It's kind of nice really, we all just settle into this really comfortable conversation and it amuses us for ages! Like the other night, last night actually, we went to get crepes (well Ruth and I got ice cream, far too hot for crepes) and somehow we ended up sitting on some steps and I'm sitting between Ruth from Ireland and Monique who is from South Africa and I'm translating in both directions because neither of them can understand each other! It's sooo funny!
I'm slowly discovering more about Hampstead too. I've now come to understand that it's more than just what I thought was the main street between here and Belsize Park. There are actually three main streets and they all go in different directions!!! Its incredible. And Hampstead alone has three Starbucks!! Its crazy! Plus a HUGE heath which has a giant table and chair in it, and I mean GIANT, like the height of a house. Why? Well beats me, but why not?!!
Tonight there are rumours about going to a kareoke bar...no I am not singing. I don't do singing in public unless it's at the Dominion theatre during We Will Rock You.....but it'll be fun. Apparently its just down the road from the Walk About in Finchly. Allison and Monique were going to go out clubbing on Saturday night and they were going to drag me along 'because clubbing in London is an experience all of it's own'...but Allison now starts at 7am Sunday and has decided we can go another time. Phew, I get out of it for now!!
Other than that, I'm just about all typed and talked out!! Hope everyone is going well back home and enjoying the lovely weather back there! Trust me, right now I'd love some good old Melbourne weather!!
So until next time, take care and stay safe,
Rachael :-)
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