Home is where the heart is – Part one

Last weekend of March has always been a milestone for me – Its Dave’s wedding weekend and its the day I return back to Australia.

To get to Heathrow, you got to do the “Heathrow Shuffle”. You can take a few modes of transport out to Heathrow (Bus/Tube/Cab/Heathrow Express-Connect) and Only the Heathrow Express will get you there quickest and most reliable. All the other means of transport will take yonks and not that reliable. Tube is the worst. On paper it should be the best option, but you will ended up caught in the morning rush and the tube is prone to reliability issues. I have missed my plane so I learnt my lesson.

21 hours+ on a plane, feeling a bit jet-lagged and sleep deprived but finally made it. Its been 8 months since I step foot in Australia and it feels a it weird. Everything looks and feel familiar but everything feel strangely foreign. I got so used to the tight streets, overcast weather and the cosmopolitan London that Sydney is becoming my “estranged” home. Does this mean that in a few years time when I return I will have to re-assimilate into Australian culture? We will find out than. For now its about catching up with Friends and family I haven’t seen for a a few months.

Dave’s Wedding – Another one bites the dust 

So David is finally marrying the lovely Sue. If you know Dave as long as I have you might be convinced that he will be a bachelor forever. At this moment looks like I might actually be the one claiming that title. :-/

The day began with me and TC missing the flight from Sydney to Coffs Harbour. (You don’t have to be in London or taking the underground to miss a flight) An hour and A$ 400 later we were on our way to Coffs Harbour. We weren’t going to miss the wedding ceremony as it was on at 12:00  and we were at airport at 8:00, it still a bit of a hiccup but somtimes things like that do happen.

Arrived at Annukea beach resort at around 10:30 and the location is absolutely gorgeous! Its acted as a beautiful backdrop for a very special day.

    

It was a “warm” day by Australian standard and took me a little while to readjust to the warm weather, not to mention wearing a suit under the sun when you have little to no sleep from the pervious night! The wedding arrangement was mainly organise by Sue herself and she looks stunning on the day! Dave looks a bit nervous on the day but I guess you would be on your wedding day, meeting Sue definitely changed Dave. The old Dave used to be a boy that likes to talk “tough” and act “tough”, he project an aura of over-confidence and usually have a brash and wilful disregard for anything at odds with his preceived “tough guy” persona.

Sue soften him up and show the rest of the world that there is a sensitive side to Dave.  As shown by the day the word “love” and “care” are not words one will assoicated with Dave. If we plot his word use on a chart we should see a flatline from the day he was born and a massive spike on his wedding day. Maybe this is a sign that the “right” person is the one that can show you things about yourself that you never knew or gives you courage to be the person that you afriad to be.

Either way, its good to see that my friend’s lives are moving along and they are all doing really well. It kind of scary to think that from now on everytime I comeback either one of my friend will be marry or there will be a new kid amongst the group. Soon we will all be having family BBQs!

Have a bit of break between the ceremony and the reception, so whats the best thing about being in Australia besides the sun? the beach of course!

   

Its funny how the resot is called Aanuka Beach resort but there isn’t actually a beach called “Aanuka”. The resort itself is built next to Digger Beach which is a public beach, but on saturday there were only a few people on the beach itself so there are plenty of room for everybody to enjoy the sand and the waves from the Pacific ocean. Its quite a bit of contrast comparing that against Brighton last weekend. Brighton was a holiday town with a pebble beach and temperature of 8-9 degrees, it was also snowing while I was there. This weekend I am in Coffs Harbour enjoying the sun, walking a a proper sandy beach enjoying the warm sand and waddling through the waves. Britian really has nothing to compare in this department!

   

 It was a great night. Denis did a great speech as well for the night and we wrapped up by “binge drinking” some quality white wines to the point they don’t really taste like anything. It was nice to see all the friend again and there isn’t many nights where I just passed out as soon as I get to bed!

Have a really lazy Sunday, played a bit of beach volleyball and enjoying a relaxing lunch before flying back to Sydney. I should have a nice tan by the time I get back to London! 

 

Brighton weekend

Hey ho! Hey ho!! 4 Day long weekend!!! Yo!!! (That makes no sense…..)

This weekend also marks the start of a very special period. The next 3 weekends will be nothing but a menage of fun, mayhem, relfection, remincenting, contemplating and just plain old general good times!

