sweet fuckery i hurt. i just climbed a mountain. a snow-covered mountain, no less. it's funny - we all have these things we want to do before we die. climbing a mountain was never really on my list, but now i've done it i think i'll add it anyway. it was only a little mountain, as far as mountains go - 251 metres in total. my trusty (and heavy - have i ever meantioned heavy?) Lonely Planet guide said that it was an easy walk. an hour or so. but i'll bet you the coffee i'm drinking those fuckers never did after a night of bloody snow.
a quick break to demolish my 2nd breakfast and i'm back, finishing off the coffee (which is good... so good). i'm sitting in The Rabbie Burns - it being the first place i found that looked like it had a decent lunch. in my mind, All Day Breakfast counts as lunch, and their version of the Big Breakfast included haggis so it had to be done. that, and it's warm, dry and there arev nice eastern-eurpoean women who seem more than happy to bring me coffee while i sit here feeling like i've just been beaten up and pissed on by excited Welsh rugby supporters (there was a lot of piss on the streets. i was informed that it was because the Welsh were in town. no love lost there then...).
i was on the street at 9AM. my alarm had gone off before 8, and of course got snoozed - my hand found it before my eyes rembered how to open and instinctively hit the right button. sleeping in a smallish dorm room with 8 or 9 other people left me better rested than i had expected - i passed out not much past midnight and apart from the creaking of the metal bunks as people shifted in their sleep, none of them were noisy or irritating. a quick shower later (and a MUCH better shower than back at base-camp) and i was shovelling toast, cereal and coffee down my throat, got tooled up and headed down towards the hill. Arthur's Seat is at the top of the highest mountain in the area and affords incredible views of the countryside. of course, right after the snow the air's far from clear. not foggy, just not clear, so i don't think many of my photos came out too well. still, for all the sore legs getting up there it was worth the view. coming down was quicker, but treacherous. i wound up on my arse at least twice, and i know i got air on the third slide, breaking the fall on my side. i got up swearing, pondering the relative entertainment of trying to get some laundry dry, imagining just how grubby i was going to wind up and wondering how the fucking hell the two old people ahead of me with walking sticks weren't just keeping pace, but making distance on me (no - seriously. how did they not slip and brek their fucking hips?). one of the benefits of being up a snowy mountain with very few people around was that when nature called, i did finally get to write my name in the snow. hoorjay!
eventually i fetched up back on level ground again and trudged back up the Royal Mile towards Edinburgh Castle. typically, the Mile is UPHILL to the fucking castle which is why i started assessing anything that looked like a relatively budget eatery on the way. this isn't at all the area for cheap food. welcome to Edinburg's Tourist Central. there are kilt shops and bagpipe shops and Historical Taverns so densely packed that if you tripped over one you'd faceplant in the next. still, it's pretty and entertaining. i'll pick this up again later this afternoon/evening.
---
another 4 hours later, another interesting location. right now i'm sitting in a basement scotch whisky bar with a shot of something lovely in a glass that looks like it was designed by craftsmen intent on ensuring that i enjoy its contents as much as humanly possible. it's less than 50 metres from the gates of the castle and had a sign above the door saying "The Scotch Whisky Experience" and somehow i knew i had to go and check it out.
after leaving The Rabbie Burns i
OOH FUCK, MY THROAT IS IN HEAVEN! IT'S LIKE A BURNING SLUG OF HAPPINESS!
sorry, anyway, i continued up the hill to the castle. i'm not going to go into the details of the place. come here. go see it. it's pretty, it's old, it's got a lot of history. i did the tour, which i recommend if only because it's free (well, after you pay the £10 entry fee), it runs every half an hour and you'll pick up a lot of useful information which comes in useful when you start to wander... and the view's spectacular.
