Wow, I know I've said this before, but I officially suck at keeping up my blog. I finally have interesting things to write about, but I've been so busy living them that I haven't had time to write them. So let me try to catch you up. The last I wrote I had returned from Newcastle. A long while ago my dear Canadian friend George told me that he would be coming up for a few weeks in the UK and would be going to a rave on the 13th and 14th of March, and I made plans to see him for those days and party my face off. After working so much lately, the prospect of a good party weekend was like bread to the starving. I told work about a month in advance that I would need those days off, then a few weeks in advance I wrote it on a piece of paper in the office so that Gary (my manager) wouldn't forget to give me the Friday and Saturday off. I worked all week from Wednesday to Sunday, and Sunday night we still didn't have the schedule for the next week and I was simply told that I worked Monday and would get the rest of the schedule then. The week had been an especially rough one, so on Sunday night, since there were no hotel guests that night, Tytti and I invited a couple of our friends from the Plough over to get rock-star trashed. A much needed unwind from the rest of the week!
On Monday, feeling much more refreshed than should be humanly possible after drinking that much, I found out that Gary had opted to give me Thursday-Friday off instead of Friday-Saturday, and then had me working Saturday to Tuesday, instead of Sunday to Tuesday, which was the original agreement. There was a big wedding planned for Saturday and they wanted more staff on hand, but this was just being petty. I told Gary that I couldn't work Saturday and he said, "you can't work Saturday!" then walked away. This happened every day for the rest of the week, except sometimes he'd change the subject instead of walk away. By the time Thursday rolled around he still hadn't checked the schedule, so I took this as a sign that I now had Thursday, Friday, AND Saturday off, and went to do my laundry. On my way back to the hotel I got a message from Tytti on my mobile saying, "Gary just told me you don't work here anymore". To quote a teenage blogger, "WTF??" I scooted back to the office and asked Gary what was going on with the text I'd just received and his words were almost verbatim, "oh well, you know" welcome to firing 101! He said that since he was giving me literally NO NOTICE I could keep my bags there for a few days, but I had to basically get the fuck out and wouldn't be working my last 3 shifts. I will not even bothering the layers of douche-dom coating this act.
I packed in a blind, hurried rage, stashed a bag upstairs, mentally gave Gary the finger, finished my laundry, then informed my fellow staff-members that I would no longer be working with them, apparently. The new head chef (who is way nicer than the old head chef) Mo offered to take me out for a goodbye drink. I lamented over my sudden change in situation over Irish coffees, then my friend Gosha offered me a ride to Wimbledon, since it's on my way to London. Unfortunately I accidentally left my cell phone in her car and methodically fed 20p pieces into a pay phone for 3 hours in the cold outside the station waiting for her to pick up her phone and bring me mine when she finished at the gym. Once I finally got my phone back I was able to get a hold of George and meet him and his friends Steph (an ex pat living in London) and his friend Kalie (an American traveling with George for the first week) for drinks at a pub, then we headed back to Steph's place to play catch-up.
Catch-up ran incredibly late, and we had to wake up very early at Stephanie's house so that she could go to work on time. Blinking into the sun that somehow materialised over London, George, Kalie, and I went out for traditional English breakfast, then embarked on a day of sightseeing. Kalie had never been to London, so we went through as many touristy sights as we could in the time we had. For lunch we met up with another of George's friends, named Stacy, and after a few more hours of sightseeing George and Kalie headed to Warthing to meet George's friend who would take them to the rave in Bournemouth that night. I had to scoot back to Nikki's place and grab my clean clothes. Afterwards I met up with Stacy and she and I took the bus to Bournemouth to catch the later half of the rave. Unfortunately we missed George's set by a hair and cursed ourselves for it all through the after-party, when everyone went on and on about how good his set was.
That night we stayed at George's friend Mike's house and I slept fairly brokenly on the floor. The next day we bummed around Bournemouth and then headed into London in the evening. Once in London we found out that the rave we were supposed to be at that night was actually in Brighton. Nothing like an excuse to see another English town before I leave the country! We took a train into Brighton, then went to meet George's friend Joey (aka: DJ Joey Riot) outside the rave just in case he might be able to get us in for free. Joey was already bringing another friend and only had 1 spot on the guest list, but we all just walked to the front and he told the security that we were all with him, and next thing we know the security guards are slapping VIP backstage passes on all our wrists. Freaking SWEET! Now many of you won't have any interest on the subject, but I just have to gush a little about the insane amazingness of UK raves. Canada has a small rave culture and there just isn't the numbers to support the kind of parties that they throw in the UK. There was close to 15000 people there and this was a rave for only one type of electronic music! That can't happen in Canada. Plus everyone there was a raver, a RAVER. Not a clubcat or a scenester, but a glowstick-toting, fist-pumping, whistle-blowing raver! Yeehaw! I danced my feet off both on the floor and behind the stage, I saw DJs I never thought I'd get to see, and I only stopped moving for about 10 minutes in the middle when I had a brief sit.
The rave ended at 6am, and even though our train didn't leave until 7am, we decided to head to the station first and ten maybe find breakfast near there. At the station we found out that it wouldn't open (it being SUnday) until 7:30 with the first train leaving at 8:30. Unfortunately we had to make that 7am train get to Vid station on time to get Kalie's luggage from bag-hold at the station so she could make it in time ot Heathrow for her flight back to America. Long story short, after getting screwed over in several ways by the Universe in general. Switching trains, getting delayed, getting kicked out of trains, closures, ticket problems, getting split up, etc, etc, Kalie wound up missing her flight and we all were reunited in Victoria train station in the afternoon tired and pretty displeased with the world. George and Kalie went off to grab a hotel for the night and I headed to meet Nikki in a park in what turned out to be the most gorgeously sunny day that I had seen in London so far. We picknicked in the park and I switched my bag o' dirty clothes for my bag o' clean clothes which she brought for me.
Because I am an absolute massochist I planned on having my going-away party on Sunday night, and I took the train into Cobham, cursing the fact that I hadn't slept the night before. That night my buddies from the Cedar House and I met up with all our other Cobham friends at the Plough, where there was a live musician, drinks, and snacks for all. Then a few of us went to Woking to the same club we had gone to for Gosha's birthday and partied the night away in a hilariously drunken fashion. By the end of the night I crashed like nobody's business and slept like the dead in my last night at the Cedar House. Okay, it is taking far too long for me to update up until now, so I'll leave you hanging here and start another entry that goes right up until the present. Although by the time I post it it will be the past... ah, mind-fuck!
Stay tuned for more exciting adventures!
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