dissonance

Wherefore art thou Los Ponchos?

People warned me I would miss Mexican food after leaving San Diego. I scoffed.  Mexican food is pretty good in San Diego but am I gonna really crave it?

Today ladies and gentlemen, I consumed what was laughingly presented as a "veggie enchilada" and I am thoroughly traumatized.

The best way I can describe it is that it was a burnt burrito with a crust of red sauce and a thin dried layer of cheese.  And usually a veggie enchilada is just a cheese one isn't it?  This one had zucchini and corn and pinto beans.  And the sour cream on the side?  I... I'm sorry, I'm not ready to talk about it.  *shudder*

But I was so desperate I actually ate most of it, save for the burnt edges.

Readers!  If you consider me your friend you will visit me bearing gifts of flour tortillas, cans of refried beans and Tapatillo sauce.

Cheese, I can get. They do cheese pretty good here.

Pronounced "redding"

I've found a flatshare!

For those interested in the stalking.

Its just short walk to the train station, and more importantly/dangerously a shorter walk to the shops.  "The shops" is actually a massive shrine to consumerism fittingly christened The Oracle ("We predict you will be broke by New Year's").  It reminds me a lot of 3rd Street Promenade and it even has various street entertainers on the weekends and crazy folks predicting the demise of civilization every day of the week.

My commute is not bad.  It's excellent knitting time and the station is situated so that I will most likely always have a seat.  Tickets *are* expensive.  On a monthly basis I will probably be paying almost as much as I had in car payments. All I'm saving money on is gas and insurance.  Oh and saving the environment I guess.

Saving the environment is something the British are rather interested in.  Or maybe it's just my office.  On my first day the facilities coordinator made a point in asking us to be diligent about keeping the recycling bins "pure" and when I need to throw something away I have no less than four (4) bins to choose from.  This poses far more time in throwing something away than I'm used to.  For example, a coffee stirrer: does it go in Paper or Landfill?

It's a trap!!  Firstly, is it used or unused?  Used goes to Landfill, unused to Paper.  Unless it's a plastic stirrer, in which case it goes to Landfill regardless of whether or not it's been used. It does NOT go into Plastic, which is reserved for plastic *bottles* only.  And so on and so forth.

Something I learned this weekend but it will take me time apply
They say "hiya" here.  But not like in a chipper, obnoxious, high-pitched "hiya, Maude!" kind of way but more natural and subdued.  I'm having trouble pronouncing it just right.  The trick is to put the stress on the first syllable, but not be too obvious about it.  If I'm not careful it borders on "hi-YAH" and although I have a blue belt in tae kwon do, I am *not* attempting to chop a wooden block in half but just trying to be friendly with the girl at the till.  You'd think I could stick to "hello" but I tried that and it's too formal and just wrong and I may as well say, "good day to you jolly good morning isn't it?"

I am so ahead of the curve and hip
They are playing commercials for Corinne Bailey Rae and I guess she just won some big award or something lately and gaining momentum here.  Also,  I keep hearing Ray La Montagne's song Trouble in the shops.  Even if I don't know how to say hi at least I know my musical tastes are on track (no pun intended).

Raining like... a lot

When I arrived at Heathrow two weeks ago, it was a mild 83F, sun shining, clear skies.  What was up with all the naysaying about England weather?  Didn't seem that much different from San Diego actually!

As the week went on, the nice weather held.  Although everyday I saw another cloud in the sky.  I had to close the window in my room a little earlier each night.  My sleeves gradually became a little longer and the layers a smidge thicker.  Hardly noticeable.

And now it's raining like… geez I don't even know any similes to describe rain! That's how spoiled I've been growing up in California.

Back in San Diego when it started raining like this, co-workers would walk up to the window to check out the phenomenon.  "Well would you look at that?"  "Water!  Coming down from the sky!"  "I better leave an hour early because you know the traffic will be terrible." "How long do you think this will last?"  "Wow it's really coming down!"

Suffice to say no such behavior is noticeable here.  I look around amazed at how calmly people are… working!  Hello, people!  The rain!  Coming down in sheets!  Gray (grey) skies!  Are you not astonished and worried that the world is ending as we know it?

Bugger, I don't have an umbrella.