Weekend in Brighton

Couple of weeks ago Alan thought it would be a good idea to book out a hostel for 14 people over the Easter Long Weekend. What a good idea that is!

To those that don’t know UK, Brighton is a seaside town south of London around 2 hours drive away. Its UK version of a resort town for Brits to get away to the sea and onto beaches for a swim.  The centre piece attraction of the town is the Brighton Pier where all the commercial district focus around. The famous incident of Brighton was the Mod vs Rocker riot that broke out back in the 60s.

Couple of weeks ago Alan thought it would be a good idea to book out a hostel for 14 people over the Easter Long Weekend. What a good idea that is!

To those that don’t know UK, Brighton is a seaside town south of London around 2 hours drive away. Its UK version of a resort town for Brits to get away to the sea and onto beaches for a swim.  The domina

      

Brighton is strange in alot of ways. The Pier is nice, however the rides on it was a little on the “tacky” side. The beach is also a little weird as well. Instead of the sandy beaches we get in Australia it is a pebble beach. Can’t see myself laying on the beach for the pro-long period! There were a few hours of sunshine here and there during our stay as you can see from the photos, however we were also hit by a dirty great big storms both Friday and saturday. The photo also not telling you how freezing cold it is!!

Desipte all my whinging these are the only negatives I really have. The day is great! Get to spend sometime away from London with friends, it also really strange how the hostel crew are “trashing” another hostel! Check-out the derelict pier as well! Only in Britian did they just left the pier rather than di-mantling it!

Spent Friday afternoon on the pier riding the Waterride, having a drink with a few mates and take some time out to walk on the beach.  Than back meeting the rest of the crew for drink and friday night session.

   

Padriag came down by himself on Friday night since he worked on Thursday night but gosh! Aren’t we all glad tha he came down. See Pad normally a quiet and reserve type of fellow but once he hits the club hes a machine. The energy he has and the mad dance he does was simply unrival.  

  

Its funny that once Pad is in the zone theres nothing stopping him. Hot gals sees the crazy dancing and wanted a part of the Irish actions, but once Pad is in the zone theres nothing that can distract him from the state. Hes the only man I see that goes to a club really just for the music and the dancing.

On that point The “HoneyClub” really do live up to its name, there are certainly a crap load of honeys around.

After coming back from the club, I went for an early morning wander around Brighton to take some nightshots of the city. Night cities are a favor of mine, I loved how even I am travelling with friends I still get to take some time out to take some nice nightshots!

     

Saturday was a little bit different. I spent the whole day with Tarks just taking the scenery in, went shopping, lunch, cinema and dinner together. If people dunno any better they probably thought we are a gay couple on a date in Brighton. (Which is also the gayest town in Britian) Matter of fact although we travel together as a group we hardly spend time on the trip as a group. I guess partly with so many people travelling everyone will wanted to see something different.

 

Than something I always wished for happened………. No naked gals didn’t jump into my bunk, it finally SNOWED while I am here in UK.

  

After all this months in UK it finally snowed close to April! Gosh the the snow is late this year! The irony is not loss that this weekend I goto an English beach holiday town being snowed on, next weekend I will be in sunny Coffs hopefully in an Australian beach town. Hopefully Coffs Harbour won’t be snowing.

Sunday see everybody chill and taking it easy. The amount of partying thats gone on the weekend means alot of people are just quite happy to be chillin’ and enjoy a sunday pub lunch!

All in all a good weekend away from London. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

A Motley Crew

Most of the weekend I spent it with Tarkan. No I am not in love with him, although he is a good looking young 6 foot 3 Turk that ladies definitely fall for. Most of the 3 days I ended up hanging out with Tarks and going to lunch with him. We have a chat on the aspect of the my interaction and the hostel crew and we concluded that maybe its time to look further afields.

 Theres nothing wrong and no ill intention between people in the hostel, it seems that people naturally likes to spend time with people they akin to. For example Simon and Karen chit-chat alot because Karen enjoy Simon’s wit. I have problems matching Simon’s wit as it is quick, sharp and require not alot of thought. My wit is more calculated, subtle, rely heavily on timing and delivered with a tinge of sarcasm. To be honest it goes over people’s heads most of the time.

