Once upon a time in my life

'Let's go to the pub!' 'Do you want a drink?' 'Ooh, try this one.'

I've even had beer. BEER. (Although it wasn't quite as awful as I expected.) But anyway, things have been really fun.

Couch Surfing is now my religion. I am half-tempted to build a shrine and start worshiping the creator. Honestly, I've gone out pretty much every single day this week thanks to Couch Surfing.

This is what I've done (i.e. stop reading because these are just updates so my future self can remember what I did with my youth).

On Monday I met up with Zohaib, a really sweet guy who's staying in London, and we went to Tate Modern. It was so fun trying to figure out the artworks and getting to know each other, and afterwards we went for coffee. We found out that we're both in similar situations, being new in the UK and being away from friends and family. I'm hoping to see him next week.

Tuesday, I met up with Beth, a Couch Surfer who lives near Hertford. She was wonderful, and it was great to meet someone who has actually been to South Africa. I loved chatting to her while having coffee and apple tart. Next week we're going to watch the King's Speech, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Then Tuesday evening I headed over to Broxbourne to meet up with Paul and a bunch of his friends for a few drinks. They were all pretty awesome (in crazy ways), and I loved meeting them. But I must remember to take my ID everywhere to prevent future annoying bartenders from taking away my drink. Joe actually joined us for a short while towards the end (big brother checking out the strange men I'm hanging out with, luckily he hasn't killed any of them - yet).

Wednesday, I met up with Rob for drinks at the Barge, and ended up chatting for over six hours (taking a short interval to grab some supper) about the most random topics. Most of the time was spent with him making fun of me, while I called him a Brit and made him speak in a Scottish accent. It was really fun and we have so much in common, it has to be the Leo thing (his birthday is two days after mine). But he is so distracting to my train of thought, it's terrible!

Thursday (yesterday), I spent the afternoon at Paul's place watching Flight of the Concords on his awesome projector screen. He has quite a few movies/series and all of the ones I recognised are ones I love, so he's got pretty good taste! Then we met up with Andy who lifted me back in time for my shift at Domino's, and then (as if I hadn't seen enough of them) after my shift they picked me up and we went to Andy's place to watch movies on his massive 3D TV. I've already asked and I'll be moving in there soon. Me, the couch, the stack of DVDs, what more do I need? Anyway, I eventually got a call from Joe at 3 in the morning: 'Where are you? Are you okay? Can you get me ear buds?' Yes, my brother really did ask me to ask a guy I'd just met for ear buds at 3 in the morning.

And today, I've done absolutely nothing. I went through the whole trying to open a bank account thing again, but the proof of address I had wasn't proof enough. But one good thing did happen, the national insurance people (people who basically steal your money as 'tax') called, and I have a meeting with them on Monday, so hopefully I'll get everything sorted and I'll actually be able to get paid!

written by  Brigid Jelsma on January 28, 2011 from Hertford, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: Walk a little further to another plan
tagged Hertford
Send a Compliment

comment on this...