Day 8 - still no accent

Here I am a week later and this is the soonest I can get my hands on some sweet sweet internet.  I can't be arsed to fully detail out everything that's been going on but here's some bullet points to get you through:

• I like the phrase "can't be arsed"
• Two trips out to London this past week.  Once on Tuesday to watch The Subways and a weekend trip to meet up with Alana's friend Sita.
  • The concert was great, it was held in a theatre that reminds me of the San Diego Spreckels theater but much nicer and bigger.  The lead singer did a lot of crowd surfing and balcony jumping and the audience just loved it.  Afterwards I was really craving a burrito but the people I went with wanted, of all things, Burger King.  If you ever come to visit here, don't go to Burger King. It's awful.  My onion rings had onions of questionable onion-y value.
  • The weekend trip was also very fun, but it made me glad that I'm not living in London straightaway.  It's so crowded and hectic!!  But the shopping...ohhh the shopping.  Dangerously sweet and dangerously expensive.  I plan on doing a Just for the Girls post and that will go more into juicy detail.  In the evening I went to a couple of bars and they were just as I imagined it.  The loud bar was full of punk rocky degenerates and financial guru wannabes and the smaller quiet bar was very "posh".  It was awesome.
• Stil haven't found a place to live.
• The curry here is very good.
• The beer is not as warm as people complain, I like it just fine.  I recommend John Smith.
• The rudest people I have run into are Americans.   Last night at 1 am I woke up to the sound of some drunk pounding on my neighbor's door and yelling about something.  I wanted to open the door and tell him to fuck off but when I looked through the keyhole I saw that he was very fat with a ponytail and reminded me of a Hell's Angel and ended up calling the front desk about it.  Really guys, we can do better.
• The second rudest person was a British woman I saw at breakfast.  She was really snotty about the free breakfast and instead of just asking for things, she was really condescending saying things like, "My breakfast is cold.  Do you think it's at all possible to have hot eggs?"  and muttering rude comments to her wimpy husband the whole time.  I don't know about here, but if I were her and this was back in the states, I would probably not have dared eat anything from the kitchen after that because I'm sure there would have been some extra special ingredients added in just for her.
• I am very tired of eggs for breakfast.

There's more to say but it's getting late and I have to take a wee so I can't be arsed right now.  Be back in a mo'.

Life in England - Part 1

I finally have internet access! (ok how typical is it that that's the first thing I write?)

Anyway, I'm safe and sound in the UK and I already have so much to say!  Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced my camera cable so no pics right now.  In the meantime, this is the first part of a series that is yet to be named. It covers my arrival and I wrote it while sitting in a Starbucks-like shop in Reading.  I hope to update a lot more soon.

===

The plane ride over left much to be desired.  While waiting to board, there was a baby screaming his head off at the gate.  I could tell that everyone waiting for the same flight were praying to the diety of their choice, hoping that they wouldn't have to sit near the brat.  God must have been checking my attendance cause he ended up in my cabin.

He quieted down eventually but the next thing to plight me was that the airplane's interactive console system was down.  Lots of people told me about this thing and I was looking forward to playing with it.  Instead, I had to resign myself to watching Crazy Tom in MI3.

Finally, I got my first experience with the differing view of "personal space" in Europe. I was in the middle row with a seat between myself and my nearest neighbor.  Sometime in the middle of the flight I uncannily felt intrusion of personal space and woke up to see that my neighbor had decided to take advantage of the empty middle seat and lie down so that his head was practically on my lap.  Indeed.

JD had arrived on another fight and I met at the Hertz rental station and so we had our first experience with driving in the UK.  Let me tell you, those roundabouts they warn you about is only the tip of the iceburg.  There's hardly any traffic lights and no stop signs at all, just "give way" signs which are sort of like 4 way "california stops".  And by the way, "give way" only applies to other cars, they will NOT give you any way if on two feet.  Be thankful I had to get honked and flipped off at to bring you that lesson of the day.

Oh, and for all the complaining about how the US needs to be on the metric system, it took JD and I a while to figure out that everything is in miles per hour and short distances are given in yards.