i wound up hanging around there for the best part of 3 hours looking around all the little nooks and crannies of the place. by the time i left i was getting towards ruined. another long day with a LOT of walking (climbing, falling on my arse)
OOOOH IT'S SMOOTH, IT'S VELVETY, IT'S LIKE SOME SCOTTISH BASTARD LEARNED HOW TO TRAP JOY IN A BOTTLE!
erm... yeah. tired. sore. getting REALLY sore now, and i've still to do the cemetery tour i missed out on last night. plan of attack for the moment is to sit around in this little bar for a while longer and try something else. at £3.50/shot it's not the cheapest way to spend an afternoon, but they have nearly 300 different bottles of scotch on the wall and a lot of them i'll not get the chance to taste without spending over $150/bottle somewhere out in the world. that, and the bar attendant has a gorgeous accent and knows her stuff incredibly thoroughly.
hmm... note to self. find a single malt tour. probably best done from Inverness. i should get the chance to finish this off later tonight.
---
a chair in the bar downstairs from the hostel, my drink's changed to Guiness and i'm hearing american accents from the groups of people doing the pub quiz. i'd be in on it... in fact, i'm almost a little disappointed that i didn't pay attention to the signs saying it was on, but what the hell. i did the cemetery tour instead.
i bogged out of the whisky bar after having another shot and chatting to the bar attendent for a bit, getting some suggestions on out-of-the-way pubs to visit while i'm here. i wandered off and found one of them down on Cowgate and wound up having a couple of pints cruising the net. there was no "Free WiFi" sticker that i noticed, but their wireless router had pride of place, hanging in an ornate birdcage over the left-hand side of the bar, so i settled into one of the big, plush couches and drank local beer (which tasted oddly of peat) and cruised the net while i ate, catching up on the news from back home. i still read The Age, The Australian and (when i'm really bored) the Sydney Morning Herald to find out what's going on back home, otherwise i'd never know about the $950 K-Rudd wants to give me for Anzac Day.
anyway, fortified by my 3rd big meal of the day and happy from the two pints with which i'd followed my scotch i wandered back to the hostel to dump some stuff and have a bit of a sit down before wandering off to the ghost tour, which was also good fun. the guide for this evening was actually from Wollongong. she was trying to cover her accent with a bit of an english one, but her aussie kept shining through. it was fun, informative, theatrical, and i got a couple of pounds off the price because i'd gone along to the Vault tour the night before and had missed out on doing the cemetery last night.
i hiked back to the hostel through the wet, dark streets of Edinburgh's Old Town feeling exhausted. it's not that i covered a lot of miles today, but the place is hilly. REALLY hilly... compared to anywhere i've walked around before at least. the Old Town's also completely riddled with alleyways. as the buildings were built they just left bits out. some of these Closes are wide enough to drive a car down. one i walked down this evening was narrow enough that if someone had tried to pass me we would have had to both be pretty friendly. walking down one of these wet cobbled streets with insufficient lighting is actually really spooky, although that could have had a lot to do with the spooky tours i've done these last two nights. the Royal Mile which runs between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Castle (royalty lived in the one at the bottom of the hill, and came up to the one on top of the hill when they had to. links two castles, a mile long, not a very imaginative name) seems to be built along a ridge, and if you turn off in either direction you wind up heading down quite a steep slope. it would probably partly explain why i've not seen any fat people around since i got here (or in the local parlance: thaat be whah arve nae seen noo faht people in Ehd'nbraa). they burn it all off walking up and down the bloody hills.
still, ignoring how demolished i'm feeling at the moment (the litany goes as follows: sore chest and shoulders from my shoulder-bag, right bicep for some unknown reason, both knees, quads and calves, right palm from using it to break my fall on the mountain, feet from wearing these boots for 14 hours now and, of course, walking all fucking day) today's been good. i've extended my stay here for another 2 days since i got a 2-for-1 offer and it cost me the same as booking only for a single night. watch me complain - even if i do leave on wednesday it's not as if it cost me any more and i'm a fan of having flexibility.