Bring it back to the point is that people tended to “click” better with others they can associated with: Rather its a hobby people enjoyed, or  the same style of humour the share or being a sounding board off each other in an intellectual discussion.  They will seek out each other’s company. So in the case of me and Tarkan we are both  “ethnic” Australian and both of us are young professional working in a stable job here in London means theres alot we have in common. So there are things that both me and Tarkan can do together and theres no way others from the hostel can do or enjoyed.

TBH the hostel crews are great fun at in parties, they sure great when it comes to going out for a night of dancing or the effort they spent in hosting all the theme parties. They also show how resourceful young people get when they on a budget. Besides the drug sub culture in the group I quite enjoyed their company. However its unfair for me to expect them to keep me company in things that I can afford to do. (e.g. tank driving) They are also night owls in nature so if one thing this trip prove waking up before 1:00p.m. is a foreign concept to them. I am quite cool with them and accepted thats the way they “Roll”

On the otherside of the coin, I will be holding myself back if I hangout with them all the time. I have alot more opportunities than them in comparsion. I can happily pick up things like sky-diving and other capital intensive activities which they can’t afforded. On top of that now that I got my new visa granted means that I can stay here and work for 2 more years where alot of them will be looking at going home after a year or so.

I see all of them as friends, and no I am not holding onto the past as long as I got friends in the hostel it will be my present. However it does appear if this Brighton trip shows maybe we finally a proverbial fork in the road,very much like the same one that I encountered this time last year. I took a different path and look where it got me!

 Its not like I am leaving them, and once I considered someone as a friend I wished to keep contact as much as I can. This blog is testament of my determination in keeping in touch with all my friends and the more friends I have give me more reasons to keep writing. Who knows! Maybe if I take a different path and not see them as much some of them will actually read my blog!  Silver lining in every cloud!!     

All system green!!!

Got my passport back today, a new visa telling me that I can stay here and work for 2 more years! Yipee! Now I can head back to Australia.

Went to my grading on Saturday, its no where as hard as I thought compared with the pre-grading. I did get a tight back the following day because I spent most of my time sitting down on the mat waiting for my turn to show techinques.

Not much to report for the past weekend. Most of the people are away for the weekend. Padriag flew out to Sweden, Angus and Peter flew out to Dublin and Jimmy was working so bugger all happened in the weekend. I did meet up with Tarkan, Kate and Alan for an afternoon beer on saturday.

On our way back from Canary Wharf, Alan almost got ran over by a smug who decided to speed through the crossing. If Kate did not scream nethier me nor Alan would have spotted the car. Kate was in shock for at least 5 mins . This is one of the signs of love: the fear of the thought of lossing someone you love is so surreal that your body just go into shock. Even if nothing happens to the person but the “what ifs” still lingers like a death knell.

*Sigh* I wish theres a girl that cares for me as much as Kate cares for Alan.

On a brighter note: Got alot to look forward to next weekend! Brighton, than Coffs Harbour, Than Sydney and than Hong Kong! All in 2 weeks! yo!!!!

Stay tune ppl!!! 

A Social butterfly – part four: Maja's farewell

* So many things to update in one week! I needed a PA for my blog!*

“Little Miss, Little Miss Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong
Ain’t no body gonna bow no more when you sound your gong
Little Miss, Little Miss Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong
Whatcha go’n do to get into another one of these here
rock ‘n’ roll songs?” Spin Doctor

 

We bid a farewell to another of the Astor crew! This time is little Miss Sweden herself – Maja!

You probably heard about her on my blog and see her photos on my Facebook album. Maja was cleaning at the hostel during my stay, so I guess thats makes me knowing her for a whole 8 months! Wow it didn’t felt that long! Everytime I see her I must be having loads of fun!

For Maja she came to Astor in London for a break after breaking up with her boyfriend and generally after a change of scenery. Maja is the baby of the hostel, although theres actually younger crews around but her pint size stature combined with the nordic baby-face looks sure make hers alot younger than she is. Everyone met Maja won’t forget her bubbly personality, especially how cute she was when she grunts when she gets angry.

