Well it seems loads of people like to take vacations in July and August (what a concept right?!) So anyway I have about 2weeks of empty houses within fairly close proximity of each other, woohoo! Then on the 18th of August I am going to stay with my cousin Susie and we may go camping in Wales (fingers crossed!)
So That is nicely sorted.
Last wednesday I went to an AWESOME Korean place in soho London with an old friend. It was so great to finally see somebody I had known for so long though I didn't realize this till afterwards.
You know it was only recently England band drinking on the subway system? And here the pubs have lines just outside their pubs so loads of people spill out onto the streets after work to have a pint with co-workers and mates. Its a busy fun city but I did not have energy to go wondering around by myself though I was quite content following others around.
All in All I enjoyed London. I'm still trying to figure out where exactly I want to be on the 1st of September as I will have to travel to the airport in the evening and I'd like to pick somewhere some what convient w/ out a lot of changing busses and such :D..we'll see. not much of interest..couldn't figure out how to work the dryer seperate from the washing machine so my clothes are laid about the living room to dry and a policeman just came in...bit embaressing but oh well. haha. O the policeman came b/c my cousin had reported that he found a mt bike and put it in the back yard so I let the policeman into the backyard where there were two black mt bikes so he deiced he'd call back later. haha. oh well.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Outrage!! and some good news
I have my ticket to Pisa!!! YAY!!! I fly out September 2nd from Stanstead in London at 6:30am! As this means I need to be at the airport by 4;30 and public transport doesn't start running that early I am going to check in the night b/4 and sleep at the airport woohoo! haha that was slightly sarcastic.
Anyhow the outrage....
So I went into town last night with this bloke who is also staying at the house..my Great Uncles wife's grandson..haha so no relation to me as this wife is not the one I was related to. Any how you don't need to hear about my complicated family tree. So Stephan and I went out and we started by going into a fairly easy going looking pub. It was a bit quietish but we enjoyed our selves. Then we decided to hed up the road to a more American type bar place (It was cramped, seedier looking, and noisy :) ). As we were walking along the road I spied a young woman with her knees to her chest crying I couldn't leave her so I went up and asked if she was ok..then ensues her story. She told me she had gone in to buy some food from a place and when she placed her stuff (pretty much everything she owned..a sleeping bag, a little pillow, and all of her money 50quid (gbp) )down and turned to put some extra things on her sandwich someone nicked her bag. Also in her bag was a badge and photo idea which licensed her to be a vendor of a magazine which she was selling to make some money. So now she has to find 8quid to replace the badge and she is freezing. I gave her 5 quid coz that was what I had and as my friend and I are standing there three young lads (about 12) came along on bikes, they had gone off to buy her a blanket.
My friend and I carried on our way but I couldn't stop thinking about her so I let my friend go into the pub and I popped back to the atm to grab some more money. I went back and gave her a tenner...she was so very grateful and told me she was hoping to get 25quid to stay in a hostel so I gave her my other tenner. She was over joyed at my kindness and I was curious. So I asked her her story.
Why is she homeless?
Well she had be shunted from foster care to foster care when she was little and at 16 she found her mum and started living with her unfortunately last august her mum died of complications with her lungs. Because she had not been on the lease at least 6mo prior to her mum dying she had 28 days to bugger off. Because her mum had been ill she had not had a job, though she use to be a hair dresser. Now she is homeless but perfectly capable of working, so why not get a job? Because all jobs require you give a valid home address...ok so get an address o wait you need a job to be able to afford to have one of them. AND here is the fuckin kicker coz she isn't a junkie or alcoholic the city doesn't have a program to help her or so many other cases just like hers.
After I finished talking to her I went and talked to my friend Stephan about it. He said a lot of times homeless people are the most genuine people you know. I spent so much time just feeling anxious when I was pressured by the homeless in Cali I didn't stop to talk to them. This is an outrage and absolutely ridiculous there needs to be a program that can provide temporary housing to those not on drugs or alcohol and that will help these homeless get jobs. For goodness sake people complain enough about people on the street so bloody do something about it!!!!
Anyhow the outrage....
So I went into town last night with this bloke who is also staying at the house..my Great Uncles wife's grandson..haha so no relation to me as this wife is not the one I was related to. Any how you don't need to hear about my complicated family tree. So Stephan and I went out and we started by going into a fairly easy going looking pub. It was a bit quietish but we enjoyed our selves. Then we decided to hed up the road to a more American type bar place (It was cramped, seedier looking, and noisy :) ). As we were walking along the road I spied a young woman with her knees to her chest crying I couldn't leave her so I went up and asked if she was ok..then ensues her story. She told me she had gone in to buy some food from a place and when she placed her stuff (pretty much everything she owned..a sleeping bag, a little pillow, and all of her money 50quid (gbp) )down and turned to put some extra things on her sandwich someone nicked her bag. Also in her bag was a badge and photo idea which licensed her to be a vendor of a magazine which she was selling to make some money. So now she has to find 8quid to replace the badge and she is freezing. I gave her 5 quid coz that was what I had and as my friend and I are standing there three young lads (about 12) came along on bikes, they had gone off to buy her a blanket.
My friend and I carried on our way but I couldn't stop thinking about her so I let my friend go into the pub and I popped back to the atm to grab some more money. I went back and gave her a tenner...she was so very grateful and told me she was hoping to get 25quid to stay in a hostel so I gave her my other tenner. She was over joyed at my kindness and I was curious. So I asked her her story.