tomorrow i think i'm going to go fairly easy... although i'm tempted to walk to the coastline directly to the north so that i can dip my toe in the North Sea. i probably won't get the chance at Inverness since it's on Loch Ness. still, while i don't mind trudging for miles on end i'm not climbing any more snowy fucking mountains for the next few days, i'll say that much. i'm relatively certain that my body is going to exact a penance upon me for my exertions today come tomorrow. i'll have a shower before bed tonight in an effort to appease the physical shell, but it's going to hurt one way or another and it'll take some work to get me moving again in the morning. still, another pint should help with the sleeping process. that would make... um... 4 today, plus scotch... but that was only tasting sizes so it doesn't count, right?
oh well. it's 11PM now and i've about had it so i can see an early night in my future... at least, once i finish my fresh Guiness...
Showing posts with label scotland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scotland. Show all posts
Monday, February 9, 2009
Edinburgh - a strangely ominous sort of place...
after the bright lights and modernity of London, Edinburgh was something of a shock. i'd seen a couple of photos before arriving - long shots of the castle, mostly. getting in i was completely unprepared for the weighty feeling of age you feel when you wander around the streets. it turns out that where i'm staying is actually across Market St from Edinburgh Waverley Station which is in the Old Town, and around here they're not fucking kidding with the word Old. in fact, the New town didn't actually fill me with feelings of modernity. most of that was still older than most of Australia, and i'd have been freaking out a bit if it wasn't so downright cool.
i wound up rather enjoying my train ride, polishing off 7 cups of coffee while i sat around and blogged, enjoying the luxury of space, comfort, and a power point. the train arrived on time at 2PM, and by 2:30PM i'd checked into my hostel. dumped my backpack and hit the street again to find Eve. i'd met Eve once before on my trip to Brighton and had faithfully Friended her on Facebook in order to make it easier to keep in touch later if the chance came up - it's the quickest and easiest way i've found to date to expand your social network. when browsing FB yesterday i noticed her status saying that she was up here, so i dropped her a line and we tentatively arranged to meet up when i got here. she's been here since Friday and had tramped across most of town already, but was keen on lunch and kind enough to shout me, so we found a place with a good wine list and ate hearty comfort-food while downing a bottle of good Italin red. we'd only really met briefly back at Brighton and hadn't really had much of a chance to talk, but it was pleasant to see a friendly place in a strange place and she has strong geek-roots so we had plenty to talk about.
we wound up wandering to an infamous graveyard not too far away and looked around until the light started to fade. it's infamous because of one particular internee who's supposedly one of the best-documented poltergeists in history. Edinburgh has a big thing going with ghosts apparantly. i don't know the full story, in part because the tour i was going to go on this evening was cancelled due to insufficient patronage, which is why i'm now sitting in one of the bars downstairs from my hostel having a pint to myself in a window seat, watching the snow fall outside.
as the light faded Eve suggested that we head up to Carlton Hill where there's a great view of the lights of the city to be seen and photographed. it's not the BIG hill nearby - that's a trip for another day with more light and more time, but we climbed up and took some photos before she had to go and pick up her bag and head off for the shuttle to the airport. having nothing else to do for an hour or so i stopped in the hostel to take stock and pull my book and the bottled water i'd nabbed on the train out of my shoulder bag in order to lighten the load a bit before heading off again.
in my research of last night i found a link to a couple of walking tours that looked interesting - one through a series of underground vaults built into one of the bridges between Old Town and New Town, the other which heads through a couple of the grave yards, including the one with the aforementioned poltergeist. ordinarily i'd avoid guided tours - i'd much rather wander the streets at my own pace, but when it comes to locked and out of the way places, or less-than-well documented history sometimes going with a guide can be awesome. fortuntely, the meeting point was just around the corner from my hostel, so i was there with plenty of time. the first tour was the underground, so i joined the crew and followed the David Tennant look-alike around and i'm so incredibly glad i went. he was funny, knowledgeable, and he presented in a remarkably entertaining way, discussing Scotish history in greater detail than you really thought necessary, until you realise that he was setting the scene as an explanation for what was later to come. one point he launched into a story about the visit of King George IV and by the time it was all explained and the relevance understood you were so enthralled that you'd forgotten why he was telling the story in the first place... and really didn't care. if you wind up in Edinburgh and you're looking for something to do of an evening, doing the City Of The Dead (ignore the wanky name) tours are well worth it.