After months of partying, boozing, cleaning and working at Sports Cafe, she got back with her boyfriend and decided to go back to Sweden to start on university. It sad to see her go as she is the backbone of the hostel as Kylee, Brooke, Kate, Alan and Mark. At the same time its always good to see a good friend moving on to bigger and better things! Now that Danielle and Maja are both in Sweden and knowing such a bucket loads of Swedes there are definitely opportunity for visiting Sweden!

 

Bye! Little Miss Zell! Tell your boyfriend hes a lucky bastard!
Come back and visit us!! Puss Puss..

A new cleaner named Keren entered fray as Maja exit, So now I know a Karen, two Karins and a Keren. My life is now offically swamped by “Karen”s! *Roll eyes*

 

 

A Social butterfly – part four: Maja’s farewell

* So many things to update in one week! I needed a PA for my blog!*

“Little Miss, Little Miss Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong
Ain’t no body gonna bow no more when you sound your gong
Little Miss, Little Miss Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong
Whatcha go’n do to get into another one of these here
rock ‘n’ roll songs?” Spin Doctor

 

We bid a farewell to another of the Astor crew! This time is little Miss Sweden herself – Maja!

You probably heard about her on my blog and see her photos on my Facebook album. Maja was cleaning at the hostel during my stay, so I guess thats makes me knowing her for a whole 8 months! Wow it didn’t felt that long! Everytime I see her I must be having loads of fun!

For Maja she came to Astor in London for a break after breaking up with her boyfriend and generally after a change of scenery. Maja is the baby of the hostel, although theres actually younger crews around but her pint size stature combined with the nordic baby-face looks sure make hers alot younger than she is. Everyone met Maja won’t forget her bubbly personality, especially how cute she was when she grunts when she gets angry.

After months of partying, boozing, cleaning and working at Sports Cafe, she got back with her boyfriend and decided to go back to Sweden to start on university. It sad to see her go as she is the backbone of the hostel as Kylee, Brooke, Kate, Alan and Mark. At the same time its always good to see a good friend moving on to bigger and better things! Now that Danielle and Maja are both in Sweden and knowing such a bucket loads of Swedes there are definitely opportunity for visiting Sweden!

 

Bye! Little Miss Zell! Tell your boyfriend hes a lucky bastard!
Come back and visit us!! Puss Puss..

A new cleaner named Keren entered fray as Maja exit, So now I know a Karen, two Karins and a Keren. My life is now offically swamped by “Karen”s! *Roll eyes*

 

 

A Social butterfly – part three: Church revisited/escape from Astor Inn

*Bah….getting sicker and sicker……. Dying a slow death here!!! *

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Might have missed the crew on saturday, but definitely won’t missed them on Sunday! Sunday is a big day on the calendar. Its Aron’s beltaed b’day drink (friday), Malin’s b’day drink (sunday) and Maja’s leaving drink. (following tuesday)

Met up with Julian at Angel station midday. Julian has been to London a few years ago for a working holiday so this is his second working trip in London. Lucky bastard most people only get one. Julian been to the the heydays of the Church when it was back in Kings Corss, anyway its good to have a familiar face in London.

Me and Julz arrived at the  Church at 1:00p.m. Waited for like an hour or so, meet up with Karin’s friend Sandra before the rest of the crew showed up at 2:00p.m.

Than it got boozy and messy, but also quite fun!

     

The more that I goto the Church the more that I loved it! Especially with such a big crowd! Everybody have fun. Lots of drunk people but no signs of trouble anywhere, and its all finished in a lovely sunday afternoon. Goodtimes!

Saga pouring coffee over Pete!

 

Me and Thomas pole dancing in the tube.

Something different happened after the Church. The hostel was locked down with a bomb threat and no one can get in and out.

 

Besides Jimmy of course, the copper was screming his head off at him while I am taking this photo.

The night ended when a few of us went to the new B@1 at Soho. We met my old roomate Niclas who now works in the new B@1 in Soho, damnit he does make some nice cocktails!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31783&l=7e735&id=544948593

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31788&l=a1b68&id=544948593

  

Hmmm……. No wonder I was getting Deja vu while going through the pics….

A Social butterfly – part two: Missed connections….

Wow its tuesday and I still haven’t write up on my weekend. I am so behind! Feeling a bit under the weather at the moment. Damn flu!!!