By the time JD dropped me off a my hotel (the Lismoyne) (not as nice as it looks) we were both a little loopy and starving and went hunting for food in the center of Fleet.  Fleet's town center, it turns out, is just a street about a mile long.  We walked about a quarter mile before giving up and we ended up eating at McDonald's.  Yes, my friends. I move all the way to England and my first meal was McDonald's.  Freaking A.  At least I got a menu item I had never seen in the States, a grilled veggie sandwich.  It was... interesting.

Even though I was completely exhausted, I was determined to get over jet lag pronto so I stayed up as long as possible (til about 11pm) (I mean 23:00) watching British television.  Did you know they play an awful lot of American shows here?  I ended up watching Third Watch, which I never saw while living in the States.

In summary, on my first day of my new life in a different country, I ate McDonald's and watched Third Watch.

Coming up in the next installment: Grocery shopping, watching the football, and the British must be fantastic at Scrabble.

Leave already!

I'm having lunch soon with my coworkers and then my work exit is right afterwards and the flight is tomorrow night, so I don't think I'll have time to post again before I'm in England.  Besides, I don't think I'll have internet access in the Emergency Room when they pump my stomach after devouring the 4x4, animal fries and shake from In N Out (coworkers giving me a proper sendoff).

I could be all reflective about my time in San Diego but to be honest I'm still very spazzed out about the whole thing and I don't think I can write something truly heartfelt.  That will come in a couple of weeks when I find myself alone and afraid in a strange hotel.  Anyway, I can't let my makeup run, it's only 11:30 AM and I already had a close call when my beautiful friends surprised me with the most beautiful slideshow today.

Peace out bitches, see ya on the flip.

I have a LOT of jackets

After keeping my move a secret for so long, these days I've been blurting it out to the most randomest  strangers that I encounter while I've been running last minute errands.  Most responses have been very encouraging and nice.  They tell me they think I'm lucky, this is the perfect time in my life to go, and wish me the best of luck.

That's how most people are.

And then there are other people who never got the hang of polite conversation.  Take for example dude at Citibank today. I closed my checking account and when he inquired why,

"Oh I'm moving to England."
"Oh okay, that's a good reason I guess!  You know, we have a Citibank there."
"Mm-hmm."
"Why do you want to move to England?  Their weather is awful!  It's cloudy all the time!"
"Uhhhh... well I used to live in San Francisco so... heh heh?"
"Oh it's nothing like San Francisco.  It's rainy and drizzly and just horrible!"
"..."
"And their accents!  How could you stand listening to them all the time?"

And at this point I just stared at him because the guy had an accent straight from Tijuana.  Hellooooo...  Did you hear the door? It's Irony knocking.

What is he expecting me to say?

"OH MY GOD, it's COLD there?!!??  You're kidding.  Fuck it, I leave in two days, but FUCK. IT.  No one told me they had... WEATHER.  Why didn't anyone tell me??  Double-You-Tee-Eff, man. You think my ticket is refundable?"

Let this be a lesson to me.  When participating in idle chatter with a stranger, it's better to be boring with positive responses rather than trying to be "interesting" with asinine ones.

Panic to set in 5...4...3...

My baby's gone.
Thus, one of the final crutches to this whole moving to the UK thing comes to a close.  I thought I'd feel more emotional about selling my car. After all, it was my first new car that was totally financed by me. What a feeling to drive it off that lot with an odometer reading of 14 miles!

Instead, I'm feeling scatterbrained and preoccupied with all the closing details I have to look after before I leave.  I suppose it's a good sign that I'm more shaken (and stirred) when I think about tomorrow's last knit night versus parting with a material object.

What's left?
Tuesday:  Run errands, woopdeedoo.  Watch House with a bottle of zin from Cask Room.  (It's the last time I get to watch House in the states and it's the season premiere, just my luck!)
Wednesday: Last knit night at Marisa's.  I've opted for knit night as usual, rather than something "special".  Knit night is always special.
Thursday: Dunno.  Angelina is coming down from the bay so yeehaw (that's a genuine yeehaw unlike the sarcastic woopdeedoo above)
Friday: Last day at work, lunch with coworkers, exit interview, escorted off campus, and then the traditional happy hour at Chilis.  Evening plans, tbd.
Saturday:  Lunch in LA, departure from LAX

You'd think with 4 days and counting, I'd have nothing but drunken debauchery lined up.  But perhaps this is how it should be. 

It's not a big finale.  It's a quiet flip of the page as a new chapter begins.