after finishing up i had half an hour to kill before the Cemetery tour started and it was snowing in earnest. you'd think this would ruin a night-time walking tour, but i was excited. spooky cemetery at night? cool. spooky cemetery in the murky snow? FUCKING AWESOME! unfortunately they needed 15 people to run and with only 10 showing up the 9:30PM tour was cancelled. i was a little gutted since that was my plan for the evening out the window, but hey - this is how things go sometimes. i wandered the 10 minutes back to the hostel, grabbed a pint and found a seat to write stuff down.
it's been a long day. i'm tired, i'm achy and i'm certainly more alone than i've been in ages - sitting in a bar in a strange city listening to the bar staff (at least 3 of which are Australian from the accents) banter as they close up. they've let me sit here because i'm not in the way, but i expect i'll be moved along pretty soon. tomorrow will likely involve wandering up and down the Royal Mile, visiting Edinburgh Castle, and (if weather and light permits), hiking up to Arthur's Seat. there're are a few things to see around here, and i can see it occupying at least the next couple of days. right now i'm going to go and check the activity in the main bar next door, and if that's too boring or irritating i'll head upstairs and watch something on my Eee and get some sleep. breakfast's laid on here (which is impressive since i'm only paying £12/night) so i might as well try to get up early and take advantage of it, even if only in the hope that i can avoid spending cash on lunch (i know that's bad - don't start). i'm in a 10-person mixed dorm, but it didn't seem full when i was up there earlier, and with luck no one'll be too noisy, although i have ear plugs just in case.
meanwhile - note to self: buy a padlock for the under-bunk storage. i remember Moonbug once telling me that a padlock was essential equipment when backpacking, but the relevance of the comment didn't dawn on me until i saw the little wire cage under the bed today. i might make that something i keep an eye out for tomorrow... meanwhile, time to go see if there's anyone interesting in the other bar and let these guys close up...
i wound up rather enjoying my train ride, polishing off 7 cups of coffee while i sat around and blogged, enjoying the luxury of space, comfort, and a power point. the train arrived on time at 2PM, and by 2:30PM i'd checked into my hostel. dumped my backpack and hit the street again to find Eve. i'd met Eve once before on my trip to Brighton and had faithfully Friended her on Facebook in order to make it easier to keep in touch later if the chance came up - it's the quickest and easiest way i've found to date to expand your social network. when browsing FB yesterday i noticed her status saying that she was up here, so i dropped her a line and we tentatively arranged to meet up when i got here. she's been here since Friday and had tramped across most of town already, but was keen on lunch and kind enough to shout me, so we found a place with a good wine list and ate hearty comfort-food while downing a bottle of good Italin red. we'd only really met briefly back at Brighton and hadn't really had much of a chance to talk, but it was pleasant to see a friendly place in a strange place and she has strong geek-roots so we had plenty to talk about.
we wound up wandering to an infamous graveyard not too far away and looked around until the light started to fade. it's infamous because of one particular internee who's supposedly one of the best-documented poltergeists in history. Edinburgh has a big thing going with ghosts apparantly. i don't know the full story, in part because the tour i was going to go on this evening was cancelled due to insufficient patronage, which is why i'm now sitting in one of the bars downstairs from my hostel having a pint to myself in a window seat, watching the snow fall outside.