Didn’t do anything on friday night since I know I have to get up on Saturday morning early (9:00 a.m.) for my Jujutsu pre-grading. Went to my pre-grading on saturday morning and did a 3 and half hour session. It is certainly hard and physically draining and by the end of the pre-grading I was mentally “clocked off”. See a pre-grading is basically a run through on whats going to happened during the real grading session. So if you messed up anything you at least have a chance to correct things before the grading. 

Unfortunately for me the real grading is on the coming weekend and I am really not sure how I feel having two hard weekend session. I am not sure about Jujutsu altogether at the moment! I love the hard workout, I love the fact that its making me pretty fit at the moment but I am at a stage where I needed to train 3-4 session at one week to get better.  There are other things I like to do in London, I still haven’t find time for my Salsa and language course just yet!! Jujutsu is also not the most social activity out of the lot, you have a bunch of men (And some gals) in white pyjamas screaming and throwing at each other for 2 hours on the mat. During this time you got to adopt a mentality like you are in a cadet school. Sure you do go for drinks after the session but while in the middle of the mat theres very little “social activities” going on. If I am at home in Australia I might have no issue but London is a slightly different “life” than in Sydney, I will have to see how much time I would like to devote to Jujutsu after this grading.    

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Tired, drained and feeling sleepy after the grading, I have to meet-up with my friend Adelina. Most of my Sydney friend would know of Adelina so need very little intro, I know Adelina for almost 10 years now since our days back in Uni. We went to the same uni on the same year. Over the years we ran into each other once or twice every year or so, we actually caught up more often since I came to London! Adelina lives in Poole and this weekend she was in London. She was in the process of moving out of her place oin Poole and putting some stuff at her brother’s place in London. So we decided to meet up on saturday arvo.

Unfortunately my bus was stuck in traffic so the supposed meeting at 3:00p.m. slided to a 4:00 p.m. meet. Its good to catch-up over a coffee and lunch and swap stories of times aboard like speed-dating and chit-chat about relationships. Its also great to have good company when it comes to clothes shopping. Adelina was valuable when it comes to fashion advices and she sure helps with my purchase decision. I reckon every guy needs a gal-pal to go clothes shopping with!  

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After spending the arvo shopping and catching up with Adelina I decided to pop back to the hostel for my usual mail run. Its 9:00p.m. and the place is empty! Only when I went down to the kitchen saw the board mentioning details of a Saturday night BBQ at Hammersimth and it appears thats where the action at. (Thanks Kaz……..:-/)

I doubt theres an agenda to include/exclude certain people from social situations (at least I hope not) and its hard to have information passed to all friends. The fact that I am not in the hostel anymore means information that usually get passed to me no longer the case unless someone go out of their way to inform me. (Alan gave me a text and thats how I found out about Sports Cafe on thursday night)  A different perspective is rather than expecting others to keep me in the loop I needed to make an effort to stay in the loop. So it might involved me giving the key social connectors like Peter, Alan/Kate, Jimmy and Tarkan a message to see whats going on friday nights. It would be nice to be given an invite but sometimes you just have to knock on someone’s door and make sure they take notice of you.

Anyway, I got a call from Sarah instead to crash her flatmate’s Monika’s b’day drink.  I have two drinks and pretty much fell asleep at the bar so I left a little early and went back to hostel to have a chat to Azrai the new night receptionist. Went home afterwards and crash into my own bed……    

A Social butterfly? part one

Well…… What a week! I doubt I have enough time to write a week’s event in one night ! Especially after such a boozy saturday/sunday!

Quite a few things happened this week, I will name them in no particular order:

1. Got a second 10kg bag of rice to replace the first bag of rice that the cleaner chucked out as garbage bag. This time I won’t be wrapping it in garbage bag and we will see whether the cleaner will chuck it out again;
2. Have a hard bastard jujutsu training session on Thursday. Afterwards went to Sports Cafe in Regent street to catch up with the hostel crew. I learnt a valuable lesson that night: Never order the 30 buffalo wings for £3 again! Not only did I suffered a bad case of indigestation the following day I am not even sure is it ethical to order 30 wings that I can’t finish. Did I just killed 15 chickens in one night by handing over £3? I will not be doing that again!
3. £45 poorer but the Nokia N82 is now kicking and back in action!
4. Unfortunately still no sign of my passport in the mail. Home Office still has it I guess!
5. Tuesday lunch time was having lunch with a few workmates in what is really just an ordinary lunch. Than all of a sudden a familiar face turned up at the canteen: Krav Maga extraordinaire Julian! Turns out that a twist of faith means that he ended up picking up a contract with a new employer as well. Strange how life works, before this I hardly spoke to Julian on the phone, now we work for the same company in a big city like London! Fate sure works in mysterious way! We caught up for lunch on friday and agree to head to Church on Sunday (More on this later).

