Money, drugs, I'm back at College

Like college, I've learned quite a bit about things and situations I've never had to deal with before. It's been an eye opener for me. I didn't realize I was that innocent until a week ago. 

Americans smoke a lot of weed. Yet, despite my own disconnection with the stuff, I don't really see a problem with it. I mean, I've seen tons of my friends smoke it and yeah, the lack of ability to really do much or care to do anything is something that could be a concern but it never really interfered with their duties to work and move and get things done. 

English do a lot of drugs. I mean, I've seen just about everything. No needles, but at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if I did. It was last Sunday, the day before I started my new job. I was looking forward to a good ol' time being that it was my last shift at the pub. I started work at 11a.m. The night before a group of us stayed for drinks and had a good chat with one another. We made yummy cheese and guacamole sandwiches at three in the morning. It was awesome. 

The next morning, I arrived at the pub a bit out of it, but ready to work. I realized I was probably the only one ready to work. Nina came down to work an hour late, Scottish dude followed, both looked like they had bit hit by a bolder. Poor Chris, the other chef who works in the kitchen and currently, my other flatmate had to set up the kitchen all on his own. Scottish dude has been really irresponsible and so has Nina. As manager, Nina has been taking a bit of a piss at me for some odd reason. Scottish dude has stayed over her flat every night. I found out all they do is sniff cocaine and drugs and drink. It's ridiculous how much they do besides also doing each other. Yikes!

Imagine the whole shift, my manager, just taking a piss at me because Scottish dude use to like me and now she's all drugged up and hung over and cranky and complaining to me that the bar is messed up. Dude, I beg to recall last night when we all stayed after till 5 in the morning drinking, of course the pub is going to be messy, maybe you could come downstairs early instead messing around with the chef. It's too much for me. I messed up orders that day, I felt uncomfortable being there. It was a bad day. I needed to just get out. It got worse. 

I had to also work at the other pub that night, the one I lived above. I needed time to just sit down and rest for a bit. I walked in and thought I would just sit down on my couch in the living room for a good head clearing and a bit of tv. I walk in my living room and what do I find, one of my flatmates and two strangers siting in the living room. On the coffee table, lines of white powder... more cocaine. "You want a line" one of them asked. "Na, I'm good." Geeze, I ran into my room and bursted into tears. Drugs were everywhere. The manager and flatmate that runs the pub I lived at sold and bought coke as well and is in heaps of trouble now because he use to take money from the pub to pay for his drugs and the owner came by while he was gone and found out that a lump of money was missing... wonder who took it!?@! 

I know this makes everyone sound really bad, but to be honest, no one has ever asked me to take any drugs, or force me to be around it, or anything of the sort. They are actually really protective over me not to take it and are keen on the fact I don't do anything. So I'm not trying to make it sound bad, but well, until now, I definitely felt like I was back at College. Living in a messy messy flat with two dudes and a girl. We drank everyday. We went to sleep late. Woke up late. Had long and deep conversations. But like college, my flatmates I had to move out because I am taking a 5 week intense course (aka my new job) and my roomies party and drink too much. I kinda liked living at the pub, it was different for me. I learned a lot about English people, but now I've moved on. I have a great new job. (well it's not that great, but I will get into that another day). I live in a nice and cozy and clean flat. I just hope I can keep moving and getting on with things. 

Clothes drying

I really miss dryers out here. People don't use dryers like we do in America. It's becoming a bit of a pain for me. Clothes drying is the most important part of the whole process really, because despite your clean clothes, you can't wear them, unless they are dry! (okay, maybe cleaning the clothes is just as important as clothes drying, but you get my point). It's terrible, no one has a clothes dryer. I always have to hang up my clothes on a stupid drying rack and it takes a whole day to dry the damn clothes, sometimes even two depending on the heat in your room. 

Think of the luxury of seeing your favorite shirt, sitting in that pile of laundry you've put off all week and realizing you want to wear it two hours before you go out Saturday night. You pop it into the wash for a "quick 30 minute turbo" and put it straight into a drying machine, all warm and ready for you to wear in under 120 minutes. In that time, you can pre game, eat, and finish watching the Yankees game. It's beautiful. Why don't people have dryers here. It's terrible. Yes, okay, it's energy efficient, but for who? Me or the dryer?! I feel like I use way too much energy waiting around for my wash to finish, just to hang up my 5 shirts and a pair of jeans because that's all that fits in the damn washing machines here, and thats all you can fit on one drying rack. Think of the change in lifestyle I had to go through just because of the lack of dryers out here. I need to put aside at least 2 hours to do laundry. I also have to do laundry in smaller quantities, unlike my fellow Americans who I recall getting it all done on a Sunday afternoon after waking up with a bad hang over. 

