Monday, October 23, 2006

Damn computers

I was going to write a lovely long post with photos and everything. Then something out there decided that I wouldn't be able to access flickr today or yesterday.

So you will have to wait.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

A week later

I woke up in my friend Matt's house last week. After breakfast in bed, a rare treat indeed even it was a veggie breakfast, Matt asked me if I wanted a lift into town. Further clarification showed that he meant London Town. And how could I turn down the chance of a ride into the heart of London in a bright purple Land Rover?? Quite frankly I couldn't.

He left me on Regent Street and I walked down to Leicester Square to meet my mates. We thought that we might like to go and see a film but there wasn't really anything on at that time. I wanted to go on the London Eye (again) quite frankly I want to go on it everytime that I see it! This time I had people who wanted to go too. Hooray!

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Nada interesante

fame at last

Look what I found in Real Travel magazine this month- not like I ran into the shop to get a copy at the earliest opportunity or anything!

I seem to spend a lot of my time running into old students who may be in Colombia when I get there. Which would be cool. Now I am just looking for one my height! They tell me that I have to learn to dance salsa but is hard when your partner only comes up to your shoulder.

I was in O'Neills last night and my student was telling me that I have to dance salsa because in Colombia they don't usually play the same music as there. He said that they don't play music that you can't dance to-- I tried to point out that I was dancing but he just looked at me with scorn- and rightly so, what kind of dancing is shuffling from side to side? The thing is, I can move my hips and I can move my feet kinda in time but I find it almost impossible to do the two things at the same time.

I wish that we did dance like that in England- it would be great to be able to take to the dance floor confidently, knowing that I was not making a fool of myself (the nagging paranoia when I strut my stuff here).

I went out last week with my old Spanish teacher, classmates and a bunch of Colombian students. We were supposed to speak in Spanish all night but, as I pointed out, I am just not funny in Spanish-- yet! I thought that I had done a pretty good job of speaking as much Spanish as I could but at the end I was told that I could have made an effort! :(

I am reading in Spanish

harry in spanish

and listening to music in Spanish but I find actual real conversations tricky. My teacher tells me that I am great at writing (what he actually said was 'fucking brilliant') but the talking really holds me back. I think that it is hard because I spend the whole day getting really into English and can't just switch languages that quickly. Now I feel guilty when I tell me students not to use their own languages in my class- knowing how much English I speak in my Spanish class. This week I will try harder.

Last week I went to an 18th birthday part- well, a couple of drinks with a kid reaching adulthood and celebrating by getting so drunk that he fell over and smashed his chin up and was absent from class for three days. Here he is before the incident


baby alex and his teacher
tonight I am going to a 30th birthday party. It is varied life indeed.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Deja vu

I have reached the end of my week off work. Which is a good thing as I quite honestly miss it too much to be away for much longer than this. Sadly, I am the kind of geek who not only chats to her students online the whole week that she is off but also popped in to see them after three long studentless days.

What a loser!

Anyway, I went to Dublin to visit some friends last week. I meet Nerissa and Barry in Mokpo back in December 2001- long long time ago. I had left Dublin a few days before and was kinda missing it so was happy when I discovered a large Irish population in Mokpo- well, two but it got bigger. And Ner just seemd kinda interesting. Only one thing could make them a better couple and that is their daughter, Roisin.

doggies

To say that I am in love would be understating it. The three of them together are just such great company and I love going over to Dublin just to spend some time hanging out with them. I always have grand ambitions of meeting up with all the other friends I have over there or even going to somewhere that I didn't manage to visit in the year and a half that I lived in Dublin but no. Invariably I end up spending a couple of days taking photos of Roisin before heading back to Blighty.

cuter!

If anyone is going to give me the warm and fuzzys about kids it is Roisin. I managed to drag myself away for solo afternoon in the city though- where I did my usual walk around old haunts. This time I even made it to my old hostel, where I was a resident forever and a manager for the summer.

nice area

The yellow building is the hostel. The rotten looking places to each side of it are the shitholes that the hostel owners used to rent out to us backpackers. I had a boyfriend that lived in two of them to the right, I lived in one there and my mates lived on the other side. It may look rubbish- and indeed I poked my nose into the hostel living room and it is rubbish- but I had a some great times there.

Do I miss it? I miss some of the days there. I miss loads of stuff about working there but I wouldn't change anything in my life right now.

Despite all the wonderful homecooked meals that I was getting at Baz and Ner's, no trip to Dublin for me is complete without some garlic chips from Ireland's own answer to MacDonalds, Supermacs

garlic supermacs

When I was doing my TEFL course back in October 2001 I used to finish too late to cook anything as the kitchen in the hostel closed really early (a different hostel, you understand, not my one as I had the key to that kitchen- oh the feeling of unrelenting power!) so I pretty much lived on chips I know it was bad but it was also soooo good!

I went to see that spike on O'Connell Street

closer spike

Has anyone else noticed that it is a bit bent at the top?

It was even sunny enough to sit in Stephen's Green at the top of Grafton Street for a while. And a quick trip through Temple Bar proved the perfect time to test out my new camera again

the temple bar in temple bar

Nice!

Then it was back to London on Wednesday. Thursday I had to go into town to start my new Spanish class. I was disappointed not to keep my old teacher but I think that the new teacher will be good too- and we have plans to meet up with the old one next week sometime.

I also rang Sarah when she finished work and asked her to come with me to the travel agents. She said no immediately, afraid that jealousy might get the better of her. She said that she would come after I had done the deed but in the end she sat by my side as I bought my ticket to Colombia!

Friday was a beauitfully nothing day when I caught up with errands, waited in for the new bathroom suite to be delivered and watched a couple of films in Spanish- with subtitles, I am nowhere near good enought o do without yet.

Saturday was a bloody early start- up at four AM O'CLOCK in the MORNING! Penny had invited me on a work trip to Belgium. To say that organisation was not the strong point of the day would be a vast understatement. The trip into Belgium ended up being just a couple of hour detour to buy cigarettes then back to France. The boat was fun

on the boat

And me and Pen opted to spend the day in Calais rather than the shopping centre. Calais may not be the biggest or best city in France but it is very pretty. As we walked through the town we could hear some music by the hotel de ville. 'That's doesn't sound very French,' said my sister. Then we turned the corner

could it be

What the...??

Could it be..?

in front of the hotel de ville

Yes, it was our old friend, The Sultan's Elephant, well that was good enough for me. I had loved it so much when it was in London and was so sad when it left. Who knew that we would end up just bumping into the whole show again on a day trip to France!

it is

girl
eye
Perfect! And it was a beautifully sunny day. We had some food, I had some wine
me and wine
Man, it was a long old day though
me and her
We left home at 4.25am and returned after two. Poor old Pen did really well- she can't sleep on buses, I can so I wasn't too bad.
Finally we got into our beds for a good night's sleep which was only ended with that bloody cat shouting for some attention and the kids next door throwing a(nother) tantrum.
Back to work on Monday!

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