Besides these all is going well, this new flat in Angel feels more and more like “home” as the days go by.

To be continue………

So the days rolled on.

Struggling to write something interesting now and that I moved out of the hostel. I still see quite a few people on a weekly basis but I certainly spending less time observing them, subsequently bitching about them here onmy blog. Maybe this is a good sign.

Unfortunately didn’t ended up catching up with Julian during the weekend. Saturday and Sunday I didn’t get up till 12:30 p.m. -1:00ish and went out on saturday night to Freedom to do a bit of pole dancing. Once again Tarkan has all the luck with the ladies and Freedom is fast becoming his favour venue. He didn’t walked away with a number this time around as the French girl he met was just plain weird. “Yes! I know you are an air stewardess needing a place to stay in London. Yes! I know you staying in Astor Kensington and the guy in your room is giving you the creeps, thats why a stranger you just met in a night club in Soho is the BEST and the most TRUSTWORTHY person to help you out!” *Roll Eyes*

Funny story of the night actually happened to Stefan Tarkan’s German friend. A Kiwi girl came upto him and they start chatting:

Kiwi Gal: “….Hey!!! Are you Swedish??……”

Stefan: “No, I am German….”

*Kiwi girl walks away*

WTF?? Why does every Anitpodean in London I came across like to score some Swedish in them? Is there a traveller guide that mentioned Swedish are good for flings while you on holiday? I might have to corner a few “Antipodeans” and get their view. Personally I am not fussy where they come from, however having a standard certainly is one thing thats keeping me from any actions. Hmmm……….. time to lower the bar perhaps.

Anyway on to the more mundane stuff. It seems that moving to a new home is a great reason to spend a bucket load of cash! Or alternatively its a great way for the economy to suck cash out of you. Everywhere you look you see you needed something for the house: A waste paper bin, new sets of knife, a new laddle, some desk storage bins, a clothes airer, a shoe rack…… ARRGH!!!! Looks like I am not hitting my saving target again! At least the room is more and more look like ”home” now!

Next weekend I will have to go for my Jujutsu pre-grading. The idea of a “pre”-grading is so they can tell you what you needed to work on before you go for your “real” grading. In a way you can tell whether you will pass or fail a grading just by showing up to a pre-grading. TBH I am really not sure about how much time I like to spend on Jujutsu at the moment. Sure! It keeps me fit and all that, (you really have to check my abs! All I need now is a tan and I am HOT baby!) but Do I really wanted to goto 3-4 training session a week? I still haven’t try other stuffs I wanted to do like Salsa, language course, buy a new bike and line up some speed-dating. Remember, drinking and clubbing still have to fit in there somewhere. Not to mention washing, cooking and breathing!

Well my weekends kind of looking like this at the moment:

Coming weekend: Jujutsu “pre” grading, Tarkan’s BBQ, Maja leaving and Malin’s B’day;

The following weekend:  Jujutsu real grading;

Easter long weekend: Road trip to Brighton! And hopefully get some friends over to my new place;

The weekend after that: Sunny Coffs Harbour – Australia!!!!

Check that out for a timeline! On the last point the Home Office still have my passport, can someone tell them to hurry the fuck up?? :-/ 

Hellos/Goodbyes

The action packed month of February is finally coming to an end! I heard today from work that it supposed to be ok for a girl to propose on the 29th February, otherwise its not kosher for the girl to ask for the ring on the finger. SO ladies! How many of you gals proposed?

Hello # 1: My new job!!

I am really enjoying the work here ! The people are great, the company really looks after its staff and we have 2 canteen to choose from and all of them served great food at cheap price. The project is in an interesting state at the moment, Program Manager off from a dislocated knee sustained while walking out of Selfridge, Amit the Hyperion Project Manager won’t start until the week beginning 10th of March. This means that my direct boss is The Deputy Finance Director and the project been running auto pilot the last two weeks.