It's terrible, and yes I sound very American right now, but I'm honest. I miss my tumble dryer. 

I get weekends off

So I started a new job.. it's only gona last for 5 weeks. Then I need to pack up and find something new. My new appreciation: stability. I've lived in 3 different places in the past 2 months not including hostels.

Yet, despite my own instability with moving, I've learned to find much more stability with friends and lifestyle. It is damn hard to trust people out here. I'm not sure who to tell things to or how to know who knows what. Everyone is damn too fake friendly here, and the problem is, that since everyone is nice, I can't separate the good from the bad. I use to be a person that trusted first until I lost their trust, but I think I threw all my eggs in one basket and now I can't seem to trust anyone... except you Al. 

Right now, I live with one of the chefs from the pub I use to work at. He's lovely. He's a young handsome 24 year old South African dude who is also married and has a little baby girl. His wife and daughter moved to Australia to start a new life, he leaves to join them in about 2 months. He misses them, I can tell by the hours he spends speaking to his wife and kid on skype every night. I also live with his wife's cousin, another South African. He owns the flat actually. I'm not sure how to describe him without making him sound too stereotypically nerdy, so I won't even try. He's a computer technician who loves movies and IKEA. He never goes out and often talks too much, but he has a good heart and makes the best damn tea.... milk and a small small dosage of sugar... if any. Anywho, it's us three, plus another one of his friend's who is currently having problems with his wife and so usually stays over at the flat Mondays- Wednesdays. 

I've not been home much this week to see my flatmates however, I've been running around London actually enjoying myself for once! Thursday, Jeanie bought us tickets to see a dance performance in central London. I booked out of work early and met up with her to get some yummy cocktails before the show! I fell in love with one of the dancers, Francisco Cruz! Yikes, that dude was cruzin' through my head that night! haha, just kidding, I really just wanted the opporotunity to make stupid joke.. nah, peep this show: SHOW PEEPIN, and MORE SHOW PEEPING!!! 

I now look back and realize how wild this trip as been. I feel like I've been in London for ages and it's only been a little over 2 months. I can finally say I feel emerged within the city and the people. I have no American friends out here beside Al, and even Al, I've not seen really. We are both busy working. I hope that she is getting out a but more now that she is working too. 

I got six bucks

Yikes, I checked my account today... 6 dollars and 18 cents.. werd I am just gliding by. 

Na, I'm ok actually, because despite how terrible that sounds, I have about 10 pounds in cash, so that's like, almost 20 pounds. Eh, I don't think I'm going to touch my account money though. Got to play is safe! I was tempted to call my mother , but maybe not. 

The new job is going alright. I work long days. It's funny, I really feel like an immigrant and then I realize, I kinda am. The front page of the newspaper this morning said, X amount (something million) of immigrants had jobs in the UK. Yikes, and there I was, on the tube, with every cover of every newspaper plastered towards my face as I sat on a crowded train of Londoners heading to work... including me. I felt awkward. I realized, geeze, the media is pretty powerful aye?! I sat there thinking for a bit, dude I'm the immigrant messing up the economy. That's not the case, (it was really the dude next to me who's been messing it all up), but yeah, for a second, it hit me. It must be scary to be in New York City or Chicago or somewhere right now where people are losing their jobs and blaming it on the "immigrants."

I finally moved out of my old flat. The pub, it was a nice one, but not the place for me really. I loved the people that lived there and worked there, but the flat itself was not for me or anyone who is really trying to focus on getting down to the nitty gritty. I need to be honest, mad people do drugs here. I'm not talking about weed or cigaretts or alchole or tabacco, I mean serious drugs. I walked into the living room my last day at the pub and two of my flatmates were sniffing lines of coke. The week before it was extascy. I found one of them still sitting in the same position I left him the night before. He hadn't slept. He was just sitting on the couch, dead still, smoking a fag. 

So I was able to move out last night. I moved in to a 4 bedroom flat out in Mitcham. It's a nice flat, but it's a bit far from central London. Ah, it's super late, I need to go to bed. 

New job

I think I need to not try and update everyone on what happened and just kinda start from where I am now...

It's been rough... not going to lie... I have been working at two pubs, working in two different environments, both very British environments, nonetheless, very different. 