as the light faded Eve suggested that we head up to Carlton Hill where there's a great view of the lights of the city to be seen and photographed. it's not the BIG hill nearby - that's a trip for another day with more light and more time, but we climbed up and took some photos before she had to go and pick up her bag and head off for the shuttle to the airport. having nothing else to do for an hour or so i stopped in the hostel to take stock and pull my book and the bottled water i'd nabbed on the train out of my shoulder bag in order to lighten the load a bit before heading off again.
in my research of last night i found a link to a couple of walking tours that looked interesting - one through a series of underground vaults built into one of the bridges between Old Town and New Town, the other which heads through a couple of the grave yards, including the one with the aforementioned poltergeist. ordinarily i'd avoid guided tours - i'd much rather wander the streets at my own pace, but when it comes to locked and out of the way places, or less-than-well documented history sometimes going with a guide can be awesome. fortuntely, the meeting point was just around the corner from my hostel, so i was there with plenty of time. the first tour was the underground, so i joined the crew and followed the David Tennant look-alike around and i'm so incredibly glad i went. he was funny, knowledgeable, and he presented in a remarkably entertaining way, discussing Scotish history in greater detail than you really thought necessary, until you realise that he was setting the scene as an explanation for what was later to come. one point he launched into a story about the visit of King George IV and by the time it was all explained and the relevance understood you were so enthralled that you'd forgotten why he was telling the story in the first place... and really didn't care. if you wind up in Edinburgh and you're looking for something to do of an evening, doing the City Of The Dead (ignore the wanky name) tours are well worth it.
after finishing up i had half an hour to kill before the Cemetery tour started and it was snowing in earnest. you'd think this would ruin a night-time walking tour, but i was excited. spooky cemetery at night? cool. spooky cemetery in the murky snow? FUCKING AWESOME! unfortunately they needed 15 people to run and with only 10 showing up the 9:30PM tour was cancelled. i was a little gutted since that was my plan for the evening out the window, but hey - this is how things go sometimes. i wandered the 10 minutes back to the hostel, grabbed a pint and found a seat to write stuff down.
it's been a long day. i'm tired, i'm achy and i'm certainly more alone than i've been in ages - sitting in a bar in a strange city listening to the bar staff (at least 3 of which are Australian from the accents) banter as they close up. they've let me sit here because i'm not in the way, but i expect i'll be moved along pretty soon. tomorrow will likely involve wandering up and down the Royal Mile, visiting Edinburgh Castle, and (if weather and light permits), hiking up to Arthur's Seat. there're are a few things to see around here, and i can see it occupying at least the next couple of days. right now i'm going to go and check the activity in the main bar next door, and if that's too boring or irritating i'll head upstairs and watch something on my Eee and get some sleep. breakfast's laid on here (which is impressive since i'm only paying £12/night) so i might as well try to get up early and take advantage of it, even if only in the hope that i can avoid spending cash on lunch (i know that's bad - don't start). i'm in a 10-person mixed dorm, but it didn't seem full when i was up there earlier, and with luck no one'll be too noisy, although i have ear plugs just in case.
meanwhile - note to self: buy a padlock for the under-bunk storage. i remember Moonbug once telling me that a padlock was essential equipment when backpacking, but the relevance of the comment didn't dawn on me until i saw the little wire cage under the bed today. i might make that something i keep an eye out for tomorrow... meanwhile, time to go see if there's anyone interesting in the other bar and let these guys close up...