The System Analyst I worked with been supporting the crrent Hyperion applications and she doing a similar role as me when I was back in Qantas. I am meant to be the Hyperion product expert that goes out to engage the business, gathering the business requirements and feeding back to the consultants of the project. I am still not 100% sure if she reports to me if so she will be the first person I will be managing. Shes is quite cluey and knows the business quite well. She also have really good knowledge with the technology that TBH sometimes I am only a few steps ahead of her. 

They say in your professional life there are two “Red Letter days”: The first day of your full time work and the first day you manage somebody. In this case I have to say its a challenge managing people that knows the business better than you. Right now I am just keeping quiet and letting my colleagues do most of the driving, I think observing and learning will be pretty much what I be doing the first month of my work. Always love a new challenge!! Especially when it pays good money as well!!!

Goodbye # 1: To my good friend Matty

 

London is like a big hostel – there are so many people coming and going. You meet them, get to know them abit till you guys become friends than life pull you in another direction.

Matty is a Kiwi that used to stay in the Hostel before I arrived in London. He became good friends with Tarkan, Kate, Alan and Jimmy before moving out of the hostel. I didn’t know Matty really well until he moved back in to the hostel. The whole reason he moved back in the hostel is to save some money by working there for 2 months before heading back to New Zealand . During these two months I became friends with Matty.

See, Matty is a great guy and he is also one of the 2 openly gay friends that I know. Before London I really don’t know anybody thats openly gay so really I was quite ignorant about it. Once I arrived here I met Jimmy than subsequently Matty and I find that really theres nothing different about gay people! If anything I found that gay people are more open, less uptight and really knows how to party! Matty can be a bit crazy when hes drunk but also quite fun to be around.

I found that you have the best time when you are relax and “chill”. Matty and Jimmy show me that one of the tricks to have a good time is to be comfortable with yourself, with who you are, where you at, who you with and  not worry about things like what other people thinks. Sometimes what other thinks about you are irrelevant as they not as informed as yourself or your best friend to form an opinion.

Anyway on Wednesday we went to Frevd bar which serves some of the best (If not a little expensive) cocktails. Also ventured into the gay bars “Ghetto” at 12:30p.m. And discover that not all gay bars are “Hardcore” gay. I was only there for half an hour since it was Wednesday night and I got to work the following day. If it was the weekend I would have stay out! I think by now I am comfortable with going to gay bars. (Maybe not hardcore gay clubs like “Fire”) 

   

Matty mate! Its good knowing you and thanks for everything! Have a good life and I hope to catch up with you someday!!

Goodbye # 2: Marylebone and the Hamsters / Hello # 2: My home in Angel!! 

Thursday morning – Just stepped out of the shower and preparing for another day of work. Suddenly someone is openning the door.

Thought to myself: Who the hell can it be? Maybe its the concierge with the Baliff!! Turns out that its Eugene and Jamie, I mucked up their return date and thought it was saturday! So unfortunately my tenure was cut short by 2 days. No matter!! My new home in Angel is empty and ready for me to move in!!

Came back from work Thursday night and perform some quick packing, called a taxi and move al my stuff over to Angel. (well, I left a few things behind, I really needed the rice cooker power-cord or I won’t be cooking rice!!) There were a few hiccups like buying a single duvet for a double bed (Doh!!!) but otherwise everything went well and now I am glad to say that for the first time in 8 or so months I no longer living a life in suitcase!!! Finally a place in London that I could call home! I will chuck some photo up of my new home when I get a chance!

Goodbye # 3: My new Nokia N82

Well, only for a little while anyway! For some reason I managed to cracked the LCD screen on my phone (The phone’s casing was still intact) and its going to cost me at least £45 to repair the phone. Ouch! I love this phone! Its got an awesome 5 Mega pixel camera and Xeon flash, 2G micro SD, its 3G enable and got a built in GPS with maps of London. (Really handy when it comes to house hunting) I will like to get it back ASAP but will have to wait for a new LCD screen to be ordered. Could be a while.

Hello # 3: Julian – Krav Maga extraordinaire and Don Juan de Londres

Well, “Hello” just in general hes in the area. Haven’t really have a chance to catchup but hopefully will catchup sometime tomorrow.

Long update ah? Feb was an action packed month afterall!!!