Why is she homeless?
Well she had be shunted from foster care to foster care when she was little and at 16 she found her mum and started living with her unfortunately last august her mum died of complications with her lungs. Because she had not been on the lease at least 6mo prior to her mum dying she had 28 days to bugger off. Because her mum had been ill she had not had a job, though she use to be a hair dresser. Now she is homeless but perfectly capable of working, so why not get a job? Because all jobs require you give a valid home address...ok so get an address o wait you need a job to be able to afford to have one of them. AND here is the fuckin kicker coz she isn't a junkie or alcoholic the city doesn't have a program to help her or so many other cases just like hers.
After I finished talking to her I went and talked to my friend Stephan about it. He said a lot of times homeless people are the most genuine people you know. I spent so much time just feeling anxious when I was pressured by the homeless in Cali I didn't stop to talk to them. This is an outrage and absolutely ridiculous there needs to be a program that can provide temporary housing to those not on drugs or alcohol and that will help these homeless get jobs. For goodness sake people complain enough about people on the street so bloody do something about it!!!!
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Plans...ish
So I took a long bus ride from Carlisle to Oxford yesterday. All in all I thought it quite pleasant. Heavy rain, some fancy lightening, reading rubbish magazines, and eating tasty sandwhich's. Now I am n Oxfrord and today I'm going to walk into town, actually the hope is I walk to town everyday as round trip it'll give me a six mile journey and that is pretty satisfactory excercise.
Anyhow as my England news isn't terribly interesting as I am not meeting random strangers that give me thier house for five weeks or ny such crazyness as that I'll move onto something possibly slightly more thrilling. Haha so I have mentioned I'm bumming round England but only till September. On September 3rd ish I am going back to Pisa Italy where I will learn the art of flower arranging from Dario a friend of the fellow I was working with before. Dario does arrangements for weddings and such so I'll learn something new and interesting :). I will be staying in an apartment owned by his parents that is just a few blocks away from the beach. All in all I'm very excited about being back in Italy and learning something new!
Hopefully this was slightly riviting talk to you later folks. ;)
Anyhow as my England news isn't terribly interesting as I am not meeting random strangers that give me thier house for five weeks or ny such crazyness as that I'll move onto something possibly slightly more thrilling. Haha so I have mentioned I'm bumming round England but only till September. On September 3rd ish I am going back to Pisa Italy where I will learn the art of flower arranging from Dario a friend of the fellow I was working with before. Dario does arrangements for weddings and such so I'll learn something new and interesting :). I will be staying in an apartment owned by his parents that is just a few blocks away from the beach. All in all I'm very excited about being back in Italy and learning something new!
Hopefully this was slightly riviting talk to you later folks. ;)
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Couch Surfing
It seems as of July 18th I've got no where to stay :(....So I'm going to venture onto this Couch surfing thing and move about London for about a month. Hopefully I can leave most of my luggage with a friend because otherwise its going to be near impossible to move every few days!!
So Monday the 29th of June I had a ticket on a bus to Carlisle at 2:05 leaving from Preston bus station. So I got to Preston bus station with 40min min to spare!! Another old lady sat next to me, she was also going to Carlisle. We chatted a bit then her bus came at 1:55p. Now I thought it was a bit odd that there would be two buses ten minuets apart from eachother to Carlisle...hmmm. well 2:05p came and went and no bus. So I went into the office and the lady said "o you were suppose to be here at 2 this morning. The 1:55p was the last bus" :0! "your only option is to go to the bus station" again :0!! The bus station was on the bloody otherside of Preston! A good 20min walk on a hot day wth 100lbs of luggage! I shit you not this was RIDICULOUS!! Well I had no choice so I started walking and about an hour later I was on a trai to Carlisle. Fortunetly the train was faster than a bus so the hour wasted was made up by the speedyness of the train!!
Anyhow my Great Uncle Peter picked me up from the station with his wife Barbara and we went back to there lovely little cottage (which is called Tilly Cottage btw) on the sea side in Allonby!
Well have to run. Catching a bus to cockermouth. There is a festival going on today and so far no rain!! Though they expect heavy showers...but all I see is sun hmmm
So Monday the 29th of June I had a ticket on a bus to Carlisle at 2:05 leaving from Preston bus station. So I got to Preston bus station with 40min min to spare!! Another old lady sat next to me, she was also going to Carlisle. We chatted a bit then her bus came at 1:55p. Now I thought it was a bit odd that there would be two buses ten minuets apart from eachother to Carlisle...hmmm. well 2:05p came and went and no bus. So I went into the office and the lady said "o you were suppose to be here at 2 this morning. The 1:55p was the last bus" :0! "your only option is to go to the bus station" again :0!! The bus station was on the bloody otherside of Preston! A good 20min walk on a hot day wth 100lbs of luggage! I shit you not this was RIDICULOUS!! Well I had no choice so I started walking and about an hour later I was on a trai to Carlisle. Fortunetly the train was faster than a bus so the hour wasted was made up by the speedyness of the train!!
Anyhow my Great Uncle Peter picked me up from the station with his wife Barbara and we went back to there lovely little cottage (which is called Tilly Cottage btw) on the sea side in Allonby!
Well have to run. Catching a bus to cockermouth. There is a festival going on today and so far no rain!! Though they expect heavy showers...but all I see is sun hmmm
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