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Giving Up part 2 - this i did not expect (but could get used to)...
outside there are fields of white - where the city has gone icy and depressed, out here it still looks pure with a stark beauty that doesn't so much smack you in the eyeballs as sit back with a sherry and a pipe, its tweed jacket belying a hooligan past, the look in its eye asking cynically:
"... and?"
meanwhile i'm sitting here blogging while i look out the window, enjoying the graffiti sprayed on the walls around snowed-in soccer-fields enjoying the novelty of blogging while on public transport. what's that? yes, i KNOW i've been blogging a lot on public transport, but this is different - this is LIVE. somehow i managed to book a 1st-class ticket on the 9:05 to Edinburgh. i can only assume that thetrainline.com blindsided me, or that i clicked on the wrong checkbox, or that this was simply the cheapest fare available for today, and... you know what? fuck it. i have an enormous reclining seat in a cluster of 4 to myself, and all the coffee i can drink while i sit here with a power point and a WiFi connection and fuck you if you think i'm not going to make the most of it.
i was supposed to get some sleep last night - alarms (3 of were set for 6:59, 7:01 and 7:07 this morning, and with 4 and a half hours of sleep behind me i was awake, staring at the faint halo around the curtains and wishing for death. 7:33 and i was moving. 8:09 and i was out the door, Death Cab For Cute providing the now standard soundtrack for my "i'm up too early with too little sleep" experience. tube from Oval to Kings Cross St Pancras (Kings Cross is the city overland and national rail terminal, St Pancras is international) with enough time to collect my tickets and find my train, but not enough to get bored waiting. Kings Cross is a fairly unimpressive yellow-beige brick building notable only for its size and the triskell-motif'd clock. next door, St Pancras is far more impressive with a spire rising above the filth not unlike one of the many churches you see damn near everywhere in London.
of course, what you may be wondering (if you've been following the narrative in recent history) is what the fuck i'm doing in 1st-class on an overland train, and where the fuck am i going? see, i could have explained at the start, but starting there wouldn't have been so fun now, would it?
when last i spoke i mentioned that i was waiting for news from jobs to come in. since then i had another interview for a Team Leader job for a small government advisory commission (which went surprisingly well, thanks), and so i waited. then finally, on Friday afternoon i got news from both sets of pimps - their sympathetic speeches so similar they could have been carbon-copied:
"You did incredibly well at interview. They were really impressed with the way you answered the questions succinctly, they thought you have a great personality for the role, technical skills are right up there and your leadership style would work really well for them. It was a hard decision - it was down between you and one other guy, but in this situation they've decided not to move forward with you, but they really want to consider you for future roles if they come up."
well fuckery - you've got to be fucking kidding. 2nd best is 1st loser, and twice more i've been the best of the rest. i've said before that if the jobs i was in for didn't come through i'd be fucking off into the hinterlands and less than 48 hours later, being a man of my word, i'm on a train heading north at "surprisingly ridiculous"-an-hour and onto my second cup of "better than any airline i've ever been on" coffee.
Friday was not one of my shining moments - i waited and i was sick of waiting and 2 weeks of waiting culminated in one afternoon of failure. i'd spent the day bumming around the flat before heading into Leicester Square for a couple of hours, with plans of cruising the job sites, sorting out some paperwork and hitting the National Portrait Gallery (i walk past it almost every day and had never been in before). i must admit that while i enjoyed the gallery, it would have been nice to have seen more photographic work since i was fishing for ideas on composition in the interests of hopefully improving my own photography. the second call came through while i was on the bus on my way back to base-camp and i managed to not blow out the windows with a scream of rage and despair, (later 1/3 of a bottle of scotch helped wash down the bitter pill of failure) and within 5 minutes of walking in the door i was pulling open the bookmarks i'd saved weeks ago and started getting organised. come Saturday morning i booked the train out of town, and the first two nights in a hostel, while i sipped my morning coffee, then proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon being shown around Greenwich Park (which has ducks and pigeons and squirrels and deer) by SiJ, then the evening watching Stargate, fixing the music player on my Eee, drying clothes and packing my shoulder bag and backpack.
