Coincidence in Cambridge
Another week has gone by, with a few developments in tow. Paul offered me Carl’s old bed because he’s off home, so I’m now rooming with some friends in what’s definitely a better room – no more crazies.
It hasn’t stopped the Italians from smoking weed in the corridor even though they’ve been told off numerous times, which when they stopped me to chat the other night for the second time caused me, I think, to be slightly passively stoned over night. Wow mum, what a life – now I can tell my future generations that I’ve dabbled haha! Okay, I know it’s not funny – but it kinda was. It caused my OCD to takeover and I cleaned out the whole kitchen and kitchen fridge at 1am because I couldn’t sleep (which in two days has gone back to the previous disgusting state it was in).
I’ve also taken to going down to the pub at night in my jammys, because they’re clothes too. The locals are well-aware of the hostel upstairs so there’s not too many strange looks. Nikki’s commented on the amount of pink I have in my closet (sorry, backpack haha) which is good because I thought I had too much green stuff! I don’t mind as long as I have colours in the winter – have to dress up the city somehow with all the stuffy black brigade of suits!
Work has been crazy, including full days in the website office and then overnight care shifts and then back to work in the office the next day – yeah I did another of those, as well as numerous evenings in Notting Hill. Basically I’m working my butt off for several reasons – one is trips for the next few months, the other is a new laptop for myself for Christmas.
A couple of us from work went to a media schmoozing night on Wednesday for Lansons Communications. It was actually quite fun and we met some new, interesting, and somewhat drunk financial reporters. I had dinner with Lija beforehand because the do was in Liverpool St and Lija’s just up the road, and I hadn’t seen her in a month becuase I’ve been away. We had the best homemade pies with mash, gravy and vegies. Well worth the ten quid we paid – which included a tip. Shock horror – Lija and I hardly ever tip so this was a pretty damn good pie!
The media do was in a huge church in Spitalfields, and had already been going for several hours before we got there – I met Jo at the pub where I was, and then Alessia came a bit later when she’d finished her course. The entire hall was full of people mingling and mixing, and we got into it pretty well. Everyone had to wear name badges which included where they worked or if they were freelancers, so you sort of just sidle up to people and glance at their badge, which Richard, our intern who also joined us at the do, said was quite difficult because all the women put their badges on their chest and he felt a bit prudish by not wanting to ogle down there just to see the name badge. I took that bit of advice and moved my badge so far up it almost sat on my shoulder.
We grabbed a glass of champagne on the way in, and it never reached below half full, the waiters just kept popping up and topping up! I met one of Jasmine’s friends and we had a chat, and then she introduced me to someone else, who introduced me to someone else…It was great, between the four of us we spoke to BBC, CNN, and Daily Mail reporters, as well as some of our fellow financial web people at Uswitch and money expert, etc.
So it was quite a big night, luckily the tube ride home wasn’t too bad and I was able to crawl into bed for some decent sleep before a care job the next day.
Yesterday I went to Cambridge for the day – it was only 12 quid return for the 45 minute train journey from kings X. I did a walking tour around town – it was a gorgeous day, and there’s so much history, from a genetically engineered version of the same apple tree that Newton hit his head under, the laboratory where the proton was first split, and lots of stories of haunted buildings and student antics – like climbing from one of the accomodations onto Senate House, and replacing a statue of King Henry 8th in front of Trinity College, replacing his sceptre with a wooden chair leg!
After lunch I was going to wander about town, when I unexpectantly ran into Caedie and Immy from Cornwall. Caedie began the new school term last week, he goes to Jesus College, and Immy was up from London for the weekend – it was soo RANDOM! So what else do we do but grab a couple of bottles of wine and bunk down on the grass of the college with some of Caedie’s other mates. It was a nice toasty 18 degrees so we were practically baking. That made it all the more difficult to find my way back to the train station – a twenty minute walk from the city centre.
Lija and I were supposed to go out, but she broke her kneecap on Friday night when a work colleague twirled her on the dance floor and dropped her! We got to the bus stop and she decided it wasn’t going to happen, so we got the bus to Tescoes, did some shopping (me with the basket, her twaddling along with knee splint – could barely bend her leg) went home and cooked dinner and then I caught the train home. Uber-exciting I must say.
Tags: Travel
marzipan_mad
Excellent read, I just passed this onto a friend who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile Therefore let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!