My first pub, the original one I applied to work at is very cute, architecturally pleasing to the eye. It's a cozy little pub over on a street called Lillie Shall Road over in Clapham. Clapham, which use to be "a bit doggy" maybe 10 years ago, is now one of the more affluent areas to live in Central London, which means, the customers that come into the pubis a mix of both lower class and upper class residents. The new money coming into the neighborhood brings a lot of blue collar workers in at lunch time that work construction jobs during the day. It also brings in the very posh groups that live now in the mansionettes all along the side roads. The is both old money and new money. It's a great mix of culture and I love watching and speaking and serving the regulars that come into the pub. I really felt at home for the past month or so working there. The working staff there however, has been another story. Nina, the manager at the pub is a lovely young woman, in her mid 20's, she may seem like a typical blond, at at times she is. However, she has a good heart, but brings too many of her personal problems to the pub. I guess it would be hard not to, she lives right above the pub. Now that Scottish chef dude realized I was not feeling him the way he was digging me, he started hooking up with Nina and since then I've actually felt a big awkward about the whole situation. Imagine, your boss is hooking up with the one of the chefs, the chef that made it obvious to even the morning cleaning lady, that he was infatuated with me. Maybe I'm just jealous I'm not getting the attention anymore. Maybe I just feel like I've lost a friend? Maybe both. Nina came up to me one day after I broke down at work. We had a good chat, and at the end of the day, she came up to me and said, "Look, I'm not sure what your relationship is like with Scottish dude, but he made it pretty clear that you're not interested in him, and I was wondering if it would be okay with you that if something happened between me and him, it would be okay with you." Wowzers, talk about Jerry Springer. 

Also at my pub is the assistant manager, Ian. Ian is originally from Sicily, but is one of the most poshy sounding British dudes I've met. He tries to put on this older man persona and high authority type "I'm in charge" attitude, but he's one of the clumsiest people I've met. He thinks he's a flare bartender and breaks glasses all the time trying to flip cups and do tricks with all the glasses and bottles behind the bar. His goal is to be a personal trainer but is thin as a rail. He has a good heart, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I feel a bit patronized working with him, Ian is always right. 

Tess, one of the three bartenders that works there, besides the two managers. She currently dates Ian. Tess, currently getting herself through Uni, is one of the sweetest women face value. Again, she can at times speak to you as if you are nothing more than a can of worms. It's been hard working with Tess and Ian who seem to live these cute little lives. I love them both, don't get me wrong, but I guess it's weird for me as a complete outsider to come into the picture. For one, I take things to the heart here more than back in NYC. I'm more vulnerable because I hardly know anyone that well. And to be honest, it's hard trying to come in as an American into a super English pub and try and work. I don't care what anyone tells me, the culture is completely different!!!

Imagine you were once living a life of loud music in the mornings and at night from cars driving down the block listening to 50 cent. Living off eating rice and beans, Chinese food, sandwiches and burgers. Speaking to people really quickly and always being in a rush to do things. Then imagine leaving and starting a life where the streets are as quiet as a random road in upstate New York in the middle of winter when it's too dangerous to drive because of the snow. My diet has changed to eating less vegetables and more bland food. Seriously, British food does suck. Fish and chips doesn't fly when it's all the time. Steak and ale pie, sausage and mash, Sunday roasts... ehh, they eat a lot of red meat and my body is totally not use to it. Speaking to people has really taught me to slow down when speaking. I honestly didn't understand a damn thing anyone said to me when I first got here. Sometimes I still don't. The difference is, they all understand me and don't understand that an American accent sounds more natural because of all our damn media that gets streamed out here. Every movie out in the cinemas here is American. Family guy, Seinfield, the Simpsons, Friends... you name it, they watch it. What show besides Frasier do I actually hear a British accent from?! And remember, Fraiser is still an American show. 

No, I do love my pub. Jeanie, the other bartender hired at the same time I was is the one person since my homie plumber dude I've been able to really connect to out here. She is truly a gem. She's Australian, but came here with a different ambition that the majority of Australians I've met. She has her head together, doesn't do drugs and really took the time to listen to me and get to know me. We've both opened up to each other and she is a really beautiful person. It's hard, I had a hard time trusting her at first. She's just so nice and I really don't know people out here. It's also difficult because I think Americans are so out of touch with the rest of the world sometimes that it's hard for me as an American to shmooze with other people here because we think differently. Jeanie and Nina have really started a good friendship and get along a lot better than Nina and I do. Jeanie is just very care free, and laughs at almost everything. I on the other hand, feel a bit more reserved with people. I think it's something I need to break out of. I'm letting society get the best of me. Socially, it's expected to see Aussies running about London working. They have communities out here. They go and party and live together. Besides Al and some students from Syracuse University London Program, I don't know a damn American soul out here... which is great! But it gets to me at times that no one gets my sense of humor or my personality. Maybe I'm over analyzing everything and people here love me to bits, I'm not sure. 