you might notice that i've not discussed my plans, and the canny amongst you will have worked out that it's because i don't have any. i know where i'm staying tonight and tomorrow. past there i can't really bring myself to give a fuck. i can extend my stay in the hostel, or change if i want. i can find transport to get me to the next town. i've got my passport and access to enough cash to keep me for a year if the urge should strike to do something unexpected. i'm past caring and i'm past comprehension. i don't even know when i'll be back in London - it'll be either when the idea sits right with me, or i get bored of wandering. whichever comes first. in the meantime, i'm Dropping Off The Face Of The Planet with my middle finger raised in one final "fuck you" to anyone bored enough to watch me fall.
were it not for the absurd novelty of having a net connection on the train i'd have been officially Offline from the moment i walked out the door this morning. i'm a fairly well connected lad - being an IT professional and technology enthusiast i live a pretty hifi life. one of my great fantasies of the last couple of years has been to switch off and fuck off into the distance for a while. no phone, no net, just me, my PSD, access to transport and hopefully places i've never been. sure, i've got my Eee with me, but that just means i can write to my heart's content and worry about posting it all later. no email, no Facebook, no phone ringing. hell - if i didn't want to be able to take calls form pimps i'd have turned my fucking phone off and thrown it so hard at the fucking wall it'd have embedded in the plaster (i love this phone - i could do that and it'd probably STILL survive). i've been so tempted to fling the thing into the Thames, and wave goodbye and giggle maniacally as it sinks along with the last of my sanity, but i've managed to fight the urge.
so there you go. 4 months in this country is all it took for me to say "fuck it" and drop out. i expect i'll get back into the swing again when i go back to London, but for the time being i'm past making promises or building expectations. promises can be broken. expectations can be shattered. plans can fail, and i'm sick of the cloud of failure that follows me around as if i was Pig Pen in Peanuts. i've Given Up, Dropped Out and Fucked off. time to see how i go out in the world on my own, outside my comfort zone and reliant on no one, and at some stage eventually i'll even get around to telling you about it. meanwhile, if you don't know how to find me it's because i want it that way. leave a message.
Raven Out.
"... and?"
meanwhile i'm sitting here blogging while i look out the window, enjoying the graffiti sprayed on the walls around snowed-in soccer-fields enjoying the novelty of blogging while on public transport. what's that? yes, i KNOW i've been blogging a lot on public transport, but this is different - this is LIVE. somehow i managed to book a 1st-class ticket on the 9:05 to Edinburgh. i can only assume that thetrainline.com blindsided me, or that i clicked on the wrong checkbox, or that this was simply the cheapest fare available for today, and... you know what? fuck it. i have an enormous reclining seat in a cluster of 4 to myself, and all the coffee i can drink while i sit here with a power point and a WiFi connection and fuck you if you think i'm not going to make the most of it.
i was supposed to get some sleep last night - alarms (3 of were set for 6:59, 7:01 and 7:07 this morning, and with 4 and a half hours of sleep behind me i was awake, staring at the faint halo around the curtains and wishing for death. 7:33 and i was moving. 8:09 and i was out the door, Death Cab For Cute providing the now standard soundtrack for my "i'm up too early with too little sleep" experience. tube from Oval to Kings Cross St Pancras (Kings Cross is the city overland and national rail terminal, St Pancras is international) with enough time to collect my tickets and find my train, but not enough to get bored waiting. Kings Cross is a fairly unimpressive yellow-beige brick building notable only for its size and the triskell-motif'd clock. next door, St Pancras is far more impressive with a spire rising above the filth not unlike one of the many churches you see damn near everywhere in London.
of course, what you may be wondering (if you've been following the narrative in recent history) is what the fuck i'm doing in 1st-class on an overland train, and where the fuck am i going? see, i could have explained at the start, but starting there wouldn't have been so fun now, would it?
when last i spoke i mentioned that i was waiting for news from jobs to come in. since then i had another interview for a Team Leader job for a small government advisory commission (which went surprisingly well, thanks), and so i waited. then finally, on Friday afternoon i got news from both sets of pimps - their sympathetic speeches so similar they could have been carbon-copied:
"You did incredibly well at interview. They were really impressed with the way you answered the questions succinctly, they thought you have a great personality for the role, technical skills are right up there and your leadership style would work really well for them. It was a hard decision - it was down between you and one other guy, but in this situation they've decided not to move forward with you, but they really want to consider you for future roles if they come up."
well fuckery - you've got to be fucking kidding. 2nd best is 1st loser, and twice more i've been the best of the rest. i've said before that if the jobs i was in for didn't come through i'd be fucking off into the hinterlands and less than 48 hours later, being a man of my word, i'm on a train heading north at "surprisingly ridiculous"-an-hour and onto my second cup of "better than any airline i've ever been on" coffee.
Friday was not one of my shining moments - i waited and i was sick of waiting and 2 weeks of waiting culminated in one afternoon of failure. i'd spent the day bumming around the flat before heading into Leicester Square for a couple of hours, with plans of cruising the job sites, sorting out some paperwork and hitting the National Portrait Gallery (i walk past it almost every day and had never been in before). i must admit that while i enjoyed the gallery, it would have been nice to have seen more photographic work since i was fishing for ideas on composition in the interests of hopefully improving my own photography. the second call came through while i was on the bus on my way back to base-camp and i managed to not blow out the windows with a scream of rage and despair, (later 1/3 of a bottle of scotch helped wash down the bitter pill of failure) and within 5 minutes of walking in the door i was pulling open the bookmarks i'd saved weeks ago and started getting organised. come Saturday morning i booked the train out of town, and the first two nights in a hostel, while i sipped my morning coffee, then proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon being shown around Greenwich Park (which has ducks and pigeons and squirrels and deer) by SiJ, then the evening watching Stargate, fixing the music player on my Eee, drying clothes and packing my shoulder bag and backpack.
you might notice that i've not discussed my plans, and the canny amongst you will have worked out that it's because i don't have any. i know where i'm staying tonight and tomorrow. past there i can't really bring myself to give a fuck. i can extend my stay in the hostel, or change if i want. i can find transport to get me to the next town. i've got my passport and access to enough cash to keep me for a year if the urge should strike to do something unexpected. i'm past caring and i'm past comprehension. i don't even know when i'll be back in London - it'll be either when the idea sits right with me, or i get bored of wandering. whichever comes first. in the meantime, i'm Dropping Off The Face Of The Planet with my middle finger raised in one final "fuck you" to anyone bored enough to watch me fall.
were it not for the absurd novelty of having a net connection on the train i'd have been officially Offline from the moment i walked out the door this morning. i'm a fairly well connected lad - being an IT professional and technology enthusiast i live a pretty hifi life. one of my great fantasies of the last couple of years has been to switch off and fuck off into the distance for a while. no phone, no net, just me, my PSD, access to transport and hopefully places i've never been. sure, i've got my Eee with me, but that just means i can write to my heart's content and worry about posting it all later. no email, no Facebook, no phone ringing. hell - if i didn't want to be able to take calls form pimps i'd have turned my fucking phone off and thrown it so hard at the fucking wall it'd have embedded in the plaster (i love this phone - i could do that and it'd probably STILL survive). i've been so tempted to fling the thing into the Thames, and wave goodbye and giggle maniacally as it sinks along with the last of my sanity, but i've managed to fight the urge.
so there you go. 4 months in this country is all it took for me to say "fuck it" and drop out. i expect i'll get back into the swing again when i go back to London, but for the time being i'm past making promises or building expectations. promises can be broken. expectations can be shattered. plans can fail, and i'm sick of the cloud of failure that follows me around as if i was Pig Pen in Peanuts. i've Given Up, Dropped Out and Fucked off. time to see how i go out in the world on my own, outside my comfort zone and reliant on no one, and at some stage eventually i'll even get around to telling you about it. meanwhile, if you don't know how to find me it's because i want it that way. leave a message.
Raven Out.
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