But, luckily, I've landed myself a new job! Well, for the next 5 weeks. It's a production job for a company out in Central London. I will be a runner for 5 weeks for a company located in Soho. It's a company I've had my eye on since before I stepped foot in the UK. I attempted to reach out to them while I was still in New York and never received a response, so I decided to look up the CEO of the company on facebook and sent him a lovely message explaining out ridiculous he might think I am for writing to him in such an informal way, but that I loved the company at face value and wanted to learn more. If nothing else, I just wanted to chat with him and make a contact. A month passed since I wrote him, and about 2 weeks ago, he got back to me. He said in a message "Let's meet up, you could be some use to me." We met and spoke for about an hour. Lovely dude, has an eye for perfection and originality. The dude has dough! But I like his swag. Anyway, we ended the conversation with him implying that despite his lack of job openings at the moment, he would keep me in mind for anything that popped up. A week later, the facilities direction emailed me and offered me a 5 week job as a runner. She stressed the job was beneath me, but it was something. To be honest, I'm way better than the job I will be doing, but it's a foot in the door, and starting tomorrow, I will be busting my butt, making contacts and seeing what I can do to make these 5 weeks, at least another 5 months here! 

So to sum up everything... I quit my bartending job Tuesday. I will be moving out of the pub tomorrow or Tuesday and will be working in Central london for the next 5 weeks, with no promise of a future in the company, but then again, when has fear stopped me from doing anything since I hopped on that plane? 

More updates to come... 

I'm definitely not European!

Oh it wasn't that much, compared to something like Syracuse snow or the big New York Snow Storm of 1996, but it was enough to keep every single person from even trying to get to work Monday morning. It was ridiculous. I really found out how American, or New Yorker I am. Unlike Scottish dude who had to pass out on the coach that night because there was no transpertation means to get him back, I woke up panicking on trying to figure out how the hell to get to work! Scottish dude was like, "ah no biggie, guess we're not going to work! Pop open the beer!" I thought he was so lazy! How dare he not even try or care about getting to work! The funny thing... I was obviously the only one that cared! No one went to work! And everyone came to my pub. I wanted to run in the snow and make snow men and drink hot tea and do nothing, but I didnt. 

My manager finally contacted me and told me the other chef would pick up Scottish dude and myself... I had to work.

Catch up, Ketchup, Tomato Sauce

To sum it up, since the Superbowl, I've been been through my own illness, helping others with their own illnesses, two people cracked their ribs, there are sexual secrets going on in my pub, I might get kicked out of my living arrangements in the next week or two, a new job opportunity came up for me, I have no money, the biggest snow storm in the past 20 years hit London last Monday, and I finally realized how American I really am and there's really no escaping it. 

Like I said, Superbowl Sunday for me was wonderful! Everyone was really respectful of my little sports celebration and I got a couple people to really appreciate American sports more. I think Bruce Springsteen's camera crotch crash was the highlight however. Other's agreed. I was rooting for the Cardinals to be honest, even though I'm a Giants fan, which I guess I would root then for the Steelers, but I really can't stand Ben Roethlisberger, so I just decided to go for the underdog. To be honest, I like everyone else on the Steelers. Troy Polamalu's hair is an absolute masterpiece, and for that itself, I love him. But as for Roethlisberger, I mean, the dude looks like a block of cheese. Plus, his attitude is like a super no no! So, I rooted for the Cardinals... great game till they lost. Oh well, my Giants will still hold the memories of the ultimate and best Superbowl for years to come! I don't think Europeans understand the intensity in American sports as we do. I think it was a bit shocking for some of my mates to see me screaming at a television for a team I wouldn't really care for any other day of the week. But hey, it's the Superbowl. 

I didn't disappear for good!!!

I've been extremely sick.... and working my butt off... 

things are getting complicated... 

i will cover it more in this week.... 

I am trying to get over some stupid flu/cold/sick/thing... 

....may have a new job!!!! 

American Football and Chili Dogs

I watched the Cardinals lose munching on what was supposed to be an All American meal- Cheese Chili Dogs! It was good fun... my flatmates had the Superbowl on and we ate like Americans and drank like Americans. It snowed a lot... i'll post the pictures tomorrow. 

It was weird to be here, watching the commentary of the game and no commercials. I miss my American commercials. They had the same 3 commercials on the whole game. A Dominoes Pizza 555 deal, some cheerleader commercial for something, and I don't remember the 3rd one, I just know it was there. 

My flatmates really enjoyed the game. I think I'm starting to get them to really appreciate American culture. I think I'm actually getting a lot of people to appreciate Americans a bit more. For those who are more oblivious, Americans are not really liked in other parts of the world. I get joked on or ridiculed pretty often for being an American still, and these are with people that I know and serve at the pub. Today however, it was my day, Superbowl Sunday, and to be honest, a lot of my British regulars at the pub asked me "Oh, who are you going for?" "Are you excited about the game tonight?" It's nice to see they care a bit and I think a bit interested in what I have to say and what I think about things here in London. 

The snow is amazing! I'm going out to make snow angels!